to master the art of flexible thinking - learn to look at the situation from a different angle: is it possible to achieve the desired otherwise, and not just as intended. Few traders managed to understand that they are the only ones responsible for the result of their actions. Even fewer of those who agreed with the psychological conclusions from the understood and knows what measures to take.

Few of us, while learning life, have gained the experience of acting in an environment where complete freedom of creativity is given, not constrained by any external framework. In the market, you will have to set such limits yourself and take care of yourself so as not to go beyond them. However, there is one “but” there - this is the fluctuation of prices: they are always changing, so that the market situation is not at all like our usual life with its orderly way of life and the course of events. In the market, you have to decide every price move you are going to take. One decision to enter into a deal is not enough: you need to think about when exactly to enter, by how much and in what case to exit it. It is a game without a beginning or an end, and even without a middle: it all depends on your own plan.

In addition to the negative psychological background of these decisions, another thing must be taken into account: even with minimal financial investments in one contract per transaction (as in the futures market), the opportunities to make a profit or incur losses are equally unlimited. Psychologically, this means that every trade offers a chance to fulfill your wildest dreams of super-richness, but at the cost of going broke. However, because of the fluctuation of prices, it is easy to forget about it: they say, it's okay if this time I break my rules a little.

So, the market is an environment that gives you complete freedom to express yourself with unlimited opportunities and unlimited risk. And if a player gets there who forgets about these psychological conditions (that is, he will act on the basis of the concepts that someone is standing over him, he is limited in some way and something is expected of him), then before you - a future bankrupt and a psychotherapist's patient.

From this grim conclusion, it becomes clear why only a handful of traders make money. In fact, almost everyone who undertakes market trading generally underestimates the difficulties, and therefore, naturally, overestimates their strength in achieving their sky-high goals. As a result, almost everyone who trades inflicts psychological trauma of one degree or another. By "psychotrauma" I mean any supporting system of concepts that can cause a feeling of fear.

A person is frightened by some idea of ​​life that can make him suffer physically or mentally - as, for example, with stress, anxiety, confusion, disappointment or treachery. Painful experiences arise mainly when something has not come true. A person begins to suffer, because his ideas about how it should be have diverged from what really is. This internal discord manifests itself in emotions, in painful states, which are usually called stress, anxiety, confusion, and so on.

Apparently, people instinctively seek to get away from such experiences: they create an internal protection against external information, the introduction of which would reveal this or that discord. Man defends himself by denying, justifying, or interpreting something in his own way; but in any case he distorts the facts.

How does distortion happen? Through his way of thinking, which automatically distorts information from the outside, correcting or even omitting certain facts in order to smooth out the collision between the desired and the actual. The juggling is done in such a way that as a result a person begins to believe in peace and harmony, which supposedly reign between him and the world around him. (By "peace and harmony" I mean the coincidence of how a person imagines something, and what it really is.) So, as a result - no experiences.

Well, if a person distorts market data - what then? Then "his" market is one thing, and the market itself is something else. Moreover, he not only builds illusions, but also amuses himself with them - and the more, the more he needs to avoid possible disappointment. So the trader himself prepares the ground for the subsequent so-called "forced awareness". It is clear that if the market behaves differently than the trader thought it would be (after all, what is happening there is unlikely to justify his hopes and requests in many respects), then he will have to yield in something. The juggling of facts will continue until the gap between the self-inspired and the truth different from it reaches the limit: then the internal protection (illusions) will collapse. At this moment, a person is usually shocked and sometimes even discouraged: how, they say, did everything come to naught at once and so powerfully?

In this situation, the market, one might say, pokes the trader's nose into his illusion of "peace and harmony": this is how a painful forced awareness occurs. Because of our similar upbringing, we all strive to manage the course of market events, expecting that as we imagine it to be, it will be so - and try to convince us. At some point in your marketing career, you will have to figure this out for yourself. That's when the science of flexible thinking is needed - that is, enough to look at the situation from a different angle: are there any other options or opportunities? It is unlikely that you will be able to control the market - but it is in your power to control how you perceive it: then you will judge much more objectively, which means you will achieve more "peace and harmony."

As painful as it is, forced awareness is unlikely to keep you from the temptations that the market holds. One pain will be superimposed on another, and in total they will have a very bad effect on you psychologically. After all, when the market over and over again forces you to realize what you would not like, in the end it is perceived as a source of trouble, from which you need to stay away: where can you catch profitable moments! Fear of losing, making a mistake, missing a chance - this is what will become the main thing in the decision to trade or not.

When the decision to take or not to take on something is made at the behest of fear, several serious problems arise at once. Firstly, the circle of profitable moments that are being looked for is narrowing: after all, you begin to look at one point - for the subject of fear. Then all other market information is left on the sidelines: only what actually confirms the biggest fears is taken into account. Fear will methodically exclude market information from the valuation that would show that there are other opportunities and options.

Do you now feel the destructive connection between fear and perception? Did you know that when you try to avoid losses, you - surprisingly - achieve the opposite? From fear, a person becomes more constrained in counteracting a particular situation. Why, for example, do many traders suffer greatly? Because, sometimes, they are absolutely sure how to act; but when the time comes to act, they have a paralysis of the will.

In order to succeed in an environment where there is no order, as in the marketplace, one must first achieve the strongest self-confidence and self-confidence. By "self-confidence" I mean the absence of fear and the ability to rely on oneself: a person knows what to do when required, and will do so without hesitation. Hesitation is a direct way to sow fear and self-doubt. The more a person is used to doubting himself, the more he will be afraid, nervous and get lost.

Trading in such a state, he, of course, fails. “I can’t do anything and I’m not good for anything,” he comes to the conclusion or is even more convinced of this sentence he had previously passed on himself. No matter how hard you try to hide the sad results from others, you cannot hide them from yourself. If it seems to someone that the market is acting strangely, then the point is not in the market, but in the person: it is he who acts strangely, at random. How can he guess the next move of the market if he has no idea about his own? Of course, this is not about what he thinks or wants.

The few successful traders who somehow managed to overcome these psychological barriers generously share golden mottos like "Learn to lose!", "Go with the flow!", "Be friends with the trend!", "If you want to know the market - know yourself!" and so on. Having decomposed all this wise advice into psychological components, I study them in my book, classify them, and then transform them into a phased learning system. My students go through all the stages necessary to successfully adjust to the market environment. I explain exactly what skills they need, why they need to understand them, and most importantly, how to master them.

The book is divided into four parts. The first consists of two chapters and serves as an introduction. The second is presented in chapters three through eight and deals with the difficulties in the path of one who wants to become a successful trader. The third part includes six chapters: they give the basic knowledge that is needed to identify what to change in your