Where Are They Now? - Jared Tendler (Mental Trading Coach)
Guest blog from our friend Jared Tendler, Author of The Mental Trading Coach
Where Are They Now?
It’s been about two years since The Mental Game of Trading came out and I’m thrilled by how many of you have found it helpful!
There are a number of traders who allowed me to share stories in the book of the work that we did together. I recently reached out to a few of them to see how they were doing and whether or not they were still using the system. Spoiler alert: I got good news!
I was happy to find that everyone was in a really solid place. While a couple of them have taken a break from direct trading, all are doing well and continuing to use the tools both in trading and beyond. Several of them stated their next big challenge is in sizing up, which is what inspired this month’s theme. You’ll hear more about that in my regular monthly blog and on Office Hours. But if you are interested in where they are now, here are the highlights….
Big Picture Takeaways
Brendan was a trader profiled in the Confidence chapter who had struggled with a subtle belief that he could be right on every trade and expecting perfection, which he addressed. “I’ve been fairly successful in sustaining these changes. While I still occasionally slip back into old habits, I’m able to recognize them quicker and not let them have a lasting effect.”
Vlad, whose stories appear in both the Fear and Confidence chapters, was a trader and owner of a firm in South Africa that applies algorithmic trading systems to their own portfolios. Today he has shifted to building quantitative systems. “Although I may not be trading actively anymore, I use the strategies in my day to day life. In my mind, the methods apply to many disciplines – you just have to fine tune them to suit the specific need. As I work with other traders now as well, I have the capacity to understand their approach to trading and make decisions based off this understanding.”
Brian, whose story appears in Chapter 3, is a futures trader from Canada who worked on issues with greed and fear, as well as procrastination and focus problems. “I have sustained the progress but it was not easy. I found that I would stray away from using the techniques almost because I thought it would work instantaneously. In reality, it is a process over time. I have been able to make some good progress over the last couple of years using the process.”
When you met Nick in the Confidence chapter, he was an aspiring full-time trader in the U.K. working through FOMO. “I’ve had drastic improvement. The shift from comparing my results to ‘what if’s’ in the market to comparing my performance to what my strategy does has been huge. I am currently executing at about an 80%+ accuracy, compared to probably 20% when we first spoke!”
Max, a Forex trader from France who appeared in the Greed and Confidence chapters, is still trading on a full-time basis. “I’ve managed to keep my focus on my strategy rather than swaying around trying new things, keeping in mind the amount of work I have done to develop my strategy. That was extremely worthwhile for me. Recently I ran into a drawdown larger than I had anticipated, yet instead of looking to change my strategies, I decided to keep executing with a smaller size until the market changed, which it did, and enabled me to get back out of the drawdown.”
Lastly, Chris, whose story came up in the Greed chapter, told me: “Enhancing your mental game in trading is an ongoing evolutionary process. At the time we spoke, I was dealing with certain issues – that I was able to overcome, utilizing the systems and processes that we talked about (which was outlined in the book) – and now I’m using the same processes to overcome current and newer issues – which came about as I got to higher levels in my trading journey. The systems we discussed have been very powerful.”
Do you know what I found inspiring here? They’re all still using the system. So often you hear about overcoming or conquering your problems but don’t often think about what comes next after that. As an efficiency guy, I love the fact that you can both address a present set of issues while learning how to use a system that can apply to future ones.
Our Confessions of a Market Maker Substack Report is sponsored by Microefutures / EquitiesETC Trading as well as the Confessions of a Market Maker podcast.