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Preface: A Guide to this Book

Why do I need this book?

This book is for any trader who wants to deal with the stresses, emotions, challenges and setbacks encountered while trading the markets – and to trade at their best for the long run.

Any trader knows that trading the markets can be an intensely rewarding pursuit – but by no means a simple or stress-free one. It is possibly one of the most mentally and emotionally challenging activities anyone can pursue. Mistakes, missed opportunites and losses are unavoidable. Stress is frequent and can be intense and protracted. The toll placed on mind, body, behaviour and results can be enormous.

It is possible, however, to harness the insights of psychology, physiology and philosophy – not to remove the difficulties of trading, but to navigate them more effectively; and, indeed, to turn them to your advantage. This has been one of the key areas of focus in my work with traders and investors across the globe, at every level of experience, and across all markets over the last 15 years. The ability to manage the psychological and physiological challenges of trading the markets is key to performing at your best and maximising market returns.

This is not my first book on trading performance. High-Performance Trading remains, I hope, a helpful collection of practical, bite-sized strategies for improving any trader’s psychology – a kind of manual of exercises you can dip in and out of at need. Tradermind provides mindfulness-based approaches.

The goal of Bulletproof Trader is to offer a practical resource for traders to help them deal with the mental, emotional and physical challenges and demands of trading the markets. It is also a chance to share the latest insights from research and practice on the ground, including:

 the fascinating realm of biofeedback – objective measures of how the market influences a trader’s physiology (and vice versa)

 the latest ‘third wave’ of psychological techniques

 practical approaches grounded in ancient performance philosophy.

All these have informed my work with my clients over the past few years.

There is nothing more rewarding, in my experience, than helping people reach their full potential in a dynamic and challenging pursuit like trading. But of course no coach can work with every trader around the world. This book allows me to be a resource for you, and share what I have seen help many other traders.

Do I need to be a particular kind of trader?

You don’t need to be a particular kind of trader to benefit from this book.

I have worked with traders from across the globe, from beginner to higly experienced and successful ‘Market Wizards’, trading every kind of market and strategy. This book is written to be relevant to all of them.

It is also, I believe, relevant to investors. They may not face emotional or psychological challenges with quite the same intensity and regularity – after all, they are not entering and exiting the market with the same frequency – but the experience is not entirely dissimilar. Especially in down times, or moments of volatility; and the times we are living in have not been lacking in those.

How is the book structured?

This book is built around nine parts, with 25 chapters in total. We’ll start by laying the foundations of bulletproof trading in the first couple of chapters, before building on that with specific strategies and techniques to help you:

 take committed action

 identify your values and who you want to be as a trader

 manage your risk

 embrace uncertainty

 plan for (and therefore beat) the worst

 train your attention and awareness

 focus on your trading process

 control the controllables

 get comfortable with being uncomfortable

 unhook from difficult thoughts

 work with stress-based emotions

 build confidence in coping with difficult trading situations

 stay calm in critical market moments

 avoid beating yourself up

 find the opportunity in the difficult, and turn adversity into advantage

 get good at adapting to change in the markets

 monitor your stress and fatigue levels

 master the art of recovery to build resilience and sustain performance

 develop your physiological fitness and toughness.

I have tried to make the book practical throughout, with numerous exercises both to explain the concepts and to help you develop the mental, emotional and physical skills of a bulletproof trader. These exercises, and the techniques taught within the book, are evidence-based and the same ones I use with my own trading and investing clients.

While I appreciate it is often easy to skip over exercises and activities when reading a book, I strongly recommend that you take the time to complete and practise them as best as possible to get the full benefits of Bulletproof Trader.