Trading in the Zone: Master the Market with Confidence, Discipline, and a Winning Attitude

by Mark Douglas

Operating effectively in an environment that has qualities, traits, or characteristics that are different from what we’re used to requires making some adjustments or changes in the way we normally think about things. For example, if you were to travel to an exotic place with certain objectives or goals to accomplish, the first thing you would do is familiarize yourself with the local traditions and customs. By doing so, you would learn about the various ways in which you would have to adapt in order to function successfully in that environment. Traders frequently ignore the fact that they may have to adapt in order to become consistently successful traders. There are two reasons for this. The first is that you need absolutely no skill of any kind to put on a winning trade. For most traders it usually takes years of pain and suffering before they figure out or finally admit to themselves that there’s more to being consistent than the ability to pick an occasional winner. The second reason is that you don’t have to travel anywhere to trade. All you need is access to a phone. You don’t even have to roll out of bed in the morning. Even traders who normally trade from an office don’t have to be in the office to put on or take off their trades. Because we can access and interact with the market from personal environments that we are intimately familiar with, it seems as if trading won’t require any special adaptations in the way we think.