mark douglas www.markdouglas.com

i've just finished reading trading in the zone and think that it's an excellent book.

searching around i found the mark douglas web site: www.markdouglas.com but there's not much to it. just sells a few things that are related to what he does but there isn't much more about him or his stuff there. a bit dissappointing i thought. considering that he's so famos in the trading psycho world i thought that there would be more stuff there.

I know..
in his book, he mentions if the reader wants his recomendation on choosing a trading system he/she can communicate with him... but he never answers his emails.. so it was disappointing !

It is strange that he doesn't keep in contact with his fan club more. There are a lot of complementary things said about him but I don't think that he even has a newsletter or mailing list to let people know what he is up to. Perhaps we can discuss his work here.

I'll get the ball rolling and if anybody else wants to add then...

The best bit of advice that I got out of his Trading In The Zone was the concept of an energized belief. The fact that we all have 2 contradictory beliefs that exist side by side in us and each of those 2 beliefs will have an energized force that together will add to 100%.

So for example, you have a belief that:
1. You can fly without wings
AND
2. You cannot fly without wings

The first belief has 0% energized force while the second has 100%

When applied to the simple concept of success in trading you may have these 2 beliefs:
1. I will be able to follow my plan today.
2. I will not be able to follow my plan today.

Each will have a certain % of energy in them that will sum to 100%. You want to make sure that you shift those energy factors so that belief 1 has 100% and belief 2 has 0%.

What does everyone else think of this?

I didnt recall that in his book but it makes sense. I didnt use it (his info) to dicipline or pull the trigger much but it makes sense. he did put me on a another path with the tendency to skew info after you get into a trade. see what you want to happen and block out the other side. Like after you ride a trade way into the red and then when you finally puke it you look back..."why didnt i get off there? why didnt i reverse there???" goes with another thing i read where this guy, matt heimer, teaches how your mind is set into ceertain things...like he gave an example where he gathered 150-200 money managers in ny and the first thing he did was auction off a $100 bill. the bid was in $5 increments and the higest bidder got to keep the bill for his bid, but the second bidder had to pay up, but didnt get anything but second place. the bid that won the bill was $465 and and the second was $460! he says it happens everytime! and these were big time money managers who should have known better you would think. yep, we all probably need to work on this mind set thing. im working on it but...things still tend to get really clear after I puke...lol

I've just done a search of the web about this story by matt heimer but couldn't find anything but I find the story interesting. Do you have a URL with a link to this story? I'd like to read more about it. Hard to believe really.

I dont have a url link but the story was in the Jan 05 issue of Smart Money if that helps...

I had a fairly good search on Smart Money and found the author that you were talking about but couldn't find the article that you mentioned. Pity because it sounds interesting. Also there doesn't appear to be anything by him printed in the January edition.

oh its in there...its on the bottom of my tear sheet...see if you can locate a back issue or, let me know and i can scan it i guess. is there a way to get it to you then or post it here?

It would be great if you could scan it and upload it here. Just put it in a zip file and then click Upload when you are replying to the topic.