Trading Coach Expert: Here is the #1 thing that makes a great trader!
hey traders this is blake morrow with trader summit and with me today i have one of the co-founders of alpha mine stephen goldstein how are you today sir yeah i'm absolutely fine thank you great to be here it's great you know it's great to have you here and it's great to see you again i i wanted to tell the traders at home you know my first experience with mr goldstein was actually listening to your presentation on the trader summit you know our online conference that we had last year and i was fascinated by your topic and i i'm always fascinated by trading you know trading coaches you know what you know some people will call them trading psychologists but i i really look at you as somebody as more of a a trading coach and to help traders along their journey on being successful in the market so tell us a little bit about you know your background and why i as a trader should listen to mr stephen goldstein okay so you're right i'm a traders coach a performance coach um i'm not a psychologist obviously i delve into those areas you do as a coach i've actually had a background in trading where i was a professional trader for 25 years in the investment bank world worked for some i supposed to say pretty big names out there credits race commerce bank um american express the bank and arms of american express and i was involved in market making roles in proprietary trading roles um predominantly in the foreign exchange of fixed income space more widely known as global macro uh and i did that from the mid-80s up till 2010 and then i had a career change um it was i suppose you could say it came around as a number of almost by by chance originally but i decided to develop myself as a coach and performance coach and executive coach um with a few i was going to work with leaders and managers because that's what executive coaches do but naturally having that trading background um i found myself drawn towards doing a lot of performance coaching helping people that i've known in the market for many years working with them people in various roles not just trading brokers risk managers analysts but i i found myself deviating more and more towards what was my community which was traders um so i've worked for a number of years with you say professional traders bank traders hedge fund traders and then progressively return trainers that wasn't my audience for many years but they started calling me um it's like three or four years ago i started getting a few return traders calling me and then we started a podcast uh which is the amp for my podcast with mark randall um who you've just had on recently um and hey you've been a guest on it by the time this might be up that episode might be out and it was a great episode we recorded um so you could say that i where i come from which is slightly different these i've been in the shoes of traders i've i've got the bruises i've i've been beaten up several times by the markets and i was still standing so i know what they've been through you know i was gonna say that's probably one of the most important aspects of of having a trading coach if you will is is saying hey you've been there you've you've done it you've been you've had the bad trades you've had the good trades you've done it all i've had my gut wrenched down and pulled out through both sides of my body and twisted around and then stuck back in there and that's what markets do sir right did you right i'm glad we could laugh and smile about it right now but you are 100 correct so so over the last 10 years you know i'm hearing you morphed into you know moving from from you know a lot of institutional to some retail traders um you know more recently but it does sound like you're more than just a trading coach it sounds like it it to me that that you go deeper than that because where does it really start for a you know i tell people i don't do the technical stuff i don't do the skill or stuff that that's more what a mentor would do you know people come to me um it's about who they are it's the person behind the trainer you know it's about the performance of traders around them understanding what the job is who they are how they bring themselves to the job the process side of it you know i i talk about these three lenses which is how you should look at trading and one lens is the technical knowledge fundamental element the tangible stuff the stuff you can learn um how you look at markets how you understand markets how you find value how you price value how you you know your understanding of market direction yeah you know where you're looking for a risk reward um in the job that's quite a technical element aspect and we do our analysis we follow the prices we we hear different people's opinions we read information that's quite tangible that's quite easy to learn everyone can do that we can all become pretty good at that sure the next part is the performance lens but that's the part no one really works on or if they do work on they give very little attention to but that is the game that is the whole game the other bit doesn't really you know it matters but it's not the game you know and that's the bit that people do not work on and develop and then there's a third lens which is the self lens because there's someone doing all that and that's you you know and people they put even less attention to developing themselves i was just going to say that's got to be the one that re that gets the least amount of attention from traders is is what's happening in here right and then all three lenses overlap they're not unique they're not independent you know you have to be strong in all three of them so this is overlap which is a focus and that becomes the focus of good training so i i work very much i would say on the whole i would work predominantly on the south then next is the process but i also work on bringing that in that analysis i don't teach people analysis i don't talk about a particular stock or a commodity or you know a bond or a currency price you know they they get that from someone else a mentor or a system they've learned um it's about bringing all that together a combined process that they can make into something that works for them and i had that funny enough 15 years into my career i i i managed to last 15 years somehow keeping my head above water um some good years some bad years and then i was a beneficiary of this coach that i worked with who took me through that journey and the next 10 years i suddenly be fulfilled all my potential as a trader um and that's that's kind of what i do now i work with people and helping them fulfill their potential so let me let me ask you this um you've been you've been with uh you you and mark uh randall and by the way that was a really fun interview for for me and and hopefully for mark as well and i think for people to to watch it we've had a lot of people watch um that particular video but you've only been partnered up with mark for the last couple years so so what what's your what's your core business that you have that runs uh i guess in parallel with alpha mind well that that's that's the business i could have for our cubed okay and for our cube.com if you want to check it out that's really the performance coaching executive coaching that the trainer development work portfolio management development work that's what i've built up over the last 10 years um i have a couple of collaborations so one is out for mine with mark i also collaborate with another coach in the markets and i have a couple of other collaborations with other people not always working with people in the financial markets it's working with people in business generally leadership development uh lots of different areas i have a little bit of voluntary work i do on the side as well when i coach some charities who need some uh who you know they they they need some help but they you know you want to make sure that the money that they raise goes into the charitable causes they follow so you know i have these arms arms to what i do um but you know it's it's they're all different elements of the same chip thing which is personal development traded development human development of the person okay well let me ask you this then based on your experience you and and this is something that you know i want traders that are watching this right now to to be able to identify with with this based on your experience you're sampling you know obviously with not you know you know finding any specific cases that of somebody that you've worked with what would you say is the most common i i don't want to call it a trait but what is the most common thing that you see about traders that need help where could you say oh that's pretty common i see that more often than not okay so so someone called me up yesterday he said uh you know he's been trading for quite a few years works in a prop firm um he says look yeah i just got this problem in my discipline but my ability to stay focused poor trigger to to not over trade and then sometimes you know it's all these things and i said you know you and 99.9 of everyone else that i speak to and i said you know the irony is you've probably got lots that's really good about what you do you know you've been doing this for a few years you're obviously successful you know you want to become better that's basically what you want and that that's what people come to coaching for they don't really come to coaching because they're failing they come to coaching because they realize they can achieve more they've got more potential and they're not fulfilling it that's what sports people use coaching for you know you're a guy who's playing tennis and you want to get better you know you don't go there because you're failing you go there because you know you can go up a notch or two or even three or you know and you look at the pro players they have teams of coaches you know everyone has a higher level but they can't get there on their own they need support they need to work with people they need help and they want to invest in that that's you know that's that's that's huge and that's that's a really really key point that you bring in bringing in there i mean i think traders think for some weird reason that you know i'll be able to trade and i can do this on my own and i don't need to you know subscribe to some research and i don't need some self-help i can just read a book here and there and i can watch cnbc and i'll be fine yeah think of think of a development curve and i i'm trying to think which way your viewers are looking at it but it goes up very sharply and quickly in the early days of trading you know a lot of people make some good money some successes in first six months or first year and then it goes and it comes all the way back down and they're like damn this is a lot harder than i thought okay there's some sort of realization some dawning that you know maybe i've been lucky until now or maybe i just a good wave to start with sure and then there's this long slow often a month-to-year development journey that goes like that it goes upwards slowly and over time you become better at it things start to make sense you start to develop some winning habits that takes a long time now what happens for a lot of people is they're not going to last it they're going to run out of money they're going to run out of support they're going to have a good wheel all those things that they need to last that learning journey learning journey is really important you know i i meet a lot of guys who could have made it but didn't because they ran out of time or money you know capital they needed a wife or a girlfriend said you know we need to keep this roof over our head we need food on the table sure you know i i gotta pay my gym membership i want to go on holiday you know i want a christmas present you know all those things you know and you're running out of time so the question is how do you accelerate that learning journey how do you make it quicker and that's what coaching does that's what people use in school that's what people use in leadership and development that's what you know you're a military man you know the military does basic training and an accelerated training for all those purposes you know it's to accelerate what is a long process and make it happen you know no one becomes a fighter pilot overnight let alone weeks and months it takes years right and and what they do is they try and accelerate that process and they use their own forms of coaching that's what coaching is it's just if you get that process quicker you get to that point a little bit faster then you're more likely to survive the journey that makes that makes so much sense to me and i'm sure it does to everybody that's listening in from home or office so let me ask you this from a takeaway as a trader um what have you found that that has accelerated performance the the the easiest for most so what is your most common tweak that you've given a trader or you know your your sample size of traders that you've worked with over the years what is that one thing you you can say that's a pretty common denominator that has really helped across the curve the most okay this is probably going to sound a little bit flippant but helping them to let go you know i don't think so i don't think so elaborate well you know i i i tell people that you know i'm probably really a letting go coach you know and getting people to let go of the things that are holding the back those chains that are holding them down that are blind in the back and they're not always from trading they're often from life you know they're often from their early years their early experiences their their fears and their greed do they fear they're going to miss out you know their their self doubts their unhealthy beliefs that you know that belief that i just have to find the best analysis or the best system that's all i need and you know and they believe that that next trade is the one that's going to make all the money that's going to you know buy the lamborghini that's going to be parked out there at the end of the week you know that they can become a millionaire overnight all these really unhelpful beliefs and behaviors and habits you know training is a process you know and it's a performance a lot you know and it's got so many different aspects and facets and and we do you know we we create these attachments which just cause it's it's like baggage right like yes yes and they're not easy they're within us you know they're deep within us they're not they don't even reveal themselves until you start exploring it yeah um so you know if i could if you know the greatest traders i work with i call them masters of letting go you know some of them are unbelievable you know but they almost make it without calling it letting go their arch practice so the number one kind of attribute and you know people think there is this way you've got to be as a trainer you've got to be super risky or you know super you know systematic know this i i meet people who are really risk averse i mean people are really excited for intense who achieve great performance as traders you know it's not about that it's you've got to be who you are you've got to bring yourself to the job the best yourself okay so it's you know it's just letting go of the these hang ups and that's not easy to do because we don't even know where they are yeah i'm assuming you as as a coach are going to be working with traders you work with traders to identify those things and what those might be those those little triggers yeah yeah you know well it's not easy to find you know i i you know when we do this coaching we have a series of conversations i use some models which i've brought in which you know help unpick the bones of their trading and unpick what's going on at a deeper level you know and it doesn't reveal itself easily and actually most of us are resisting revealing that because that's quite an uncomfortable place a lot of the times it goes up it sure is well well stephen i i want to say that you know i'm spending this time with you that i'm gonna my biggest takeaway is hey you know to be a better me to be a better trader sometimes i just got to let go and um you know to find out more about what you do in your podcast which by the way i'm i'm i i know you you and mark interviewed me on your podcast i'm looking forward to to listening to it myself and i know some of our traders are going to be listening to that as well but how do you find out more about you and what you do right so just go to alpha r cubed that's word alpha the letter r from risk and cubed dot com um or go to alpha-mind.net which is the partnership i have with mark you can follow us on twitter i'm at when i alphamind101 mark is for mind 102. um he's a coach as well as you know and you know there's a lot of stuff that we do between us and we both do stuff individually as well um linkedin you know stephen goldstein just connected me on there i've got group as well we've got group half mind group um and you know that that's those are the avenues that you can reach me through so that uh the podcast that you do how often do you do those um we've kind of originally we were two weeks apart now we're kind of moving into three weeks apart because as you know that's quite intense yeah it is um and you know when you're trying to do a job as well and i do a little bit of training still on the side it's just a hobby it's not a living but you know i like to keep my hands inside personally i'm watching markets as well um so so you know trying to balance all these things with life as well and family and friends you know it it it takes a lot of time so we moved it to three weeks apart you know but we've got some great people coming up on it over the next few months i won't mention any names yet we're still just finalizing them but that people are gonna you know bring some really great conversations to to our audience and to people out there well that's awesome well i look forward to our next conversation maybe what we can talk about the next time that we made is you know when when uh when you're talking about that that you know that trader curve when when they first you know they hit their peak then they come down you know i'm assuming there are certain events in the markets that you've seen over the years that create those types of those types of uh curves for a lot of traders whether you're talking about you know the the crypto spike and then fall back in you know 2017 2018 or dot-com bubbles or you know those types of events that actually create that in traders so i'm i'm excited for maybe the next time that we can speak and talk a little bit in more detail about that yeah yeah absolutely the black swans all right well steve thank you so much for your time today i know i know all the traders here at uh at trader summit are getting a lot from this conversation remember you can click down below in the link of this video to get to stephen goldstein himself and uh and and and also uh get to some of your podcasts that you've posted on trader summit as well so thank you so much again for spending your time with us thank you thank you for having me it's been a pleasure and some great questions as well all right we'll have we'll have a great day and we'll talk to you soon thank you
2021-10-16 17:37
