The Confident Mind
We have got another must read recommendation for you all today that you are going to love! It is The Confident Mind by Dr. Nate Zinsser.
We loved this book from page one! Author Dr. Nate Zinsser spent his career training military cadets and world-class athletes to strengthen their psychology for optimal performance in whatever their arena. The goal of his coaching was to aid them in overcoming pressure and succeed, no matter how high the stakes. Through his research and experience, Nate developed the lessons in this book that have really helped people to enhance every aspect of their lives and careers by building and improving their confidence. The Confident Mind is really a thorough guide to confidence: how to understand it, how to build it, how to protect it, and how to rely upon it when your performance matters most. And you all know we market mamas view so much through the lens of day trading. A high stakes for potentially high rewards world for sure. For us, we have to cultivate and manage a healthy confidence as our skills have grown, but not tip over into overconfidence and greed, and it’s been a tricky line to walk. This book was really helpful for us to understand this aspect within our highly leveraged pursuit more clearly. Naturally, we want to share some of our big ‘aha’ moments with you all!
Dr. Zinsser offers readers this as his operating definition of confidence: “A sense of certainty about your ability which allows you to bypass conscious thought and execute unconsciously.”
Check out our full discussion in the podcast below, including more of our favorite quotes and how we’ve adapted the advice into our own trading journeys and lives.
Early in the book, Zinsser addresses some common misconceptions about confidence and we really found such value in a few of them in particular. One of these misconceptions is: “Confidence is all encompassing. So you’re either competent across-the-board in all aspects of life, or you’re not confident at all.” He then adds: “Quite the contrary, confidence is very situational specific. You can feel very confident in one area of your life, and very insecure in another.” You guys, do we understand this one SO much! We all have aspects of our lives that we have been working at for much longer than others and hence have a more intuitive confidence with at this point! But, when it comes to trading, that is a definite work in progress for that sort of comfort level!! We are both 3 years into learning the stock market and have learned a crazy amount so far! But, we know we still have so much to learn and are still regularly enough being humbled by Ms. Market.
Ok, this next misconception is important too!! It is: “Once you become confident you’ll stay that way forever. If only confidence was a one time now I’ve got it forever achievement. Unfortunately, quite the opposite is true. Confidence is very fragile and that’s why maintaining it requires constant effort, and attention.” Goodness, can we relate! Much like the market doesn’t move in a straight line, our confidence is also sometimes trending up, balanced sideways, or trending down. Like Nate says in this part, the work to maintain it is a constant effort and attention. Awareness is a big deal here. We’ve had days when we can recognize we are not operating in our most confident state and that is a red flag for us. It can result in being hesitant, not acting when needed, not trusting our gut, and that can eventually lead to FOMO or chasing. Understanding your triggers that brought on your under confidence can keep you in an evenly keeled and neutral state. We have a whole list of facts that support and reinforce our successful day trading careers as well, however! Ultimately, these facts win, because we continue to keep learning, growing, and building for our breakthrough. Our confidence is on a journey of its own too and there’s levels to it for sure!
Ok, one more misconception we needed to mention: “Once you’ve achieved some success, and once you’ve gotten some positive feedback, your confidence is guaranteed to grow.” Ok, I think this is true in many areas of life and growth, but oh my goodness is it true in day trading!!! We have referred to our journey becoming consistently profitable day traders as a roller coaster ride and that honestly is a relatively accurate analogy!! It is easy to feel on top of the world with the best views, the wind at your back, sun on your cheeks, the steep climb has ended - this is when we are on a winning streak, our accounts are growing nicely, we feel in sync with the market's movements and are seeing our favorite setups and capitalizing on them. This positive feedback does provide a confidence boost and it feels great. But, it is *not guaranteed to stay. Especially in the early years in trading, there is generally always another dip coming and it’s bound to roll your stomach, at a minimum. To become a great trader, there have to be lesson days, and the more lessons days, the greater your skills and foundational understanding of trading becomes. Eventually, it makes you so much stronger. But in the dips of that ride, within your journey, your confidence is also very likely to take a dip and it will sting. This is the no guarantee I believe Zinsser was talking about here - cultivating confidence in something really challenging will not be linear and that certainly makes sense to me and normalizes what I have experienced in my life! We must accept that and still stick with it, push through the arduous times that threaten our growing confidence and appreciate the home runs that give it the intermittent boosts. The goal is to, over time, allow the growth curve of your self confidence to compound and rise. But let’s normalize the inevitable bumpiness of that curve!
So, Nate gets into many explanations and tools for us in the heart of the book. One quote is: “We are telling ourselves stories about ourselves practically every waking minute. Establishing various prophecies that we then act almost automatically, and unconsciously to fulfill.” We certainly have felt the power of our self-talk, both for good and for evil. And we much prefer the impact to our lives and actions when it is the positive variety! Zinsser wrote for a while about the power of affirmations and visualizations in training our minds to anticipate our wins and our goals coming to fruition as part of the journey to success! This was just some of many specific lessons for confidence growth in this book that we really learned from. You all really should check out our full episode above and get the book for yourselves as well. It is definitely worth your focused attention!
The Confident Mind has a 4.8 star rating on audible!
To listen to this book for yourself through our favorite resource for audiobooks & podcasts, go to: https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Confident-Mind-Audiobook/0063014866?action_code=ASSGB149080119000H&share_location=pdp
Get this book ordered today! It is truly excellent!
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