COACHING
the world of interviewing which has seen a move away from traditional style interview questions such as ‘what are your strengths?’ and towards an approach known as behaviour based interviewing where you ask questions that are focussed on actual experiences and then elicit the answers you are looking for from it. For example in trading instead of asking ‘What are your strengths?’ we would ask, ‘Tell me specifically and in as much details as possible about a time when you traded really well or made a great trading decision (regardless of the outcome)’, and then listen to the reply for evidence of what strengths enabled that success/decision. I have noticed significant differences in both the quantity and the quality of information that I have been able to elicit from clients using this approach. Try it for yourself.
Tink back to three great trades, trading days or trading decisions (these could be times when you have reduced losses or been disciplined as much as the times when you made big money) that you have made. Recall the events in as much detail as possible. What do you notice? What were you thinking, feeling, doing? What helped you to achieve those successes? Is there anything in common? What do those experiences say about you as a trader? Write down your responses and insights.
UTILISINg STRENgTHS
“A shoemaker makes shoes. You have to stick with what you’re good at.” Steve Cohen, SAC Capital
Once you have identified your key strengths the next stage is to ensure that you are fully utilising them and leveraging them. One important way of doing this is to ensure that they are reflected in your trading, that you are where possible hitting the sweetspot, trading at the centre of your own personality and strengths and the markets and strategies that are most inline and supported by them. Here are some questions to ask yourself to help you to identify your trading sweetspot:
•What are your strengths? •What do you enjoy doing? • What are you most
interested in, and motivated to do? •What do you do best in the markets? • Where have you been most profitable?
Of course the market conditions, your strategies and indeed even yourself will not remain constant over time, and so staying in the sweetspot , or close to it, becomes a dynamic process. One of the keys to longevity in the market is the ability to be able to stretch and flex, both in the short term and in the long term, to be able to adapt to changing conditions and keep performing.
FoCUSINg oN AND bUILDINg oN STRENgTHS
Like any good performance behaviour repetition of it is the key to making a habit and an integral part of your trading. It is all too easy to driſt away from a focus on trading to your strengths and becoming overly focussed on areas of perceived weakness, so here are a few key questions that you can ask yourself on a daily/regular basis to help you to continue to build on your best performances. Pre-Trading: ‘How will I utilise my strengths and be at my best today?’ Post Trade:
FX TRADER MAGAZINE July - September 2011 25
FX
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