Topstep/Rich Friesen Audio Mini-Seminars

1. Fear: As traders we fear losing money, and this fear intensifies every time we lose. When we are in fear, we are trading from a different brain compared to when we are relaxed. Yes, there is a solution - fear can be controlled by creating a break state through exaggeration.

2. Learning to Trade, From Start to Success: See my blog post on this subject!

3. Mental Aspects of Summer Trading: Trading during the summer months can present its own set of problems. Instead of rushing into trades, we should put this period to good use studying market moods and which strategy to use on each market mood. You can decide to trade only when the market suits you.

4. Mind Traps: There are 3 main trading biases which cause a great deal of loss to traders. You need to know how to avoid these and where to focus your mind to get consistent profitability.

5. Panic and Power: Panic is a physiological reaction which is a part of our core survival strategy. In trading we create internal panic, questioning our trading ability and seeing ourselves failing. Fear takes over and the rest is history. Learn how to break this cycle, be more aware and present and recognize opportunity.

6. Pressure to make money: The driving need to be successful can translate into self-sabotage. When we are handed what appears to be a juicy opportunity our physiology and brain chemicals change and we don't follow our system and it's easy to make irrational trading decisions that are not part of our strategy.

7. Process of Success: True transparency is important in order for you to successfully deal with your issues. Progress is going to be sloppy but it is real progress. We have a formula which allows you to develop repeated behaviors which enable you to do complex activities. You will be aware of your thoughts and be fully present on the market place, with the mantra of a master trader.

8. Roots of Evil: Sometimes we just can't follow the rules we set for ourselves. We spend a lot of time developing a trading strategy only to sabotage ourselves when something triggers our primitive survival mechanisms. Tools for handling fear and knee jerk responses.

9. Self Sabotage: This puts us on a dead-end road as traders. We have to understand that all behavior has a positive intention, and bring ourselves to a place of awareness, acceptance and action; and ultimately deep confidence not in winning but in executing our strategy.

10. Success and Destruction: Our brains are built for survival and pattern recognition. Trading triggers our survival pattern - when we lose, our brain responds as though there is a predator chasing us and we feel the destructive emotion of fear. Learn how to create success in your trading using the same powerful pattern recognition that allows new, profitable behaviors to be intentionally created.

1. Adaptation: It's important for Traders to be adaptable. We must learn how to let go of bias, indicators, beliefs and prejudice - just looking at the raw data and being able to adapt with it in real time - in order to be consistently profitable as traders.

2. Breaking Rules: We tend to break our own rules when we don't have confidence in our strategy, out of boredom, gut feelings or physiological changes. We can harness these impulses by opening our minds, increasing awareness and re-positioning so we can develop trust in ourselves.

3. Dreams vs Demons: Our dreams are what sustain us, but those dreams can turn into demons, triggered when we have a deep need to be successful, When things go wrong we can end up devastated.

4. Fixing Your Thoughts and Actions: Each of us is unique in how we trade and what type of market we trade best. All well and good, until the markets don't act the way we've come to expect and our strategy no longer works as well. Learning to recognize Market Moods can be a great help in knowing when to adjust strategy to match the market.

5. Mental Energy: Studies have shown that the lack of sleep affects our judgement and energy. Other factors are nutrition, physiology, exercise and breathing. Energy is not something you create, its an abundant state of mind, being constantly in a state of flow.

6. Money Magic: As traders, our relationship with money is of extreme importance to our success, and unfortunately, often dysfunctional. Most traders are surprised at how much this relationship affects their day to day trading.

7. Outside Events: Unexpected bills, food budget, your kid's tuition, etc. are all outside events that can affect your trading, causing you to lose focus. Tools and techniques to help neutralize these effects.

8. The Sacred Bubble: Stepping into a winning trader's state of mind which helps change our viewpoint and how we behave during market activity. A key component in the journey to stop fighting our own brain and having a clear vision of what we want and how to get it.

9. Tracking Goals: Tracking your progress on the road to consistent profitability is an important part of success as a trader. Learn about helpful visual progress tracking.

10. Winning Trade Confidence: Trying to build confidence after a losing day is a debilitating shift to make that can impact your self-esteem and self-worth. You need to develop a consistent strategy that will get you to a state of mind where you're happy with the outcome - because you can learn from your losses without having to work so hard to pick yourself up after a series of losing trades.

1. Getting Back on Track: The biggest job for us traders is dealing with uncertainty - it is where we live and breathe! However, most of our profitability relies on the ability to deal with uncertainty in a positive and relaxed way. Properly understanding market mood and strategy makes the getting back on track process a lot simpler.

2. Repetition: How much is too much - and how little is too little? We traders often look at problems in a way that makes them very difficult to solve.Trying to change hard wired repetitive behaviors through sheer force of will and self-discipline doesn't get us the results we need.

3. Core Concepts: The core concepts important to traders are Self Awareness and Rapport with yourself. Most traders agree that trading is a psychological game and the impact of a trader's mindset on their trading results is anywhere from 50% to 100%. Acceptance is a big part of rapport with self - adopt the "Anthropologist mindset" towards yourself as a first step.

4. Mindset: A well-defined, very specific mindset that becomes our natural state allows us to be relaxed and at peace, letting the market do the work. Relying on forced discipline to make us do what we should do can set up a scenario where we end up fighting our own brain.

5. Frustration: We create our own frustration - defined as the difference between reality and what we demand reality to be. The bigger the gap or difference, the higher our level of frustration. Rather than struggling to make reality bend into our expectations, we can become more competent in managing reality as it is.

6. Separation: How do we separate our trading lives and family lives? Our emotional state bleeds over on all our other activities and we end up bringing a mindset to an area that is not appropriate and this continues to happen, over and over again.

7. Human Mind Checklist: The core concept in sharpening the trading mind is awareness. There are several exercises covered here that increase awareness and traders use some of these as part of their pre-trading daily routine.

8. Mental Mindset Q&A: Members of TopStepTrader submit their questions about trading mindset to Rich in this session.

9. Holiday Stress: Holidays can be one of the most stressful times of the year, with old family issues and processes that no longer serve us coming to the forefront. We often have a tremendous amount of expectation during holidays which can result in disappointment if those aren't met. All of this carries through to our trading, of course.

10. Cognitive Dissonance: Traders with the ability to hold multiple points of view at the same time are best at predicting and assigning probabilities. Rather than seeing cognitive dissonance as stress, see it as an incredible gift and skill that can help you in your trading mastery.

1. Dealing With Uncertainty: Market characteristics change as a matter of course - some tradingdays are going to be very different from what we've grown used to. When you recognize an unusual trading day you can decide whether to step aside or take advantage of it. If you decide not to trade, it is still a good learning experience to observe. Look at the market in a curious state which precludes you from being prejudiced, worried or pressured. This is the state that serves traders well.

2. Your Relationship to Money: The main goal for traders is to make money. However, sometimes our subconscious looks at money as a threat and our internal thermostat limits our relationship with money. It can even make us terrified of our own success. We have to break that mental barrier about wealth. Neither the market nor skills will make a trader successful if their relationship with money is broken.

3. Dealing With Different Emotions: The description will follow shortly.

4. A Positive Way to Keep Focus on Our Targets:  The description will follow shortly.

5. Being Married to a Trade:  The description will follow shortly.

6. The Trading Temple:  The description will follow shortly.

7. Trading Anxiety:  The description will follow shortly.

8. Getting Back in The Saddle After Losses:  The description will follow shortly.

9. Personal Goals:  The description will follow shortly.

10. Patience:  The description will follow shortly.