Trading and Emotional Agility

A heads up: I’m off to Singapore tomorrow, so my blogging for the rest of the week may get disrupted.

Chris Jackson’s book recommendation, Emotional Agility,  promoted me to comment further on Susan David’s volume.

David is not an ACT practitioner. And, the practical steps she recommends have different labels. The interesting thing is the substance of her approach is eerily similar: the two approaches starting from different perspectives converge into one view.

I love David’ book. It’s written for the layman.  Indeed, I wish someone would do the same for the ACT genre. For those who’d like to know more about her work:

• Two excellent reviews. One by ‘the positive psychology program‘; the other by ‘bigthink Edge.’
• Here is a 7-min presentation by David – excellent summary of the four steps! RSA Spotlight on Susan David
• And if you are in the mood for a longer video, this one is 68-minutes, ‘The Art of Emotional Agility with Lewis Howes’

Both ACT and David offer the same benefit to traders:

a) tools that bring about an early awareness of our 3 Fs (fight, flight or freeze) – the same 3Fs that cause massive damage to our trading accounts;

b) tools that integrate the left-brain goal attainment process with the right-brain acceptance of perceived negative emotions. The merger paves a path for us to attain our goals.