Conclusion
Science strives to achieve unity of fact. Art strives to achieve unity of feeling.
—Stephen Pepper
This is our final lesson; let’s see if we can achieve a bit of unity of feeling as well as fact.
LESSON 101: FIND YOUR PATH
My mother, Constance Steenbarger, passed away last year. She was an artist and an art teacher. Her greatest work of art, however, was her family. She provided her children—and her husband—with the one, irreplaceable psychological gift: the knowledge and the feeling that they were special. It’s amazing how much you can achieve when you know that you’re not ordinary. Out of that awareness, you’re unwilling to settle for average in your work, your relationships, or your returns from markets. When you create a work of art out of your family, you empower human beings to want to make works of art of their lives. What greater accomplishment could there be? If I can achieve, as a psychologist and parent, a bit of what Connie Steenbarger accomplished with her family, it will count more than any degree after my name, any great trade I might place.
But isn’t that what becoming your own coach is all about? It doesn’t matter if the focus is trading, sales, parenting, or athletics: the goal is to make a work of art of your life by becoming the best you can possibly be.
The great disease that afflicts most people is their inability to think greatly of themselves. It’s not about narcissism (which reflects an absence of self, not authentic greatness), and it’s not about new-age self-esteem palliatives. Rather, thinking greatly of oneself is charting a path in life that makes a difference. It’s living a goal-oriented life, not a life of drifting from day to day. It’s remaining true to values and purposes, so that life has worth and meaning. It’s about making such a profound impact that someone, somewhere will want to conclude their book with a dedication to you.
Your life is a partially finished work of art.
There’s an old saw that we tend to marry people like our parents. In my younger days, I would have been horrified at the prospect. Looking back on my mother’s impact on her family and my wife Margie’s impact on hers, I know that the rule holds true for me. Margie’s greatest talent is that she is secure enough within herself to help others feel special about themselves. When one of our children went through a difficult marriage, I never once worried. I knew that she would eventually find happiness, because she had the experience of being special to her mother. When you have that deep feeling of not being ordinary, you ultimately gravitate toward the best within you, the best for you.
If you are going to be successful as your own coach, you will need to be like Connie and Margie; you’ll need to sustain a relationship with yourself in which you are always special, no matter how daunting immediate obstacles may seem. You’ll need to focus on your successes every bit as much—if not more—than your failures. You’ll need to structure specific goals and concrete activities designed to achieve those, so that every day is an affirmation of drive and competence. Self-coaching is not about keeping journals or tracking your profits and losses. It’s about forging a relationship with yourself that is as empowering as a mother’s with a family.
At the end of all of this, you may decide that trading is not your path in life. Have the courage to embrace that and find the work that truly captures who you are and what you do best. I love trading—the intellectual challenge, the endless opportunities for improvement, and the immediacy of the feedback. You know when you’ve done well; you know when you’ve let yourself down. While trading has made me money, it’s not truly what I do best. I once tried to be a full-time trader and quickly felt a large hole in my life where psychology—and working with people—had vanished. So now I trade markets on the side, work as a coach to professional traders, apply my greatest interests and talents in the most challenging settings, and write books that maybe, just maybe, will help others find what is special within them.
Let your strengths define your path.
Know what you do best. Build on strengths. Never stop working on yourself. Never stop improving. Every so often, upset the apple cart and pursue wholly new challenges. The enemy of greatness is not evil; it’s mediocrity. Don’t settle for the mediocre. You don’t have to be an artist and art teacher to make a work of art out of your life. And if trading is your path, learn from those who have blazed the trail ahead of you. Your final assignment is to absorb the resources from the various chapters of this book and select the few that will best support your self-coaching. They will provide the brushes and paint with which you’ll create your life’s artwork.
FOR MORE ON SELF-COACHING
I’ll be adding coaching resources to the Trading Coach site over time; if you have questions or particular interests, by all means feel free to leave a question or comment on one of the blog posts:
http://becomeyourowntradingcoach.blogspot.com. Also feel free to contact me at the e-mail address specific to this book: coachingself@aol.com