Tribe Mission Statement

Dear Ed,

I miss you. I feel a warmth inside and happiness upon hearing you are in Austin. My family members are all doing well--in large thanks to you. You help me and my family in so many ways.

Below is my submission for acceptance into Austin Tribe.

With love,

-----

I have difficulty getting and keeping my office clean and free of clutter. The same goes for my garage and my email inbox. I notice that I tend to put things in front of me or rather between me and my goals and I say to myself, "I'll get that done, as soon as I get my desk clean. " I start to clean my desk and make room to begin working on a project and immediately get a feeling in my stomach. I don't like that feeling and want to avoid it. I medicate by stopping the cleaning process and going to get something to eat.

Actually, I sometimes simply decide to start cleaning my office, and then I immediately get a feeling in my stomach that I don't like, and go get something to eat. I don't even start the process of cleaning away the clutter. I'm really good at medicating that feeling. I'm not getting some things done in my life that I want to get done. It is costing me financially and personally: I'm leaving some money on the table by not making some easy sales; I'm not spending as much intimate time with my family.

I feel stupid and embarrassed or, actually, I attach the labels of stupid and embarrassed to my feelings. As I type these words, I notice my right leg and then left leg start moving back and forth. This is a familiar form.

As the Tribe meeting approaches, I think to myself that I'll get my office completely clean and clutter free, and I'll clean out my email box, and I'll get all this done before the meeting, and then I'll be "cured," so I won't have to take a hot seat as someone is bound to be hotter. I recognize how silly that is. I notice the clutter in my life increasing along with my waistline.

I'm so pissed off that I can't simply clean my office. I can do many things, such as calculate how long it will take to clean my office, write out a detailed plan on how best to clean my office, along with a host of other things to do in lieu of actually cleaning my office.…anything to avoid that feeling in my stomach.

Growing up I didn't have much food to eat. I hated feeling hungry all the time. My parents used food to control me. Hmm…

I also medicate by zoning out and watching TV. Usually I do this after eating a big meal. Here's the process: Get the feeling I don't want to feel; go eat a big meal; become tired, too tired to start cleaning out the clutter in my life, go to bed, start watching TV; go to sleep. Get up the next day, go to work, come home—and repeat the process.

I see a TV show where a film producer has a conflict and states, "I'm going to eat my feelings."

I can relate.

I have now elevated this process to a fairly sophisticated level: I eat a big meal outside my house and far away from my home office-the place where I may feel that feeling in my stomach. I then come home and go into the bedroom with my iPad and search for a series on Netflix that I can binge watch. My current fix is an Arby's French Dip with extra meat and an Apple turnover followed by several episodes of Downton Abby on Amazon Prime. BTW, I'm currently in Season 3, getting fatter, and beginning to adopt a 1920's English way of talking.

I notice my legs moving back and forth again.

There is a high probability that I'm headed to Arby's after I click SEND on this email.

Ugh. I'm done with the DIM process.

I request help from the Tribe.

Best,

Ed,

Thank you for having a Tribe session and allowing me to express my feelings.

I commit to supporting my tribe members as they work to living in right-livelihood. My goal is to bring to tribe a few things that bother me.

One is a renewed consideration of taking my feelings about expressing anger to tribe, which you suggested in a previous contribution to FAQ. This suggestion has been resonating within me lately, as I have certainly not been happy for a good part of my life.

In that same FAQ I wrote, "...I was feeling sad, frustrated and humiliated. I felt ridiculed and unloved by my mother." As I reread this I felt small, ridiculed and unloved all over again. In much of my life I have let fear control me, used fear to decide how to proceed. I am freaking tired of hiding and not going for dreams because I let some damn feeling stop me.

Finally, I have always known I had 'nice guy' syndrome. I was/am a nice guy but there are negatives to it. I wouldn't put my needs and desires up front and then am frustrated and angry when things don't turn out ideally for me.

I write all these things because I believe they are related. I learned to be a nice guy to get along, be angry when my needs weren't met and feel sad, humiliated and frustrated with my situation but too damn 'nice' and scared to get out of it. Then when I have had enough I lash out.

I look forward to an amazing tribe session and seeing friends and tribe members.

Yesterday a coworker works on my code with my boss. He comes to me and tells me that he finds out there are bugs in my code. I know he likes to make me look bad in front of my boss, even it's not a real bug. He can make a show and create that impression on people first. No matter if it's really my fault eventually.

I feel threatened, worried and out of control. The same feelings when markets turn against me. I acknowledge my feelings and respond technically with composition, and eventually clear that it's not my mistake.

I notice I used to have mixed pattern in such situation, either panic defensive or self doubt. I find that now I am a a little more willing to experience such feeling of insecurity. I find when I am talking to them, sometimes I am touching and rubbing the heart rock in my pocket.

Now when I see he comes to my office, I immediately reach out into pockets in my pants for my heart rock, fast and swift, like a cowboy drawing his revolver.

Thanks,

Thanks for the response. Quick overview of me: I have roughly 15 years market experience, I can program in Python, and I am currently trading systematically in the "short-term" (few day horizon).

My research objective is to learn more about trend following system dynamics/to build and investigate trend oriented programs. A little guidance/coaching never hurt anyone (hence reaching out).

As for enthusiasm and sincerity, outside of my word/real-time demonstration, it is difficult to quantify this but building trading systems is a passion of mine and I'm very interested in learning new methods. Having you as a coach would be a great honor that I would take very seriously.

Welcome thoughts/questions/feedback. Have a great day.

Thanks,

I say "I feel troubled. I feel that you don´t understand me".

She says "I do understand you".

I say "That is what I mean".

We decide to separate and remain friends.

I decide to take my feeling of "nobody cares about my emotional needs" to Tribe.

Best regards,

Austin Tribe Mission Statement

Dear Ed,

I feel excitement (a quickening of my heart rate and a heightened mental alertness) at the prospect of another meeting of the Austin Tribe.

My work in the Tribe meeting several months ago leads me to face my tendency to place myself in a subordinate role in important relationships and then feel frustrated and rebellious in this role.

I feel happy to see behaviors in myself that previously I would experience as being "caused by" the other person and that now I can see as choices I make.

I want to continue to explore the ways in which I create this drama for myself. I believe that one of the catalysts is my fear of male anger.

I feel fear right now, a tightening in my chest and a sense of vigilance, as I think about entering a group experience as the only female with seven or eight men and intending to work on my reactions to male anger.

Knowing these men, however, and knowing the philosophy of TTP, leaves me feeling capable of staying with the fear long enough to get through to the other side.

Excitement and fear feel very similar in the body, don't they?

Ed,

Thank you for hosting another Austin Tribe meeting. In preparing for the meeting I scan my TT Notes and find

"In Tribe we set goals and work towards them. If we get stopped then we use the Rocks Process to overcome them."

"Problems are a difference between what we have and what we want to have. Tribe helps remove the difference and then what we have equals what we want."

"Willingness to experience all your feelings gets you to the next level. What you won't feel will control your life."

My goal is to develop a backtesting environment to test new system ideas in a few days. While I've made good progress in systems development, I repeatedly stop as "uncharted waters" come up — I get strong, uncomfortable feelings of "I don't know what to do next". I remember you telling me inventors celebrate and enjoy the feeling of "I don't know". It's where they "live".

At the upcoming meeting I ask my fellow tribe members to help me feel, enjoy, & learn the positive intention of "I don't know what to do next."

We start at 7:30 pm. It is a month since our last Tribe due to our host's holidays recently.

After drumming I try a new exercise "tell me about the most challenging experience of the last week" which does not work because people tell of challenges overcome and how they feel good about this. This makes no-one hot. Maybe next time I may try "tell me the most disconcerting experience of the last week".

This time when looking for hot seats I ask "do you have an issue you want to work on?" rather than "what are you hot about?' on the theory that people tend to glibly deny being hot when they have real issues. This seems to work OK.

#1 Still working to finish some paid work before resuming trading. Feels pretty good.

#6 Things are going well - his last hot seat and some other things help him at work and things are going well. He seems quite enthused about improving himself, like he is on a roll.

#3. I have a long chat with an old school friend, who is interested in Holotropic Breathwork, the day before Tribe. He mentioned something disturbing that happens to me about 40 years ago. I have a pretty bad (dysfunctional) relationship and I drift along in life. After this discussion, last night I have lots of nightmares and I when I wake up I feel dark, sinister, gloomy, defeated. It bothers me.

After hearing #10's issue below I decide to go first then #10.

I have two shots at the hot seat. The first time I become quite hot and recall feeling the same way after my grandmother dies. But I feel not quite right as this issue comes up so many times in the past, and I have another shot at it. This time I see a kind of evil demon.

http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/img-thing?.out=jpg&size=l&tid=49057355

I don't know where I first felt like this, other than - to a degree - the same time again when my grandmother died. So we go with reenacting the first scenario of my grandmother dying.

Mom donates the old strategy after Dad tells us of the death of our grandmother.

1. Terrible things happen in your life.

2. You can never get away from them, they will keep haunting you, cast a pall on your life, and you cannot process them.

3. When you do a bad thing you are forever guilty.

4. Try to pretend these things aren't there.

5. You are alone and others won't help you.

I feel very upset when we reenact this after I get the old rock.

Then we come up with some new ideas.

1. Use your empathy with the other people around you. For example in the original situation my mother feels devastated. In some sense I know this but I don't do anything with that information. If I see she is sad then I can see through her instructions not to feel sad "because she is heaven".

2. It is OK to be sad.

3. You can process the feeling if you let yourself feel it. Once you process it you can deal with it, and learn from it.

4. Making a mistake does not invalidate you forever.

We reenact and I refuse the old rock with appreciation. When going through life experiences with the new rock, I notice the demonic figure turns into a harmless plastic party mask. I recall my observation during holotropic breath work that "evil" is usually a mistake of some kind (eg just some side of a person that they are uncomfortable with, or an attempt to be impressive and significant by being Dr Evil, etc). In the original situation both of us did bad things, but we were doing the best we could in the circumstances. I don't feel guilty about it any more.

#10 Getting fed up with the endless challenges and delays associated with moving to a new country. The red tape, not knowing the easy ways around things, cash flow issues as his contracting money gets held up by red tape. The children are picking up on this and are playing up in the school holidays (eg running around the hardware store creating havoc).

Most of these issues seem like "life" not rocks, except for the children. He asks them to stop, gives ultimatums, eventually loses his temper and shouts. We go with that. At the peak, he recalls a time driving with his Dad when he wants to go a certain way and his Dad wants to go more directly. He keeps badgering his Dad and eventually his Dad explodes and starts shouting in a frightening way.

We identify that HS has the old strategy from his Dad.

1. Don't listen to the other person. Ignore them.

2. Bottle it up and/or don't respond to them.

3. Eventually and suddenly explode and terminate the issue.

We reenact and HS decides he wants to do better. We reenact in an unusual way because the original scene had HS's father actually as the one in the situation, by virtue of which he trains HS to do the same thing. HS plays the role of his Dad - which seems to work OK.

He decides on

1. Listen to the other people. Understand their perspective, and tell them how you feel.

2. Come to an agreement that works for everyone.

3. Stick to the deal and hold others to the deal, in an assertive manner. You don't need to be aggressive usually, just firm.

4. The explosions result from not being assertive early enough.

We also have some discussion. During the discussion HS seems to have issues about being assertive.

We talk about the FAQ theory of private property rules, also natural consequences in relationships and with children (as opposed to 'punishments'), the book "Parent Effectiveness Training" which expresses a very similar theory, etc.

We reenact and HS seems happy with the outcome. On checkout, from playing the father in the second reenactment, I feel he took on this strategy without thinking about it and never asked whether it was a good strategy. Later on I think we could have reenacted the scenes with the children as well to help HS practice his new skills. But he seems to be a quick learner.

On checkout from the tribe meeting at 10pm, we all feel happy with our processes today. I express admiration for Member #10 for going for it in his first hot seat.

I feel that today I have the right balance in facilitating the process without pushing people to do what they aren't willing to do. When things work it does feel like magic, easy.

Regards,

I see you keep saying that you offer Workshops based on demand - so I would like to reiterate my interest for participating in one of your Workshops. I'll try and keep an eye on your website if you announce any, but if you know you are going to arrange one, please let me know.

Best regards

Sep 28, 2015

Women and Men - Fundamental Differences

Ed,

You might like this scene from My Fair Lady.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Doz5w2W-jAY&feature=em-share_video_user

Hello Ed,

I see you are adding to the TT_Chartbook Page, with a hypothetical BUY-THE-DIP SYSTEM and an actual LONG-ONLY TREND-FOLLOWING SYSTEM. Can I be of any assistance with this?

I did the GRAB system research with you back in 2009.

Best,

I am a rookie in system trading and development in [Country].

I have developed my money management formula as below

Position Size = %Risk / (ATR(X) * MFI(Y))

I have done several backtests in the 10 years history of [Country]'s Stock Market
which given me good results for all the low price stocks. I have two questions which I would like to clarify and understand.

1. Why dose it work per the formula ?
2. Is my formula correct according to the money management principle ?

Appreciate so much for your advice.

Best regards,

"It will likely be appropriate to raise the target range of the federal-funds rate sometime later this year and to continue boosting short-term rates at a gradual pace thereafter as the labor market improves further and inflation moves back to our 2% objective."

--Fed Chair Janet Yellen in a speech 9/24/15

Using my proprietary system built on node.js I have a match to the penny with your Support and Resistance System tutorial.

I also have an optimization with asymmetric channels:

Long Term Support - 205 days
Short Term Support - 15 days
Short Term Resistance - 70 days
Long Term Resistance - 130 days

@Heat = .055
Start Equity = 1000000
End Equity = 4231720
Draw Down = 0.2115
ICAGR = 0.0469
Bliss = 0.2219

Thank you for the tech.
Thank you for the tut!

I see somebody sends you a belated happy birthday on Sept 1st. And you respond telling him it's "some 358 days in advance". I am feeling some confusion on the math here. If it's for next year, it's 332. I wonder how you get the value 358?

Thanks,

Sep 21, 2015

Musician

Ed, You might like this musican and his unique instrument.

https://vimeo.com/110633932