Ed's FAQ Sep 01-30, 2018

Contributors Say	Ed Says
September 30, 2018 Demanding Father Hi Ed, I recall your practice of scheduling tribe in response to demand. I want to register my demand. I want the Tribe's support with issues that are coming up for me around the imminent birth of my son.	Thank you for sharing your process. You might consider taking your feelings about <demanding things> to yout Tribe as an entry point. You might also consider contemplating what you would like your son to learn about relating to others through demanding things.
September 28, 2018 Super Markets Good day Mr Seykota I don't know if you read all the emails you receive, I can just imagine it must be thousands. I am rather new to trading. I'm actually a medical doctor in anaesthesia practice, and have only started reading and practicing trading in December this year. I'm reading Covel's book and have just finished the section on you. Therein you state that every trader should first look at the basic literature otherwise he must confine his trading to the supermarket! Could you perhaps point me in the direction of the literature that you would recommend? I enjoyed the piece about you and marvel at your success. All the best!	Thank you for sharing your process. I don't recall telling anyone what they "should do." I do sometimes go so far as to suggest someone "might like to consider" doing something. The basic literature you might consider studying: Reminiscences of a Stock Operator; The Crowd; the works of Perry Kaufman; the works of Jack Schwager; Heal Your Body by Louise Hay; The Trading Tribe & Govopoly both by me. Also you might learn an application programming language such as C#, Python or Java in which you can carry out your own back tests. For starters you can use a spreadsheet.
September 21, 2018 Money and Happiness Dear Ed, I hope you are well. I notice that you have not updated FAQ's in a while. I hope all is well with you. The London Tribe continues to grow, we usually meet on Monday's now. I have attached an updated information sheet. This year, I feel like I haven't gotten anything out of TTP. I don't mind turning up and running the Tribe, but I wonder why I still do it sometimes. This year has been particularly challenging for me trading wise. I have found it very difficult mentally. This feels like the worst year ever. Yet when I turn up to a TTP session, nothing really comes up. A little frustration, that's all. I'm much better off financially now then I was when I started TTP. All things considered, the quality of my life as improved immensely. Yet I seem to consistently feel miserable. I know this because I journal daily. Happiness is what I really want consistently, but its not what I get, no matter how well trading goes, or any other parts of my life. I really have questioned many times this year if TTP really does me any good. Has it actually changed my life for the better? Have I moved towards right livelihood? I don't know. I have meditated, sat down and calmly had an objective look at my life since starting TTP. My net worth has increased considerably, that was my objective when I started TTP. But I cannot say if the quality of my trading has increased. Perhaps it was just good markets? My happiness is no different. I feel lost. Have a nice Autumn Ed,	Thank you for sharing your process. Traversing the existential void with TTP presents interesting challenges as the path features a multitude of potholes all hungry to capture the ankles of the unwilling. Passage generally requires the services of a very skillful process manager, one who accepts (and even enjoys) the feelings of <emptiness>, <nothingness>, <not knowing>, <lost> and <miserable>. When you notice these feelings appearing as path markers, and when you come to enjoy them with gusto and with a broad grin, you may also come to appreciate the void as a deep well spring of creativity.
September 21, 2018 Ed Shows Up in a Kitchen Dream Hello Ed. I had the weirdest dream ever. I was asleep and woke up having heard a noise in my kitchen. I walk down half expecting to be jumped and and beaten to death but i see you sat there in my kitchen. By the table. I can't believe me eyes. At first i am shocked and ask what the hell you are doing but you kind of smile and say "You know why.....you want to ask me some questions" You remind me of the god like figure played by Morgan Freeman (obviously a white version) Like an oracle that has all the answers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FngXOUxklR4 So i start asking you about trading, risk, returns, life etc...and you are so clam and calculated in your replies. Never giving me direct answers but kind of letting me answer my own questions. For example i ask how many stocks you hold in your portfolio and you tell me that is irrelevant. First decide what it is you are trying to achieve and work form there not the other way around. You then tell me i am taking on too much risk in the hope of huge gains. Whilst this can be done it's not the best way to try and achieve you end goal. You then give me a great example of driving to a holiday ... do it slow and safe enjoyable or go fast and risk crashing. So at the end of our god like talk i say "You know what you have told me I already knew but why didn't i follow it?" I then look back at the table and you are not there.....were you ever? I woke up and everything kind of hits me like the Titanic hitting ice. There is no need to take on such big risks. Stop trying so hard. Relax, take your time, enjoy life. You don't need to try and make so much. I am not sure what triggered this dream off but it has lead to a different approach. Not sure you did an "Inception" kind of plant in my mind.....or it was my subconscious getting through to me... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQPy88-E2zo But thanks for the advice.	Thank you for sharing your process and for including me in your dream.
Sep 13, 2018 TTP and Conventional Therapy Dear Ed, I’ve recently made enquiries to join a Trading Tribe in London, and replied with answers to the two embolded questions below. Having just sent off the email, it occurred to me whether you have come across the resources detailed in the links below, and whether these might be of interest to other tribe members. Sincere thanks for such a profound contribution, and I must also take the opportunity to pass on my thanks on behalf of my 9 year old daughter for the whipsaw song! Kind regards - - - - - The Application Questions and Answers I wonder what you intend to get out of Trading Tribe meetings? I work as an NHS GP, and the interest I have in mental health and in optimising my own head has been really helpful in my therapeutic work with patients. I've become interested in practical philosophy, and secular Buddhism. I undertake 20min daily meditations over the last few years, and I'm now starting to develop a sense of who I'm supposed to be, and Right Livelihood. I hope to continue to optimise through TTP, collaborating with likeminded people in the TTP group. I'm sure this will help me professionally and personally. From a medical perspective, I'm fascinated by the various means to the same ends which I've come across over recent years and I've found reading Michael Singer's Unthered Soul really helpful, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Untethered-Soul- Journey-Beyond-Yourself/dp/1572245379/ ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1536867141&sr=8-1 &keywords=untethered+soul and have found Matthieu Richard's scientific work on meditation inspiring. https://www.ted.com/talks/matthieu_ ricard_on_the_habits_of_happiness Ed Seykota is clearly quite brilliant; it's incredibly impressive that he came to the realisation he did with respect to the cartography of the mind concept, let alone how to tackle k-nots in the manner he has set out in the process. The medical profession are just starting to catch up with these ideas, particularly with the more extreme k-nots associated with post-traumatic stress, and therapeutic strategies which encourage collaboration between Fred and conscious awareness. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Body-Keeps-Score- Transformation-Trauma/dp/0141978619/ref=sr_1 _1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1536867226&sr=1-1 &keywords=the+body+keeps+the+score +by+bessel+van+der+kolk I've no doubt that TTP works and appreciate the rationale for it from my own experiences as an interested clinician, and I'm certain of the impact of therapeutic group work. I've an understanding of the therapeutic consultation as part of my day job, and receive about 6,000 patient-agendas a year, so don't think receiving will be a problem, but I think I might need to get used to sending. I am very open to the experience and the process; contributing, learning and developing Right Livelihood with the group. I see trading as simply a testing ground to see whether one can achieve mindfulness, equanimity and non-attachment irrespective of circumstances. I've made some definite progress in this respect, but appreciate that I am still acting out some unresolved k-nots. For many years I’ve seen myself as a frustrated fund manager/investor, but I’m hoping to continue to lose ego and attachment to become more proficient as a trader; very early days here. Could you please describe to me in your own words your understanding of the TTP process? My understanding of TTP is that the meetings provide a safe therapeutic, collaborative environment in which participants can express and resolve uncomfortable subconscious emotions/forms which traditional talking therapies don’t really understand and cannot access. Reading the extension, my understanding of the Rocks process is that recurring maladaptive automatic/unconscious attempts to self-medicate emotional reactions can be addressed and replaced with a more therapeutic response and solution. Some of the maladaptive responses to stressors might be alcohol, drugs etc, and others might be maladaptive parental responses to situations, which have been picked up and learned in childhood. I hope I’m on the right track with this. Rather difficult to answer, as it feels a bit like trying to drive when I’ve only done the theory test. I’m sure TTP needs to be experienced for some time prior to being encapsulated in any description. Kind regards	Thank you for sharing your process and for exemplifying how some key TTP concepts might appear in more formal therapeutic language. As you continue with your work, bringing it into the conventional therapeutic framework, I would like to hear, now and again, more about your process.
Sep 8, 2018 Wants to Walk the Path Hello Ed Seykota Sir, This is a letter from a great fan and ardent admirer of yours. It’s not just an email but a letter from my heart with a lot of hope. It’s been many days since I have thought about writing this letter to you. But daily I would be somehow convincing myself that tomorrow I shall do it. Maybe it’s because I was not able to figure out the right words that shall lay my story across to you, right words to express the burning desire in my heart. Because if indeed, by some magic twist in my fate, this letter does reach you and you happen to go through it – that might lead to the biggest turning point in my life. So, Ed Seykota Sir, if you are reading this letter by yourself, this is one of the happiest day of my life. However, Sir if you are not Ed Seykota Sir himself but his representative, can I ask one big favour from you to pass it on to him. I know maybe you get such requests from thousands and it’s a daily affair given how big and popular Ed Seykota Sir is and I am no special case. But Sir, maybe if you do so, it might open a world of opportunities for me and many others whom I too someday might be able to help. TO ED SEYKOTA SIR Hello Sir. My name is [Name]. I am 25 years old. I am from a very small town in the North-East part of India. Yes, you have fans in this corner of the world too. I, here in this small town of mine in India, sit and wonder all that a human is capable of achieving if only he thinks he can. But I also know the unbelievable amount of hard work, pain, struggles and failures you must have had to overcome to reach where you are now. I bow my head in respect to you, sir. I am a small trader & have been trading for 4 years now and I dream to make it big in the trading world someday. With great respects, Sir, I aspire to be like you one day. I don’t know the how part of it but I am sure, you as every other man who became great, did not know the how part of it when you all started. In pursuit of the path I tried to reach out to everybody I admired from Michael Marcus to Richard Dennis to George Soros to Christopher Rokos to Ray Dalio and many others. Yes, I did land up with broken email addresses and never heard a word from them, but I really have been trying with all my heart to do all that I can to be what I believe I can be. Yes, I am not a big trader. Nor do I have a big account, nor do I live in country which encourages trading. Yes, I do fail on these counts. But I believe with all my heart I can be one of the best traders in the world. Trading is something I love with all I have, a place my heart belongs. And I did everything that I could all these years with the limited resources I have to get the money to start trading with a bigger account. Yes, I didn’t go the Job route as I felt that would not do anything for my growth & rather I might get comfortable in a mediocre job with a pay cheque coming at the end of the month, that I might get forever stuck in my comfort zone and never take risk in my life again. So, I decided to raise money the Entrepreneurial way. That seemed interesting and gave me the kick I am so thirsty for. But as life would have it, one after the other, venture after venture, all failed. My story is not of someone who wants an easy way. I have literally done all that I could possibly do, worked day and night last 4 years for the dream so dear to me that one fine day I shall have the big capital to trade and make it big in the trading world. Sir, here I need to share a bit of my story of my failed ventures. I know I am taking up a lot of your precious time & I am so sorry for that but Sir, do read the letter till the end and then decide do I deserve a reply from your end. I shall be forever grateful. I started off by trying to start a Second-hand clothes recycling company in India on an organized scale and export to Third world countries such as Africa, Kenya, and others. Roamed the country to make contacts and set it up, worked the hell out but somehow it didn't work out. Failed. Again, made another plan to import Wipers made from Recycled clothes and supply to factories across North East States in India and worked day and night visiting so many places but again it didn't work out as it required a big capital which I didn't have. So, failed again. Then started a Grocery Delivery business in my town itself as it was a new concept back here but again it too required big capital to manage initial costs of marketing and creating customer base and so slowly sales dropped and I had to close it. Failed. Thrice I had heartbreakingly failed but I didn't once feel that I am doing anything wrong sacrificing my well set out career of getting a job & settling down but rather taking the hard road not knowing where it shall lead me to. I made another plan to open a Pizza Restaurant in my town as there were no Dominos or Pizza Hut here. So again, made all arrangement, learned to make Pizza from everywhere I could and after 3 months of hard work, the day I finally planned to purchase a Pizza Oven and generator and take up a shop, you won't believe, that very day Domino's opened shop in my town. Failed and Heartbroken again. No matter. I realised as I had already researched about the food business during the Pizza Restaurant Idea, I rather planned to open up a Food Delivery Restaurant as our town had no restaurant doing deliveries. I took a loan and opened up and go a great response but I had this time started it with a partner and as I had limited funds I could afford just one head cook. I suppose life was not on my side again and somewhere down the line, I started having clashes with my partner and the head cook too started to disappear now and then and we had to keep out shop closed. It slowly ruined our reputation and after a year I had to sell it to someone else. But it was a success on my learning curve. However, Failed yet again. All the heartbreak for the love of the markets. Yes, it might sound stupid now as to why I did all those but at that point of time, I saw these as the only way I could raise money to trade as well as learn to be an entrepreneur as I believed one day when I shall become a great Fund Manager like you managing billions, all these lessons will help me out. Yes, I know it sounds foolish now but it didn’t occur to me back then. So heartbroken but yet still fighting. I now with no business and a small trading account, thought ‘Let me do something to raise money on the Trading field’. So, I planned to write a Book with all that I have learnt about trading for the beginners in a very fun and amusing style so as that even a layman could understand the basics of trading. So, I set out day and night to make this happen believing that maybe this Book shall be the key to launch my trading career. So, sat down for 6 months straight, working day & night to make the book happen and finally did it. Launched it straight to Amazon and self-published it for the Kindle version and sat down hoping that this time I shall crack it. Everyone I showed the book to was impressed. But disaster struck again when I realised that the book was not available to the general kindle which most people own but only available for Kindle Fire tablets as my book was a complete colour book with lots of illustrations. Wow. I couldn’t believe it. So, no point marketing the book on kindle as people won’t be able to read it. Thus, took it off from Amazon as it was having very few sales. What to do, I thought let me try my hand reaching out to traditional publishers and get my book published as a Paper Back Version. Sent my book across the country to all publishers I could reach in India and as you have rightly guessed – No one is publishing the book. Some of them even called me up to say the book was really nice and they would have sure taken it up had it not been a colour book as it raises the cost of printing many fold and they can’t take the risk with a colour book that too a 350 pages long book. So, Failed yet so ever again. (I have also attached a copy of my book below and would be thrilled if you just even scroll through it. ) What to do now, I was so tired of all these heartbreaks. But I can’t give up on the dream to be among the greats of the markets. So, I tried once again. I had heard Tony Robbins say once that when you don’t have resources you have to use resourcefulness. So, I thought that let me get my capital by teaching others to trade. So, there I started work again creating advertisement, making presentations, creating website, distributing flyers and banners to promote my Trading Workshop. Many people called up to enquire and I arranged a Hotel to conduct the workshop. Hoping a good number of people to turn up and then conduct a few more workshops and there I shall have my required capital to trade. And just as life would have it again, only 3 people turned up. I was devastated once again. However, I conducted the workshop at big loss. They loved it so I didn’t give up. Tried to conduct more workshops but every time just 5 or 7 people show up. This way I was not going anywhere. So, there you can say I did fail again. I am so at a loss of direction now sir, so, I write to you. I worked as hard as I could. Yes, my ideas were not revolutionary ones but I genuinely did with all my heart and with whatever limited resources I had. I sure have my share of faults as to why still I am not able to raise the money to do the thing I love so much – To Trade. So, I have this Burning Question which I would like to know from the Man himself whom I aspire to be like, who have walked the life of my dreams and emerged victorious the other side. You are what I want to be. What might take a moment for you to show me the path, it might take many years for me just to figure it out. ‘Sir, does it really have to be so hard to be able to do what we really love?’ Is it so much to ask? We have only one life so I don’t want to waste my life doing something I don’t love, living someone else’s life when I know I am meant to be a Trader, one of the best trader in the world. And as per the poem ‘The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost - Yes, I know 2 roads diverge into a yellow wood and I am already on the path less travelled by, all knowing that this road isn’t going to be easy & I am ready to face all but I am just a bit lost among the woods. I believe with all my heart despite all my failures that I am on the road, I still wake up every morning with all hope and no regrets about walking this unknown terrain. Yes, it’s true I am stuck now, not able to see ahead but the path is not wrong and it’s something my heart is truly in love with. I believe every human being has the potential to achieve greatness, to be all that they can be. It sure is not happening over here in a million years no matter how hard I try. You sure realize the agony and pain of not being able to do something you love and know you can be great at but maybe because of being at the wrong place, with no exposure, nobody to guide, you never get to evolve to your fullest potential. So, I write to you with the hope that maybe some door might just open up. Show me the path Ed Seykota Sir. Here in India, in our culture it is said that by being at the feet of the master, we evolve. Not at the head but by being at the feet, by being humble we can achieve greatness. So, I too seek to be at your feet, be you disciple. Mentor me Ed Seykota Sir. Please. Maybe there have been a time when you started off, you got stuck, didn’t know what to do, felt directionless and maybe at that point of your life, someone, out of nowhere came to your rescue, showed you the path and here you are, Ed Seykota, a person people across the world aspires to be like. I shall forever wait to hear a word from you. Your Great Fan	Thank you for sharing your process and for directly requesting instructions from me for walking on the path. OK, here's your path: 1. Take two large books to a very public place in the morning. 2. Hold one book in each hand and extend your arms out from your body, horizontally, so as to form a "T." 3. Continue to hold the books in this position, motionless, for five hours. 4. If you fail, announce to everyone, loudly, and with a broad smile, "I just failed to accomplish a rather difficult and meaningless task - and I really like this feeling." Then, rest for 5 minutes and repeat from step 2. 5. If you succeed, say nothing and then try again with bigger books. In any event, write back to FAQ to let everyone know your experience on this path.
Sep 7, 2018 Woke Hi Ed, How woke are you? British support group can help. https://www.facebook.com/bbccomedy/ videos/10155552204996778/ best regards,	Thank you for sharing this important information about how to walk on rice paper without leaving a wrinkle.
Sep 7, 2008 New Age Stuff Hi Ed, I'm new to forex trading and was googling trading experts, caught my attention when some one posted you're into new age stuff, Where do I find your thoughts and work in this area and why? Best Regards	Thank you for sharing your process. You can start your explorations here and now.
Sep 6, 2018 Disappointment Dear Chief, Thank you for your continuing guidance. My journey to live my dream does not feel like a dream any more. After nearly 5 years, my portfolio only just breaks even (after fees). This sucks so so so bad. I hate it. I have some ideas that may improve portfolio performance, but i can't seem to put in the work needed to test them out. I feel miserable to my bones. I feel stupid. I feel dumb. I feel disappointment towards myself. I want to cry, but tears don't come. I feel confusion. I feel so much angst and fear. I fear letting down my investors badly. I feel like hiding somewhere. I feel I cannot show my face to the world. I feel like a loser; a waste of space. My back feels a spasm. I feel hopeless. I feel directionless and lost. I feel remorse and regret about getting into this situation. I feel I have no talent for anything. And I can't even kill myself because I have kids and I don't want to leave them fatherless. I feel my children deserve someone better than me. My wife deserves better than me. I feel broken. Thank you for listening chief. I owe you much.	Thank you for sharing your process and for communicating your feelings. When we resist our feelings, as adversaries, we also enable drama that compels us to experience our feelings. When we embrace our feelings, as allies, they bring forth powerful resources and then disappear. You might consider walking into the fire, and embracing it fully. The ashes of one reality become the nutrients of the next. You might consider fully accepting the guidance and support of your Tribe.
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