‘Your Whole Life Shows Up In The Trade’: Navy SEAL Veteran Richard Machowicz

• May 7, 2003
• Richard Machowicz

“Your Whole Life Shows Up
In The Trade”

Richard Machowicz

This
is an edited transcript of a live
TM chat session with 10-year Navy SEAL veteran Richard Machowicz
on May 7,2003.

Brice
Wightman:
Richard Machowicz, 10-year Navy SEAL veteran, and author of “Unleashing
The Warrior Within,” is here with us. Everybody say hi…

Richard
Machowicz: Hello and thank
you for all the great things you guys have said about the
book.

Icover:
Hello Richard, did you spend any time in SUBIC with surface warfare group?

Richard Machowicz:
I spent four years in and out of SUBIC and had a great time.

Dream1:
Man, you are a rock-solid guy to go through Hell Week.

Richard Machowicz:
Hell Week was one of the
best experiences of my life.

macanudo:
Welcome to the room, Richard.

Richard Machowicz:
Thank you.

Icover:
You bet. A great place with many outstanding people.

Brice:
Richard, how can traders make money with your strategies?

Richard Machowicz:
I don’t think of what I do as “strategies. I think of it as the
“fuel” that ignites the “fire” that guides a strategy.

You can have all the best strategies in the world but if you don’t have the
“fire” to carry them out, you’ve got nothing. Understanding how you
work under stress and pressure gives you greater access to accomplishing
everything you want to accomplish in life.

Dream1:
That is soooo true Richard.

You need a roaring fire..

Richard Machowicz:
I know a lot of people who have spent a lot of money learning all the
“techniques” in the world but when confronted in that moment of stress
and pressure, doubt… second-guessing, they hesitate. Ultimately, what I do is
provide people with principles that they can tap into, over and over again, and
that adapt to every situation that they face.

Brice:
So a trader can have very expensive trading software, but that does him/her no
good if they can’t make the trade, right?

Richard Machowicz:
Absolutely.

bill1234
(trial): Richard, my Dad was a seal during WW2 –
underwater demolition. May I ask a question? What mental exercises, in a
nutshell, do you take to get the fire when things are tough?

ozzie:
I wonder if doubting doesn’t come because we aren’t confident in our system, or
ourselves. Once the confidence is there execution becomes almost automatic. But,
obtaining the confidence takes much work.

athbo:
Plan your work….and work your plan..

Richard Machowicz:
I’ll talk about mental exercises in a second, but to deal with this idea of
confidence.

Confidence comes from the ability to make a commitment and see it through to the
end. There will be plenty of things that will get in the way of this perception
of confidence.

Dream1:
I notice one thing with me, when I downsize my shares my trading gets better, I
can hold on longer, but once my shares are full size I can’t hold on very
long…

Richard Machowicz:
Adversity will show up and start to create doubt

and hesitation. Confidence comes from the fact that you committed to
accomplishing what you say you are going to do, and not QUITTING. Confidence is
something you generate moment to moment by keep stepping forward into the fire,
into the fray

Dream1:
all about confidence…

athbo:
LUCK is residue of DESIGN…

Richard Machowicz:
When bullets are flying, the last thing you’re thinking about is how confident
you are. All you’re doing is accomplishing the thing you are committed to.
People see confidence. That’s a description people give you when they look at
you.

Brice:
Folks, hang onto your questions for a few minutes, if you would…Richard will
get to them soon

athbo:
“Moderation”….the refuge of the unimaginative..

Richard Machowicz:
Dream1, position size is
about risk. There are basically two types of risk — uncalculated risk and
calculated risk. Inherent with uncalculated risk is the unknown. The more
unknowns, the greater the perceived fear. Everything is about calculating your
risk. As a matter of fact, everything in life is a matter of risk, to a degree.
Getting in a relationship is a risk, doing business is a risk, raising children
is a risk, driving your car is a risk. The more you are able to calculate risk,
the less the perceived fear and the less damage you set yourself up for

Chris
Tyler: I got him in
headlock guys.

Richard Machowicz:
So much for Chris’ eyes.

ozzie:
Going back to confidence – what happens when you simply don’t have the
mental/physical ability to do something. For example, no matter how much I work,
think positive, train, I will not be able to slam dunk a basketball because of
my physical makeup.

rh2059:
I like this guy.

TigerTInc:
we are little guys here. lol

mundo:
Watch out, Chris! He was taught too survive.

Richard Machowicz:
The Will to accomplish something often carries the day

ozzie:
yes, but he has physical muscle quickness that is natural, not something that
the ordinary guy can achieve?

Richard Machowicz:
That’s not true at all. What is ordinary?

ozzie, do you have legs? Do you have arms?

Most people quit because they haven’t decided how badly they want something. Are
you willing to die? Are you willing to give up your very life to slam a
basketball?

I promise, when you approach what you want to accomplish with this kind of
intensity, there is nothing on earth that will stop you

TigerTInc:
Yes, not even your family.

Richard Machowicz:
Confidence, in short, is a conversation you have with yourself about how you are
going to show up in that moment. We have a little voice that we hear all the
time in our heads. We can guide that voice.

ozzie:
Amazing, I am managing a good SPY ss and still able to learn from Richard.

Richard Machowicz:
What I would suggest for mental training is a very simple exercise regarding
keeping a journal.

Be ruthlessly honest with yourself as you fill it out

If you are calling yourself names. If you’re talking about being chicken…
whatever it is. Write it down. Go for a week. Save it.

Grab a highlighter (two colors would be great). With one color, highlight all
the times when you were down on yourself. The dialogue was speaking to what you
believe were your weaknesses. With the other color, highlight when you were up
on yourself.


Where you were confident.

Where you accomplished something.

Richard Machowicz:
The next week, see if you can make more of the confident decisions the
accomplished dialogue and keep track of this through the highlighters. That way,
you force yourself to alter the way you are constantly communicating to
yourself, which is a thousand times more important than the way anyone else
communicates to you. It’s simple, but it’s not easy to do.

You really have to be ruthlessly honest with yourself. And you have to be
completely committed to taking control of the conversation that drives you in
your daily life

TigerTInc:
So negate negatives and increase positive affirmation.

Richard Machowicz:
I don’t think of it as an affirmation but as a way of taking control of the
basic communication program that drives us to accomplish all that we are capable
of accomplishing. This is not an “I feel pretty” kind of affirmation
that I repeat, over and over. It’s actually getting down to the very programming
language that drives us on a day to day basis. This is work.

bill1234, make a record of them. Sit with them. Find out if they’re really the
truth. You don’t have to believe everything you say to yourself. Do you actually
accomplish things?

Are you actually capable?

Do you hit your targets?

These are questions that deal with the facts.

They don’t deal in opinion.

They deal with what’s real vs. what’s imaginary.

bill1234:
makes sense

bill1234:
Thanks Richard. What do you do with the negatives you wrote down?

Jobern1:
Richard – I’ve been in the field 30 years and you are a magnificent teacher.
Saved these folks thousands in therapy if paying attention! lol

Richard Machowicz:
Thank you, brother.

Brice:
Richard, what about traders who get “gun-shy” after a string of
losses. Then they start NOT taking potentially profitable trades. They get
scared – fear of loss. What would you say to them?

Richard Machowicz:
Just as you are not
your successes, you are not your loss.

Just like you are not your shirt, you are not the car you drive, you’re not the
house in which you live. These are concepts of the way you think it should be.
What’s most important in life is that you constantly move forward. That is the
inherent flow of the Universe. Doubt, second guessing, hesitation… these are
the things that lead to death.

These are the things that cause you to stand still and be stagnant. Which is not
the way the Universe works.

sarbot:
OK guys… Richard is
awesome…

Richard Machowicz:
I always think of the
Teddy Roosevelt quote about poor souls who knew neither victory nor defeat,
because they didn’t even have the courage to take a chance

traderbal:
I have that quote on my wall

Richard Machowicz:
It’s a great quote.

traderbal:
TEDDY was the best president ever

Richard Machowicz:
I agree.

Brice:
Richard said something very
profound to me yesterday: “Your whole life shows up in the trade.”

TigerTInc:
Gee, my whole life lasted 20 sec.

Richard Machowicz:
Your whole life shows up, who you really are, shows
up in that moment of stress and pressure.

ozzie:
I have that problem of not acting, I analyze, analyze… trying to make sure I
make the RIGHT choice. Your thoughts?

Richard Machowicz:
In combat, when bullets are flying, when lives are literally on the line…

Your act, who you pretend to be, will disappear. And who you are will show up.

athbo:
Perfectionism is a REAL PROBLEM in market-trading… https://www1.eboard.com/eboard/boards/13/98/2/Athbo/att-578726/Comment.jpg

Richard Machowicz:
Let’s deal with analysis paralysis. Basically, it’s a very simple formula.
Assess the situation. See what’s really there. Create a simple plan. Act on it.
Evaluate the result. That way, you know exactly where you’re at. The reason you
want to create a simple plan is so that you can clearly see the simple result.
That way, your opinions don’t get in the way. The way you wish the world was
doesn’t get in the way. All that’s there is what really happened. That’s how you
make choices. That’s how you get results, And that’s how you know you’re
doing what you’re supposed to be doing.

traderbal:
So how do you achieve NO FEAR? Should I go back to Army ?

Richard Machowicz:

Let’s deal with the question of “no fear.”

There’s no such thing as “no fear.”

You’re constantly having a conversation with yourself. Even to some degree,
while we’re going through this, you’re talking to yourself. The reality is most
of the things we say to ourselves are not glowing. This is the reality. We often
think because we’ve been sold a particular bill of goods called “We’re too
fat” or “We’re too slow” or “We’re not good looking
enough” “We don’t dress well”…

We’ve been sold a bunch of things where we believe we are diminished in some
capacity. Women have it a hundred times worse than any man

Dream1:
Thank you, Richard .

Richard Machowicz:
We are told if we buy this one thing, our lives will be so much better. And for
a minute, we feel great. The car is great. Then the next week, it’s just a car.
Fear is how we communicate to ourselves. It’s something that we have been
trained in.

rh2059:
yes mac.

Richard Machowicz:
The reality is to perform beyond fear is to recognize the thing that must be
done. And doing it in spite of your fears.

Brice:
Richard,

what about traders who have a good trading plan, and do well with it when they
follow it, but then they sometimes DON’T follow it and screw up? what can you
tell them?

Richard Machowicz:
I would ask that person why they don’t do it.

Ultimately this is about responsibility. If you have something that works,
why fix it?

I would suggest to that person that there is more going on there than trading.

There’s something personal involved.

I would probably address that personal thing.

Dream1:
Psychology…

big losses…the fear the trade won’t go well

Brice:
Any last questions for Richard?

Richard Machowicz:
I want to say one more thing about fear. Remember, fear is a perception of an
event

and we inherently, because of conditioning over our lives, assume that things
will go badly.

Remember, an assumption uses you.

You don’t use assumptions. That
is a perfect example of when a concept precedes an event. And almost dictates
its outcome.

ozzie:
One of my problems is always wondering if the system I have is a GOOD system. I
suppose you have to decide you are going to use it until the evidence shows it
doesn’t give an edge, then admit it, and move on.

Dream1:
Can you come to my house for about a month and demand that I pull the trigger
more often?

Flipp:
Is your May
17 class full up?

Brice:
Richard’s May 17 seminar is getting full, and today is the last day of the Early
Bird Special.

Richard Machowicz:
Thank you, folks, for your time and your patience. It was a pleasure hanging
with you.

traderbal:
Richard why do you look angry in your picture?

Richard Machowicz:
People often confuse intensity with anger.

bill1234:
Thanks for the great advice!

Richard Machowicz:
My absolute pleasure.

Cyberray:
That’s a great martial discipline bukido, isn’t it Richard?

Richard Machowicz:
Bukido is an
amalgamation of several combat martial arts. Sniper training, performance
psychology, SEAL mentality…intelligence and strategic thinking… it’s
designed so that it applies to one’s life and it works under extreme stress and
pressure.

Dream1:
I need that every day before trading…

Richard Machowicz:
Come on down.

bill1234:
Richard, thanks! Are you on the web? Have a web site?

Richard Machowicz:
https://www.bukido.com is my website.

Brice:
Folks, this is the tip of the iceberg, I can tell you, with Richard. Try his seminar
— it’s got a 100% money-back guarantee.

yberray:
“He who controls others is mighty indeed, but he who controls his mind is
mighter still.” — Tao

Brice:
If you sign up today, we’ll send you an autographed copy of Richard’s book,
“Unleash The Warrior Within.”



Any last questions for Richard before he
leaves?

Icover:
Richard only a comment, your former SEAL guys do some great work. Thank you for
serving our country.

Richard Machowicz:
Your dad sounds
like a tough guy, a real military man.

OK, goodbye everybody. Thanks so much for your
time.

Dream1:
Whoever thought a SEAL could give us such powerful words…

Richard Machowicz is
presenting a live Web seminar on Saturday, May 17.

Click Here for the details or to sign up now.

(Order by Midnight, May 7 and we’ll send you an autographed copy of
Richard’s book!)