Build empathy by examining your biases, gaining perspective, and through exploration. Check Out DAY 1 here
"What does EMPATHY have to do with trading?"
Well, you need a lot of it at the beginning of your trading career. Empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes but I'm going to help you put yourself in your own shoes from an outside perspective.
In the 2-week intensive class, Chris Cole speaks about money thresholds and how many of us do not have the income we desire because we have placed a mental cap on what we feel we deserve and our ability to earn more money.
The first thing you will need to do is examine the biases or prejudices surrounding how you feel about your ability to EARN more in your trading career and pick them apart.
How much money is the most you have ever made? Do you feel you deserve more? How many times have you made that amount of money? Was it consistent or a one-time thing? Can you MANAGE more money? How do you manage money now?
On Day 1 of this series, I had you print out a couple of workbooks to help you develop more honesty with yourself about what's blocking your money. Did you print them and begin working on it?
At some point in your life, you may have developed a cap on your ability to increase your income. These are the biases that you must discover and recondition so that you can develop a certain level of EMPATHY for yourself.
What do I mean by that?
You gotta take a good look at yourself from the outside in for you to be able to change these thresholds. The majority of the issues we have with money have been impressed upon us as children or young adults.
On page 3 of the emotional intelligence guide, I asked if you subconsciously enjoy or if you are addicted to the pain you inflict upon yourself.
How often do you find yourself in the same predicament when it comes to money? More month than money... doing something strange for a PIECE of change... SCRATCHING AND SURVIVING... [*cues Good Times theme song]
We end up in the same cycles because we haven't cleared the emotional ties to the problems that we have. If paying for things that are a substantial amount of money ALWAYS makes you feel something negative, you have an emotional ADDICTION to that action. That's only one example.
I call it an addiction because you decide how you will feel about something, whether it seems involuntary or not. Allowing yourself to feel the same bad feelings over and over with no intent to change it, is an addiction.
When you NAME the problem, you have a clear way to decipher how to resolve it.
Welcome to the E.A. (Emo Anonymous) 10 step program lol
This brings me to the second and third points of building empathy through exploration and gaining perspective.
Change your perspective on how you feel by exploring new ways to approach the feelings you have.
I saw something on Instagram that said: "instead of saying you have to do something, say you GET TO do something" and the reason was that you change your perspective on how that thing feels to you.
Take some time to go through the WORKBOOK THAT YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO DOWNLOAD AND FILL OUT [yes that's me going off on you if you haven't downloaded it yet] and see where you can adjust the wording you use to describe your circumstances.
You could be being hard on yourself for no damn reason. You are NOT the only one going through issues with money. Even Chris had to start somewhere...
I will keep this post short and sweet because I want you to go work on those workbooks so you can begin having a more empathetic approach to your mental shift. There's something about writing it down but there's something even better about RELEASING the problems you have.
So even if you don't decide to write it down in the workbook (everyone makes a change in different ways), just look at the workbooks and hear yourself say OUT LOUD some of the crazy things you think about yourself and your money lol
Nicole definitely appreciate the read! Whenever I think about money I deserve it’s always such a small number. When I think of a bigger number it seems unbelievable and made up. I have to figure out why. What makes me any different in deserving wealth than a Chris Cole or Jeff Bezos? I deserve wealth too. We all do and if we do the work, it is quite attainable. It’s powerful when you change your mindset.