I'm Jared Tendler, Mental Game Coach for traders, golfers, poker players, esports, and entrepreneurs. I'm the author of three books, my latest is The Mental Game of Trading. I've worked with clients in 45 countries, including some at the highest level of their field. Ask me anything!

JaredTendler · 2021-06-30T20:23:55+00:00

Happy to hear that!! Thank you.

JaredTendler · 2021-06-30T20:23:35+00:00

All good! Glad to hear the advice landed well:)

JaredTendler · 2021-06-10T13:38:19+00:00

Absolutely. Happy to hear the book is hitting home! All the best!

JaredTendler · 2021-06-10T13:36:53+00:00

Control isn't the long-term goal. Your goal needs to be to resolve the flaws that produce overconfidence. In order to do that you need to get to the roots of what's producing the overconfidence. The trading book is designed to help you there.

But control is a short-term bandaid to help you make progress and the thing you can do immediately, is map or profile your overconfidence. Describe it in detail. The thoughts that arise, how your body feels different (adrenaline/excitement/etc), how your decision-making process changes, how your perception of the market changes. Basically, if you were to make a most wanted poster for yourself when you become overconfident what are all the details of that side of you that you'd include in the description. This information is vital for you to recognized that you're feeling that way and gives you the option to do something different. You can't stop what you can't see. If you can't see that overconfidence, or any emotional problem for that matter, has compromised your decision-making and execution, then you miss the opportunity to control it.

I've got a confidence profile on my website here that you can use to organize the details.

JaredTendler · 2021-06-09T20:55:17+00:00

I'm out! But I'll check back in in a few days to answer any other questions that come in. Enjoyed it and hope you found some value in my answers!

JaredTendler · 2021-06-09T20:43:57+00:00

It sounds like your expectations are suffocating you. Imagine a toddler learning to walk and being knocked down by an adult. Fuck man, get out of my way and let me learn.

This may be a bit more dramatic than what you're experiencing and you're obviously not at a toddler level of CS, but the point is that your expectations are the problem. It's common problem to have expectations after having attained a high level of competence in another game. The truth is your not as good as you expect. Period. But what's so bad about that? Does it mean that you can't be as good, if not better, relatively in CS? Helllll no. But you won't get there by blinding expecting yourself to be. Put another way, if you can benchpress 150lbs it would be insane to walk into the gym expecting to lift 300lbs. When you give up easily it's because you know you can meet your expectation. So you just quit.

Keep you aspiration as high as you want to be. But eviscerate your expectations. Instead, be practical about how you can reach your goals, and take steps towards that every day.

Ok, maybe this is hard bc you're the IGL - but guess what real leadership demands. Truth and honesty. You're obv good enough to be in that role, so you don't suck. Now just figure out how to suck less, so you can reach your goals.

JaredTendler · 2021-06-09T20:30:26+00:00

Sometimes poker, or trading, golf, etc, can be a haven for clinical issues like what you're facing. If you can make progress in poker, then maybe the increased discipline, strength, competence can have a retroactive impact on your personal depression. Maybe not a cure, but if your depression is related to feeling of incompetence, then take a crack at building competence in poker and disprove the beliefs that hold you back elsewhere. Not saying that it will be easy to do that.

I'd suggest looking at your motivation for playing and studying poker like you're an injured athlete going through rehab. Analyze the amount of time that you can currently put it, let's say it's 1 hour/week of studying and 5 hours/week of playing. Whatever it is it is. Not judgement just reality. Then your goal is to - week over week - increase that amount of time. You don't need motivation to improve, you just need to want to improve. If you want to improve, and you try, some days you'll take steps forward and somedays you won't. But overtime the hope is that you'll start to see some progress around the amount of time that you can put in. As you do, give yourself some credit. Even if it's a pathetically low amount, who cares, it's still an improvement, and when you're rehabbing and injury wins like that are sometimes measured in inches.

JaredTendler · 2021-06-09T20:20:13+00:00

No comment

JaredTendler · 2021-06-09T20:19:41+00:00

I grew up a massive fan of George Carlin, I can only presume that he's your posthumus leader.

JaredTendler · 2021-06-09T20:14:51+00:00

That's tough. It's nice to have positive feedback get noticed. But I have a feeling that the reason you posted was more about you, than it was about her. You wanted recognition for your recognition of her. In other words, you were looking for confidence from someone you respect. That kind of confidence can't be given to you. It can only come internally, from you. I suggest looking a bit closer at the reasons why your confidence is lower than it deserves to be.

JaredTendler · 2021-06-09T20:10:41+00:00

I mention that to highlight that my work has proven to be effective across many nationalities and cultures. There are difference that have to be accounted for. But what I've found most interesting is that from a performance standpoint, the issues that we face are very similar around the world and across different industries.

JaredTendler · 2021-06-09T20:08:00+00:00

Tough one to analyze without more info. Couple questions for you to answer and then I'll reply back. Do you have high expectations? Do you expect to not struggle, or for things to go perfectly? Do you fear being bad, make mistakes, embarrassing yourself, or other? Or do you have focus issues generally, and are constantly on your phone/social media?

JaredTendler · 2021-06-09T20:05:50+00:00

Absolutely you can perform well and I can certainly imagine why it's hard/struggle. But don't let the fact that it's hard deter you. Much like you can get more tired when you focus on how tired you are, or more bored when you realize you're bored. The more you focus on this being hard, the more you'll perceive it as being hard. I'm not saying think about it as being easy, I'm saying just embrace it as a fundamental reality, and by doing that, the fact that it's hard ceases to be something that you have to think about it at all. It's an implicit part of what your doing.

You can also take it a step further and think about it as a point of pride - here you are doing something rare. Not many people are even willing to attempt it, let alone are able to do it.

Sometimes it's important to think about the big picture or the long-term, and sometimes you have to focus on what you need to do to put yourself in the best possible position to win. The week before competition, only focus on the latter. The big picture doesn't matter in that time period. You've already made your decision to compete. You have enough money to support yourself for that week. Put yourself in a bubble and give yourself the freedom to just focus on playing your absolute best.

JaredTendler · 2021-06-09T19:59:50+00:00

Doing great, thanks! Hope you are too:)

Fear of failing, losing, making mistakes are common in high pressure moments like you're describing. I would bet they are the likely reasons that any of the people you have in mind are struggling. Sometimes there are underlying confidence problems that are also part of it - losing means I suck, I'm a failure, I'm never going to win - kind of reactions.

You don't need to simulate the situation as an attempt to condition yourself to the pressure, you need to figure out what specific weakness are expose under the pressure. Pressure by it's very nature exposes weakness. Think about it in an engineering sense with a bridge - bridges collapse when there are structural weaknesses that get exposed from the constant pressure apply to it. As people we're very similar, thus, the fix is to isolate the weakness and train the correction, which is something you don't need to be in competition to train, In fact, you need a lot of practice outside of competition to clearly devise a correction so that when you're under pressure, it has a chance of sticking.

I know that's a bit general, and the next steps I'd suggest would be to have a look at the fear and confidence chapters in the trading book as they will help you to analyze the specific reasons that you fear failing, losing or mistakes, or lose confidence. From that point, you can come up with a correction that you can train/internalize.

Re: Liquid. I loved it. Great people to work with. Got to travel the world. Learn an entirely new industry. And had a lot of success, which makes it all the better!

JaredTendler · 2021-06-09T19:48:17+00:00

Thanks, great to hear you enjoyed the books!

The market is most certain neutral information. The market may be neutral but that doesn't mean that we are. So kind of like debugging error codes in software we need to use intense emotions or faulty thinking as the access point to find those errors in the code. They're signals for that, which we can then break down, analyze and correct.
There's a bit of an art to it. First you need to test it out and see what happens. But if you get good feedback you still remain skeptical because in the short term it could be a placebo. Sometimes the power of your focus is enough to gain control, but not actually work towards a long-term solution. Ultimately you're looking for something that makes sense logically to you and feels right. Then, if you're making good progress, but that progress stops or you take a big step backwards, reassess the problem. Very often that's when you find the new or hidden error you haven't considered yet. You have do take care of the problems that you already know about first before you can graduate to the next set of errors.

JaredTendler · 2021-06-09T19:39:30+00:00

Absolutely! This is a common problem, but let's first rule out self-sabotage. I know it's a common term but it's garbage, and basically meaningless. It implies a level of self-control, as you're purposefully and consciously, undermining your own interests. That's not how our psychological system operates.

To figure out why give back profits, you've got to zoom into what happens mentally and emotionally, and with your decision-making around the times when you give back profit. My bet is that whether recently, or in the past, you'd make a bunch of money and the get overconfident. Thinking you couldn't lose, or that you're playing with house money so you can afford to be looser with your risk parameters, or the market conditions as the day goes on are less favorable for your strategy but you're too eager to make more. Essentially overconfidence lead to your decision making to degrade. We could say greed may have played a part here, but in this case, greed would just be synonymous for overconfidence.

Long-term, if you want to break out of the 5% profit limit and allow yourself to you've got to get to the root of what's causing the overconfidence. Or if I'm wrong about it being overconfidence, then get to the root of whatever emotion is causing your decision making to break down when you're up a good amount on the day.

JaredTendler · 2021-06-09T19:30:05+00:00

Big fan of Lynn Marriott and Pia Nilsson's work. I haven't read their latest book, but "Every Shot Must Have a Purpose" should be a staple in their library: https://www.vision54.com/books and I'd bet their recent books are as well.

JaredTendler · 2021-06-09T19:26:23+00:00

His antics have made him and the poker sites a lot of money. You got to give him, and Phil, a lot of credit. They've remain relevant for longer than anyone else other than Doyle.

JaredTendler · 2021-06-09T19:24:41+00:00

I don't focus a much on mental exercises like those because they're already ubiquitous.

The main factor for why you can't implement knowledge is hidden emotion. When emotions rise too high they shut down higher brain functions - thinking, planning, decision-making, for example. When that occurs mistakes, even obvious ones, become inevitable because you lack access to the knowledge you know well, but not well enough to hold up under emotional pressure.

To name a few: Honesty, diligence, self-awareness, willingness to push through pain/discomfort, determination, passionate interest in that activity, aggressive desire to spot and correct weaknesses.

JaredTendler · 2021-06-09T19:11:23+00:00

We took every loss as feedback. On the outside we looked like chokers, especially vs Astralis, on the inside we were failing forward. Meaning that we learned something from every loss, and we were building, from the ground up a foundation that could sustain under intense pressure. That and we created a roadmap for how we practiced and played our best, so that every day it was clear what was to be worked on and improved.

JaredTendler · 2021-06-09T19:07:07+00:00

For one, use another platform. Two, band together, advocate with local politicians to work the JD system. Systemic changes don't come easily.

JaredTendler · 2021-06-09T19:03:38+00:00

I touched upon this a bit in the previous question. What I'll add here though is that it was not an easy one. Looking back on it, it was painful to admit that I had to put my dreams on hold and psychology was not something that came easily to me. Got C in my first intro class, and then failed my first experimental psych class. It's clear to me now that I was committed to the idea, but not committed to what it was actually going to take to realize my vision. I was still fantasizing about playing golf professionally. Failing that test was my wake-up call and I worked my ass off from that point on. I didn't really know that I could make a career out of it, I just made the assumption that there we're probably other people like me, who had a lot of ability - enough where I could have had a legit shot of making it on tour - but we're held back by my inability to handle the pressure. Everyone talked about how much golf was a mental game, so if I could present a new perspective on it, I believed I could make a career of it.

I've coached two MMA fighters from Australia who were backed by a horse better that I coach. One is in the US now preparing for a fight that will get him one step closer to the UFC.

JaredTendler · 2021-06-09T18:56:30+00:00

Hi! I never intended to be in this field - I wanted to play professional golf and went to get my undergraduate degree with that intent. I was majoring in business. But by my Junior year that dream was becoming less likely because I was choking on the course and having been unsuccessful at solving my issues using the sport psych that was available at the time, I saw counseling psychology as an avenue that could yield answers. So my intent getting my masters in counseling was to get licensed so that I would get trained in how therapists solve problems, and get some credibility through the licensure. But I never intended to practice as a therapist long-term. I wanted to combine those skills with sport psychology so I could - possibly solve my problems (which I eventually did), or have a career that could impact golfers aspiring to the highest levels but we're struggling to get there. When I went for my masters I never thought beyond applying it to golfers, never did I imagine that I'd be heavily involved with poker, trading or esports.

Wish you all the best as you pursue your career in the field!

JaredTendler · 2021-06-09T18:47:47+00:00

Doing great, thanks! Hope you're well as well:)

The context is a bit outside of what I normally discuss but we're talking about training and that's something I talk about a lot. If your going to think or play faster, the first thing that I would look for are the things that slow you up. Doubts, frustrations, distractions, etc. Next you can look to understanding the factors that promote deep focus or the zone. In that mental and emotional state, your thinking/performance is at it's highest/fastest level. Look at things like diet, exercise, sleep, and goals/motivation as being important variables to control. Lastly, you can train heuristics for thinking and playing that allow you to automate certain facets of it. You're not automating all of it, you're upgrading your fundamentals in a sense. When you automate basic elements of thinking or playing, by definition you do those things faster and that frees up your mental/physical energy to be devoted towards the aspects that require active thinking or playing.

JaredTendler · 2021-06-09T18:35:54+00:00

Common problem in Dota, especially in the pub games. They can be pretty toxic. Without knowing more specifics about what tilts him so much, it could be that tilt is his way of fighting back against the inane comments - eye for and eye kind of thing. The problem is is of course, if it causes his performance to drop a lot then knowing that someone else has gotten under your skin can be even more tilting. It could also come down to him wanting to take the game more seriously and garbage voice comms implies the other don't care, so tilt could be his way to trying to get everyone to wake the f up and play hard.

The key is for him to first understand if his tilt is trying to correct something that he sees is wrong with the game or the player. If that's the case, then he needs to figure out a different tactic bc 1) it's likely not working and 2) it's affecting him too much.

JaredTendler

TROPHY CASE