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Welcome! I am Dr. Van K. Tharp. I am the founder and president of the Van Tharp Institute and am regarded as an international leader among professional trading coaches and consultants.


I have been helping others become the best trader or investor that they can be since 1982. I offer unique learning strategies, and my techniques for producing great traders are some of the most effective in the field. Over the years I have helped traders overcome problems in areas of system development and trading psychology, and success-related issues such as self-sabotage.


To learn more about me, my personal newsletters and my trading game – please visit me at the Van Tharp Institute at www.iitm.com.

I am also a regular contributor on the Trading Education website. For more of my insights, you can sign up for their free weekly trading newsletter at www.TradingEducation.com.

 

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Conspiracy Theory?

Someone posted the following comment on my last post

The same people who complain about the rothchields and the fed are the people who think bush created 911 so he could go to kill people. its all consipiracy theories. yeah bankers lobbied to get the fed created, whats the news here?history of governments are filled lobby and deals with money underneath the table. that doesnt mean that fed is trying to destroy the economy or that 'big corporations' wants to create a new holocaust with euthanasia facilities

I really grateful for that comment because it allowed me to realize that I do have a lot of conspiracy ideas in me but I also realized that my source was quite different from the source most people have. It comes from my modelling work.

And by the way, I agree with the person making the comment. Trillion dollar industries are interested in 1) preserving the status quo and 2) gaining power and money. What they do is not necessarily a deliberate intent to destroy anything. But if making things better meant getting rid of that industry, they are also not likely to do it. Futhermore, they are not likely to stop looking for ways to get more power and money at the expense of whatever, because they believe that power and money are important. However, the solution to a better world has nothing to do with fighting these large power and money sources.

I've been modeling trading success for some time. I first modeled the trading process and my peak performance course came out of that. My overall conclusion from that work was that MOST PEOPLE DO THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF WHAT IS REQUIRED FOR SUCCESS. That was the first ahah.

Next I looked at position sizing as an ongoing modeling project. That's culminated in the Definitive Guide to Position Sizing which will be published by this summer. My overall conclusion from that work was that most people have never heard of position sizing, including most professional traders. So here is this key variable that accounts for about 90% of performance variability and most people haven't heard about it, including most professionals. Portfolio managers cannot practice it because they have to be 90% invested at all times and bank traders can't practice it because they don't even know how much money they are trading. I also concluded that professionals are successful because they make their own rules for how the game is played and won. And when they get others to follow those rules, they win no matter what happens.

Some time during this process I also worked with about a have dozen or so very successful brokers who wanted to improve their trading. During the process of consulting with them I modeled what they were doing to produce success. And my conclusion was that it was the exact opposite of what brokerage companies spend a fortunate to train their brokers to do. I first thought I had a great business opportunity to train brokerage companies in what it took to be really successful and then I discovered that they were not interested. They had designed the rules so that they won... they got paid out of commissions and they even had rules adopted saying that it was a conflict of interest for them to be paid out of their clients profits. Hmm...so instead they win no matter what you do...even if you blow up. I also remembered that when I'd first lost $20,000 in the markets in about six months in 1974. At the end of that period, I took at look at what I'd spent in commissions and it was about $25,000. Hmm.

Dr. Scott Brown and I have recently looked at academic models of finance versus what is important for success. And we've both concluded that the Academic models are almost the antithesis of what it takes for success. We sort of concluded that perhaps Nobel prizes were given out for what might support the rules that Wall Street wants you to think is important for success. Hmm.

I've also modeled the process of developing a trading system that fits you. This is covered in our System Development Course and in Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom. My overall conclusion is that what is necessary for success is the exact opposite of what most people are taught or believe. Does this begin to sound like a common theme?

My next step was to take a look at wealth. What's important for success at wealth? Well, my conclusion from this was to decide that people had made up the idea that to win the wealth game you had to have all the money in the world. Being a millionaire didn't cut it any more and that's the top 1% of all Americans. Perhaps you had to be a billionaire to win.

And since some people can never win, a new rule was made up to give them hope. He or she who has the most toys wins or at least becomes happy (for a few minutes). And you can get the latest toy if the down payment is low enough and the monthly payments are low enough. Now this rule actually creates financial slavery in its worst form. I went to the Bahamas and started to teach school teachers these principles. What I discovered was that about 10 years earlier, credit cards had been introduced into the Bahamas. People went from being fine to suddenly having massive debt in a very short period of time. Doesn't this sound like a common theme? Most people do the exact opposite of what it takes for success. Only by now it’s pretty clear that it is because they are playing a game and someone else is making up all the rules. Hmm. And quite often there is a trillion dollar industry behind those rules. And they are quite likely to resist any change to those rules because it might affect their trillion dollar industry.

And of course, there is a different way of doing things, a different way of playing the money game. I've taught this as an infinite wealth course. But, of course, most people do he exact opposite of this and play a losing game.
When you model something you need to find the tasks that successful people have in common and the ingredients for each task. One of those ingredients is the beliefs involved. At the start of my modeling career I learned that beliefs are just are filters to reality. They have nothing to do with reality.

As a result, I've often said the following:

1) You cannot trade the markets. You can only trade your beliefs about the markets.

2) All beliefs are fiction, so just take a look at how useful your beliefs are.

And all of these statements were quite controversial when I first introduced them into this blog. However, by looking at my beliefs over the years and noticing what was useful and what wasn't, I've generally found that the more people accept a belief as being really true, the least useful it was. Hmm.

Now let's look at one more step...looking at what others have done with modeling. I became good friends with a man in Ireland who had developed an alternative health clinic. People who had been rejected by the system came to him as a last resort. And by rejected, I mean people came to him who were told 1) there is no cure or 2) you are going to die. My friend had achieved 90% success rates (assuming that people followed his program) with these failure cases. And if I could summarize this philosophy it was 1) that the body could heal itself if you just return the body to normal; 2) that his key job was to return the body to its normal state rather than treat symptoms; and 3) that most of our health problems was simply due to the food we eat.

Incidentally, my friend has pointed out that a Nobel Prize was awarded when it was shown that cancer cells occur when they cannot use oxygen any more and they start fermenting sugar instead. And another Nobel Prize was award by showing that this process can be reversed by giving the cells oxygen again. However, it's not labeled as the cause and cure for cancer. Instead we are spending billions on finding drugs to cure cancer.

I went on his program for over 9 months and discover that I had tremendous addictions to foods that were not good for me and that those addictions were as strong as the worst addictions you can imagine -- like to heroin. But in this case the addictions were to refined carbohydrates and to sugar. Hmm. By the way, watch the movie SUPER SIZE ME and you'll understand this process much better.

I also went to a health clinic in Switzerland and found that what they did produced immediate, tremendous health benefits. And I thought to myself, what if I could just get this sort of treatment once each year. I then learned of a doctor who was giving those treatments to patients in Maryland. He patients loved him but the medical profession didn't and it took away his license. Hmm

So here was another example from another field. Most people the exact opposite of what is require for success. Only in this example it became clear to me that in order to correct things you had to fight two different trillion dollar industries in the US. The first trillion dollar industry was the medical professional who believes that you must treat symptoms with very expensive drugs .. many of which are dangerous. And those who adopt other treatment methods tend to lose their license to practice medicine.

And the other trillion dollar industry was the processed food industry. What are the chances of getting them to produce healthier foods? I think the question is answered when you begin to learn that the industry that has best managed legal addictions, the tobacco industry, is now moving heavily into the processed food industry and buying out many of the largest companies.

So what's going on? Well, in every area in which I'm familiar, people do the exact opposite of what is required for success. And what seems to be behind that, in almost every instance, is a trillion dollar industry of some sort. And if people started doing what was necessary for success, the trillion dollar industry would suffer. And will they just say, "Okay, what we're doing isn't in the best interests of most people, so we'll stop." No, instead, they will do everything in their power, including spending lots of money and lobbying to Congress, to make sure that the system is not disrupted in any way.

So am I a conspiracy theorist? Probably I am for the reasons just outlined. But my solution is NOT to fight the trillion dollar industries. The solution is much different from that and it's much easier. But that's another story... and perhaps the topic for a book one day. However, I'll give you a brief insight into the solution in the next post.

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Comments

"Incidentally, my friend has pointed out that a Nobel Prize was awarded when it was shown that cancer cells occur when they cannot use oxygen any more and they start fermenting sugar instead. And another Nobel Prize was award by showing that this process can be reversed by giving the cells oxygen again. However, it's not labeled as the cause and cure for cancer. Instead we are spending billions on finding drugs to cure cancer."

Your friend is mistaken, probably deceived by one of the many altie sites on the net which are passing off this lie.

They are thinking of Otto Warburg who was was trying to cure cancer by identifying biochemical differences between normal cells and cancerous ones. As a result of his research, he discovered oxygen-transferring enzymes in cellular respiration which won him the Nobel Prize in 1931. He later won a second Nobel in 1944 for identifying the enzymes that transfer hydrogen in metabolism.

"What he did find was that cancer cells produced lactate from glucose in the presence of oxygen whereas normal cells only produced lactate from glucose in the absence of oxygen. This observation led him to conclude that energy metabolism in cancer cells was defective [9].

By 1960, research had identified nearly all energy-producing metabolic pathways in both normal and cancer cells and showed that energy-producing systems in normal cells were the same as those found in cancer cells [10]. Despite this, Warburg insisted until his death in 1970 that the cause of cancer was "inferior" energy of anaerobic metabolism [9]." (Source: http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Cancer/oxygen.html)

He was a brilliant man that made a mistake. Sixty years of later research confirmed this mistake, but instead of adapting, these alties will stick to their old beliefs.


As for your friend and his miraculous claims, I simply don't believe it. If he has a case, James Randi will give your friend a million dollars but I'm sure he'll find some reason to avoid any expert scrutiny.


You talk only about establishing belief, yet never discuss evaluating the validity of that belief. Let me ask you straight out: should you beliefs be tested to ensure that they mesh with reality, or are all beliefs equal, regardless of their validity?

I hope you'll apply your keen mind which has allowed you to look critically at the claims of financial institutions at the claims you and your friend make. I hope that you'll look for evidence to back up these claims instead of hinting at grand conspiracies. There are things to make a man go "Hmm", but it isn't where you think.

Who is this secret doctor and how do I get my body back into a "normal" state?

Best,

LB

Hi Van,
great post. And if the education standards keep declining people's questioning and problem solving skills will be nonexistent. They will just continue to accept "the way it is."

Fortunately we have great teachers (like yourself) to remind us to be at cause for everything that happens in our lives. Confronting, non-compromising but true. And when we realise that...we can start to make our own rules. And that is a conspiracy theory we all should conspire to..

Warmest regards,
Robert

Some great insights, Dr. Tharp. As to the example of the alternative health treatments, probably more scientific evidences will be needed to validate them. Has your friend ever tried to write a formal medical paper about his research and publish it on those academic journals?

Your beliefs that people do the opposite to suceed is biasing your analisys. Take poker for example, you assume people who play many tables are crazy and cant possible make money its INDEED the opposite. I played 8-9 tables of sit and go tournaments all last year. I made more than what the average american does just as a hobby. The really good players play a lot of tables. In fact if I see somebody playing tons of tables I know he is a shark and I need a pretty good hand to play an all-in pot with him.

Dear Van,
a great post.
I think that if people live naturally as they are meant to live they live long and healthy lives and die like "dozing off" without cancer or whatsoever. Therefore, I am most interested in comments concerning that healthy lifestyle.
Very interesting comment you published here
Sincerely yours
Gabriele

"Dr. Scott Brown and I have recently looked at academic models of finance versus what is important for success. And we've both concluded that the Academic models are almost the antithesis of what it takes for success. We sort of concluded that perhaps Nobel prizes were given out for what might support the rules that Wall Street wants you to think is important for success. Hmm."

I love this comment. I have, for quite a while, firmly believed in this except I did not have anything to back me up except via my own logical reasonings and experiences.

I tend to keep such "belief" to myself because whenever I went into a discussion with my friends who are academically educated in finance, we get into an argument on what we do is the best. They would think what I am doing is inherently risky and I am destined to lose everything because the market is random, trading is an impossible task, blah blah blah.

Whenever I explained what I do, they dismiss all the facts and instead, back up their arguments by their "academic" studies and research done by so called, "professors".

Being an contrarian can be loney at times, but if it is the only way to success, then I would not hestiate to held my beliefs and just keep it to myself.

Thanks for the great insights, Dr. Tharp.


OH, who is this doctor that you mentioned? I'm interested too. :) Need to become more concerned with my personal health. hah

> The solution is much different from that and it's much easier.

Indeed, but people are not ready to accept it.

The Brits had this saying: "If you can't beat them, join them!"

Which can be rephrased as: since YOU cannot change THEM, then you have to change YOURSELF.

A much harder proposition for most to cope with ...

Keep up your great work Van! Enjoy your blog very much. That's why it's called a 'blog' - sharing your thoughts. And thoughts only. I guess otherwise you would have posted to IITM. Great post!

I replied previously, but it not get posted. The person that Van refers to is Bruce DuVe, and has presented at Peak Performance 101 couses in the past. You can also get some of his material in old copies of Market Mastery.

Regards...Kevin

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