You are standing in the airport terminal of Your Life, and the jet plane departing for the 21st century is about to take off. You must make a choice: Do you remain in the terminal, eating the stale vending-machine food of outmoded thinking? Or do you get on the plane and soar into the stratosphere of trading computerization, swept along by the jet stream of evolving technology? Do you enjoy the in-flight snack of virtually unlimited information access, secure in the knowledge that when you encounter the inevitable turbulence of rapid market fluctuations, you are holding, in this book, the "automatic pilot" of expert advice and guidance? That is the vision of tomorrow that I am offering you. Let's explore together this amazing new cyberworld of science and trading. If you don't know about these latest advances in science and trading, have no fear. I'm not going to bombard you with technical gobbledygook.

I'm going to present you with simple, practical, well-organized, easy-to-understand information and guidance. If you are ready to travel to places you have never been before, let's queue up. Our goal in this chapter is to understand how our personal biases determine whether we become consistent winners or chronic losers. If you are a type A++ trader, you may be tempted to go directly to Chapter Three and begin to use our energetic and trading dimensions immediately. Instead, I recommend that you study this material from the beginning. I believe that understanding the underlying structure of trading is imperative if you hope to reach your potential in trading for profits. Let's begin our journey of understanding by looking at one of the most important underlying aspects of all markets—and, actually, of any endeavor we select.

Suppose that you are a space traveler. You have just landed from a faraway planet, and you find yourself in a room where a chess set has been arranged on a table. You want to understand exactly what is going on in this strange Earth. You examine the chess pieces individually and notice that there are several different shapes and sizes. You want to really understand, so you do an "electron analysis" of each individual piece. You know the exact location, size, and makeup of each piece. You thoroughly understand the makeup and the content of the entire set.

But unless and until you understand the process of playing chess, you will never understand the game and its significance will be lost on you. In over four decades of observing traders and trading, I have come to the conclusion that most traders approach the market with the same orientation as our fictitious space traveler. Both are primarily concerned with content as opposed to process. Our space traveler will never understand the game of chess until he observes two people playing and competing against each other. This is not necessarily bad; it just doesn't have a great payoff.

Most guys had this happen in high school. You ask a pretty girl to go to a dance and she accepts. Now you are in trouble! You fear you will make a fool of yourself dancing and not only will she never speak to you again, but she will tell all the other girls in the school that you are a klutz. You practice with your little sister and your cousin before the date. When you get to the dance, you are determined to make the dancing work. You try hard to be a better dancer than you really are (you are content-oriented). But because you try so hard, you end up stepping all over your partner's feet. Your life is ruined; you were never meant to be anything but an other-handed klutz. If you could have only relaxed and become a bit more process-oriented, you could have pulled your partner close to you, she could have felt your movements, and you both would have appeared to be dancing with some skill. The key to dancing well—and profiting in the market—is an ability to relax and simply go with the flow.

That is what this book is about—getting with the process; letting go and going with the flow. This material will defuse much of the miseducation of modern technical analysis and demonstrate the way the market really works and how to profit from that knowledge. When Trading Chaos was written several years ago, our goal was to take 80 percent out of a trend move. We wanted to get in on the bottom 10 percent and get out on the top 10 percent of the price movement. In the intervening years, we have sharpened both our research and our strategy. Today, our goal is not to take 80 percent from a trend move but to take 300-500 percent of the trend move. Previously, if there was a 200-point move in a commodity or stock, we were well satisfied with 160 points in our pocket. Now our achievable goal is to bank 600 to 1,000 points on that same move. Unbelievable? Not after you have read this book and seen the results in your own trading.

Even when we are winning, there is an undercurrent of fear that the next trade will probably be a loser. We exhaust ourselves as we try to control the present and the future while our minds futilely search for ways to recreate the past. We yearn to trade while being more relaxed, calmer, more in control, and excited about trading. To most traders, the possibility of that kind of life seems like a long-lost dream. The joy of trading is gone, and our life is filled with stress. We have tried all the hotlines, newsletters, psychobabble, books, and private sessions. Our love of the market is wearing thin. Something is very wrong. But what is it? We often blame government action, bad information, surprising crop and corporate reports, and other vagaries of the market. But these are not the real causes of our distress and our constant struggle with the market. The answer lies at a deeper level. After much research and personal experience, I have come to the conclusion that those who approach trading with serenity rather than struggle—those who have looked beyond the confusion and mastered the art of "dancing with the market"—are consistent winners.