#853 August 30, 2017
  • Feature: Paradigm Shifts, Part I — Infinite Wealth, by Van K. Tharp Ph.D.
  • Workshops: $700 Early Enrollment Discounts for September Workshops End TODAY!
  • Tips: Waiting for the Great Unwind, by D.R. Barton, Jr.
  • FREE BOOK!: Trading Beyond the Matrix
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September and October Workshops
Don't miss out on an excellent deal by saving $700 each on our September workshops. Peak Performance 101 is Van's most transformative workshop and has benefited traders worldwide for more than 25 years!

Systems Thinking is Van's newest workshop, and in Van's own words:

You will learn how to see from multiple perspectives, why you should think in terms of probabilities all the time, and how to reach higher levels of consciousness. Using the Matrix Thinking frame will help you achieve an improved perspective of “you” and your world which will generate genuine new edges in your trading — and in every area of your life. —Van K. Tharp

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Feature Article

Paradigm Shifts, Part I — Infinite Wealth
by Van K. Tharp, Ph.D.
In this three part series, I will explore the idea of making major shifts in your thinking and your mental maps. Paradigm shifts — or shifts in your lateral thinking — mean you get out of the box you are in (your perceptual limitations from your current perspectives) and determine what is possible from other perspectives. If you understand the power of paradigm shifts, you can begin to understand what it is to be a genius. You can accomplish what seems like miracles.
Most people’s mental maps and paradigms about money tell them things like —
  • My net worth is the basis of my wealth.
  • Becoming wealthy requires years of hard work and saving.
  • The best things in life are expensive.
  • Money is real.

To the extent you are attached to these beliefs about money, you are trapped in your current situation. These beliefs, however, are just mental maps or paradigms — paradigms which you can change. For example, you can create money out of nothing. How? There are many ways actually and they are just a small part of what I teach at my Infinite Wealth Workshop. With that course coming up in London in October, now is a good time to explore wealth paradigms in particular but also paradigm shifts in general.

This article is the first in a three part series. Today, we will explore six major paradigm shifts that most people must make to gain real wealth. In the next article, we'll explore five paradigm shifts related to trading success. In the third article, we'll explore techniques that you can use to make your own paradigm shifts — in any area of your life.

Shifting Your Paradigms

There are three phases to paradigm shifts. The first phase is an awareness that the new paradigm is possible and that it might be more useful than the old one. Don't take this step lightly because awareness alone is a major shift. The second phase comes with your understanding of the new paradigm and how it works. The third phase is a total knowingness of the new paradigm. In this final phase, the new paradigm works for you and is totally natural because it is part of you. You have internalized it fully.

I don't claim to be in the third stage on any of the paradigms I have written about. Mostly, I speak from understanding and a sense of beginning to know. Read the following paradigms and determine where you are with respect to each. Perhaps you are further along the shift than I am or perhaps by reading this article, you are just becoming aware of some them. Just notice where you are and where you would like to be.

One other point — if I use the term paradigm shift in the context of focusing on a new paradigm, most people can accept the new paradigm as possibly true. Even when people accept a new paradigm, however, the shift indicates that the old paradigm is false. This is when many people start to argue — which indicates that they have really not made the new paradigm theirs, that they have not made the shift. As a result, I will phrase the language about shifting paradigms both in terms of accepting a new one and negating an old one.

Wealth Related Paradigm Shifts

In my opinion, there are six paradigm shifts that most people need to make before they can really achieve wealth. Talking about a new paradigm, however, means nothing. You have to understand it and know the material before it will have much effect on how you live your life. (I still teach workshops because a classroom environment for group, partner, and individual exercises creates the most effective way to help people thoroughly experience and integrate paradigm shifts.)

The first new paradigm is a combination of two meditations from the 40 day program in The Abundance Book by John Randolph Price.
1) Neither my job, nor my business, nor my bank account are my supply. Instead, God is lavish, unfailing abundance, the rich omnipresent substance of the Universe. This all-providing source of infinite prosperity is individualized as me — the reality of me.
For many of you, this statement may involve two paradigm shifts. The first one is that the external things that we rely upon are just illusions. They have nothing to do with our prosperity or our well-being. Instead, they are illusions that lock us into the box we are living in today. Think about the implications of not worrying about your job or your business or your bank account — could you do it? Probably not! Yet, if you cannot do it, then you do not really accept the first major shift that God is the source of your unlimited abundance. You might accept this a little but most people certainly cannot accept the second paradigm shift: This unlimited source is individualized as you. That it is your reality! But think through the implications that would happen if the statement were true. In addition, think of the implications of the first statement being false. Or perhaps, it is just more useful to believe the second statement.

Step back my friends, there is so much more. The next paradigm shift is something I have been talking about throughout my career. One of the major purposes of my life is to teach this key paradigm shift to people.
2) Nothing happens to me. Instead, I am responsible for everything that occurs because I am in control of my life. I am in control of my beliefs, my thoughts and my emotions and that's what creates my experience. In fact, my major purpose in life is to decide, "Who I am," and create my experience based upon that decision.
I've been teaching the idea of personal respond-ability since I first became a coach for traders. There are two versions of respond-ability. The easiest version for most people to understand is that you are responsible at the very least for your reactions to what happens. Most people can accept that, however, I'd like for you to consider the implications to your life of the paradigm shift that you actually create your life through your beliefs, thoughts, and emotions. It's pretty dramatic.

If you believe this one, then you'll find lots of evidence that it is true. If you don't believe this one, you'll probably find plenty of evidence that makes it not true. Either way, you are illustrating the principle. Ponder on that one. And if that interests you, then I'd suggest reading the book from Neale Donald Walsh, Friendship with God. You might be really amazed.
3) If you are afraid to give, that's what you'll get back — fear. Instead, if you want enrichment and abundance, figure out how to enrich others.
The basis of making this shift stems from paradigm shifts one and two. If you acknowledge, understand and finally reach a point of knowing that God is unlimited abundance and is individualized as you, then you should have no fear of giving and giving and giving. If you understand that you create your life, you understand how giving is creating. And it comes back many times over — not because you are giving — but because you have such faith in your unlimited source that it matters not what you give. You just give because you love to give.

This shift is just part of the Golden Rule that is common to almost any form of religion or spirituality. It works with material things and it is very obvious with elements like thoughts and emotions. What you give is what you get back.

The next shift is usually a major one for most people.
4) Money is not real. It is created by us and the creation originates from thought, not hard work. In fact, the more you tend to believe that money is real, the more you will tend to believe that you have to work hard for it.
First, it should be very clear to most people that governments invent money. They used to back this invented money with a rare metal like gold — but only the ideas of man gave gold any value. Later, we allowed our governments to get off the gold standard and back money with our debt — really, our debt! We tend to think of money as being real because there are grave penalties if anyone but the government prints it.

There are many ways to make your own money (legally) out of thin air. And if you don't understand how it's done (or even believe that it can be done), then you need to learn how in our Infinite Wealth Workshop. Let me give you one example. Let's say you know how to grow money at 40% per year through your trading. Raise some money from a group of investors, trade it, take a 30% fee out of the returns, and basically, you've manufactured money from nowhere. Notice your reactions to this kind of idea.

The fifth shift is one that I'm as close to the "knowing" level as any of these shifts. It will change your beliefs about money if you reach a point of understanding it even slightly.
5) You do not determine wealth by how much you have. In fact, “having” has nothing to do with wealth. Instead, wealth is how long you can exist at your current standard of living without working or doing anything. If you can last forever — that is if your passive income is greater than your expenses — then you are infinitely wealthy.
Once you are infinitely wealthy, you are free of any financial or time chains and you can increase your standard of living just by continuing to practice the principles that brought you there. This is the wealth principle that applies to the made up substance called money (see principle 4 above).

There is an even more important shift than those:
6) Value is not created by scarcity. Instead, the most valuable "aspects" of life are all free.
What now appears most valuable to me are love, the ability to give (which I really always had), air, water, exercise, the ability to help and make a difference for many people, my creativity, my feelings, my health, and my spiritual relationship. Those are all free. Incidentally, a few years back when I was first really exploring these ideas, it was an immense breakthrough for me to write about these things for you. That breakthrough, of course, is just another testimony to shift number three — I'm not afraid to give this material to you. By sharing it, I'm getting back even more.

We will continue this series with parts two and three in upcoming issues.

Workshop Schedule

September 2017
$700 Early Enrollment Discounts End TODAY!
Over the past 25 years, Van K. Tharp has modeled traders and the trading process, seeking answers to questions like, “Why do some traders make fortunes while others lose their nest egg?”

Van Tharp is a NLP modeler. To “model” effectively, you have to find out what behaviors and habits highly accomplished people have in common. Once you identify the common tasks that produce excellent results, you need to develop the beliefs, mental states and strategies that allow you to perform those tasks.
You do not trade the markets. You can only trade your beliefs about the markets.—Van K. Tharp

The Peak Performance workshop hones in on these common tasks and puts you in the driver's seat to take control of your trading success. During this three-day intensive course, you will come to understand how your mental states and beliefs play such a major role in your trading, and reality, your whole life.

Workshop Objectives:

  • How great traders approach their craft and learn a daily procedure that resembles what they do.
  • How you create your own experience in the market and how you are responsible for the results that you get.
  • Become more aware of some of your own psychological issues that affect your performance as a trader/investor.
  • Learn about expectancy, position sizing strategies and the power of big R-multiples through a simulation game. This game is also designed to help you observe your emotions in a setting in which only a small amount is at stake compared with what you will face in the market.
  • Learn some of the variables that affect your emotions and how you can gain control over them.
  • Learn to overcome self-sabotage through exercises done in the class.
  • Students will get guidance on how to develop an ongoing program to work on themselves using the Super Trader Program as a model.
  • Students will leave with a plan to make the maximum use of the workshop.

Note: This workshop is held in Cary, NC in September and again in October in London, England
Systems thinking should not be considered one simple idea, but rather a combination of numerous subjects. For example, systems thinking is considered:

  • An integrated body of knowledge or discipline—think the Scientific method and Sir Isaac Newton. Here, focus is on the objective, or that which can be observed.
  • An idea involving your mindset, or way of looking beyond the basic trading aspects of tactics. Here, we are starting to look at beliefs.
  • A recurring and iterative process, requiring various inputs. These might include changes in oneself, the markets, your results in comparison to your objectives, and more. The outputs include informed decision making about what systems to use, what position sizing strategies to employ, if and when discretion is utilized, and more.

Advanced systems thinking also involves mental maps, and how they are useful to guide you while in the trading process. Here, the subjective becomes as important as the objective.

However, even this has limits, as most standard systems thinking is mostly linear thinking,

I believe I have found a new, more robust way of thinking about systems…


Register for both September Workshops For An Extra $500 Savings (In addition to the $700 Early Bird Discounts which expire TODAY)! Click for More..
October 2017 LONDON, ENGLAND
Peak Performance 101 is Dr. Tharp's core psychological workshop, and his most transformative course for over 25 years. If you want to know how great traders think, behave and act so you can achieve consistent and profitable results, without stress, then this workshop is for you.
We'll teach you one of the real secrets of success — how to use all the system building blocks to design a trading system in such a way that it fits your personality and style of trading.. In the process of learning how to do this, you'll probably come up with dozens of winning systems that will work because they'll be based on criteria that fit your situation.
In the brief 3 minute video below, Carla tells how Van's Infinite Wealth Workshop affected her personally.
Infinite Wealth
Van shares years of knowledge about wealth concepts, wealth creation modeling, being wealthy inside, and the infinite wealth processes. Attend this workshop and completely reshape your attitudes toward money, work, paychecks, income, wealth, scarcity, and abundance. Your paradigm shifts in just three days will amaze you and release you from your current beliefs about wealth that have been running in your unconscious and holding you back.
November 2017

The Super Trader Summit is in December.

Trading Tip

Waiting for the Great Unwind
by D.R. Barton Jr.
I don’t know when it’s going to happen but I am actually pretty darn happy about what I see on the horizon: unsettling change is coming to the markets.

I’ve been telling you that the Fed is going to start accelerating monetary tightening by unwinding their massive $4.5 trillion balance sheet. They accumulated $3.7 trillion (80%+) of the current amount from just 2008 – 2014. You can use the Fed’s own website tools to review both the asset buildup and the recent climb in the S&P 500 Index on the same chart. Can you see any correlation?
DR Chart 1
What happens once that blue line starts going down? I don’t believe it will bode well for the markets. Right now, however, the markets are not paying much attention to a change in direction in the blue line. Not yet at least.

The Great Unwind

While the Fed has not revealed when they are likely to start the unwinding process, they have told us how they’re likely to do it. They actually don’t plan on selling any assets but rather, they will simply repurchase maturing U.S. Treasury bonds and mortgage backed securities at a slower and slower rate over time. When they decide to pull the trigger, the Fed has said that they’ll reduce their reinvestment in maturing bonds by $6 billion of U.S. Treasuries and $4 billion of mortgage bonds per month. Then every three months after that, the $10 billion per month reduction will increase by another $10 billion per month until they have decreased their reinvesting by $50 billion per month. They have said the $50 billion reduction per month is their cap.

So hat’s the announced plan . . . should they decide to stick with it.

The big game now is figuring when the reductions will start. If the Fed decides to play “hide and seek” with the unwind start date, the market’s narrative could shift away from the Trump growth story over to the story, “When will the Fed Begin the Unwind?”. Once that shift happens, things will change.

First, we’ll start to get volatility — and lots of it. There will be a lot of uncertainty about how big of an effect the monetary tightening will have on the stock market. That uncertainty will be fueled by “surprises” which will cause traders to get pessimistic, then optimistic, and then switch between the two ends of the spectrum over and over again. The markets will no longer move in a grinding one-way bull direction but they will flip to two-way movements — big swings to the upside and to the downside. I believe the new conditions will be a real traders’ market with many profit opportunities — and pitfalls.

But When?

I am targeting the September 20th Fed meeting date as an important one to watch. The Fed governors could decide that they will give more concrete timing on starting their balance sheet unwinding. Don’t expect them to just announce a date though. Instead, they’ll use Fed-speak and say something like, “when the strength of the economy and employment picture allows” as a wishy-washy hint on when “The Great Unwind” will start.

If they do say some things like that in September, the narrative will shift quite a bit more. This is a scenario where good economic news would actually become bearish for the market. A stronger economy will cause the markets to drop in anticipation that the Fed will start “The Great Unwind” sooner rather than later. I’m looking forward to this faster moving market because that will mean bigger and more frequent trading opportunities.

It’s important to note that the grinding bull and the Trump growth story are still in effect — we have not transitioned to “The Great Unwind” narrative yet. Actually, we have a very good chance that the markets will make a blow-off top before the Great Unwind begins in full.

Your thoughts and comments are always welcome — please send them to drbarton “at” vantharp.com

Great Trading,
D. R.
NEW E-learning Course!
Forex Trading Systems: The Busted Breakout System
Click on the image below to watch a brief 1 minute video that hightlights this new course.
Forex
Gabriel developed and refined his Busted Breakout system on the concept of trend-following while he was still enrolled in the Super Trader program.

The system has a high win rate (about 65%) and it takes advantage of a price pattern that happens again and again in the charts — breakout failures. The main advantage of this is that it benefits from running for other peoples’ stops. This is a unique edge of the system making the trade break-even early on. Watching 15-minute charts for 4-6 hours a day and trading only the biggest, most liquid currency pairs, the system finds easily more than 150 trades per year. The pattern works equally well on 5min, 60min and 240min charts so the trade opportunity per year can be much higher depending how you trade. Gabriel is confident that someone with the programming skills could turn the system into a well-performing automated trading system.

The three-day workshop cost is $3,995 but the cost of the home study program is $1,295. As a special introduction price for early responders you can get this new home study for just $995.
Plus, buy the home study now and if you decide to join us at the 3-day Forex Trading workshop in November (or for any Forex workshop in the future), you can deduct $600 off of your course payment for the workshop.
This is win-win for all! If you are among the group of clients who simply cannot come to one of our workshops this home study offers you the benefit of still gaining access to a robust and premium forex trading system. Gabriel has traded it himself in several timeframes for many years now offering a persistent edge in the market.
But, if you have already been considering attending the workshop this is a great way for you to get a full-steam head-start and walk through the workshop door already understanding the system well. You will then have the opportunity to ask Gabriel anything you need. And in addition, learn two new Forex trading systems. The three systems taught in the workshop all offer unique advantages. They complement each other giving you the opportunity to reap various stages in a trend.

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