Feature Article

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1. My ongoing work with modeling trading/investing success. As you know, we have a Super Trader program to teach and install these models. It’s limited to 75 people at a time in the program and we’re currently at 65. Since I don’t train people in NLP, most NLP gurus aren’t familiar with our work here at The Van Tharp Institute.
2. Robert Dilts’ work with Leadership. His book on Modeling talks about this work at length. Robert has done extensive modeling of strong leadership qualities but he doesn’t have a program in place specifically to develop strong leaders. He does host a mastermind program that’s limited to about 25 people. I understand they may meet monthly by phone. Estimated annual tuition: $25,000.
3. Dr. L. Michael Hall’s work on Metacoaching. Dr. Hall is a prolific writer - he’s written 12 books on coaching and also has a metacoaching program that is structured in modules that can be completed over several years’ time. I worked with one of his metacoaches for about six months, and wondered how many people progressed through the complete series and ultimately cultivate successful coaching practices. It’s apparent from my conversation with the metacoach I was working with, the rate is low.

• What happens when someone chooses not to engage, and do the work? I can’t force a student to take action, even if they have committed to the program. What could we do to help them do the work?
• What happens when a student tries to do the bare minimum requirements to get by?
• What happens when a psychological issue emerges, but the student projects it onto others (including me!) rather than work on the issue, and they decide there is something wrong with me or with the program? How can we help them see what’s going on?
• What happens when students view their psychological issues as deep hidden secrets, that they could not possibly trust with any other person? (This is actually quite common, but when such issues are cleared, they no longer feel like “secrets.”) How can we help people when lack of trust and a feeling of needing to protect these long-held issues inhibits their dealing with them?
• What happens when someone joins because they are unhappy in their profession and they decide they’d rather be a happy trader instead? Then, as their psychological issues get cleared, they become happy for no reason and decide to continue in their current profession?

• Even before a candidate is approved to enter the program, I ask, “What screening criteria can I implement to make sure that we accept people into the program that are passionate about their own transformation? Who is ready to put in the effort toward graduating?”
• Whenever I have someone who appears to be struggling or is resistant about a change in the tasks at hand, I ask, “Is there some way I can improve the program to help this person and others who come in with a similar issue?”
• Then in Super Trader I, I ask, “How can I help more people to raise their consciousness high enough to complete the entire first phase, with ease?”
• After students complete Super Trader I, “How can I help each person in Super Trader II apply everything they’ve learned, so by the time they complete this phase they can become graduates?”

1. The original Super Trader program was only loosely structured. It became clear to me that I wanted to help people improve their lives, and as a result their personal success. So, the first major change came into the program when we devoted the first part of the program to helping them achieve a massive increase in consciousness. Later, we would devote the second part of the program to helping them meet acceptable criteria for graduation (shown in the TOTE model).
2. We developed the Super Trader lessons to help students achieve the aforementioned increase in consciousness, and we continually improve and restructure the lessons. For example, one of the lessons requires students to come up with and evaluate about 400 identity level beliefs. I recently moved that lesson from very early in the program to a bit later so that Super Traders all have some baseline concepts in place and have experienced progress before they get to this challenging milestone.
3. I noticed that some people in Super Trader II continued to struggle with psychological issues. So, we developed a summary of the psychological issues that traders might experience in Super Trader II, and then ask them to plan how they will deal with each if they came up. This has become part of everyone’s psychological completion in Super Trader I.
4. Initially, I provided a financial incentive for students to work diligently through Super Trader I in order to receive tuition discounts upon entering Super Trader II. While this was quite beneficial to offer motivation throughout the first part of the program, I also noticed that a few highly motivated people seemed to lose some steam when they entered the second phase. This structure had also drawn a hard line between the psychological work and the technical side of trading. Super Trader II essentially signaled a close to the high-intensity inner work that Super Trader I had provided — and in Super Trader II, students were essentially expected to complete their business plans, develop their systems, receive my approval for these systems, and finally demonstrate the ability to trade at 95% efficiency or better. As a result, some people would apply themselves to the fullest in Super Trader I, get to Super Trader II and slow or stop doing their work, and even a few would struggle with some psychological issue and try to “fix it” with more technical knowledge. So, we enhanced the program to bridge the transition between the intensely personal internal work in the first part of the program, to include more psychological lessons in Super Trader II, a different financial incentive structure to inspire students to continue to work diligently (and help them finish quickly), and we also added a third phase to the program — Super Trader III.

Some points to realize about the most recent improvements to the program:

• Smoother transitions from Super Trader I to Super Trader II.
• It is possible for highly motivated students to complete the entire program in 3 years, whereas in the past the minimum time it would take was 4 years. Students that take advantage of this accelerated schedule would not owe additional tuition after their initial payments have been satisfied.
• Super Trader II now includes development of students’ business handbooks right up to the point of developing their systems and proving their trading efficiency.
• Super Trader III has minimal requirements, so once I approve students’ systems and they actually begin trading, they have virtually unlimited time to complete the trading efficiency requirement. This means that everyone who completes all program tasks to this point could (and should) graduate.

• Robert Dilts master mind program costs as much as our initial program costs were previously, except students end up with much less contact time. I think this program only involves monthly calls.
• Tony Robbins has created a coaching empire, with the most elite “captains of industry” groups paying $1,000,000 per year. Tony also has a platinum group who pay $75,000 per year for the privilege of attending special events that Tony hosts – but that fee doesn’t cover the cost of the events themselves.
• L Michael Hall’s Metacoaching program takes a number of years to complete, with the ultimate goal is the set-up of a successful coaching practice. This program requires attendance at a number of workshops that costs thousands per year in fees and travel — with most workshops being held outside the US.

Trading Tip

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• A new indicator
• A new system
• A new hot stock tip
• A new… (you fill in the blank for your version of a squirrel!)