For me, achieving the zero-state is a necessary precondition for trading at my peak. In other essays I have described it as a place where adjective pairs of mental states cancel each other out, leaving only a moment of pure being.
It is the space between the words that we know, a moment and a place of freedom, where all notes may be struck, the moment precisely before the next action occurs.
For a horn player, it is the moment where he has gathered his breath and is prepared to initiate the note, the pure balance point between inhale and exhale.
For a diver it is the moment of motionless serenity between ascent and descent.
Imagine a Cartesian coordinate semantic grid system with adjective pairs arrayed about the origin, with each word having its precisely paired antonym and where the midpoint of the ray that connects them is bisected at the origin. That spot in the semantic meaning gris is where I seek to trade from in order to have my trading takes its purest expression in both action and no-action.
When I trade from this moment, this place, my results generate neither joy nor sadness, and simply are what they are. This allows me to enter the next trade with no emotional charge.
It is also keenly important to my style of trading where I am looking for the hesitation point in a channel trade or in a breakout, where price remains poised between fear and greed, where bulls and bears are in timeless balance and the next leg of the move will begin just as the last leg ends.
When I am able to stalk the price to that moment of harmony, that zero-state where momentum transitions I am able to refine my entry to very tight level levels and find initial capital preservation stops that are absurdly close, which enable me to minimize open risk and move to “no lose” trade conditions very quickly.
When I know that barring an interruption of connectivity or market discontinuity I will never do worse than break even, this is an immensely freeing psychological state to be in as a professional trader and yet it’s value for me is in the spiritual nourishment and satisfaction I experience having a brush with Truth and Perfection in a small way for a fleeting moment in my life.
In judo we speak of a moment in a throw where you and your partner are equally sure that the other judo player is throwing you with exactly the same force and skill as you are throwing them. In that moment the throws stop, time slows, and you are suspended in a moment of pure being.
What I like about trading is that as I approach the zero state my equity curve smoothes and my trading practice is rewarded