Trading Beyond the Matrix

The Red Pill for Traders and Investors

By: Van Tharp

Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray

Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

How to transform your trading results by transforming yourself 

In the unique arena of professional trading coaches and consultants, Van K. Tharp is an internationally recognized expert at helping others become the best traders they can be. In Trading Beyond the Matrix: The Red Pill for Traders and Investors, Tharp leads listeners to dramatically improve their trading results and financial life by looking within. He takes the listener by the hand through the steps of self-transformation, from incorporating "Tharp Think" - ideas drawn from his modeling work with great traders - making changes in yourself so that you can adopt the beliefs and attitudes necessary to win when you stop making mistakes and avoid methods that don't work. You'll change your level of consciousness so that you can avoiding trading out of fear and greed and move toward higher levels such as acceptance or joy.

• A leading trader offers unique learning strategies for turning yourself into a great trader
• Goes beyond trading systems to help listeners develop more effective trading psychology
• Trains the listener to overcome self-sabotage that obstructs trading success
• Presented through real transformations made by other traders

Advocating an unconventional approach to evaluating trading systems and beliefs, trading expert Van K. Tharp has produced a powerful manual every trader can use to make the best trades and optimize their success.

©2013 Lake Lucerne LP (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Trading and Spiritual growth in one book

I enjoyed the book. This one is more about the mental, emotional and spiritual aspect of becoming a successful trader. It's just what I was looking for. The narrator was perfect as well.

Keep in mind this book is not about technical analysis or trading strategies. There are many books like that on the market already, so this one stands out as unique.

Another book to Forex your mind

This book was read(listen) to after another great trading book. I think this book goes well with helping a person who wants control of their trading & their life as a whole.

Mostly an Informercial and a Waste of Time

There’s a few things you can learn peppered throughout the book. The upper middle chapters of the book contain more frequent useful information, but this is largely an advertisement for the author’s $100,000 courseware.

All of the book’s testimonies can be boiled down to this statement:

Person A was backward, now after taking the course and achieving oneness, Person A makes a million dollars and has head screwed on right.

Don’t waste your time.

Trading?

Has nothing to do with trading but everything to do with spiritual enlightenment and oneness of being. And the narrator is annoying beyond my limits of tolerance. Waste of my time.

Endless testimonials

Stopped listening on chapter 15. Lengthy chapters, mystical twists and endless testimonials of how traders were a failure and became great after taking the author’s course. Trading in the Zone by Mark Douglas does the trick much better and more directly than this one.

Just a marketing ploy

This whole book is just a bunch of interviews of people pumping the “van Tharp institute” and “Tharp Think”. Every chapter is just high level “I learned this from one of Tharps books and it was a game changer”.
Very frustrating to listen to. Almost like if all of the market wizards books were interviews of people you’ve never heard of telling you to read a different book.

Whole book is an advertisement for snake oil

The narrator actually has an attitude, I dunno if Tharp or whoever authorized the book to be narrated requested this but it's really annoying. He talks in a very matter-of-factly sort of way with an attitude of "my way or the highway peasant". 90% of the book is about how bad of a trader you are and will remain without the tharp mindset although you never really get to what the Tharp mindset is, I guess there is some Tharp academy you can join and I'm assuming it's extremely expensive. He sounds more like a snake oil salesmen using "the secret" type methodology. If you really want a good book on trading psychology, Trading in the Zone by Mark Douglas is amazing. Jack D Schwager Market Wizards is another awesome series. Don't waste your time or credit on this one, unfortunately I fell asleep with it on and it played enough i can no longer return the book.

A forced vacation photo viewing at your neighbors

I gave up on this one at chapter 11, The other review that regarded this book as being an infomercial is spot on. This book is about fixing yourself spiritually and if you do God will help you trade. Hard sell for me. Lots of woo, circular logic, bastardized Eastern philosophy, goofy leveling up stuff and some weird purposeful psyche fracturing, That seems to me to be dangerous for anyone that may be on the edge of a stress related incident.
Mostly out of order and peppered with vignettes that make sense to the writer but are lost like puzzle pieces bouncing to the floor in a house full of cats. To summarize the general feel of the book: Do you know how tedious it is when someone tells you about their dreams? But, nothing stops you from telling people about your dreams because you get to relive them when you do. Well these are reportedly reformed trader(s) that are recounting their dreams to you.
Here's the trading advice from the book. Make market mood specific trading systems on what you know, each system must be within a 3 to 1 reward /risk window. Apply your "mood" system to the market mood. Execute trades, If the trade fails, it didn't really because you followed your system, so throw some dirt on it, get up an keep going. If you hit on a win, great, follow your exit plan, rinse and repeat. Don't second guess your plan even though your primal mind will fight you. Let the noise pass. IF you make a plan and change it during the trade, even if you win, its a bad trade because you're reinforcing bad habits and bad thoughts. Basically, design 6 to 8 personal "algorithms", match to the market and click away.

Absolutely pointless!

You'd think a book about trading would give mote insight into the market but it's just a bunch of random philosophy and advertisement for a course. I really gained nothing out of this book in regards to actual trading.

Escape from self pity

Trading beyond the matrix is a whiny diatribe which, having drawn you in, slowly turns into a nightmare. The author claims to have discovered the secrets of success in trading, but his book is full of self-pity, arrogance and delusional narcissism. He blames everyone else for his failures and takes credit for his luck. He also tries to sell his expensive coaching program, which is based on dubious psychological techniques and pseudoscience. The book is not only boring and repetitive, but also dangerous and misleading for anyone who wants to learn about trading. The material and the narrator were gloriously suited to each other...