Which Thinking Patterns Are You Internalising?

Curating your environment

It’s been quite the week.

I’ve turned 30. TTRH crossed 1 million views. And I’ve now been self-employed for over a year.

Many people dream of being their own boss because of the money or freedom.

But I’d put a different benefit at the top of my list:

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More control over your environment.

Between trading, TTRH and client work, I feel surrounded by top performers.

Not just in the evenings and weekends, and on lucky weekdays.

All day, every day.

Iron sharpens iron.

The thinking patterns you expose yourself to become part of your own:

• Surround yourself by driven people, and you’ll push harder yourself. Many barriers are self-imposed, which becomes most obvious when you see others overcoming the same challenges as you.

• Surround yourself by people who won’t accept anything less than excellence, and you’ll be raising your own standards. As per the Pygmalion effect, you tend to rise to the expectations others have of you (both higher and lower).

• Surround yourself by deep, original thinkers, and you’ll notice your own thoughts start taking a similar direction.

Your environment literally shapes your reality — but not overnight, and not without consistent effort on your part.

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No one ever internalised anything from a soundbite alone.

Quotes on walls are supposed to remind you of the right thing, not teach it.

Let’s take Qullamaggie streams as an example.

Kristjan quotes and clips are great — as reminders. But they aren’t enough on their own. Not if you want to learn how to think like a top performer.

How did Kristjan arrive at his output? What questions did he ask? What are his processes? What did he do when he was in your position to get to his current level?

Actions always speak louder than words.

Observing those actions in the people to whom you’re most exposed, whether through extensive study or frequent direct contact, is the best way to make them stick.

True ‘aha’ moments require internalisation — and that takes time, repetition and depth.

Many people ask which Qullamaggie stream to start with, or if watching them is even a good use of time. I get it: you want maximum results for minimum effort. Reading stream notes or highlights is faster than watching 100+ streams.

The trouble is that, unless you simply use those notes as reinforcement, you won’t internalise anything.

You’ll only pick up nuance if you attentively watch enough streams. You need to see how a top performer applies ‘common wisdom’ in real time. You need to observe their process yourself.

You need to come to your own conclusions for crucial lessons to click.

If you study enough streams, you’ll notice, for example:

• How often Kristjan changes his mind.

• How he can deviate from the rules on his blog.

• How he might buy extended names if that’s what is working.

Observe this for yourself, and you won’t be one of those people who complains about how often Kristjan contradicts himself, while also quoting him about how adaptability is key.

Again, no one ever internalised anything from a soundbite alone.

Observe how he flips through charts. Notice how, whenever he sees something interesting on one chart, he immediately pulls up related names to observe whether the move is part of a group or just ‘random’. Study how he reviews notable movers at the end of the month.

I don’t just study Kristjan in this way.

I’m obsessed with identifying what top performers have in common.

If every top trader I study shares a common trait, I know it must be important. If I notice the pattern across multiple fields, it must be extra important.

From my observations, two things set top performers apart:

1. Depth of knowledge

2. Internalised probabilistic thinking

You can only acquire both if you learn to recognise your own patterns (which takes time and reps) and articulate them based on your own findings.

It doesn’t matter how many others have already arrived at the same conclusion. For the most potent tactics (and therefore outcomes), you need to develop and refine your own techniques.

The latest article I’ve written with Brian Shannon, “The Cannon Fire Trade: When a Winning Strategy Isn’t Enough”, illustrates this well.

It’s common enough for people to say they tried XYZ, which lost them money. Far more unusual is a story like this, demonstrating how even with a strategy proven to outperform (and a professional managing your money), it will still not work for everyone.

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How can you speed up the internalisation process?

This comes back to your environment.

Since self-employment — and therefore significant control over who I work with — I’m constantly exposed to the thinking patterns of top performers.

Self-employment or substantial personal contact with top performers isn’t an option for everyone. It once wasn’t for me. But focus on what you can control: who you follow on social media, what you read and watch, etc.

Anything you allow into your mind becomes part of your environment.

Not only that, I actively try to internalise those thinking patterns in the process of creating content.

By dissecting and reassembling a person’s words, I get a deep sense of how they think — a useful skill as a ghostwriter, but also a vital tool in my studies.

When I pulled apart Qullamaggie’s Chat With Traders interview transcript and put it back together again, for example, I realised just how much Kristjan focused on relative strength. He repeatedly brought it up, directly or indirectly, but it’s easy to miss because the interviewer kept focusing on more tangible points (like breakouts).

Similarly, Dan Zanger talks a lot about chart patterns, and even named his website after them, so most people focus on those. However, they overlook the other insights he shares, like a pattern alone not guaranteeing a winner or making a stock worth owning.

Pay closer attention to their words and actions, and you realise that both traders are really looking for:

1. Signs that a stock wants to move higher; and

2. A low-risk way of entering that stock.

In practice, that’s often still a setup, but you’re thinking about it in a totally different way. You’re taking a few foundational concepts on which you won’t budge — like relative strength — then apply them via a range of tactics.

I also pay attention to (apparent) contradictions, and ask questions to find out what causes them.

Most people either assume that the person is wrong without looking for evidence, or try to hide the contradiction by glossing over the details.

In reality, the obstacle is the way. Figure out what needs to be said, then go find the answers if you don’t yet have them.

I promise you: if the expertise is real, then these ‘contradictions’ are actually signs that you’re onto something important. When you find the logical explanation for them, you’ll also uncover a foundational principle — one that explains the different implementations.

The other common way I uncover principles is by analysing a bunch of examples, then figuring out what they have in common. These can be examples of a specific phenomenon from a specific person, but can also be across different people, like my collaborators.

Working with them helps me internalise, over and over again, what it takes to achieve excellence:

• Pattern recognition and discernment

• Dealing with constant uncertainty

• Continual self-improvement

• Relentless hard work

• Boundless curiosity

• Attention to detail

• Resilience

On TTRH, I avoid specific discussion of strategies, but focus on more universal things: the qualities above, along with market structure, risk management, how to study, and so on.

That’s because I know what inexperienced readers would do if I shared a new million-dollar strategy each week. And I don’t want causing FOMO or strategy-hopping on my conscience.

Instead, I try to share ideas that help people become top performers — mostly by encouraging you to go deeper in one way or another — regardless of strategy.

“Depth creates edge.”

This Stockbee quote has become one of my favourites.

Pradeep has mentored many top swing traders, including Qullamaggie.

How has Pradeep been so effective as a mentor?

Well, consider these questions:

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Is your mentor telling you what to do, or teaching you how to think?

Are they confusing you with more techniques, or showing you how to dig deeper into a handful of basics?

Are they filling your head with improbable dreams, or inspiring you to raise your standards such that you become capable of achieving things you hadn’t even imagined?

I think it’s pretty clear into which camp Pradeep falls.

He doesn’t tell you to copy his setups or strategy.

He tells you to dive deep into yours. To study stocks that have made large moves. To improve your situational awareness. To solve problems. To innovate.

He wants you to outgrow him.

Outgrowing doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve surpassed your mentor — just that you’ve learnt everything you can from them.

As you grow, you increasingly develop your own style.

That style may well be its unique fusion of influences, reflecting your unique personality. As Kristjan said, take one or two key lessons from each mentor, then move on.

You’re not likely to become the best version of yourself by emulating someone else. A blend of experiences, on the other hand, allows you to ‘mix and match’ the best of the best ideas — for you — until you become the only person in the world doing that particular combination of things at a high level.

It also helps you constantly challenge yourself with new ideas, keeping your brain in a ‘state of openness’ and providing inspiration to keep refining your craft.

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Inspiration usually comes from interaction with others.

Like Pradeep says, we all have a ‘mental pantry of ideas’ — and one of the easiest ways to fill yours is through interaction with others:

• Reading content

• Listening to podcasts

• Direct discussion, written or spoken

Ideas don’t need to be ‘direct’.

Someone may just make an off-hand remark that triggers a thought for you, then sends you down a rabbit hole of ideas.

Or the idea might not come from what someone says, but how they act. Or you may get ideas from something you observe in multiple people, who may or may not be connected. Or, like this stack, you may be inspired by the questions you receive.

Even if a trader comes up with an idea on their own, the idea was almost certainly triggered through their interaction with the market. Following through on that idea, however, will likely require focused alone time.

Deep work on your own is important. But so is interaction with others.

Your environment shapes your reality. Curate wisely.

- Kyna

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P.S. You’re curating your environment right now by reading TTRH. If I’ve helped you take your thinking to the next level, consider buying me a coffee to say thanks.

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Looking for more depth?

Doing a Deep Dive

The Deeper You Go, The More You Simplify

Another Form of Deliberate Practice: Writing

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