Now I'm well aware that I am a woman in a male dominated field, so for a long time I never challenged the metaphors of war. Your trader is a hunter-warrior. A good friend of mine, Julian Snyder, wrote a book for traders called The Way of the Hunter Warrior. Recently I asked him about the use of such a metaphor for trading, and he conceded that it's total nonsense in the light of what he now knows. "You have to trade without ego, and any contest elevates ego," he said.

I'm more of a nurturer gatherer. Trading to me is more like harvesting. Researching and preparing to trade are more like tilling the ground and planting the seeds. Over the years as I've worked with traders, I find myself shifting their metaphors away from warfare, life and death struggle, to something more cooperative, less intense, and it works for them. They become more comfortable in the market, less fearful, less overly aggressive.

I tell my clients to think of the market as a river of opportunities, constantly flowing. Also I tell them to think of trading itself as an arena as abundant with wealth as the ocean is with water. Sure there are waves and tides and you can ride these, but you always know the low tide will be followed by the high tide and back again, and that there will continue to be wave after wave after wave. I also say the ocean doesn't care whether you go to it with a bucket or a teaspoon. There's just so much.

"Try thinking of the market as a friend or a business partner." I say. If the market is your partner, you can work together. You can want what the market wants. You are in a win-win situation with the market. If the market is your partner, it will show you what it's doing. It will tell you what it's doing. You'll feel it's direction. You'll have agreements on how to succeed. Clients tell me it's much easier to trade thinking of the market this way.

Sometimes I suggest that traders think of trading as a dance. Together you're responding to the beat of the music. I also suggest that they let the market do the leading in this dance.