Frequently Asked Questions

  1. What if you're a beginner or what if you're already successful?

  2. What makes this course so effective?

  3. Can the course really help me overcome trading problems, especially acts of self-sabotage?

  4. Who benefits from the course?

  5. What does it take to get maximum results?

  6. What about a guarantee?

  7. Can you give a practical example of how someone can control their mental state?

  8. Real Remarks from Real People...Comments from the Trading Forum.


What if you're a beginner or what if you're already successful?

Dr. Tharp's Peak Performance Course for Investors and Traders is designed for all levels of investors and traders -- beginners, advanced, unsuccessful traders seeking to improve their performance, and successful traders who want to be more successful. Many of the best investors and traders in the world have taken Dr. Tharp's course and use its principles regularly.

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What makes this course so effective?

The secret is contained in a unique system of mental technology pioneered by peak performance coach and investment psychologist, Van K. Tharp, Ph.D. Dr. Tharp has thoroughly and systematically collected psychological profiles of more than 4,000 investors and traders from around the world. He personally interviewed hundreds of the top people in the field to determine what makes them excel and how they reap immense profits. Dr. Tharp carefully crafted the information into a model that people like you can use to improve your skills and increase your profits.

Further, Dr. Tharp only studied investors and traders whose professional and personal lives were balanced. As a result, when you apply his model, it typically helps you lead a much happier and more satisfying life. Dr. Tharp is considered by many as the world's best trading coach. In fact, Dr. Tharp was featured with 16 of the world's top investors and traders in Jack Schwager's best-selling book, Market Wizards.

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Can the course really help me overcome trading problems, especially acts of self-sabotage?

The most important benefit of the Peak Performance Course is its information about overcoming self-sabotaging behavior. It addresses and gives solutions to major issues such as the following:

  • Do you have trouble pulling the trigger and frequently miss big trades or investments that you are sure would be winners?
  • Do you have a ceiling in your trading/investing? For example, do you make a specific amount of money only to find that you give it all back?
  • Do you trade for excitement? Are you tempted by high-risk trades?
  • Have you experienced a big loss that affects your decisions in the market today?
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Who benefits from the course?

The Peak Performance Course includes more than 1,000 pages of exercises and insights about trading. It takes time, effort, and a willingness to search deep within yourself to complete the course. People who return to the course materials again and again have reported improvements of at least 100 percent. Think what an improvement of 100 percent would mean to you!

The course is most appropriate for people who sincerely want to succeed in the market and are willing to devote the time and energy necessary to master the key principles. It also is beneficial to brokers, institutional investors, and traders who want to improve their company profits.

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What does it take to get maximum results?

To succeed in the program, you must be logical, ethical, practical, open minded and strong willed. You must be willing to work hard to change the way you do business and approach the markets. If this description fits you, then Dr. Tharp's Peak Performance Course will benefit you tremendously.

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What about a guarantee?

You will realize major profits only if you are willing to dedicate the time and energy necessary to develop new skills and insights. If you don't plan to devote sufficient time to studying and developing a plan that works for you in the markets, there is no point in ordering the course.

On the other hand, if you are willing to devote the time and energy you'll need to improve your life and increase you profits, this course is for you. We absolutely guarantee that you'll be happy with the results! Here's how our better-than-risk-free guarantee works:

First, decide that you want to reap the incredible benefits of the Peak Performance Course by mastering the material it contains. Then take the next year to study the course material and put it into practice. Complete all the exercises. Develop a sound business plan for investing by applying Dr. Tharp's model. Also, keep a trading journal as Dr. Tharp describes in the course.

If you follow these steps, we know you'll be delighted with the results -- both in your market profits and in your personal life. If you haven't increased your returns from the market by 35 to 350% or you're not completely satisfied at the end of the one-year trial period, return the course along with your trading journal and documentation showing that you have applied the course material. We'll refund the purchase price of the course (less S/H).

We can offer this guarantee because we know from past experience that you'll be very pleased with the results. All we ask is that you fully document how you have applied the lessons in the course. What could be more fair?

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Can you give a practical example of how someone can control their mental state?

Mental state manipulation is what most people call discipline. I teach people a very simple procedure that they can use right away. For example, suppose you are at your desk and you become aware that you are in a mental state that you would like to change. Get up out of the chair. Walk around about four feet, then look at how you looked in that chair. Picture it in your mind. Notice your posture, your breathing, your facial expressions. Then imagine how you would look if you had the sort of mental state you would like. When you can see that clearly, sit down in the chair again and assume the position you just imagined. That exercise works for almost any situation as it involves several important principles - changing your body posture, seeing yourself from a more objective viewpoint, and imagining a more resourceful state.

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Excerpts from Van Tharp's Trading Forum regarding the Peak Performance Home Study Course.

Real Remarks from Real People:

 

How to Get the Best out of Peak Performance Course 
Author: RD
Date: 01-31-05 15:24

Hi All

I've just started the Peak Performance course, must say first day into it and found it hard to put the book away.... wow what a great definition on commitment in the first few sections.

Anyway what I'd like is for others to share their ideas on how they derived maximum benefit out of this course i.e. they studied everyday for 1hr in the mornings, they discussed the learning with someone every week, they applied to the course to their game of golf etc etc.

Just tips and techniques that others found useful..

Thanks and appreciate your feedback

RD

Reply To This Message 

Re: How to get the best out of Peak Performance Course 
Author: PMK 

Here is a suggested approach based on my experience of the (excellent) course.

First, a piece of advice that may be hard to follow (and is therefore likely to be good): if you are trading real money stop now and close all positions before you continue with the course. You will definitely be a superior trader after you finish the course, so why risk money when you are inferior. Also, you will likely discover serious omissions in your trading plan that need fixing, and it is also difficult to be objective about the course material if you have open positions. If you were studying to perform a new surgical procedure I am sure you would complete the course before attempting the surgery :-)

Now for the approach to the course. I would go through the entire course as quickly, but thoroughly as you can paying particular attention to the following points.

1 Any section that identifies an area that is missing from your current trading plan, or that you just did not think was important to trading.

2 Any section that invokes a strong negative reaction in you (difficult to complete, tedious, seems irrelevant, boring etc).

Next, I would address all the areas in 1 before resuming real-money trading.

Then I would go back through the entire course but paying particular attention to the areas from 2 above. You may need to spend significant amounts of time on this, and also purchase supplementary material to help you. Do not change your trading plan intra-day while you do this - only ever change your plan after the market has closed, and with good reason.

Once you have been through the course again and addressed the areas you were having difficulty with you should a) see a positive improvement in your trading discipline (i.e fewer implementation errors) and also have a much better idea whether trading as a business is for you.

Hope this helps

PMK

Home Study Course for Canada 
Author: K. M.
Date: 12-28-05 12:09

Hi,
I'm an individual currently residing in Canada. I'm an absolute beginner at trading and am very serious at getting into this market and would like to know if this course would be helpful for me even though I may be trading in the Canadian market for most of the time.
Thanks,
KM


Reply To This Message 


Re: Home Study Course for Canada 
Author: PMK 
Date: 12-28-05 14:09

Karen,

The Peak Performance course has nothing that is nationality-specific (or market specific for that matter). The only pre-requisite is that you can read English. I recommend you also get the Psychology Inventory Profile since it will help you focus your attention on the areas you need to work on most.

As for being a beginner, I believe that it is better for you to take the course before you learn all the bad trading habits of an 'experienced' trader :-) - so will be way ahead of the game.

Paul

Reply To This Message 


Re: Home Study Course for Canada 
Author: Level 7
Date: 01-01-06 14:01

Yes it would be. Trading is very similar for any instrument and the differences are really in the minor technical rule differences (mark to market vs bid ask etc.). You will note the great variety of trading instruments used by forum participants (forex, futures, stocks, options, stamps!).

Preferably, I think you should trade a little first (even if just paper trading) to have a better appreciation of why the course is important to you. If you don't then I suspect you may not appreciate the importance of psychology in trading and you may have to review it again later on. 

If you decide to wait on this course a bit, then start with the TYWTFF as a primer on system building and the turtle system pdf.

That said, the course is applicable in many areas of life and education can never be lost through taxes, inflation, etc. It is also quite cheap I think.

 

Peak Performance Home Study program 
Author: magyar
Date: 03-29-07 11:10

Hi everyone

This is a question primarily to Van but I of course would appreciate other opinions too. Provided that I am not capable of programming hence back testing trading systems could I still benefit from the Peak Performance Home Study program? 

Also, is there hope for people in this business without the skills of being able to program trade ideas in order to get all the parameters for being able to evaluate those ideas? I mean I have a pretty good idea about what and why is happening on the markets and what might happen in the mid/long term time horizon but don’t have the funds just to buy the instruments and next have a look at them again in six months time, I would like to trade much much more often than that. 

Thanks for the feedback. 

D-

Reply To This Message 


Re: Peak Performance Home Study program 
Author: PMK
Date: 03-29-07 12:28

David,

No programming skill of any kind is a pre-requisite for the Peak Performance Course. In fact, in my opinion, no trading experience at all is really necessary since it focuses on what good trading looks like from a psychological point-of-view. The normal "bad habits", "non-useful beliefs" and other baggage one accumulates learning to trade "ad hoc" are actually mainly detrimental.

As for succeeding at trading without programming knowledge - there are 2 approaches to this:

1 Gain some programming knowledge yourself
2 Pay someone to help you who has the programming knowledge you don't have or don't want to learn.

Back-testing trading ideas on historical data has many caveats that make it only a vague representation of real trading anyway. Much better to incorporate good general principles into your trading and then learn from experience (whilst strictly limiting risk obviously). 

Hope this helps

Paul King

Book Selection 
Author: J
Date: 09-04-06 02:12

I am learning about trading systems with a view to designing one for myself. In doing so, I would like to learn from successful traders. 

Which of the following two books would be most useful?

**Peak Performance Home Study Course which, I gather, has an NLP component

**Developing a Winning Trading System to Fit You Home Study Course
I should also say I'm reading Trade your Way to Financial Freedom. I'm also interested in modeling successful traders.

Regards

Reply To This Message 

Re: Book Selection 
Author: level7
Date: 09-05-06 18:55

So the choice given is you don't know what to do but you are able to do it at your personal best OR you know what to do but may not be able to do it to the best of your ability?

This reminds me of the old saw: which leg of the tripod is the most important to you when you sit down? ;-)

Given the choice, I would always spend my money on own personal development since that investment can never be taken away from me and is applicable in so many different areas of life. It may also take longer to learn than the system and also can't be purchased from third parties.

Another alternative for you is to take the Personal Inventory Profile to see how much work you have to do according to the model that Van uses. That might help you make a decision on the order to read the books. I personally started with the TYWTFF book. 

Good trading.

 

 

 

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Last revised: January 02, 2008