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Many of you have heard me talk this month about beginner’s mind and how it can help you with your trading. In our Live Sessions, we started with an inquiry into what it is, exploring how to find it, and then experimenting with practices that might engender it. Following these discussions, a student wrote to me with a personal insight that I thought I’d share. We had been trading emails about how to learn like a child through a beginner’s mind:
“I was contemplating the beginner’s mind and looking into my own experience of learning to play the piano when a memory flashed before me to a visit from my niece and nephew. Since they were not allowed outside, they were both bouncing off the walls, and at some point, they landed on the piano bench. The 4-year-old, Little Brother, didn’t hesitate to strike at the shiny keys. Oh, boy! They make sounds! The 6-year-old, Big Sister, wasted no time following suit but not before she marked her territory, leaving Little Brother with a tiny section of keyboard real estate. He didn’t notice, much less care—he was so enthralled. This was the first time either of them had touched a piano and the two approaches could not have been more strikingly different. While Big Sister took thoughtful and deliberate swipes at the keys, her little brother banged away with pure joy and delight. While she was inhibited and self-referencing—concerned with how we might see her—he was utterly absorbed. His giddiness was contagious. One strained to play with gravitas while the other didn’t strain at all. Instead, his wonder at combining sounds transformed him and this transformation, in turn, transformed his playing.”
This story encapsulates so beautifully the different approaches to learning and experience. While he grew more and more curious, she grew frustrated and then controlling. On the one hand, we can be constrained and inhibited like the big sister and, on the other hand, we can be loose and available like the little brother. This availability leads to transformation, which is how we learn and which is what we seek, as traders, as we align with markets and let them direct our action.
So how do we access beginner’s mind? Maybe this is the wrong question to ask. Perhaps the question should be, what keeps us from beginner’s mind? What keeps us from being in a continuous state of learning, questioning, and discovery? Look into your own experience and to when you have been the big sister and/or the little brother and you’ll have your answer.
—Shane Blankenship
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