In 2005, a psychiatrist at King’s College in London administered IQ tests to three groups: the first did nothing but perform the IQ test, the second was distracted by e-mail and ringing phones, and the third was stoned on marijuana. Not surprisingly, the first group did better than the other two by an average of 10 points. The e-mailers, on the other hands, did worse than the stoners by an average of 6 points .
Of course, what the researchers really proved was the your "internal state" greatly affects your
performance, in this case, an IQ test. In the test, the three "internal states" that were tested were (1)Normal, (2) Distracted, and (3) Stoned. It would be curious to find out the IQ results using a High Performance State, but one thing is clear: people are getting high off email and phone calls. No wonder some people have to constantly check there email, and go crazy when they lose their cell phone.
The High Performance State is the first prerequisite to trading. Without it, your trading is in the Land of Bias, and bias, as we've learned, is being focused internally on images, sounds and feelings. Being focused to the external Bid and Ask, will allow you to react instantly to the opportunity in front of you, based on what you've practiced. Even a mixed internal state, bouncing between what's external, and what's internal, will decrease performance and reaction time.
