Table of Contents
Jared Tendler sits down with Etienne to dig into the mental game behind consistent performance. Tendler isn’t a trader himself—he’s the performance coach behind top pros in trading, poker, and golf, and the author of The Mental Game of Trading. That outside-in perspective is exactly why his insights hit: he diagnoses problems like a race-team mechanic, then gives traders tools to execute like elite athletes.
In this piece, you’ll learn how to separate edge from emotion, why “greed” isn’t the villain (bad tactics are), and how to build a trader strategy that survives volatility spikes without burning you out. We’ll cover method-first development, using accountability to control ADHD-style impulses, spotting early burnout signals, and the ruthless review habits that set elite traders apart. By the end, you’ll have a simple roadmap to tighten execution, protect capital on slow days, and stay ready to strike when the market finally moves.
Jared Tendler Playbook & Strategy: How He Actually Trades
The Operating System: Turn Execution Into A Trainable Skill
You don’t control the market—you control your process. Jared Tendler treats execution like a sport: break skills into parts, train them, and measure progress. This section turns your vague “discipline” into concrete drills so you can perform under pressure.
- Define your “edge stack” on one page: setup → trigger → risk template → trade management → exit hierarchy. Print it.
- Write a 2-line execution goal for the week (e.g., “Close all losers at the pre-planned stop without debate.”).
- Track only three metrics daily: plan compliance (%), emotional stability (0–10), and R multiple.
- Cap variables: max 2 setups per session, 1 risk template per setup, 2 exit types. Complexity kills execution.
- Run a 5-minute pre-market mental warm-up (see below) before any orders are allowed.
Pre-Market Mental Warm-Up: Start In Control
Most traders “wing” their mindset and hope for the best. Tendler flips that: a short, repeatable priming routine to load your plan and stabilize emotion before volatility hits.
- Write a 60-second cue card: “Today I trade only [setup A/B], risk = [xR], exit rules = [y].”
- Name two likely emotional risks today (e.g., FOMO if CPI rips; frustration if chop). Pre-commit your counters.
- Visualize the first loss to your stop and your exact recovery behavior (reset timer, breathing, next best trade).
- Review your calendar for non-market stress (sleep debt, conflicts). Cut size by 25–50% if you’re compromised.
- No charts until this routine is done. If you skip it, you don’t trade.
A-Game / B-Game / C-Game Map: Know Your State In Real Time
You already journal trades—now journal your performance states. Tendler’s A/B/C-Game mapping makes mental performance observable, so you can fix it fast.
- Build three columns: A-Game (best behaviors), B-Game (slippage), C-Game (unacceptable). List 5–8 behaviors each.
- Tag every trade with A/B/C at entry and at exit. If you drop a state, reduce the size of one tier immediately.
- Create a “C-Game circuit breaker”: after two C-Game tags in a day, you stop trading or cut size to a minimum tick.
- Review weekly by counts, not vibes: aim for ≥60% A-Game tags and <10% C-Game.
- Upgrade rules quarterly: promote your common B-Game leaks into explicit pre-trade checks.
Emotional Mapping: Turn Vague Feelings Into Actionable Signals
You can’t fix what you can’t name. Emotional mapping converts “I felt off” into a pattern with triggers and tells, so you can intercept problems before they hit P&L.
- Pick one recurring emotion (e.g., FOMO, anger, fear). List early physical/mental tells (tight chest, rushing, tunnel vision).
- Identify the specific situations that trigger it (e.g., missed first move after news; third small loss in a row).
- Rate intensity 1–10 each time it appears; intervene at 4–5, not at 9–10.
- Pre-write a one-paragraph “Injecting Logic” (below) targeted to this emotion and attach it to your platform as a hotkey note.
- Log outcomes when you intervened early vs. late to prove the ROI of interception.
Injecting Logic: A Script To Disarm Bad Impulses
When emotion spikes, your thinking narrows. An Injecting Logic script is a short, believable paragraph you read out loud to neutralize bias and restore plan-first execution.
- Write it in your own words; it must be both true and specific (e.g., “Chasing breaks my expectancy. The next valid pullback comes or it doesn’t; my job is to wait.”).
- Keep it 3–5 sentences; anything longer won’t be used under stress.
- Trigger it on the first early tell (clock it: under 20 seconds).
- Pair with a physical reset: stand up, 4 slow breaths (inhale 4, hold 2, exhale 6), sit, re-scan checklist.
- If you use the script twice in 15 minutes, reduce the size by 50% for the next trade.
Mental Hand History: Diagnose The Root Cause
Post-trade emotions usually recycle the same errors. The Mental Hand History is a quick debrief to find the cause chain and update the fix so you don’t repeat it tomorrow.
- After any C-Game trade, answer four prompts: 1) What happened? 2) Why did it make sense emotionally? 3) Why is that flawed? 4) What’s the corrected belief/behavior?
- Convert the corrected belief into a one-line rule and add it to your checklist.
- If the same root cause appears 3+ times in a week, schedule a targeted drill (see next section) rather than “try harder.”
- Review the last five MHHs every Monday before the open.
- Archive wins too: run an MHH on one A-Game trade per week to reinforce strengths.
Tilt Control: Contain The Runaway Train
Tilt isn’t just rage; it’s any state where emotion drives decisions. You need pre-defined speed bumps that catch tilt early and force you back into the lane.
- Define two tilt types you actually get (e.g., Revenge Tilt, Entitlement Tilt). Write their first three tales.
- Set numeric tripwires: after a 2R drawdown or 3 consecutive losers, mandatory 15-minute timeout.
- Use a “tiny trade” protocol post-tilt: one valid setup at 0.25R. If executed clean, size returns; if not, you’re done.
- No moving stops wider during tilt. Either exit at plan or flatten immediately—no new risk.
- Track tilt recoveries; your goal is fewer episodes and faster resets, not zero emotions.
Risk Template & Trade Management: Make Decisions Before You Feel Them
The market will force choices when you’re least stable. Pre-committing risk and management logic keeps you out of improvised, regret-heavy decisions.
- Fix risk per trade by product and time of day (e.g., ES AM session = 0.5R, PM = 0.25R).
- One default stop method per setup (structure-based, ATR-based, or time-based). No mixing live.
- Pre-declare add rules or ban them; adding without rules = automatic C-Game tag.
- Two exits only: 1) rule-based profit target, 2) trail logic. If neither is hit by a time stop, exit flat.
- Raise size only after 20 consecutive trades with ≥70% plan compliance and positive expectancy.
Review Cadence: Build An Anti-Fragile Feedback Loop
Improvement comes from small, consistent refinements. Your review should be lean, visual, and aimed at upgrading one thing at a time.
- Daily: 10 minutes—tag A/B/C, log emotions, screenshot best/worst trade, pick one behavior to repeat tomorrow.
- Weekly: 30 minutes—aggregate stats, identify one leak and one strength, write a 3-trade micro-drill for each.
- Monthly: 45–60 minutes—update playbook pages (setups, risk templates, exit outcomes), prune anything unused.
- Keep a “Hall of Fame” folder: 10 perfect trades that define your standard; study them every Monday.
- If review notes exceed one page, you’re writing feelings, not rules—compress to actions.
Micro-Drills: Train The Weak Link, Not Everything
Trying to fix five things at once guarantees you’ll fix none. Micro-drills isolate a single behavior and train it until it’s automatic.
- Choose one target (e.g., cutting losers at the pre-planned stop). Run a 10-trade drill focused only on that behavior.
- Reduce size by 50% during drills; the goal is skill acquisition, not P&L.
- Create a visible checklist with one bolded line for the drill behavior; read it before each entry.
- Score pass/fail per trade. You need 8/10 passes to “graduate.”
- Once mastered, lock the behavior as a non-negotiable rule and move to the next drill.
Burnout & Energy Management: Protect The Asset
Your brain is the edge. Guard it like capital. Sustainable performance beats short bursts followed by long slumps.
- Pre-set weekly trading caps (e.g., max 4 sessions over 8 hours total). If exceeded, you must cut the size the following week.
- Use red/amber/green days: red = no trading (poor sleep/stress), amber = half size with one setup, green = full plan.
- Schedule one no-screen day weekly. On that day, review Hall of Fame trades for 15 minutes, then stop.
- After a major drawdown week, drop to simulation for one session with full routines intact.
- Track energy inputs: sleep, movement, nutrition. If two inputs are red, you don’t trade live.
Scaling Discipline To Volatility: Don’t Let Markets Hijack You
Big ranges expose weaknesses; quiet markets tempt overtrading. You need preset adjustments so you adapt without emotional whiplash.
- Volatility upshift: widen stops using a fixed multiple (e.g., 1.3× ATR) and cut size so risk in R stays constant.
- Volatility downshift: Enforce a hard limit of 2 attempts per setup per session to prevent chop bleed.
- News protocol: suspend trading 5 minutes before tier-1 events; trade only the first clean post-event pattern.
- If VIX/ATR regime changes vs. last week, you must run a 30-minute rehearsal on replay before live trading.
- After any regime change, freeze size for 10 trades while you recalibrate execution.
Communication & Accountability: Externalize Pressure, Reduce Noise
Left alone, your brain rationalizes anything. Lightweight accountability makes your rules real and your progress visible.
- Send your pre-market cue card to an accountability partner before the open.
- After the close, send two screenshots: one A-Game trade, one B/C-Game trade with the corrective rule.
- If you miss either message for a day, start the next session at half size.
- Keep a single “Rules I Broke” list; if the same rule appears 3 times in a week, trigger a micro-drill.
- Celebrate process wins publicly (even tiny ones). Motivation compounds when you reward execution, not outcome.
The One-Page Playbook: Keep It In Front Of You
Complexity creeps. Your final safeguard is a concise, visible playbook you can’t ignore in the moment.
- Page 1: setups with images and exact triggers.
- Page 2: risk templates and exit logic.
- Page 3: A/B/C-Game map, Injecting Logic scripts, and tilt circuit breakers.
- Print it, tape it near your monitor, and set a 90-second timer to skim it before the open.
- Update monthly; if it’s not on the page, it’s not in your trading.
Lock Risk First: Predefine size, stops, and exit hierarchy for every trade
Jared Tendler says discipline starts before the first click, and risk is the part you can actually control. Decide your position size, where the trade is wrong, and how profits will be taken—then lock all three in stone. When size, stop, and exits are fixed upfront, you remove the wiggle room that emotions exploit once the candles start moving. The goal is to turn risk into a routine so execution becomes automatic.
Tendler pushes traders to make decisions when they’re calm, not mid-volatility. Define a single stop method per setup, choose the first target and the trail logic, and write the exact sequence you’ll follow if price stalls or surges. If the plan changes during the trade, that’s a broken rule, not “adaptation.” By front-loading risk decisions, Jared Tendler’s approach makes every entry a yes/no on plan quality—freeing your head to focus on clean execution, not improvised heroics.
Trade Mechanics Over Predictions: Execute your setup, measure compliance, ignore market noise
Jared Tendler drills a simple truth: predictions don’t pay you—mechanics do. He wants traders to show up with a checklist, not a crystal ball, and grade every trade on rule compliance. That means your setup, trigger, stop, and exit plan are binary: followed or not followed. If you nailed the process and the trade still lost, it’s a clean loss, not a mistake.
Tendler also warns that “market narratives” are just siren songs that pull you off plan. Mute the commentary, minimize chart clutter, and focus on executing your next valid signal at pre-set risk. Track a compliance score daily and raise the size only when that score stays high for weeks. When uncertainty spikes, Jared Tendler’s move is to narrow the playbook, not widen it—fewer setups, tighter rules, and zero mid-trade improvisation.
Adjust To Volatility: Scale range, cut size, protect expectancy during regime shifts.
Volatility changes the game, so your plan has to change with it—on purpose, not on tilt. Jared Tendler frames it like this: widen the room you give price, but shrink the dollars you risk so each trade still equals one clean R. When ranges expand, your stop should be based on structure or a multiple of ATR, then reduce size to keep risk constant. In quiet regimes, tighten criteria and accept fewer trades rather than forcing action in dead air.
The rule of thumb is to predefine regimes and what you’ll do in each, not decide mid-candle. Set clear bands (e.g., ATR or VIX thresholds) that trigger wider stops and smaller size, or narrower stops and stricter entries when things calm down. Cap retries in chop—two attempts per setup per session—to avoid death by a thousand cuts. Tendler’s twist is consistency: rehearse the switch on replay, then execute it live exactly as written.
Diversify Smartly: Mix underlying, strategy, and duration to smooth the equity curve.
Jared Tendler emphasizes diversification as a behavior stabilizer, not just a portfolio buzzword. Spread risk across uncorrelated buckets—different underlyings, different strategy types (trend, mean reversion, breakout), and different holding durations. This reduces the chance that one market mood ruins your week and keeps your head clearer after a losing streak. Define how many “risk units” each bucket gets so you aren’t overexposed to one flavor of edge.
Tendler’s practical twist is staggering timeframes and rules so they don’t all trigger at once. Pair a fast intraday setup with a slower swing system and a weekly reversion play, each with its own risk template and exit logic. Measure correlation of drawdowns across buckets; if two buckets always sink together, cap combined exposure or kill one. Rebalance allocation when volatility regimes change so the same R stays meaningful. If a bucket hits its max consecutive losses or breaks plan compliance, pause it—Jared Tendler wants diversification to protect capital and mindset, not excuse sloppy overlap.
Prevent Tilt With Process: Map A/B/C game, triggers, and circuit breakers.
Jared Tendler treats tilt as a predictable performance state, not a surprise attack. He pushes traders to define their A-Game, B-Game, and C-Game behaviors in advance so they can spot slippage early. Write down your first physical and mental tells—rushed clicks, shallow breathing, scanning multiple tickers—and link each tell to a specific intervention. The goal is to catch the tilt at “yellow” and act before it turns red.
Tendler’s edge is pre-committing circuit breakers that fire automatically when limits are hit. Use numeric tripwires like “three consecutive losers” or “-2R drawdown,” then enforce a 15-minute timeout and half-size reset. Pair a short “Injecting Logic” script with a breathing pattern and a single checklist reread before any new order. If the same tilt shows up three times in a week, schedule a targeted micro-drill; if a C-Game behavior appears mid-trade, flatten and tag it. By turning tilt management into rules you can execute, Jared Tendler makes emotional control just another part of the playbook.
The big thread running through Jared Tendler’s work is that trading problems are rarely market problems—they’re execution problems. He shows that if you lock risk before you click, define the exact behaviors that count as A-Game, and create circuit breakers for when you slip, you suddenly remove 70–80% of the chaos that usually shows up in traders’ P&L. His approach is performance-first: act like an athlete, build routines, rehearse volatility shifts, and make sure every decision that costs real money was actually made when you were clear-headed. That’s how you keep one bad emotional moment from erasing a month of good trades.
He also makes it clear that emotion isn’t the enemy—unmanaged emotion is. By mapping your specific tells, writing Injecting Logic that actually fits your situations, and reviewing mistakes with a Mental Hand History, you upgrade the beliefs that keep causing leaks. Do that consistently and you get the real prize of Jared Tendler’s method: a trading style that survives different volatility regimes, protects your confidence during drawdowns, and lets you scale when your edge is working. It’s trading built on mechanics, not hope.
