Front Matter
Foreword
By Dr. Baker Benhadid
There are countless books on trading. Some are good. Some are classics. I've read plenty of both.
So why another one?
Because this is the book I wish I had ten years ago.
Sooner or later, every trader reaches a point where the game stops being about predicting the market and starts being about how you execute. That's where this book goes. It dissects every interaction you have with the market, piece by piece, structured, holistic, and remarkably concise.
Something happens as you read it: vague concepts acquire shape. Things you thought you understood become clear in a different way.
It reminded me of the color-by-number drawings from childhood. You begin with a monochromatic page, shapes and outlines giving you only the faintest idea of the final image. Then, as each area finds its color, the shapes become recognizable, the relationships emerge, and eventually the whole picture is there: vivid, coherent, obvious.
That is what this book did for me.
Take the section on Loss Aversion. I once read an entire book on the subject, a classic at that, and it didn't make a tenth of the impact of the single idea Steven delivers in thirty lines: we don't fear losing money. We fear what losing says about us. Tie losses to identity, and every trade becomes a referendum on your worth. Detach them, and you're just playing probabilities.
That one shift changed how I see every trade I take.
And this is not an isolated example. The book is filled with those nuggets that make you reach for a Post-it, underline a sentence, or save a paragraph because you already know you'll want to come back to it. Better still, the sections don't merely describe the problem; they end with a question that points toward the healthy way forward.
The real value of this book is not that it tells you things you didn't know. It makes you see things you thought you already knew, in a different light.
The clarity I gained has made me more aware of the classic traps and less susceptible to being fooled by them. And when one of those old mistakes still slips through, I recognize it sooner. I cut it short. I don’t keep insisting.
Because now, I know.
Something changed in me after reading this book.
The rules no longer felt like external instructions to be remembered and mechanically applied. They are becoming part of the way I see the market. The reasoning behind them became so clear that acting in accordance stopped feeling like compliance and started feeling natural.
And then there's something more subtle: my inner dialogue is becoming cooler, more detached, more observant. I argue less with what the market is doing. I'm becoming more long-run oriented, more patient, almost playful.
Perhaps that is what true execution ultimately is: not "following rules perfectly," but understanding them so deeply that acting in alignment becomes almost instinctive.
Trading constantly invites us to obsess over what the market will do next. This book draws a sharp line between what we can control and what we cannot. Once that line is clear, you waste considerably less energy on the wrong things.
This is the best book I've read on Execution, and I can't imagine needing another book on the subject. It's the kind of book that belongs on your trading desk, never in your bookcase.
Read it once.
Then read it again.
Then read it a third time...
I have only one regret.
I wish I could have read it ten years ago.