| Interviews |
| TRADING ON TARGET Adrienne Toghraie, Trader's Coach |
| Adrienne Toghraie, Trader's Coach - Adrienne@TradingOnTarget.com Phone (919-851-8288) - Fax (919-851-9979) Trading On Target - 100 Lavewood Lane, Cary, NC 27518 |
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Coaching for Success
A Trading Profile by Larry Levy
The Investor’s Champion – Shares Magazine
Volume 7, Issue 07, 17-23 February, 2005
Behavior patterns are the basis for any trader’s success – or lack of it. Adrienne Toghraie, a coach
who helps traders to better understand the way they work, tells Larry Levy about her methods.
With Toghraie’s uniquely intuitive, feminine
style combined with her strident, fearless
approach, she has enabled many a trader
to unlock their potential - by literally repro-
gramming their minds.
Born to Greek emigrant parents, Toghraie
grew up in “the best of times” in the Bronx.
She loved singing and performing as a young
girl, and by the age of 12 she was running a commercial children’s drama company called
Wizard Productions with her school friend Nick Denoia – who later went on to start The
Chippendales.
By the time the family moved to Los Angeles, Toghraie had landed a scholarship to the Julliard School
of Music. However, her father decided that Adrienne was to study accountancy instead. Having
qualified in accountancy, she recalls “I sang and danced in some of the biggest theaters in California,
but never made it to where I could support myself doing that.” Eventually Toghraie started toiling as
private accountant to multi-millionaire California property developer Nathan Shappel, taking care of
his many charity disbursements.
Shappel often couldn’t make it to the lunches, balls, parties and other gala events for which he had
purchased charity tickets and sent his affable accountant in his place – where she rubbed shoulders
with the Hollywood set.
Getting with the Program
After studying Stanislawski Method Acting - in which psychology is used to break characters down
into their constituent parts - Toghraie went on to take several courses in NLP (Neuro Linguistic
Programming.)
With NLP, the “coach” observes the key characteristics of a person’s behavior to establish a
rapport. Once this level of close communication has been established the client is “receptive,” and
can subtly be “re-programmed” to associate different experiences, both positive and negative, with
perhaps as little as a change in the tone and pace of the trainer’s voice.
Traders generally suffer from a common set of problems, according to Toghraie, but circumstances
differ. For example, one floor trader she cites would make money only to somehow “self-sabotage”
his account and give it back again. Toghraie was able to identify and treat several negative
associations that caused him to lose, one of which was an experience the trader had had as a child:
“He was saving his money for a pair of skates,” she recalls. “His cousin stole his Piggy Bank. He
went to his parents and told them, but they just said that he had no proof.”
“Later on in life his mind said that any time he was to make a certain amount of money he felt
someone was going to take it away from him so he did it to himself rather than have someone else
take it away.”
“That was the primary cause of the sabotage in his trading. He believed that when you saved money
something bad would happen to you. So we had to change that to believing that something bad or
something good could happen to you from saving money.”
The $7,500 charged by Adrienne for her private consultation pales in comparison to the millions that
this client has made since becoming consistently profitable.
However, Toghraie insists that knowing the specifics of what has upset each person in the past is not
essential in order to treat the belief or associative problem that is holding them back. After four
years as partner to NLP practitioner Van Tharp, Adrienne began to develop a following of her own,
and in 1993 she founded TradingOnTarget.com.
For private consultation, she only accepts around one in ten individuals, after first conducting a phone
evaluation. Most of these people are profitable but want to improve further and have already read and
studied much of the material available for purchase via her website.
A Zest for Life
Toghraie has an incredible zest for living life. “I love to get pampered in every way, shape and form,”
she says, and frequently treats herself to a few days at an exclusive spa.
She likes going to the movies – she loved The Aviator and Ray - and enjoys reading “how to” books
and rags-to-riches stories as well as theater, opera. traveling, and gourmet food.
