Ryan Litchfield has been dubbed "The Mind Coach" of the BetterTrades staff for a good reason. He believes a trader must be mentally prepared to enter the stock market by knowing how to trade without emotion. Trading requires discipline, much as learning how to play golf or cook a gourmet meal requires discipline. Those unwilling to be discipline or those who want to take shortcuts in the process are likely to find themselves punished by the market. Those who learn to obtain the proper discipline are more likely able to withstand the pressures that they'll face anytime they enter the market.

Ryan knows that many new traders aren't ready when they begin to trade. He has seen the traits in the faces of many students who come to him to learn how to trade. Ryan knows that a newcomer to the market can easily become disillusioned if they fail to succeed early in the process, so he tries to help them realize the importance of preparation when trading. Ryan helps them understand that learning to trade is a step-by-step process and a newcomer isn't ready to jump into the deep end of the pool when they're getting started.

Ryan teaches a series of bracket trading, which permits a student to answer a series of "if-then" questions in order to determine how to place their trade. By setting targets and by understanding why the targets are set, a trader can quickly gain the experience they need to profit in the market. Ryan uses this technique while teaching students in a two-day class he calls the "Trader's Forge." Students come out of that workshop with the equivalent extensive non-funded trading experience, as Ryan uses a stock market simulator to help traders learn to increase the level of their ability. Many students have entered the Trader's Forge as a rookie, but have emerged from the process as a veteran.

The other area of expertise enjoyed by Ryan entails Japanese candlesticks, an centuries-old form of analysis that may provide great introspection when combined with modern Western charting methods.Ryan is one of the nation's authorities in the area of Japanese candlesticks; he looked at more than 1.4 million of them while serving as co-author of the book "Candlestick Charting Explained." He teaches students how to use the candlesticks on a stock's price chart to see patterns that have developed, which tells him the possible direction a stock may be ready to take. Ryan believes that stocks trade in patterns and, if you learn the stock, you can learn trade those patterns in a profitable manner.

"It's about survivability," he said. "You can't beat the market. You can't outmuscle the market. But you can learn to out-step it and you can learn to blend with it."