Rande Howell

About Rande Howell

Rande Howell is a trading psychology educator, licensed therapist, performance coach, author, and the founder of Traders State of Mind. He won the FinTech Award for Best Trading Psychology Educator and has written several books, including Mindful Trading: Mastering Your Emotions and the Inner Game and his newest, Unlocking Your Hidden Potential.

Unlike most Chart Academy instructors, Rande's edge is not a chart setup. His work is about the mind you bring into the moment of risk. He teaches traders how to regulate their emotions, master themselves under pressure, and build a probability-based mind that can handle the uncertainty of putting real money on the line.

From Therapist to Trading Psychologist

Rande's background is in therapy and performance psychology. He worked for years as a licensed therapist, including helping people through serious problems like panic disorders, before bringing that deep problem-solving skill to traders. That experience is what lets him see what most trading education misses: people often fail not because of their charts, but because fear, impulsivity, revenge trading, or self-sabotage takes over at the moment of execution. Instead of treating those as random weaknesses, he helps traders name the internal patterns behind them and build a new response.

His own life shaped this work. He is open about leading his wife into a business decision that cost a couple of million dollars, and the deep shame he felt afterward, until she made it clear her love had nothing to do with his success. That moment reorganized him around what he really wanted to do: help people grow out of the limiting beliefs they were born into. He also survived a heart transplant, a period he describes as being "on death row" for a couple of years, and now sees it as one of the best things that ever happened to him because of how it opened his eyes.

Now in his 70s, Rande's mission is bigger than any single trade. He wants to leave behind a system that helps people awaken and claim the power that already lives within them, long after he is gone. As he puts it, trading is the perfect form of self-mastery: if you do not master yourself, you will not master the markets.

Why the Trading Brain Works Against You

Rande's core idea is simple but powerful: the brain we bring to trading was not built for it. It evolved over millions of years for short-term survival, to act on instinct and react to threats in the moment. The problem is that this brain cannot tell the difference between risk and a threat to life, so a losing trade can feel like real danger, and the chance of a big win can get you as cranked up as a hunt for food.

That is why traders get emotionally hijacked. They freeze, they refuse to take a loss, they overtrade chasing a reward, or they blow up after a winning streak when success floods them with confidence. Rande points out that only about 2 to 3 percent of traders become consistently profitable, and his whole mission is to help more people retrain that instinctive brain to accept a very different reality, one ruled by probability, not certainty.

How Rande Teaches

Rande does not just tell traders to "be disciplined." He teaches a step-by-step process to rebuild the mind they bring to the screen.

• He changes how you see emotion. He shows that you do not have emotions; they have you, and that all thinking is shaped by your emotional state.
• He teaches you to regulate it. Simple tools like diaphragmatic breathing, watching yourself on a camera or mirror, a heart-rate monitor, regular check-in alerts, and hourly breaks keep your mind from being hijacked.
• He builds the observer. Through mindfulness, you learn that you and your thoughts are not the same, so you can step back and notice fear or greed before they take over.
• He heals self-limiting beliefs. He helps traders find the hidden beliefs about money, worth, and "mattering" that quietly cap their results, and replace them with compassion rather than self-criticism.
• He develops your empowered self. Using four archetypes- the disciplined ruler, the courageous warrior, the compassionate caregiver, and the clear-minded sage- he helps you lead from discipline and patience instead of fear and greed.

A key part of his teaching is that trading is about performance, not winning and losing. The goal is to follow your plan every time, accept small losses well, and let probability do its work.

Learn From Rande Howell on Chart Academy

Rande Howell recorded a Psychology Masterclass for Chart Academy called Building the Trading Mind: Discipline, Courage, Compassion, and Clarity, about 1.1 hours across 10 lessons. It is a complete framework for building the mind you actually want to trade with.

He walks through the four archetypes every disciplined trader needs- the ruler (discipline), the warrior (courage), the caregiver (compassion), and the sage (clarity)- and the tools that anchor them, like diaphragmatic breathing, body awareness, and mindfulness. From there, he shows how to spot the self-limiting patterns and beliefs that quietly sabotage trading accounts, such as overtrading, FOMO, and revenge trading; how to confront the inner critic; and how to mentor the "orphan" parts of yourself instead of silencing them. The class closes with the practical disciplines, daily practice, post-trade review, and structured breaks, that turn the empowered mind from an idea into the mind you trade with every day.

The masterclass is now live on Chart Academy. Watch it free here.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Rande Howell?

Rande Howell is a trading psychology educator, licensed therapist, performance coach, author, and the founder of Traders State of Mind. He won the FinTech Award for Best Trading Psychology Educator and has written several books, including Mindful Trading: Mastering Your Emotions and the Inner Game.

What markets does Rande Howell trade?

Rande Howell is not a market-specific trading instructor. His focus is trading psychology, and his work applies to traders in every market, including stocks, futures, forex, options, and crypto.

What is Rande Howell's approach to trading psychology?

Rande teaches that the instinctive brain we bring to trading is built for short-term survival, not for handling risk and uncertainty. He helps traders regulate their emotions, build an inner observer, heal self-limiting beliefs, and act from four archetypes: the ruler, warrior, caregiver, and sage, so they can follow their plan and treat trading as a game of performance and probability rather than winning and losing.

What can I learn from Rande Howell on Chart Academy?

On Chart Academy, Rande Howell teaches a 10-lesson Psychology Masterclass called Building the Trading Mind. You will learn how to build the four archetypes of a disciplined trading mind, regulate emotion through breath and body awareness, identify the beliefs behind self-limiting patterns like overtrading and revenge trading, confront the inner critic, and apply the empowered mind through daily practice and post-trade review.

What is Chart Academy?

Chart Academy is a free, all-in-one trading education platform designed to help traders learn real, practical skills from world-class traders. It offers in-depth masterclasses taught by real traders across stocks, options, futures, forex, crypto, and trading psychology. In addition to educational content, Chart Academy includes personalized learning paths, downloadable resources, and access to exclusive tools and rewards, all in one place. There are no subscriptions, no paywalls, and no credit card required. The goal is to make high-quality trading education accessible, practical, and easy to follow for traders of all levels.