This is the message one of my students wrote to me
“I
don’t get it. I know there is good money to be made in trading (I see
people doing it) and I’ve known success before. It’s not like I don’t
know what a winning mindset is. I’ve proven myself before. Yet trading
success still eludes me after a number of years, and I don’t
know why. I’ve made success happen in other areas of my life, I work
hard, I’m goal-oriented, I’m motivated, have a great attitude, have a
good analytical mind, I’m a proven leader, and I know how to win. So,
what’s wrong? What is it I am missing?”
SUCCESS IN OTHER FIELDS DOES NOT TRANSLATE INTO TRADING PERFORMANCE
If
you hang around traders talking shop very long (and being honest), you
will hear this story repeated endlessly. Many people who have devoted
themselves to becoming a professional trader have experienced success in
other fields before they came to trading. They know how to trade when
the pressure of risking capital is not part of the equation of trading
success.
In fact, one of the first flaws they bring to their new
(or not so new) career in trading is that they assume the same
psychological skills that aided them in their past career could also be
leveraged to produce the same kind of success in trading without
modification for the rigors of trading.
This is a misguided, and
often an account damaging, flaw. Somehow this aspect of risking capital
in real time makes for a completely different calculus of performance.
Success
in many other fields is rooted in pushing your will upon the world and,
by sheer hard work, will power, and ignoring fear, conquering the world
“out there.” The skills of setting goals and assertively
making those goals happen by taking personal control of fear are honed
into powerful tools for shaping the future. And with this kind of
thinking, if you don’t succeed, you just push even harder to make things
happen. Additionally, you must be in control of the factors that bring
forth the envisioned reality.
Success, you are taught in this
paradigm, comes by aggressively acting upon the world and making it
happen according to your will. This formula for success is at the root
of many a successful business and career. And out of that success comes
the assumption that the same principles, applied to trading, will
continue to produce success.
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