The Fifth in a series: The Six Characteristics of Winning Traders

We have been discussing the universal mental profile of the winning trader, reducing the general characteristics to just six components.

Characteristic #5: Total involvement

Make no mistake. Becoming a successful trader is an immense project, requiring innumerable hours of hard work as the months and years roll by.

While many students of trading seek shortcuts, called, in the industry, the ‘holy grails,’ their existence is but an illusion. There ARE no shortcuts.

It has been said that there are many ways to failure, but only one way to success. Part of that ‘one way’ is not unlike getting any business off the ground: a total commitment, a total involvement, a total immersion of one’s self into the project. Trading success cannot come in the form of a hobby. It takes one’s ALL.

Here are 6 every day activities of this seriously dedicated trading student:

1. He stops wasting time and energy seeking for shortcuts and accepts the fact that it’ll require his complete dedication.

2. He quits relying on the work and research of others and does his own ‘homework’ to find out, for himself, how trading dynamics operates. He asks for answers from others as little as possible and only after having done his own search and study.

3. He is able to do #2 because he has mentally elevated his OWN opinion above all others.

4. He reads his own intuition, watches himself trading, so as to observe areas that are in need of improvement and he follows his gut. He trusts himself.

5. When an opinion turns out wrong or a trade does not work out, he shrugs it off as part of the learning process, as something to be accepted just like a restaurateur knows that he’ll have to pay his vendors. It’s a cost of doing business, but, more importantly, is the cost of his education.

6. The more deeply immersed he his in his trading, the more of a ‘feel’ he gets of the market and the more confident he his because he begins to feel that he is truly the captain of his ship.

All in all, he is totally immersed in his work, disallowing distractions that sap his energy. As one person said, “He’s into it up to his eyeballs. It’s in his skin, in his eyebrows and in his breathing.”

Please note that each one of these traits can be LEARNED and can be made into HABITS by anyone with enough dedication and determination.

More to come…….