A key point that Mark Douglas really seems to want to drive into people is: Even if your method is a high-probability method, it’s the proper execution of that method that you need proper mental skills for. If you don’t have those mental skills, even a winning strategy will lose.

Mental skills are things like; staying focused on the process, on your method, and not worrying about the consequences if this trade goes wrong. If you don’t have the proper mental skills to stay positively focused on the process of trading; on doing exactly what you need to do when you need to do it without reservation, hesitation or fear, you will not make money in the market.

It’s critical to remember that no matter how good your technical method is at generating wining trades, turning those winners into a consistent income takes the ability to do or not do some things that the method can’t help us with. The method can’t force us to pre-define our risk, or with making the mistake of moving our stop closer and stopping us out prematurely, it can’t stop us from hesitating and getting in too late or from over-trading or from getting out too soon and leaving money on the table. No matter how good the method, if you make mental errors you will lose.

If you really boil down what Mark is saying by his comments on “mental skills”, it basically comes down to having ice-cold ‘blood in your veins’ discipline. Mental skills like discipline essentially means the ability to control yourself and especially your behavior / actions in the market against the CONSTANT TEMPTATION the market gives us. Essentially, as a trader, you are fighting against yourself to see which part of your brain has more control; the older, emotional and more primitive part or the more advanced logic and planning parts.