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Success and Failure

  
Education, Life
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* If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate – Thomas Watson, Sr.
* I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed – Michael Jordan
* A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him – David Brinkley
* We succeed only as we identify in life, or in war, or in anything else, a single overriding objective, and make all other considerations bend to that one objective – Dwight D. Eisenhower
* What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do – Bob Dylan
* Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts – Winston Churchill
* You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong – Warren Buffett (more…)

In Trading :Money is the score card, but the performance engine is love of the game.

  
  Education
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One of the great challenges of trading is that it requires intense and singular concentration on markets, but also an equal focus on one’s performance in those markets.  That combination of market awareness and self-awareness enables traders to make the most of their “edges” in markets while also cultivating fresh sources of edge.
It is interesting that very successful traders usually don’t achieve monetary success and then walk away from markets.  That is because what drives them is not just the outcome, but also the process:  the ongoing challenges of market mastery and self-mastery.  Even after the money has been made, the game retains its appeal.
If your motivation is primarily to make money, you probably won’t get to the point of career success, because the inevitable periods of drawdown will sap whatever drive is present.  When the motivation is mastery, losing periods provide fuel for reflection, learning, and improvement.  

Nuggets from Jesse Livermore

  
  Education
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 Don’t trade until I see a pile of money sitting in the corner. Then, I go over and pick it up.

Remember, it [the market] is designed to fool most of the people most of the time.

A prudent speculator never argues with the tape.

Few people succeed in the market because they have no patience. They have a strong desire to get rich quickly.

The big money is made by the sittin’ and the waitin’ — not the thinking. Wait until all the factors are in your favor before making the trade.”

Stop It

  
  Education
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There’s an old joke about the investor who never used any stop losses. His friend knew his big positions were getting crushed.
Out of concern, the friend asked, “How are you sleeping?”
“Like a baby” he answered.
“Really? You aren’t nervous or upset?”
“I sleep like a baby” he repeated.
“That’s amazing. I’d never be able to sleep through the night with those types of losses.”
“Who said anything about sleeping through the night? I said I slept like a baby: I wake up every two hours, wet myself and cry for 30 minutes before falling back to sleep.”
That’s why risk management is so critical: to save you from sleeping like a baby, and in the long run to save you a lot of money.
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There’s a reason flight attendants show you where the emergency exits are before takeoff. The same thinking should apply to investors. Prudent investors have a sell strategy in place beforethey get involved with a stock. Using any of these stop strategies helps keep your emotions out of the process when an investing emergency arises.

What is a Trader

  
  Education
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What Is A Trader?
 I ask the man.
He looks at me.
A trader is not a bystander, nor a mindless member.
 Neither is he a selfless servant. No,
A trader is an ecosystem,
 Evolving,
 Refusing to be categorized or labeled,
 Branded or defined.
Not one role,
 Not one task,
 Not a tool or production line,
 Not one idea or small man. No,
A trader is an ecosystem,
 Independent,
 Challenging all else
 To survive and thrive, evolve and change, or
 Sink and die. Extinct.
A trader knows existing today is not tomorrow.
 Buttons pushed, research tested, markets predicted.
A trader lives for certainty in self and tomorrow’s unknown.
 Adapting to survive, evolving to advance, competing to learn.
A trader creates a pulse that connects and propels
 An ecosystem he designed to challenge our own.
So the trader returns back to the question,
 What am I and who are we?
Consistent, curious, and connected,
 Accurate, authentic, and adaptable,
 I strive to be.
 I am an ecosystem within this unknown we.
Know Thyself,
 He says to me.

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