Is Discipline Enough to Succeed?

[Grain Trader 10]

Hi all,

 

This is my first post here although I've read through many threads over the

last few months.

 

It appears to me that trading problems are being catagorized as either a

Discipline problem or a Psycholgy issue.As an example I am sure everyone

is familiar with is not placing a protective stop.

 

Now, Is this a Discipline problem or is it a mental issue or both ???

[zdo 20]

mental

 

[those with this issue typically can not fix it via applying discipline]

[tradeshah 10]

Hi all,

 

This is my first post here although I've read through many threads over the

last few months.

 

It appears to me that trading problems are being catagorized as either a

Discipline problem or a Psycholgy issue.As an example I am sure everyone

is familiar with is not placing a protective stop.

 

Now, Is this a Discipline problem or is it a mental issue or both ???

 

It seems that often the psychology / mental issues lead to a breakdown of discipline.

 

It all starts with the mental games...!

[Colonel B 10]

Its neither. Most pro traders don't use stops like the retail market does. The retail market needs to use stops because they either lack the resources of pro traders or lack the understanding of basic principles of markets. Now I am sure many of the folks here would disagree. That is fine because most of the traders here are of that retail market I mentioned earlier. I guess a really simple question is when traders trade on the floor how did they place stops?

 

Its also true that the its broken down into 2 categories. Unfortunate really. The fact is that no matter how much discipline you have or how much mental will power you have will in no way make up for a lack of knowledge and understanding. Granted they might be the tools to get you that understanding. But again its all art and no system is wrong and everyone is making money and there are an infinite amount of edges one can have and an infinite ways to trade. Its almost not worth the time to even challenge the lies that are pushed in the retail community about knowledge on how to trade. Oh well

[zdo 20]

Its neither. Most pro traders don't use stops like the retail market does. The retail market needs to use stops because they either lack the resources of pro traders or lack the understanding of basic principles of markets. Now I am sure many of the folks here would disagree.

...

The fact is that no matter how much discipline you have or how much mental will power you have will in no way make up for a lack of knowledge and understanding. ... Its almost not worth the time to even challenge the lies that are pushed in the retail community about knowledge on how to trade. Oh well

 

 

The recent posts in this thread have been about “not placing a protective stop” – which is (retail) ‘codespeak’ for not taking your losses.

So, ColB It’s not really “neither”. ie It’s not about knowledge or understanding – because a huge % of the retail traders who don’t place “a protective stop” (which is (retail) ‘code’ for not taking your losses) in each situation fully cognitively know and understand they should and could but literally CAN”T… with them, no amount of ‘discipline’ will consistently overcome the pattern. =~ 'mental' issues with natural biases... not just discipline issues...

 

The only way your post is on topic is something you didn’t quite say – ‘professionals’ don’t statistically have the same issues with taking their losses as do ‘retail’ traders.

Instead of most folks "disagreeing", hopefully they would just see you missed the point and veered off topic.

Hope this raises your knowledge and understanding even more. :razz:

 

zdo ... pushing lies :rofl:

[Colonel B 10]

yea definitely. Its pretty clear that this whole time I have had the wrong definition about certain things. Thanks for clearing it up.

[Colonel B 10]

Yea if you are having problems taking losses then its mental. I have to agree with the lie pusher on this one. LOL just kidding

[Roger Felton 10]

This is probably a question which is more broadly applicable than to just trading and it would probably be helpful to hear from those well versed in current (not always necessarily correct though) views in the field of psychology. Is it enough to be just very disciplined at something in order to become successful at it whilst not having bucket loads of natural ability and possibly more importantly, the passion for it? I would note that by success I mean replicable positive results, not necessarily be at the very top of the tree so to speak.

 

My feeling is it depends. Probably a great deal on the type of guidance the individual receives. I think that natural ability is only fulfilled with discipline. Clearly therefore, there will be some individuals with very little need for external influence to experience some degree of success. Yet there will be some who are extremely disciplined who lack the flair and intuition (or whatever you want to call it but please, that's a different thread!) to know what they should be doing and there are those who have the flair and so on but not the discipline. How important do you consider each factor?

 

This is an exceptionally good question and there will be a lot of differing opinions on it, I'm sure. But I'd like to share my experience in working with over 5,000 different individuals over the past 16 years.

 

Basically, when someone decides they want to become a trader, they fall into two catagories. The first group, and the largest by far, want the money and the freedom, they want the lifestyle that trading can provide that few other career choices can match. They want long term success and they want it NOW! But, if it involves any real effort, study, practice, time commitment or monetary investment, then interest falls off in direct proportion to their equity curve. These are the 70 to 80% of the failures that you keep hearing about. They might have some level of desire or want, but it's nothing close to the level of passion that they'd need to make it through the pitfalls and potholes on the road to success.

 

The second group are the passionate ones, yet only half of this group will ever succeed. They thurst for knowledge and devour it like a duck on a junebug. If they ever fell and knocked their head open, indicators and chart bars would come falling out. Does their passion, drive and vast knowledge insure their success? Unfortunately, no. Inherent talent? Nope again.

 

You can have all the trading knowledge in the world, super intelligence and a real talent for learning but, if you don't have both the passion and the discipline for trading, you will find success forever elusive. I have the interest and the desire to be a good golfer but I don't have the passion to be a great one. I would like to have the physical conditioning of an Olympic Athlete but I lack the discipline to stick with the diet and exercise regimen necessary. To have extreme discipline you must have intense passion and few things require more discipline and passion than trading.

 

Many traders think that the discipline part means just following your rules. It's much more than that. It means having the passionate determination to do whatever is necessary to get to the professional level. To be willing to work through the anger, frustration, despair, mistakes and setbacks and failure after failure and hold steadfast to the commitment to never, never give up. Unfortunately, passion doesn't guarantee discipline (or vice versa). They are two separate human qualities and both must be present in every successful trader.

 

Does having a mentor help? To the vast majority, it's vital. But the best teacher and mentor on the planet is wasting their time if they are trying to work with a passionless, undisciplined trader. You can't teach passion and you can't sell discipline.

[Rande Howell 10]

The recent posts in this thread have been about “not placing a protective stop” – which is (retail) ‘codespeak’ for not taking your losses.

So, ColB It’s not really “neither”. ie It’s not about knowledge or understanding – because a huge % of the retail traders who don’t place “a protective stop” (which is (retail) ‘code’ for not taking your losses) in each situation fully cognitively know and understand they should and could but literally CAN”T… with them, no amount of ‘discipline’ will consistently overcome the pattern. =~ 'mental' issues with natural biases... not just discipline issues...

 

The only way your post is on topic is something you didn’t quite say – ‘professionals’ don’t statistically have the same issues with taking their losses as do ‘retail’ traders.

Instead of most folks "disagreeing", hopefully they would just see you missed the point and veered off topic.

Hope this raises your knowledge and understanding even more. :razz:

 

zdo ... pushing lies :rofl:

 

BTW. I work with plenty of successful professional traders that use stops as part of their risk management. It may depend more on whose money they are risking. The guys I work with are risking others money and also their own.

 

Rande Howell

[bobcollett 10]

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence .Talent will not ;nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent.Genius will not;unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not;the world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."

Calvin Coolidge

[Vince50 10]

Why are we now seeing not one but 2 ads covering 2 posts on each thread so we cant read them?

[MightyMouse 12]

I only see ads for girls and cars.

[TL Staff 10]

Why are we now seeing not one but 2 ads covering 2 posts on each thread so we cant read them?

 

Hi,

 

That is strange. Can you take a screenshot and share it with us? Definitely don't want ads getting in your way.

[Vince50 10]

Hi,

 

That is strange. Can you take a screenshot and share it with us? Definitely don't want ads getting in your way.

 

Thanks, I will try but I dont have snagit on my computer anymore which was the only way I leaned how to do a screenshot unless it was from my charts. What is the easiest way for me to take a screenshot in your opinion. And yes as I was reading your reply there was an ad for Vanguard IRA's stuck on my page with no x to click it off as all of them seem to have.

[Vince50 10]

I took a free trial of snag it just to try to get a sample/example page to you. I tried" save as" straight from the page but it wouldnt let me save it to pictures or documents.maybe its a "chrome" thing. Anyway I hope I sent the right attacment. There should be 3 ads on this page.

 

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

 

PS- Uh oh, I went to preview this before sending and after going from "manage attachments" and then attaching it, I dont see it attached to my post in the preview. I dont have this problem on other forums. I must be doing something wrong. Sorry I will keep trying if I have to.

[TL Staff 10]

I took a free trial of snag it just to try to get a sample/example page to you. I tried" save as" straight from the page but it wouldnt let me save it to pictures or documents.maybe its a "chrome" thing. Anyway I hope I sent the right attacment. There should be 3 ads on this page.

 

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

 

PS- Uh oh, I went to preview this before sending and after going from "manage attachments" and then attaching it, I dont see it attached to my post in the preview. I dont have this problem on other forums. I must be doing something wrong. Sorry I will keep trying if I have to.

 

Hey

 

You can just click print screen, and paste it into paint, save the JPG / PNG / GIF and share or you can get a free version of jing [Jing, screenshot and screencast software from TechSmith

[Vince50 10]

OK, I think I managed thru snagit, to send the file. If not I will try Jing as you suggested

 

 

thanx

12-22-2012 6-43-34 PM.pdf

[Vince50 10]

Sadly. Very,Very sadly. Boxing and Trading have almost exactly similar mind sets.......and horribly, results.

 

#1-Discipline is very important but paradoxically in the end it means nothing. Boxing just like trading is a zero sum game. Unlike normal professions that add to the world, for every dollar we win, someone has to lose a dollar. For every boxer that goes home to celebrate and has a bevvy of women waiting to please his every disire, the other man who lost is going home to put his face into a sink full of ice and maybe a stop by the liquor store for some anesthesia on the way home. The trader: Both traders stayed up all night analyzing charts, one lost his weeks pay, one made his weeks pay. Both boxers did every single thing their trainer told them to do,yet one is the winner the other no matter how much discipline, is not.

 

In the end: This is very surreal, ephemeral and hard to decipher. But in the end, dont 95% of the great boxers(let alone the bad ones or the has beens!) wind up with brain damage, impairments of some kind, and a feeling of having no use after their career is done. Dont most winning traders live in isolation in one way or another, lose many happy times with their friends and maybe family, and when thier career is over, maybe they are not brain damaged, but what is left when you look back on your life and ask yourself, "What did I do in this world that made any difference? The answer is nothing. If you dont care,(and some traders dont) its easier to feel empty when you cant or wont trade anymore.At least the boxer can say he entertained people and brought smiles to peoples faces. But in the end..........money aside, dont they both die and are forgotten? So why do I want to trade you may ask?

 

I have personal reasons. I want to use trading to give back. Very few people know how to do that. Warren Buffet waited till he was over 80 before he left his money to charity. Im still waiting to hear what good things occured or how the world is better for it.

 

OUR FOREFATHERS OF TRADING!

 

IS IT AN ACCIDENT THAT LIVERMORE, ELLIOT,GANN AND DOW NEVER LIVED TO AN OLD AGE? AND THAT ONE COMMITTED SUICIDE, ONE DIED OF ALCOHOLISM AND THE OTHER 2 DIED DEAD BROKE AND ALONE. ALL 4 WERE SICK MOST OF THEIR LIVES!

[Vince50 10]

Well....that brightened everybody's day,yes? :haha: Im trading 15 years and I have given everything I ever loved to participate in this "sport." Let me call it a sport for today. It sounds more invigorating. And no I dont drink.:bang head:

[Roger Felton 10]

Sadly. Very,Very sadly. Boxing and Trading have almost exactly similar mind sets.......and horribly, results.

 

#1-Discipline is very important but paradoxically in the end it means nothing. Boxing just like trading is a zero sum game. Unlike normal professions that add to the world, for every dollar we win, someone has to lose a dollar. For every boxer that goes home to celebrate and has a bevvy of women waiting to please his every disire, the other man who lost is going home to put his face into a sink full of ice and maybe a stop by the liquor store for some anesthesia on the way home. The trader: Both traders stayed up all night analyzing charts, one lost his weeks pay, one made his weeks pay. Both boxers did every single thing their trainer told them to do,yet one is the winner the other no matter how much discipline, is not.

 

In the end: This is very surreal, ephemeral and hard to decipher. But in the end, dont 95% of the great boxers(let alone the bad ones or the has beens!) wind up with brain damage, impairments of some kind, and a feeling of having no use after their career is done. Dont most winning traders live in isolation in one way or another, lose many happy times with their friends and maybe family, and when thier career is over, maybe they are not brain damaged, but what is left when you look back on your life and ask yourself, "What did I do in this world that made any difference? The answer is nothing. If you dont care,(and some traders dont) its easier to feel empty when you cant or wont trade anymore.At least the boxer can say he entertained people and brought smiles to peoples faces. But in the end..........money aside, dont they both die and are forgotten? So why do I want to trade you may ask?

 

I have personal reasons. I want to use trading to give back. Very few people know how to do that. Warren Buffet waited till he was over 80 before he left his money to charity. Im still waiting to hear what good things occured or how the world is better for it.

 

OUR FOREFATHERS OF TRADING!

 

IS IT AN ACCIDENT THAT LIVERMORE, ELLIOT,GANN AND DOW NEVER LIVED TO AN OLD AGE? AND THAT ONE COMMITTED SUICIDE, ONE DIED OF ALCOHOLISM AND THE OTHER 2 DIED DEAD BROKE AND ALONE. ALL 4 WERE SICK MOST OF THEIR LIVES!

 

Probably as bazaar and cynical a post as I've ever read. So, when I have a good day in the market, I took all of my profit from one single guy?...instead of a small amount from the multitude of other traders? And, because I'm successful, no matter how much I help my family, friends and fellow man, I am doomed to die alone, broke and forgotten...but giving it away is still somehow more righteous even if my family starves.

 

As a trader, I get to spend more quality time with my family than any non-trader I know of and still have time to teach many others how to do the same. Time and financial freedom are two of the reasons I chose to be a trader.

 

People in all legal professions should be rewarded for their hard work, dedication, knowledge, skill, training and discipline. They shouldn't have to apologize to anyone because providing for their families and getting their kids through college and helping those less fortunate along the way doesn't meet someone else's definition of "making a difference in the world".

 

I will forever be amazed at how one person can marvel at a diamond while another sees it as carbon that got screwed up by too much pressure.

[Vince50 10]

Probably as bazaar and cynical a post as I've ever read. So, when I have a good day in the market, I took all of my profit from one single guy?...instead of a small amount from the multitude of other traders? And, because I'm successful, no matter how much I help my family, friends and fellow man, I am doomed to die alone, broke and forgotten...but giving it away is still somehow more righteous even if my family starves.

 

As a trader, I get to spend more quality time with my family than any non-trader I know of and still have time to teach many others how to do the same. Time and financial freedom are two of the reasons I chose to be a trader.

 

People in all legal professions should be rewarded for their hard work, dedication, knowledge, skill, training and discipline. They shouldn't have to apologize to anyone because providing for their families and getting their kids through college and helping those less fortunate along the way doesn't meet someone else's definition of "making a difference in the world".

 

I will forever be amazed at how one person can marvel at a diamond while another sees it as carbon that got screwed up by too much pressure.

 

I only wrote this to be similar to pop or impressionist type art. The best art, my friend is born of despair. Trading like war...................and yes the average trader who goes up against guys like you with your robots, and professionally made software and coding is in a war against a very deadly adversary. Nothing personal Roger, but maybe that is why you feel the need to teach and sell besides trading. Trading cannot make a person feel complete. Not many,anyway. So Im just mixing in a bit of art and reality so few of us ever get to hear. We hear war stories, the trade that was missed, the great day or week someone had when they were running good that week. But you rarely find men who dip into their souls in trading threads. And maybe they arent meant for that. But then where does one go to find a deeper level of conversation about trading? It is almost impossible. Which brings us right back full circle, like a fractal, like some magical fibonacci number that sends our runaway stock crashing right back into our face and rruins the day, yes we come back to where I was originally saying.....Trading can be a lonely,empty profession. It can be wonderful too. But this is directed at either the 95% who are destined by statistics to lose.....and also the winners who find at the end of the day after squeezing out so many pips or points from the same setup over and over and over...it just is what it is.

 

I will end with sharing with you what one very successful trader said to a group of us as a guest ion a chat room. He said...."Once you get it, once you find that set up or formula that works for you and your personality, trading is just a job. I'm not really excited by it anymore. To me, trading done right ,done profitably is like working in McDonalds, robotically flipping burger after burger all day long. Or frying eggs and flipping them...all day long. There is no more guess work, no more intrigue, its just a business,because you KNOW what the end result to a very good degree is going to be,every single month..You see the setup, you click the mouse, you take it. You dont see it, you stare at a screen, you wait. Thats all trading in the end comes down to."

 

So lets throw his opinion in too. Personally I think this is a man that got burned out on trading which maybe is the bottom line here. Trading is not a magic profession that once you can make a living at it all your wants and desires are taken care of and boredom goes away. We still have many restless,boring days in life...just like everyone else. Look at the creative,wonderful people who made Traders laboratory. If trading was enough they wouldnt have spent years of their life building a trading community. I rest my case. And my art.

[Roger Felton 10]

I only wrote this to be similar to pop or impressionist type art. The best art, my friend is born of despair. Trading like war...................and yes the average trader who goes up against guys like you with your robots, and professionally made software and coding is in a war against a very deadly adversary. Nothing personal Roger, but maybe that is why you feel the need to teach and sell besides trading. Trading cannot make a person feel complete. Not many,anyway. So Im just mixing in a bit of art and reality so few of us ever get to hear. We hear war stories, the trade that was missed, the great day or week someone had when they were running good that week. But you rarely find men who dip into their souls in trading threads. And maybe they arent meant for that. But then where does one go to find a deeper level of conversation about trading? It is almost impossible. Which brings us right back full circle, like a fractal, like some magical fibonacci number that sends our runaway stock crashing right back into our face and rruins the day, yes we come back to where I was originally saying.....Trading can be a lonely,empty profession. It can be wonderful too. But this is directed at either the 95% who are destined by statistics to lose.....and also the winners who find at the end of the day after squeezing out so many pips or points from the same setup over and over and over...it just is what it is.

 

I will end with sharing with you what one very successful trader said to a group of us as a guest ion a chat room. He said...."Once you get it, once you find that set up or formula that works for you and your personality, trading is just a job. I'm not really excited by it anymore. To me, trading done right ,done profitably is like working in McDonalds, robotically flipping burger after burger all day long. Or frying eggs and flipping them...all day long. There is no more guess work, no more intrigue, its just a business,because you KNOW what the end result to a very good degree is going to be,every single month..You see the setup, you click the mouse, you take it. You dont see it, you stare at a screen, you wait. Thats all trading in the end comes down to."

 

So lets throw his opinion in too. Personally I think this is a man that got burned out on trading which maybe is the bottom line here. Trading is not a magic profession that once you can make a living at it all your wants and desires are taken care of and boredom goes away. We still have many restless,boring days in life...just like everyone else. Look at the creative,wonderful people who made Traders laboratory. If trading was enough they wouldnt have spent years of their life building a trading community. I rest my case. And my art.

 

No need to explain, Vince50, I know exactly where you're coming from. I think if Van Gogh had also been a trader he'd have cut off both ears. Well, one things for sure, trading does offer plenty of despair to go around. But it covers it up well with heaping doses of confusion, frustration, anger, panic and desperation just to keep us on our toes and keep us from getting too cocky. Seems that way, doesn't it? But the truth is, whatever experience we get from trading, physical or emotional, we bring on ourselves. It's like someone getting in a car, breaking all the rules of the road, panicking and crashing into a tree...then blaming the car for the pain and suffering!

 

Markets and cars are both inanimate vehicles. One to move about physically and the other to advance financially. Neither is capable of thought or deed. Neither can plot against you. Neither are to blame for any suffering that you bring upon yourself due to your lack of any or all of the three essential elements that all successful traders must possess.

 

The first thing traders must do is recognize markets for what they are...just inanimate vehicles that simply provide a means of making a living. Rarely are they a means for getting filthy rich. Yet traders continue to want to make millions by learning from a trader who already made millions. That's like expecting Tiger Woods to teach you how to be a billionaire trying to mimic what he does.

 

As traders, we learn to identify conditional "setups" that have a historical high probability of producing profitable moves...but we never know how far. We employ sound Trade Management techniques and take what we can get. We have little control of how much the market gives us, but we can sure control how much it takes away. That's the DISCIPLINE that this thread is about. If we can control that, then we can control the fear, anxiety, depression, frustration, anger, and all those other nasty negative emotions that sabotage our confidence and cloud our thinking...and always end badly for the trader.

 

Good stuff, Vince50, for a lively discussion. Thanks for the thought-starters and response!

 

BTW...I never use "robots" and the software I use is simply designed to take over the tedious "dog work" that I dislike doing myself...the constant measuring, figuring, data crunching, back-testing and multi-chart filtering. That stuff wears me out mentally and is ideal for computers. Give me the answers I need and let me manage the trade. It's a system that works for me and I have a standing offer to any TL member to let me know if they would like to learn, friend to friend, what I do and why it works so well.

Edited December 25, 2012 by Roger Felton

[Vince50 10]

The first thing traders must do is recognize markets for what they are...just inanimate vehicles that simply provide a means of making a living. Rarely are they a means for getting filthy rich. Yet traders continue to want to make millions by learning from a trader who already made millions. That's like expecting Tiger Woods to teach you how to be a billionaire trying to mimic what he does.

Roger,you wrote the above. And I must confess you are spot on. And I would like to make a wager that if every person on this board was told that if they learn to succeed in trading they will never be rich, just make double what they make now....90% (including me!) would be gone from trading forever. The truth is,and I hope you agree, there are many multi-millionaires who dont put in the effort some of the men and women on this board do to become successful!!! Trading often is not fair. 95%(I say its much higher for day traders) of traders lose, and the few percent that win, dont get a yacht and 2 beach houses and a sprawling ranch in Inibeza,Spain. You definitely get back pain and a need for reading glasses and ....well, lets leave it at that. lol

 

But I hope you agree,Roger, That trading is very much like a relationship with a woman, you can get those time periods where all you can think about is that woman, the sex is great, and every cloud in the sky is beautiful and every raindrop,pristine! But time goes by, and like a trading cycle where there is nothing but sidewatys movement for a long long time, most relationships get stale,and if they cant be fixed....we move on. But what do we move ON TO.....if trading loses its luster? Or as that song went in that Top Gun-Tom Cruise movie....what happens to your career in trading when......."Youve lost that loving feeling, And its gone, gone ,gone....." ???????????????????? I dont think Gann,Elliot,Dow,Livermore and all the old time traders loved trading when they were near death,anywhere as much as when they "thought" they conquered it! JMHO. Good post Roger!:applaud:

[Vince50 10]

I don't know much to trading. I only know what I know from hard direct experience and repeated daily practice, note taking, reading, and chart time.

 

But I come to conclusion its all discipline..............................

 

The success that a trader achieves in the markets is directly correlated to one’s trading discipline or lack thereof. Trading discipline is 90 percent of the game. The formula is very simple: Trade with discipline and you will succeed; trade without discipline and you will fail.

 

I have also come to conclusion that I don't feel bad about my previous losses in the beginning. Lets face it, I didn't know what the hell I was doing. And guess what.......I still don't know what the hell I am doing. But what I am doing makes sense to me and seems to working thus far. So all that technical and discipline stuff don't mean nothing unless the trader know what the hell they are doing.

 

Just my two cents.

 

Goodoboy, there is a movie you can watch on netflix streaming called Occupation:Fighter.[/b[ It is about a talented artist who gives up his career to follow his passion.....MMA fighting. Its a documentary. Tell me if you dont take back the words you just said after you watch it. The ending makes it all worth while. Anyone who liked Rocky will see the real life version and I mean REAL! Traders will really dig into theior soul after this touching and realistic documentary.

[Vince50 10]

Hi again, I posted the snapshot and I am still barraged with 3 ads on every page I go to. Guess what the marketers are now doing!!!! When I am online with your site open as well as 2 or 3 other sites,I start getting audio commercials and I cant trace where they come from! Dont even know if your site is giving them to me first or also or not at all!!!! Is this the new wave, the new age of spam. AUDIO????