The quest for the perfect system is much like Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin. Linus is much like some traders that I meet who:
1. Are reluctant to trade any system, until they have perfected their "own" system.
2. Want to build their "own" system and feel like they are "cheating" if they trade someone else's system.
We worked with a brilliant trader last week, and he straight-up confronted this attitude and pounded it into oblivion. He realized that he could trade right now using what he already knew and could learn from others. And then he could spend lots of time building his own system. This individual taught me that a trader can vanquish bad attitudes and put himself on the right path. It was inspiring to watch.
Your standard, ordinary, day to day systems can throw off revenue for you to explore the deeper questions of “a better trading system,” or a better money management strategy, etc. It is worth spending a lot of time getting one trading system -- even one that you can learn from others -- set up correctly so that it can work and so that you can produce reliable income consistently. This income that your ordinary system produces will throw off a research and development budget, with which to explore uncharted trading territories.
