I received an email from a frustrated student today. Let's call him Mortimer. That's not his name, but I like the name so that's what we're going with.
Mortimer wrote me to say that:
I created a personal web blog at [then he tells me his blog address which he is keeping private] to track my progress. Only you, my wife and Fred [a mutual friend] know it exists. As you can see I stalled out.
His frustration comes from having "stalled out." After a month of posting, and planning, and trading, he feels that he has backtracked, or not made enough forward progress, or that he was doing just fine and things kind of fell apart. He was looking at about 10+ currency pairs, but he's now looking at just 5. He is following the same system every day. he is consistently applying the same rules to the charts. He is doing his best to practice trade in a trade simulator (although this has not appealed to him as much).
My advice to Mortimer is this: you are doing what it takes to become successful. I would strongly encourage/beg you to not give up on the simulated testing. But other than that, you are putting an amazing amount of work into your goal of trading for a living. Most people don't want to do this kind of work. Let's reflect on a quote from Michael Covel's new book "The Complete Turtle Trader":
To cultivate that extra drive [exhibited by successful traders], however, requires deliberate practice. Berkshire Hathaway's Charlie Munger has lived it; he has said, "In my whole life, I have known no wise people over a broad subject matter area that didn't read all the time -- none, zero." Most people do not want the real work that comes with real success.
That quote sums up much of what I feel about unsuccessful traders. It's not about your math skills. It's not about having some innate gift for trading. It's about work and practice.
Mortimer, you're on the right track. Keep yourself on it.
