DaveJB said:
Kevin
yes -
... and the emotional side is for you to sort out, not (in my view) something to be taught... which does not stop people flocking to those offering courses in amateur psychology.
Racer - also agreed, but anyone who hasn't a reasonable grasp of their own character should have the sense to keep out until they do. This is a difficult enough area of endeavour without lying to yourself as you go through it.
I am very pleased you are bringing this up, because you see there are several steps that follow in a logical sequence. You cannot step out in the incorrect order. Otherwise the aspirant finds himself in a morass if he does not follow the correct order.
I am going to deal with your second paragraph first.
Many people are not fit for this profession. This is not because they are dull or stupid, far from this. It is because this profession does not take prisoners. It is not here for your benefit or mine. It is not constructed to be benevolent , forgiving, kind, or generous, it does not provide for excuses, blunders, inadvertencies, weaknesses, failings, imperfections, nor does it accomodate fudging, shirking, skyving, cheating, lying, or pretending, nor does it make any allowances for impatience, greed, impulsiveness, testosterone, looks, background, ubringing, nor does it mitigate against having the wrong character, the wrong attitude, the wrong perspective, the wrong opinion, nor does it exonerate the indolent, the dishonest, the insincere, the untruthful.
It does not make allowances for any of this at all, whereas in ordinary life there are remedies to all of these problems, trading does not offer remedies, it can only offer irrevocable punishment to those who choose or dare to transgress.
I say choose or dare and I will expand on this.
I have in other posts frequently touched on the matter of choice. This is a very important aspect to consider because in trading there is no opportunity to choose to transgress because the verdict is irrevocable. There is no appeal.
There is no possibility to dare, that is to dare to contradict, because contradiction equals failure, loss, pain, stress and anger.
In ordinary life people are able to measure themselves according to their own yardsticks, which is not a yardstick at all but a kind of slide rule effectively disguised as a yardstick.
The markets offer nothing of the sort.
To make it even worse, even though this type of activity attracts people from all walks of life, it has particular appeal to the better educated. These people who have attained academic achievement have a right to deserve a proper status in society.
But there is a strain of those who percieve themselves to be better educated who are a nuisance. They want to enter the trading domain and succeed immediately over and above the heads of everybody else as they view themselves a superior by virtue of the fact they have swotted and attained a degree or degrees.
Now what happens is that they encounter all the difficulties the same as everybody else, but persuade themselves somehow they can be exonerated from cultivating all the neccessary behavioural skills the market demands from all of us.
What ensues is that they proceed, against all warnings and mentoring, to try to carve their own way, ignoring the glaring fact that the markets are not here to be forced. Of course, as they percieve themselves to know better, they disregard all advice and then go on to make a reall mess.
They now get angry, because they cannot renconcile what is happening to them according to their own frame of reference which in reality is the inevitable they have brought down upon themselves. Now they begin a song and dance you would not believe. They try to stir up all sorts of trouble, they try to incite others to do the same, they even go to the extreme of writing silly books, they take advantage of the goodwill of the generous who are not aware of the depth of malice that resentment against achievement can generate in individuals such as these.
What is worse, is that they lie to themselves first and then to everyone else afterwards, and cause a lot of mischief but present unworthy targets for retribution, because the retribution is one they bring upon themselves, not realising this, as their heads are so full of fanciful theories that they prevent themselves from doing so.
As you so aptly say, in your second paragraph "they should have a reasonable grasp of their own character and should have the sense to keep out until they do" The problem is, that as I detail, above they are not aware, when they view through their fog of resentment against achievement, that they do not have the correct character for this in the first place.
Now the problem is, that such individuals are very artful in concealing their failings on first inspection, but as time goes by, the markets serve to sort them out. I could write a whole book about this topic, in fact I had been considering starting a thread in allegorical form which would make the most compulsive reading, I promise you, since I have all the facts, on hard copy alongside supporting irrefutable evidence. The verb "to cringe" would be an understatement if I chose to release it in a public domain such as this.
Now let me turn my attention to paragraph 1:~
The emotional side is not something that a trader can sort out easily for himself.
This is because of everything I explain in detail in my thread "The Journey from the Basement", which you will recall last year scored more than 120,000 hits. I am not going
to go over the same ground again.
It is sufficient to say that there is direct linkage between knowledge and the emotional side.
This can be taught, but the candidate has to have the correct foundation of understanding before this aspect can be dealt with in the comprehensive manner that it merits.
As is othen the case with cross border activity, psychologists do not have the appropriate grounding or the correct foundation of understanding in order to add the psychological layer effectively tailored to suit the individual.
In consequence of this you are right in viewing popular mentoring in this regard, as I quote "offering courses in amateur psychology".
The key is that aspirants have to be made to learn all of this in mechanical mode before they can aspire to learn more.
The ring that holds the key is the use of stops. Tight stops always.
The hand that holds the ring inserts the stops.
The mind that controls the hand sets them and what is more, sticks to them.
With Very Kind Regards as Usual.
