I think I am "successful." I have not had a year-over-year loss since 1984. From 1984 to 2019, I made about 20-30% per year. Since 2019, I have been making about 150% per year. I have no "mentor," but I have several traders that I have paid attention to over the years. Most notable is Larry Williams. I do not trade during the day. I trade only once per day, using daily bars. I post all my trades BEFORE I make them, and I have published trade-by-trade results for 2019, 2020, and 2021.
Like in music: 1. A person can play a violin 2. A person can compose a violin concerto 3. A person can conduct a violin concerto 4. A person cannot any of the above, but can teach like nobody else 5. All of the above I was very fortunate to have met Linda Raschke. She has a heart of a teacher and patience of an angel. An all around humane person. [AFAIK, she doesn't mentor any more]
No. Mentors are pretty meaningless as everyones style of trading is unique and is tailor made for them and their personality. Some who are an introvert may have one particular style that fits them very well. That style will not work well for someone who is an extrovert. Same for people with autism, asperger or ADHD, they may need custom trading styles tailored for their personality. Generic risk management can be picked up from a book. You do not need to pay an mentor to learn that.
Two mentors well known I paid over $10,000 and others from couple thousand to eight thousand. I have bought couple dozens trading systems through the years, some went to fireplace, others are traded. What I learned from all of them, to learn trading, no matter how intelligent you are or think you are, you need daily training from whoever you are learning for a few years. You need someone to call to go over concepts, charts, risk management. When I got first involved in day trading and trading futures was approx 1985, very few books and had not bought a personal computer or data, dinosaur years. I believe that most mentors are meaningless cause they think trading can be learned in a weekend or a month, but truly it take a few years. Some students can pick it up in several months and others couple years. Some have ability of retention of remembering all the rules to trade via charting, others require less rules and mixture of charting and TA, and only those who have worked many years behind the screens can offer other venues, whether scalping, day trading stocks or futures or options. Reason few traders can mentor, few people want to train someone for few years. Starbucks time.