Perseverance. There are unique skills to trading and it is not 'easy.' However, on a very basic level everyone is capable of success. On a practical level though, very few people will allow themselves such success. What seems unique about trading to me are two things, (1) the propensity for the average individual to assume trading is easy, and (2) the speed with which they are proven wrong. Between these two, I can only assume there exists a connection.
Novices and averages differ by time spent mostly same for novice and elite. Between average and elite it gets different. The positive differences are centered on wealth. Average people do not have much money so they never get to realize their actual potential. The negative differences center on market myths by enlarge. average people are myth filled and do not know it. They are sort of happy being the way they are. Elite have gone through divesting themselves of myths. So this advantage shows up financially in short order for the elites. A novice is just an ignorant person who is new to this world. The average person is in a trap. He can't understand he is stuck there either. by spending time to become average, he actually is building his trap bit by mythical bit. There are other sizes too. It's like the class thing.
Novices focus on searching for the Holy Grail and often don't explicitly define what precisely constitutes the Holy Grail. They lack clarity, discipline and emotional control. They have a tendency to be reliant on Gurus to show them how to be mega-wealthy. Invariably, the novices are net losers. The Average realize that there is no Holy Grail, but may still have emotional / psychological issues when trading. They manage to scrape out some kind of living, but their approach could be more structured. The potential Elite don't stay Average for too long, Average for them being a mere transition phase rather than an ultimate destination. In contrast, the career Average trader has has a tendency to enrich his broker and other vendors disproportionately to his profits, and he looks externally for answers rather than internally. The Elite are, as much as possible, emotionally detached. Their concern is not indicators, the quest for the Holy Grail or potential $ / % returns, since the Elite live in the world of the now and not in the world of hope. Having said that, the Elite often have a plethora of strategies (be they systemized or discretionary) and understand when and how to use them; implicit in this is the adaptability / flexibility that is integral to the mindset of the Elite. The Elite are highly conservative in their approach and extremely risk conscious, since their primary concern is their longevity.
Ah, but the point is, HOW DO YOU MEASURE IT? But not only that, once you've measured your performance in terms of both returns, risk, etc. how do you go about implementing changes in order to ensure superior performance and increased suriveability, ESPECIALLY if you are a discretionary trader? I wonder if we did a poll, how many people (ie retail/independent traders) take the time and effort to measure their Sharpe ratio, Jensen's alpha, and Treynor ratio as well as downside risk (the standard deviation thereof) in order to improve their performance by becoming aware of their strengths/weaknesses beyond the simple measure of monthly returns?
Efficiency comes to mind occassionally for me. Other times I think about the standard of the setting in which I'm operating.