Just like Altucher, I have had it with failure porn, particularly with traders--- where its like a religion. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/failure-good-james-altucher?trk=hb_ntf_MEGAPHONE_ARTICLE_POST
Right, there is no failure, only outcome of experiment, which gives you valuable information about what works and what doesn't.
95% of traders lose. This is failure reality. Trading is too expensive even though brokers try to convince you it is cheap now. With exactly zero commission your chances are 50/50. I am looking forward to the other articles but this first one is enough. Read it carefully. All the information you need is there.
A losing trader can do little to transform himself into a winning trader. A losing trader is not going to want to transform himself. That’s the kind of thing winning traders do. --Ed Seykota
I think the original idea of not stigmatizing failures made some sense - successful people get knocked down and get back up, try and try again, etc. But like most decent ideas, it is then repeated and extended into absurdity. At some point it becomes "failure porn" which is one of the most absurd notions that I have come across. Ive noticed on thing about most of the failure pornographers - they are full of shit. Anyone who has been kicked hard in the balls or coughs up blood knows it is not a good thing - regardless of if u learn how to defend yourself against future ball-shots as a result and end up a "better person".
I think there are two separate issues here: 1.) The actual failure and 2.) the result of the actual failure. The question is: Is failure ancillary to your primary objective or a symptom of some correctable behavior. You should identify what in particular are you gaining from failing. It might be something so abstract or so complex that the simple heuristic of failing to succeed is appropriate and any attempt to replicate it or replace it with something other than failing will yield completely different results; Or it may be something so explicit and concrete that you may be able to replicate that benefit and eliminate or reduce the failures to achieve your objective. Example: You always lose money on a particular stock but then go on to make money on the next. Your long term win-loss statistics follow that path nearly every time. You assume your initial/first loss is just part of the process. But ask: In this situation, what do I gain every time I fail? Is it something where I can adjust my behavior to achieve without failing? Every time I fail, I tend to view the next signal much more statistically. The initial failure helps me to refocus and position size appropriately given a certain level of risk. In this example failure becomes much less ancillary to success and more of a symptom to of correctable behavior.
It is up to the trader : if they want to be successful, they have to do what it takes. There is no escuses : trading successful is pure meritocraty. You can be an idiot, a rocket scientist : every body has a good chance if one is not too proud to do what they need to do. That can mean getting humbly down to seatting in silence in 10 days of the www.dhamma.org so as to be more open to self-honesty and coaching. I am sorry but I can not feel sorry for those who are not willing to do everything they need to make it. Peace.