%% PART of the problem; is most of the millionaires+ mutual fund millionaires are made in the stocks/ETFs , by ''profits run''. Cant assume that applies to intraday, even if market makers + some bilionaires do intraday. You may\ if you trade intraday, know more about canceled orders+ fake news than me; that'$ OK also.................................................................................... Good chart point.
You have to make a habit of checking your open positions every day to see the overall condition of your account. Intraday trading needs to be done in a certain rhythm. Make a plan and follow it religiously.
IMO the problem is that most "traders" don't know what "hard work" means in regards to trading. They think it means to 1) look at charts, 2) backtest technical rules, 3) follow the advice of the "old hands", etc. What it actually means is 1) studying market structure, 2) conducting literature reviews (reading financial journals where people publish the latest research), 3) advancing the literature through your own research (e.g. conducting an analysis and developing a theory of causality), 4) applying theory to a live strategy, 5) measuring risk parameters and working on improvements. You can do this for any type of source of alpha you want. For example, if you believe in autocorrelation and time series momentum, and want to build an alpha strategy around that...follow those 5 steps and you will have "earned" a legit momentum strategy.
Hard work should be replaced by "smart/efficient" work. You can work hard and know already from start that it will lead to a failure or mediocre results. Cutting my lawn with a pair of scissors is hard work. When I'm mowing my lawn with a lawnmower, it's smart work. Hard smart work should give the best results...
I liked the example you put forward but I still feel that hard work is better than smart work. Can you knock “smartness” in someone by continuously telling them, “Be smart! Be smart!” No, right? Everyone is not smart, everyone doesn’t have skills but everyone can work hard, learn through their experience slowly but surely. Hardwork is the solution for all. We can cut the grass quickly and easily by changing our tool of cutting but trading is not the same. We can’t succeed even after using the best of the tool. Only in-depth knowledge and practice can help which comes through hard work.
That’s why I would tell him you need to be more smart. So you confirm smart work is the way to go. Smart way means that hard work can/will be included. That man should just give up if he does not have, or cannot achieve the smartness needed. Everyone who does not have the smartness can work hard till he dies, but he will never achieve his goal. You just confirmed that he can learn through experience, so smartness is essential. If he works very hard on the wrong things he can work hard eternally and still be nowhere. He should work smart. With smart I refer to the needed qualifications concerning intelligence, thinking out of the box, analytical skills... Lack of some required skills can be (partially) be compensated by above average qualifications in other areas. Just hard work makes no sense if you miss all the rest. Smart work includes hard work. Hard work does not include smart work. Smart work is thinking what is the most efficient way, and what matters, to get to the wanted result. Smart working will tell you also on which items you should work hard. It avoids losing time and energy in hard working on things that don't matter. I know several hard working wannebee traders who never made it. They did however work very hard. So you confirm that it is not just about hard work. In-depth knowledge and practice means smart work, not hard work.