in response to nutmeg's sports analogy- thats what steroids are for... to break the genetic threshold and even the playing field. . . some say.
Personally, I think traders get a little too hung up on analogy... Trading isn't boxing, neither is it chess. I don't care how hard you work, no one here is going to beat Kasparov or Roy Jones Jr. Neither are you ever going to beat Jim Simmons at this game. Who cares...if you spend the next 10 years studying poker night and day, you still probly won't win the world series of poker. You probly could make a living though after 10 years taking hobbiest pikers money at various tables. That still hardly maps 1:1 with trading, if anything trading for a living is alot easier than that. Most people though are too delusional, don't know their place on the food chain and basically lazy when it comes to trading that they won't last 2 years let alone 10.
You're not going to be the top anything unless you have some sort of genetic predisposition for it, unless it's something so out of the mainstream that there is little competition (like being the best 500 meter swimmer through Jello). There's so much competition for most things that there is a large pool of people who do all of the study and training and what not to reach the top. The only thing that differentiates them is their physical make-up. A great example is football. Thousands of potential players graduate on scholarships every year. Most of em won't even be drafted into the NFL. Most of the draftees wash out after a season or two. The competition is tough, you have a whole lot of people trying to get a few spots. If you have a weakness, you are out (unless the Detroit Lions are talking to you ).
I mostly agree. Think about [American] Football. In a game ruled by monster people, you have Barry Sanders at 5' 8" 190 lbs. You could be standing 1 foot from that guy and have no chance to get your hands on him, let along tackle him. The guy was liquid. How on earth you gonna teach that?
I only persisted at trading because I really liked doing it. If I was trading for bottle caps, I think I'd still do it, just as long as there was a symbol that I was winning or losing. The question, am I a successful trader now because I was born with it or did my persistence only because of my enjoyment of trading allow me to get to where I am? I feel like I'm not the only one in this endeavor so by "I", I speak for a few people.
Agreed... You can't teach speed... or a standing 48" vertical (as in Barry's case) but you can become Dustin Pedroia or Cole Hammels given the right set of circumstances...
the financial meltdown is probably the best example of experts/grand masters failing will Tiger recover from his knee surgery and play again chess along with writing poetry and reading French novels is something for one's late teens early twenties then best forgotten of all the skills/talents an individual possesses most will only use those particular ones required by: 1: employment 2: marriage family the real criteria is 'how happy are you ?' ; are you able to use 'happiness' as a tool a technique that's beneficial to you ? is trading a happiness generator or would you rather be playing chess or fishing ? can you improve your performance ? - do you want to ? - does it make you happy knowing you're trying to improve ? if a boxer do you go into bars and pick fights with the biggest guy in there ? - is your criteria for success that you beat the **** out of him ? - that you were able to crawl out of the bar ? - that he didn't pull a gun and shoot you dead ? most people can learn to do something that is new to them, if interested enough and will be happy doing so as they learn how to do it, happier still as they master what they're learning a great example of a 'learned' skill is drawing: first published in 1979 Betty Edwards' 'Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain' was written to teach people who believed they could not draw that in fact, 'you can draw' while some may be happy to enter competition with others, many people are happy 'just' doing it whether or not another person sees or even knows of that doing success and happiness like beauty is in the eye of the beholder