Learning to lose did have some valuable lessons, but I'm not sure I'd recommend my route. We lost it Faaaaast, too! "How to learn from utter failure" Available at amazon before Xmas!
50 g's blew the guy out? what kinda size could he trade with that kind of account? of course, its doesn't necessarily mean that the guy wasn't a great mentor. i talked to sammy chua at a recent daytradersUSA meeting and he trades SIZE (not telling any secrets here). when i visualize a mentor its someone who has built their abilities and account up and is trading size, not just to be trading size, but they are taking significant, consistent dough out of the market. not size on every trade, but they strike big when the opportunity presents itself. i have mentored people in my profession - they came to work for me. they had been friends in other areas thought they wanted to do what i do. one guy is successful at it, but he had it "together" when he came to me and he stayed for a relatively short period - i just basically told him he knew enough and that he didn't need me, but that he could call me anytime with questions and i would help by referring work to him. the other two went back to their prior endeavors. i did it to help them, not me. i work alone and haven't hired anyone to work with me - they worked with me because they needed it , not me - and i didn't make any real dough off of them either. i have a guy now who is starting to try and learn the "ropes" and he is grateful, but i don't know if he will be successful. he is very green, which may actually be better. at least he's willing. id really like to work with a trading mentor, but i suspect there are very few with the ability and the inclination. i might take some seminars or work in a prop firm, just for the experience, to make contact and exchange ideas. except for my "trading partner" (and we don't talk much - he's in another state), im kinda in a vacuum. while it has its advantages, it certainly has alot of drawbacks too.
He was trying to make up for 2 really bad weeks, and got greedy. His words. Btw, it was 30g's. $6 x 5000 shares. I think he was left with 400 or so in his account. He was well over 2x margin and didn't arrive until after the market opened. (maybe he could have bailed on an ecn in premarket) Check out a daily chart from around June 6th. (the day he put the trade on) Long and overmargined overnight was a brave position to be in, imho.
To me a mentor is someone who's wise, has been around the block a few times, and has the acount balance to prove it. The guy who blew up on one trade after suffereing a couple of bad weeks is about as far away as a mentor that one can get. Perhaps an anti-mentor.
The posts by praetorian2 and QQQBALL echo my thoughts and experiences. Those posts give a lot of valuable information and clues to finding members of the 5% club. They're not elusive, you just need to reach out to them. I thought I had answered Winston's question, but it seems not. So here is more. My training was gruelling. It was not difficult, but it demanded 100% attention for hours and hours on end, day after day, week after week, month after month, online. That took dedication, perseverance, submissiveness, and total immersion. It goes without saying that I have total respect for my mentor. The objective of the training was to sharpen my reaction skills to become instinctive. I saw, I reacted. No thoughts, no hesitation, no what-iffs, no regrets, no elation, no greed, no fear. No feeling at all in fact. As with all great traders, the only thing he concerned himself with was knowing the (very small) risk at the outset. I was told hundreds of times that trading was only about taking care of the risk. The profits would then come naturally, and with almost no effort. How right he was. There was no payment. He just seemed to appreciate having someone to talk to, and to bawl at when I screwed up, and to laugh with when I started making trades which nobody would believe. I just loved every minute I was online with him because his presence was invigorating. He took pride in me because I devoted my trading beliefs to him and I am truly grateful for the gift I have received. I just seemed to sense that he was the one sent to rescue me. I never saw any written proof of his trading ability. I did not need to. The proof was in what he told me. I could see it for myself. He took me under his wing and led me into a world where money was growing on trees, just there for the picking. But he also stressed the importance of having humility while I was doing it because the money I was taking from those trees comes from other traders who have lost. Charitable deeds are very important to him, and all he asked in return for his mentoring was that I would, in my own time and anonymously, return some of that money to deserving causes. I know approximately where he is in the world, yet I still do not know his name. It is my greatest wish to thank him in person for what he has done for me. Sadly, this may never happen.