The Journey of Making a Living as a Professional Trader

Welcome to ET, good posts so far.

Having started a journal, be prepared for haters, bashers, flamers, posers, and all manner of other angry and bitter people. In between, you will receive some positive feedback, and if you choose to focus on such you will definitely benefit from the experience.

You have two choices in how to respond to the aforementioned "thread-jackers": place them on ignore (probably the best way), or fight back against the hate. Being an adrenaline-junkie myself, I usually choose the latter, and have found it to be an enlightening experience, to say the least.

It sounds like you have a level-headed approach to the trading journey that lies ahead of you. Mediation will most certainly help, as will positive visualization exercises (mental rehearsals of achieving the success you desire). Kudos for landing a spot at a prop firm, and best wishes for remaining focussed on your goals in an environment that is likely to be full of chaos and negativity.

 

Thanks for the feedback keeptradin'

I definitely need to incorporate mental rehearsals into my daily routine, I've never put the idea into action with enough commitment.

I started this journal with the awareness that what I wrote might be confronted with negativity. Everyone's entitled to their opinion and I'm not one to judge their responses based on their filter of the world. I hope my ego doesn't come out to play too much . Maybe dealing with negative responses will actually let me focus more, allowing them to pass by like negative emotions in front of the screen.

But who knows?

 

My experiences down the path to mastery

The idea of becoming a professional trader flittered around in my head for a few years before I actively and seriously pursued it. I was probably around 15 or 16 when I first started reading about trading. The idea of compound interest was all it really took for me to realize the scalability and potential profits that traders could make.

On one hand the pursuit of compound interest may have given me an unhealthy ambition for what could be accomplished but on the other, the understanding of the sheer power of compound interest allowed me to never really be suckered into the fallacy of the ‘magic pill’ or ‘holy grail’ systems thinking. If I had a system that good then there’s no way in hell that I would market it to other traders – I’d do what any rational person would do and find investment for the system not for the ‘secrets behind the system’.

I read as much as I could about markets, economics, indicators, methods and money management, but focused especially hard on the psychology of trading (hence the self-development slant I have). For example I knew that I had to have discipline so I worked to build discipline in my life, I got up at a certain time each day – I completed at least an hour of ‘quality’ work each day… etc.. I crafted myself early on to build up the attributes I had read were needed.

However I spent so much time on the nuances of trading that many traders ignore but very little on an actual method of trading to apply. You can read about basketball for years but until you start playing and improving inch-by-inch it’s all mental masturbation. It’s almost like I read just for the rush of those ‘aha’ moments without actually putting it into action.

It’s so simple in hindsight, just take the first awkward step, then the next, then the next and if you have the right attitude things will fall into place. In my experience this took a while and a lot of persistence.

I was a Dabbler and a Hacker – many emotional shifts had to happen before I set my head straight.

Getting on the path to mastery

One book that helped me get on the right path was ‘Mastery by George Leonard’ in it he talks about 4 different personality types

The Dabbler – In trading this is a guy who reads a few books and then quits right as he hits a plateau or tries another trading method and dabbles in that before moving on to another. This includes continually jumping from system to system trying to find the 'holy grail'. The perpetual starter.

The Hacker – This is the kind of guy that gives trading a go but does in in a half-assed way and is in no way consistent. He holds back due to fear of failure, for fear that his mental masturbation of becoming a big boy trader will come crashing down, so he never tries hard in fear that this will become a reality. He may become bitter and twisted as his self image is distorted.

The Obsessive – This is the kind of trader that finds it difficult to adapt, if he comes to a hurdle he tries to smash through it getting more and more frustrated and emotional. These guys blow up when markets change. Sometimes it’s better to step back, be flexible and re-assess the situation. Edges change.

The Master – this kind of trader lives and breathes the Japanese concept of ‘kaizen’ continual small improvements. Trading for him is about enjoying the process of becoming better, learning more and more. He doesn’t bitch and whine about spending some money on a book and only getting 1% of value from it, he takes that 1% and compounds it over 10 years.

The road to Mastery is frustrating, boring and dangerous if you only look at the end goal, you have to fall in love with the process. Success isn’t getting the ‘8 minute abs’ it’s the long slow walk to the gym when you’ve had 3 hours sleep, that sense of inner peace when you’re on your path. Doing repetitive tasks over and over again to improve by 0.001%, success is in the process, the outcome just happens. Do a search on 'deliberate practice' and see how it can affect your trading.

Where are you right now and how can you get on the right path?


Influences

A New Earth - Eckhart Tolle
Mastery - George Leonard
Enhancing Trader Performance - Brett Steenbarger
The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play - Neil Fiore

 

I played golf competitively at the Junior, High School, and College levels. One of the things I heard over and over again from the people who I idolized and aspired to emulate (Nicklaus, Watson, Player, Palmer) was that visualization was critical to performing at the highest levels in the sport.

Trading is like golf, ten percent physical (method), ninety percent mental. In order to train our brains for success, we must develop the practice of visualizing the outcome we wish to achieve. I will admit that I do not devote nearly enough time to this endeavor, but reading your posts has inspired me to to commit more time to doing so.

 

Just as in the game of trading, one must have a predetermined approach to dealing with the inevitable negativity, nay, hate, that one is certain to encounter in this type of forum. As a veteran of many chat rooms and message forums similar to ET, I can say with absolute certainty that you will be subjected to cruel and unsual punishment the likes of which you have never known.

Decide NOW how you will handle this type of treatment, your "catastrophe stop" if you will. Otheriwse, this silly little forum will become a major distraction from the endeavor in which you have apparently devoted yourself to attaining success. If I can impart any words of wisdom to you, it is the importance of deciding in advance how to respond to the mean people that will be jealous of your success, and seek to suck the energy out of the beautiful life you are striving for.

 

Well it looks like that's my first mental rehearsal assignment

Thanks

 

Are you going into a trading group with a mentor or on your own once you start? Working with someone who knows what the hell they are doing helps... ALOT lol

 

It's a very nice setup actually, we are put into small groups and then have a mentor who actively trades sitting alongside us. They leave room for us to grow and pursue our own ideas and trading methods that suit us while at the same time calling out price action and what they see going on.

Much different to the other firm where I was trading - it was more along the lines of 'buy low, sell high' make 5 or more trades a day - then off to the floor with little interaction.

"Scalp three ticks"
- "But thats barely 2 after commissions and my stop is 8"
"Gotta hit those rebates! - trade monkey trade!"

Completely flawed at the time and didn't suit me.

 

Ok I see. Do you know how much training you will get before you actually go live? Have you talked to anyone who has gone through this program?

Are you being paid a salary? Being without a salary is one of the tougher things for newer traders who are being compensated purely from pnl whether from your own capital or a firms.

 

Without going into too much detail as I'd like to respect the privacy of the firm.

Yes for all of them. The training period is 6-12 months, live after a few although it depends on the trader. Small basic salary and I've done my due dilligence with regard to traders already at the firm from networking with other traders at my prior firm.