I would say absolute detachment emotionally. Viewing trading not as gambling but as a job. Risk management is very important, think of all the situations before you press the button. I spend most of my time planning and thinking working out models etc.. before setting up the trades. 99.5% planning/preparing 0.5% trading The majority of the time I just spend monitoring my trade and keeping up with the flow of things. Dont try to hit a home run every time, I would rather make money over time methodically VS trying to take a big home run every time. Take notes, lots of notes. I keep two journals. Learn from mistakes, take notes and a mistake just means a new learning opportunity. Patience it takes lots and lots of hours before you start to hit your stride and then the experience/time really pays off. Math and science and reading comprehension. And you also need to have a curious mind and quick problem solving skills. And willing to learn every day. Do an experiment every day as Edwin Land says.
The OP and others did not "get it". Most remarks here reflect what a young person who has always had a PC have not reasoned through. What a person could reflect upon might be how the very expert experienced trader who is called the "unconscious competent" trader goes about extracting the full offer. He reads the market precisely. He was able to read it before the PC was available. He mystified the SEC's computers. What would an really astute trained sensitive observer see as he traded? Emotionally, what would be seen is support, comfort and confidence. What else? Well, it comes down to one technical observation and NOT a fundamental observation. It is best stated as an algebra equation in Boolean algebra. Entry (v,p) = Opposite Exit (v,p) This is the only point where profit segments take the full offer of the market segment by segment. The equation does not apply at any point between the entry and its subsequent exit. This observed trader would always reverse when the equation applies and hold when it does not. I invented an occupation for myself; I'm a logicologist