It would appear that the character traits necessary for success in trading make traders better friends, better lovers, and better people than non-traders. Character traits necessary for traders to succeed: #1 Humility: You must be humble enough to admit you are wrong and cut your losses. Humility makes you less stubborn and more able to consider what your wife or friends have to say. #2 Respect: Traders respect the market and other traders: they don't expect to profit without an edge and money management skills. Traders realize they are competing against the biggest and baddest players. When you respect others, you are less likely to be arrogant because arrogance arises from feeling superior to others. #3 Introspection: Traders are more in touch with their emotions, biases, cognitive errors because they can adversely effect their trading. You are less likely to get into arguments because introspection causes you to first look inward and see if you are to blame. #4 Patience: Traders have developed a strategy to profit off of certain situations. Traders have learned to be patient with the market and only enter trades when the proper setups appear. Patience makes you more forgiving as you give others a chance to change #5 Responsible: Traders have no choice but to take full responsibility for their results. Sorry, the P&L doesn't lie. Self explanatory: being responsible helps you manage finances, set aside time for kids, and honor family obligations But people in a corporate setting who possess the above 'virtues' are not rewarded for them and thus those traits are not reinforced #1 Humility: Why admit to your boss you screwed up? Find an excuse or better yet use a colleague as a scapegoat #2 Respect: Do you have any reason to respect you boss? He takes all the upside by taking credit for what you do, and gives you all the downside when you screw up. You quickly learn not to respect the boss, but merely to appear like you respect him, in order to get promoted. #3 Introspection: Not applicable. Your boss just wants you to be a drone and do the job the way he prescribed. He couldn't care less about how you feel or your thought processes. #4 Patience: Not applicable. As a worker since when do you have the option to only take on projects you feel best fit you? And don't even think about waiting for the right project, your boss sets the deadlines and your schedule. #5 Responsible: As a worker, your goal is to minimize your responsibilities while maximizing the credit you claim for yourself. After all, your salary is fixed and independent from the amount of responsibility you take on. I know that generalizations are always faulty. But is there some truth to this?
Agreed A successful trader will also not complain constantly about something. He/she will either change it or accept that it can not be changed and realize he alone is in control of his destiny. As opposed to " If only this were the case I would be doing much better".
With one big caveat- Those things apply to succesful traders, not all traders in general. As adults it's very hard to change our personality and belief systems. But if you want to make it in this business and be around for a long time, I think you have to work to make those traits part of who you are. For some that will require a lot of effort, but the payoff will come in more ways than just your p/l.
its interesting....i've spent about 5 or 6 years in the engineering business and only about a year in the trading business. i've already made more friends in trading than i ever have in engineering. i find traders to be some of the most interesting and friendly people on this earth. its amazing what this journey does to a human being.
totally, good traders are very cool people in my experience with all of the aforementioned traits. and the corporate value system is exactly like you describe in my experience.. except for one trait personally, i don't respect the other players. i cuss at them all freakin day long..
MRWSM is right. Humility on ET? Yea right. It's gotten beyond annoying now. I thought it would go away after a bit, but it hasn't. It got worse. So many here just seems to pound their chest, screaming, "O, I made the calls, O, I will be back, O, Give me the credit". Credit? Who needs credit from others. If you made the right call AND MADE THE TRADE, your trading account would be giving you all the credit you need. And I noticed how defensive people get whenever someone challenges their idea on ET. I worked there, I have more experience, I know more than you, I'm right, you're wrong, blah blah blah. What does that matter? All that should matter to us as traders is the bottom line. Consistent profits. Rising equity curve. This is sad because I used to love ET couple of years ago. I loved Hitman's journal. There were great exchanges of ideas, not about who's right and who's so wrong (not as much, anyway). Nowdays, so many of the threads seems to be about how someone is making money, someone called the top, someone called the bottom and someone's shorting what. Funny thing is, they don't even give a good explanation or reasons why they're making these trades if they are at all. Just one snide comment after another about this and that. Geeze, I've never seen a group of people with bigger egos. I remember a good trader who told me years ago that you gotta check the ego at the door, if you wanna make it. Are these people on ET traders? I don't know. I know what people will start screaming- that they traded for how many years, how they have audited trading records, etc.etc. Maybe they'll tell me that I'm a piker and a mook who's jealous because I didn't make these calls, etc. Maybe they'll tell me to shut up cuz I don't have many posts and I registered not too long ago. What a waste of time and energy. I find myself coming much less and less to ET now. No wonder. If there's a website for traders like the former ET, someone let me know. Jake