Your emotional reaction to gains and losses doesn't tempt fate. You tempt fate by subjecting yourself to more risk than you can manage/tolerate. People brag because they're either bullshit artists or they're looking for approval. People increase their size because they're either too stupid to know better or they know what they're doing and can manage the risk. Discipline involves using your intellectual abilities to control your emotional disabilities.
Increasing your size isn't a mistake until you screw up My two cents is that whether you think in terms of dollars or percent isn't that important. Finding good trades, getting the most you can out of them and minimizing losses is the thing to focus on.
Training your mind to handle the winners without emotion is a lot harder than training it to handle the losers. But once you master it you become a robot just clicking the mouse and letting the probabilities work in your favor in the end. You will know you have mastered your emotions once your spouse can not derive from you whether you won or lost for the day.
most traders, like poker pros, are whiny little pansies and CONSTANTLY talk about trades(hands), losses(beats) wins(wins). they ALSO are all the time curious how other traders perform, too benchmark themselves. I am , and I know both. and there is no such thing as an -uber-trader / poker pro just fucking trade / play poker. wanna bitch - bitch wanna be all quiet stoic and mysterious - fine wanna gloat - go for it. at the end of the day - its how much money you made. and the above traits HAVE NOTHING to do with trading OR poker. it has to do with a person. chances are he is the same at everything else he does. so he probably wont act that much different. the only thing where you CANNOT draw a parralel to poker- (and i am talking about REAL table poker none of that online guru shit) - there you need to have a "poker" face strategy (whether its poker face, yelling, whatever) because your EMOTIONS can give out your play style / hand strength. Thats the ONLY reason why poker pros conceal true emotion, and/or put on a front. And that's only during the hand. other than that - fuck just check out the PNL thread - there are some heavy hitters there that post REAL numbers.
You can distinguish pro traders through other means too -Pro traders have a 99-100% win ratio. -Pro traders don't trade automated -Pro traders don't care if they make 0$ for the year, as long as they have a 99-100% win ratio
Would the next step be just watching the ATS do executions? Or letting your spouse trade on her screen using an ATS? You make money for what she wants; she makes money for what she wants. She wanted an ATS so you gave it to her. Would you give her this one?