Is it equities only? I was under impression it is a cross-asset trend following strategy, though maybe less sophisticated than what modern quant CTAs use.
You are right! If you are going to trade, treat it the same as going to war! You have to come prepared and ready to win. If not, you will lose. And if you do not learn from your mistakes? You will repeat them and lose some more!
If you cannot make money in 50 trades, it means you have no valid edge as you are not able to identify which trades you should make and which ones you should not take. You call not making money in 50 trades positive expectancy? It is rather negative expectancy. For positive expectancy you need to make money, not lose money. I have a very high rate of winning trades (daytrading) and my average profit per winning trade hovers between 2 and 5 times the average loss per losing trade. That confirms that I have a real positive expectancy and that the risk reward is good. It shows that I know which trades to take and which not.
For somebody who is not making money as he finds trading hard, anybody who makes money is bragging. The only way to confirm that trading is not hard is by confirming that you have a good system. The road to finding the edge for profitable trading is hard, not the trading in itself. You said "honesty would be appreciated". But what you mean apparently is that only people who struggle also can reply; as profitable traders put salt in the wound. Reality can be hard and make you feel crap. But that might be a wake up call for you, and maybe you should question yourself as a trader or change tactics. It took me a decade to become profitable. What you see as crap might be very valuable and good information for you. Many people see positive comments as valuable and negative (but well funded) comments as crap. Maybe they have problems with their ego. You should always put everything in question if you have problems, and not selectively what you hope is the problem, or to protect yourself. If you don't do that you might never improve your trading as you deny the real problem: yourself. In the decacde that I struggled to become profitable I questioned myself many times and received sometimes very unpleasant comments. But analyzing ALL the received comments brought me where I am now. Selectively using comments would have left me where I was at the beginning: nowhere.
What you post now, I posted the first years when I tried desperately to make money, around 2 decades ago. Nowadays I use that statement to show that things can change massively, but apparently not for average joe.
It is quite likely after trading 20+ years to have accrued the tools and techniques that allow for high returns above the norm.
trading is easy for the people who trade for fun, on the other hand if you trade for a living you will never find trading easy. trading for a living is very hard and most people are struggling in it.
You are only speaking about the impact of psychological factors; the trading on itself is not different. The pressure of having to make money to survive has a psychological impact on the trader, that makes it harder. People should not trade for a living unless they have proven that they can easily make enough money to live good. Even good living after a losing month of trading should better not be an issue.