Hello Traders, markets are boring , we have a lack of opportunities adapted to our own system or at least I simply did not executed this week. Probably because it’s the last week of summer. let’s talk about today’s topics.
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Even if it sounds gimmicky, these 4 principles really do drive success for traders. At least, they help me a lot. We can have even more but those are very important.
- Performing from your own sweet spot
- Acquiring and building proper habits and skill
- Being able to deliver whenever there’s opportunity comes to you.
- Remaining on top
Those four topics are few of the pillars for trading success, if you want to become a profitable trader then focus on those four, specially in that order.
What drives elite trader performances?
Motivation? Talent? Hard work? PERFECT STRATEGY nope!
Neither is the thousands hour rule, trading is a game of efficiency and not hard work.
According to a very good trader named James king.
In the point James King shares he makes it clear that he sees excellence as a pyramid, and I agree with him in some way
the pyramid has four core levels:
let’s dive more in details about these 4 pillars:
Performing from your Sweet Spot
This is very personal. It’s a self reflection.
You’ll have to ask yourself some questions, why do we need to perform from our sweet spot ?
– it’s easier to perform when the goal you pursue aligns with the personal quality that makes you a unique trader.
I’m not chasing someone else goal – I can find similar people that trade like me like for example my partner with who I run AIRFOREXONE .
The point is that probably we are similar but we all are unique because of our personal experience.
So what’s your sweet spot? It will depend on your strength, interest and values and past experience – and those are not necessarily related to trading at all, it could be things you used to excel at when you were a kid , or teenager.
What comes naturally to you?
Do you like spending time reading news and staying up to date with what’s happening in the world? Are you better at solving puzzles? Are you always up to date on everything? Are you disciplined by nature? Are you emotional intelligent ?
Once you’ve figured out what comes naturally to you, it could define your trading style.
For instance you love reading news and macros understanding how countries are being governed, how politics are stablished etc… then maybe trading the macro/fundamental side of things could be something you’d be better at that trading technical? maybe your like to trade on daily time frame and being a swing position trader.
If on the opposite you hate watching news, reading stuff but you like trying to solve puzzles, build stuff and have a strong imagination it’s likely you’d see better results in your trading if you were a technical trader. or at least a 80% tech and 20 % fundamental. ( intraday trading)
If you are interested in technical analysis and trying to find levels where price is likely going to reverse and can spend a lot of hours without having to be motivated by someone else it’s a good sign for you to become a scalper. ( not my type ) because LOW TIME FRAMES ARE FOR ME NOISY.
To find your sweet spot and to know what you should focus on to become an elite trader ask yourself, where have you excelled at in your life? What have you been highly responsive to training? What personality do you have (btw I highly recommend doing the Meyer Briggs test, it can help you find your strengths as well as your weaknesses, which is rather important!) What are you always motivated to do? What type of asset class are you the most interest in? maybe you like to trade volatile assets like god or GBPJPY or maybe you prefer ranging pairs like cadchf. no matter.
Trading is all about knowing yourself better and also knowing how you act better about your perceptions. The more you know about yourself the better you becoming.
All of this leads to the question what are your values, what’s the most important to you? Is it money? Is it fame? Is it time? autonomy? etc Based on your values you may discover that working at a prop desk or a hedge fund doing research may be a better place than trading your own capital.
Find your sweet spot – and execute from there.
And yes, we’ve spent all this time not even talking about trading or performance but just about figuring out what we want to focus on.
FOCUS ON YOURSELF.
Skill Acquisition And proper habits
You probably won’t need to spend thousands hours working your ass off before you master a skill, someone’s will catch it quick than the others , other will catch it with even more time.
If you do, it’s probably not your sweet spot or you’re changing your system before getting the conclusions etc…
Let’s dive into the key factors when building a skill to excellence.
Start with the comprehensive foundation
You don’t have to do extraordinary things – you have to do ordinary things extraordinarily well -Bruce Lee
The only way to find you sweet spot is by practicing what suits to you. Best traders are specialized. Like us trading a absolutely simple strategy with few patterns , in few assets multiple times.
we execute the same way EVERY SINGLE TIME.
MOMENTUM , RETEST OF DEMAND OR SUPPLY LEVEL OR MANIPULATION AND THAT’S IT.
for more just click here to bring your trading to the net level
now let’s go back:
You want to master the basics, without a mastery of the basics to stand on you’ll go nowhere.
You want to find what are the big levers for success, don’t focus on tiny marginal gains, focus on the big levers. That’s where the value is at.
In trading it’s probably around confidence (psychology) , entry size ( proper risk management) and timing. That’s where the money is made, it’s not about anything else.
No fancy indicator, no suck thing as luck , no magic trick. You should create a laser focus attention
Practice over theory
It’s what you can do , not what you know that matters – knowing how to kick a ball the most precisely as possible but not being able to do so in practice is useless.
In trading to much information kills confidence.
You’re better off not knowing the theory behind it but be able to hit every target that’s set.
Turn your learning into practice, don’t spend too much time on theory you have to think, do and produce –> once you’ve practiced enough you can articulate what happens then that’s fine, but practice over theory.
We can transfer you the proper knowledge but not the experience. That’s how we can help . however our precious education will become useless with lack of execution or really worth if you adapt it to you. if you find this post interesting with high value make sure to click below.
It’s all on you and only you.
Don’t expect to be given the answers. you have to figure it out for yourself.
People can explain to you a strategy, but it’s on you to understand it and develop it. Advanced skills need to be discovered they can’t be taught. Fluidity of the market is a personal perception and adaptation.
Take responsibility over your future. Use proper theory and education as a shortcut but act on immediately adapting the perception to your action.
We need challenge to change
Like building muscles , you need the proper exercice , proper food and clean life habits. You won’t build any muscle by hitting the gym inconsistently , having bad nutrition habits , and not resting to much or resting more than usual.
Like making more money : You must adapt , implement , take risks , suffer , learn , and do more than the rest. I don’t know any successful business man that is lazy or procrastinator , rest in the confort zone , did not adapt, did not wanted to change ,did not implemented , did not take risk , did not suffer. You must become a better version of yourself.
This is about military discipline and military habits and routines. Many years of seasoning. We do not chase goals or profitability.
We only implement systems and habits and routines that will eventually get us to the goals and beyond.
Accept the challenge or keep in stagnancy.
Backtest, recap, invest in your education, become a better person with your habits : fail , fail fail and learn from it.
We need to spend as much time as possible in a challenging zone to be improving, you need to be absolutely focused
Get uncomfortable, learn to enjoy being challenged.
Of course you will get to a point of questioning yourself if you’re at a point take a break and come back stronger. 
If it doesn’t happen when you’re competing, it doesn’t matter.
There’s no point in practicing things that will have absolutely zero impact on your trading results
let’s take a deep example:
so many kids dream of becoming a football star, they go home and start practicing tricks with the ball, the problem is, being able to do fancy tricks with a football probably won’t win you a championship
– being able to shoot straight, play in team , run faster, control the ball, increase your ressistance , that’s what will bring you close.
In trading is the same thing. so many dream of becoming profitable and start backtesting with a replay bottom with unrealistic conditions.
Being able to execute flawlessly , cut losers , control your Drawdown , have a proper predefined plan and a proper risk management in a probabilistic environment , that’s what matters.
Create uncertainty to get close to real conditions
It’s nice to practice when you’re comfortable at home with zero stakes where you control all the factors, however you want to have uncertainty.
You need to train in the conditions you’ll be executing
– for instance for traders you may want to focus on extremely hard to trade markets, periods with drawdown, making decisions with a time limit, it’s all well having a backtest tool that you can pause and go back to make a decision, but in live market conditions with real money you’ve don’t have all the time you want.
The closer can be to Invest in backtesting softwares or practicing with small accounts with money you can afford to lose and with time scale it.
Naturally you will get better. Today for example I would never imagine years back to trade with the account that now I have , it all came naturally. I’m not chasing anything.
Learning is the mindful search for solutions
It’s not mindlessly repeating a solution, it’s a mindful search for a solution repeated over and over – for instance think about your phone, to be able to unlock it with your finger you have to scan your finger several times, in different angles / positions –> what it’s doing is that it’s learning through variability to be able to recognize it whichever angle you end up using.
If you only gave your phone 1 try to collect your fingerprint I’m willing to bet your phone wouldn’t open as quickly as it does now, it would reject you quite often as well just because you didn’t train it with different conditions.
Out of every successful trader I’ve met (and the ones James has met) it’s very rare for them to rely on 2 extraordinary things – instead, most successful traders have mastered the basics and just don’t do mistakes that cost them their career.
Anyway that’s enough for our second point – the skill acquisition to become an elite trader.
Delivering on demand: Flawless execution
This is a game of confidence. We as a humans we will never conquer this , we just will be able to reduce it. How many times you have been right with the market direction but you did not execute because of your doubts ? well everyone suffer that.
Being able to execute your plan whenever the opportunity arrives is very important .
Outliers are able to flick a switch to regulate their emotions and execute. You want to be able to enter a flow state and have access to all your knowledge and training.
You need to spend time building your skill of getting into the zone – it’s a skill like all the other ones.
Profitability is a estate of mind.
Your thoughts + Your calculated actions = Emotional State= RESULTS
If you realize your are in a suboptimal state, think what are you doing, and how .
For example:
Improper thoughts + non calculated actions = Bad State of mind = bad results.
for example:
Market expectations+ risking more than usual= Anxiety= bad results.
quite the opposite when:
Probabilistic expectations+ risks controlled= neutral state of mind = long-term good results.
Your thoughts and actions will change your emotional state. Pay attention.
The sea won’t always be calm. You need to be able to get comfortable even in the worst weather. Like they say : the best moment to sell it’s when there is huge buy and greed. the best moment to buy is when there is blood in the streets .
Take the time to build your proper confidence. that’s the only way to deliver on demand.
Sustaining Success to remain on top
Trading is not easy , we all have different personal life Problems . The last months I had a lot of personal issues that just impacted my trading and business performance but we must be grateful of what we have.
There is absolutely no reason to be sad of what we don’t have or let thigs we cannot control take control of our actions .
Always be grateful to be a trader.
We all are going to have bad moments. the only thing we can control is the way we handle the situations.
We HAVE MINOR SETBACKS FOR MAJOR COMEBACKS
Develop a comprehensive understanding of what it’ll take to win and a comprehensive understanding of where you are –> that will enable you to find your weak spots and what are the important levers you want to focus on.
If you really understand what is holding you back, the solution will probably fall into your lap
Standing on your own success won’t be enough. You need to keep evolving
What you need to keep in mind is that you’re basically evolving in a ever continuing circle of improvement – even if you’re at the top of the current cycle, you’re not at the top of the mountain, you’re only in a transitional moment towards the next bigger cycle.
We take a lot of time to create value, if you really think this post is useful and bring value , it’s because you are committed. If you want to bring your trading to the next level just click below.
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