Never Take Advice From Friendly Strangers and Series Conclusion

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jack

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This is the eleventh and final installment of the On Professionalism thread series.

The previous installment thread can be found here:
Points not Dollars, and Non-Monetary Trading Goals

The index and first installment can be found here:
On Professionalism



Friendly Strangers

There's no free candy; that white, unmarked, van with the friendly stranger offering you free sweetness is only going to result in pain.

Put simply, no one wakes up in the morning and says aloud "I'm going to make someone else rich today!"

Online forums are great for sharing ideas, building out systems and bouncing ideas around, but do not get in the habit of letting others think for you.

This relates back to the quirky games our brain plays on us. We are wired to be tribal, communal, and think as a group. It feels more comfortable doing something if others are doing it too, but as most of our parents would say as we grew up "if everyone was jumping off a bridge would you do it too?"

Think for yourself, and if you're tempted to shadow trade someone since they posted a new shiny screenshot of a 1 hour EUR/USD chart with an entry order in their online journal or website, just stop following them.

Do take advice from people who are interested in teaching you 'how' to trade, not 'what/when' to trade. Many people teach others as a way to horn in on their own skills (myself included,) but you seldom will see these types just giving out trading calls unless there's some catch.

Never pay for a signal service unless the service includes detailed training on how to trade their system by yourself. If you are just trading other people's signals without learning how to analyse the market on your own, you aren't really a trader, you're just indirectly letting someone else trade your money and paying for the privilege of it. This is not the way to become an independent professional.

Conclusion - Putting it all together!

Remember how I asked you to stop trading in an earlier installment?

If you've read this far, congratulations!

I'd like you to start practicing what I've suggested if you haven't already, and see if it improves your trading over the coming months. Really give it a shot. I'm not suggesting anything risky here, so there's only an upside if this works for you.

Take a few days to work on your body, your mind, and your diet. Write your thoughts down in your journal. And when you feel at ease, put on your first trade as a renewed and refreshed individual on their way to becoming a professional.

If you notice, I didn't give you some "fool-proof" system or plan to follow to be a professional. There's no one-sized-fits all method of becoming consistently profitable. You are going to have to find the right system that fits your unique personality. All this installment series is about is providing you with some common skills and the base foundation behind building good habits and managing some of the natural ways we humans goof up.. the rest is up to you to work out for yourself, after all, I don't think I've ever met two professional traders who are exactly the same.

And of course: GOOD LUCK!



This concludes the thread series. I hope you enjoyed it.

Please feel free to comment in any of the threads if you have any questions about that thread's content.
 
Hi Jack,

I liked the instalment much, thank you for all the work you have put in to it. Your tips and tricks are in clear words and contributing to my trade plan.

:thumbsup:

Regards,
ICT4Profits
 
ICT4Profits said:
Hi Jack,

I liked the instalment much, thank you for all the work you have put in to it. Your tips and tricks are in clear words and contributing to my trade plan.

:thumbsup:

Regards,
ICT4Profits

No problem! :)

Glad you liked it.
 
Thanks for the great series Jack.

Having just traded with a 'signal service' I now know why my question "When are you going to teach me HOW to trade?" was left unanswered.

Stay Happy (a Buddhist phrase)
Garry
 
garry_oz said:
Thanks for the great series Jack.

Having just traded with a 'signal service' I now know why my question "When are you going to teach me HOW to trade?" was left unanswered.

Stay Happy (a Buddhist phrase)
Garry

Glad you enjoyed it! :)

The 'how' to trade part is key.. the process / craft is what lasts.
 
When first opened the professionalism series, I though to myself that it would be a quick read about staying positive.
But what I found was incredibly incisive information about a variety of topics of human behavior and trading. Really well written and thoughtful. Thanks
 
Hello Jack and thank you for this incredible work this is helping me very much I appreciate your work it is beyond words (I'm 6 months and a half old in forex). I particularly like the meditation section and how visualizing every scenarios can prepare us. It allows us to feel the negative emotions and to deal with them in a proper way without exposing ourselves on the market (even if just demo trading this is a great asset). It's like a sandbox where mistakes are allowed and corrected immediately over and over again to gain neuronal circuitry.

I followed your advice and created a online journal on ff (I know..), I wanted to do it before but felt I was not at my place because of my newbness. You convicne me it is a good idea and it allows me to step up (because I don't want to be considered talking bs; even though I totally stated I was a total newb on the first post and not to follow anything there.) There is a lot of advantage to it for example Maybe some people of wisdom will come across once in a while and give me food for thoughts.

Concerning tribal minds, I came across a very great video illustrating it (fake? Idk but the essence is there!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8BkzvP19v4
 
Jaymantos said:
Hello Jack and thank you for this incredible work this is helping me very much I appreciate your work it is beyond words (I'm 6 months and a half old in forex). I particularly like the meditation section and how visualizing every scenarios can prepare us. It allows us to feel the negative emotions and to deal with them in a proper way without exposing ourselves on the market (even if just demo trading this is a great asset). It's like a sandbox where mistakes are allowed and corrected immediately over and over again to gain neuronal circuitry.

I followed your advice and created a online journal on ff (I know..), I wanted to do it before but felt I was not at my place because of my newbness. You convicne me it is a good idea and it allows me to step up (because I don't want to be considered talking bs; even though I totally stated I was a total newb on the first post and not to follow anything there.) There is a lot of advantage to it for example Maybe some people of wisdom will come across once in a while and give me food for thoughts.

Concerning tribal minds, I came across a very great video illustrating it (fake? Idk but the essence is there!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8BkzvP19v4

Hello and welcome!

Yeah, meditation, visualization, and purposeful practice are huge. Same with having an outlet outside of trading (like working out, sports, etc.. something kinetic or creative,) to help with stress and to level yourself out.

Journaling is good, but remember that just recording trade entries and exits is pointless (as you can just print an account statement to get the same thing,) you need to capture what doesn't come across in a transaction log (thoughts, environment, trade conditions, emotional state, etc..) In any case, make it your own, make it a notepad of your thoughts and observations, etc..
 
Thanks for your reply! It means a lot.
I will take your advices gratefuly. Personally I admire the way you step out of the box with your thinking logic. I believe this is the denominator amongst successful ''Traders''.
I think you are right that I must make everything my own. I need to find my own way. Through this process I will gather as much information as possible on myself (like you stated : on my thoughts, the environment, emotions, etc.). I have trouble staying organised. There are thoughts scattered about everywhere in notebooks, words doc, etc. I need to find a way to be more to the point and concealed. It should be pretty easy. I just realised I was pretty lazy too. But that’s ’’normal’’ I guess ;) There’s so much on the table for the new trader I am.
All that said, I believe the kind of advice you give through the whole On professionalism series is way undervalued in the mainstream (or maybe I just don’t know what I’m talking about). I also believe that it is what gives it strenght. It’s core of a strategy in itself! I will assuredly come here often. :))
 
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