What Lesson You Learned In Trading Brought The Most Return

T

TheInnerCircleTrader

Well-Known Member
Something a little different...

I'd like to know your greatest treasure as it relates to personal development. What thing or things did you discover, learn or discard in your trading that made the most impact to your well being and positive direction?

I will submit mine first to break the ice:

I discovered wearing cowboy boots filled with mayonnaise while trading actually made no noticeable advantage in my bottom-line. Unless that is... if it was Hellman's brand... then I had a winner!

Okay, okay I'm being silly. What I believe was the most impactful thing to my development was learning to think independently from everyone else. I used to depend on other's thoughts on the markets. Trusting their opinion over my personal analysis.

Too many times early on I missed moves after being influenced by others views and thoughts about a market or asset. When you step back and really think about it... why would a Trader do that?

Naturally this is attributed to the Trader's lack of confidence. Which is completely normal in the beginning stages. Even if you are profitable... it can be something of a hindrance. Eventually, over time I grew less dependent on others and in fact grew adversarial towards others sharing their opinions with me.

This is a growing pain and each of you will and or have encountered this. Trust that it is natural and part of the development process. When we think differently and stand like an island in the great sea of Traders, independently from the rest... the responsibility of losing and profiting is solely on our shoulders. However, the sweet taste of profits are all the sweeter when we arrive there on our own steam and own thought process!

[size=8pt]This message has been brought to you by the fine makers of Hellman's Mayonnaise - you can find Hellman's at your local grocer. [/size]



GLGT 8)
 

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I don't know if I can really answer this question yet, but I am going to have to say stop raids. Learning how manipulative this market is and how they work and how I can take advantage of them has helped my discipline because it makes me wait for something significant to happen (stops getting raided around an important high or low) before entering a trade.

Now I am nervous to enter trades without first seeing stops get raided :-\ I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. It gives me the best reward/risk ratio and the confidence I need in my directional bias.
 
The best lesson I have learned so far is patience. This has impacted my personal life and my trading.

The following is a testimonial I sent to Michael.

August 16, 2014

Testimonial to Micheal Huddleston

Dear Micheal:
I want you to know I discovered your teachings online around June of 2013. I had been working to learn Forex since 2009. Like many you have talked about I blew out my account in less than a year. I and almost gave up on Forex until I found you. Then on August 21, 2013 while at work (I work in construction) I was hit in the head by a 12ft 2x6 that fell over and I suffered a traumatic brain injury. They told us I should recover in 6 weeks however my symptoms did not abate and continued. For the first few months after my injury all I was allowed to do was rest. I had many symptoms. Problems with balance, extreme head aches, unable to sleep, depression and short term memory problems to name a few. My wife now laughs at how I would ask if she wanted something like a coffee and by the time I returned from the kitchen I would have forgotten she had asked for it. I also had a new grand daughter born on October 1st 2013 and it took me 4 months to just remember she had been born and longer to remember her name ( it,s Anika ). Life was very slow and frustrating.

As I continued my slow recovery. I decided to start watching your videos and webinars. My brain was still not remembering well, I watched them over and over. The one message you try to instill in all of us regarding trading is patience. I used this message in my journey through my injury. Each step seamed to take forever but I kept hearing your voice in my head “BE PATIENT”. As of today almost all of my symptoms have resolved except the balance. Now that my brain is remembering I have started watching the videos again and resuming my PATIENT trading journey.

Micheal, it was a blessing you came into my life when you did, without your amazing teachings I don,t know how I would have made it through the last year. You are an amazing MENTOR. When ever I see you sign off with GLGT I hear in my head GOOD LUCK AND GOOD LIFE.

Your humble student
Gordon Walsh
 
That is actually a great thing. You are experiencing the brake pedal instead of the gas pedal everyone else mashes down looking to trade.

If you are hesitating before trading and not taking action due to something missing... this is a growth spurt. You have aligned your thought process with a Market Dynamic that is very valuable. Will it present a million set ups? Probably not... will it provide solid set ups you feel confident in trading? Absolutely!

Which frame of mind do you feel confident living in as a Trader?






slugFX said:
I don't know if I can really answer this question yet, but I am going to have to say stop raids. Learning how manipulative this market is and how they work and how I can take advantage of them has helped my discipline because it makes me wait for something significant to happen (stops getting raided around an important high or low) before entering a trade.

Now I am nervous to enter trades without first seeing stops get raided :-\ I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. It gives me the best reward/risk ratio and the confidence I need in my directional bias.
Click to expand...
 
I sure hope so, sometimes it can be hard to tell if you are actually progressing as a trader or getting lucky, but I just keep on trucking.

It also doesn't help that I accidentally left an order in the market and got entered into a trade unknowingly while I was on a 2 week vacation. If only the FXCM iPhone app had push notifications that actually tell you when you enter and exit trades. The order was a Cable long (which was supposed to be a partial close of a Cable short) so you can only imagine how much work I have to do to recover from that.
 
For me, it was focusing on one mentor/system not 5 with 5 different accts. both live and demo for ea. ... having done this i was better able to analyze my mistakes and loosing trades. I am better able to see PA on "clean" charts.
 
A WAY TO FOLLOW MY Fx DREAM is the MOST VALUABLE GIFT which was provided to me by you as my Fx Mentor. I've discovered you on BabyPips ;) in 2012 but I was really "enlighted" by your concepts starting with Sniper Series (july 2013).
Also PATIENCE and PASSION of doing or following something were the other gifts provided by you and I think it will be never possible to really THANK YOU for your efforts!
You provide me the tools now I need to work myself very hard in pursuit of my Fx Dream.

Thanks, ICT - Michael! 8)
 
G'day all,

After a long self imposed absence from the forums (I'm an ex babypip follower of ICT from back in the day) I decided to jump back in.

What a great subject to get started on!

After two years of learning, losing, messing around, following others, forcing trades, being impatient and finally walking away for a few months it is a pleasure to say that the lesson that has brought the most return has been.... relying on my own ability.
Losing the twitter feeds of experts, staying off the forums, closing the fx news websites with every pro analysis' and last but not least closing the 15 + currency pairs that were open on my trading platform.

Now, it hasn't been so much as a revelation, but more of a realization of my own maturing perspective of how far my own understanding of the market has come, (thanks to ICT) and how distorted that understanding was by all the collateral that surounds the money markets. Learning to trade, for me, is learning a skill. Much like playing a musical instrument, surfing, dancing etc, having a mentor is priceless, yet it is only one's personal dedication to their chosen activity that allows one's ability to really develop.
As Chris Lori talks about the internalization of experience, such is Michaels goal in teaching repetition, patience and the value of time in the market place. It is only through time, patience, and repetition that one's understanding becomes innate and instinctive.
Onwards and upwards!
 
Becoming More Patient.

I know this is very broad and generic so I will explain what it means to me.

-waiting for time & price to align
-waiting for a confluence of factors
-waiting for the trade to play out/letting the trade run
-taking the time to always revisit valid learning materials - the avg human brain is not perfect
-realizing that it wont all come to me at once (profits, "lightbulb moments", and ultimate success) - it all builds on itself day after day
-realizing on a daily basis that my mentors all have many years and sometimes decades of trading experience and that I shouldn't be too hard on myself to the point that it affects my trading psychology

A very close 2nd is building discipline throughout all aspects of my life to help in trading, which goes hand in hand with being more patient and being able to wake up for LO while living in EST.
 
I've always heard the saying "there's another opportunity just around the corner" but had a lot of trouble really believing it and integrating it into my trader's mindset.

For years, I lost tons of money because I would trade every opportunity as if it were the last. As if the market was holding a grand going-out-of-business sale and after this, the market would shut down & lock the doors forever. I Couldn't take profits, couldn't close losers... My whole world was that single trade.

There wasn't a Eureka moment, but slowly, I began to see just how many opportunities my tools and concepts were outlining. Then I started to realize that there was actually more opportunity than I could physically trade as one person.

I would then remind myself of this after taking a loss, and during the trade itself. I kept asking myself "if there is more opportunity than I can even trade... why the hell am I holding this losing trade, when I could close it, and easily catch a winner in the next few days?"

I really started to see the fallacy of holding onto losers, and this really helped me cut losers faster, and avoided that deathtrap of piling money onto losing trades/ideas. Since this was a Major weakness of mine (adding to losers), this evolution of mindset and confidence in the market's unlimited opportunity is what changed me from being a losing trader to a profitable one.
 
For me the biggest lesson was that confidence in trading is built through testing. Having a precise set of rules that prove to work from testing will let you take the trade. The only time I can see myself being nervous in the future is when I increase my equity, NOT because I don't know what to do.

Another lesson is survival. I risk 0.5% on every trade testing a range of different strategies... I mean a bunch of them. I'm still here because of my risk management. Those losses give interesting insight.

So in summary - Sound trading plan, good risk management. Surprise? lol

Still have plenty more lessons to go through. I know i'll get there eventually.
 
Actually that's the new origin to my story now.

I found that I worried too much about what others thought about the trade and the most notorious one being my friend who traded during the Asian Financial Crisis and lost his fortune and chalks up the blame to it being an act of fate vs him being stubborn and not diversifying.

Because he had the experience and the knowledge beyond me I fell folly to what would be an unfortunate down spiral of fear. Sound familiar? The sheep following that lamb that got slaughtered. Unfortunately for someone who doesn't believe their as gifted or formally trained (I have a diploma in arts), he once told me I would fail because I'm competing against guys with MBA's (essentially he called me stupid), I listened to him and pursued my degrading job vs listening to my heart.

Fortunately for me I had the multitude of evidence saying against all that with the doubling of an account, my goals to get a 100 / 200/ 300/ 500 pip winner kept extending higher because they were close or met, I did the impossible and got hired by an independent institution. I'm actually still arguing with him on this issue he has to this day.

I still battle this on a day to day basis because he or some know it all clown decides to stagger my confidence in a down period of my equity curve but thanks to market justice I always have the opportunity to prove him wrong as much as I am labelled wrong. Therefore the best thing I heard this year was from a little person confined to a wheel chair, "I may be physically, but I am not a prisoner of my mind because I am free. Therefore do not believe any advice from anyone that does not empower you".
 
Tansen said:
Therefore the best thing I heard this year was from a little person confined to a wheel chair, "I may be physically, but I am not a prisoner of my mind because I am free. Therefore do not believe any advice from anyone that does not empower you".
Click to expand...

Beautiful. :)
 
ICT concepts have shaped my thoughts and career. But what’s the best thing I have learnt from him? Hmmm….many answers….tough to select specific one…may be the three basic rules: 01. Understanding, 02. Patience and 03. Never Give Up (remembering Clint ;) )

ICT has helped me to think disciplined and to plan disciplined and to go disciplined.
Still I am learning…. a whole lot of things to learn more….and I am dreaming to be an ICT Graduate!
 
Thanks markkus22 for your signature (THIS is the FIRST DAY from the REST of your LIFE!) and Tansen for your quote ("....but I am not a prisoner ...." ). These have made my day. These have inspired me immensely.
 
My greatest treasure in personal development has to be the realization the market is not free... Also realizing that I SUCKED at drawing Support and Resistance. So after I realized I sucked at it I started to print charts. 4 pairs. 4 timeframes. and I drew... I drew for about 3 or 4 months everyday. Market structure, Orderblocks, Support Resistance. Boom... I can't look at a chart without seeing where I am at on that timeframe anymore. It's crazy.
 
i learned a lesson to brought the most return in my trading is never lose your confidence !
just keep in your mind that i have only one word that "Try".
dont change that word until you speak to yourself that "Now i can do it"

My idol and my inspiration is ICT......................

ICT quote " When you relax and understand what you are aiming to do as a Trader... Many opportunities are laid at your feet" :)
 
I'm a little late to this thread, but I still wanted to add something, which might be useful for others.

- Honestly Analyze your Mistakes.

Winners are great, but they don't actually tell you all that much. It's knowing why you made mistakes & implementing the adjustments that are the key. Now, I come at this from a lot of practice, as I've always applied this to my learning, but it always gives you the most insight.

In Trading, you "see" something. Is what you see a good trade? But in what contexts? That's always the key part. Honing down your thought process, clearing out the clutter and executing what you know to do. Most people do this while driving a Car,without realizing it. Same process, just repeated more thoroughly for something like... work. :)

But, also, don't underestimate the amount of work involved in Trading. If anyone has popped by the chat room, you'd have gotten a running commentary on every single execution error you can make... except putting a trade in the wrong direction. Haven't done that one, yet! "Mr. 2 Pips" has missed a lot of trade entries & exits lately.

But, assess the situation & trade. Correct the issue. Move onto the next trade.
 
Chilll Chill chiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiil, patience patience, signal?! GOGOGOGO
 
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