James A. is a character with many funny/entertaining stories and I certainly can't fault him for being negative about day or swing trading. He's the kind of person who has had the experience of getting millions come his way rather quickly in other endeavors and that has to have an impact on one's ego when you try to trade and probably can't start so small as to have zero impact on your lifestyle if you fail. It simply wouldn't hold his interest long enough to *really* learn the ropes.
A guy like James A. is never going to do what NoDoji (Donna) documented on ET. Take 1 CL contract, sim it for close to 1 year day after day to get the price action techniques down, taking 15-20 tick stops and looking for 20-100 tick gains. Then, go live and do the very same thing for another year before even considering increasing size. Even after all of that, he'd never be satisfied with making 200K-500K a year trading CL futures because, again, he's used to millions come his way already in other ways and he'd want to scale-up yet again and be the one swinging 100-200 ES contracts [even if it means trading lousy average daily ranges with chop galore like that contract offers up these days].
James, you're right. To be at the level of market trading you personally would enjoy being at is way, way harder to do than the above. You want to be at the big dog table, not the well fed scrap hound under it. Yes, you could be a successful daytrader in the futures market, but the annual income which would be most likely couldn't get your heartrate up to a decent pulse for you to feel alive for the effort given what you've already had come your way.
My favorite line by James A. was when he was being interviewed by Aaron Task and Henry Blodget on the Yahoo Finance show. They asked him if he thought the recovery (at that time) was a V-shape or W-shape or U-shape or whatever. Without skipping a beat, he confidently said, "I think it's a checkmark!".
Acting confidently about what you do or attempt to do is certainly a better approach than being a worry wart or pessimist. But, that's not to be confused with true confidence which comes from knowing and experiencing firsthand.