mentor or system

[Sprout]

Someone with a proven track record of profitable trading/investing. One-offs not counted. This is a different game than teaching math at school. One does not have to be a genius to teach math, and the alternative to teaching math would be applying math, but the required skill set will go beyond just math knowledge to, for example, apply math as rocket scientist. On the other hand, anyone with a proven track record of profit generation would never get into teaching or mentoring unless retired or being passionate about helping others succeed. Rare breed. But that's what you want to look for in a mentor. On the other hand, how can you trust anyone who tells you something in the knowledge that they could not even succeed at doing it themselves? Certainly nobody would hide a positive track record if they had one.

Great analogy between academic math and applied math.

The "proven track record" idiom reminds me of a scene in "The Gambler" where Mark Wahlberg's character is being schooled on "F*ck you money."

Here's the conundrum;
If someone is a rare breed, consider the hassle of supplicating to financial regulations by supplying any sort of "proven track record." That could be considered an implicit solicitation and opening oneself to unnecessary risk.

Anyone with any sort of success in trading knows that 90% of the effort is in mindset and how one applies any particular methodology. Most noobs are looking for a holy grail or magic bullet to alleviate four things;

1) Their intolerance of Uncertainty
2) Lack of patience and willingness to submit to the process of time
3) Lack of discipline to engage in a low time preference activity; instead, wanting quick rewards, easy riches.
4) Their own lack of willingness to do the necessary work.

These are rhetorical characteristics of the dilemma those wanting to exercise discernment in screening charlatans - a natural desire.

An addition dilemma; the "rare breed" is also screening and even more so, since the power is asymmetrical.

In my experience, a "proven track record" is less valuable as a screening device. Imho, it's only discernment acquired through experience where "real recognize real."

 

[murray t turtle]

Can you name a single credible mentor in any other asset class? I know none.

%%
ACTUALLY that's a helpful hint\
in that not many are known
Sure can with stocks, actually ETFs [IBD books,IBD Newspaper];
never made much with single stocks , which is another hint\ as the first line on this post.
FFTY has not done that well compared to benchmark SPY.
But since WSJ paid him $275,000,000 for his data co, amen on his book mentorship.
Seldom see any good mentors in Forex or any leverage stuff.Good way to blow up in REALTY also, more new they they are\ more they leverage up / blow up.
IBD is a cash system but i remember he said get off leverage in latter stages of bull market .
Back to my ETFs[basket of stocks].......

 

[M.W.]

To each his own. I respect your opinion, but I would never ever read a single line of advice by someone who has not proven his/her worth. Too many snakeoil salesmen around with the potential for me to lose precious time on unproven garbage. But that's just me.

Don't get me wrong, I love the occasional entertainment at ET or elsewhere. But it won't pollute nor flow into my trading career for whatever reason. The argument of exposing oneself to regulatory scrutiny is utter nonsense. A disclaimer suffices to eliminate that risk; this is probably the most often used excuse by liars and cheaters in this industry.

Great analogy between academic math and applied math.

The "proven track record" idiom reminds me of a scene in "The Gambler" where Mark Wahlberg's character is being schooled on "F*ck you money."

Here's the conundrum;
If someone is a rare breed, consider the hassle of supplicating to financial regulations by supplying any sort of "proven track record." That could be considered an implicit solicitation and opening oneself to unnecessary risk.

Anyone with any sort of success in trading knows that 90% of the effort is in mindset and how one applies any particular methodology. Most noobs are looking for a holy grail or magic bullet to alleviate four things;

1) Their intolerance of Uncertainty
2) Lack of patience and willingness to submit to the process of time
3) Lack of discipline to engage in a low time preference activity; instead, wanting quick rewards, easy riches.
4) Their own lack of willingness to do the necessary work.

These are rhetorical characteristics of the dilemma those wanting to exercise discernment in screening charlatans - a natural desire.

An addition dilemma; the "rare breed" is also screening and even more so, since the power is asymmetrical.

In my experience, a "proven track record" is less valuable as a screening device. Imho, it's only discernment acquired through experience where "real recognize real."

 

[traider]

I can mentor you with my dvd material for a low price of $999.99

 

[Sprout]

To each his own. I respect your opinion, but I would never ever read a single line of advice by someone who has not proven his/her worth. Too many snakeoil salesmen around with the potential for me to lose precious time on unproven garbage. But that's just me.

Don't get me wrong, I love the occasional entertainment at ET or elsewhere. But it won't pollute nor flow into my trading career for whatever reason. The argument of exposing oneself to regulatory scrutiny is utter nonsense. A disclaimer suffices to eliminate that risk; this is probably the most often used excuse by liars and cheaters in this industry.

Fair enough, it's a rational perspective and while it does the job of screening out the majority of charlatan's does also screen out a subset of the "rare breed."

The "rare breed", whom are idiosyncratic in nature, do what they do in the way they do it.

Not you in particular, just speaking in general; a common belief is that mentee's think they know the best way to be mentored.

edit:
Shifting the conversation to the performance of the system is another matter - that can be verified with one's own back-testing, forward-testing and implementing into production. The conundrum there is that most high performance systems require a step-by-step building on the concepts that compose it and a synthesizing that rests squarely on the work of the learner.

1've explored from *free 2 spending close to an aggregate of 6 figures on various form's of content throughout my journey, trainings went from 3, 4 to 5 digits. Some were not-so-good in retrospect, some were exceptional, some took advantage of the prevalent trend at the time, some were straight hype and some were life-transforming. In general (with exceptions), there are those that make it complicated and mas7er's that make it look simple.

One thing that I do know is we attract what we think about. The concept of "vibration" was edited from the classic "Think and Grow Rich." One can still find the concept in the unabridged version. To reiterate, one's attitude, mindset and continued cultivation of their own thoughts transform stumbling blocks into stepping-stones.

The one seeing nothing but liars, cheaters and charlatans exist in the same world as others that see those that offer their best to the elevation of humanity.

ok, off the soapbox now..

 

[M.W.]

I am the most humble guy you will meet all year if I have before me someone who possesses expert knowledge and is willing to pass some of it on to a worthy student. All too often, however, guys surface that make all sorts of claims without any factual backup. Do I lose out on the occasional bit of value that is passed on by someone who can't be bothered to establish proof of knowledge? Sure, absolutely. That's the price I pay.

Fair enough, it's a rational perspective and while it does the job of screening out the majority of charlatan's does also screen out a subset of the "rare breed."

The "rare breed", whom are idiosyncratic in nature, do what they do in the way they do it.

Not you in particular, just speaking in general; a common belief is that mentee's think they know the best way to be mentored.

 

[expiated]

...most high performance systems require a step-by-step building on the concepts that compose it and a synthesizing that rests squarely on the work of the learner.

 

[ironchef]

Someone with a proven track record of profitable trading/investing. One-offs not counted. This is a different game than teaching math at school. One does not have to be a genius to teach math, and the alternative to teaching math would be applying math, but the required skill set will go beyond just math knowledge to, for example, apply math as rocket scientist. On the other hand, anyone with a proven track record of profit generation would never get into teaching or mentoring unless retired or being passionate about helping others succeed. Rare breed. But that's what you want to look for in a mentor. On the other hand, how can you trust anyone who tells you something in the knowledge that they could not even succeed at doing it themselves? Certainly nobody would hide a positive track record if they had one.

Your example: You need to learn math to be a rocket scientist. A good math teacher teaches math, he is not a rocket scientist.

Therefore, you need to learn the basics of trading (risk management, etc.) to be a good trader. A good trading coach, as long as he teaches all of the good basic principles of trading, need not be a good trader?

 

[expiated]

I don't see how this fits. A good math teacher teaches math, not rocket science. Otherwise, everyone who's learned math could be a rocket scientist.

If basic principles were enough to make for a profitable trader, there "should" be more than 5% to 30% of (Forex) traders who trade successfully, unless 70% to 95% of all retail traders are total dolts or simply don't digest the good basic principles of trading, which it seems to me are readily available on the web and from public libraries or retail book stores.

If this IS case and such IS the reason so many people fail (or perhaps it is because they simply lack the discipline to apply good basic principles once they are aware of them) what a sad commentary on the state of humankind.

But, based on my experience, I think there's more to it than that. I have seen a handful of systems (other than my own) that I think I MIGHT be able to employ profitably, but the caveat is that it wasn't until after I developed my own system and could compare the insights this provided with other methodologies that I could evaluate which ones made sense and seemed logical/rational and which did not.

 

[ironchef]

I don't see how this fits. A good math teacher teaches math, not rocket science. Otherwise, everyone who's learned math could be a rocket scientist.

Your college mechanical engineering professor teaches rocket science but he is not a rocket scientist and cannot design a rocket. You can still learn rocket science from him even though he is not a rocket scientist.