Well it was a great experience. You misunderstand. I loved it. But it took me years to unlearn all of it. The point is, how much of what you learned was information, and how much of it was opinion? The correct answer is that most of it was opinion or theory. We don't really know very much. Once you realize this it frees you to see the world as it is, as much as you are able.
The odds of day trading yourself to a profit are lower than you expect"
- Thread starter lawrence-lugar
- Start date
The human brain is by default programmed to make trading impossible or at least very inefficient.
What separates the winning from losing traders is the way they use their most powerful trading toolthe human brain.
The average time and effort required to achieve expertise in trading is 10 years and 10,000-20,000 hours of practice. Moreover, it is the quality of the practice, the complete immersion in the subject and the ability to profit through ever-changing market cycles that separates trading winners from losers.
Continuous training the brain is also necessary. Compare it to sportsmen: they have to do daily exercises to keep their body in good shape. The same applies to traders. I still train on historical data to keep my brain sharp, on a daily basis.
You're crediting the university education with general maturing of a person. If you enter at 19 years of age and graduate when 23 then of course you're more disciplined - simply because you aren't a pile of raging hormones any longer.
Discipline is inherent rather than learned. I consider myself quite disciplined and don't have a degree. It's probably true that education forces one to learn discipline faster but smarts...not really. It will however kill part of your original thinking making you a standardized tool for the economy in most cases.
For trading you have to have the same approach, work tirelessly with everything else being secondary. But instead of slowly learning general knowledge (for the most part) you will learn a very specific skill. It's also important to start very early as your brain is malleable in your early 20s - it was for me, especially learning fast and creative thinking. I'm glad I dropped out of higher education back then.
I agree, with this statement...you get out of life what you expect and want to get out of it.
When I was in college after high school...I felt like a zombie there, I was just there because that's where kids are supposed to generally go after high school.
I changed my major like four times, I believe. I was just spinning my wheels there, not really getting nowhere or having direction.
I spent more time reading 'get rich' books, and self-help books, and entrepreneur and small business magazines. -- rather than the textbooks.
Also played alot of video games and tennis.
it's when you Really want something, and have purpose and pride and direction...that you can accomplish great things
Most don't have that inner fire or purpose, and as a result...are just floating around in life. Happy or content to be average.
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Schools teach answers. Observation of the world teaches questions. If you look, you can see that most people approach the markets seeking answers first. Just look at the preoccupation with what the people who run the Fed are going to say. By professionals as well. There's this constant unease, this constant handwriting, trying to read some message in what they are communicating. As if somewhere out there there really is an answer which would satisfy. In the meantime, the markets trade, up and down, taking in new information.