Quote from aeliodon:
1. A great life outside of trading - no addictions.
2. A decent size bankroll to start so you can trade multiple strategies/intstruments and you can play conservative and still pay all the bills.
3. A veteren mentor to prevent you from acting totally stupid - like betting it all on one position with no stop.
4. Don't trade unless you know the current trend in the market and if you do then ride it. If you nail your entries then you don't have to worry about DDs. But if in case you're wrong (a) limit the number of trades to prevent large lossing streaks and (b) use stops to prevent a huge loss on any one trade.
The lack of condition # 1, 2, 3 kills most traders before they can get a handle on condition # 4.