Traders have three things going for them: knowledge, skills and experience.
If you follow a trader's path to expertise, his experience in getting there has several cardinal elements that make it possible.
The mind continually organizes experience. And the mind does not process the negatives in any matter. It only processes the positive aspect of anything.
Perhaps the reader can see the difference between two instructions:
1. Don't fall down on the ice!"
2. "Walk carefully on the ice.."
We, who have systems to give, do it by transference. The OP is unfamiliar with this concept according to what he states. Transference has to be accomplished by using a positive orientation.
Trading is a process and is NOT a rules set. The knowledge, and skill set are proffered to the learner. He grasps them and has to insert them in front of his prior "first mental recourse". It is NOT a substitution of onme thing for another. The process of inserting is to set up a "blocking system" that prevents the old and allows the new.
The mind cannot be erased.
The mind is continually "filled" and what is available form the mind when needed is an automatic response where a "matching" of sensing and inference takes place.
To answer the above OP's curiosity for the benefit of the OP Can be done briefly.
A. Why are traders so reluctant to give out their system?
"Giving" is easily done using codes or documentation. Codes do not allow the learner to be able to trade. His computer does the trading. As was pointed out, the key to coding is the gating and filtering of signals according to the "context" of the market. Documents can solve the context for signals problem but making this combination the "first recourse" in the traders mind centers on why traders are reluctant. It is a time consuming matter to insert this combo into a potential trader's mind. we who have the goods can look at a potential trader's mind in a NY Minute and determine whether they are the first mouse or the second mouse. Why would a trader give anything to a person who did not have the mind to accept what could be given? A potential trader has to know how the mind works and know how to learn.
Signals are abundant. There is actually a plethora of signals. A multi-dimensional matrix determines the "context" of whether a signal has "utility". Inserting to matrix into a potential trader's mind takes some really focused doing. Most often, it is a case of being very vary of what is already in the potential trader's mind to be able to put the contest into place in his mind to BLOCK his normal first recourse. The statement "The market is counterintuitive" is a group of words that is understood one way by potential traders that will NOT make it and another way by potential traders that will make it.
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B. It all seems to boil down to psychology & discipline.
For you it does. The is your first mental recourse with respect to trading. trading at expert levels and getting to expert levels is NOT like making maple syrup. What it builds up to is having a foundation and putting building blocks on the foundation. You are going to anxiety, fear and anger. Transference of a foundation and building blocks engenders support, comfort, and confidence. Imagine how a person trying to give you anything would be thwarted by your continuing boiling down of what was being given to you. You want slots filled in psychology and discipline and your mentor wants to build you mind so it becomes so organized it BLOCKS all that you have presently as a first recourse.
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C. How many would be successful?
By A. we have eliminated the "do it yourself" concept and procedures used by those who are not being given anything. This eliminates people who read to be informed; those who go to web sites and chat rooms; and oneone doing anything else than accepting the tranference of a complete system.
The narrow group who are being given a system are going through a process of "transference".
If the system is OODA based, it will engender anxiety, fear and anger as has been proven by observing practitioners. Continuing therapy is required for those who handl appreciable capital. An example of diverse results using OODA is the Turtle Experiment where what was given was a system and money and an organization in which to work.
What engenders success in transference of a non OODA system is the provision of a process to make EXPERIENCE purposeful. By gaining knowledge and actual skills (not a documented described skill set) in an experiential process, the potential trader builds his long term memory with the inference set that forms a differentiated available mind's contents.
My experience in seeing a person go from his initial state to a differentiated state, is a culminating process whereby he has been at inquiry along a path where the same set of questions appear in a given order over a period of time determine by the learner.
There is a list of the common steps (about 40) of the do it yourselfer. This list reduces to 8 or 9 steps when the experience is purposeful in terms of building the mind.
Summary
So the OP has a thread running. He is a potential trader, he believes. few people give systems to people who feel trading boils down to psychology and discipline. trading a system at expert level is like driving a car. It is done with unconscious competence. Unconscious competence originates from "knowing that you know". Trading successfully to extract the market's offer all the time, involves having a fully differentiated mind that provides the specific inference to match what is being sensed every moment of the market's unfolding.
