Trading Success: Few Are Chosen

Many hopefuls come to to trading looking for their place in the Sun.  The attraction comes from our human core believe that we are the masters of our own destiny - that we have a say in the role we play in life—that our destiny is not fixed at birth. But at the same time, we give ourselves so many 'reasons' why we should not make the attempt or having made the attempt why we should not continue. At the base of those reasons lies 'fear'.

We are afraid to give our all to the changes we need to effect to succeed:

• 'What if we do really try and fail? We will be left with the scaring memory of failure!
• Worse still, we’ll be left with the ‘reality’ that our present is our future without hope of change!".

So, we don’t make a real effort - many of us take the easy road: we ‘wish’ to change but fail to 'want' to change and thus, our default future does forever become our present. But it need not be so.

If we are not currently successful in our trading, we need to make the changes that will transform our present to the future we desire. One way of doing this is to apply Sparrow and Knight’s KASH model. The model is shown in Figure 1, (Emotional Intelligence Coaching). The figure shows that success in any field is dependent on Knowledge, Attitude, Skills and Habits.  Most newbies fail because they tend to focus ‘knowledge’ and little else.

This focus, as I have written elsewhere (search for “Coyle” in this site), is the result of the educational model available to traders; the model works against rather than aids the newbie in his quest for success.

To succeed you need the other areas. The first step to success then is to employ the tools and language pertinent to the thinking and emotional brain. By doing so, we increase our chances of succeeding where so many have failed.

Figure 1 Tip of the Iceberg