145: Aaron Fifield – Six Ways to Emulate Talented Traders

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Hey team, what's happening? So this episode is the first episode in the history of Chatwith Traders podcast where I do not have a guest with me. That's because this episode is the recording of a talk I gave at Noosa Palooza 2017. Which is a trading conference hosted by Nick Raj here in Australia at Noosa. Uh Noosa's about an hour and a half north of where I live.

on the beach there. It was a really nice couple days. Anyway, the talk I presented and the talk you're about to hear is titled Six Ways to Emulate Talented Traders. And throughout it, I reference many conversations which have been had here on this podcast. And just so you're aware, I've actually put together a full list of episodes which are referenced and a summary of the talk, which you can find this at chatwithraders.com slash one four five.

And the last thing I'll mention, the audio quality isn't amazing. I do apologize for this, but it's the best we could get. I'm sure your ears will quickly adapt, or fingers crossed at least. Enjoy the talk and I welcome any comments again at chatwistraders.com/slash one four five. Thanks for listening. Here we go.

Our next presenter is Aaron Feifeld. We've invited Aaron to condense his interviews into a presentation for you today and to reveal six ways that you can emulate talented traders. Welcome Aaron. Excellent.

I'm absolutely stoked to be here. So first of all, thank you very much to Trish and Nick Graj for inviting me out here. It's a real honour. As Trish mentioned, my name is Aaron Firefield. I host the Chatwith Traders podcast. Um and I mention this because that's essentially why I'm here. So I interview traders from

all across the globe who trade all different markets, all different time frames, all different methods and styles and that type of thing. So when Nick and Trish initially reached out and asked if I could come along and uh speak with you guys Asked if I could perhaps pull upon some of the best insight which I've been able to gather from which is now over 130 uh different episodes. Yeah, so I do want to preface this.

by saying that some of the things I'm going to be talking about here, we are speaking in general terms to a certain extent. Uh, you know, there there will be traders who do almost the exact opposite of everything I'm about to say. and still have some success. But for the most part, I think uh these things are are fairly effective. So I think I've appropriately titled this talk Six Ways to Emulate Talented Traders.

Uh so the way I'm gonna go through this is or how I'm gonna structure the talk is I will pull upon a quote which has come up from one of the conversations I've had which I feel like actually

in some ways frames that particular point uh and then we'll go through and we'll flesh things out. So the very first thing I want to address, I guess, is point number one. Have an unstoppable demeanor. So the quote I'm gonna pull upon here is from a trader, Darren Reid, who is um He was a prop trader and

So most of his career he's been a prop trader in Sydney. Most of his trading career, I should say, he's been a prop trader in Sydney, actually just moved back to Perth to start up a firm of his own. So Darren says the number one thing is grit. You need to be like a bulldog that gets his teeth around a bone and will not let go. Now this of course refers to the

And I don't use this word lightly, insane work ethic that so many of the traders I've spoken with have. Okay? It's not uncommon for some of my guests to put in up to eighty hours a week. into their trading. Now I'm certainly not saying that's something you guys will need to do and I'd be a hypocrite if I did say that because I certainly don't spend that much time on my trading Uh directly.

But I think it's worthwhile mentioning because you need to have an appreciation that there are people who are putting in that many hours and taking this that seriously. As uh Tom Dante, if any of you guys are on Twitter, you're probably well aware of who that is. Uh trader who I've interviewed from the UK has this brilliant line which he mentioned, while you're not working on your edge, someone else is.

Okay. So no one got to where they are now by putting in mediocre effort and no one got to where they are now by half asking it, right? So when we're talking about having an unstoppable demeanor, this of course refers to having a really strong work ethic, putting in the time. It also refers to things such as overcoming challenges, overcoming adversity, and overcoming various failures. So I'm going to share a couple examples of some of the guests which I think kind of capture how

Some traders who are very successful in their own right today have overcome those types of challenges. Now these are certainly not the most extreme cases. Um but I think they're somewhat relatable and you know we're not really talking about anomalies here. The first trader that comes to mind is a trader named Jonathan. Um I'll keep his last name private at his request. But Jonathan's a trader I interviewed. He's from I'm pretty sure he's from Texas.

So he actually was in a fortunate enough position when he got into trading that he was mentored for about a year fairly intensively by a former trader from SAC, Steve Cohen's Hedge Fund. And after a year of trading, being mentored by this particular trader, he went out on his own and he was like, I'm going to fund an account and have a crack at this.

He took out a$35,000 student loan to fund an account to begin day trading futures. So I certainly don't recommend anyone does that, but he certainly did. Needless to say, he lost every dollar of that in a fairly short period of time. The next rational thing that someone in that situation might do is approach a family member and ask them for a similar amount of money, another$30,000,$35,000. Same thing happened, he lost every dollar of that.

At this point he's seventy thousand dollars in the red. So it's hardly a position that any of us would be um envious of. Anyway, he didn't stop at that point. He realized that maybe he would try and get into a hedge fund. Get into a hedge fund's a pretty tough thing for many people because of what they're looking for

He went to university, uh, got a degree or two, I don't remember, one or two degrees anyway, uh that would potentially give him a really good shot at getting a job at a hedge fund. So he went, got his education, got his degree. Then so he was all qualified, still really struggled to get his foot in the door at a hedge fund. He emailed something like 92 different hedge funds over the space of a few months, uh trying to get an interview.

Finally got into a hedge fund. Within six months he was promoted to head trader at a billion dollar hedge fund. He was there for a few years, he left. Uh I think it was about five years later where he was head trader, he left to go out on his own. So he cashed out. I think he'd become a partner at that point.

He's funded a trading account of about two hundred, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and the past two or three years he's run that account up to over two million dollars. So, you know, that's a really great example of someone who had it very tough in the beginning. um but has managed to pull through. Someone else who comes to mind, Sean Hendelman. Now I'll mention who Sean is in just a moment. Sean started out as more of an investor.

He had summer jobs, this was when he was a bit younger, and uh saved up a bit of money, got into investing, and actually did quite well. Decided he was gonna have a shot at active trading, um, so that I guess it started out okay, but Soon turned pear-shaped, lost all the money he had. Okay? Back to zero. Picked himself up, dusted off his shoulders.

I guess changed his approach to trading a little bit and actually started to have some really good uh success and was making some real progress with his trading. Him and a couple others at that point decided that they were going to start a hedge fund. Uh so they went about that, they started a hedge fund, got it set up, but for whatever reason, and it's not really important, but the hedge fund failed to gain traction.

They ended up having to wind it down and um through that process, Sean actually lost all his money again. So twice over now, he's lost almost every dollar he had. If we look at where Sean is today, He's the CEO of one of the largest proprietary trading firms in the US in terms of number of traders, which is T3.

But when we're talking about having an unstoppable demeanour and overcoming adversity and challenges and that type of thing, we're not just talking about losing money through trading areas, trading areas and poor trading, etcetera. We can also talk about sacrifices.

that people have made to pursue their trading career. So, you know, for example, we can take Darren Reed, who I've quoted up on the board here. Um, at the time Darren was working at a brokerage In Perth, he was it was kind of an old school shop and he really wanted to pursue his trade uh his career as a trader. he felt as though the best bet to do that was to join a proprietary trading firm and as I'm sure you guys are well aware, most of them are located in Sydney. So he

Moved away from his partner, moved away from his family, over to Sydney. Uh, you know, he wasn't getting paid a salary at this firm and really had to try and make it on his own. So it was a huge risk to take, a really big sacrifice, and you know, it's obviously paid off for him. Another really great example which I'd like to share is my buddy Bryce Edwards, who's a brilliant day trader. He's also in Sydney.

So Bryce a few years back as you had a few hundred thousand dollars with a particular broker. For whatever reason, and I don't know all the details of the story, but that broker went bust. And he pretty much lost all the money he had with that broker. So pretty much one day he woke up, a few hundred thousand dollars had disappeared through no fault of his own. As we look at where Bryce is today, he's a seven figure trader many times over.

Now I share these few examples because I think they're really great in the sense that I think probably most sane people, most sane people, would probably walk away. if these types of things happen to them. But as these four examples show, you know, when um

When things get tough, they tend to double down. And having spoken with the founders of some of the really prominent uh prop trading firms and uh I even spoke with uh one gentleman who was a he's a recruiter, he's a headhunter for some of the very large uh prop firms in the US and Europe and that type of thing. um also some of the the bigger hedge funds and even banks. And every single one of these guys has said to me,

that when they're hiring, they really like to see that you've experienced some form of hardship and been able to push through it. You know, they really respect those with a competitive drive. Which is important because if you're gonna fold at the first few setbacks, which are inevitable, um, you're not gonna get far as a trader. I can promise you that. Um and and just to Take that one step further. I interviewed a trader.

uh prop trader in the UK, someone who also actually funny enough moved from South Africa to the UK to pursue his trading career. um putting himself in a really great environment. He said when we spoke earlier in the year, this is and I quote, one of the key characteristics of a successful trader is dogfight, meaning you keep going and going and going. This job will turn you over and spit you out so many times, if you can't keep coming back and rolling with the punches, you'll never survive.

Now I do realize when we're talking about this type of thing, there is a certain amount of survivorship bias. But anyway you want to look at it, there is no replacement for grid. Okay? It's such a big part of the makeup of any successful trader. However, it's not the only part. The next piece of the puzzle...

playing the long game. Have a willingness to play the long game. So I'm going to refer to a quote here from Peter Brandt, and I'll tell you who Peter is in just a moment. But Peter says It's been quite a ride for me. It's been one I've enjoyed. I like trading. I like watching markets. I love being a student of markets. I guess more than I actually like to trade. I'm a real student of the markets. So Peter Brandt is someone who's been trading for 45 years.

has a very respectable track record and to hear someone in his situation refer to himself as a student of markets I think is very powerful. You know, that speaks volumes. What it says to me is that you need to be humble enough to know that you'll never reach a point where you know everything. And just to really emphasize that, so this uh comes from a conversation I had with Peter. Uh must have been at the earlier part of 2016.

Peter had not long actually just recovered from the largest drawdown of his trading career. Okay, so this is a man who's been trading 45 years, yet only recently has experienced the largest drawdown of his career. You know, so it just goes to show you'll never reach a point where you know everything.

Um and because of that, you really do need to enjoy the challenge of trading. Every one of my guests, although they'll express it in different ways, if you get to the root of it, There's no denying that they have a curiosity for learning new things, okay?

Now many people are attracted to trading because of the uh great earning potential and uh I'd be lying if I said that wasn't partially the reason why I got into trading. And I know for many of my guests It was certainly um one of the stronger motives for getting into trading as well. Uh but as Kevin Davy, one of my guests, who is a championship winning algorithmic trader says, uh trading is the hardest way to make easy money. So I bring this up because

The money alone is not gonna be enough, um, because it doesn't come right away. Okay? Most people I've interviewed so as I mentioned I've interviewed Uh over a hundred and thirty different traders and market participants now. And it's something I quite frequently ask. And if I had to think in general terms, how long it actually took them to gain some consistency and gain some real traction with their trading.

I think probably around about five years is uh an average type of answer. To some people I think that might be shocking, but really if you think about it, I don't think it should come as a surprise. Normally I hate analogies, right? But I feel like it's probably appropriate in this case. Um so if we look at someone who's perhaps an Olympic swimmer, okay, you really need to think about all the work they've put in to get to the point of where they are now.

You know, how long have they been participating in that sport? They've probably been swimming since they're five, six, seven, eight years old. um, you know, how many hours a day they put in, how long they've been participating in that sport to get to the point of where they are now. And really in many ways I I don't see trading has been that different from any other discipline where high performance is a requirement.

So yeah, anyone who comes into trading certainly has to have the willingness to play the long game. I interviewed a trader, Nico, again I won't mention his last name, but he's uh from the US and Just an average sort of guy. He was running an IT business at the time. I think one of his clients was um one of his clients was more of an investor, but that kind of piqued his interest in trading.

Anyway, so he got into trading, started dabbling in it, one thing led to another and he really started like putting some money behind it. He'd make some money, lose some money. Could never really hit his stride. Anyway, this went on for eight years. He didn't give up, he kept pushing on, and uh these days he's very consistent, consistently making five figures a month.

But you know, had he not had a willingness to play the long game, he wouldn't ever got to that point where he's now making five figures a month. And I think really he's just getting started. So the ones who are doing this for real do not have a get rich quick mentality. They have a mentality of longevity and building real wealth in the long run. And I'm gonna share a story with you. So I mentioned Tom Dante and the last point I made. When I interviewed Tom

He actually shared this story. So this is not word for word, but you'll get the general gist. So Tom used to work at a prop firm in the UK. He says there was a huge trader there and this guy it wouldn't be uncommon for him to make a couple hundred thousand dollars uh in a week, right? There's this one particular day when this guy had an absolutely stellar day, made a huge gain.

Tom says there was a real buzz around the office. But this guy, you know, he was emotionally cool. We had a smile on his face, but he wasn't running around doing backflips off the desk or anything like that. 5 p.m. comes around, Tom gets on the train, heading out of the city, going home. Gets home, thinks oh shit, forgot my keys, doesn't want to pay for a locksmith, gets back onto the train, into the city, back to the office, gets to the office, by this time it's around about 9 30 PM at night.

All the lights are out except for one light. Underneath that lot is the same trader who had just had the absolutely stellar die. Okay. And Tom says this particular moment for him was a real eye opener because a lot of people get into trading for an easy life, but if you look at the ones who are really making a whole lot of money, They work very, very hard at this.

Um so anyway, just to finish up this point, getting good at anything takes time and in trading you certainly have to be amongst the best to make money. This is not something where you can afford to be mediocre.

Point number three, know your strategy intimately. Key word being intimately. So I'm going to point to a quote here from Jeff Davis, who's a uh he trades the SP 500 uh futures uh day trader. Uh anyway, it's not really important. Um but Jeff Davis has these few words which are absolutely fantastic, nice and simple but very effective. This is what he says. Do less, do it better, do it bigger. Okay?

Now just a few things on this. I want to make it very clear. There is no best way to trade. All right. You can be a day trader. You can be a long-term investor. You can trade technical patterns. You can trade a hypothesis. you can data mine for strategies, Ainuk. Almost everyone I've interviewed trades in their own unique way. So there is no best way to trade. But regardless, however you do decide to trade, there is no replacement for knowing your strategy intimately.

Because every single person I've interviewed can tell you with absolute certainty what they do trade and what they do not trade. And just to give you an example on this, someone who might trade, let's say, small cap stocks here in Australia. They don't wake up one morning. And see that crude oil is up five percent and for the rest of that week they just start trading energy futures, right? It just doesn't work like that. The only way to know your strategy intimately is to specialise.

Now for everyone now everyone specializes in some form, shape or another. How you choose to specialise is certainly gonna vary from person to person. I think it's quite a personal thing in many ways. Um, you know, some people are gonna specialise just running with that theme, uh, energy futures. Maybe some people are going to specialise in certain types of strategies.

You know, they might just trade uh news events or earnings, they might trade breakouts, they might be a a trend follower, um, they might trade just small caps on the Australian market. Whatever it is. Find what your thing is and then specialize in that. And uh I guess in some ways I'm just gonna echo what Nick said earlier on, but I've actually got a note here to pull upon um a conversation I had with Nick.

uh for the podcast. So Nick's been on the podcast twice now and I'm sure he's probably said um the same thing both times he was on in uh maybe slightly different ways. But I'm going to quote Nick here. So Nick says, you must know why your strategy makes money. Because if you don't understand why, you're going to find it very difficult to stay with your strategy when it goes a little bit pear-shaped, as every strategy will at times. Now I just want to take this one step further because um

I think that's a huge benefit of knowing your strategy intimately. But when you really focus and you begin to build confidence from knowing your strategy and getting comfortable with it, that's when you can really begin to scale. As Jeff says up here, do less, do it better, do it bigger. Okay? When you can when you can begin to scale your strategies, that's really when it all becomes worthwhile.

And as I mentioned focus just before, I I'd like to add this thing because I think it's really cool and it it might help in some ways. Uh just recently actually I interviewed someone who, up until recently, was the performance director at a oil trading firm um in United Kingdom, in London. Now this guy was the performance director, so he wasn't a trader, but his sole job was to help accelerate excellence at this trading firm.

And they had this question that they would um well this sort of saying that they would use around the office, and they said, will it make the boat go faster? And I think they actually pinched it from the Great Britain um rowing team. I think that's something they used when the Olympics were on there. Um, will it make the boat go faster? You know, and if we want to tie that back into trading, Maybe we would ask something like, is this increasing profitability or mitigating risk?

You know, it's very easy for us to go down rabbit holes and get sidetracked. So I think if you use a question like, will it make the boat go faster? That's something which should really help to guide every decision you make as a trader.

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Now point number four, trade with an edge. This is Perhaps my favourite point. And who better to quote than Blair Hole? Um, if you're missing an edge, there is no reason to play. I absolutely love that line. And I really think if this one line alone could save traders untold amounts of money if understood. Okay, so when I first got into trading I was suddenly

I I would hear traders talking about having an edge and that type of thing. I I guess I'd never really fully underst or it took me a while to fully understand it. I guess by the time I actually got to a point where I could interview Blair Howe, I had kind of worked out what it meant to have an edge. But um I wanted to hear how Blair would put it in his own words, because the way

My opinion, Blair is like the master of Edge. So I asked Blair, what does it mean to have an edge? And I quote, if you do this same kind of trade hundreds of times, In the long run, you'll have more money than when you started. And he goes on to say, without an edge, it's gambling. It might be fun, but it's going to hurt you financially. Now I spoke with Blair for probably about 60 minutes or more and From that conversation it was just so obvious.

that here's a man who's not going to bet or wager on anything unless he feels as though he has an advantage. You know, where the probabilities of him winning, uh winning a bet or whatever it might be are in his favor. He even actually said, and this is a direct quote, whether I'm on the golf course or anything, I must have an edge in my favor. Okay? And that's the man well worth listening to.

Now someone who influenced Blair Now I referred to Blair as the Master of Edge, so this uh gentleman is on another level again, and someone who I've had the great opportunity of interviewing is Edward Thorpe. Now, if anyone uh plays blackjack or maybe has any interest in gambling, Edward Thorpe actually invented card counting. Um, and he wrote the book uh Beat the Dealer.

So when he actually started out in uh Las Vegas at um where he played blackjack, he beat Roulette, um, and a couple other games as well, but you know Uh when things got a bit hot and heavy in Las Vegas he moved to financial markets and um ultimately became a legend in uh the hedge fund world. Anyway, so I interviewed Edward Thorpe and I wanted to hear in his words how he would describe having an edge, uh specifically around financial markets.

I try to think through how good or how bad something might be compared with my most probable estimate. And even if the bad situation looks good, then I know I've got something worth playing on.

And like I mentioned, Ed comes from uh more of a gambling background um and has sort of applied some of that theory to financial markets. Um and Ed actually said Understanding gambling games like Blackjack and some of the others is one of the best possible training grounds for getting into the investment world because you learn how to manage money, how to compute odds,

and how to reason what to do when you have an advantage or when you have an edge. Now I'm not going to gloss over that last point, because I think that's absolutely key. Reasoning what to do when you have an advantage. So we've talked about trading with an edge. This is take this one step further. When you've got an edge, how do you actually make the most of that? So I interviewed uh a gentleman, Victor Higani. Now, Victor was one of the founding partners of long-term capital management.

Uh now long-term capital management, for anyone who doesn't know, was a hedge fund that came about in the nineties. uh did extremely well, had an amazing track record um until 1998 and they failed in a spectacular fashion. They failed so badly that the um The Federal Reserve, I think it was, actually had to step in and organise a bailout in order to prevent the possibility of a collapse in the global financial system.

So they messed up pretty bad. Anyway, um I had the opportunity of speaking with Victor and he's still around today. And Victor actually run ran this experiment. uh funny enough with the help of Ed Thorpe. And this was an experiment they did recently. They gathered 61 participants in a room.

And each one of these participants came from a background in either in math, science, investing, finance, in some form or another. So these were smart people, they they as you'll find out they should know better. The experiment was they were given twenty-five dollars of real money. And they were told to flip a coin for 30 minutes straight, just flip, flip, flip as much as they could. If they bet$10 on heads, they made$10.

If they bet$10 and it came up heads, then they'd win$10. If they bit bet$10 on heads and it came up tails, they'd lose$10. Okay? The catch was this was a biased coin. So 60% of the time it would land on heads. 40% of the time it would land on tails. Okay, so there's a very clear edge to be had by batting on heads. However, at the end of thirty minutes and even before

A third of all participants had managed to go bust. So even with a very clear edge, they still found a way to mess it up. So I think as this experiment proves If you can build your knowledge on, you know, probability and maybe some basic statistics can really help you make the most of how to um reason what to do when you have an advantage, as Ed Thorpe says. Now, any of the astute traders in the in the audience here, I'm sure would

We're waiting for me to bring up something like this. Manage your lifeblood. Manage your risk, essentially, okay? This quote here comes from Stool Knapp. He says, it's not all about getting one trade right, it's about staying in the game by having the right risk management. Now Saul is someone who was the risk manager at a prop firm for 120 traders. So he managed risk controls for all of these guys.

Now some people might say on the subject of risk management that this is the most crucial part. You know, um I guess it would be difficult for me to disagree, uh, because As a trader, your capital is your lifeblood. You know, if you lose your money, you're out of the game. It's plain and simple. As a trader, your job is to position yourself so that no one trade or series of trades should take you out of the game.

And from doing these interviews and speaking with so many really great talented traders, it's been so obvious to me. that they really do have a deep respect for just how quickly the market can take away their money. And believe me, If they ever forget, they're very quickly reminded. I've interviewed numerous people who have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in the space of just a couple short days. I even interviewed one trader who lost a million dollars in the space of four hours.

And of course, when these type of events occur, it takes them months and months to recoup from those losses. Not to mention opportunity costs. Okay, so on a balance sheet there's no column for opportunity cost. Väng firar 70 år av resor som är svåra att släppa taget om. Och det gör vi med massor av erbjudanden som är omöjliga att motstå. Boka redan nu på ving.se. De bästa resorna försvinner först. Ving- semester. Det vill hem från.

Now, something I want to bring up on risk management. Now, I mentioned Peter Brandt on the second point I made earlier on. Peter Brandt, uh, when I spoke with him, he said something along the lines of this. He said he makes about eighty percent of his gains from twenty percent of his trades.

Okay, I've interviewed Tom Baso, who some might consider to be a legendary trend follower, was profiled in the New Market Wizards book. Tom said something along the similar lines. He said that some years Two or three trades were so profitable that if he had not have had them in his portfolio, he would have broken even for the year.

Um Jerry Parker who um Nick brought up earlier on, one of the turtle traders, when I spoke with Jerry Parker, He said also something along the same sort of lines, 5 to 10% of his trades will often make the majority of his money. So I think it's important to mention these three examples because I think this in in many ways kind of captures

or is the crux of why risk management is so important. Often we have a lot of small trades that don't really add much to our bottom line. So that's why you need to effectively manage risk. Making sure you don't go bust in the meantime, waiting for those really decent good trades to roll around, which make it all worthwhile.

I guess you know someone might ask the question, well how do these traders manage risk? And to be fair, I think that probably deserves it its own uh forty-five minute talk. Um but I can certainly say one thing that's been echoed throughout many conversations I've had is having a plan. Now I know that sounds very simple and basic, but You know, who says it needs to be complex? Everyone's plan is obviously gonna vary. Um and

Jack Schrager, I think, is well known for saying, no, where are you going to get out before you get in? Okay? So that's all part of having a plan. So important because as soon as you've got real money on the line, emotion obviously comes in and can cloud um or get in the way of good decision making. Mark Gardner, a prominent figure in Australian prop trading who I've interviewed, he actually has power generators running at his house.

In case he loses power, he needs to be able to manage any positions that are open. I mean that's probably not something that most of us need to worry about at this stage. Point number six, stick to the game plan. Alright?

Jerry Parker, when I interviewed him, he said, There's been many times in my earlier years when I didn't follow my systems. I would be much wealthier now if I had. Okay, this is someone who's been trading a very, very long time, one of the most successful turtle traders. Uh manages billions of dollars. Uh, you know for sure that he's already very wealthy.

Um so to hear him say something like that I think is worthwhile paying attention to. Jerry also went on to say we're not concerned with performance, we're concerned with following the system. Now obviously that comes from someone who has huge amounts of confidence in their system, okay? And I think that's something that each one of us should really strive for.

is obviously having the discipline to follow a strategy during periods of bad performance, which we know are going to happen occasionally. But this point is twofold. Okay, so there we've obviously talked a little bit about strategy, sticking to the game plan in terms or sticking to the systems in terms of a trading system. I also want to hit upon the point of process.

So processes for your workflow, processes or routines, and a discipline to follow those as well. Okay, as my buddy from New York, Dan Shapiro says, your God-given talent is not going to make you money. And one of the things I've come to notice from doing these interviews and speaking with so many traders. is that in many cases, certainly not all, but in many cases, traders don't use highly complex methodologies. Instead, they consistently apply a well-thought-out process.

And I think one of the flaws uh of new traders and you know it's through no fault of their own. But when they come into trading, I think what might be helpful is instead of thinking about I want to become a trader, So thinking about I'm starting a trading business, okay? Like an actual business. How do you run a business, right? Well, from my experience, most businesses operate on well-thought-out processes, okay?

So when we're talking about trading, these processes might be, you know, how do you scan for potential trades? How do you evaluate? How do you manage positions? How do you adjust your strategy if necessary? Those types of things. And to continue on process.

Uh I interviewed Michael Moberson, who some of you may know or may not know. He's a best-selling author. He's also very high up at Credit Suisse, so I'm not sure on his exact um title, uh just off the top of my head. But um He's also someone who's highly regarded as an expert on decision making. And he's very well known also for three very simple words. Process over outcome. Meaning you need to judge outcomes based on how you made the decision. Okay, meaning did you follow your processes?

It's very difficult and I really don't think you should judge yourself based on the outcome of whether a single trade made or lost money. Instead, you should really be judging yourself based upon how well you followed your processes. with the information you had at the time. Uh Adrian, a futures from uh futures trader from UK. No it sounds like I interview a lot of traders from UK, but

I didn't realise that was the case. Um Adrian, when I interviewed him, he said the common link between profitable traders. is not so much their edge, of course, because everyone trades differently as we've already established, but how they approach the business of trading. So everyone who I know of has a very big focus on process, very process oriented. Now just to close things out here, I often get asked, and I guess it leads on from the top the topic of this particular talk,

You know, what are the characteristics of great traders? What are the personality traits of great traders? And I really think it's very hard to try and What's the word? Come up with a perfect answer. There's no one size fits all. Okay? I guess that's what I'm trying to say. There is no one personality type which is best for trading.

Now this quote comes from a gentleman who was the very first person I actually interviewed. His name's Tim Walker. And he said something to me. He said, amateurs never win in the game of life. Okay? So like I just said. It's very difficult to say there's one personality type or one characteristic which makes the ultimate trader. But whoever they are, the one thing I can tell you is that they hold themselves as professionals in every way.

Trading is not something where you can afford to be mediocre because amateurs never win in the game of life. The end.

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