The more I have worked with seasoned traders, the more Im convinced that longevity in this business is all about following a few basic fundamentals: Vans Top Tasks of Trading, discipline in following your strategy, and having patience and persistence to stick with a process/strategy/system that has an edge in the markets. Mastering these fundamentals generates longevity in a traders careernot chasing new ideas.

"To obtain financial freedom, one must be either a business owner, an investor, or both generating passive income, particularly on a monthly basis."Robert Kiyosaki

"Life's battles don't always go to the stronger or faster man, but sooner or later the man who wins is the man who thinks he can."- Ken Norton

"Wishing will not bring riches. But desiring riches with a state of mind that becomes an obsession, then planning definite ways and means to acquire riches, and backing those plans with persistence which does not recognize failure, will bring riches."

"When riches take the place of poverty, thechange is usually brought about through well conceived and carefully executed plans.Poverty needs no plan. It needs no one to aid it, because it is bold and ruthless. Riches are shy and timid. They have to be 'attracted.'"

"Do not depend on the enemy not coming, but depend on our readiness against him. Do not depend on the enemy not attacking, but depend on our position that cannot be attacked."- Sun Tzu, The Art Of War

J.P. Morgan once said:

Go as far as you can see; when you get there, youll be able to see farther.

The general lesson from the wager is that blind faith in first mover advantage is often misplaced. Sometimes, the odds of the business game are such, that it is advantageous for you to allow your opponents to make the first move and then decide your own move (including whether you want to move at all or not).

Fear happens when one is ill prepared in strategy, skills, knowledge, tools, practice, purpose and goals. Unknown.

When vix is slow, go slow. When vix is high, safe to buy. Alxender Elder.

If you were to read just five books in your life to become a sensible investor, I often suggest people seeking my view, they have to be Warren Buffetts letters, Poor Charlies Almanack, Peter Lynchs One Up on Wall Street, Ben Grahams Intelligent Investor, and Howard Markss memos. safel inveshak

Good trading is not a question of doing, it is a question

of being John Piper. Way To Trade.

Most people lose in the markets for one simple reason - they trade emotionally. Good trading is not a question of doing, it is a question of being. How do you trade?Trading is a life experience. It is not like any other business. The beauty of trading is that it becomes an expression of your own personality. The truth is, good traders don't do, they simply are. And to become a good trader you have to create a model built around an approach that suits you. The Way to Trade will help you do just that.Find your own route to success. John Piper

Most of all, long-term success in the stock market comes from discipline, the ability to consistently execute a sound plan and refrain from self-defeating behavior. Mark Minervini

Being wrong with a trading signal is all part of the business. Being wrong and not using your protective stop is part ofGOING OUT OF THE TRADING BUSINESS.

IT WILL ALMOST ALWAYS END UP WITH THE TRADE SIGNALS THAT LOOK LIKE SURE WINNERS TURNING OUT TO BE LOSERS WHILE THE HARD TO TAKE SIGNALS TURN OUT TO BE THE WINNERS!

Failure is the rule, success the exception. You have not failed, you have succeeded, succeeded in proving that failure is the rule

Big money is made in commodity markets the same way it is made in any other business venture, it is made by testing many products-investments-opportunities and cutting losses short on those which are unsuccessful and maximizing profits on those which are successful. It is taking horizontal opportunities and turning the winners into vertical successes. It is that simple. brucegould

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.

Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.

Do not believe in anything because it is spoken and rumored by many.

Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your books.

Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.

But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with

reasonthen accept it and live up to it.

-The Buddha

Tzus teachings on market conditions:If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

The one thing you can depend on, though, is that your trading account will show you in unambiguous detail whether or not you know how touse your knowledge of trading effectively while risking real capital. Hard work means nothing.Becoming effective in the performance of actionable risk means everything. It simply does not matterwhat you know about trading that is the price of admission to the game. Until you can use that knowledgewith money on the table, you are not working (no matter how much you labor) effectively in the domain of trading. This is the head game of trading. And it separates the elite from the pack. Randy Howell.

Once you know the rules of the game, its a matter of managing the pressure of emotion from which the trading mind emerges and performs. And, therein, lies the problem and the solution. Rande Howell

The Assumption: You are projecting your beliefs about your capacity to manage uncertainty onto the markets and you are seeing the effectiveness of those beliefs as a by-product in the health of your trading account.

The more you project ineffective beliefs upon the markets about the management of uncertainty, the more you experience the stress of trading as distress, rather than eustress. Its not about working harder, working more, trading more, or pushing yourself it is about the beliefs you bring to the management of uncertainty.

The questions to ask when taking a loss are: (1) Was it a method mistake? (2) Was it a psychological mistake? Or (3) was it simply being on the wrong side of probability? If it is a method or psychological mistake, then you learn from the mistake (which is how the brain learns) rather than dwelling on the loss and deepening your fear of losing. If you don't learn from this, you bring this fear of loss into your next trade. And that contaminates the mind that trades.

Using David Bowdens words, when your real trading performance matches your paper trading performance, you have mastered trading psychology.

Warren Buffet says: If the world couldnt see your results, would you rather be thought of as the worlds greatest investor but in reality have the worlds worst results? Or be thought of as the worlds worst investor when you are actually the best? The big question about how people behave is whether theyve got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard.

Carl Jung said: until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.

"I would pick one segment of the market, either livestock, or grains, or metals, or interest rate futures, or whatever, and I would just concentrate on that segment and forget the others. There is just too much going on, and the stuff overwhelms you. I would then take that one group, let's say the meats, and I would develop myself into a good meat trader. If you follow hogs, bellies, cattle and feeders, or if you follow wheat, corn, oats, soybeans, meal and oil, you'll see plenty of tradeable patterns. Those few markets will soon show you everything you will ever come across. I suggest you try to be successful within one group before you watch all the markets at once. WHen you're watching everything, you're always disgusted or panicking because you're not in whatever's moving. Then you jump into that, and it immediately goes against you. Before long, you have no capital left." Bruce Gould

InThe Elements of Successful Trading, Robert Rotella puts it this way: "Trading is a business of making and losing money. Any trade, no matter how well thought out, has a chance of becoming a loser. Many people think the best traders don't lose any money and have only winning trades. This is absolutely not true. The best traders lose a lot of money, but they eventually make even more over time."

Robert Rotella describes the trauma inThe Elements of Successful Trading: "Trading is one of the most stressful endeavors imaginable. Taking losses day after day with a strategy that, just a short while ago was working well, can be a terrible experience. Trading performance can be consistently volatile with good and bad times highly magnified. The market can batter your psyche and gnaw at your soul. These bad experiences will never end as long as you trade. The more successful you are as a trader, the more money you will lose."

Eckhardt put it this way. "The market behaves much like an opponent who is trying to teach you to trade poorly."

Robert Kiyosaki always says...

"The truly successful dont do a lot of things pretty well. The truly successful learn how to do one thing extremely well."

the power of financial education can give you an Unfair Advantage in todays economy.

None can destroy iron, but its own rust can! Likewise, none can destroy a person, but his own mindset can.None can destroy iron, but its own rust can! Likewise, none can destroy a person, but his own mindset can.- Ratan Tata

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.- Aristotle

A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him.A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him.- Mahatma Gandhi

As Henry Ford once put it, If you need a machine and don't buy it, then you will ultimately find that you have paid for it and don't have it.' Thinking on a marginal basis can be very, very dangerous."- Clayton Christensen

Albert Einstein, the great scientist:

Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. "

- Steve Jobs

"You have to love what you do. Without passion, great success is hard to come by. An entrepreneur will have tough times if he or she isn't passionate about what they're doing. People who love what they're doing don't give up. It's never even a consideration. It's a pretty simple formula."

- Donald Trump

When I chased after money, I never had enough. When I got my life on purpose and focussed on giving of myself and everything that arrived in my life, then I was prosperous.

- Wayne Dwyer

A thought that does not result in action is nothing much, and an action that does not proceed from a thought is nothing at all. Forbes.com

Half of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough. Josh Billings

Tom Friel, the former CEO of Heidrick & Struggles, once said, We need to learn the slow yes and the quick no.

There are known knowns. These

are things we know that we know.

There are known unknowns.

That is to say, there are things

that we now know we dont

know. But there are also

unknown unknowns. There are

things we do not know we dont

know.

Donald Rumsfeld

When everyone in business, sports, and investing copies the best practices of others, luck plays a greater role in how well they do.

Individual investors like you can win, but only if you do not try and beat the pros at their own game. You can win but you cannot do it by trying to beat the system, you do not even want to try. I have 1,500 employees and 40 years of experience and it is a tough game for me. This is a poker game with the best poker players on earth. Poker, like investing in the markets is a zero sum game. For every winner there is going to be losers. As soon as you are in that game, you are not just playing poker against those guys on the opposite side of the table its a world game, and only a small percentage of people make real money in it. They make a lot. They take money away from people who are not good at the game. So I would say to your investors, the average guy: you dont want to be in that game.Ray Dalio, 31st richest man in the United States, owner of the worlds largest hedge fund. Extract from Money, Master The Game. Tony Robbins

"Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally." - John Maynard Keynes.

Warren Buffet says, if you think a company will be around 20 years from now then it is probably a good buy right now.

Take all the accounting courses that you can find. Accounting is the language of business. Itll make it so much easier for years and years to come for reading financial statements, to get comfortable with it, because it is a language all of its own.Getting comfortable in a foreign language takes a little experience, a little study early on, but it pays off big later on. Warren Buffet

Sir John Templetons famous quote, Bull markets are born on pessimism, grown on skepticism, mature on optimism and die on euphoria.

Bill Gates quotes:

If you are born poor its not your mistake but if you die poor its your mistake

Jack Ma,altered this statementand quoted:

If you are still poor at 35, you deserve it!

"I consider myself an insecurity analyst...I realize that I may be wrong. This makes me insecure. My sense of insecurity keeps me alert, always ready to correct my errors." - George Soros

It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and then do your best. W. Edwards Deming

Victor Sperandeo (Trader Vic)

The key to trading success is emotional discipline. If intelligence were the key, there would be a lot more people making money trading.

Jesse Livermore

There is the plain fool who does the wrong thing at all times anywhere, but there is the Wall Street fool who thinks he must trade all the time.

I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times. Bruce Lee

Where you want to be is always in control, never wishing, always trading, and always first and foremost protecting your ass. Thats why most people lose money as individual investors or traders because theyre not focusing on losing money. They need to focus on the money that they have at risk and how much capital is at risk in any single investment they have. If everyone spent 90 percent of their time on that, not 90 percent of the time on pie-in-the-sky ideas on how much money theyre going to make. Then they will be incredibly successful investors.Paul Tudor Jones

In a nutshell, it all comes down to: Doyour own thing (independence); and do the right thing (discipline). Gil Blake

"Most humans are never fully present in the now, because unconsciously they believe that the next moment must be more important than this one. But then you missyour whole life, which is never not now. And that's a revelation for some people: to realize that your life is only ever now."- Eckhart Tolle

Dont worry about what the markets are going to do, worry about what you are going to do in response to the market. Michael Carr, a Market Wizard

I utilize every situation to my benefit. I turn lead into gold. I turn garbage into gold. I turn crap into something good. I turn lemons into lemonade.- T. HARV EKER

This was Pauls breakthroughwhen he discovered that Learninghow not to lose moneyis more important thanlearning how to make money. This hits the nail on the head!

When I was young people called me a gambler. As the scale of my operations grew, I became known as a speculator. Now I am called a banker. But I have been doing the same thing all the time. Ernest Cassel

To win, you must understand the game, you must understand the players, and above all, you must understand yourself. Source unknown

The more I have worked with seasoned traders, the more Im convinced that longevity in this business

is all about following a few basic fundamentals: Vans Top Tasks of Trading, discipline in following your

strategy, and having patience and persistence to

stick with a process/strategy/system that has an

edge in the markets. Mastering these fundamentals generates longevity in a traders career

not

chasing new ideas.

"To obtain financial freedom, one must be either a business owner, an investor, or both gen

erating

passive income, particularly on a monthly basis."

Robert Kiyosaki

"Life's battles don't always go to the stronger or faster man, but sooner or later the man who

wins is the man who thinks he can."

-

Ken Norton

"Wishing will not bring riches.

But desiring riches with a state of mind that becomes an

obsession, then planning definite ways and means to acquire riches, and backing those

plans with persistence which does not recognize failure, will bring riches."

"When riches take the place of pover

ty, the

change is usually brought about through

well conceived and carefully executed plans.

Poverty needs no plan. It needs no one to

aid it, because it is bold and ruthless. Riches are shy and timid. They have to be 'attracted.'"

"Do not depend on the en

emy not coming, but depend on our readiness against him. Do not

depend on the enemy not attacking, but depend on our position that cannot be attacked."

-

Sun Tzu, The Art Of War

J.P. Morgan once said:

Go as far as you can see; when you get there,

youll be able to see farther.

The general lesson from the wager is that blind faith in

first

mover

advantage

is often misplaced. Sometimes, the odds of the business game are

such, that it is advantageous for you to allow your opponents to make the first

move and then decide your own move (including whether you want to move at

all or not).