10,000 hours to greatness and the Mastery Asymptote

Rufus. Since you've decided to delve into the psychology of trading (the land of uncertainty) may I suggest a book that contains some very original thinking - "The Black Swan" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Taleb is both a trader and a philosopher and although the book is more about philosophy than trading, what he has to say, especially on the topic of "epistemic arrogance", may be of some interest to you and may help to avoid some pitfalls.. In any case, it's a bit of a different read and certainly encompasses out of the box thinking.

All the best on your journey.

The following article suggests that it is not possible to reduce the hours we need until we become (trading) experts.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/...oth-sides.html

As you see in the article (at least in chess) the brains of experts work differently to non-experts. If it is the same in trading it seems unlikely that you can take a short-cut.

Malcolm Gladwell has a book called "Outliers", which is based on research that shows most "Masters" of any given subject, or extremely talented people in whatever subject have accumulated 10,000 hours of practice with that subject, often at a young age.

I am guessing this is where the idea for this thread comes, I hope this helps.

Cory

Thank you for that. This brings me back to the point of "what is a Master Trader?"

I think the reason behind those brain scans would be yes due to experience and knowledge. I would assume the experts are creating new potential moves and trying to see what "could" happen and that uses both sides of the brain to do. The novice is just doing what looks right.

I love the connection between these activities cause I feel they both have a lot of commonalities. Where I have an issue with 10,000 hours is my friend I'm training right now. He has a very set, straight forward plan of learning and is gaining experience through what he knows. It is this basic schema of knowledge that he is using to become a successful trader. I'm going to guess he has about a 100 hours in and is demo successful and ready to try low volume trading. I can tell you the difference between him and me is he doesn't have all the crap in his head that he read in here to confuse him in the process that I do. I try to be smart sometimes and I know I'm too dam dumb for that.

Is he a master? No. Is he a beginner? You better believe it! What does he have to do to be a master?

I know some people will be rolling there eyes saying Simple Guy your an idiot, (and to some point maybe true) but it this point of what a master is that I think a lot of us are missing. If we can define it, we can model it. If we can model it, we can achieve it. NLP practitioners around the world are doing great things in this area. I would like to bring that into my life. the last three months have opened my mind to a lot about trading, philosophy, life, and more importantly, about me.

I think a true master would be someone who is an innovator in their own right. No matter how well someone can do with someone else's trading system, they are not a master, because they are relying on someone else's information, and if the system crashed and their mentor died, they would be back at zero.

Of course with more discretionary methods the more experience you have with a system brings knowledge, but I think a true master would look at the market in a different way and have a great feel for market movements in addition to a wealth of knowledge.

Just my two cents.

Cory

We have opened a can of worms....So start fishing. Lets see what understanding we can get out of it.

I consider myself a master "Finnish Carpenter". What is interesting to me though is that I have had the opportunity to train a lot of people the same trade. I have lost track of the number of employees over the years, but it is interesting what I had learned. So for now, if I may I will use that experience for a while to help us try to come to a conclusion of what a master trader is.

I believe to be the best at something you will always be a student. Humility has got to be at the top of the list to be a master at anything. Are you willing to learn from anybody? Or can you learn from anything done well? Not just in trading but in all of life.

I have learned over the years that the minute employees become uncoachable to what I am teaching them they are on the road out. I am also then limited as to what they can do. Their training to become a master ends by their own choice do to lack of humility.

There was one individual who started working for me who knew basically nothing about woodwork. I trained him for four years. One day he quits without warning and went into business for himself, calling all the people that I have done work for to set up his own business. He went broke in less than a year. When he left I knew exactly what he knew of the trade. I also knew he wouldn't make it. He worked for me for over 10,000 hours. He quit being humble after about 3000 hours.

The point I am making here is that regardless of the time involved to be a master at something it is essential to be humble to learn. I believe that if we approach each trading day or learning opportunity with what I will call disciplined humility we will become masters by 10,000 hours even less.

Disciplined humility... You are ready to learn anything. But can categorize things mentally as to what is profitable and what is garbage. Then take the profitable and build your style. If that makes any sense.

So the result being that I am not just a walking encyclopedia of trading knowledge. But can take the trading knowledge mixed with disciplined humility establish for myself the trading style best suited for me. There is no randomness is quality learning. There should be no randomness in our application of what we have learned as well.

So.......Disciplined Humility....

In my opinion one of the most important traits to being a master.

Rufus

One of these days here. I will start going through this thread to put together a reading list. Then post it on the on the first post. So list out any ideas.

Rufus

Excellent thread Rufus

First of all... train the wrong type of person for 10,000 and the result will be close to failure or by far mediocre. Train the right type of person for 10,000 and a Professional/Master is made.

Second of all... interesting enough, when you ask every person if they are a "kind person". Interestingly, you get 99% responding "yes" that they're a kind person (Of course there is a degree of level in each individual's kindness. You know what I mean, a**holes sometimes do have a heart, but most of the time they're a**holes). In a group setting, it is objectively seen by the other group members.

It is the same with trading. Ask every individual who enter this game whether they have what it takes and you will get 99% responding "yes". The sad truth is that 90% do not have what it takes to succeed in this game. The "Search for the American singing idol" is an excellent example of this human behavior in motion.

========================

The very first trait in Mastery is the ability to realize your own trait. Most important is your ability to realize your own mistake and lack. This aspect even gets worse because "You don't know what you don't know." It's no different from anyone singing the wrong note because they can't hear that they're singing the wrong note. Getting stuck in limbo is very typical. Going round in circles and unaware that you're just going nowhere. It's no different from a young hopeful, filled with dreams, ambitions and by the age 40-50 has little or nothing to show for it. The sad truth about this first trait, is that most of the time, it takes 20 years (or more) to realize that you don't have what it takes... Unless, you get an objective point of view from another to tell you what it is you're doing wrong or lacking... Maybe someone like Michael Cowell

Let me cut to the chase here. The next crucial points are your ability to adapt and the speed you learn/unlearn. Next is your ability to track your progress. Again, these traits are usually skewed subjectively in each individual.

I remember when I was training at the hospital. My Professor handed me a 10 page assessment criteria. I had to assess myself from medical diagnosis, implementations, morals and ethics, legal proceeding, etc... I looked at him straight in the faced and told him, "You're my Professor, you should be assessing my knowledge, my skills... that's what you are paid for. Why am I assessing myself?" He looked at me and smirked, "Get it done or I'll fail you."

I handed it to him and then he assessed the papers. On my left hand, I held my own assessment. On my right hand, I held his assessment. At the end of the day, I got the point of "why", but he still didn't explained it. That's one thing about the Masters "you either get it or you don't". If you not ready, they won't waste their time trying to explain it. And when you are ready, they won't have to explain it because you got it already.

I've met so many Masters in many different fields and they do possess similar traits. And here they are:

 

1. Perfectionists in attitude
2. Highly philosophical (not biblical nor religious)
3. Highly Multi-talented in many areas
4. Realist rather than Idealist
5. Confident decision makers
6. Rational thinkers
7. Unmaterialistic
8. Highly focused, excellent in concentration
9. Highly conscientious
10. Highly routine and disciplined
11. Strong work ethics
12. Humility
13. "Pain before Pleasure" type of mentality
    "Necessity over Pleasure" type of mentality
    AKA: Delayed gratification
14. They highly value and have a strong meaningful connection with what they have: both materialistic and non-materialistic
15. They take good care of their belongings: both materialistic and non-materialistic
16. Early Risers
17. No more than 1hr of TV a day

What's good to see is a research based on different type of personality traits. Have these groups take the 10,000hrs of training and then compare the results (to satisfy people's curiosity regarding the 10K hrs of mastery). By simply taking any individual for a research without a baseline would produce a useless data.

Hi Crucial Point

Thank you for the meaningful insight. I have read that post about a dozen times now. You have managed to make me think more about this topic.

Some time ago I took a personality test and the results were enlightening to me. I found that I am an INTJ. Then I started to study a bit about me. The results helped me understand a lot of who I am and why I do things a certain way.

I think it would be helpful to some traders to take this test to learn a little about what makes you tick. Here is one.

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

Then for those of you who do take this test...How about posting the results and a little on how this affects your trading. It may help a few traders understand.

Why are some traders great on 1m charts and others want 15m or 4h? Is this a personality thing? The discipline is the same for all time frames. But why do some favor one over the others?

Like I saying earlier. I am an INTJ
The Scientist



As an INTJ, your primary mode of living is focused internally, where you take things in primarily via your intuition. Your secondary mode is external, where you deal with things rationally and logically.
INTJs live in the world of ideas and strategic planning. They value intelligence, knowledge, and competence, and typically have high standards in these regards, which they continuously strive to fulfill. To a somewhat lesser extent, they have similar expectations of others.

This is a short bit from a web site.

Now put Dyslexia on top of that and you have me. Dyslexics think in terms of pictures.....A chart. So far for me, my chart of choice is 15m. I need a bigger picture. I take a position with 5m. But I am also aware of 1h, 4h, day, and week charts. Put me on a 1m chart and I start losing track of where I am.

So anyway some random thoughts.

I am meeting my wife for dinner so I need to get out of here.

Always Thinking

Rufus

Just took the test and also got INTJ

ENFJ, guess my primary profession was the right choice, being a teacher. this has changed slightly, before I was a ENTJ, guess I'm on the border line between the two.

Hi Rufus,
thank for posting the link to the test. It seems to be pretty accurate in describing my main typology/personality features as the description fits my self-observations over the years (I'm an ENTJ). However, I think we must all remember that these are not all-encompassing typology descriptions and we can all develop an aspect of our personality that we think is necessary, even if the development doesn't take us very far. What I'm trying to say is that we mustn't let the test results bind us down. I hope this makes sense to you, if it doesn't ignore it.

If I could give Vouches, You would have one for this post, .... as if you need one...

Me, ISTJ (slightly expressed Sensor, borderline N)
hmmm, could be a pattern here

Thank you ALThau

The personality test is quite informative. Personally it helped me to understand a bit about me. I don't believe that it takes a certain personality trait to be a successful trader. My thoughts however were that it may take disciplined applied differently for different personalities.

Crucial Point and I are INTJ...one long suit is

"INTJs live in the world of ideas and strategic planning."

So when it comes to a strategic plan it is in our nature. It does not mean we can't improve upon it. But it may mean that other personality types may need to have a bit more focused discipline in that area.

My personal objective with the test was that. To help me understand where I may need to focus more energy to become the master trader I believe that I can be. What are my week points, what are my strengths.

Well I have to go to work...Staircase today.

Rufus

It does...My previous post explains it

In my foray into trading, I've found perfectionism to be my worst enemy, much worse than fear or greed. As a perfectionist, I want every trade to be a winner. I want to catch every pip in a move. I feel gutted every time I miss an opportunity that would have been a winning trade. And when I experience losses, the sense of failure is acute, and fighting the desire to quit is that much more difficult.

As a perfectionist, I want to be perfectly right all the time, regardless of whether I trade live or demo. We perfectionists are dreamers, idealists.

And we perfectionists tend to be risk-averse. We want to take our profits early, as an insurance against a trade working out less than perfectly.

I guess what you mean is that a perfectionist will always strive to improve his performance. That's valid, IMO. In most fields of endeavor, perfectionism is a quality to die for; in my work as a programmer, attention to detail is imperative, as one small bug can wreak havoc. But I find so many things about trading to be counter-intuitive.

I got INTJ, now where is the IQ test?

Nice list of traits,
I posses the majority of that list but when it comes to trading I will need to work on my discipline, but I think I'm on the right track. I read Mark Douglas 0 Trading In the Zone and The Disciplined trader, also Self-Discipline in 10 days - Theodore Bryant, next step is Napoleon Hill and Jim Rohn.

By the way took the test and I got the INTJ

Regards,

Hi Rufus

Two weeks ago you've ask me the following:

"...Could you share a little about Psychology in trading and how you see it from your training. ...Anything else in your education that may fit...I know it would be a bit of time so if you can't I understand...To keep from getting to much non F5 info in this thread...A few days ago I started another on this topic. http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=274297. Trade safe and I always look forward to your posts" under http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...20606&page=226, (#3382).

I have upload an article "The 7 Deadly Sins of Forex.pdf" (see the attachment, please) which could be something for an open & lively discussion.

It's understood that in some aspects I following a more realistic and convenient way. I will point out the different opinions next time.

I wish you all the best.

Kindest regards
FXcube