By: Evan Lazarus
Most people (and traders are no exception) learn from making mistakes. I know throughout my life, I have generally learned the hard way. I wish that was not the case and I just did things “the right way” off the bat, but that seems to be one of my Achilles heels (after all, we all are human). I truly think that its only the very fortunate that can skip this process. It has been said that the smart man learns from his mistakes and the wise man learns from the mistakes of others. This is why failure can be such an important part of trading. Hopefully, in a community like T3Live we learn from each others’ mistakes.
General George S. Patton said, “You do not measure a man by his success, the truest measure of a man’s character is how high he bounces after he falls down.” For example, children born to nurturing parents are the greatest recipients of this kind of thinking. Battered children are punished and then built up while making their first mistakes. Traders have a tendency to act like battered children. Constant mental bickering about: “This could have been better,” or “What happened to me was so unlucky,” which does nothing but fester the wounds. Shake off the mistake. It is not evil and not meant for you alone. Failure in trading is like breathing. Failure is followed by success. The faster you learn to embrace failure the faster the footsteps of success should walk along side with you.
Over my tenure as a trader, my greatest success have usually come as a result of utter failures. The aim for me personally is to limit these failures whenever possible. Being wrong is being human and my ultimate success lies in how I handle my failures moving forward.
