{"id":257,"date":"2008-12-14T14:26:31","date_gmt":"2008-12-14T19:26:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/?p=257"},"modified":"2009-01-03T11:48:16","modified_gmt":"2009-01-03T16:48:16","slug":"getting-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/getting-better","title":{"rendered":"Getting Better"},"content":{"rendered":"

I read a lot of blogs.\u00a0 And lately a popular topic has been goals for 09.\u00a0 Personally I prefer to concentrate on finishing out the year strongly rather than spending any energy thinking about 09.\u00a0 I will do that when the month ends.\u00a0 Also, we don’t do a whole lot of big speeches at SMB.\u00a0 I don’t believe in that.\u00a0 And at this time of the year I am sure there are a lot of speeches being given about next year.\u00a0 And about how great a year 09 will be.\u00a0 Yada yada yada.\u00a0 I have never seen anyone become a great trader after a speech.\u00a0\u00a0 Inspirational words aren’t enough.\u00a0 Though sometimes a trader just needs to be reassured of their talents.\u00a0 Telling entertaining stories won’t do the trick.\u00a0 Though after you trade for over a decade you compile some really great stories.\u00a0 Buying pizza for the desk isn’t the answer (though we seem to buy an awful lot of pizza for our traders these days). \u00a0 So what will?<\/p>\n

The reason why new traders struggle is because their trading skills<\/a> are not good enough.\u00a0 They need to work on skill development<\/a>.\u00a0 09 is not going to be a great year for a new trader because you tell yourself it will be.\u00a0 09 will be a great year if you develop better trading skills.\u00a0 One of the things I can’t stand is watching a coach yell at one of his players during a game.\u00a0 Almost always the player made a mistake because his skills are not good enough.\u00a0 For the next many months work on that skill development with that player.\u00a0 Create drills to work on his weaknesses.\u00a0 If he is dogging it during practice drills then calling him out is necessary.\u00a0 But screaming at him during the game is not going to help.\u00a0 Spending the time working with him will.<\/p>\n

We had a review last week of our traders.\u00a0 Each of them is different.\u00a0 Each of them has different skill levels.\u00a0 But we ask them to focus on skill development.\u00a0 There is a specific list of things that we ask them to do each day so they are improving everyday.\u00a0 We provide a teaching environment that ensures SMB traders are working on their skill development each day.\u00a0 We want SMB traders to experience the benefits of compounded learning.\u00a0 Today they will learn a little more because of what they learned the day before and tomorrow they will learn a little more because of what they learned today.\u00a0 And then pretty soon after concentrated and consistent work a well rounded trader develops.<\/p>\n

So make your list of goals for 09.\u00a0 But make sure it focuses on skill development.\u00a0 Setting a goal to make 2k a day is unhelpful if it discludes working on a necessary skill.\u00a0 For example suppose your biggest weakness is aggressiveness.\u00a0 For whatever reason sometimes you do not pull the trigger when you see your setup.\u00a0 And suppose a median day is $600 for you.\u00a0 Your goals for 09 should start with visualization exercises of 15 minutes each day where you work on this mental weakness.\u00a0 You can write down that 2k goal everyday for all the market cares, but you are not going to pull out 2k until your overcome that mental weakness.\u00a0 And that mental weakness is not going to go away unless you work on it everyday.<\/p>\n

Best of luck with your trading!<\/p>\n

Please check out the following video http:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/video\/watch\/?id=4667942n<\/a> (5:30-6:55 relate to my blog above)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read a lot of blogs.\u00a0 And lately a popular topic has been goals for 09.\u00a0 Personally I prefer to concentrate on finishing out the year strongly rather than spending any energy thinking about 09.\u00a0 I will do that when the month ends.\u00a0 Also, we don’t do a whole lot of big speeches at SMB.\u00a0 I don’t believe in that.\u00a0 … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[4676,30,18],"class_list":["post-257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mike-bellafiore-bellas-blogs","tag-day-trading","tag-prop-trading","tag-smb-capital","no-post-thumbnail"],"yoast_head":"\nGetting Better | SMB Training<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/getting-better\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Getting Better | SMB Training\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I read a lot of blogs.\u00a0 And lately a popular topic has been goals for 09.\u00a0 Personally I prefer to concentrate on finishing out the year strongly rather than spending any energy thinking about 09.\u00a0 I will do that when the month ends.\u00a0 Also, we don’t do a whole lot of big speeches at SMB.\u00a0 I don’t believe in that.\u00a0 ... 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