Fly Fishing the Stock Market: How to Search for, Catch, and Net the Market's Best Trades

PERSISTENCE

There will be times when trading will frustrate you, but you have to keep attacking and approaching it from different angles to find your niche.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “That which we persist in doing becomes easy to do; not that the nature of the thing has changed, but that our power to do has increased.”

The reverse of this is also true: “That which we don't persist in doing becomes harder to do; not that the nature of the thing has changed, but that our power to do has decreased.” This is a universal law, applicable to all realms of our lives: mental, physical, emotional, academic, and social.

What this means in terms of learning to trade is that certain levels of discomfort and wear and tear on us are necessary and natural parts of the process.

Several years ago, I bought a small fishing boat with a brand-new engine that didn't quite perform to my expectations. When I returned and asked the mechanic what the problem could be, he said, “Be patient, put several hours on the engine, and wait for it to break in. At that point, the engine valves will seat, and you'll get better performance.” Keep in mind that this engine was a precision-crafted machine, but even so, it needed to go through the break-in process to seat the valves into a perfect fit. Then, and only then, did performance become optimal.

Unless you are feeling occasional pain and frustration in trading, requiring you to display patience and persistence, you probably won't catch that “second wind” and reach ...