Today's Quote: “Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten." - Carl B. F. S.

This is day two of the ‘collection of qualities good traders share’ comments. Today is part two of the education process. This is a review of the two amazing ‘catch-22s’ that are frequently spoken by newer (and older) traders.

Here is the first one. “When I make enough money trading to pay for my education, I will take the course”. This is so obvious it is comical. Yet, the majority of people carry this attitude. Naturally, the funny part is that without the education, most don’t make the money to pay for anything. Beyond that, the ironic part is that if someone DOES make the money, they say, “Well, this is easy, I don’t need any education so why should I waste this money on any course?” Naturally, when they give some of that money back, as is almost always the case. Then they figure they can fix their mistakes, because they were ‘successful’ at one time. The problem is, will they even figure out the problem?

The second scenario is just as revealing. We teach people to start off extremely limited risk, and then move up the share size and only keep moving up if they are successful at the lower levels. Sometimes traders do not become successful as quickly as they would like. The losing trades, while small, combined with the commissions begin to add up. Instead of working on improving their trading and eliminating mistakes, they decide to move their share size way up to ‘make back the money they have been losing’. Naturally, if they were not successful at the lower levels, adding more shares will only make it tougher. However, the human mind often does not think properly when stressed and uneducated.

The question is simply an objective one. Are you consistently profitable, over a significant period of time? If not, more education can only help. Think about prior life situations. Isn’t it true that so many successes in life come down to a single moment in time when the light bulb came on? You maybe heard someone say something a hundred times before, but all of a sudden this time you heard it differently. Or it was said with a different twist. Or maybe your mind had become fertile enough to accept what was being said.