I stumbled onto this thread from Peter Brandt and I want to share it.
Brandt was featured in Unknown Market Wizards as part of the essential series from Jack Schwager. Brandt has been trading since 1976 and didn't always have success. He initially failed, the had a spectacular run of success for a decade, then left trading for 11 years only to return to another round of success.
Here's the list from Brandt:
This is my 50th year trading futures markets. Here is a greatly abbreviated list of the lessons I have learned (many lessons more than once) My perspective is as a discretionary chart-based trader
1. A trading plan is not complete unless it provides contingencies for all known possibilities
2. A trading plan is incomplete unless is cuts losing trades quickly and allows winning trades to grow
3. I might think I know where a market is headed near-term, but in fact I don't have a clue
4. The trades I most want to believe are often the trades I least want to own
5. A trading plan is useless unless you repeatedly pull the trigger -- if you can't do so, then it is your head/heart/guts that are broken, not your trading plan
6. Depending on circumstances, I can be either left or right brain dominant. The battle between left and right brains for the grey areas of my thought process is often when trading is most frustrating, but also where I can learn the most about myself
7. Learning about self through trading is important, because successful trading is mostly a function of preventing self-sabotage
8. There are old traders and there are bold traders, but there are few old, bold traders
9. Forget being a consistent big-time winner until you learn to excel at losing
10. It is best NOT to pay attention to an account balance during a really profitable run
11. Open trade profits do not belong to me so except for filing taxes I do not track this data
12. ROR and Sharpe are the two most meaningless performance metrics on the planet
13. The 10X, 20X et al moves in crypto are a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Younger traders should not expect repeat performances
14. Trading rules, especially the specifics on indicators, CANNOT be optimized. Sorry
15. Trading is best treated as a marathon, never as a sprint
16. For a trader with less than five years of experience, your worst drawdown is the one that has not yet occurred
My favorite is #8 because it's especially relevant today in the era of meme stocks, YOLO and 0DTE options. Play the long game, stay in the market, there is always another trade.
