Do you have what it takes?

Last month I had the pleasure of catching up with a trader I have known for a few years now, and mentored for a while. We talked for a couple of hours about trading in general, as well as how he has continued to develop himself as a trader. He is now trading full-time and has developed his own method (more of a swing-based style) which he is trading profitably.

When I met him at his house a few years back, I saw the biggest library of trading books I had seen. It was like walking into a bookstore.

He was, and continues to be, a voracious reader - his approach is a bit like mine in that, he may find one sentence or paragraph within a whole book, blog post or newsletter which may help him or be of value (in my own case, these can come from non-trading books too).

Two big things came out of our conversation:

• He trades with a passion and level of commitment I haven't come across too often. While the actual act of trading his particular method takes relatively little time, he spends 10-12 hours working every day reading, researching, playing around with ideas, reviewing his trades, and generally working to improve himself and his performance.
• The other big thing was that one word kept coming up again and again - that word was consistency. Consistency is his big goal. He went through some examples of where remaining consistent, even when his results were showing a temporary dip in performance, has paid off.

If you are to become successful, it is my belief that you need to have passion, dedication, and commitment in abundance, allied to consistency in both your approach and mindset - and all those elements can only come from within.

A lot of people are drawn towards trading as a potential way to escape the 9-5 routine, to work less and theoretically earn more. People like my friend show that, actually, the opposite is true. They end up spending most of their waking hours (as well as a few of their sleeping hours!) consumed by the markets and trading, and have this inner drive to succeed.

This is who you are up against - people who have honed their skills through their hard work and determination and are now reaping the rewards.

So, the question for you is - do you have what it takes to get to where he is?