Finding a MENTOR / Course - Things to Look Out for

[Eiger]

Maybe there are different stages of development in a trader's life. Perhaps a beginning trader has different needs and different questions than someone who has some experience and may be thought of as an itentermediate-level trader. I would think, too, that an intermediate-level trader has different needs and different questions than a trader we might consider to be advanced, who will have different questions and differnt needs than others. If there are different levels of students, might there be different levels of mentors, or at least mentors who understand that there are different levels of information to be taught depending on the level of the student?

Try not to disparage beginners. Beginners are at the level of beginning. There is nothing wrong with this; it is simply a level, no better or worse than any other level. One Zen monk said that there is high value in beginner's mind -- something we can all strive for.

Eiger

[DbPhoenix]

	Quote:	jasont
	Db this is a very interesting and valuable comment. Can I ask if you are referring to the tendency many of us had in the beginning to think that trading was easy? By that I mean new traders hear about trading and then jump in the pond without taking the proper procedures to learn? Then the true traders are distinguished by the ones that understand and take on a role of hard work and constant learning of trading whilst the others leave the market unwilling to put in the time and effort?

In a word, yep

[rsagi]

I'll put my 2 cents regarding some of the interesting comments.

Being a technical instructor early in my career, I ran into some VERY (few) bright/genius students and asked them why are they attending my class as it seems that they know a lot of the material and/or are able to study on their own . I was given an answer by one specific student that changed the way I think, he said -"I know that I can study on my own, but I need a framework as I am known to defocus and an easy prey for distractions"

Being an entrepreneur and a founder of a high-tech startup these days, I truly believe that it's 99% who you know - not what you know - this is in regard to a previous post about being in the right place at the right time. It's also a numbers game - the more you try - the higher the probability you'll succeed.

Anyway, deviating a bit from the main subject - but I thought I'll comment on some thoughts from previous threads.

Best,
Steve

[james_gsx]

	Quote:	brownsfan019
	You said it BF. The 'mentor' in the biz of selling, does just that - sell. Those are the mentors you see through a google search. IMO a real mentor/mentee relationship is like finding a needle in a haystack, but when you do it could be extremely profitable. It's almost more of a who you know type thing. For example, if a good friend was serious and approached me, I would probably do it. Now if I was approached on a random message board, I doubt I would even give it serious consideration.

I agree.

The "mentors" I've had didn't exactly teach me new things like one would expect. But they helped me in other ways move to the next level. They held me accountable for the most part, and helped me with some of the smaller things that I wouldn't have seen on my own. When I screw up, they help show me where I screwed up. They don't send me their trades or give me their trading system, they help me figure it out on my own.

[DbPhoenix]

Some may, in fact, be looking not for a mentor but a coach:

Trader education has become a hot topic in recent years. Everywhere you look there is someone offering some course, seminar, training program, or whatever. Many are very pricey, and we can certainly debate the real value of quite a few. The proliferation of the products and such can’t help but bring up some of the commonly debated topics related to whether traders can be taught or just have some innate talent which allows them to succeed. This article makes its own contribution to that discussion.

In the interest of openness, my personal view is that anyone can learn to trade effectively. By that, I mean we are all capable of trading toward a reasonable and rational set of goals and/or objectives determined by our own personal situation and means. Can everyone become George Soros, Paul Tudor Jones, or Warren Buffett? No, of course not. If we could all do that, those names wouldn’t be as big as they are. Most people simply don’t have the kind of resources traders like that have at their disposal. We all do, however, have the means to trade well within the scope of the money, time, risk tolerance, and other elements of our trading focus.

The starting point of effective trading, as with anything else in life, is education. There are certain things one needs to know in order to trade effectively. What those are vary a bit based on the market traded and instruments utilized, but there are some fundamentals. For example, all trading is based on the bid-offer mechanism at some level. There are numerous types of orders for entry in to positions and exit from them. There are exchange hours and instrument specifications. Brokerage commissions are a feature in most markets, and in all one needs to understand how profits and losses are determined. I think we can all agree that these are some of the basic building blocks of knowledge and understanding required to even contemplate trading.

At the next level we start getting more in to comprehension of the market action, its interpretation, and knowing how that translates in to profit opportunities and risk. On some level, trading requires analysis to make buy/sell decision – fundamental, technical, or quantitative. For the mechanical trader, that analysis is done through research in the development of one’s trading system. For the discretionary trader it is more an on-going process. Likewise, some kind of risk management program is a requirement, regardless of trading style or analytic method.

All of this kind of core knowledge and understanding can, in my opinion, be learned from books, lectures, seminars, courses, etc. It is akin to earning a degree. In order to get that diploma, one must prove that certain things have been learned, skills gained. Once that is done, however, one’s development becomes a more personal journey. It is the same thing in trading. There is a basic set of knowledge we must gain, but after that it is up to us to forge our own path in the markets as our own personal situation dictates.

Here is where things start getting muddled.

We must each determine our own course in trading, ideally based on a good assessment of the resources we have available to us. There are so many ways we can go, though. Everywhere there are people telling us that this path or that path is the one we should take. How are we to decide? Most of us end up stumbling along through a trial and error exploration of various systems, methods, techniques, and whatnot. Some of us find something that works. A great many do not, and quit in frustration, or broke. This is where having a coach or mentor can make a huge difference.

We need look no further than the world of athletics to see how important the role of a coach is to one’s development. I happen to coach high level collegiate volleyball, so please permit me the indulgence of using that sport as an example.

There are certain physical attributes which can be strong determining factors for one’s success in volleyball – height and jumping ability being two of them. As the saying goes, you can’t teach height, and while a coach can help one jump higher, genetics goes a long way to determining what a given athlete can do in that regard. Being tall and able to jump high, however, does not guarantee success, and one can be quite good at the sport without being a top physical specimen. There is a lot more to volleyball, and that is where coaching comes in.

The role of the coach is basically that of facilitator. He or she aids the athlete in the development in their skills and the refinement of the game. For the novice that means a lot of teaching in regards to skill execution. When working with experienced players, it become much more a question of refinement and showing them how to apply what they know to the best effect given the situation at-hand.

Coaching or mentoring in trading should be the same thing. The advantages of having someone to oversee your development are many. There is the obvious element of teaching, as it is often assumed that the coach knows more about the markets and has more experience in them than the trainee. Possibly even more important, however, is the coach’s role as external observer.

When I coach volleyball, I can see things a player is doing incorrectly that they cannot see because they lack the proper perspective. I can then tell them what they are doing wrong and help them correct it. A trading coach can do the same sort of thing.

At the same time, there is the mental and emotional element to coaching which is separate from the teaching one. Especially in the case of experienced athletes, it is often more a question of maintaining a proper level of motivation and a high degree of confidence to ensure peak performance than anything else. The same can be said of trading, where one’s mental state often seriously influence one’s performance just as it does in athletics.

The question of where one finds a coach or mentor is a difficult one. Brett Steenbarger (author of The Psychology of Trading and a contributor to this site on the topic of trader development) and I recently discussed this very topic. There are certainly a great many experienced traders out there willing to share what they know in one way or another. But are they really prepared to provide the guidance needed? Some may be good teachers – imparters of knowledge – but lacking in the ability to be a coach in the full sense of the word. Others might be great motivators, but perhaps do not have the breadth of knowledge and/or experience needed for the educational element of coaching.

There are two major obstacles to finding a good trading coach. First of all, it is the tendency of many people to look for someone who’s had a great deal of success as a mentor. The problem with that is in a many cases those people are not well equipped to coach. It’s something seen in athletics all the time. Look to the ranks of coaches in your favorite sport. How many of them can you point to and say he or she was a great player? Now consider how many were good players, but not superstars. There are way more of the latter in the coaching ranks than the former because the average players tend to have to work harder and become better students of the game to be competitive.

The other difficulty in finding good trader coaches is that there are no real training programs for these people. As a volleyball coach I can go to training seminars and courses, earn national and even international levels of certification, and work under the direction of other coaches more knowledgeable and experienced than myself. As yet, there is no such readily available structure in trading. We cannot look, for example, at someone’s resume and see that he or she is a Level III certified coach, having been so declared by a recognized training and testing organization.

So where does that leave us? Well, clearly there is value in having a coach to help us maximize our performance in the markets. As things currently stand, though, finding a good one for our particular situation is going to remain a challenge. It requires the discipline to not just look at someone’s returns and assume that they can teach you how to do that yourself (remember, teaching you a trading system is not the same as coaching you through applying a trading system). It also requires legwork to check out a possible coach. Have they coached others before? Get references. Make sure you find someone who will fulfill your particular requirements and be a good match. If you can do that, you should see your development as an effective trader really take off. (John Forman)

[angelaktariel]

	Quote:	brownsfan019
	I think if I did it, it would be local and w/ someone that I knew first. I'd want the face-to-face interaction.

As someone, who is still new, and has gone through mentorship, while I received a very educational training, the face-to-face interaction would have been the most beneficial thing.

I realize that everyone learns different, however nothing beats learning the basics and than watching someone actually trade and explain why he/she made those decisions. To me, that would have been the most helpful.

[forsearch]

	Quote:	DbPhoenix
	Some may, in fact, be looking not for a mentor but a coach: .... (John Forman)

Don't know why DB would obfuscate the source of this article at the bottom of a lengthy cut-and-paste, but here it is for anyone looking for it....

SOURCE:
The Value of Coaching And The Difficulty in Finding One
by John Forman - Apr 24, 2006

-fs

[bootstrap]

	Quote:	BlowFish
	Bootstrap what you are talking about sounds similar to the prop shop model (another way to fleece would be traders). Do you really think a successful trader would teach you to trade (the way you want to learn rather than the way they want to teach) for absolutely nothing, next you' will be saying they should fund your account (oh wait you are saying that!) Do you also expect a wage while you learn? come on do you really expect that to happen?

the first thing that i tell any would be trader is never pay anybody for anything. do i really think a successful trader would teach you to trade your own way? yes i do. in fact i have done it and know several others that have done it as well.

did i ask for anything in return? yes i did. i asked that they give me an honest try.

[BlowFish]

I see how a good mentor can help you help you find and refine your style and of course deal with the real issues (behaviour). But if you where lets say a VSA trader I am not sure why you would get involved with mentor who practised MP or Fib or point and figure and I can't see that they would change to teach you.

That does raise an interesting point does a mentor need to even be a practitioner themselves? I say yes where as a coach does not. It's kind of picky semantics I guess.

[cowpip]

	Quote:	bootstrap
	the first thing that i tell any would be trader is never pay anybody for anything. do i really think a successful trader would teach you to trade your own way? yes i do. in fact i have done it and know several others that have done it as well. did i ask for anything in return? yes i did. i asked that they give me an honest try.

That is exactly right.