Earlier today I was in a restaurant and overheard the line from Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegan (sp?), "...where all the children are above average". It reminded me of the trading quote, "Trading is the hardest easy money you could ever make".

Over the years I’ve talked to some extremely bright and/or hard working individuals. Some traders have been at this for a long time, others are relatively new. From what I’ve learned over the years talking to many different types of traders is that almost every one of the more successful ones have said in their own words, that they had to learn to be aware of and accept their short-comings, and to accept and tolerate discomfort. Those are the things that make a trader.

It’s not about analytical abilities. If that was the case, why do so many smart people not succeed at trading? And what about the recently popularized notion that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at something? I get emails all the time from traders who’ve spent 10,000 hours and are still not profitable.

In trading it’s not so much about IQ, analytical ability or time spent. Of course, its not just psychology either. Psychology can’t help anyone if they don’t have a good trading strategy. But once you have the trading strategy, the only way you will rise above average (the average trader is losing or close to break-even) is to learn to tolerate discomfort and uncertainty. That, in my opinion, is the common denominator among all the above average traders.

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