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I agree 100%. It's not about teaching any particular method but rather guiding a student to a place where they experience their own epiphany.
When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
Additonal thoughts on a mentor and advice for finding one.
A true mentor doesn't want you to be relient on them, they want you to fly. A true mentor finds pride in seeing you succeed. A mentor is much more than a person that teaches strategy.
In terms of the money, everyone wants everything for free, or at such a little cost. Ask yourself, what is your hourly rate? Money is just energy, so if you could find that person that could put you on the right path and help you reach your ultimate goal at a reasonable cost would you?
A good mentor and education with weekly sessions for a year would probably cost less than 10k USD, not paid all at once. Anyone advocating for one time payments, stay clear.
Write the costs off as an expense.
It wouldn't even take the full year to turn a profit, if you had knowledge of basic concepts and screen time.
Ask yourself, how much did you pay for your college/university education that you finished or didn't, or trade school? Or how much tuition have you paid the market so far(time is money)?
Likely more than 10k.
Most mentors will have a free one on one call and will screen you before starting to ensure you are a good fit, and if you're not working out, will cut it off.
Lastly, if you're considering a mentorship do your due dilgence. LinkedIn, peered reviewed articles, web stock them, don't click on the first google link. Attend a webinar, stay clear from people advocating 100 percent systems, indicators(can be helpful, but can distract), and algo systems.
This is a perfect description of the person that is working with me, thank you. The other definitions did not fit. I hope to someday return the favor with a beer or three, just need an international flight to make it happen
I almost voted for #4, but went with #2 "Yes, some are good". I consider books and video close enough to mentoring.
If I wanted one-on-one interaction I would hire out a psychoanalyst. A mentor that is also a trader will have a bias towards his own niche and that could be a problem. His motivation is to get you earning in as short a time as possible. The self-taught experience a variety of methods so they're more likely to find a comfortable niche.
I don't understand your logic. If you take flying lessons, the first lesson is in a REAL airplane with your instructor. If you want to be a surgeon, you may learn technique on a cadaver but your instructor will tell you that you're not a surgeon until you place that scalpel on a live human being. Why should trading be any different? People make excuses for these guys who teach on a simulator, but their students will NEVER understand the nature of risk until they pull the trigger on a live account. It seems logical that a "mentor" would understand that and make it priority to move to a live account as fast as possible. If the mentor can't trade a live account along with his/her student, then they're worthless.
@phantomtrader I think it requires an understanding of the differences in training, coaching, and mentoring. I agree that I don't believe someone who does not trade real money could be an effective mentor: however, they could still offer effective training. But, I agree it is a question should be asked of anyone offering training and is relevant.
The logic is rather simple though. The predictive factor of whether a method works that most traders use is how well that method has worked in the past and is working in the current markets (obviously it is not perfect which is why disclaimers are required). The predictive factor is not whether or not real money is at risk. If you take two traders and you run one in a realistic simulator, assume worst case for this argument, and that trader makes $500 per day and another trade makes $100 live and both take equivalent risk (i.e. using similar stops, leverage, etc.) and the performance is reviewed over a similar period then the sim trader is simply trading better or has a more effective method.
Trading only requires certain qualities inherent to the trader: capital, drive to trade, and a willingness to risk money. Good trading requires all that and skill or edge. A paper trader could have the skill but lack some of the other important qualities. It is very conceivable that a paper trader can offer more effective training but I agree cannot offer true mentoring.
In regards to flying lessons, I looked it up and you are correct that the basics are learned in the air. However, advanced maneuvers are taught in simulators and some companies are now starting to teach the basics in the simulator.
LOL I love this question. Because you can be a decent trader who has built a pretty solid strategy but if you use a trading "guru" or whatever, you need to be able to teach your strategy to others. I wouldn't be able to do it and I've been in a few rooms and many of these educators or gurus are terrible at teaching you their strategy.
In my opinion you can succeed without a mentor but it is really incredibly hard. You will find yourself so often beaten down by the markets that the probability is very high you will never reach the point of consistency - simply because you run out of motivation, time and/or money.
A good thing would be to have at least an experienced trader by your side who can guide you away from the countless nonsense-paths in trading you need to walk down before you understand the game and what it takes to become consistently profitable. That would save a lot of time already.
There is a lot of training offered regarding trading, whereof 98% is targeted at absolute beginners - as the vendors can sell "cheap" information for top Dollar!
But for intermediate traders who already know all "theory" there is to know, had their fair share of boom and bust playing live, work systematically but still cannot make money (the typical break even trader) it is hard to find someone who can really advance their trading.
Best case of course would be to have an experienced trader available who is also able to coach, i.e.
a) seeing in the mentee what is already working
b) what is still missing or needs improvement
c) knows ways how to solve these problems
In any case this "mentor" needs to have a ton of live-money-trading experience by himself. He need not be super profitable but should be a decent trader knowing his limitations at least. Understanding the game just from having played paper money successfully in my opinion is worthless. At least 50% of the game is psychological, especially in daytrading due to its speed - and you simply cannot "replay" or "sim" you emotions...
Perhaps most experienced people on this forum already know what to do, but need a mentor to tell them what they already know. And if that's the case, forum members could buddy up in a mentor-mentee model for more accountability and potential consistency. With that said, does anyone want to mentor me?
As a rookie, I see more sense in having a community rather than one single mentor. A mentor may not be a perfect match to your needs. In a community, chances that someone can offer a solution to a particular question of yours greatly increase. Plus, in a community, you can learn by helping others.
