7/25/2025 - I've been working for over 20 years with traders in proprietary, hedge fund, and investment bank settings. During that time, I've seen great success and I've seen heartbreaking failure. The number one predictor of success is the presence of active mentoring. By "active mentoring" I mean the opportunity to research and generate trade ideas with experienced, successful traders and the direct observation of those traders in expressing, sizing, and managing the resulting trades. The odds of success for a developing trader are directly proportional to the opportunity to watch a mentor in real time and learn from their best practices, discuss the trade, and participate in the generation of new trade ideas. Once the learning becomes second hand--via books, videos, etc--its effectiveness goes down tremendously. The best predictor of success is learning by doing and benefiting from the live role modeling of successful professionals. This is how young athletes develop, and it's how medical students mature into capable physicians. Trading psychology is not the best predictor of success. Indeed, problems in trading psychology often are the result of inadequate training. Mentoring is always live, in person, and conducted via teams. When you become part of a successful team, you internalize the mindset and best practices of success.
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