This blog post is more or less for my records as I identify my personality traits and how I judge myself to a successful trader according to The Complete Penny Stock Course book.    

When looking at my personality traits and I have many areas that I know I need to work on to become a successful trader.  The biggest areas that I struggle is with my Discipline.  When looking in my trades or my Profit you will see that I am at almost 13k that all came from one trade where I went YOLO in SOS and it tanked on me.  I was so stubborn I held it until I was down 50%.  I still do not know why I held it for as long as I did, I knew it was a sinking ship but I told myself it would come back up. At the end it was an expensive gamble that I loss.  The lack of discipline of taking small trades left me that day.  The lack of discipline that I have is odd because in all other facets of my life I have been very disciplined from the Military, Firefighting, my FT employment, sports in school.  However, in the same regard I do see the same behavior through the last 9 years of working at the Casino money will affect everyone differently when they are making or losing it.  

In order to fix this issue, I need to stay committed and make sure to take my profits on winning trades at my plan level, and in losing trades refuse to give it wiggle room and exit at my planned risk point.  By not following this I have missed taking large profits because I get emotionally highjacked with the increase in my account, or taking bigger losses because I get into that mode of this has to bounce back mode.  This is a marathon and not a sprint, and that at the end of the day my trading is not about me, it's about giving my family a better life, more time together. 

Trading for me is full of noise as I work Grave shift at my job and get off work at 7:30 am just in time to get home, look at premarket, and get ready for morning trades.  In addition, I have 4 children all under 6 with my youngest only being 2 weeks old.  This makes for one very loud and disruptive work area in the mornings. Luckily, I have been able to set aside a room in the house for my gym/office space to get away for a few hours to study and trade.