How long will it take?
How long will it take if I buy these diet pills to lose 20 pounds?
How long will it take if I sign up for golf lessons to become a scratch golfer?

How long will it take if I buy this business opportunity for me to make 7 figures?

How long will it take for me to become a consistently profitable trader?

That is the way we approach achieving many of our objectives. If I buy this process or product how long will it take before I achieve my objective? With infomercials and video testimonials today's marketers have trained us to expect results immediately. Our interest is piqued with the lure of a new system, pill or process that leads us to believe we can obtain faster results if we buy that product. We want to believe. So we do not listen to that little voice in our head that is telling us that this is probably too good be true. We do not read the fine print that states "results may vary" and the examples shown or "not typical".

We forget we are human. We forget that while two people can be given the exact same instructions and training, one will succeed and the other will not. The reason for this is simple: We are human. One person's understanding of commitment and discipline will always be different than another person's. The bottom line is, if we are looking for the magic pill, the quick result or the Holy Grail, that is a pretty good indication that we do not have a realistic outlook on what it will take to achieve our objective.

In Daniel Coyle's book "The Talent Code" he writes about an experiment that was made to understand why some folks achieve their objectives while others do not. The discovery was that the single biggest contributing factor to an individual's success was the level of commitment. In other words, the people who wanted to achieve their objective as fast as possible believed the solution was to practice for large amounts of time with the expectation that this would speed things up. In reality those folks actually had a higher failure rate than those that had no deadline on the time it was going to take and instead practiced at regular consistent intervals spread over time.

The ones that put little focus on "how long it was going to take" and simply trained and practice regularly progressed faster and in a shorter period of time.

The long term commitment group, with a mere twenty minutes of weekly practice, progressed faster than the short termers who practiced for an hour and a half. When long term commitment is combined with high levels of practice, skills skyrocketed.  Because most folks do not take this simple common sense approach they fail. The same concept holds true to becoming a profitable trader.

Learning to trade is exactly the same as learning to play a musical instrument. The beginner first has to learn to read sheet music. The trader has to learn to read a price chart. With practice and repetition, the musician can look at a sheet of music and play the score in his head. The trader learns to do the same thing with a price chart. He can read price action and then decide whether that condition merits trading or standing down.

I see all the time where an individual purchases some trading strategies with the idea that they can apply the strategies just as if they were following a recipe to bake a cake. They believe they do not need to first have an understanding of how price moves in the market they will trade in. They want to believe that there is no training or practice required.  Another direction some take is to buy trading software. The software simply does what it is programmed to do. Trading software loses money the same way a trader without the correct training does. In fact software based programs will continue to trade and lose money until the market conditions finally change and the criteria the software uses turns a profit. In the software trading world this is known as drawdown and it can wipe out your trading account.

The properly trained trader has the knowledge and experience to decide if he wants to follow the software's direction or not.  So instead of asking "how long is it going to take", ask yourself if the endeavor is worthwhile enough that you do not care how long it takes. If the answer is yes, studies show that that is the winning mindset we need to achieve our objective.

If we simply focus on getting properly trained and practice that training regularly, we will achieve our objective. An added benefit of focusing on proper training and practice is that we will achieve the objective in a reasonable period of time.

I gave out 3 solid trades this weekall proved successful.  the SPY put spread gained 3% and both AAPL trades worked out beautifully generating 7% & 10%. The pull back keeps rewarding me. Looking ahead the market is very much oversold and that means it could bounce anytime, BUT.  You knew I was going to say that there are major signs point much lower saying sell, sell, sell. We don't care which way the markets are going just as long as were on the right side of the markets.

 Are you making money? If not why not trade with me. Remember the goal is to make money NOT lose money . . . Duh . . . . . . . Take a look and see how Slow Money Option Trading went https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc key=0AjgjBJLwH3rdERid3A0RE1GRFlyaHB0S0VxbHc0Vnc&authkey=COb7xdMJ 


Remember if your not a paid up member of the Fast MoneyTradingTeam you will not get the weekly Slow Money Option recommendations. Yes, I expect to publish Wednesday,Thursday or Friday my weekly option trade to the paid up members.