The Amateur VS The Professional; The Difference is in The Mind

The Amateur VS The Professional; The Difference is in The Mind.

Among those who trade the markets, most are amateurs, few are professionals and fewer still are masters.

The difference between the amateur and the professional, and the mindset required to be a professional. Now, to be clear, I’m not talking about the trading industry’s classification of a professional, the difference between a professional and an amateur’s mindset and performance.

The choice is in your hands… or rather, in your mind. As Steven Pressfield says in his book, Turning Pro, “the difference between an amateur and a professional is in their habits. An amateur has amateur habits. A professional has professional habits”.

According to Pressfield’s, which is also my own, amateurs ordinarily don’t know or understand:

· Themselves innately; their suitability for becoming the type of trader they want to be.
· The specific work required to determine their best-fitting trading niche.
· The difference between developing themselves, rather than only developing their trading activity.
· The essential work required to reach their highest potential.
· The ongoing work required to continually raise the bar on their trading performance based on both the ever-changing markets and themselves.

Professionals, on the other hand, are individuals truly committed to their trading development based on continually gaining proficiency in three primary habits: knowing, thinking and doing. They view every trading event as a learning experience and continually build on their expertise.

For an action to become a habit, it should be repeated, even if it’s quite difficult at first. Initial failure is the brother of eventual success.

From working with entrepreneurs, business owners and traders for over forty years, I came to the conclusion that these three habits confirm one’s professional status. Obviously there are others, but these three are essential to one’s success.

They know more. They know what they know and don’t yet know. While you can’t know everything, it’s important to know what’s important and relevant to what you’re striving to do based on your current knowledge, experience, and capabilities.
They think more. The think rationally, intuitively, creatively and critically. They expand upon how they think by continually processing, questioning, and inverting information.
They do more. They experiment and try new things. They view their limits as temporary obstacles as use what they know and their unique ability to think to go over, under, around, or through the obstacle to reach their objective. The address setbacks as lessons and starting points—not failures.
So, as they unconditionally adhere to these habits, they draw on their foundational attributes:

· Their mindset – their unique way of seeing the world.
· Their attitude – how they interact with the world.
· Their habits – their refined and trusted core behaviors.
Throughout life, business and trading, conditions do not determine who or what we are—we do!

And, to determine who and what we are it all begins with our deepest understanding of ourselves, what we know, how we think, and how we best perform to be—all we’re capable of being.

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