Jan. 12 at 3:21 AM
$AAPL $MSFT $NVDA $AMZN $NFLX
Below is a post I made on our Discord server and thought I would share it here as well in case it can help anyone on this platform.
The post is entitled:
"Why Discipline and Self-Mastery are So Important To Be A Successful Trader"
Okayā¦so after the first six trading days in 2026, my overall trading portfolio is up 21.04%. That's right 20.14%.
Not too bad considering the S&P 500 was up 16% for the entire year of 2025.
However, I want to be clear that I did not achieve those results by taking massive risk or chasing meme stocks that went parabolic.
Those results are entirely the result of having a long-term investing strategy and the discipline follow my plan religiously.
A Focus on Discipline
I have spoken at length about the importance of having a proven trading plan.
I have made numerous posts about this and spoken about it on my podcast āThe Traderās Edge.ā
There is simply no way anyone hoping to achieve something substantive over time would go into any endeavor without having a plan established first.
I mentioned the three part foundation of my trading strategy but that will not be the focus of this post.
The reason is that without self-mastery and the ability to consistently execute your plan, the plan itself is futile.
You Must Remove Your Emotions
While I mentioned the extraordinary results I achieved in the first week of 2026, those results were not realized from trades taken this past week.
The returns were the result of following my investment plan day after day, week after week, month after month.
IMHO, being successful as a trader will require you to master the two primary emotions that cause most traders to fail.
Those emotions are fear and greed. And, the only way to consistently master those emotions is to have a disciplined approach that will help you control your emotions.
You seeā¦fear and greed are inherent in all of us.
The problem is that most inexperienced traders apply these emotions in the exact opposite way they need to in order to make money in the stock market.
Specifically, when an inexperienced trader has a winning position they often let fear take them out of the trade because they are afraid of losing their profits.
Conversely, when they have a losing trade they will hold it hoping it will reverse or, even worse, average down hoping it will go up to prove them right.
Allowing your emotions to dictate this behavior is trading suicide.
The fact of the matter is, when we are in a winning trade and the market is validating our hypothesis, those are exactly the trades we should be keeping (or even averaging up) if all the market dynamics are keeping the existing trend in tact.
This is exactly what I did with my largest holding Vicor (VICR) that I entered in the high 50s.
I let many people know about this stock before their last earnings and quite a few people made a lot of money as the stock ran into the high 80s/low 90s right after earnings.
However, I have come to understand that great wealth is achieved during core movements in big upward moves by market winners.
So, even though fear was telling me to take my profits so I didnāt lose them (what many others did), the system I had created when I was not emotional told me not to hold.
As a result, I didnāt sell a single share and, in fact, I added when the stock went through the pullback of a nature digestion period that every big winning stock will experience.
On Friday, VICR closed at
$142.31.
Please note I am NOT suggesting there isnāt a time to take profits.
In fact, there are situations where I will do exactly that.
However, the times when I take profits it is because I either established that strategy for the trade when I entered it or the structural trend that enabled the stock to move higher has been broken.
How I am able to make those level-headed decisions when most retail traders make decisions in the heat of the moment?
The reason is that I have a plan and rules I established for myself during times when emotions were not a factor.
The rules I established for myself are born from intense study of successful traders.
Further, the quiet adherence to them day in and day out makes me confident they will help me be consistently profitable over time.
I have learned that the market does not reward activity.
The market rewards those who have mastered the ability to submit to a method that has been proven to produce results.
I no longer focus primarily on my P&L but on my ability to adhere to the system I have created.
Why? Because I know anyone can get lucky and make money once and a while.
However, I also know that the only way to achieve consistent results over time is to have a system that enables you to profit regardless of how the market is behaving.
Can You Be Patient?
To be clear, I trade for a living.
When I started trading for a living I created a tremendous amount of pressure on myself thinking I had to constantly be active and be trading all the time to make money.
Unfortunately, as I said earlier, unlike a job where you are paid for each hour you work, the market does not reward activity.
In fact, often times it is too much activity that prevents retail traders from achieving true wealth.
You must learn to trade ONLY when the ideal set up is there not because you feel the need for action.
The experienced trader doesnāt think of the market in terms of hours or days.
The experienced trader thinks in terms of seasons and waits for the right conditions to align properly before putting their capital to work.
I once heard that impatience is one of the most expensive psychological weaknesses on Wall Street.
My experience tells me that comment is accurate. It is true for both entering trades as well as when you are in a trade that is working.
Many traders simply do not have the patience or the discipline to allow the market the time to allow their true winners to build them great wealth.
To this point, I want to emphasize I saying that I have heard other people quote before but I have only found few that have internalized it.
The quote is from Jesse Livermore, one of the greatest trading minds in the history of the stock market.
Livermore said this:
"It was never my thinking that made the big money for me, it always was my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight!"
When I listen to those words I realize that Livermore was emphasizing self-mastery that comes from discipline.
He was emphasizing the ability to sit tight and do nothing that only comes when the mind is calm and the speculator is not driven by the need for an adrenaline rush.
He was emphasizing the fact that even traders with great investment strategies never made themselves really wealthy because they were not able to master the discipline to sit tight and do nothing when that is what the market dictated.
Closing Thought
I have a lot more to say but I will reserve those thoughts for other posts.
However, I will add one final thought.
If this thought makes anyone uncomfortable then I apologize in advance.
However, my job is to help people succeed, not placate behavior that stacks the odds against traders.
The thought is this:
I often wonder why so many people spend their time chasing meme plays and highly speculative, low success probability trades despite the fact that the odds are against them.
My conclusion is that there are many people who want the reward quickly without having to do the work that is needed to be successful as a trader.
You seeā¦I believe my current success is a byproduct of the hours and hours of work I do every day learning from those smarter than me and then developing the self-control to follow the principles and methods I know will enable me to profit.
However, this work is not glamorous and it is not easy to develop yourself into a disciplined trader.
That is why so many people will chase unproven opportunities that give them the hope of quick returns without having to do the hard work truly needed to succeed.
IMHO, there is no easy road to success.
You will need to do the workā¦.period.
It is the work I do day after day often alone and without any excitement that allows me to talk about extraordinary gains.
Gains that are not manifested in days but achieved only after devoting thousands of hours to hard work and self-discipline.
My experience is that if you tell people in advance how much work is needed to truly achieve success as a specualtor, most people wouldn't even attempt it.
Instead, most people will buy the promise of quick returns without great effort and that is why those who promise big returns without hard work will always sell there products.
The reason is most are not willing to put in the blood, sweat and time to develop the self-mastery to succeed in the market.
It is my hope that you, the reader, will bcome one of the few who will do what it takes to succeed.
Truly,
DC77
