One way to acquire discipline in trading...

Hey Joe! When you were teaching us at our Forex office in Florida, you stressed discipline. Our head trader stresses discipline. What I want to know is if discipline can be acquired or is it just something you are born with? Im having trouble finding it in myself. - trader -

Personally, I believe discipline can be learned, although at times it is very painful. When I began trading, I was a very undisciplined person. But trading and the markets forced me to become disciplined. Was the discipline already there and just needed to be extracted? Or did I actually learn it? I cant truly be sure.

One of the largest trading firms kept their offices near Yeshivas. A yeshiva is a rabbinical school that produces rabbis of the Jewish religion. The students coming out of the yeshiva were highly disciplined and made excellent traders. Was the discipline innate in those yeshiva students? Or did they learn it under the strict supervision of the rabbis who controlled their lives? I think they learned it.

Ive mentioned previously that it can help to keep a journal if you want to learn discipline. The journal I kept was very basic and included what trades I made during the day and my reasons for getting into the trade. It is what I did with the journal that helped me to be disciplined. Anyone can make entries into a journal. I let the contents of my journal keep me in line. It became my supervisor. I took to heart what I wrote there. I no longer keep that kind of journal because it has served its purpose in making discipline into a habit in the way I trade.

Joe Ross
Trading Educators Inc.

Joe Ross

Joe Ross has been trading for more than 47 years, and is a well known Master Trader. He has survived all the up and downs of the markets because of his adaptable trading style, using a low-risk approach that produces consistent profits.

Joe is the creator of the Ross hook, and has set new standards for low-risk trading with his concept of "The Law of Charts?." Joe was a private trader for most of his life, but a serious health situation in the mid 80's caused him shift his focus and he decided to share his knowledge. After his recovery, he founded Trading Educators in 1988 to teach aspiring traders how to make profits using his trading approach.

He has written eleven major books on trading. All of them have become classics and have been translated into many different languages.

Joe holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of California at Los Angeles. He did his Masters work in Computer Sciences at the George Washington University extension in Norfolk, Virginia.

Joe still tutors, teaches, writes, and trades regularly. Joe is still an active and integral part of Trading Educators. He is the primary author of the company's newsletters "Chart Scan" and "Traders Notebook" and the host of the free Tuesday chat.