In your first couple of years of trading, you are going to spend most of the time sticking forks into electrical sockets.

It doesn’t matter if you have a great mentor or you’re sitting at a top firm. It’s inevitable. You don’t know what you don’t know.

I can tell you that almost all the money at the firm I worked for came from a few key buckets of trading I wrote about here. But even then, you’re still going to stick that fork into a different socket somewhere else.

And even when you stay disciplined and stick to the right areas, you still have to actually learn how to operate inside them.

You have to learn how to spot these opportunities in real time.

You have to learn which setups fit your strengths and which don’t.

You have to learn how to size them so the winners actually count.

You have to learn how to grade each opportunity properly in real time so you don’t bleed to death between the incredible opps.

You have to learn how to get in, get out, and time the whole thing incredibly well.

You have to build conviction, but avoid slipping into false confidence.

And you have to accept defeat. A lot.

That’s the path. That’s the tax you pay before you start earning.