I am a huge fan of MMA and last night I was at home watching The Ultimate Fighter and there was a scene in the show that made me think of trading. The coaches on Team Rashad were frustrated with Roy Nelson, who is one of their team members.
For the record I think Roy Nelson is a fat ass and I hope he gets his face beat in by Kimbo Slice next week but I digress.
Roy is already a quazi professional fighter and he thinks he already knows what he is doing so he wasn't taking any of the coaching he was getting very well. He clearly thought he knew enough to get by on his own and didn't need to hear what the other coaches were suggesting, which is ironic since Rashad Evans has certainly earned his stipes in the UFC but Big fat ass Country Roy Nelson hasn't. Because he is fat and gross and simply deserves to bleed, especially after last night.
The point is, as I sat there watching I couldn't help but recognize that most professional athletes have coaches they work with on a continual basis. Those who don't probably have an attitude like fat Roy and as the result, fail to ever make it to the highest levels.
Peyton Manning (who I think is overrated) works with a quarter back coach every day; Kobe Bryant (who is arguably the best basketball player in the league) also works with a coach; Michael Phelps has a coach, professional fighters work with coaches and the list goes on.
Just because you are a professional and even an elite professional does not mean you are above coaching. There is a huge benefit in having someone else watch you make your repetitions, help you tweak your moves, offer motivation, strategy and support.Many people think coaches are just for beginners or even unecessary all together. The fact of the matter is that a good coach can make all the difference.
So as traders, how do we find coaching to help us get to the next level? I personally do not work with a coach but it is something I would really like to do because I know it will have a positive impact on my performance. In the meantime however, I follow a lot of blogs and learn from other traders, I read books like Stock Market Wizards by Jack Schwaggar, I subscribe to all of the futurures magazines, I constantly review my own performance and try to find ways to improve and even replicate those things that I already do well. However I lack a coach.
I know I can go and hire a coach who I can work with but I am already a consistently profitable trader and I don't want to pay to learn someone else's strategies when I already have my own that work well enough, though perhaps there are situations where that could make sense, so I remain open to it. As an alternative, perhaps there is virtue in simply finding other like-minded traders to work with in somewhat of a cooperative fashion. In this format we could simply help each other by acting as each others coach. I believe this format could work if all of the participants were already successful in their own right and were able to bring something unique to the table. That way you could learn something new from someone who has proven to be successful with the same idea, etc.
The bottom line is that having a great coach can make a huge difference and adding a coach to your personal trading team should be a priority to ensure you continue to get even better.
