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Hi Folks....
I have no idea what makes a good mentor, but I can share some
experiences from my life that might make some sense to others. I
have been in markets since I was 12 years old, some 50 years now,
and was mentored by my father who was a stock trader. That means
very little; most probably everyone who reads this is a better trader
than I and I sometimes wonder if I need a mentor myself. As a
mentor I am a retired university professor who taught Chinese
philosophy and religion for many years and had my share of PhD
students.
Mentoring for my father meant answering any questions and he was very
generous with his knowledge and experience- except on one point. He
wouldn't tell me when to sell and I found that crushing, at first.
So he was a "throw them in the water" type of swimming teacher.
I found the thread " what makes a good Mentor" interesting today as
my friend Ted and I worked all day putting in a set of kitchen
cabinets in our kitchen. Ted wanted to pay me back for helping him
learn to trade. He is an excellent finish carpenter and proposed
that I pay for the materials and we build the kitchen and install it
together. What I learned from this experience was just what a
consumate artist he is and that is what he wanted to show me. So I
think that when it works good, there is some sort of sharing. Money
has nothing to do with it.
There is always a lot of talk about there being no Holy Grail, but
for me that is not true. The first thing I taught Ted was my opinion
of the Holy Grail: No Red Ink. The rest is footnote. The next thing
I taught him was the necessity of having an inner dialogue about
what is going on in the market. All that is explained in Douglas,
that it is inner and not outer, but my influence came from Buddhism,
not from Douglas or anybody else. In my experience, all students are
different and one must get to know them well enough to see where
their strengths and weaknesses are. Ted is no reader, so to give him
Murphy, Pring, LeBeau, etc, etc, would have been a waste of his time.
Also you have to got to see a student's mental responses: he would
never get it the first time, but he would get it the second time and
then would see any deeper significance and he would never forget it.
So patience has to be part of the relationship.
A Mentor should help a student solve some of his problems or at least
point him in the right direction. Ted had some minor problems
convincing his wife that his efforts in the markets was worth the
time. My dad used to say "Jerry, Nirvana is a black sand beach,"
which is another way of saying "Show me the bro slips, " (though I
liked his way better). So I told him to take her and the family to
Hawaii for 10 days with his profits and that should get her
attention. The purpose of helping a student solve some other
problems is that it is sometimes hard to concentrate on trading, or
anything else, if energy is spent on side issues.
Since everyone's experience is so diverse, there is usually something
in their past that can form the basis of an analogy to what is being
explained. Ted had been a pretty fair poker player when he was
younger and once I pointed out the similarities to markets he
immediately began to work through the similarities and differences.
I don't know from nothing about poker and don't want to know, but
after that he had no problem with the psychological side of trading.
No serious mentor would mislead his students, but maybe I had not
enough knowledge to teach anybody anything about markets. But the
students I have tried to help have seemed grateful and it hasn't hurt
their trading. And I have also grown through the experience, since
you don't know something until you have to explain it to somebody.
The above are experiences and anecdotes from a life and I have zero
interest in defending myself against frustrated wannabe traders who
don't know up from down or in from out.
good trading to all....
jerry
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