Most likely you’ve never heard of three sisters named Susan, Judit and Sofia Polgar. Next to you, they probably have more to do with your success as a trader than anyone else. I know that’s a pretty bold statement, but it’s true none the less. So who are they and how can they have such an impact on you if you have never heard of them.

When the three sisters were still young, their parents decided to try an experiment with them. The thesis statement for the research was simply “Geniuses are made, not born” The girls were educated at home and were specifically taught to play chess. Each of the three sisters are currently internationally ranked chess players with several titles for each of them, as well as Grandmaster status.

As it turns out, science is now proving the Polgar parents correct. One scientist currently studying how people become experts in their fields is K. Anders Ericsson. In his research, he has found specific traits in people that are highly successful in their fields and has been able to lay out specific guidelines for achieving greatness.

First the research states that three conditions must be met for someone to be judged an expert, and they are:

  1. The expert consistently out performs their peers.
  2. The outcome of the experts efforts must be concrete.
  3. The expertise must be able to be measured and replicated in the lab.

So what was formula that the research found exsisted in almost every expert they tested and researched?

DELIBERATE PRACTICE

 That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less! To quote Dr. Ericsson, “Deliberate practice is different. It entails considerable, specific, and sustained efforts to do something that you can’t do well-or even at all.” What does this mean for you as a currency trader? How can deliberate practice be implemented to improve your trading? Here are a few suggestions.

  1. Find the records of traders that have won contests and recreate their trades. Detail everything you see that made it a good trade. If you don’t see why it was a good trade, learn more about it. In other words, try to figure out what was going through their minds when they took the trade.
  2. Listen to the trader interviews on Dukascopy for any strategies they are using that you might implement in your trading. For instance, a recent trader talked about how she had trouble watching multiple pairs and trading them all. To solve this, she trades just one currency pair, but goes in with everything she has.
  3. Understand the math behind some of your favorite indicators to find out how their creators intended them to be used, nut just how followers have been using them. Did you know that when Wilder first created the RSI he used it on only four setups: tops, bottoms, chart formations and failure swings? Nowhere does he ever mention over bought/sold conditions. He consistently talks about the interaction between how the RSI looks and what price is doing.
  4. Hit the back tester every chance you get. The more setups you see, the more likely you are to recognize that great setup the next time. It won’t always work out the same but you will know what to accept and how to trade it.
  5. Finally, get some stats under your belt. Understand mean, median, mode, standard deviation, variance, z-test stat, t-test stat, distribution, skewness, confidence intervals and hypothesis testing.

Will all this make you a millionaire guaranteed? Nope! However, I can promise you won’t ever become one without doing these things. Deliberate practice is practicing the things you don’t do well, or at all. It is not practicing the things you already know. Anders Ericsson’s article can be found online for free. Comment below and I’ll send you the link.