My moniker on this website, and my name in the live trading room is Padawan. In the lore of Star Wars, a Padawan is the learner who is apprenticing himself to a Jedi Master. I chose this name to remind myself to "empty my cup" and allow it to be filled with the wisdom and experience of John Carter, Hubert Senters and others in this community. It also serves as a reminder of Eastern teachings on abandoning one's attachments. Attachment leads to fear and greed, the enemies of successful trading.

I am completely new to futures trading. Like John Carter described in his book, I am an experienced stock trader who always considered futures trading mysterious and daunting. Since I was having success trading stocks, I saw no particular need to explore futures. After reading John Carter's book, I decided to give futures trading a try. After watching the action in the trading room for a few months, I closed my equities account and decided to trade futures exclusively for the foreseeable future.

There are two main reasons I want to blog on this site:

1. I learn through total immersion in a new subject matter. Blogging is an excellent method of staying connected, focused and committed to my goal.

2. I imagine many people who come to this site have little or no experience trading futures. I speculate many of these people wonder what would happen if they simply did what John and Hubert do. Is it possible to succeed from the start? What problems will they encounter as they embark on this journey? How long does it take to become a consistently profitable trader?

These questions and many others will be answered as I document my experiences on my journey to successful futures trading.

I have been trading stocks since September of 2000. I blew out my first account because I had no idea what I was doing. I spent the next year and a half working with TradeStation, saving my money, and developing automated trading programs in Easy Language. I developed my first profitable trading strategies during that time. I continued to refine this code over the years, and I rebuilt my trading account.

In early 2006, I began trading options. I was suffering from a severe case of overconfidence after my 3+ year winning streak. During the correction of May-July 2006, I put 50% of my account into call options. It was a total loss. This was so emotionally devastating, that I lacked the courage to go back and turn on my proven-successful automated trading code. I was unable to trade anything. It was the winter of my discontent.

I turned 40 in March of 2007. I embarked on a period of reflection as many do at key age milestones. I emerged from this time with a renewed commitment to take my trading to the next level and become a consistently profitable trader. It is not a matter of whether or not I will reach this goal; it is a matter of how painful the process will be.

Since April 2007, I have been getting up at 5:00 AM Pacific time to be prepared for the market open at 6:30. I have been watching the markets nearly every day (I have to trade around my full-time job). I began to search for more information and an experienced teacher to help me reach my goal with a minimum of pain (losses). In June, I discovered John Carter's book and the Trade the Markets website. I believe I have found what I have been seeking.

Since joining the live trading room in July and purchasing the 4-day seminar DVDs, I have been immersing myself in the TTM methodology. I have also read both Mark Douglas's books to gain a better understanding of my own trading psychology.

I have one strong personality trait that serves me well in my trading: I have strong self-discipline. Early on I recognized the importance of disciplined trading execution. I put a great deal of time and energy into developing automated trading strategies to obtain the advantages of perfect discipline. It has imbued me with a deep appreciation of the benefits of discipline. Nobody is perfectly disciplined, but I do not see impulsive trading being a major hurdle for me to overcome. It is my hope that this characteristic when coupled with the proven methodology of Trade the Markets will be a recipe for success. We shall see&