Summary New Trading for a Living by Dr. Alexander Elder
I. Individual Psychology
4. Why Trade
Trading appears deceptively easy. A beginner may cautiously enter the market, win a few times, and start feeling brilliant and invincible. That’s when he starts taking wild risks and ends up with bad loses.

Self-fulfillment, many people have an innate drive to achieve their personal best, to develop their abilities to the fullest. Good traders tend to be hardworking and shrewd people, open to new ideas. The goal of a good trader, paradoxically, is not to make money. His goal is to trade well. If he trades right, money follows almost as an afterthought. Successful traders keep honing their skills as they try to reach their personal best.

Markets offer vast opportunities for self-sabotage, as well as for self-fulfillment. Acting out your internal conflicts in the marketplace is very expensive proposition.

5. Reality vs Fantasy
A Successful trader is a realist. He knows his abilities and limitations. He sees what’s happening in the markets and knows how to react. He analyzes the markets without cutting corners, observe himself, and makes realistic plans. A Professional trader cannot afford illusions. The unstructured environment of the market makes it easy to develop fantasies. A successful trader must identify his fantasies and get rid of them.

The brain myth, many have fantasies that successful traders have some secret knowledge. That fantasy helps support a lively market in advisory services and ready-made trading systems. Losers don’t realize that trading is intellectually fairly simple fairly simple. What separates winners from losers isn’t intelligence or secrets, and certainly not education.

The undercapitalization Myth, many losers think that they would trade successfully if they had a bigger account. People destroy their accounts either by a string of losses or a single abysmally bad trade. A loser is not undercapitalized, his mind is underdeveloped. A loser can destroy a big account almost as quickly as a small one.

The autopilot myth, traders who believe in the autopilot myth think that the pursuit of wealth can be automated. Complex human activities do not lend themselves to automation. So-far the only people who’ve made money from trading systems are their sellers. A competent trader can adjust his methods when he detects trouble. The market is not your mother.