Finding a mastermind that’s right for you.
In a previous article I described some of the ideal qualities of a Mastermind for traders and the reasons why the social connections and personal support are so important fr the lonely profession of trading. Maintaining emotional balance and energy are so important in this career.
How do you go about finding a Mastermind that fits you?
There are a number of different ways and what’s more important than how you find it is the sense of fit you get once you are in it. If your trading style is to focus closely on a small group of symbols, you may have some luck with going to a yahoo or MSN stock room to look for similarly interested traders who hang out in the discussion boards. You will be quickly able to determine who the genuine professional traders are. Chances are though, that the low signal to noise ratio of the discussion boards will chase away the dedicated traders. But, if you do find someone or some group of people genuinely focused on real trading, you can invite them to a discussion area or a Mastermind forum somewhere else where, by invitation only, quality traders can gather to refine their plans.
Most stock gurus (in the positive sense) will have discussion areas on their websites, which is nice, because you know that the members there will share a common approach to the markets, and may be able to help you reduce your learning curve, particularly if the forums have been there for a while and have some archives or help files to share.
There are a number of financial advice or traders websites where many different kinds of traders will generally gather to discuss a wide array of trading ideas, systems, books, websites and so forth. These will generally not be focused enough for you to materially improve your trading, although you may find some people who are kindred spirits and may be interested in sharing some collaborative space elsewhere to mutually support the groups trading styles.
Elite Trader or ETFconnect are typical of these kinds of sites, with Elite trader being very eclectic and ETFconnect having the added quality of being much more narrowly focused on Exchange Traded Funds.
Local investment clubs, library interest groups or members of a church with an interest in investing offer low risk ways of finding like minded individuals that may fit nicely with your age and personality type. The only downside may be that as interests diverge you may introduce an uncomfortable element into a close personal relationship.
If all else fails you will find many hits going through Google or yahoo searches, but you will have to sort through a lot of noise these days to find a good group of actual traders.
Far more important than where you find a community of like minded traders is the commitment you will make to each others’ professional development and emotional support, but it is true that you will have to start somewhere finding people who are also looking for a mastermind. A good mastermind will go a long way towards improving your individual performance as a trader, and so it is worth the effort at searching, finding and participating in it.