Perhaps the best trading advice I’ve been given is that one must first evaluate one’s own suitability to trading.  Some people are able to work through mistakes without beating themselves up and without letting mistakes negatively affect their future decision making.  Some are not able to do so.  Most of us fall in the middle, meaning that we can train ourselves to handle the stress of trading, but we have to work at it.

Another good piece of advice and one that I currently follow is to put yourself on probation.  Until you reach the point where you are confident in 1) your own suitability, 2) your money management skills, and 3) your trading system, do not risk more than one percent of your trading capital on any single trade.  A corollary to this is to never commingle your trading funds with your investing funds.

One more:  During my “training period” I have a rule that I never make trading decisions while the market is open.  I write out my plan for the week each weekend and then update it in the evenings when the market is closed.  (I have violated this rule three times this year and lost money each time.  The last of these was the morning of the recent San Francisco event; it cost me about $15,000 and I hope I have learned my lesson this time.)

Let’s not underestimate the value of learned wisdom from both successes and losses. I believe perspective comes from experience and knowing the world doesn’t end when things don’t turn out so well and no matter the victories of a given day, new challenges and opportunities will rise with the next day’s sun.

OP, major regret here over selling GOOG and AAPL too early, as the markets came out of the credit scare.

After a week of calculating again and again how much I WOULD HAVE made if I had stayed with my stocks and options, I am reaching normalcy.

Only upside is that I taking some lessons about my mental make-up (only started trading in March 07) and how to approach investing if I wanna stay sane-ish