Read Seth Godin’s Lincphin. A first big step.

The connection between entrepreneurship and successful trading is not incidental. Both require the same foundational orientation toward the world: you are responsible for your own outcomes, there is no institution to absorb your mistakes, and the results you produce are a direct reflection of the decisions you make. An employee can blame management, policy, or circumstances. An entrepreneur and a trader cannot. The market does not care about your reasoning. It produces a price and you either acted correctly or you did not.

Godin’s Linchpin argues that the most valuable people in any endeavor are those who bring genuine initiative, creativity, and ownership to their work rather than following a scripted path. The indispensable person, the linchpin, is not the one who executes instructions most efficiently but the one who takes responsibility for outcomes and generates value that would not exist without them. That is a description of the mindset required to build and operate a trading system. No one hands you a working system. No one tells you when to enter or exit. No one absorbs the loss if the trade goes wrong. You build the framework, follow the rules, and own the results.

The entrepreneurial mindset also addresses the psychological challenge of trend following’s losing periods. An employee who performs poorly can attribute the outcome to external factors. An entrepreneur who has a bad quarter must honestly evaluate their decisions and improve. A trend following trader in a drawdown who understands their results as the product of their own choices, the system they built and the discipline with which they followed it, is in a position to improve. A trader who sees themselves as a victim of market conditions is not. The accountability is the same in entrepreneurship and in trading. It is also the same path to eventual mastery in both.

For the broader framework of how self-reliance and personal accountability underpin systematic trend following success, see the TurtleTrader story and the trend following overview.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does being an entrepreneur help you become a better trader?

Because both require the same orientation: full personal accountability for outcomes, no external institution to absorb mistakes, and results that directly reflect decisions. An entrepreneur cannot blame management when a venture fails. A trader cannot blame the market when a system underperforms. Both must honestly evaluate their decisions and improve. That accountability is the precondition for mastery in either field.

What does Seth Godin’s Linchpin say that is relevant to trading?

Linchpin argues that the most valuable people are those who take genuine ownership of their work and generate results that would not exist without their initiative, rather than executing scripted instructions. Trading demands exactly this: building a system, following its rules, and owning the outcomes. No one scripts the winning trade for you. The system you build and the discipline with which you follow it are your responsibility entirely.

Trend Following Systems
Want to learn more and start trading trend following systems? Start here.