Good spiel @tradewonk, very enlightening.

I've heard other disciplined traders state "Plan your trade, then trade your plan." in other words, stick with the original plan.

Targets/goals are prudent as well. Everyone can quote "Buy low, sell high", but the truth is that only about 10 - 15% do that; the rest just watch it collapse.

Education is all over the place now-a-days, and often for free. I use TD Ameritrade for stocks, and their accounts come with a ton of free online education, along with "Think or Swim" .

Start small is good advice. I started with about $1000, turned that into about $1800. Then SNAP snapped me and I was left with about $550. Now I am just about back to $1000. All since January 2017.

I heartedly concur with this statement "Not tearing away the wild dung and taking impulse decisions based on one's own intuition about where the market is going." There isn't really a lot of guess work to making an income in the stock market, virtually anyone can do it. It is when you try to become fabulously wealthy or believe you have the Midas touch, that's when fool hardy decisions are made. Trade with the math, not with with your intuition.