Successful investing is a journey.
First, you learn how to lose - Take enough positions & you'll certainly experience some losses.
It's important to progress from continuously holding losers to minimizing losses on a position.
Second, you learn how to learn - Toughest part for most retail - everyone has occasional good luck that's too often attributed to intelligence - this is obvious when these investors get angry & lash out at anyone who offers sound advice on how to improve the trading process.
Third, you make money using what you've learned - The Grail.
Open-minded money-makers can move thru these steps without too much difficulty, but few fall into the open-minded category.
Mentorship helps, I got lucky there for sure.
