The book begins with the author, Curtis Faith, describing his experience visiting the Chicago Board of Trade and interviewing with legendary commodities trader Richard Dennis. Faith was only 19 years old at the time but had a strong background in computer programming and analyzing trading systems.

Dennis and his partner William Eckhardt were running an experiment to see if they could train people to become successful traders. They had placed ads seeking applicants and received over 1000 responses for just 13 spots. The interview focused on assessing the applicants' intelligence, reasoning abilities, and beliefs about trading.

Faith was selected as one of the trainees, later nicknamed the "Turtles" after Dennis mentioned raising traders like they raise turtles in Singapore. The group consisted of individuals with diverse backgrounds, including gaming, linguistics, and trading experience. While Faith initially lacked trading experience, his system testing background gave him an edge.

After a 2-week training session, the Turtles began live trading with small accounts. Based on their performance over the first month, some like Faith received multi-million dollar accounts while others received smaller amounts or were asked to continue with their initial funding. Despite the short training, Faith had full confidence in Dennis' approach and was able to follow the trading rules precisely.

In the end, the Turtles achieved remarkably successful results, averaging over 80% returns per year. Faith himself earned Dennis' trust to manage the largest account. He credits their success to what he calls the "Way of the Turtle" - a psychological foundation that enabled them to apply the trading lessons correctly during live markets. Let's explore this way.