What eight items of safety equipment do you have to carry in a boat by law? Name 10 ways to signal distress on a boat. What colour is an isolated hazard mark? Facts.

If only sharemarket education was so simple. If only there was a defined path to the Holy Grail, the ability to know which stocks are going up and which stocks are going down, and more importantly, knowing when. That is our quest. It sounds simple, but it isn't.

Instead, like the Knights of the Round Table who set out to find the Grail by proving themselves worthy of it through their endurance, purity and "joyous self abnegation", we too set out with hope in our hearts, to achieve the sharemarket equivalent and we too are tested, relentlessly, eternally, and financially. Only three Knights of the Round Table made it to the Grail, out of about 150. The modern-day odds of making it rich quick in the sharemarket are about the same.

And to extend the analogy, King Arthur's Round Table had one chair, the Siege Perilous (Danger-seat), which no-one could occupy except for the true Grail-Knight, the one who would eventually find the Grail. The chair stood empty, and anyone arrogant enough to sit in it, to assume that they had the purity and sinlessness to be worthy of the Grail, would be "swallowed up by the Earth". An appropriate and common fate perhaps for any sharemarket operator arrogant enough to claim that they too could possess it.

Despite this, of course, there is a massive industry out there selling access to the Holy Grail. But as I sat for two days, for 14 hours, learning just enough to get me through the 30 very simple multiple choice questions on my boat operator's licence test, it began to dawn on me just how long it really takes to learn anything, especially how to invest or trade in shares, let alone be successful at it. There is just so much to know and it is laughable, although so incredibly tempting, to think that it can be done quickly with your credit card.

It is so easy to hoodwink people in this industry. We have compulsory superannuation, an appetite to "take control" of it, an industry telling you to do so and a population for whom "punting" is associated with the Australian character. There are so many people who have taken on an investment responsibility, have money, have honest intentions and have no idea. Of course there is a market for a solution, in this environment the Holy Grail sells itself. It's what nearly everyone wants, the ability to make money, and the idea that you can access that knowledge and access it quickly is selling millions of dollars of product.

Even the "free seminar" is no more than an opportunity to sell you something more Machiavellian. It is a client acquisition ruse, there's nothing free about it.

The quest for the sharemarket Grail is a prolonged journey, it cannot be rushed, and because of that, in order to finish it you need to be interested. Without interest you will not make it. So step one is to ask yourself. Am I interested? Do not get your credit card out of you pocket unless you are.

The only courses worth going on and the only products worth buying are those that educate. If they don't educate they are simply a sales pitch and if you want to know how they work its simple, they do whatever they can to "close" you, to make a sale. Just watch the Wolf of Wall Street's sales technique. It's powerful, but it is selling not delivering. After they have your money, that's it.

Come at this game with interest and you might make it. Come at this game out of necessity, with impatience or just with a credit card and the Earth (and a few sharp operators) will swallow you up.

Marcus Padley is a stockbroker with Patersons Securities and the author of the daily stockmarket newsletter Marcus Today. For a free trial of the Marcus Today newsletter please go to marcustoday.com.au.