Why Warren Buffett Should Be Your #1 Role Model

Why Warren Buffett Should Be Your #1 Role Model 0

Since the dawn of the first personal computer, the contemporary financial world has been dominated by tech entrepreneurs. 

Think of successful billionaires and you’ll come up with Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Sergey Brin, Meg Whitman, and Elon Musk (think PayPal, not Twitter), to name a few.

These billionaires emulate the popular entrepreneurial notions of gaining power through disruption, betting on high-risk/high-reward, moving fast and breaking things, and putting in 18-hour work days, among other “faster, better, stronger” ways of thinking and doing. 

But before the rise of Silicon Valley giants, the household name for the richest person in the world belonged to an introverted, soft-spoken, patient, kind-hearted, and jovial man.

Warren Buffett

And for good reason: Buffett went from millionaire to billionaire through his 1985 takeover of Berkshire Hathaway (which was a former textile manufacturing company turned business conglomerate, housing Buffett’s various investments). Long before a personal computer could be found in every home and long before every man/woman/child could be stalkbooked.. I mean, Facebook’d.. the richest man in the world preached financial success by way of two means:

  • Living on less than what’s earned
  • Investing for the long run

(And continuing to do the first even when becoming exponentially successful through the second)

Granted, Buffett was lucky in that he lived through the longest Bull market run in the world’s best country for pursuing capitalistic gain, but there are many aspects of his investing and business behaviors that led him to more profound financial success than most will ever see.

Buffett has a knack for being a value investor and sticking to the areas of industry he understands best (what he calls his “circle of competency”), spending hours each day just quietly reading, researching, and staying abreast of the news, and waiting for opportune moments to enter and exit investment positions. These are some of the ways he has outshone other investors over the years.

Buffett’s fortune is why you know his name.

But there’s something special about Buffett for which you should join me in placing him as your number one role model as you learn and earn from trading the markets.

You see, unlike more ruthless billionaires (such as Musk, for instance) and the many personalities you’ll meet as you seek trading knowledge around the web, Buffett has a profound reputation as someone who is honest, trustworthy, and morally sound.

Overall, Buffett is a person of integrity.

He exercises patience, modesty, and wisdom over quick gains or displays of status and wealth. 

While he could afford a Bugatti, he drives a Buick that’s more than a few years old.

While he could afford multiple mansions, he instead lives in the same single-family suburban home he bought in Omaha, NE back in 1958. 

While he could afford a live-in chef, he often gets McDonald’s (through the drive-through, like us commoners) for breakfast. 

While he could make millions each year, like his tech counterparts, his salary at Berkshire Hathaway is capped at $100,000.

If you can’t already tell, Buffett isn’t seeking status, and it’s hard to say he’s even seeking wealth (for himself, at least). Much of Buffett’s earnings go back into further investing in worthwhile businesses or to one of many charitable programs. After his death, his plan for his money is to give it all away to philanthropic endeavors.

Ultimately, Buffett is a symbol of the virtue of Capitalism and what Capitalism should be – the art of creating value for the sake of shared value. Buffett is competing against himself, he is seeking to maximize his score on his own scorecard each day, and he sticks to his values and morals above all else.

Buffett is one of the best role-models you can have.

Not just for investing or trading, but for being an all-around upright citizen and compassionate human being.

Imagine if you could take Buffett’s ways of thinking and doing and implement them into your own trading. You would:

  • Care more about following your plan and rules than your profit/loss each day
  • Be patient with your progress and stick to the trading strategies and styles you’re good at (your circle of competence) rather than chasing the market
  • Get joy out of seeing yourself improve as a trader rather than showing off how much money you’re making
  • Pursue wisdom and integrity, rather than objects and attention
  • Learn humility and thoroughly examine your trading psychology and performance rather than blame the market, your strategy, or other traders

The moral of this article is to be selective about the people you choose to be your trading role models. Ignore the bling slingers and the arrogant folks with lots of followers on YouTube and stick to traders and money makers like Buffett who are not only successful but also exercise ethical integrity and a commitment to something bigger than themselves. 

If you’d like to learn more about Buffett, I recommend checking out these sources:

The Snowball by Alice Schroeder 

Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein

Becoming Warren Buffett – HBO documentary

Something fun – Buffett made a kid’s animation show over ten years ago and all the episodes can be found here on YouTube

 

Sadness, Loss, and Grief: Trading During Times of Illness and Deatth

Sadness, Loss, and Grief: Trading During Times of Illness and Deatth 100

Hey there folks,

It’s been a good while since I last posted and I want to take a moment to let you in on what I’ve been up to the last few months.

Sadness, Loss, and Grief

At the start of September, my 89-year-old grandfather passed away. He was a very easy-going man, with a hankering for good humor and good deli. He died from late stages of bone cancer as it mestastesized to his liver. Losing him was tough, but the countless videos and photos of family dinners with him telling silly stories make it nearly impossible for him to ever be forgotten.

Also during September, I was paid out a nice +$5,000 from my My Forex Funds account and took a little trip up to the Pacific Northwest to scout out apartments outside of the Portland area. I’ve been meaning to move to this part of the continent for some time, and in the coming months, this will become a reality.

Trading during September wasn’t anything to write home about. I sat through a handful of losing weeks. The daily strategy I’d been using lost some of its rigor. I intended on turning this strategy into a more advanced course, but as I made more money breaking its rules than actually following the plan, I realized there were holes in its theoretical assumptions and strategic approach. Thus, I moved back to the lower time frames again and took some time studying market structure and movement.

Then, during the week of my grandfather’s memorial, my partner and I got Covid-19. My symptoms were unusual and likely arose out of an added flaring to my already existing chronic illness. My hands and feet were in so much pain, the nerves in my fingers felt like they were on fire with pain and ache, and I couldn’t do much except hold them close to my body and lie still in bed. This was in addition to the other standard symptoms of this infeciton: coughing, fever, fatigue, and nasal drainage. Luckily, the pain eased up over a matter of days. But the flu-like symptoms persisted for weeks. Even now, I still carry a light cough, although everything else, for the most part, feels back to “normal”. A few of my friends who have also experienced Covid mentioned that it can take weeks to feel on par. They were not wrong.

Just as this burden was easing up, death greeted my family once more.

Only a few weeks after my grandfather’s passing, my grandma died as well. You might think it was from a broken heart, as this can happen among elderly couples, but she had no knowledge of his death. Those last few weeks, she didn’t really have much knowledge of anything that was happening around her. My grandma had slowly wasted away from late stages of dementia and a rare autoimmune condition, bullous pemphigoid, which caused her to experience severe itching and bleeding lesions. I came by to help be with her during those last few weeks, mostly to give her medicine, some water, liquid food, and massage her arms and hands.

I can imagine I’m not alone in writing this – some of you have firsthand experience with losing a loved one to dimentia, Alzheimers, or any other memory-degrading condition. It is harrowingly sad to no longer be recognizable by someone who was such a source of love and meaning in your life. She was in severe pain and confusion, crying out “help me, help me!” every few minutes during her waking hours. I had to explain to her one night that my mother and I needed to leave in order to get some sleep. It broke my heart to hear her pleading response of, “Please, please don’t leave me!” In some ways, the hardest part of her death wasn’t her passing – it was witnessing this long, drawn out suffering with not much help or relief to offer.

And then, one day, she died – her relief finally came. 

I didn’t expect to cry, but seeing her small, still body inspired sobs from my own. My grandparents were a big part of my and my sibling’s lives. Our dad wasn’t really apart of the picture growing up, but my grandparents were there for everything. Their love was unconditional and they were accepting of the diverse lives we’ve led, even if they looked so different from the world they once knew. Losing them meant an end of an era of loud, boisterous family gatherings and loving visits. 

It also reminded me of my own aging and life progression – My own struggle with memory loss as I wade through a difficult and complex illness. (If this is how I feel in my 30’s, then what will 50 be? How about 80?) For all the myriad of ways our bodies are designed to strive and survive, they are also so vulnerable and ephemeral. 

The week of her death, there were a few days when I completely forgot to trade. I didn’t remember the day of the week. It didn’t even occur to me that I had charts to look at. I was preoccupied with the details of change. And when I did think about trading, I just didn’t want to – the drive wasn’t there. I felt no desire, just sadness and a need to be quiet, still, and reflective.

Then, with each passing day, I felt more at peace. The tears ended, I began to spend more time on my own responsibilities instead of being involved in my family’s. I started trading again and doing some work with my own trading education and refining a new trend trading approach.

Facing Sadness and Grief During Your Own Trading

There will be times during your trading experience when major life events unfold. You may be able to prepare for some, but for others, you will be completely vulnerable. Death will make its rounds and visit people you know and love. People you care for will get sick and you will get sick as well. Your own death, too, is also a spot on the horizon that grows closer each day. 

I don’t write this to sound macabre, instead, I want to speak to the real experience of human life – one that includes a permanent finale. It is so easy to imagine ourselves always available to trade, to be in total control of our psychology at some distant future, but the reality is that there will be times when you may not be able to trade or even want to trade. Sadness, loss, grief – these are emotions that you may have to sit with when you trade (hopefully only temporarily) and if you can’t sit with them in front of the charts, then you’ll need to stop trading for a short period of time. 

During those periods, I encourage you to take space for yourself to feel sadness. When feeling sad, it can be hard to feel motivated – you might not even want to take a trading opportunity should one present itself. Be mindful of how you, individually, experience sadness and grief, and the ways you deal with it. Some people, like myself, need a pause in order to be with the emotion fully. Other folks like to dig deeper into their work or their hobbies in order to disconnect from the feelings of sadness. That’s okay too, it’s helpful to do things that help invite moments of joy, satisfaction, or rest. 

My parting advice: be familiar with your own style of grief, sadness, and loss, and have an idea of how you can plan your trading around it (or expect to not trade altogether). Be cautious, however, of wanting to trade so that you can get some kind of overriding pleasurable emotion from trading – this may entice you to break rules or make emotional choices. But most importantly, address your feelings. You are not a hero by avoiding your feelings and tears. When you can feel your own emotions, you open yourself up to the ability to empathize with the suffering of others – you open yourself up to love. All of these qualities make for a more meaningful life, one that is at peace.

 

Making the Switch: From the 15m to Daily Time Frames

Making the Switch: From the 15m to Daily Time Frames 28

Last month, I failed my Funded Trading Plus challenge. This was due to making too many changes during the challenge (such as no longer being able to get up at 5am to trade the NY session and attempting to scalp trending strategies off of Asia instead) and also fumbling over my own discipline (pulling winning trades too early and taking trades that didn’t fully match my rules). 

It was time to take a step back and evaluate what was going on.

Since I first started learning how to trade stocks and onwards with learning to trade Forex, I’ve always sought out scalping strategies. I liked the focus that came with partitioning a set amount of time each day to watch the markets and know that my account was cleared and safe at the beginning and end of the session. It was tough to learn to scalp from the outset, as many professional traders will tell you, yet in time, I was able to make a profit. 

That is, until the last few months. 

I’m a big believer that your psychology and discipline are the most important edge in your trading success. And while most traders seek out a holy grail strategy and will spend endless hours researching ways to optimize their trading rules and analysis (to be fair, there’s merit in having a strategy that works), ultimately it will be your ability to make calm, responsible decisions that will determine your success or failure in the markets. 

So once you have a halfway decent strategy, the leg work that will improve your trading isn’t necessarily watching more YouTube videos on technical analysis. Instead, spending time strengthening your relationship with your emotions, taking care of your mind and body, and ensuring that your trading regiment is sustainable with your lifestyle will play a greater role in helping you rise in the ranks from beginner to intermediate-level trader.

Over the last few months, I fell out of sync with my trading regiment. 

Suffering from insomnia for many years, I was running into issues with waking up late in the middle of the night, or not being able to fall asleep until the next day. I started missing my 5:00am NY trading sessions or would wake up foggy and exhausted just to make mindless mistakes, like trading in the wrong direction or miscalculating position sizes. These may seem like silly mistakes, but their costs are severe when they add up over a consistent basis.

Even worse, when one doesn’t sleep well, it’s far more difficult to stay disciplined. Consider how often you’ve made naughty food choices when you didn’t sleep well the night before. The same thing can happen when facing your trading rules. 

I was forcing my lifestyle to my trading routine. 

To do so, I was muddling with my health and my ability to get enough hours of sleep at night.

This impacted other areas of my life as well, as I had to take naps in the afternoon and miss work sessions or class in order to get enough rest.

I forced my lifestyle to accommodate my trading under the assumption that I only knew how to scalp the markets and that New York was the only session that would fit my approach.

This is a big mistake.

You should never have to bend over backward to make trading work for you. 

Remember, this is more of a psychological game than a tactical one. 

Your trading style needs to fit your lifestyle, not the other way around.

Doing otherwise can lead to built-up stress, and other areas of your life going unnurtured, which come back full circle to compromise your ability to make calm, rational choices with your trading account.

Like a pro athlete taking every chance possible to ensure optimal recovery, your trading routine, and your lifestyle need to synergistically work together. If one becomes suboptimal, the other will soon follow. 

So this is all to say that after losing my Funded Trading Plus challenge, I realized it was time to make a change. My trading approach did not work with my life.

Thus, taking a hard look at my geographical location, my health symptoms, my inconsistency with following scalping rules under stress and lack of sleep, I decided that it was time to shift my trading style.

It was time for me to move to higher time frames and find a time of day to trade that wouldn’t impact my sleep.

What I’m Leaving Behind: Scalping

Even though it’s commonly encouraged for beginners to avoid scalping and start with longer-term time frames, I believe there were a few benefits to taking the contrary route. 

  • Lower time frames don’t require an understanding of fundamental analysis – learning how markets move and the kinds of data that impacts them is a heady task. Being able to focus on technical analysis helps prevent information overload when first starting out
  • Scalping requires you to create a trading routine – You need to show up every day to evaluate setups. This helps you create a trading routine that comes with quick feedback. If you are organized about scalping, you should be getting into the habit of writing up a trading journal nearly every day. This immediate data and practice is useful and will help you grow more quickly as you reflect on the role your emotions play in your trading.
  • You can get plenty of practice in a short amount of time. Each session is an opportunity to work on your discipline.
  • You can focus on the movement of the charts during the session. You’ll get more exposure in a shorter amount of time compared to waiting another day to evaluate the next candle. 

While the chances of failure during your first and probably second years of scalping are nearly 100% (Sorry, I just want to be honest with you!), the experience you gain is priceless. 

I believe you learn far more from your trading mistakes than you do your successes. Sure, you will need to invest in trading income as partitioned between different trading courses, mentors, or other learning resources, but another form of tuition is paid through your losses as you gain experience. 

This type of trading tuition is mandatory, there is no avoiding it.

Even if you demo trade (which is highly encouraged!), you will still need to learn how to manage your decisions and emotions when your own money is on the line. Demo trading helps minimize the costs, but it cannot teach you the lesson that comes with feeling the pain of irresponsible losses.

So instead of trying to avoid the storm, sometimes I think it’s appropriate to head right into it and prepare yourself to focus on learning from the experience. Just be sure to do enough prep to avoid killing your account over it.

In this way, I have no regrets about learning how to scalp the markets first. It eventually helped me pass time-sensitive prop firm challenges and make money. The strategies I developed from learning to scalp have made money for my students, as well (many of which are lucky enough to live somewhere that allows them to do so at a preferable time!)

I believe scalping can be a worthwhile, although tricky endeavor. Nonetheless, at this time such a style is no longer appropriate for my lifestyle and trading goals. 

What I’m Moving Towards: Day/Swing Trading the Daily Charts

During the last couple of weeks, I’ve started researching different ways to trade the Daily chart. I’ve bought a couple of courses that focus on using the higher time frames to minimize the time spent in front of the charts while focusing on high probability setups. 

I decided that a 4H or daily chart would be my best option because the NY markets close at 2:00pm PST, in my location. I use charts that follow the NY close on the daily chart, which lets me use the most recently closed candle in my analysis.

This is an optimal time for me to trade because no matter how late I get to bed or how late I sleep in, I’m almost always awake at 2:00pm. 

Another benefit of moving to a daily chart is that there is no rush to take a trade. I have enough time to evaluate the technicals, look at the fundamentals, and pinpoint whether I want to set a limit order or act on the recently closed candle. This dramatically lowers the stress that comes with risking money on a trade. 

I also suffer from pretty severe brain fog, with my thoughts stopping and starting like an Autopia car at Disneyland. When using the daily charts, I can type out my trading ideas and better organize my thoughts about my strategy before taking the trade.

But most importantly, this approach drastically reduces my time in front of the charts. I was in the routine of spending upwards of 3.5 to 4 hours a day with scalping. 

I think it’s pretty common for traders at the 3+ year level to seek to spend less time trading. Trading can be exhausting when done too often and it can feel boring when done right. Taking on longer-term charts usually means less time in front of the screens. This means you can have more time to focus on more important areas in your life and reduce the pressure to act quickly.

Now that I’m focusing on daily candles, I can analyze and set (and forget) multiple trades in under an hour. This is huge – so much time is freed up to better take care of myself and meet the demands of all my other responsibilities. 

My initial impression?

I wish I made the shift sooner! This feels so much more appropriate for my health and living situation than waking up before the sun and grinding out quick trades. 

For a long time I believed the only way to pass a challenge would be through scalping or watching the charts all day. I thought it would be a waste of my experience (and a hit to my profitability) to attempt to learn a whole new approach. 

So too, I was afraid of using discretionary analysis. I didn’t trust myself to learn how to use multiple analysis tools to decide on an optimal setup. I feared that many tools, like trendlines and candlestick patterns can lean subjective. There are so many options that I didn’t know what to choose. I thought I had to be available for every movement. I thought the daily charts only held opportunities for long-term swing trades – some that wouldn’t complete in time for, say, a prop firm challenge or monthly account withdrawal.

Long-time trading professional and educator, Dr. Van Thorpe, always says, “You don’t trade the markets. You trade YOUR BELIEFS about the markets.”

My own beliefs about what I was capable of and what was possible held me back from trying an approach that is utilized by professional traders and investment firms.

And my first week of putting money on the line with a daily chart strategy resulted in a 1.3% profit! Not bad after nearly five weeks of continuous losses!

daily chart strategy

If only I could have let go of my fears and trusted the process, accepted that my condition and my lifestyle may not be appropriate for scalping, I may have been able to better prepare myself BEFORE taking my Funded Trading Plus challenge.

However, there’s always another trade – as long as I continue to succeed in my demo trading and small account trading with the Daily charts, I can attempt this challenge again in the coming months. 

I share this all with you to remind you that you have options. If you are continuing to face drawdowns each month, perhaps it’s time to evaluate your situation and determine whether you’re trading with a style that fits snuggly in your life and accommodates your trading experience. Whether that means going up or down a couple of time frames, or moving away or towards discretionary strategies, sometimes making a big shift is the answer. 

No one is going to be able to tell you what works best for you. You’ll have to learn what approaches are profitable and select those that match your personality and availability. Luckily, there are multiple roads to Rome – many strategies and styles of trading will get you to your profit goals. Keep your mind open and always stay reflective!

Help Protect LGBTQ Traders Online!

Help Protect LGBTQ Traders Online! 1

[TLDR: You can help put an end to homophobic and transphobic harassment of LGBTQ traders by calling out, flagging, and standing up to hateful comments and slurs in trading forums, groups, chats, etc. If you run a trading group and support the LGBTQ community, please let it be explicitly known in your group rules that you do not tolerate homophobic and transphobic commentary. Allies can help make a major difference!]

June is Pride Month Across the World

Some of you may or may not know that June is officially Pride Month for the LGBTQ community.

This is a month, when all across the world, anyone who identifies as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer celebrates together through parties and local festivals on different days of the month.

It is a very public celebration in part because it’s an opportunity to reaffirm that LGBTQ people will no longer hide or quietly be subject to violence or persecution.

Just this year, the treasury building in the US raised a pride flag on its mast to signify this special month.

Janet Yellen raies pride flag over treasuryJanet yellen raises pride flag over treasury

Now, some of you may have been wondering for some time now (perhaps even a minute or two since clicking on this post) whether I’m gay.

To answer your question: No, I’m not gay.

Am I bisexual?

Yes!

[Oh sorry, I mean YASSS.]

Personally, for my entire life, I have found certain people attractive regardless of their gender. I won’t say something so resolute as “I’m only attracted to a person’s personality” because that’s not true, I have physical preferences and tend to be drawn to people due to a mix of physical and emotional reasons, most importantly where their heart is and whether I can trust them. (Like most people do!)

I’ve been in serious relationships with both men and women, and am currently in a deeply committed relationship with a dude.

lgbt pride financial

Two Important Points

Whew.

You have no idea how hard this is to share, knowing I’m releasing it to the most heterosexual and male viewership that is the greater trading community.

Which also helps me segue into the core reason why I decided to write this post. 

The thing is, and you may have already seen or experienced this in the world of trading forums and groups, is that there are many traders out there who are homophobic and transphobic and often use those feelings to belittle or attack other traders or just spew hateful reactions into trading forums.

day trading homophobic

It is difficult to learn from a trading course or group when you feel unsafe and uncertain about communicating with other traders.

So I have two main reasons for making this video instead of focusing on business as usual.

What I want to emphasize today is that if you are an LGBTQ trader, you are not alone.

There are plenty of us out there and please reach out to me if you know of trading forums or groups where we can better connect and maybe build a private group if there aren’t any that are longstanding. I’d be more than happy to do that through the Disciplined FX platform, so please let me know if I can be of help in any way.

WE NEED YOUR HELP!

Second, and more importantly, I am crying out for help to any trader who is not part of the LGBTQ community but feels supportive to make an effort to call out and flag homophobic and transphobic comments on trading boards, and in trading chats. If you are someone who runs your own trading community, please monitor and remove these hateful posts in your own group.

Also, If you run a trading community and support the LGBTQ community, please be vocal about this, and explicitly state in your group rules that you do not tolerate homophobic and transphobic comments.

This is something I’ve included in the Disciplined FX group, as well.

We don’t know if we’re safe or welcomed if it’s not said.

While I am here to mostly talk about LGBTQ issues in trading communities, I also want to note that this runs true for women traders as well, who are often belittled or a target of unwanted sexual attention just by way of being involved in trading groups.

Please be an active ally because you are often one of our greatest sources of safety and support.

I want to end this post on a note of hope and elation for how far we’ve come, how amazing younger generations seem to be at accepting LGBTQ people and being able to feel more secure in exploring sexuality and gender. (Y’all amazing!) And also how amazing it is that some older generations seem to finally come to a place of acceptance and peace as past societal biases are let go of.

This is not to say that there isn’t still progress to be made. Over 375 transgender individuals were killed last year solely as an intended hate crime. Gay and lesbian marriages and even the right to be LGBTQ is not recognized in many countries still.

A global arc towards peace and loving acceptance will only continue to progress when allies and LGBTQ folk work together to continue to influence and change the minds and hearts of those who weaponize belief systems out of hatred.

It is both exciting and terrifying to say this publicly but I hope I am just one of many traders now and in the future who can help democratize trading resources and education for everyone.

I wish you all a happy pride month, paint your ema’s rainbow for the next four weeks, and I wish you all nothing but the best of strength and luck. Take care!

Ultimate Trading Hack? Take Care of Yourself!

Ultimate Trading Hack? Take Care of Yourself! 23

For years, I’ve been struggling with an undiagnosed chronic illness that has robbed me of my energy, ability to sleep well, and peripheral vision. I was knocked off my original career path and decided to learn how to day trade in order to obtain income and a way to afford quality, results-based healthcare. (If you want to learn the longer story, read this two-post series)

Before I became ill and fatigued, I was a highly active person – weight-lifting, biking, jogging, yoga to name a few of my favorite activities. I loved to cook and make healthy and creative meals. I was devastated to lose my progress and joy in these endeavors, but even now, I make a point of lifting, slow jogging, and stretching when I can.

Nonetheless, trading with a chronic illness is incredibly difficult. I routinely miss my early morning trading sessions, the most opportune times to trade for my strategy, in order to catch up on sleep. Unfortunately, this sleep doesn’t ever leave me feeling refreshed, so the cycle continues.

So too, having a foggy brain leaves me slow to act on some trades or taking less trades than what the signals call for. I also have occasions when I completely forget the rules of my strategy and need to take time to review the rules (This is another reason why I keep my strategies as simple and mechanical as possible).

Because of all these issues, I have taken a highly organized and simplified approach to trading. Creating systems that are simple and easy to repeat through routine have made trading for profit possible in such conditions.

So coming from the perspective of someone who has both experienced extensive fitness and then extensive illness, I can say with candor that one of your greatest tools for success in trading is to take care of your body and mind.

Why does your physical and mental health have such an impact on your trading?

Think about what fatigue feels like:

  • Your body is sluggish
  • Your energy is low
  • Your brain is foggy
  • You are slower to respond to urgencies
  • You will more likely pick creature comforts over somewhat painful, yet effective action
  • It’s a vicious downward cycle – the more you feed into the fatigue with comfort (like fast food) or create short-term energy boosts (from sugar, coffee, or sodas) the longer it lasts
  • Sometimes lower self-esteem and outright depression/anxiety

In this state, do you think you can make good trading choices – the decisions that will override some of the more emotional impulses that come with trading?

In my experience, it only adds to the challenge of trading for profitability.

When you feel exhausted and have low energy, it can be difficult to want to follow your trading rules, wake up or stay up for your trading session, or be able to effectively evaluate a trade (should you apply discretionary tactics).

When you have natural energy, the opposite happens:

  • You have a clear mind
  • You can better manage your emotions
  • You feel more positive and in control
  • You’re quicker to respond to urgencies
  • You can better handle any setbacks

An energized trader can better handle the inevitable losses, routinely show up for the trading session, manage impulses and emotions, as well as have the drive and energy to do the extra work that comes with learning about trading (whether that means working through trading books, courses, videos, or spending a handful of hours back-testing)

Now, there’s also something to be said for rest and recovery, I believe taking breaks and enjoying creature comforts can actually boost your health over the long run, but the key is in the dosage – when partaking in any of these activities for the majority of your week, then problems ensue.

Having energy is a physiological phenomenon – that is, there’s a physical, bodily component as well as a psychological one.

Let’s go over how you can improve each one.

How to Improve Your Physical Energy

There are two factors that will affect your physical energy more than anything else:

  • How you move your body
  • What you put into your body

By addressing these two areas many other activities that increase energy become easier to do (such as getting enough restful sleep, as well as working on mental energy practices).

Move Your Body

It’s ironic – creating stress and depleting your energy stores through exercise actually improves your energy over the long run.

Many of us don’t move enough.

From the Industrial Revolution onward, people are spending more hours standing or sitting in one place. We do far less physical work or walking than the humans of the past.

Nowadays, we have to make an effort to include movement in a daily or weekly routine.

Some of the best ways to get a healthy dose of exercise:

  • Lift-weights/Resistance Training
  • Jog
  • Walk
  • Run
  • Do yoga
  • Play sports (softball, racketball, tennis, basketball, etc.)
  • Go on solo excursions (hiking, surfing, skiing, etc.)
  • Pick up a martial art

Try to get in around 150 minutes per week of movement that increases your heart rate, suggests Dr. Michael Greger. Adding in resistance training, regardless of your body or health goals, is also important for maintaining muscle mass.

What I Do:

  • Lift 2-3x/week (Usually 3-4 exercises for up to 3 sets per exercise; Basic comprehensive movements like bench press, split squats, deadlift, shoulder press, pull-ups, etc.)
  • Slow-jogging 3-5x/week
  • My partner and I have an interesting (and therapeutic!) routine of going on long walks when we want to talk about something that’s difficult in our relationship or personal/individual problems
  • I also like to wear a FitBit and use that to help track whether I’m walking enough each day or not

 

Put Good Things In and Leave Bad Things Out

The second crucial component to improving your physical energy is to be very mindful of what you consume.

Think about the importance of clean food in this way: So few things in this world have such an intimate relationship with us as the food we eat. It’s literally going INSIDE you. It’s important to keep high standards for nourishment.

A lot of folks have a hard time deciding what’s healthy to eat because the information on what’s healthy is outright confusing:

  • One day the media says eggs are bad. A few months or years later, the media says eggs are good again
  • You see people who cure diseases or experience dramatic weight loss by eating a specific diet (vegan, paleo, keto, carnivore, etc.)
  • Thousands of diet books are published each year
  • Research papers on nutrition give myopic or contradicting results
  • Food packaging misleads with legality-safe terms like ‘natural’, ‘no artificial xyz’, ‘no hormones’ to convey healthy as a marketing trait, but the food item itself contains hidden unsafe, unhealthy ingredients

Given all this, you may not know where to start. Or you’ve started but don’t see any results.

Finding a healthy approach to eating that works for you will be a research project that extends further than what I can write here, but in my own research for using nutrition and diet to help heal a broken body, I’ve found that most successful dieting plans focus on these three things:

  1. Eat more plants (preferably vegetables)
  2. Eat whole food items (that is, there is one ingredient and it’s the food itself – think “apples” instead of “apple pie”
  3. Avoid sugar

Starting with these three easy and basic rules, you can discover a personal diet that leaves your body feeling healthy, able to digest and assimilate the nutrients that fuel your mind and energy.

What I do:

  • I eat a vegan, plant-based diet
  • The majority of what I eat is whole-food sourced: lots of bananas, spinach, kale, cacao chips, flax seed, apples
  • Some of what I eat is processed: brown-rice pasta, sugar-free pasta sauce, plant-based protein powder
  • I get the majority of my calories and meals through making smoothies. It’s so easy, just toss everything in and press the button. Does the chewing for you!
  • Every now and then I get take out from places like Chipotle, Waba Grill
  • I like to drink coffee and green tea, although I probably should quit caffeine at some point given my sleep issues
  • I rarely drink and don’t do any recreational drugs

I want to also note that there are a few other things that “go in” that can dramatically affect your energy, such as alcohol, caffeine, supplements, drugs, and even air quality and toiletry products

Keep in mind, if you want to protect and increase your energy:

  • Caffeine is best consumed in moderation or not at all
  • Your caffeine source should also be a simple ingredient (think black coffee, green tea, not soda or energy drinks)
  • Modern agricultural practices have depleted the soil and decreased the nutritional value of even whole food sources, thus taking supplements for possible vitamin and mineral deficiencies can help
  • If you work or spend most of your time in one room, getting a quality air filter can help clear some of the air. Overall, be mindful of whether you’re breathing in toxins regularly or not
  • Consume alcohol in moderation and never while trading; it’s also advisable to discontinue using recreational drugs, especially marijuana, due to its tendency for causing chronic brain fog. We need to keep you sharp!

How to Improve Your Mental Energy

This second area concerns the thoughts you keep and the mental health care practices you include in your routines. I’ll keep it brief since I wrote about mental health routines here, but it would be incomplete to recommend energy-boosting without also mentioning your mindset.

When it comes to improving your self-confidence and energy through your psychology, more than anything else, staying positive will serve you well. Instead of believing that you can only be happy when good things happen, I encourage you to start believing that good things happen when you’re happy.

Under this philosophy, you take responsibility for choosing your mindset and setting the tone for your daily life.

It took me a long time to realize this, but I firmly believe now that as long as you’re doing at least a little bit of something to help your physical well-being and you’re not experiencing any mental health disorders, a positive attitude is a choice.

Again, I’m telling you this as someone who has lost everything and has had to carve a path out of a deep pit to survive- choosing to stay positive and always trying your best to find the lessons and opportunities in bad experiences will improve your chances of achieving what you desire by 10x.

To help yourself stay positive:

  • Think of yourself as a learner and every experience an opportunity to find out more about life, trading, etc.
  • Think of life as a game or puzzle and your challenges will help you level up and improve
  • Take time to be grateful for the good things you have (if you don’t know where to start, having access to internet is amazing! Think about the thousands of years people went without it – you could have been born back then, but instead, you’re lucky to be here now!)
  • Let yourself play – have hobbies and down-time to enjoy activities that make you laugh, smile, and even get silly.
  • Pick up a meditation or journaling practice – you will come to better understand your thoughts and better notice their diversity when you take time to reflect
  • Create expectations and a schedule for yourself that’s as realistic as possible – taking time to plan 3 big things you need to do each day goes a long way to helping you feel in control of your time and life

What I like to do:

  • When problems come my way, I immediately start researching who else has experienced and overcome this problem in order to find out ways to solve it – in this way, I spend less time dwelling and more time doing
  • I organize my time and make sure I have plenty of gaps in my schedule for rest or the unexpected. I’ve used a planner for over 12 years to track what I need to do each month, week, and day – I couldn’t imagine life without it
  • I meditate regularly and am working on getting back into a daily practice
  • I leave evenings open to play games, hang out with partner/friends, watch movies, read
  • When I think my problems feel like too much, I think about all the other people who have come and gone, having lived through tragedies and traumas that truly exceed what I’m personally going through – I also see suffering as ubiquitous, something that is a shared human experience and this helps me feels less lonely in my unique situation.

Bonus Tip: Identity what to prioritize. If your diet would make a nutritionist gasp, don’t worry about exercise just yet, instead start there since you’ll feel the greatest relief by improving this one thing.

All in all, if you were to pick even just one action to take from these two major categories, you’ll be sure to see some improvement in your energy levels and happiness. While most of the above may seem trivial to trading, it’s just the opposite.

You bring your whole self to your trading desk.

Not just your trading skills, but also your psychology, your body, and your energy.

What you do when you’re not trading matters too. When you understand and implement this hack that most traders ignore, you significantly increase your chance of making it in the markets.

 

Mental Health and Discipline

Mental Health and Discipline 32

Day Trading and Mental Health

When learning how to day trade, it can be tempting to spend most of one’s energy focusing on learning strategies, technical analysis, and account management formulations. While these are all important aspects of trading, the glue that brings all the pieces of the puzzle together into a cohesive whole is discipline.

As I’ll often reiterate, even with the most profitable of strategies, if you can’t commit to following its rules then you will still lose money. You can minimize losses with the best of discipline and the worst of strategies, but you can cause great financial ruin with the best of strategies and terrible discipline. So which do you think you should prioritize in your trading?

One way to think of discipline is that it represents the actions you take in the face of psychological awareness. Disciplined traders still feel anguish, fear, and desire for more profit – but these feelings don’t cast the final vote on what to do next. Instead, experience and logic remind the trader of potential outcomes and the best approach to take in order to manage risk. Discipline is the art of reflecting on one’s own emotions and deciding to take the right action anyways.

But sometimes emotions can feel more powerful than usual. It’s often a foolish idea to assume that you can just ignore an emotion in the heat of the moment and follow your rules. Many traders over assume their grip on their own emotions. Or at least fail to anticipate the ebb and flow of emotional states. This can lead to account-draining actions, such as revenge trading, or risking more than anticipated on a single trade. This doesn’t just happen to new traders, but even seasoned ones too. The wisest of traders know to always reflect on one’s emotional state and discipline, and take action to take care of each.

<<Don’t know what to do with your current trading outcomes? Try this…>>

Focus on Your Mental Health

We’re currently living through a pretty tough time in history. To say that the global population is stressed out is an understatement. Between public health crisis and war, inflation and political tension, it’s hard to go outside or search the internet without being reminded of how emotionally overstretched everyone feels.mental health day trading

I think now, more than ever, is a good time to start paying close attention to your own mental health. You deserve to feel solid in your own sense of self – no one else is ever going to be closer to you or look out for you better than your own self. You are capable of being the best parent to yourself than you ever had, the best nurturer and guide. When you take care of yourself, life gets just a bit easier. Maybe not enough to solve all of your problems, but enough to help develop resilience and invite some peace in your headspace.

One of the greatest ways to take care of yourself and your mental health is to start exploring what’s going on during your “air time” –

What kind of tone do you use when you are thinking?

What topics do you focus on?

Do you call yourself names – if so, what are they?

What emotional states do you experience the most often (anxiety, stress, joy, calm, fear, boredom, anger, etc.)?

What activities drastically change your mood? (Drinking coffee, being around certain people, consuming alcohol or drugs, being in certain environments, etc.)

Ways to Actively Work on Your Mental Health

When you take account of your inner thoughts and recognize the importance of mental health, you can begin to determine the kind of actions you can take to improve your headspace so you’re experiencing less negativity and more calm. While I’m not a psychologist or licensed professional, here are a few mental health suggestions that have been passed on to me by those who are:

  • Regularly working with a licensed professional, like a therapist, counselor, or coach to personalize your approach and receive expert advice
  • Journaling your daily emotions and reflecting on these entries each week
  • Working with a doctor to determine whether medication is appropriate for you (There is nothing wrong with you if you need this kind of support – medication can be a life-saver and there are far safer options today than ever before)
  • Taking care of your physical body (your neurotransmitters need supplies from your diet, too!) – this means eating a nutritious, non-inflammatory diet and regularly exercising
  • Ensuring that you’re taking regular breaks from work and trading by making time to do the things you enjoy
  • Introducing more calming routines in your life – going on nature walks, doing yoga, having spa days, getting a massage, taking baths, etc.
  • Meditating
  • Using a mental health workbook written by a professional to learn more about yourself (this can be a cheap alternative if therapy is unaffordable)yoga day trading

Again, you are setting yourself up for losses if you continue to ignore the role of mental health in developing trading discipline. Taking the time and focus each day to care for your mental health will pay dividends in all areas of your life, not just trading.

 

Interview with The Forex TradeHER

Interview with The Forex TradeHER 95

This past week, I had the opportunity to interview an up-and-coming Forex mentor, who is populating Instagram with both informative, and might I say, sassy, content!

Michelle of the @forextradeher is one of many women traders who are helping us turn this male-dominant market into a diverse and opportunistic experience for anyone who wishes to develop the lucrative skill of day trading.

From sharing her experience of becoming profitable in six months of intense study to discussing technical analysis and risk management approaches, Michelle imparts some of her refined trading insights and wisdom in our one-on-one session.

Be sure to watch the video below to enjoy this experience for yourself!

How to Create Day Trading Goals for 2022

How to Create Day Trading Goals for 2022 99

If you’re the disciplined and organized trader I think you are or at least aspire to be, then you may be getting excited for the ultimate goals planning event celebrated around the world. While the New Year is a time for parties, celebration, and reflection, we, as traders, are eager to do better or maintain our profitability from last year by sitting down and making some serious trading goals for the year ahead.

If you like to read personal development books as much as I do, you’ll notice a trend among authors like Brendon Burchard, Marie Forleo, Brian Tracey, and Napoleon Hill, that they all encourage you to make serious goals.

Why?

Because when we put a goal down on paper, our brain gets to work on making a vision happen.

By setting an intention, we have an idea of what we want and give ourselves the time frame, that is, the year ahead, to make it happen.

However, not all goals are created equal.

The method with which you use to form your goal can increase or decrease your likelihood of achieving it.

A Research Study on New Year’s Resolutions and Goal Setting

A group of researchers in Sweden did a study on new year’s resolutions by taking three groups of people and giving them various levels of support, instructions, and extra guidance on goal creation to see which one would be most likely to not only achieve their goals but also sustain commitment over the long term.

The first group was given no instruction or support apart from being asked to write down their new year’s resolution. The second group was given a bit more support and was told how to find an accountability buddy. They also received check in’s from the research group and were given a little bit of written advice on how to maintain goal commitment. The third group was given the same support as group two but was also taught how to create SMART goals, as well as what they called interim goals, which were smaller goals that could be completed immediately in order to make early progress towards longer-term goals. They also received a couple more reminders and check-ins with the research team, scheduled once per quarter.

Now, be prepared to be surprised, because this study’s outcome is not what you think. So it turned out, by the end of the year, when asked if the participants felt like they had achieved their goals, Group 2 was the most likely to report feeling successful, while Group 1 came next and Group 3 had the lowest success rate of them all.

New Years Goal Study

Having clear goals and a regular support system didn’t necessarily make the third group more likely to achieve their goals over the others.

Now, let’s deconstruct this a bit.

First of all, the researchers noted that the individuals in group 3 had to create very clear goals with specific measurements, while group 1 could write whatever they want.

So someone from group 3 could say they want to lose 25lbs by the end of the year while someone from group 1 could have made a vague resolution to lose weight.

For all we know, that group 1 person didn’t even step on a scale all year, they could have gone with just a felt sense that wasn’t accurate. Group 3 was better able to say whether a specific goal was achieved or not, while group 1 and 2 could give an answer to make themselves look better even if they had no evidence to support the claim.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the main difference between Group 2 and Group 3 was the additional instructions for making smart goals.

Group 2 could make the same vague goals as group 1, but they were given check-ins and added instructions for maintenance along the way. There was a lot more wiggle room for reflection and course correction.

Ultimately, like many research studies, another study and further research are needed to work out some of the underlying variables at play.

2022 Day Trading Goals

However, the reason why this study is still interesting for us as traders is that when we sit down to create our goals, we shouldn’t think of goal setting as a one-and-done event, but instead as the beginning of a new routine.

The most important aspect of goal setting isn’t necessarily the goal itself, but the routine act of checking in with your goals and needing to course correct in the face of unexpected setbacks.

What you do with them over the long run is more important than how you start.

So I’m going to share with you all 5 steps you can take to make an effective plan for goal-setting this new year.

We’ll talk about the kinds of goals you should set as a day trader and the system you’ll need to create in order to make continuous progress over the year.

5 Steps to Creating Day Trading Goals for 2022

Step 1) Make Clear General Goals

For the first step, you’re going to make some clear yet general goals, such as wanting to learn how to day trade Forex, passing a prop trading challenge, or finally achieving consistent profit over a series of months.

List no more than 5.

It can also be useful to include goals that tell you how much you want to make per month to hit a budget or lifestyle target, but I recommend giving yourself a range, such as returning 4-6% of your account per month, because markets and the best of strategies can change with more profitable and less profitable months. I don’t want you to be tempted to trash a decent strategy if it’s not hitting your exact target every month.

I also recommend including at least 1 goal that isn’t based on money.

This could be making a goal to commit to the same exact strategy for 60 days, or reading three books from my recommended disciplined trading reading syllabus.

Here’s an example of a list of goals you could have for 2022:

1) Get consistently profitable on a quarter-to-quarter basis

2) Learn and trade only the Disciplined FX Scalping strategy for at least three months

3) Read “Trading in the Zone”, “High Probability Trading”, and “High-Performance Habits”

4) Pass the FTMO challenge

5) Grow personal account to $25k

FTMO StrategyStep 2) Know Your Why

For the second step, I want you to think deeply about why you chose each goal.

For example, getting consistently profitable on a quarter-to-quarter basis could mean that you’ve proven to yourself that you’re a disciplined trader and that you’re ready to go for a prop trading challenge.

Growing a $25k account could mean that you may be able to start returning enough money to start growing a hefty emergency fund for yourself.

Day Trading Goals 2022By understanding why you are doing this thing, you will feel more committed to the challenge. And bringing that emotion to your goals is a big catalyst in helping you stay on track over the long run.

If you find yourself attached to your why you can more easily get back up after being knocked down.

It’s easy to change your mind about trading a certain strategy, but it’s not as easy to change your desperate desire for financial freedom.

Knowing why we are choosing a goal will help us stay committed.

Step 3) Make a Plan and Schedule the Months You’ll Achieve Your Goal

For the third step, you’re going to start to make a plan and give yourself an idea of when things should happen.

In the same study on new years resolutions that I mentioned earlier, the researchers also found that a common trait of participants who failed to achieve their goal often assumed that they would work on the goal later in the year and ended up procrastinating their way to failure.

It’s important to break down big goals into smaller parts that we can get started on now, so that we can begin to build momentum for the long-run.

If you’re familiar with any of my other content on discipline, you’ll know that I believe discipline has nothing to do with willpower and everything to do with building smart habits.

If you can break your goals down into habits that you perform regularly, such as reading one of those trading books for ten minutes a day or following the same ruleset of a strategy each trading session, then you will be more likely to achieve your long term goal than if you aimed for some big, vague event.

So take your goals, break them down into smaller parts, and decide when you want to hit those smaller goals.

Don’t worry about when you’ll achieve the big year goals unless there is a specific date that the goals need to be completed by.2022 Trading Goals

I often find that things don’t always go according to plan, and when I try to rush things with day trading, I could make costly mistakes.

So don’t worry about when you think you should pass your FTMO challenge. Instead, focus on when you want to perform a backtest for the strategy you’ll use and plan when you’d like to start your first challenge.

You can break the goal of passing the FTMO challenge down into five parts, such as researching both the challenge and tips for risk management and psychology for prop trading, deciding what strategy you’ll use, deciding what risk management strategy you’ll perform, signing up for the challenge, and completing a checklist of your rules for each trading challenge session. Then decide on what you can start on this month and write down what month you’ll work on the other steps.

Step 4) Understand What Will Change and What Is At Risk if You Fail

The fourth step in this goal-setting process is to look at each of your goals and write down what would be different in your life if you achieve them.

So if you pass a prop trading challenge you could have extra income to fund your hobbies or you could even consider leaving the job you hate.

If you read three good books on day trading then you can learn what to do to behave like a professional trader and make some solid money.

If you have more money you could finally take that international trip, go back to school, or move somewhere that feels safe and beautiful. You could afford a gym membership, organic food, and take care of yourself at an optimal level. Money tends to have a way of making other goals easier to achieve.

Similarly, after you finish this list of the ways your life could be made better by achieving the goal, I want you to write a list of what would happen if nothing changes.

Would your situation remain the same? Would it be worse?

Day trading is inherently risky, if you don’t commit to improving your trading discipline and skills, then you could end up losing hundreds or thousands of dollars by the end of the year.

There are always repercussions for not completing your goal, so you need to keep these in the back of your mind as motivation alongside the positive outcomes, too.

Step 5) Schedule Time to Review Your Goals

For the last step you need to schedule time to review your goals. This is the part of the process that will turn your goals into a system.

Napoleon Hill and other success writers like him recommend reviewing your goals every single day.

Researchers Locke and Latham (2006) from the University of Maryland and the University of Toronto found that goals are often only effective when they are used in combination with feedback.

You need to find a way to be able to tell whether you’re on target with your goal or not and check in on that progress regularly.

At the very least, I think you need to review your goals every week and make a check-in every month to see if you need to adjust any of the goals to meet new expectations, situations, or methods.

For myself, I have a list of annual goals that are broken down into quarterly goals, those quarterly goals are broken down into monthly goals. Each week I review my monthly and quarterly goals to make my weekly goals. Every day I review my weekly goals in the morning and plan my daily tasks so that I’m always doing something to get closer to accomplishment each day.

The theme of this tutorial is that clarity of your vision alone won’t ensure success.

You need to actively and regularly work your goals and your goal-setting system in order to stay focused, on track, and agile in the face of unexpected changes.2022 Day Trading Goals

I hope you found these five steps useful, be sure to take notes if you want to implement this process for yourself this new year and let me know in the comments section below what you’re eager to achieve in the next 12 months.

I wish you all the best of strength and luck, and I’ll see you in the markets, take care. 

 

How I Became a Day Trader: Part 2

How I Became a Day Trader: Part 2 98

Read “How I Became a Day Trader: Part 1” first

One summer night, while I was overheating and having a particularly severe case of insomnia, I was reading a book of interviews from different millionaires as to what skills and habits make money.

Reading self-help books has been a hobby of mine since my college days, so it wasn’t unusual for me to pick this book as a way to pass the witching hour.

However, I just so happen to come across a chapter by a famous Forex trader, Rob Booker.

I couldn’t have stumbled upon a more inspiring trader than Rob Booker – he’s entertainingly sarcastic, can dish out a little tough love, but his actions are tremendously humble in the ways he runs his trading business and donates his time and money to charities. Something about the way he described dropping his legal career so he could trade currencies resonated with my own drastic turn in life and career circumstances.

The following morning, I started researching and using free educational resources to learn as much as I could about Forex.

When I started trading, I felt then as you do now: excited, eager to find a quick and be-your-own-boss way to make money, yet also overwhelmed by the variety of advice and information available.

My first actions included picking a YouTuber whose track record and style seemed reliable, watching as many videos as I could while gathering notes, and taking immediate action on anything important he said.

I also bought a few books that were more structured than a mishmash of videos.

In the beginning, I couldn’t quite wrap my head around Forex.

I found a free course that was highly comprehensive but very dense. I took notes and made my way through the curriculum, only to find myself overwhelmed by all the different indicators, price patterns, and lingo. I ended up moving back and forth between stocks and Forex since I had more familiarity with the former.

“Okay,” I thought to myself, “I got this – it’ll just be a few months until I work out the kinks, get a feel for the process, and then make at least 40% a month as I build up my account to that $25,000 goal for ultimate day-trading status. I probably have an advantage because I know I’m decent at keeping a routine and doing as much research as possible to figure out DIY projects. This should be a piece of cake, right?”

So young, so naive.

During my first year of trading, yes, I collected a lot of research and information about what top day traders do to maintain a consistent profit.

But I also held onto losses with such pugnacity that I kept losing money week after week.

I watched in horror as potential profits turned into losses when I held past a take profit target, thinking I could squeeze a little bit more out of the trade.

I tried out other people’s pre-made trading strategies, followed the rules for a week or two, but then gave up during the first string of losses, arrogantly telling myself, “They don’t know what they’re doing. This strategy is a dud.”

Name a trading mistake, and chances are that I’ve committed it.

I couldn’t see how much I was causing problems for myself by acting on fear, greed, and impatience.

With time and further education, I stopped holding onto losses.

I stopped trading with impulsive, made-on-the-spot plans.

A big game-changer for me was actually paying for courses instead of trying to gather an education piece-meal from free videos.

The information offered was often more organized, detailed, and reliable.

Despite how much my life became disheveled and upended by my invisible chronic and undiagnosed illness, there were some important changes in my personality that I could consider a silver lining and were of great use to my trading beliefs.

For one, this is the most focused I’ve ever felt – even before the pandemic, I was stuck at home and had to make do with what I had in my bedroom to find meaning and joy in life – I felt a strong intrinsic motivation to learn and create out of pure enjoyment and need for purpose. Second, as many of you who have suffered greatly in life know, sometimes hardships give you thicker skin and help you learn to recognize the difference between a real issue from an inconvenience.

My ability to put up with problems and seek to solve them skyrocketed. I felt more sure of myself, more confident, and less inclined to let others make decisions or think for me. Being dismissed with “I don’t know” by many doctors made me realize the limits of human thinking, no matter how well-educated a person is.

I also became obsessed with reading biographies and memoirs by those who suffered atrocities and somehow managed to find meaning and joy in life. Viktor Frankl (a psychotherapist who survived multiple of Hitler’s concentration camps, including Auschwitz), Eugenia Ginsberg (who survived multiple camps and prisons of Stalin’s Gulag), and Chris Gardner (who, with his son, went from homelessness to wealth by finding work on Wall Street during a time when black men and women weren’t very welcome in the industry) are a few that come to mind. Their stories taught me just how much maintaining a commitment to personal values, as well as sheer perseverance, can see a person through horrific experiences.

If you want to follow what I’m reading on a weekly basis and also receive tips and updates on responsible and reflective day trading, You can also subscribe to the Disciplined FX weekly newsletter by entering your e-mail in the sign-up box at the end of this post.

Ultimately, I realized that suffering an illness is something that connects me to the plight of humanity, instead of depriving me from participating in it.

And most important of all – listen carefully, as this is key to good trading and perhaps any great accomplishment in life – I stopped believing something or someone was going to come to save me. Not a doctor, not the government, not a charity, not a family member.

I took more responsibility in seeking solutions rather than dwelling on the problem.

As it turns out, there are many more options when taking the road of responsibility.

Changing external factors is a much more difficult (albeit often still necessary) step that should be taken after first creating a foundation within yourself.

Perhaps the most life-altering realization I had when my illness first spun out of control was this: There are some things that you and only you, alone, will have to face.

Even if someone was there to lie in bed and hold me while I lay perpetually awake and burning, they couldn’t get inside my brain and feel this with me.

At best, they could express empathy and try to understand, but if I was going to tackle and overcome this thing, I needed to be okay with being misunderstood, willing to do the work to carve out my own path back to health and be able to allow myself to feel a grab bag of emotions while being my own primary source of comfort.

When your life falls apart, you will fall back on your habits, however helpful or hurtful they may be, as well as whatever emotional management skills you’ve developed up until that point.

It was already in my habit to keep a calendar and planner, to journal, and to meditate. Commonplace as they seem, they’re a big part of what helped me stay organized as my life, my thoughts, and my body became disorganized and uncontrollable.

Organizational skills also make trading far less complicated than it needs to be.

It’s crucial to work on building beneficial habits long before you fall back on them during times of unusual stress.

This applies to trading habits, as well. To accomplish what I wanted to accomplish, I needed to become even more disciplined.

Combined with persistence, this is a key characteristic for surviving the learning curve of any endeavor, and all the more so with the Big Boss Dungeon of trading for profit – let alone the problems that come with human existence.

Disciplined FX, the business I’ve created to help others on this rewarding and challenging path, is so aptly named for this skill that leads all other skills.

Successful trading has far more to do with a strong mindset than a perfect combination of indicators and technical analysis tactics.

Sure enough, as I became more organized and ritualistic in my trading preparations, reviews, and tactics, I started to actually make money after being in Forex for a little more than a year.

I had posted some trading tips on Reddit forums and was personally asked by users to be their mentor. Creating a resource to help beginner and novice traders find a way to earn an income through day trading became my next logical step.

This year, I also started experimenting with prop trading and passed two challenges with the anticipation of managing a portfolio of two to four prop trading accounts.

I had to tweak some of the strategies and risk management I used prior to prop trading in order to meet the requirements of these challenges and funded accounts, but it’s been an alluring and fascinating process.

I wish I could give a better happy ending in regards to my health issues, but I’m still wrestling with what appears to be a hyperactive immune system and autonomic dysfunction. I will eagerly report, however, that I’m doing far better now than when I first started trading. Most of that progress came from keeping a whole-food, plant-based diet, and supplementing with vitamins and minerals for which I have a deficiency. I believe there is still a deeper root to these problems and my hunt is not over.

Just to get to this point took years of research, reviewing and contemplating on my medical test results, learning about functional medicine, experimenting with diets and supplements, and not giving up every time a doctor told me that I would probably never get better.

I hope to take some of the profits I’ve made from trading to afford intensive functional healthcare in order to make a lasting recovery. In this way, failing at trading is not an option – it is an important tool on my path to finally reclaim freedom, and now that I’ve come this far, I don’t want to give it up.

I don’t doubt that some of you have a similar drive for earning enough money to solve the biggest problems in your life.

I made Disciplined FX specifically with you in mind. I’m okay with letting go of the rabbi path – in some ways, I believe my proactive personality is a bit better suited to the grittier, high-risk problem-solving that comes with trading and running a business. There is something about independently trading and being an entrepreneur that feels like a true calling, in contrast to the ways in which I often felt like an imposter when I was called “Rabbi”.

These days, I’m not really sure I believe much in religion anymore, but I do like to keep a Zen meditation practice and continue to study Buddhist texts.

I think I avoided for-profit endeavors for a long time because I had a limited belief that only nonprofit and counseling-based work could meaningfully contribute to the world.

When I first started trading, I felt guilty for making money without giving much in return. I now realize that there are many ways people completely change their own lives with paid-for resources and services. “Doing good” isn’t restricted to the world of philanthropy. Incredible technology, services, and resources have increased the quality of life for so many people in this world.

Teaching people how to trade with success, especially anyone who wasn’t born into wealth, can tremendously help a life, too.

Successful traders also have the power to donate and further invest their earnings into organizations, businesses, and people who are better equipped to change the world for the better.

During my undergraduate orientation, I was required to read a wonderful collection of essays on social justice and change that’s titled The Impossible Will Take Awhile. I love that statement. Because often, the most life-altering changes can occur with time and persistence, even if they seem unattainable.

This is true for trading and achieving financial freedom, as well. If I could learn to make money trading Forex while sleep-deprived, with a head full of fog, and limited vision, then you can trust that you can make it, too, regardless (or with motivation from) the dire circumstances you’re in.

No matter where you are on your forex journey, I hope you can walk away from this story with a sense of determination and hope.

It’s possible to turn terrible situations into a springboard for transformation, achievement, and success.

Again, if you find yourself resonating with my story, be sure to subscribe so we can stay connected!

Also, if you are finding yourself struggling with challenges in life while you’re also learning to day trade, please let me know about your own stories by commenting below or sending an e-mail to [email protected]. I don’t doubt I’m alone in this. I’d love to help gather a community of traders who seek to profit from a responsible, honest, and compassionate sense of self.

I wish you all the best of strength and luck, and I’ll see you in the markets. Take care!

— Andrew Bloom

How I Became a Day Trader: Part 1

How I Became a Day Trader: Part 1 30

Get ready, folks, this is quite a bit of a story.

Speaking of stories, I think one of the most fascinating aspects of retail day trading are the stories people share about how they decided to start trading and what that early process was like. Such anecdotes help others understand that day trading is a skill that anyone can learn, so long as you put in the effort, patience, and persistence.

I want to give you a detailed background of who I am and the reason why I decided to learn how to day trade foreign exchange currencies.

If at any point my story resonates with you, feel free to comment!

The story I am sharing with you is adapted from the second chapter of the book I wrote called The Seven Habits of Successful Day Traders, which covers some of the key thoughts, behaviors, and routines profitable traders use to make trading systems. Contrary to the wise advice to only trade what you can afford to lose, I began trading out of sheer desperation for income and some sort of work I could easily do from home.

Let me explain.

The first time I ever traded a security was in 2015. It was through a recently released app targeted for young and new traders, like myself, who wanted a platform so simple that even Steve Jobs would approve.

Its name? Robinhood.

This was a fun and exciting hobby for me while I was going to graduate school and earning meager wages from a few part-time gigs.

During a hike in the woods where I was living in Philadelphia, I told a friend about my newly discovered interest in the stock market. He mentioned the trending hype around 3D printing as a viable option for a sector. So, I bought some shares from a developer of 3D printers. In a couple of weeks, out of sheer luck, I was up $5,000.

Woo hoo!

This began my hobbyist intrigue with stocks.

Now, I wasn’t attending any ol’ graduate school program. Of all the possibilities for a career, I was training to become a rabbi.

From rabbi to day trader?

Yes, a bit of a big pivot, but I didn’t exactly plan it that way.

I wanted to become a clergy person and help people navigate their experiences with Judaism. I am fascinated by and empathetic towards the exploration of religion and the wrestling with some of humanity’s most difficult reflective questions, like why do bad things happen to good people. My interest in and study of religion and philosophy didn’t only revolve around Judaism but also Buddhism and ethics.

During my college years, I went to a small Jewish university in the Los Angeles area while also attending regular group meditation sessions and lectures at a couple of different Zen centers around LA. I was drawn to Buddhism as a teenager because of its emphasis on alleviating suffering via a discipline of meditation, self-reflection, and conditioning of one’s heart to be respectful and compassionate towards others.

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been attracted to challenges that require strict, even stoic ways of thinking and being. I find this funny because my behavior and personality through my teenage years and early twenties were outright turbulent and impulsive.

A Zen teacher of mine once stated, “No one comes to Buddhism because their life is fine.”

Many people are seeking relief from the world or from themselves.

Buddhism’s tenets and practices can offer a kind of healing salve to the scars that come with life’s difficulties.

There were many scars and aspects of myself I wanted to mend and change. As a teenager lacking healthy coping skills while wrestling with severe depression, I turned to alcohol and drugs to numb myself. I was living a juggling act, as I was going to school and loving academia, but also routinely making choices that drew me closer and closer to trouble. In the morning, I could diligently work on a research paper as I hit my daily writing goals. Yet, at night, I would wind up in wild and risky situations like nearly inhaling a whole case of beer by myself, getting a homemade tattoo in some dude’s apartment, or taking a piss on Sunset Boulevard at four in the morning.

I was balancing between the pursuit of a successful future and outright self-annihilation.

Meditation helped me to finally develop a loving, wise voice in my head that could self-talk my way into better behavior and more compassionate thinking.

Zen Buddhism, in particular, is quite practical and can complement other religious practices without the dogma that most people fear of participating in religion. Between the support I received from my rabbis, teachers, friends, and the sangha (the group I meditated with), as well as the epiphanies that came with “waking up” to my own sense of responsibility I was able to get sober and completely change the trajectory of my life.

Nearing the time of graduation, I had three paths to choose from: the first was that I was accepted to a graduate program in Comparative Religion. The second was to spend few years meditating and working at a Zen Buddhist monastery. Or third, I could further my studies and pursue the path of becoming a rabbi.

In the end, I chose door number three while also maintaining a commitment to Zen Buddhist studies and practices. I invested all of my resources into this career choice and, at the advice of a professor, sought to spend at least a full calendar year living in Jerusalem to study halachic law. Living in Israel was both life-changing and very complicated. I made a group of friends who were more interested in having philosophical dinner conversations and playing fun board or party games than going to bars and clubs. Exploring the ancient cities and adapting to the culture cultivated a strong sense of adventure and curiosity within me. I found a new way to enjoy life, to process difficult emotions and fears, and to develop social skills without the help of liquid courage.

However, my stay in Jerusalem coincided with war and political turmoil, although this is not a rare occurrence for the region. It was very stressful and I started to have mixed feelings about the way Israel chooses to handle its own political and social issues. This experience forever changed my gratitude for having an American passport and the privilege of having citizenship in a relatively safe, free, and prosperous country, despite its own problems and need for change.

Afterward, I was accepted into a rabbinical school in the Philadelphia area and moved back to the States to continue my studies there. I was also pursuing a joint degree with another college to obtain a master’s in Nonprofit Management. At that point in 2015, I felt like I finally arrived into adulthood. However,  in my second year of studies, I started experiencing some alarming symptoms.

One fall evening, I woke up experiencing a hot flash. I didn’t think much of it. I just popped some Benedryl and promptly went back to bed.

Every consecutive night that followed for the next four years, however, would result in the same sensation of overheating and insomnia.

After the first few months, the flushing not only happened multiple times at night but also multiple times during the day. The insomnia was so bad that I began missing classes and the Torah classes I taught to a  cohort of senior citizens, as I needed to catch up on sleep during the day.

The flushing episodes then increased in frequency and duration of time. During the winter of that first year, I could walk out in the snow wearing only a t-shirt and shorts.

Something was seriously wrong.

I started seeing doctors and specialists, with nearly all my blood tests coming back normal. I tried to maintain my everyday existence as much as possible, but I knew my health was too out of control to manage it all.

The stressors increased: I wasn’t making enough money to cover my expenses, getting deeper in debt, my girlfriend and I broke up, leaving me with extra rent, and on top of all of that, I needed to go back to Israel to take classes over the summer to meet graduation requirements.

In the end, after starting to show signs of severe memory loss, I didn’t complete my studies in Israel. Instead, I returned to my native Southern California in an attempt to visit several doctors while staying at my mom’s house.

It would be years before I could tell whether I experienced deep sleep at night or not.

I’m sure you know that sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture – it was a living hell I couldn’t escape.

By then, I knew I needed to go on medical leave and get expert help. I tried to stay with some friends in Philadelphia if my condition improved so that I could continue my studies afterward but by the new year, nothing had changed. I decided to move back in with my family in California. I saw more doctors and specialists, I participated in an undiagnosed patient program with a top hospital in Los Angeles. When these endeavors failed, I met with nutritionists and functional medicine doctors.

While we found tweaks to abate some of my symptoms, my body and mind were still a wreck and there was no final diagnosis apart from a vague case of “Autonomic Dysfunction”.

After years of no sleep, I lost my ability to drive, as I couldn’t properly focus on the road, and my sight declined – I was stuck in constant tunnel vision with minimal to no peripheral vision, experiencing terrible fatigue, and suffering short-term memory loss.

I was even contacted for that one particular Netflix show about undiagnosed cases but it never went past a second interview. By then, however, I learned not to be bothered by disappointment.

Now, who here in their 20’s has managed to save a multi-years worth emergency fund just in case your health surprisingly falls apart and you’re unable to work? No hands? Not one?

There are certain circumstances that you cannot prepare for, no matter what kind of diligence you take.

This chronic health issue became my personal Black Swan event, one of those experiences that are unforeseeable, rare, and capable of completely redefining what “normal” looks like.

Because I didn’t have a proper diagnosis, a claim for disability seemed unlikely. My illness is invisible: I look like a healthy guy on the outside. But on the inside, I live in a constant cloud of confusion and fatigue.

Because of my unusual sleep patterns and brain fog, I knew I couldn’t be trusted to maintain a job, even if I worked from home. Whatever I could do for income had to be done in my own time and under my own decision-making power.

Some of you may be familiar with being stuck in survival mode.

It felt like I was making “last resort” decisions left and right.

In order to avoid having to make payments on my student loan debt, I was able to continue and graduate with my MS in Nonprofit Management since the courses were offered online.

After that, I was accepted into a Ph.D. program in Business, since my credentials in nonprofit management qualified me for the position. This gave me some confidence and something to focus on besides my health. I wanted at least one thing to feel like it was going right in my life. I love academia and I am passionate about research and writing. However, I still needed to find ways to pay for my medical bills and living expenses.

That’s when I discovered the world of retail day trading.

Continue with Part 2

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