When you become a trader, you become your own boss. Now for entrepreneurs or those of you with a natural entrepreneurial spirit, this will not be a major adjustment. For those of you who have been employed by someone else for most of your adult life—I won’t kid you—that first step is a lulu.
Traders live in the results economy, which is to say that we get paid not for time spent doing something but for results and results only. Believe me when I tell you that the market does not care one bit that you or I spent six months or a year learning how to trade, or that we spent the better part of an evening analyzing charts or news and fundamentals or that you got up at 2 A.M. to trade Europe. Notice I didn’t say “we” in that last sentence, because I just don’t get up at those silly hours of the morning. Not being rewarded for effort and time is difficult for many new traders, and the lack of return for the hours can be very frustrating for the unprepared. So here I am—preparing you. This is a particularly tough habit for people with the employee mindset to overcome because time spent doing something is the measuring stick they are familiar with. If that isn’t enough, there are other considerations, too.
It’s not my objective to make trading sound simple and easy, because it’s not. It’s not because the skill is particularly difficult, but rather that we humans love to complicate everything. There are challenges to trading just as in any other skill you are trying to acquire. I mean really, who here plays golf? Could anything be harder or more painful with the exception of childbirth? If you don’t practice what I am going to teach you or think you are going to buy a piece of software that tells you what to do, then seriously, please give this book to someone who is going to use it.
All I am telling you is what I have learned the hard way. A smart person learns from her own mistakes. A wise person learns from the mistakes of others.
