How to Be a Better Trader: Blind Spot Series #4

Hi, Brian MacAvoy here with Inside Out Trading. And again, today, we're talking about blind spots. Today's blind spot we're going to be talking about is one that really affects almost everybody that gets into trading. And it's a little trap that trips everybody up, and almost everybody has to learn it the hard way. Before we get started, make sure that you subscribe to this channel, and if you're on YouTube, make sure you go ahead and click the notification bell. Okay, so with today's blind spot, what are we talking about? Well, we're talking about the simplicity or. Excuse me, the apparent simplicity of trading. Most people get into trading are above average, intelligence wise. Generally, you know, you're above average in a lot of regards. Intelligence, that's a common thing, been known for a long time. You're probably above average in income. Most traders are. You're well above the poverty line. You're certainly not at average. You're probably a fairly successful person. Not that everything's worked out for you in life. Maybe it has. But generally speaking, you're probably a fairly successful person. Most things that you've pursued, you've been able to make it work. So you're an accomplished person. That's really cool. And these things are true. How can I say this? Well, you wouldn't be in a position to trade if they weren't true. And that's really cool. Now, part of the curse of that, though, being above average. When you look at something like trading, it can appear so simple. And because you're smarter than average, you look at it and you're like, I get it. That looks pretty cool. I can do that. And so it's really, really easy to get sucked into it thinking that, oh, I get it. You know. Yeah, all I really need is a good system and, you know, a way to stick to it. And yeah, man, I can just. I'm already envisioning, you know, the dollars rolling into and all this kind of stuff. And it's really easy for it to happen to somebody that's above average because you look at it, you get it. It's like, okay, yeah, just find a good system. Or you hear this pitch and, wow, that really makes a lot of sense. And you grab the system and bam, okay, I'm set for life. And again, it's the apparent simplicity that creates the blind spot. The truth of the matter behind the blind spot, what it's really easy for a lot of people to miss is trading is not that simple. That's like saying, I'm gonna go down to Vegas. I picked up this system on the Internet, you know, watching a YouTube video and you know, I'm gonna go down there and make a million dollars this weekend down in Vegas. Not that easy. The thing is, you know, of course I can use that example. I mean, trading does involve speculation, you know, dealing with odds and unknown, that kind of stuff. It's applicable. But the thing is with trading, you know, you're in business, you're self employed, it's just you in the markets. And it is a skill based profession. It's simple on the surface, understanding how it works. But getting into it and being able to do this, buy and sell securities in a dynamic environment with lots of inputs and variables and do it over and over and over again, hundreds or thousands of times over months or years, no, it's not that simple. And the thing is, again, this is a skill based business, first of all, and we talked about this in one of the other videos, you're the investor in your business. So that requires a skill set in and of itself. How do you even choose trading? And okay, now that you have, from a business investor standpoint, there's a skill set that goes with approaching that successfully. Once you get into trading and you say, all right, I'm going to make the decision, I'm going to put my money over here and I'm going to set up a trading investment firm of my own. Okay, now you're talking about starting up a business. There are tons of variables, things that you have to choose in getting into trading. What are you going to trade, how often are you going to trade? Wherever. There's a whole slew of questions that you have to work through because there's like a jillion different ways to trade. Your involvement can be everything from just putting your money into an investor account and somebody else trades it for you and you just check your account balance once a month to, you know, you can be trading almost round the clock with Forex and just live trading, you know, staring at charts 16 hours a day and anything in between. So you got 100 different ways you can be involved in it. And then of course you know all the different variables to it. So just like most any other business, I mean, you know, a lot of people like to think that this is unique to trading. It's true with a lot of other businesses. You know, even if you just, you know, you say, I want to get into the food industry, okay, that means everything from a lemonade stand to frozen food market or frozen food factory to ice cream or a restaurant and say even if you narrow it down a restaurant, there's like 50 different kinds of restaurants. So there's always a ton of variables that go into how you're going to go about the business. And with every business there's loads of ways to do it. Wrong. Wrong for you or right for somebody else, but wrong for you. And there's tons of ways to lose money. So being profitable when you're entering into a new business, especially if you've never run a business before, takes a skill set to organize, plan and execute that plan and actually start up a successful business. So okay, what are the other skill sets that you need? Well, other trading psychologists where they've written the book and everybody's thinking, oh, I got all these psychological issues and understanding this psychology of trading, it's not that difficult. Most traders, you don't have psychological issues, you don't have discipline issues, you don't have some deep seated mommy daddy issues. You have lack of training issues. You're trying to do a job that you're not prepared for. That's why it's so freaking tough. That's why your results aren't that good. That's why it's so stressful, that's why it's almost impossible for it not to be emotional. You're trying to do a tough job and you haven't been properly prepared. So again, see past the blind spot. Time to seek out training. The more trained up you get, the more skills you acquire, the more you broaden your understanding, the easier it'll be and it'll just naturally you'll calm down because as you become better and more skilled, you'll more easily meet the challenges of being a self directed trader. Okay, that's one of my favorite rants. I hopefully again, I hope this has been helpful. If you found it helpful and you think others would as well, you know, share it on your social media channels. If you haven't already, go ahead and subscribe and you know, hit the like down below. We'll see you in the next video. Again, it's Brian with Inside Out Trading. We'll talk to you soon. Cheers.