Trading Education: "Are You Making Good Decisions?"

So trading is all about decisions. And there are a few decisions that traders make sometimes without realizing it. But it's really important for you to consciously take a look at these decisions that you're making and see if you might want to change, you know, the decision that you are making that, you know, the choice that you're making here. And here's what I'm talking about. I was on an interview the other day and I talked with a guy and he was saying, you know, hey, you know, if you're making 10% a year, that's great. And he and I got to going back and forth about the money of trading and the numbers of trading and what you can realistically expect from it. And so I really try to stress to people, it's like, okay, if you're starting too small and you're working with your own capital, and it's going to take you five years to get where you want to be with your trading. Understand, this is not a passive activity where you just put in. You just put your money in it. And it, you know, it's like, you know, a savings account or other investment where it's a passive means of, you know, making money. This is an active one. And so you really do need to take a hard look at your opportunity cost with trading. If it's not producing very nicely for you. Here's what I'm talking about. And this is just being smart with your life. If your trading is only producing, let's say it's not producing, you're not making money with it, okay, how long are you going to work for free before you say, gosh, I'd be better if I'm. If my goal is to make money, I'd be better off mowing lawns where I can make 20 bucks an hour, or even working down at a restaurant where I can make 12 or 15 bucks an hour. Because all this time that I'm putting into trading, it isn't producing and it's not getting really. It's not getting me where I want to go. I mean, because again, it's an active activity. And so you do really need to. And valuing yourself, you need to look at, you know, how much is your time worth is the time that you're investing? Is it really, is it smart for you to be investing it the way you're investing it as far as what it's producing and what it could potentially produce? I mean, here's the thing. Let's say your trading is producing 25% a year, which to me is terrible, but some people think it's good and that's fine. But. Okay, and you're starting with a $10,000 account. Okay. So that means you're going to produce 25% on your returns. Cool. But wait a minute. You're having to work to earn this 25%. And so you're making $2,500 a year, $200 a month. And so is the time that you're putting in worth it? Well, if you're putting in, you know, let's say five hours a week, that's 20 hours a month. And you're making $200, that means you're making $10 an hour. Is all this effort really worth that? Again, you're only making 10 bucks an hour. At this rate, you'd be better off. Yeah, just, I mean, setting up a hot dog stand where you make 300 bucks a day. So again, just take a look at the way you're looking at your trading from a business perspective, from a time investment perspective, because this is an activity, this is something that you're having, you have to put your time into. And this again, this is not something where you're just handing it off, where you're buying a stock and you're getting divide, you don't have to do anything. This is one where you're putting your time in. And so you really for your life. Because you don't want to go 5 years working for less than minimum wage. I mean, heck, if you regular, you know, your regular job, you're making, you know, 15, 20, 30, $50 an hour. Do you really want to be investing all this time, all this part of your life? Because time is your life in trading the way you're going about it, or at the very least, do you want to compress that time so that you can get it to where it is satisfactorily producing? Because you don't necessarily have to go the long and difficult path. I mean, if you think about it, you know, let's presume you have a college education. Okay. When you were, you know, say you got out of high school, you said, well, I can either go into the workforce and you know, at an entry level position, or I can go Invest, you know, four years of my life and 50 to $100,000 and, and put myself in a position where I'm going to be earning a lot more that will pay me for the rest of my life. Okay, cool. And if it works out that way, great, then it was a great decision. Because the you after the degree is capable of earning much more than an entry level position. Cool. Well, trading if, and this is how a lot of traders go into it, they go into it saying, well, I'll just figure it out as I go watch some YouTube videos and buy a couple of books. And instead of investing in education, they're letting it take years where it really shouldn't for you to get up to where you're, you're, you know, you're at least reasonably profitable. It shouldn't take more than a year. This is not that difficult of an occupation. It's not that involved. It doesn't require a four year degree to get this. It doesn't. And so the main thing is do you want to shorten your time and get to that higher earning you faster? And so you, what you're going to, you know, you're going to pay for that education one way or the other. You're going to pay for it in all the hours that you put in at your rate or you can invest in some training and get there much, much, much faster and get to that point where yes, now you're making several thousand dollars a month, which is what you want to get to. You don't want to wait years for that. So anyway, like I said, these are decisions that you're making on a daily basis though, because if all you're doing is you're going about your trading and you're not making money at it, or you're not making satisfactory money, but you're not really pursuing the growth and the education and the training that you need to advance that, then you might want to say, you might want to rethink that decision and say, well, that's the decision that I've been making every day up until now. But I really do want to shorten my, you know, my learning curve. I want to compress that time from, from where I'm at now to where I'm making satisfactory money. Because you are investing the time and you're going to pay for it one way or the other. I mean you are paying for it because you're investing your time, you're investing your capital in the trading. You might as well invest in yourself, up your game to where, yes, now you're getting paid the way you should and the way you want to be paid. Okay. I mean it's really, it's just common. It's not common sense, it's business sense. And looking at your life realistically, how long do you want this to take? Do you want to shorten the term? You Know your learning curve. Do you want to compress that time to get where you want to be? Now understand, I'm not saying to go out and just start chasing, you know, buying strategies. You need a good strategy, that's true. But you need to focus on yourself because you're the most important part of your trading and your trading system. So you need to make sure that you're, you're upping your game, your skills, your capabilities, your understandings and your abilities as a trader so that you are, you can do what you need to do. You need to become that trader. You're only going to get there by training. You're not going to get there by buying stuff like indicators and the computers and nice big, you know, multi monitor setups and all that kind of stuff. Those are tools and cool. They, they can be helpful of. But you're the most important part of your training. So do you want to invest in yourself and get where you want to be? Okay, I know we got a little bit long winded here, but this is an important matter. This is, you don't want to get, you know, you don't want to get to the end of another year and look back on it and say, you know, damn, it's just, you know, kind of wasted. All that time, it just kind of slipped in my hands and I'm not really any further along or I'm still not where I want to be and I'm not, you know, where I want to be is still kind of on that distant horizon. Or do you want to get to the end of the year and say, yeah man, I'm happy now. I'm glad that I changed my decisions because it put me on a different path. So really just kind of decide where you want to be. What does your trading look like when it's working the way you want it to? How much time are you putting in every week and how much are you making from it? And you can get there faster than you think if you just go about it in a smart manner and get the help that you need. If you go about it on your own, it's going to take a long time and you're going to, you're going to pay for it anyway. So you might as well shorten the time and get there faster and get there with better certainty as well. A lot of traders unfortunately will trade for years. They're walking away empty handed because they never realized the, you know, the potential for this. And they wind up quitting because they just never got it. And that sucks. You don't want to just walk away from trading after, you know, five or 10 years of investing all your time and a lot of money, only to walk away with personal life lessons. You're in this because you want it to be generating wealth for you and earning income and be a financial asset. So anyway, if you'd like to talk about your situation, if you'd like to understand the numbers of your trading better, if you want to again up your game and acquire the skills that you need, that's why I offer courses, that's why I coach people. And one of the nice things is with the new course that I'm launching here, soon, one of the bonuses is going to be thinking through the business side of trading and generating your actual business plan for your trading. And so you can see how the numbers work out. And we're going to do that. And it doesn't take long, but it's one of the cool bonuses and it is huge as far as giving you that peace of mind that, yes, you're making the right decisions for yourself, you are taking your trading and your life in the right direction. So anyway, what you want to do is swing by Inside Out Trading and book a call with me or at least go ahead and grab one of the free resource resources that I have and, you know, get started on a different path, take some action and put you on a different path, a better path than you're on if you're not happy with where you are. So, Anyway, it's Brian McAvoy. I hope this was helpful. If it has, give me a like and a subscribe down below. Share this with your friends. We'll talk to you soon. Cheers. So do you sometimes struggle with inconsistent results from your trading? You know, a little too much variability in what you're getting, as far as, you know, winners and losers. If you'd like some help with your consistency, that's my area of expertise. I used to be a quality assurance manager and quality is all about getting consistent results, predictable, reliable results. So if you'd like my help with your trading, swing by insideouttrading.com schedule a call with me, we'll get on, we'll talk about your situation, see if I can help you improve the consistency of your trading results. Talk to you soon.