A short interview excerpt in which Adrian Reid advises people considering leaving corporate jobs to become traders. Reid recounts a personal turning-point moment (building confidence after two-and-a-half years of systematic trading when his account grew from $7.5k to $34k) and argues that the pivotal moment to quit is when you have confidence and evidence your approach works, not the act of handing in a resignation.
For someone who was either in that moment now where they're thinking about, should I start trading, or maybe even some traders now who are thinking about, I've got this corporate job which I don't enjoy anymore, and I want to go to trading. What kind of advice would you give those people? What do they need to consider?
There's a story I want to share which I think would be helpful. I've been trading for a while at this point. Probably about two and a half years, I'd say, after I kind of flipped the switch and went systematic. And I was on the bus on the way into the city super early one morning. I was doing my analysis, And I had $34,000 in my account. And I started with seven and a half. And I was like, had this realization of, oh, my God, it's working. I'm gonna. I'm gonna make it. And what was great about that moment is I felt free. I knew I had an approach that worked for me and I had evidence to support. I knew at that point that I was going to get there. What I'd love for people to do is look for the. Look for that confidence as a first step. Most people look to handing the boss the resignation letter and doing the, you know, flipping the burden on the way out as the pivotal moment. It's not. The pivotal moment is when you know that you're going to get there. And the sooner you can get to that, the freer you are and the better your trade.
