Sam wrong question I reckon. Its about what opportunity and path you can see.
For 10 years after I left school I was in the food industry. I started as a dishwasher/onion cutter/gopher and with a bit of luck and a lot of promises and enthusiasm I was part owner in the same place a few months later (it was a tiny broke sh!thole in the country). From there I spent 2 and a bit years working 7 days a week 14 hours every day for close to no money. Really it was more like slavery than a business owner on his way to great wealth. But it didn't matter. I could see a path to something much bigger in the future and as naive as I was and as tired as I was every morning at 4 am when the alarm went off I got up at hit the day with all I had because the opportunity I could see fills you with energy.
After that 2 and a bit years I sold the place and pretty much the next day moved to the big smoke and started to set up something much bigger, again with not much more than promises and enthusiasm. There was some massive obstacles to get started and then keep going but again it was the opportunities I could see that enabled me to keep going through the crap and make it work somehow. It worked after another few years I had a business that was shipping food all over the country and employed more than 30 staff. As it turned out the opportunities were greater than what I could see at the start. Probably too big for me. It turned out that I wasn't invincible and it blew up after 4 years and left me in a deep hole. After a bit of down time and rest I could again see what was my way out so started again. Long story short after a few years and a lot of build it - flip it I was back well above water but something funny happened.
As I went from day to day talking to customers and suppliers as I had for the previous 8-10 years I realised I could no longer see expanding opportunity. I was sitting in my office thinking where is this going to go? I realised nowhere! I was fighting just to stay above water. The landscape and my view of it had changed - dramatically!! That day I decided to get out completely.
That lead me to trading. And it was the same thing. I could see that there were great, no massive opportunities. The more I look the greater they seemed. That has kept me going for the last 10 years as a trader, stuck in his own little room in his house day in day out fighting the drawdowns and bad days/weeks/months. That sh!tty sick feeling as you put on the next trade that you don't want to but know you have to. Kept me fighting the bad moods at the end of the day after being shown by the market how dumb ar$e I am.... again. Fighting the nervousness of having a good month then stepping up size knowing that a bad week could give that good month straight back. The struggle of having to change markets and styles as movement and opportunity that matches slip away. The 10 years of "embracing uncertainty" has asked for a big price to be paid. But each day the screens get turned on with enthusiasm because I can just see a path that has great opportunity...... still!
The day I don't see it I know will be the day I walk away and get a "real job" and I know I won't look back because there is too much out there to waste time on something that doesn't reward you in some way.
So on to that bit about reward. I reckon most things that people excel at should start out as a hobby. Move to a investigation into the possibilities then if positive a full on assault into a quest for mastery. Once you start the last stage there is no question about "how is that working for others". It has already sucked you in and has hold of you. You can already see the path.
There is nothing wrong with having trading as a hobby for a long long time while you figure out your path. After all I think 99% of the people here are in that category. It is a problem though if its an excuse for not going out in the real world and searching for other more rewarding opportunities.
At some point though the "having another go at it" becomes more a stop loss move just so it doesn't get hit rather than a show of determination or a fight against bad luck.
You cannot walk down a path you cannot see.
Amazing post TH
and good point.
Was thinking as I was reading your post though, because of the potential opportunities and lifestyle that trading can offer, couldn't anyone see themselves going down that path?(who couldn't imagine themselves doing trading profitably as their "job"? I mean you could potentially trade from a balcony in Santorini overlooking the ocean, who wouldn't want that or couldn't see themselves doing that after discovering/investigating trading and realising there are people out there who are successful at this?)
Ever since I have known about trading, since pre-GFC I have wanted to do it, the limitless potential and the lifestyle is super appealing.....IF....you can perfect it, I have grown up on computers and always said to myself when I was a teenager that I'd love to make a living from the computer, something online, or whatever, then I discovered trading and thought you beaut and away it went...
It's hard to see what my path is, I have imagined myself travelling the world and waking up in some nice place and getting up early and checking on the markets and my positions, all fantasy in my head of what could be you know as we all do I guess, but it's hard to know sometimes. I guess you could say I have maybe better skills/talents in other areas that are nothing to do with trading but aren't necessarily things that I can see myself making a quid from or having as a career, whether that be true of false I don't know, which brings me onto another thing, you hear/read all the time about find what you love to do and focus on that, become an expert and the career/money will come. Did you do all those things because you loved it and wanted to or did you see the opportunity and potential in them and that's what gave you the driving force to pursue it?
It almost MAKES it so you like it if the reward is great enough at the end, my grandfather used to always be one to believe in doing what no one else wanted to do, because people will be willing to pay for it which will then MAKE you like it, if that makes sense. You pursue something because of the potential it has, you know even cleaning toilets would be worth it if you were on huge money because no one else was doing it?
Great to read some of your story though, always wondered how things went for you.
As I said above I have imagined myself as a trader many a time, and there are other times when I get down in the dumps about it all and wonder if it's really at all possible and start pursuing other areas in my life but it always seems to come back to trading, or at least having my own business of some kind.
I often think to myself that it's also a toss up of bang for buck as far as time invested, if I was to pursue something else, or look into starting my own business in some area, it would be another 5-10 years before I was what you could call an "expert" in that area I guess and really start getting ahead(assuming I did things right), so I wonder then too if I put another 5-10 years and focus on being a great successful trader/investor the rewards for doing trading/investing surely would be far greater because of the potential it has. The profits one can make from this outweighs most things(which is why it's hard to pursue something else and why it always comes back to "I really should nail trading, I owe it to myself with the effort from the time I've already put in and it trumps everything else".
Your post is definitely making me think, thanks again mate
I'll shut up now