Start Where You Are, With What You Have

A few years ago, when I was first beginning my journey into day trading, I saw this movie titled, “The Pursuit of Happiness”.  I am sure most of us have seen or heard of that movie so I won’t spend much time talking about it but just for reference I will give a brief synopsis.  This was the story of Chris Gardner, a man whose wife lost faith in him and his vision and left. A man who refused to have his son grow up fatherless the way he did.  A man who became homeless, and eventually took a job as an intern at a prestigious brokerage firm that unfortunately paid no money, and more importantly, no guarantee for a job at the end. But he didn’t look at what he was starting with, he was looking at what he could end up with.  He knew he would be homeless through this transitional phase in his life.  He knew that he would have to struggle to provide for his son during this time, but he believed in something bigger than what he had in his reality at the time.  He believed in himself and his potential to be great.  He was determined to make the best of this opportunity he was given.  He gave 120%.  Even though he didn't have any money, no home for his son, he was one of the first people in the office in the morning and one of the last one to leave. The company goal was to make 100 calls a day but his personal goal was to make 200.  He refused to be outworked.

This movie was the beginning of my inspiration to make a better life for myself and my family.  The beginning of my inspiration to pursue my happiness, because I knew if I achieved that, my family would receive countless benefits of my suffering and hard work.  But, there was a piece of the puzzle missing.  I tried to get things in place but it seemed like for every step I made forward, I made two or three steps back.  Every time I would come up with the same excuses: “If I just had a little more capital”; “If I just had more time to work on trading, “If I just could afford the right tools”.  “If I just had the right opportunity”. You know the list!

Fast forward a couple of years and my wife attended a conference in which Chris Gardner was the keynote speaker.  My wife knew how inspired I was by the movie and promptly bought both of his books.  One obviously was The Pursuit of Happiness, but the other was, Start Where You Are: Life Lessons in Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be.  I’d have to say that was the book that nullified any excuse I ever had as I was trying to build a career in trading.  The speech he gave that day was really meant for me, but my wife received it in proxy and I am so thankful that she did.

So, now to the core of my message.  You all know by now I made a conscious decision to start with $1500 at the beginning of January with the goal of demonstrating how you can grow your account safely and consistently if you employ the right process.  My process is what brought me from $1500 that I had to start with to over 235k. You can check out my first interview here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5mQ3Q7p_ew&t=798s  .  The updated story to $196k you can find here:  http://bit.ly/2a1JA6A  It all started from reading this book, Start Where You Are: Life Lessons in Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be, by Chris Gardner.  As I mentioned before I had every excuse as to why I could not be successful.  But, after reading this book, thankfully I realized that none of those excuses held water.  They were just BS stories I was telling myself as to why I couldn’t be successful.

 

So, just as in 2017, In 2018 my message is start where you are, with what you have.  If you sit around and wait for the perfect moment in time, I can promise you that it will never come.  If everyone did that, we would not be where we are today as a human race.  I remember hearing a very prominent motivation speaker say that the richest places on earth are the graveyards, because in there lies most of the earths untapped potential.  Buried there are inventions that we will never have a chance to experience because someone was waiting for the perfect opportunity to take a chance.  Buried there are some of the world’s greatest minds who never shared it with the world because instead of creating an opportunity to share it, they were waiting on an opportunity to share it.  If these people had started where they were, with what they had, there is no telling where we would be as a people right now.

Start where you are with what you have.  Don’t focus on what you don’t have to start out 2018, focus on what you do have.  Don’t focus on your lack of resources, but on your resourcefulness.  The truth is our resources are limited but our resourcefulness is limitless! When I learned, and accepted this fact, I became a better person, a better trader, a better father, a better husband.  Everything that was once an obstacle in my trading became a potential gain.  I started looking at what I could do with what I did have, and maximize my potential with it.  This is what I challenge you to do in 2018:

       >  Believe in yourself!

       >  Change your limiting mindset. 
 >    >  Start where you are with what you have! 

       >  Stop thinking about what you don’t have, but what you can do with what you do have. 

Let’s make 2018 phenomenal!

Can Learning Chess Improve Your Trading Skills?

The simple answer, yes it can!  One very important trait they both have in common is that once you make a move, you cannot predict the outcome of that move.  In chess, you can make your move, and have your next move planned, or even the next several moves planned, but you do not know how your opponent will react.  In trading, we make our move, we have our subsequent moves planned, but we do not know how the market will react. 

Day traders are always looking for ways to hone and sharpen their mental skills.  On the surface chess, may seem like a game that would not have any relevance to day trading, but it is actually a strategic game that can hone your decision-making skills and strengthen your mental game.  This can lead to more consistent profits from your trading.  In this blog, I will explore several reasons why I believe that the game of chess can be a big asset to day traders.

First and foremost, chess helps you improve your decision-making processes.  A solid chess player is analytical, and understands that with each of his moves, he will need to simultaneously reassess his position on the board, so he can take advantage of the opportunities that presents itself.  Each move will present the player with new data that he uses to determine his next move. Successful day traders are no different from this. Day trading, like chess, requires that you are steps ahead of your opponent, which in this case is the market.  They analyze each decision that they make in the market.  When a day trader is planning his trade, he is thinking about what his next move will be based on how he is predicting the way the market will react.  In both instances, you are planning an initial move, then planning subsequent moves based on a strategy and the predicted reaction from your opponent. While it is impossible to be right all the time, making decisions with the future in mind helps day traders plan to make decisions on trades when the market is behaving as predicted.

Secondly, and this could be considered a spinoff of the first, is that chess helps day traders adapt to the uncertainty in the market.  In chess, you learn to accept the fact that despite having a 50 percent chance of being right, that other 50 percent can creep up and hurt a perfect play setup.  Now in day trading, we are searching for strategies that will give us better odds, which are closer to 70-30.  But, chess helps teach us we cannot control our opponents moves, but we can develop the skill to react accordingly.  This is a very important skill for day traders.  We need to handle and react to that 30 percent uncertainty that is inherent on our trading.  A day trader, like a chess player, needs to be able to handle these losses without losing focus on the game.

Chess skills emphasize strategic intelligence. Good chess players will constantly search for their own weaknesses in their decision making and chess moves; therefore, it makes them a good chess player. As a good and consistent day trader, you need to constantly look for where your strategy or trading ideas may be weak and find ways to strengthen.

Lastly, chess teaches you the importance of the end game.  Playing chess can also help you develop the focus you need as a day trader. It takes tremendous focus to win chess games because it is not just each move you make but the entire process of analyzing the board for potential moves. Day trading is very similar. It’s not just about trading the stocks, but learning to value each step in the process of making the trade.  With each trade a series of decisions must be made. To make sure you make these decisions efficiently and effectively, you must focus on the end of the trade, your strategical final objective of the trade. Traders who are skilled in strategy games like chess develop these strong focusing skills needed to be successful day traders. They learn to stay in the game and look at it through to the end, not just individual chess pieces. They focus on how their opponent is playing as well as themselves. In trading, your opponent is the market, and staying focused on the market allows you to better navigate and make decisions within it.

So, as you can see, a trader who plays chess correctly, can bring these skills to their trading.  Not only can chess can improve a day trader's decision making and critical thinking skills, it can also help with managing the emotions inherent to trading.