I was introduced to Forex trading back in 2005, and it took a LONG time before I truly understood what I was doing.
Many years later, I settled on a trading approach that worked well enough to pay the bills.
That was when I thought I had “made it”.
But as I continued along my trading journey, I came to realize that I’d painted myself into a corner. Since I was paying the bills with my profits, I literally could not afford to take a break from trading.
Every time the market rallied or dipped 20 pips, I had to be ready to jump into a trade. I was stuck to the computer for hours on end, and had to skip more than a few meals to manage my trades or to keep a lookout for new profit opportunities.
I ended up becoming very high-strung, my personal relationships suffered, and my health deteriorated… I even developed a stomach ulcer before turning 30.
Before I knew it, I had become a slave to the market.
Trading Became Just Another Job
Technically, I didn’t have a boss to answer to. But there was no doubt that the market was calling the shots in my life.
How I felt, when I ate, when I could go to sleep… was all determined by the market.
I had practically no control over my lifestyle.
And one day it hit me…
I had signed up for just another job.
Employees Exchange Their Time For Money
I thought that being a trader meant that I could make money without getting a job. But with the way I was trading, it was no different than having one.
In fact, it was worse. With a job at least, you get a guaranteed paycheck plus sick/vacation days off.
With trading, getting sick means I don’t get paid. And if I go on vacation, I don’t make money.
This made me realize that my approach to trading was flawed.
I wasn’t just trading currencies… I was trading my time for money.
Something had to change.
Entrepreneurs Exchange Leveraged Value For Money
The paradigm shift came when I started thinking like an entrepreneur rather than an employee.
Instead of thinking, “how I do I make an income trading for myself?”, I started thinking, “how do grow my income by providing (trading) value to others?”
This was the mindset shift that enabled me to decouple my income from the time I spend on trading.
Now, instead of trading 10 hours a day with my own capital, I can spend a fraction of that time trading AND have others to copy my trades for a performance fee.
Rather than having to attain, for example, a 4% monthly return on my own capital, I can make the same amount of money (or more) with a 2% return, and with people copying my trades.
Trading Value Can Be Leveraged; Time Cannot
There’s a hard limit to the amount of time and effort I can spend on trading each day.
If I wanted to raise my income trading for just myself, I’d have to increase my capital and/or my returns. The latter is especially difficult to do.
In multiplying the value I provide to trade followers however, I can grow my income to a level far surpassing that of trading just for myself – It is far easier to increase the number of trade followers by 10% than to increase the average monthly return by 1%.
To increase your trading income, starting thinking like an entrepreneur
Paradoxically, my income shot up when I stopped focusing on myself (like an employee) and started focusing on providing value to others (like an entrepreneur).
If you can trade profitably, it makes much more sense to provide a valuable service to others, than to just trade for yourself.
It took me a long time to realize this. Don’t make the same mistake I did.
we shouldn’t seeking clues and advantages in complexity. we should strive to adopt simple trading systems and have a better chance of remaining robust and profitable, and become one of the minority winners
this what my mentor telling me
thanks
chai
I believe you have it right Chris.
hi
I find this so far extremely useful I hope it will help me to be consistently good in trading and in effort to make forex trading my longterm business
with respect Danica Vuksanovic
Dear Chris Lee
Your blog post is wonderful.I fully agree with you that type of trading at the cost of our health,time,relations and peace of mind is totally useless.