Was 2018 A Great Year for You?
|No, 2018 is not a typo in the title. For a moment, imagine this… It is right now, exactly this time next year (Jan 2019) and you just lived the best year of your entire life. Why was it the best year of your life? What did you do? What made it so special? Why was it the happiest year of your life? Try and really answer these questions and do your best to make sure 2018 is exactly that. Life is short, what are you waiting for?
My guess is, your amazing year probably didn’t have much to do with money, though some of the special things you did required it. Let’s look at life in a snapshot… The youngest ages, until 18ish, are spent in school learning. Then, most people work from their early 20s until around the retirement age of 65. It’s only then that we are supposed to retire and start enjoying life. Does that make any sense? Who wants that life?
Most people spend a significant amount of the short life that we all have focused on working and making money. Of course, money is the key to a life of choices and freedom of time to do what matters most to us. Freedom of choice and time is exactly why I chose trading/investing for a career early on and why I am committed to spreading the truth about money, markets and financial freedom. What I have found in my many years of travelling the world and meeting people from many different cultures is that people, in general, are really not all that different. People from any walk of life simply want to love and be loved, be happy and laugh, and feel safe and secure. If you have achieved this, congrats and I hope you’re thankful for it every day like I am. If not, let’s see what we can do to get you there…
Along with managing money, I have been in the trading and investing education world for many years. This has allowed me to watch traders grow and students try to achieve goals at different levels and reach different levels of success, and failure in life. I have often wondered and speculated on the difference between those who achieve success and those who fail. For me, the answer lies in the proper definition of success when it comes to trading, investing or any occupation for that matter.
Let me explain a scenario that I have experienced so many times with individuals going through trading and investing education. There was a gentleman back in 1999 who I met at a seminar. He walked up to me before it started and introduced himself. He had been reading my daily trading advisory letters and was very excited to meet the face behind the letter and take the seminar that I was giving. He explained that he had a family and that trading and proper investing was going to be “IT” for him. He wanted to make lots of money from trading and do it for a career.
After the seminar, he thanked me and could not wait to get home and get started on his quest for “IT”. A couple weeks after the seminar he sent me an email and said he was doing well but, he said, “Sam, if I could only manage my risk better and according to plan, I would really make “IT”. Time went by and I contacted him months later and asked him if he made “IT”? He said, “Yes.” I said, “How is IT?” He said “IT” was good. He then said that if he adjusted his rules a bit and added a moving average for a trail stop, he could hold on for larger gains and really make “IT”! More than a year went by before I heard from him again and when I did, I asked him the same question, did you make “IT”? He said he did. I asked him how “IT” was and he said “IT was good”. He also added that his marriage was falling apart and he didn’t know where things were going in his personal life. He also added that he only needed to make a little more money from trading than he did from his day job to quit the day job. This would finally be “IT”, this would save his marriage, his family…
Let me let you in on something I realized long ago. “IT” is never “IT”. The “IT” cycle will have you chasing an illusion of happiness your whole life in many forms if you let it. If you are looking for “IT”, the real “IT” only exists in a much grander vision. The good news is this grander vision will meet all your needs and become “IT” for you.
I want to invite you into a simple reality that most consistently profitable market speculators share. They are not looking for trading to be “IT” for them. They have a much grander vision. The best traders I know spend very little time trading and spend less time talking about trading. They make plenty of money trading and they use that money to feed the grander vision.
One person I know who has done very well in trading bought 3 vacation homes on a lake all next to each other. He bought them for his family which has many kids, but he also invites families who would not be able to afford to do this to stay at these vacation homes in the summers. His life is all about his family, that has always been his grander vision. Because of this, he is not looking to change or improve his trading strategy, he does fine. In fact, he never wastes time talking about his strategy, he is too busy with his grander vision. I know his strategy and let me tell you, I see some people with better strategies that don’t make money because they are always looking to improve their strategy so they can really make “IT”.
People who keep changing their trading strategy and keep taking more and more seminars and reading more and more books hardly ever make it in trading. They are always looking for the artificial “IT”, not the real one. From what I see, the successful people at Online Trading Academy take the classes and XLTs, and then go and run the strategy we teach them. They don’t rush off to take more and more seminars and courses. The group that has taken every trading course around the world and has read every trading book written is typically not the group that makes money trading, this is the group that typically pays those who have a grander vision than money. A focus on the grander vision is what allows them to follow the simple rules of trading and investing.
When you live by a set of core values (the grander vision) and unshakeable convictions, you become stronger and less fearful. You see life’s journey for what it is – an exciting marathon for which you have the rule book and roadmap. Without them, you are tossed and blown around by the struggles of the moment. To be more successful, live in your hopes and goals, not in your fears and struggles. Remember that each and every day you wake up, you have a completely blank canvas, you are the artist of your life and the brush is in your hand. How truly amazing is that!
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