In the beginning
I was one part impressed and one part petrified when Stephanie told me that she had made $1,500 in a single day, trading with leverage on a crypto exchange. She only started receiving a salary from her medical internship several months ago. She’s always had a penchant for taking risks but I won’t encourage a newbie who just made a $1,500 profit in a day to continue trading. I told her to stop at once and cash out her profits.
Four hours later when she called me again, there was tears in her voice. She lost over $3,000, her entire capital, along with the $1500 profits. What a loss! I would never have allowed her to trade with such capital. I was angry that she didn't tell me before she started trading and that she was using her entire savings to trade. But I didn’t show my anger. She was in pain and it was my job to comfort her.
The people that we surround ourselves with, dictate our habits and behaviour even when they are not close to us. — James Clear.
At the beginning of the year 2018, I wrote down 7 skills that I wanted to acquire or improve on. Trading was not one of them but somewhere along the lines, I developed the desire to not only improve on my trading skills but also to master the art of trading. Thanks to my friends who didn’t allow a single day go by, without sharing a price chart and talking about the money they made from trading. I surrendered. I succumbed to this peer pressure and I also decided that if I’m going to trade, I’m going to do it properly and intensely.
My goal
I started trading cryptocurrencies in 2016 and like the typical trader, I made a lot of money, lost a lot of money and somewhere in my trading journey, I developed a strong negative belief about trading. My belief was that trading is gambling and everyone who ventures into it will lose money in the end.
That belief kept me away from the markets for over a year. I still have that negative belief about trading. However, I developed a strong desire for freedom, to gain mastery of trading, and to make a lot of money in the process. I believed that I could achieve these desires, and this belief was stronger than my previously mentioned negative beliefs about trading.
Trading is a great choice for anyone who desires freedom. You can make a lot of money in a short time with minimal effort. The ability to just sit in front of your laptop, click some buttons and make money, is just mindblowing.
When you take away the money problem, you can focus on the things you really love and enjoy life. The “need-to-make-money syndrome” is why a lot of people don’t live fulfilled lives. They spend their entire lives in a rat race, chasing money and sacrificing their youth for a good retirement. But by the time retirement comes, they are too old to enjoy the money they have worked for and the financial system would have stolen so much value from their life’s work with inflation. Trading may not be a bed of roses but if done properly, trading can provide a source of income that would finance your businesses and life pursuits and dreams.
I’ve learned that focusing on the process of trading (gaining mastery) is more beneficial than focusing on the outcome of trading (making money). I’ve learned that there is the lure of trading, a dangerous force, fueled by greed and indiscipline that pushes traders to their doom. Beware of unrealistic promises, hype and lies, and focus on the process instead. Remember that everyone comes to the market with the same dreams and goals, but the winners, the 10% who eventually obtain the prize are those who have better systems. I wanted to achieve mastery. I wanted to develop the habits of a successful and profitable trader.
You don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.— James Clear.
My approach
My approach to learning was to learn as much as I could as fast as I could. To take as many free courses as possible, get mentorship from friends and buy as many courses and mentorships as I could afford. But I learned that in trading, as with anything in life, less is more. So I focused on utilizing the knowledge that I already got so far and build the right systems to ensure sustainability.
Less is more.
In my search for a mentor, I found not someone who was already made but someone who was going through the fire. I knew when my mentor made a lot of money from forex. I knew when he lost it all and sold some properties to keep body and soul together. I learned from him just by observation and I visited him regularly to officially learn. I also had role models. It’s good to learn from the experiences of other people. It shortens the learning curve and makes you move faster and achieve more with lesser effort.
“Less is more” is one of the strong themes that we would explore in this series.
I wrote this post after a ‘retreat’ where I read 6 books about trading within a space of four weeks and binged on a tone of materials on technical analysis, psychological analysis and so forth.
Why I started this journal
I started this journal to document and share my experience and the things I learned along my journey from being average(among the 90% of traders who lose) to being a professional trader(the 10% who win consistently).
The stories in this series would be real-life experiences but I’ve altered some of the names and the timing. The alterations are to protect the privacy of the characters in this series because it’s not easy to be radically transparent and publicly share your failures. That’s what this journal is about. A compilation of failures. I hope that you would learn from my journey and the failure and successes of myself and the other humans in this series.
One of the recurring advice I got from books and YouTube videos in my early days is 'document your trades', 'keep a trade journal'. Well, this is my trade journal.
As time goes on, I'll be sharing more charts and fancy technical stuff. But I promise to be a minimalist on the boring technical side and to add as many stories, dry jokes and inspiring quotes as I can.
In this series, I will take you on the journey of my transition from being a typical trader to a professional and profitable trader. I’ll also tell you the story of how Stephanie challenged me to be better and how I was able to help her overcome her bad trading habits and addictions.
In the process, you will learn how you too can develop the trader's mindset and the habits and principles which are an absolute requirement to becoming among the 10% of traders who are consistently profitable.
The rest of this series will only be accessible by an exclusive list of subscribers. Click on this link to subscribe to Toju’s Trading Journal.
