I have a hectic life, I’m new to trading, and don’t want to lose money… Is this you?

If you haven’t read part 1 please go back and read it to get some background information for this blog post.

In Making the leap away from paper trading – Part 1 we talked about my initial experience with real money and real losses. And the big turn around.

My plan was to go into more detail on the steps I took to accomplish this, however, in writing this article I found myself elaborating much more on time management that I thought I would. So, rather than shorten it, I figured that we should leave it long because time management as a new trader and/or student of trading is critical.

So, in wanting to keep the reading time short, I am going to focus on the first lesson and we will leave the other lessons for part three (just like in the movies, a sequel often has a sequel of its own).

1^st Lesson Learned

1. You must find the time to learn how to trade with an edge.

I had originally looked at my busy life and determined that I could only dedicate 1-2 hours a week max to my trading education. However, a series of drawdowns in my live account (the largest one being 25% of my starting equity overnight) forced me to decide either commit 100% or quit.

There is an excellent book called “The One Thing” by Gary W. Keller and Jay Papasan that embodies why I decided to make major sacrifices in my life. In The One Thing, the book suggests that we ask ourselves “What’s the ONE Thing you can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?” for me that question was answered by learning how to trade like a pro.”

“Going all in” I ruthlessly looked for what I could cut out of my life (even if only for a specific period of time) to focus on learning how to trade correctly. I started listening to audiobooks, podcasts or even CashFlow Condor videos while in the car driving (I don’t recommend this unless your traffic is as bad as mine). I did it for one hour driving to work and one hour driving home. I even did it on my dates (did not make me very popular) but, that gave me at least two additional hours a day.

I called all my creditors and asked them to double my credit lines and offer me a year of no interest payments so I could purchase classes from Legacy Education. I stopped eating out for lunch and watched two to three hours of video (either Elite Legacy Classes or recording of the Trading Labs that were a part of my package) each night.  Now we are up to five to six hours a day or 25 to 30 hours Monday through Friday.

On Saturdays, I would read for about an hour an actual book (not an audiobook) and watched all the Tackle Trading Scouting Reports. Finally, on Sunday after church, I would spend between three to five hours binging on more courses and labs and books. And in case you are wondering what happened on my dates, she would fall asleep and then wake up and say it was amazing (she was referring the audio, not our date).

I took total control of my time. During this time, I temporarily stopped working out at the gym,  I stopped going out (this decision was made for me – see above), and if I had dreamed it was about bullish retracements and long candles and when I helped my son with his Language Arts it was by reading ”how the Turtle Traders lived happily ever after”.  Actually, here is a video of my seven-year-old trying to read a book by Van Tharp on Fib retracements! This has become our bedtime story material… Don’t judge me 😛

I managed to go from 1-to-2 hours a week to 40-to-50 hours a week! This was done working two jobs (otherwise I would have put in another 20 hours on the weekends) and as a single father.

I know what some of you are thinking…. “well, first of all, during my lunch hour I can’t because at my office I eat with my (coworkers, friends, boss, etc),” – Let me ask you a frank question. Could your lunchtime be better invested? Might you be simply (again try not be be offensive) gossiping, talking politics, or sports? If so, listen to me, and I am warning you this is going to be a bit strong, stop wasting your lunchtime with your broke friends, with their negative mentality, trying to get them to buy-in to your new trading lifestyle. Those friends, as well-meaning as they might be are not going to pay your bills, they are not going to propel you to the next level, they are not going to study with you (or they would already be signed up for their own classes). If you need to bounce trading ideas off someone, then bounce them off the Tackle Trading Community in the Clubhouse.

Or, you might be saying, “But when I get home I HAVE TO… (cook, clean, take out the garbage, etc), again, this trading business (if you treat it like a business) has the potential to “buy you time” once you are making extra income. I no longer wash my own car, clean my own house, etc. but rather focus my valuable time on what can give me the most freedom for the things that are the most valuable (like quality time with my children).

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not saying to disappear into a cave until you are rich. However, I am saying to you what my mentor Tim Justice said to me “You have to make a daily schedule and you have to be ruthless with your time!”  Below are three very short videos, the first is a video of my suggestion for reading, and the second is my son and I reading a trading book at bedtime, and the third is a heart-to-heart from me to you. I hope that those videos spark some ideas for finding time for your education. (please watch them after you finish reading this).

In summary, the point is this… If you make up your mind to find the time you find the time any which way that you have to!

To be continued…

In our next post, we will address how to trade your paper money account in a way that will actually help you instead of making things worse.

Finding Time to Read – (from my first Market Scoreboard)

Bedtime Reading with my son – (Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom might be above his reading level)

Prioritizing Time – (a heart to heart conversation)