A Change In Direction

When I first got into trading, I imagined all traders were just that, traders and nothing else. There lives were filled with charts, spreadsheets and an unnecessary amount of desktop monitors.

So many newcomers are on the hunt for pro’s who trade “full time”. It’s one of the most common questions people ask when they meet new traders.

“Do you trade full time?”.

I know this because I have asked this question a thousand times too. Go to any traders conference and you will see for yourself, hoards of new guys asking the very same question to everyone they meet at the drinks stand.

I’ve come to realise this question sets a very unrealistic picture for most newcomers and is not helpful in their progress. I used to firmly believe that in order to avoid having a day job, I’d have to get my trading profits to be at least 75% of my overall income. Anything less would have been damaging to my ego and my aspiration to trade “full time”.

The truth is, it can be really shit to wake up the morning after all your bills have gone out, knowing you have to put 100% of your brain to use and beat the odds to pay next months bills.

Sometimes you just want to relax and let the bills pay themselves whilst you spend time with your family.

What I’m getting at is… it’s nice to have some passive income and it can really help take some stress away from trading.

Trading and investing go hand in hand. I can’t imagine any successful trader that doesn’t have any other business or investment interests. (Of course there will be exceptions, but you get the point).

I’ve always had my eye on other projects so it would be silly to pretend I devote my life to trading. All I really care about is that I have the financial freedom to work where I want, when I want and sometime in the future, to not “have” to work at all.

From now on, I’ll be running this blog with a more realistic approach to helping others have the financial freedom that they want. So in essence, I won’t just be talking about trading. If I find a fun way to make money that works for me, I’ll share it with you too.

Talk soon,

Laurence