Quote from Baruch:
Well, it takes 6-7 years to be a doctor, so 2 years are not a not very long time.
that's a very good point that many people fail to see.
Let's walk through it now to becoming a doctor. So, you go to college for 4 years. You go to med school for 4years. You go to residency for 3-4yrs. During residency, you get paid like $35K/yr after EIGHT YEARS OF HARD WORK AND EDUCATION.
Then you finally get out of residency, and you'll get rewarded with a low six figures salary. And after 5-10yrs of practice then you'll be really raking it in maybe 100K-350K as a surgeon or something or some difficult specialty. But you'll probably spend the next 5-10yrs paying back education loans from undergrad and med school which total amounts could easily be $250K, depending if you went to an expensive private school for undergrad or worst both - ivy undergrad, ivy med school. ouch!
Now, look at trading. People think they can drop out of hs or no college. Not that education is pivotal to trading but some basic understanding of stats would help. Open an Etrade account or join a prop shop with $5K-$10K down and in 6months they expect to make "at least" 6 figures else it's not worth it! geez! $10K down barely covers a semester at an ivy league school.
Don't you think something screwy is at work in terms of expectations?!!
So, in the doctor case, it will take a person of 8 years of formal education and probably another 5-10yrs before reaching mid 6 figures. And the average daytrader with no preparation, no strategy, no edge, no capital, no nothing expects to rake in 6 figures right out of the door! hmm..
But the flip side is this. Time is money. The longer you trade prop or your own account and go negative and flat for years without earnings then what are you going to do? Go bankrupct?! Live on the edge?! Scrap by while your other friends and colleagues move ahead in life with steady jobs with every increasing raise pays. Sure, they might get laid off etc. But so can your trading going into the pothole.
I think you gotta LOVE to trade. And work really really hard. Just like EVERYONE else in life in order to get ahead. There's just no way around it. Nope. Life doesn't work that way. Unless you win the Lotto! hehe.