Fear of quitting day job...

Quit your job, or try to get fired.

I guess I'm a risk-taker by heart and sort of feel like consequences be damned. This is a dangerous mentality, but the reason I am this way is because of the sheer disappointment I face in living my life day to day the same way I have been.

We have various avenues where we can make turns. In American society, we get signals from the people around us and the media as to how we can live happy and prosperous lives. It's in the advertising and it's in the way people talk about their ongoings that give us hints as to how to find a kind of heaven-on-earth.

Unfortunately, I've always felt like these avenues were just not for me. High paying job? So what. Beautiful women? They come with their own bag of problems. A fancy car? So what.

You see, at the end of the day, I've found utter disappointment in almost all of these things. I don't get the thrill and happiness that I used to get as a kid, say, playing video games or going to an amusement park. That kind of excited-to-be-alive feeling died in me years ago, and, truth be told, I feel like most people walk over me. Out of an inner desire not to stir up trouble, I usually take the abuse. The childish enthusiam, for me, pretty much exists in working with the market directly.

And so where does a person like me retreat to? I'd say to puzzle solving, taking risks, maybe being a kind of super-hero in my own mind. I turned to the markets. This isn't to say I'll succeed or fail, but given all of the other challenges and things to pursue out there, I've settled upon the market. Success, for me, implies obtaining a personal, peaceful solitude in the absence of a job or the demands of the people around me. This, I think, is more valuable to me than any job. The value proposition is so high that I'm willing to take a risk that flies in the face of sanity, given the odds. And you know what? I'm ok with that.

Your mind has to come to terms with trade-offs and it has to work around its own value system. If fear is where you are, then you need to slowly work around it and get an understanding of your own situation. No one here can possibly give you solid advice, because no one else knows you better than you.
 
I've been in communication with Bullverine for the past couple of months and if he's able to trade and manage his risk the way he's been testing the waters based on his recent brief journal, he should be a successful trader.

Why does everyone think "9-5" type jobs are guaranteed to provide a steady and secure paycheck, and running your own business is too risky and dangerous to consider if you have a "secure" job? My bro worked for a company for 11 years and then one day they announced a shutdown of all their local branches and laid off a bunch of people. End of secure paycheck.

If anything trading provides a certain security you can't get from a regular job: opportunity every day in good times and bad times. Most businesses are negatively affected by poor economic conditions, but trading offers an ongoing river of financial opportunity. Experienced traders made more money in 2008 than ever before while millions lost their "secure" jobs.

Over a year ago someone I knew faced this same situation and asked me for advice (I was ET chat's resident mom at the time). He was single, no attachments, working part-time, trading part-time and really wanting to trade full-time. I sent him a long email with my story of foregoing life dreams when young in order to set up a secure situation that would then allow me to pursue my life dreams. That kind of thinking is so illogical.

“The future is that time when you’ll wish you had done what you aren’t doing now.”

You have to pursue your life dreams when you first have them, when you're young and full of energy.

My final words of wisdom to this young man were:

Ask yourself, “What is my passion?”

Then take your passion and go all in!
 
I would like to add only one thought to NoDoji's fine post. Plenty of successful people have had a failure or two along the way. Picking yourself up off the ground is never easy but it ain't the end of the world!
 
Quote from NoDoji:

I've been in communication with Bullverine for the past couple of months and if he's able to trade and manage his risk the way he's been testing the waters based on his recent brief journal, he should be a successful trader.

Why does everyone think "9-5" type jobs are guaranteed to provide a steady and secure paycheck, and running your own business is too risky and dangerous to consider if you have a "secure" job? My bro worked for a company for 11 years and then one day they announced a shutdown of all their local branches and laid off a bunch of people. End of secure paycheck.

If anything trading provides a certain security you can't get from a regular job: opportunity every day in good times and bad times. Most businesses are negatively affected by poor economic conditions, but trading offers an ongoing river of financial opportunity. Experienced traders made more money in 2008 than ever before while millions lost their "secure" jobs.

Over a year ago someone I knew faced this same situation and asked me for advice (I was ET chat's resident mom at the time). He was single, no attachments, working part-time, trading part-time and really wanting to trade full-time. I sent him a long email with my story of foregoing life dreams when young in order to set up a secure situation that would then allow me to pursue my life dreams. That kind of thinking is so illogical.

“The future is that time when you’ll wish you had done what you aren’t doing now.”

You have to pursue your life dreams when you first have them, when you're young and full of energy.

My final words of wisdom to this young man were:

Ask yourself, “What is my passion?”

Then take your passion and go all in!
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Thank you for the vote of confidence NoD. I agree with your interpretation of the job security paradox. It’s an unstable relationship between and employer and an employee that can abruptly end at any time, but people just live with it because they are afraid or dont know any better.

Also, the future in which I know what I could or could not accomplish is much more appealing then the future full of guessing of what could have been. Its is really not the end of the world or my life, just another step in personal evolution.
 
Quote from Bullverine:

Thank you for the vote of confidence NoD. I agree with your interpretation of the job security paradox. It’s an unstable relationship between and employer and an employee that can abruptly end at any time, but people just live with it because they are afraid or dont know any better.

Also, the future in which I know what I could or could not accomplish is much more appealing then the future full of guessing of what could have been. Its is really not the end of the world or my life, just another step in personal evolution.
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Nodoji makes a lot of fine posts, but I am under the impression that she may have had a working spouse while she was learning.

Jumping out of a job in a bad economy and into trading is the opposite of good sense. By people who have been around trading, it is called "scared money." When you are depending on your accounts to be your means of support now or in the near future, it impacts your trading in very negative ways.

I will not post again on this thread, but this may qualify as by far the worst decision you ever made. Myself and others have clearly stated what happens when people try this. The odds are not bad, they are awful, and your chances of failure are much higher when you put this kind of pressure on.

There is no way to verify when people claim success here, and frankly, everyone here is likely anonymous and unknown to you.

Trading is a profession. The clearest opinion from some knowledgeable people here in many threads, is that it takes at least 8-10,000 hours of screen time and even then, not guaranteed

Probably the wisest thing is the middle course 1 or 2 suggested - keep your job, and learn to trade on the side (evening or night markets), until you can show regular success on a sim (regular >= 4 months straight with high profits and decent metrics).

As I said, I do not plan to read this thread again, so I will not see responses.

It is alarming when people throw a stable situation away in these times, to do something that may no more be likely to happen than saying "hang it all, I plan to become a professional poker player and make $100,000 a year from now on"

Experiment - go back 3-4 years on ET, and see how many regular posters are no longer on ET. Go on a place like Collective2.com which claims 10,000+ systems, and see that less than 5 have much, if any real value. You will get some sense of how few people really do well in trading.

As they say, don't throw away silver to look for gold... Good luck, and spend time reading all the replies again, rather than focusing on just ones that pat you on the back and say "go for it." I am hoping you think carefully before you wind up sniffing around for anything to help pay your rent 18-24 months from now.
 
Surprisingly, a lotta good points in this chain :)

The more daring have suggested that you should shed the corporate shackles immediately and go for it, come hell or high water. The more conservative have suggested that you should find a way to maintain an income while trying to learn and succeed at trading.

I'm in the latter group because initially, it's awfully hard to make consistent money at trading (several per hundred succeed??) and it's even harder if you need the money to live off of. You've either got to be the rare individual who has the trading gift, a decent sized nest egg or a secondary income.

Once you have confidence and success at it, go for it full time. Apart from the isolation, trading has far more benefits than drawbacks. It's particularly nice to go to K-Mart twice a year to buy some bathing suits or gym shorts in order to double your work wardrobe :)
 
Quote from TraderZones:

Nodoji makes a lot of fine posts, but I am under the impression that she may have had a working spouse while she was learning.
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My spouse and I are in the music business, which netted us a little over $3000 in 2009.

TZ, I can confirm this: It's very stressful to trade "scared money" when you have significant bills to pay every month. But the OP is young and likely isn't paying 2 mortgages, $650/mo health insurance, etc. If he's going to give it a try, what better time to do it?
 
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