Quote from trade4succes:
Question to our more experienced members: What would you do if you were 25 years old now (or what would you do different? Just write down anything you can think of (and want to mention).
I get the feeling we youngster underestimate the value of the experiences the "older" traders can teach us.
Marriage:
Don't rush, and don't let anyone rush you
Make sure you marry your best friend. Much better chance of staying together.
If marrying a woman, look at the mother. If marrying a man, look at the father. Thats what you may have approx 20 years later.
The total price of your wedding should not be more than 1/2 of what you intend to put down on home. Too many people spend lots of money on a wedding and then struggle to have a down payment for a home. Before cars, people used horses. Alot of people your age believe a car says alot about a person. While that may be true, the bankbook says more.
Marriage is NOT 50/50, its always changing. One day 90/10 (90 you), the next day may be 0/100 (0 you). When the scale is imbalanced one will have to pick up the slack, or it won't last. (In the USA, at least)
Family:
Always make time for your family
Always set time aside everyday for your spouse
Always set time aside everyday for your children
When you die, those will be the first and last people who will be crying.
Friends:
Your definition of friends and the friends you have will change
If you reach your thirties, and have 2 "true" friends, your blessed. Another reason why your spouse and children should be your best friends.
Finances & Your Occupation:
As a member here mentioned in a previous post "live under your means". Always plan for the worst case scenario. Will you be able to maintain your current lifestyle if you lost 50-100% of your annual income? Will you have enough to survive and keep your standard of living while you work on getting back that lost income.
Occupation...do what you love and love what you do. If you're working for someone else, always give what you can. Try not do anything at the expense of time with your family or for yourself. Once you set the bar in that area, you'll always be expected to meet or raise it. Before you know it, you'll be leaving for the office when you're family is sleeping and getting home when they're sleeping. Never burn a bridge in the business, you never know when you'll need that person (the one that you may hate) again.
Now...trading. I suppose that's why you asked the question here, and not Dear Abby.
I've saved this for last, because if you don't have the (above) in order, YOU WILL FAIL. I've seen so MANY traders over the years who have signed their own financial death certificate because they can't get it together.
Success in trading requires:
- Failure: the best experience of all, if you learn from failure. Thomas Edison said, "I didn't fail, I found 1000 things that didn't work. A $1,000 loss can become a $100,000 loss over time if it is never analyzed and corrected. A $1,000 loss can become a $1MM gain over time, if you acknowledge it, respect it, fix it and move on.
- Education (for trading): You will not appreciate any real education until you have experienced failure. JW MArriott said..."It's what you learn after you know everything that counts." If you think otherwise, stop trading and write a check to your favorite charity. Education will help you minimize the failure by learning from experience. If you're going to choose a mentor, choose wisely. If no mentor, learn from the weaknesses and strengths from as many possible. Formal education, get your degree. However, don't think that degree alone will put you where you want to be. There are Harvard MBAs asking "Would you like to supersize that?", and college dropouts that have their OS on 80% of every PC in the world.
- Discipline: "The fortitude to stay the course". You can only have fortitude with the right mindset that is built with humility, experience, and education. You won't know what the course is until you have the education to identify it and patience to ride it.
- Capital: This is meaningless without the first three. This is the nucleus of money & risk management in the global scale of trading and the microchasm of each trading day. You can crunch all the numbers you want, the math is very simple:
If you dont set a loss limit on $50,000 trading account and drawdowns, you will not last as long as someone who opens an account with $25,000, uses 2 years as a learning curve and sets their max daily loss at $56 per day. Now that may be a bit harsh, but that will insure you don't collapse before the end of a learning curve. You can't change all of the numbers and all of the results, you can change what you can control, and in most cases that is you.
Be well.