Let me first offer to save you time by laying out some expectations.
If you are looking for mind blowing results that make you giddy in your stomach because you’re so impressed, please stop reading. From a business and marketing point of view, yes, that’s what I should be doing… but it’s not.
If you are searching for a taste of reality when it comes to trading, and want to learn a mind trick I use to “keep things in perspective”, then by all means, please keep reading.
The Trading Context
As I’ve mentioned in many other pieces of the free content I offer, calling myself a “full time trader” would be a bit misleading.
Yes, I trade. But I do many other things too, just like anyone on the internet who sells courses and subscriptions… it’s called running a business – ya know? (on top of the business, I also invest in real-estate)
In past blog articles I’ve talked about how I try to trade usually around 90 minutes per day in the morning. To get a bit more insight into this, I showed my results HERE from another month where I was essentially part-time trading. As you’ll see in those results, I netted a nice “part time” income of $6,000 for the month.
My February Trading Results
Below you can see the trading results from this past month. If you find it hard to read, you can click on the image and make it bigger. The key number to focus on is in the bottom right hand corner of $2,994.03.
The Honest Reality of Trading
I already mentioned this before, but I understand the game of marketing and sales. I am well aware that portraying something as mind-blowingly-epic is how you are really going to ramp up the revenue.
While that may be good for sales, it sets up new traders with false realities which then lead to unrealistic expectations. I mean stop and think about it. Invision a trader you’ve come across in your journey and then ask yourself, what are my impressions of this trader?
If I had to bet, I’d wager to say that your impression is – someone who seems to always be making money, and not only making money, but LOTS of it… all the time.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am not proclaiming to be the only “person worth listening to”, but I think we can all acknowledge that there are some people out there that make you want to take a shower after experiencing their marketing.
My first point here is this – frustrating months happen. Irritating months happen. “Blah” months happen.
I don’t care what others try to portray, ALL TRADERS HAVE FRUSTRATING MONTHS within their trading journey.
Have you been there before? Maybe you’re there right now? You’ve just got done with a frustrating/annoying week or month. All I can say to you is welcome to the club!!! You’re not alone. Don’t compare yourself to false realities, just realize that it happens to everyone.
It Was Just “One of Those Months”
Have you ever had “one of those days” where things are just off and nothing seems to go quite right? I don’t know how else to explain it, but that’s how I felt with the month’s trading.
It’s not like I had any terrible trades, or went bonkers and overtraded or anything like that… it… was… just… weird. I wish I could pinpoint things better for you as a reader, but I’m struggling.
As an example, on Feb. 2nd when I had the $1,000 losing day, I shared my first hour of the day HERE in this free live trading video, but that only resulted in a $127 loss. It’s not like I did anything disastrous that day, I just couldn’t seem to do anything right. Have you ever had that feeling? (I hope so, or else I’m looking like a total nutcase right now, ha!)
I also recently got a root canal, and if you’ve ever been through that process, you know that there are multiple appointments that need to be completed. On the first day of the month I didn’t even get to trade because of this, and then the follow up appointments throughout the month threw me off a bit too. Like I said, it’s just “one of those things”.
And yeah… very last day of the month… RED! Ugh…
I’m not trying to complain or sound whiny, I’m just letting you know where this frustration was coming from and ideally, you can relate to at least something I’m saying and use it to realize “it happens to everyone”.
The Mind Trick I’ve Learned to Leverage
At this point, I’m assuming you get the point that February was an annoying and frustrating month – right? Great! Let’s move on…
I’ve used the word, but I want to use it again – perspective.
In order to keep my month in perspective (in a good way), all I do is a bit of math. Let’s walk through it together.
The first number to keep in mind was my account at the start of the month, seen below.
At the end of the month, my account size looked like this…
Or in other words, as I already noted, the amount grew a total of $2,994.03. On the surface, this amount seems so wimpy when comparing to the numbers in THESE or THESE monthly results. And let’s be honest, it’s not exactly an amount to write home about, I can admit that, but remember the first point… IT HAPPENS.
Let’s not look at lump sums though. Let’s look at percentages. From the start of the month to the end of the month, that equates to a percentage gain of 3.9%.
Be honest with yourself… are you looking at that number and laughing? If so, I totally understand, but remember, we’re trying to keep our mindset positive and most importantly keep things in perspective.
This brings about the magical mathematical concept of yield.
Let’s just say I had these types of annoying and frustrating months for the rest of the year. That would give me a yield of growth on my account of 46.8% on the year. That’s INSANE when you stop and think about it…
I mean go down to Wall Street and ask hedge fund managers and mutual fund managers what they would do for even, let’s get more conservative, 30% returns. Many of them would gladly sell their mothers in order to accomplish a gain like that.
So yeah – when I stop and think about this “annoying” month still putting me on the track for a 46.8% return on capital for the year, that sure does make the bitter taste in my mouth taste more enjoyable. Most importantly, it gets me back into the right frame of mind to tackle a new month of trading with a fresh and clear mindset.
Final Thoughts
I just want to quickly summarize this for you and reiterate the two main points that hopefully you walk away from this article with…
- Don’t compare your results to those of others where you feel like “they are the king of the world”. Odds are, things are being portrayed in a manner that isn’t necessarily true. Just realize “those kinds of months happen”.
- Keep things in perspective. Don’t look at lump sums, don’t look at monthly percentages, look at yearly yields. If a hedge fund manager would sell his own mother to accomplish the yearly yields your “frustrating month” provided, then realize, things are not nearly as bad as what the voices in your head are trying to make you think.
At the end of the day, it all goes back to risk management and having a strategy and system that works for you. A strategy is not going to guarantee that you don’t have these types of months, but it is going to give you the confidence to press on and “keep the axe to the grindstone”.
If you’re looking to surround yourself with other trades (and myself) who are first and foremost focused on risk control, then consider joining my private trading community HERE. It’s $99 for 1 year of membership – and like I always say, I’m very confident that over the timespan of 12 months, you’ll gain at least $99 in value. I hope to see you there!