Life style not that great. Staring at the monitor all day, hunch over the keyboard pounding away all day, no one to talk to all day.... But it is fun.
Yeah it is fun when you are in the money and making new high watermarks. As much as we try and make losses ok. Long losing streaks are never fun.
Yes. And coincidentally, here's an admittedly old anecdote I learned from @Real-Money post earlier in this very thread: (from his obituary https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1991-05-24-9102160343-story.html ) Charlie D. (a top CBOT pit trader in the '80's), "who grew up in Waukesha, Wis., attended the University of Wisconsin and Carroll College in Waukesha, where he played football for his father, the coach. He graduated from Colorado State University, where he also played football. He attended graduate school at Northwestern University`s Kellogg School of Management. After college, he held a variety of jobs before a lucrative condominium conversion in 1980 enabled him to buy a seat on the Board of Trade." Clearly he was competitive and smart, not just an average guy on the street.
Since you did not tell us his education and skill set, this is my recommendation - Don't trade, get an education in a field that will keep him employed well for the rest of his life. Trading is NOT a substitute for a good job. BTW, I was born "on the wrong side of the track". Probably more so than your son. I got an engineering education and didn't look back. He doesn't have to go to college, but he needs to get a long term skill set. Good luck.
Aaron Hernandez also played competitively HS, College and Pro Football so that obviously is not the magic bullet needed to be a top trader in and of itself. And as for degrees needed for success, outside of trading and of course inside as well, people like Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Dell, David Geffen and on and on did not have degrees any. Traders come from all walks of life, life experiences and life skills.
Dude, nobody said football or a degree was a requirement. IMO playing college sports is evidence of competitive drive and a getting into a top-10 business school is evidence of intelligence. I'm the first to admit a degree in itself means nothing, as I have several and as a trader I kinda suck. But if you think a person of limited IQ and/or limited drive can succeed at trading (not investing), then we definitely disagree.
Stay single, use condoms, live cheap, and use debt to only buy (multi-family) real-estate. That was more than one, but whatever.
If you're _really_ from the wrong side of the tracks, you will have a ton of people getting in your way. How did you deal with that? Stay single, but use surrogates like Ronaldo. Kids really add to life. That mofo has it figured out. New hot chick whenever he feels like it, raising his kids on his own terms without the input of a westernized woman.
Not saying a limited drive or IQ is fine for trading, or any other extremely hard endeavor. All I am saying is a degree or playing a competitive sport signifies you ... have a degree or play a competitive sport. Drive is what you do later in your life with either accomplishment, or what you do without either. And as for evidence of intelligence just because someone went to a top 10 bitness school it means squat to me, tRump went to Univ PA/Wharton I rest my case. But not to leave the opposite sex out see Carly Fiorina's - Stanford and MIT among the schools on her CV. Many others with excellent schooling, hard workers, some very intelligent but complete busts. There is no secret success formula; just be intelligent, obtain great education and be driven and it will happen boom boom. Better than not but some do it with average intelligence, average education but plenty of drive.