It is foolish to give advice to a 25 year old male. They still have too much testosterone in their noggin to hear anything from old farts like us.
I appreciate your generosity my trading brother. However, adapting your quote would be unoriginal, and I have many more quotes I live by, so I will just update my own with another one of my vast collection... This is also much more respectful and beneficial to the community, which doesn't want to see the same quotes repeatedly... Yours Sincerely, The Scientist
1) Don't get married or have kids for atleast 10 years (or ever). Your independence, especially as a trader, is your greatest asset. Women and children are too expensive. If your a trader, the added pressure of a family may force you to get a "real job". 2) Enjoy life! Have different women in your life and go out and drink, because when your in your 50s, you'll wish you could go out drinking all night and go home with good looking girls. This hould really only be done on weekends though, so you feel good enough to trade on weekdays. 3) Exercise!!!
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.
I live there already. 0) finish your education - make sure you understand how basic finance works no matter what field you go into. 1) save every nickel you can get your hands on. 2) stay fit. 3) buy Real Estate. 4) go to bed early and wake up early during the week. 5) have fun on weekends without overdoing it. nitro
Umm... Does that also apply if you live in Australia with EST+12h, so that the markets open at 9:30pm and close at 4:00am? Peace, ~Scientist
Hmmm, Well, I assumed he was not trading at 25. If you are fortunate enough to have the dough required to trade at that age, then be ready to go by the time the bells rings, whatever time zone that may be. nitro