How Do You Know if the Help You Buy Can Help You?

[edabreu 10]

How do you know if the help you buy can help you?

 

I have been to a lot of trading education rooms, bought and learned a lot of methods, strategies, approaches, styles, bought hundreds of tools, and lost many tens of thousands of dollars, over the last 8 years or more. I can list about 50 of them (kind of tells you how hard this all was for me), from the most popular to the obscure. Many have joined the ranks of the disappeared.

Throughout that time I became aware of one enduring growing feeling. It could have been my fault being so eager and so new. It is hard to resist the claims you see out there of easy profits and fast success and "I made 100k last month trading my system and its yours for $7,500 down and $1000 a month for as many years as you are foolish enough to give it to me.", etc. etc.

This is a tough feeling to get over; That at many places I bought into I was being cultivated, groomed, and in many cases, milked for all I was worth.

 

A tell tale sign to know if the help you buy can help you is the manner is which you are spoken to by the trader moderator educator coach or guru you are deferring to as the definitive authority.

Call it paranoia if you like, but what I have learned is that when help is genuinely helpful then the learning experience, to my mind, takes on the tone of "here is what I have done, and here are the mistakes I have made, and my 2 cents worth is that you don't have to make the same mistakes, but chances are that you will. So, I will charge you $x for my time, and I encourage you to get every pennies worth by learning the material I give you, asking questions, listening and watching and following the process I will guide you through". Now that is as honest as it can get, but at the same time its also helpful to hear "there is no extra charge". Unfortunately, very few newer traders can listen - as opposed to who are willing to listen. Even of those who can listen, there are fewer who can do. The saying goes 'where there is a will there is a way'. Many are willing but the fact is that most can not do. One of the key traits I have learned is that perseverance

(damned pigheadedness refusal to quit) is as important as patience, dicipline and study.

 

It is hard to admit that you are a failing trader. It's harder to admit it after 4 or more years of trading, and it's harder to admit it if you have not accepted full responsibility for your failure.

There is so much free help and inexpensive help out there that succumbing to a high price tag for traders education is ludicrous. I think anything over $5k for the education (including indicators, methods instruction, and trade room attendance) is robbery. Many compare this to a college or a grad school education. But the fact is that in this business the drop-out failure rate is 90%! So comparing it to the cost of a college education is wrong. The drop out failure rate in college attendance is nowhere near this number. So of course, the fee's are high. The rewards are pretty much in the bag if you stick with it, and most do go on to rewarding successful careers. Not so in trading. The reality is that you are going to need your money to survive your first few years as a trader. The fact is that your education happens in the trenches - in the pit so to speak - out there risking, losing and winning. All the prep, all the education, all the coaching and guidance is put to the real test when you plunk your money down and take your first few stop outs.

 

Then the harsh reality of discovering what kind of trader you really are starts to kick in. Do you really want this emotional agony? Or do you just want some reliable trade signals from someone who has already gone through the gauntlet and come out the other side? I recommend you find this out as quickly as possible. It will save you a world of hurt and loss. Now, if this is the case, then for my trade signal service I would charge you a college tuition! Hey, you take my trade signals and you are going to make some pretty good money. But, remember, can you take my signal? Ah ha! This is not so easy. I have found that many people who just want the signals can not take them. I think this is because they have still not made the choice to be a trader themselves or to just buy a trade signal service. It's like this. Take your car to the mechanic and have him fix it, or fix it yourself. It really is that basic. You trust your mechanic? Probably not. You trust your doctor? More than the mechanic for sure. So, make your choice, and pay the right kind of fee for the kind of choice you make.

 

Should you decide to become a trader, which kind of trader education programs and rooms do you need to stay away from? Those that make you dependent. Those that give you too much information in too broad a stroke. Those that offer theory without practical hands on or visual show and tell. Those that give you too much all at once. Those that show you too much potential and suggest that this is easy if you just follow the steps. Those with too much slick, too much polish, too much hype and too many members. Interesting phenomena about those big traders education organizations. Lets see... 90% lose, 90% attend trade rooms for extended periods, 90% buy indicators and methods, 90% pay big dollars for education from big traders education organizations, ... do you get my drift here? Misery does love company, and if you find yourself in any environment where the crowd is, then leave. Those who make it in this are really the loners, the one's out there on the fringes doing their own thing, doing things their own way, at their own pace, using their own brains, making small steady gains, and being patient. If you can accept $50 a day 4 out of 5 days a week as a good day in the beginning, then you have a chance. Eventually after 4 or 5 years, many traders who succeeded came to this point and started to accept consistency over lucky strikes, steady gains with controlled losses over huge gains and huge losses. Many just got off the roller coaster and started to walk one step at a time.

 

I think a good trade room and trade educator is one who hands you a book list, gives you a trading manual of the setups, some basic money management guidelines, a bit about the psychological journey, and then a few months watching him trade and offering you that time to pick his brain, ask questions, watch him lose, watch him win, hear him think, and just know that he is there on the other end doing nothing but watching his charts same as you. Then gives you his critique and review of your developing approach. You show him your trades, let him point out what was good, what was bad.

Let him hold you accountable so you can learn how to critique yourself. You really need to trade along side with someone. You need to see it for real, in real time and listen to what really goes on when in a trade. It gets pretty boring, and you have to be able to see that really happening. You have to see someone else make their daily goal and walk away. You need to see what discipline is, what trading to a goal is, and all those things you hear and read about put into action on a scale you can grasp personally. We are not talking money fund management level trading here. We are talking small scale bread and butter make a good living trading for those 90% out there who are caught up in the hype of the big traders education organizations marketing and being shown too big a picture with too big an expectation too soon. It's in the small details about how you trade, what you think about while trading, what you can and can not do as a trader that is going to make the real difference. Ask yourself - do you think a big trade organization is really interested in turning out successful traders by the dozen every day? They make their money working the numbers. Yes you need the information, but you need hands on how to apply that information much more.

 

It really is up to you if you are going to succeed at this or not. You have to read the books, you have to do the homework, you have to develop and test your plan, you have to deal with and resolve your emotions and reactions to loss and gain, you have to be patient and watch and analyze what the trade educator is doing while he trades in front of you, you have to understand his responses to your questions, and learn to ask the right questions and accept the answers even if they hurt. Your trade educator can only guide, coach, teach, show and tell. You have to do it all.