The more you trade, the more you will learn about the world around you. You will gradually start to better understand the global economy, national economy, business in general, and how things work. Traders view the world in a different light, pondering how the goods and services we need and want are created and ultimately delivered to us at a reasonable profit. Every time you buy something, every time you interact with someone, your mind will constantly be sifting everything for trading opportunities.
Trading hones diligence and perseverance, maybe the most important life skills of all. Like life, trading has many setbacks so opportunities to get discouraged are legion. But if you stick with it, keep your nose to the grindstone for months, then years, and then decades, you will succeed. The single most-important ingredient for success is to simply stubbornly keep doing something until you naturally learn enough to get good at it! Most elite traders, CEOs, athletes, or any professionals became that way not because they had advantages up front, but simply because they never gave up despite the inevitable setbacks.
Incredibly, trading also helps you socially! Not only does its built-in achievement bolster self-confidence, it makes you more interesting to everyone you meet. Over the decades I've talked one-on-one with many hundreds, maybe thousands, of people about trading stocks. And 99% of them are utterly fascinated by the prospect. And who wouldn't be? The markets are endlessly fascinating, and the allure of divorcing income earned from time on task is great. It is really fun sharing what you are doing in the markets with others, helping them see and seize the same stock opportunities you are.
If you are a parent, I'm sure you want your kids to excel in all these critical life traits. Trading is a great way to teach them! Start your kids out young, it's easy and fun. When you take them out to their favorite restaurant, talk with them about the process of getting the food to their plates. Tell them about all the workers from the farmers to the truckers to the cooks, who labor hard and earn a profit for their part in the food chain. If the restaurant is publicly-traded, explain to your kids that they can own a small piece of this business themselves!
Open up a trading account for your kids. It really doesn't matter how much money you can spare, the kids can gradually fund it themselves with cash gifts they receive on birthdays and Christmas and through doing odd jobs. As they slowly buy and sell a few shares in stocks they are interested in because they love the products those companies produce, they will learn the same trading lessons and develop the same awesome life-traits as adults. And starting young, even casual trading as a hobby can literally earn your kids fortunes over their lifetimes. This skillset will almost certainly radically improve their lives.
But trading earnings aren't dependent on time. When you buy a stock, and it rallies to earn you profits, it doesn't matter whether you spent 1 hour deciding to make that trade or 100 hours. Trading opens up a wonderful new world where income is divorced from time! While it is true that trading is a learned art that requires years of discipline and experience to thrive in, the ultimate financial rewards it yields are wildly disproportionate to the time spent learning it. It breaks your income free from the chains of time.
I've always viewed trading as analogous to the wondrous Age of Discovery when great tall ships plied the world's oceans with exotic trading goods. They would sail to Asia at great risk and expense, and bring back spices to Europe that would fetch a fortune. Traders bought goods where the supply was plentiful to transport them to where demand was great. Stock trading today is like sailing the oceans of time. We buy trade goods (stocks) today, and hope that demand for them (and hence their prices) will be higher in the future.
Trading demands discipline, which has unimaginably-big benefits in all aspects of life. In order to trade, you first have to generate some surplus income. The only way to do this is spend less than you earn. The longer that you live below your means in general, the more you save, the richer you get. This trading-forged discipline virtually ensures you will never have debt problems, never be in an ugly situation where you risk losing a major asset like your house. It leads to a much-happier and less-stressful life.
Starting out small is actually really important. If you start out trading with a lot of money, odds are you will lose it and get discouraged. The great majority of traders lose almost all of their initial capital at some point in their first year or so of trading. It is par for the course. But the hard lessons learned, and the skillset developed through those early losses, scale beautifully to any amount of money as your trading prowess grows. Even if you are blessed with lots of surplus capital, start trading small with an amount you can easily afford to lose. As your confidence and skills gradually grow, only then should you start trading bigger.
A parallel trait greatly enhanced by trading stocks yourself is stewardship. We are all blessed with financial assets, and how we manage them is of paramount importance for our futures. No one cares more about your financial future than you do! Trading stocks forces you to take more responsibility for growing your assets, gets you deeply involved in what you invest in and why. While it is important to seek wisdom on investing from wise counselors, trading gives you the knowledge to ultimately make informed decisions yourself. This leads to radically-better stewardship of your financial assets and entire future.
Trading hones diligence and perseverance, maybe the most important life skills of all. Like life, trading has many setbacks so opportunities to get discouraged are legion. But if you stick with it, keep your nose to the grindstone for months, then years, and then decades, you will succeed. The single most-important ingredient for success is to simply stubbornly keep doing something until you naturally learn enough to get good at it! Most elite traders, CEOs, athletes, or any professionals became that way not because they had advantages up front, but simply because they never gave up despite the inevitable setbacks.
Incredibly, trading also helps you socially! Not only does its built-in achievement bolster self-confidence, it makes you more interesting to everyone you meet. Over the decades I've talked one-on-one with many hundreds, maybe thousands, of people about trading stocks. And 99% of them are utterly fascinated by the prospect. And who wouldn't be? The markets are endlessly fascinating, and the allure of divorcing income earned from time on task is great. It is really fun sharing what you are doing in the markets with others, helping them see and seize the same stock opportunities you are.
If you are a parent, I'm sure you want your kids to excel in all these critical life traits. Trading is a great way to teach them! Start your kids out young, it's easy and fun. When you take them out to their favorite restaurant, talk with them about the process of getting the food to their plates. Tell them about all the workers from the farmers to the truckers to the cooks, who labor hard and earn a profit for their part in the food chain. If the restaurant is publicly-traded, explain to your kids that they can own a small piece of this business themselves!
Open up a trading account for your kids. It really doesn't matter how much money you can spare, the kids can gradually fund it themselves with cash gifts they receive on birthdays and Christmas and through doing odd jobs. As they slowly buy and sell a few shares in stocks they are interested in because they love the products those companies produce, they will learn the same trading lessons and develop the same awesome life-traits as adults. And starting young, even casual trading as a hobby can literally earn your kids fortunes over their lifetimes. This skillset will almost certainly radically improve their lives.
But trading earnings aren't dependent on time. When you buy a stock, and it rallies to earn you profits, it doesn't matter whether you spent 1 hour deciding to make that trade or 100 hours. Trading opens up a wonderful new world where income is divorced from time! While it is true that trading is a learned art that requires years of discipline and experience to thrive in, the ultimate financial rewards it yields are wildly disproportionate to the time spent learning it. It breaks your income free from the chains of time.
I've always viewed trading as analogous to the wondrous Age of Discovery when great tall ships plied the world's oceans with exotic trading goods. They would sail to Asia at great risk and expense, and bring back spices to Europe that would fetch a fortune. Traders bought goods where the supply was plentiful to transport them to where demand was great. Stock trading today is like sailing the oceans of time. We buy trade goods (stocks) today, and hope that demand for them (and hence their prices) will be higher in the future.
Trading demands discipline, which has unimaginably-big benefits in all aspects of life. In order to trade, you first have to generate some surplus income. The only way to do this is spend less than you earn. The longer that you live below your means in general, the more you save, the richer you get. This trading-forged discipline virtually ensures you will never have debt problems, never be in an ugly situation where you risk losing a major asset like your house. It leads to a much-happier and less-stressful life.
Starting out small is actually really important. If you start out trading with a lot of money, odds are you will lose it and get discouraged. The great majority of traders lose almost all of their initial capital at some point in their first year or so of trading. It is par for the course. But the hard lessons learned, and the skillset developed through those early losses, scale beautifully to any amount of money as your trading prowess grows. Even if you are blessed with lots of surplus capital, start trading small with an amount you can easily afford to lose. As your confidence and skills gradually grow, only then should you start trading bigger.
A parallel trait greatly enhanced by trading stocks yourself is stewardship. We are all blessed with financial assets, and how we manage them is of paramount importance for our futures. No one cares more about your financial future than you do! Trading stocks forces you to take more responsibility for growing your assets, gets you deeply involved in what you invest in and why. While it is important to seek wisdom on investing from wise counselors, trading gives you the knowledge to ultimately make informed decisions yourself. This leads to radically-better stewardship of your financial assets and entire future.
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