Rags to Richeseverything that you do when it comes to business. I think those
are some very, very valuable lessons that I learned that have stood
with me since then. It also taught me about compassion, basically
feeling for other people as well because up until that point I was,
I would say, fairly successful. Being in that situation, you never re-
ally think too much about other people and what their situation is
until you end up in it yourself. After the partnership blew up, I had
huge debts to pay, and I was not getting anywhere close to settling
them. At the time, I had a friend in the United States, whom I had
met a while back, who used to trade currencies. For no apparent
reason one afternoon, he suddenly just popped into my head, and I
thought of contacting him to see if he can assist me in anyway. So I
got a hold of him. He asked me for$1,000, which he said he would
invest for me to help me improve my financial situation. The only
problem was that I did not have$1,000. I wrote back to him and I
told him, “Listen Steven, let me save up for it, and once I’ve got a
thousand, I’ll give it to you and then you can trade it.” He actually
wrote back to me and he said, “I will loan you the money and I’ll
help you out.” I told him that I was in so much debt already that
I would not take another loan from anybody—I had reached the
bottom line. I said give me a chance, let me save up for it, and it
eventually took me I think seven or eight months to save up$1,000.
When I finally did, I e-mailed him again and told him that I had
the money. He then turned around and told me, “Listen, instead
of me trading for you, I would rather teach you how to trade.” This
was something that, I must say, I truly appreciated because it gave
me a skill that I would have for the rest of my life, and one that
I would be able to share as well. So that is basically how I started
trading currencies.
Q: It must have been frightening for you in the beginning be-
cause you had spent so much time saving up that money. How were
you able to trust this friend given all that you had gone through in
the past? Did he show you a track record?
A: Yes, he did show me what he what he was doing. He basi-
cally sent me the printouts of his trading records and his account