Millionaire Tradersof lost my first account and had decided that I could figure it out
myself if I spent the time necessary to do so.
Q: It must have been pretty scary to be in such a financial strain
and then not to trade well when you first started. How did you find
the confidence to keep on doing it?
A: I wasn’t very good at practicing law when I first started, or
doing much of anything else that I first started in life, and I always
approached things from that perspective. I mean on the first day
that I drove a car when I was 15 years old, I wasn’t very good at
driving, but over the course of time I became comfortable and suc-
cessful at driving and that didn’t happen overnight. I understood
that there were going to be some losses, and so the financial pres-
sure came for the reasons that you feel financial pressure. Meaning
if you get an eviction notice or if you can’t make your car payment
you naturally feel pressure. But I don’t think I felt pressure to
figure out trading immediately. I think I’d met enough traders in
San Francisco and spoken to enough people who helped me real-
ize that this was not going to be any different than playing sports
or having a first job or learning to drive. There was going to be
learning period during which I felt uncomfortable, made a lot of
mistakes, and had to learn for myself some of the things that you
simply can’t learn by reading a book or listening to someone else
as much as they try to help you.
Q: Did you make a lot of mistakes in the beginning?
A: Oh, certainly, yes! Do you have a page limit for the book? I
made every mistake that you can possibly think of. Here’s the basic
list:
1.I made too many trades.
2.I traded with lot sizes that were way to big—I was risking 5 to
10 percent of my account on each trade when I should have been
risking less than 1 percent.