Interesting observation

Quickly wanted to share a thought I had…
I’ve noticed amongst newer traders a commonality which I can’t quite understand, so I wanted to put this out there to gather some opinions.

When new babypipers join (or mostly anyone on any FX forum) and post an introduction, I commonly see something like “I’m new to trading, want to be successful, I’ve lost some money and I want to help others…”

I’ve been seeing this more and more on the web and I can’t wrap my head around it.
I mean, it’s definitely a great thing that folks want to help others out, please don’t get me wrong.

But, I just can’t think of any other endeavor in life like trading, which is so difficult, and a common thread amongst brand spanking new folks is that they want to guide others, when they themselves don’t even know right from left just quite yet.

Even if it is a long term goal, why would you even consider that before you know whether or not you even have the emotional fortitude to weather the first 6 months - year roller coaster?

One argument I’ve been building up is that people new to trading are setting incorrect goals from the beginning, and thus not reaching their full potential.

Sometimes in life, you need to say screw others, and focus solely on yourself.
I feel that’s how you mature as a trader. It’s a lonely occupation in which you should never, ever, ever ever ever ever rely on anyone else for anything, ever.
You’ll learn more about the process if you educate yourself, make mistakes on your own, create your own trading plan, make your own analysis, trade your own signals, and build your own account.

What’s with the desire to become a teacher of forex? Is it an ego thing?

Jake

LOL
i like the way you think, and i agree with it

so…Here’ s my opinion,
both from a Forex point of view which im a newbie at , and from several other points of views
which i’m an expert at

let’s take teaching

i can solve a rubiks cube in under 2 mins, No issues at all
Now there are people who can also solve it, BUT THEY CAN’T TEACH OTHERS TO DO THE SAME

I can teach anyone to solve a 3x3x3 cube in under 3mins solve time
with only 6 days learning

i have done so, the yougest i have taught was 5
the oldest was 97

they all say ,
oh, no, i can’t learn that, it’s impossible, blah blah blah

My response is usually as follows:

sorry, no offense, but what qualifies you to make the decison that you can’t solve the cube.
do you have a mental problem that stops you from learning

they usually say NO

i then say

OK, so… there is no medical reason that you can’t learn
therefore
You can learn it
i just need to teach it to you correctly

You are not qualified to tell me that you can’t learn it
i … However AM qualified to tell you that you can learn it in 6 days

you are not required to know how that will happen
you are just required to have the patience to learn for 6 days

this is the part where they just look at me in disbelief LOL

in my opinion, that proves , that the person has not fully understood what they are doing
in my opinion, if you can’t teach someone to get the same result that you have,
then… that means you don’t fully understand the concept

When it comes to computers, My clients commonly tell me
"Hi Martin, i was helping my freind format his computer and now it doesn’t work" LOL

well, in my opinion
if that person was HELPING, and i mean really helping
then , why was it necessary to call me
if i was called, it proves that his freind didnt actually help, he just made it worse

moving to a paramedical example

if your a first aider , and someone has a heart attack.
You want to help, and that’s all good and fair and noble
but… if you don’t know how to give Chest compressions and breathing correctly

Your not going to help anyone
it needs to be timed correctly , at the correct speed and done in pairs and calmly.

so… yes i agree

a Person who is new at anything
cannot possibly teach or help anyone

they need to first Learn everything
then gain life and industry experience after the learning
only then , are you allowed to attempt to help someone

going against this rule could result in more harm than good

so… yes i agree with your comment

People do it, because they have good intentions at heart
but, sadly they don’t think their comment through

i don’t think i’ts an ego thing either

i think it’s more …

your a newbie
you come to the site
you want to sound like you fit in and be accepted by the forum , LET’S BE HONEST
so, you say stuff like

hi , i’m martin, my background is blah blah blah
my passion in life is blah blah blah
i would like to help others and possibly make a million dollars etc etc
and help others reach their financial freedom goals

it sounds like the right thing to say, so newbie’s say it

i think that’s all it is
thats my opinion

Cudos for the very open minded and intelligent post Jake
VERY NICE

be cool

I can’t speak for other profitable traders, but as for myself I have several reasons for helping others. One of the reasons being trading is my passion, it’s what I’m into, just like others are in to different sports, hobbies, or other adventures, trading is what I love to do. Most people have no clue what trading or investing is even about, outside of their 401(k) or pension plan. I work at a company with thousands of employees, yet I’ve met none one there that even know what day trading is. So where do I go to talk to others about my passion? Where else but the online communities where I can meet other like-minded people all around the world. Keeping my trading Journal online, and making YouTube videos is a fun thing for me to do in my idle time as I have no interest in watching a bunch of men in tights running around a field after a ball.

But then there’s the main reason why I like to help and teach others. My goal and my main purpose in learning how to trade and invest money is for my kids. I have three small children and I’m hoping as they get older I can teach at least one of them how to trade and invest on their own, starting when their a young teen so that when they get out of school they may choose to trade for a living instead of spending half their lives in a factory somewhere. Helping in teaching others, helps me hone my skills and methodology and makes me a better teacher. This way when the time comes for me to teach my children I should be quite proficient not only in my trading which I am now but in my ability to convey my skills to them.

Then of course there’s also the fact that I hate seeing people take advantage of. Someone wanting to be an aspiring Forex trader is like a fresh hunk of roadkill to the online vultures just waiting to sell them worthless material of all types that will do nothing but empty their bank accounts. Allen

I agree traderbary, I joined babypips I think in 2010/forum 2012, I had just started out on my trading journey those days and I use to consult with a private equity firm made up of hedgefund professionals mainly commodity traders, they sparked my interest in other instruments, I had previously done some stock trading mainly NASDAQ and I was already qualified in Economics so I started trading. Once I started dealing in Property trading became lonely and my other half could not care, thinks it is too complicated and it looks like gambling… So realizing there was an active community in babypips allowed me to make some new pals and no longer bother my immediate circle with trading and markets.

So it is less about teaching others and more about finding a community as an independent trader. Obviously in a hedgefund you have no such issues, all those guys talk about is what they sell and buy and holidays. So it has been nice along the way you will meet challenges as in any group.

I am now keen on just sharing trade ideas with some of the senior members with a bit more trading skill and don’t obsess so much about profits and more about improving as traders on the odd occasion fight off dissidents and encourage others. To be honest if you have less than 10k to trade you shouldn’t be too concerned with ego, etc.

Good answers all round…

I actually want to steer forum readers on this thread

toward a post made on another trading website, and

which covers the same topic but from a different angle:

Why do “profitable” traders take the time to train people remotely and for a fee? - Elite Trader

Read pages 1 - 3, to get a flavour…

Cheers

We all start as a " Newbie " traders at one point. We didn’t wake up one morning, day one started trading, and say “Yep, Im on it! And I figured everything out! And because I figured everything out, might as well teach someone now to help to boost my ego.” If you did, good for you but for most, this is not the case. I am not sure why we are even surprise by this. When starting out, your expectation, hopes and dreams are so high that it seems like there is in no way you will fail. You are very certain that you will succeed from the very beginning and there is no room for error and improvement. You will just start making money like printing money in your own garage…But to those who have been here long enough know it too well that is not the case…it’s all a “beginners talk” and nothing more…

From the beginning, I have learned to filter in and out for all the things I have read in forums/articles, etc. it is not because I do not trust it but because I only pick and choose what I want to learn and what interest me and most of all " what it makes sense" to me and I know what the value of it that will help to add into my learning curve. I also advice the same thing to those who are just starting out… That is why it is so important that you know yourself well and only follow those who have the same value, and the same vision as yours…

And it bedazzles me why people with obvious conflicts of interest outside of BP don’t have declare that interest every time they make a post. ForexUnlimited ( I think I’ll call you Fun or Funny from now on) I am just wondering when you are going to start asking for money from the minions of followers you have been building up over various sites. I see you have already had posts edited for solicitation here at BP.

Look it’s like this Jake, there is no doubting the obvious technical skills you’ve acquired, your knowledge of the markets or the results you generate (research suggest that you are on a 200% + rate of return this year - that blows me aways), but what you people tend to forget is we Joe Blow traders have totally different goals and personalities to yourself. Like traderbary I have a young family and my goals are built around them, 1) a (modest) passive income so the ball n chain doesn’t have to work, 2) protect and grow my super and 3) most important of them all, to pass the skills and knowledge I acquire down to my children so they have choices in life that where not available to me. As for personality, well anyone that has followed our conversations realize we don’t have that in common.

So if I has to follow your teachings I would ultimately loss my account, that’s just the sad truth. Why, you said it yourself because its a personal journey, I would be practicing your journey NOT living mine!

And as for your last comment

What’s with the desire to become a teacher of forex? Is it an ego thing?

maybe you can tell us, after all I see the “education” side of your website is under construction so maybe it is “ego”

How about marketer (ego) Jake disappear and stop posting stupid posts like this and trader Jake come back to the community and share his experiences so that noobs like me can compare to our own and maybe our exchange of ideas will bring a light bulb moment to someone-else’s trading.

Hate having to be defensive, but I need to clarify here.
1 post edited for solicitation (to my knowledge)- I hyperlinked to a tweet I made showing a chart I was looking at.

Your entitled to your opinion on my intentions here, I respect that.
I have nothing to sell, so that’s a low blow and the go-to attack most people will use on trading forums when they just want to do damage and not contribute constructively.

As far as my website- I’ve already cleared the air on my intentions of running it, many times so you may have just never seen it.
It’s literally just a journal I run to keep tabs on myself. I’m a tech trader, and use very common and practical methods. If someone is interested in learning how I trade, I’ve always helped out for free. Always.

I can care less about the recognition. I just try to put content out there which I wish someone was giving to me for free, when I started trading. Call it what you want. Call me whatever you want. This isn’t a competition.

My point was that from the get-go, I found it odd there was a desire to help others when most can’t stand on their own two feet for the first year.

I haven’t really seen anything forexunlimited(jake) has posted that seemed advertising. Correct me if I’m wrong but your post on the NFP trade ideas over in fundamentals was edited for solicitation of fxcm? I’m surprised I haven’t gotten that yet. It can be hard to explain a trading method without mentioning the indicators you use. Sometimes it just so happens your broker is the only broker providing that indi. Like strong/weak.
At any rate I’m pretty reluctant to jump to conspiracy theories on a forum member because he happens to be developing a website that [B]will[/B] offer training. And even if he did advertise from time to time by slip of the tongue(keyboard) I’d want him around anyway. He’s provided a lot of valuable info and guidance(like this thread). Little early to shun. I also highly doubt jake is dumb is enough to solicit money in a post basically saying “you need to go your own way” that would be a horrible bissuness model…
Back to the topic. A benefit of training I’m not sure we’ve discussed is the more people thinking like you, the more self fulling your prophecies become. Fibonacci levels are pretty abstract when it comes to reality. But they hold strong. 200 ema, has nothing to do with the economic conditions of a currency. But if price crosses it people go nuts. The list goes on and on. Cowabunga method, James16, etc… All aren’t any worse off with a following, that’s for sure. Just food for thought

wow, this thread has totally gone in the wrong direction huh.
The original point was that Newbies want to teach others before they even know what they are doing

and somehow, we went from that
to, Slandering FOREX Unlimited and accusing him/her of dishonesty

all he wanted was our opinions
and in return he got malicious attacks

What a world we live in.
… Amazing

We help ourselves by helping others!

Bro don’t be defensive about who you are, trader/speculator, businessman/marketer, Founder / Chief Tech. Strategist. Your depth of knowledge makes you more qualified as a mentor than me. I run a dairy company, make things from milk. But just as you can learn to make cheese, I too can learn to speculate. So please, just don’t dismiss our intentions as miss-guided friends. Our views are just as valid as yours.

And by questioning our motivation it immediately opens reason for us to question yours. I believe they (yours) are honorable but once sponsorship starts popping up on ones website one has to wonder. As for donations, $10 buys me 100 pips in my play account, that’s where I do my learning. Not trying to copy someonelse’s sytle, understanding the whys not the hows. Being honest and true to me.

I’m sure traders like me (and they know who they are) “upset” you pro’s simply because we do on the side what you devote a lifetime to master.

Some great discussion here- thanks to all who participated.
This exercise has indeed validated what I’ve been suspecting, that the spectrum of traders and their intentions is indeed vast.

Good luck out there folks!
Jake

The frustrating part about wanting to help people by posting as much knowledgeable things as you can, is trying to navigate through the moderators. As I’m sure Jake is having the same issue. Sometimes you post videos or charts or want to post a link somewhere to help answer someone’s question. and the moderators kick it back thinking your advertising. I may have a a website that I use for a journal that has a multitude of different information on it. And I do lots of YouTube videos which by the way are typically created where someone has asked the question and I decided to answer the question in video format for all to hear. But I am in no way a commercial entity, I’m just a guy that likes to trade, makes good money at it trying to share his knowledge because it’s something I like to talk about while sitting in the den at my house. I’m not trying to fault the moderators per se, as I’m sure they have a difficult time trying to sort through all the scammers trying to sneak in their posts about their latest hot robot. It’s just frustrating sometime as always try to do is help some guy from getting ripped off. Allen

I agree with Jake and was wondering how it will be possible to differentiate one from the other. Is it perhaps possible to create a verification and qualification process in order to separate the professionals from the newbies?
Namely, Professional, Junior Professional and newbie.
Maybe some suggestions on how the qualification process could be handled? :smiley:
Perhaps proof of percentage gained on ones account, limited draw-downs and a few other requirements in order to qualify.

The title will be placed on ones profile and we will all know who we dealing with. :wink:

There should definitely be levels of “members”- and not just levels based on post count.
Ranging from those here to just spew advertisements and sucker in baby fawns, to those who are seasoned professionals with years of experience and the statistics to back them up.

Each username should be linked directly to a myfxbook account (it could be a requirement to have a signature with the Myfxbook widget).
The myfxbook account needs to have [B][U]both[/U][/B] the track record and trading privileges verified.
The account needs to be in “REAL” dollars (not demo).

Fulfill those requirements, and, you should be titled a “verified user” or something.
Just so people know that you’ve been vetted.

But, even so- a horrible track record may not directly equate to someone not being able to contribute constructively or good information.
So the details would need to be ironed out.
For the individuals on here though who are clearly making money off advertising their educational services, they should be vetted 100%.

There’s no need to be mysterious about your trading- [B][U]we’re all here to learn from one another[/U][/B].
I personally love the forum, because it forces me to drill the basics into my head, when I see newer folks asking questions when they’re just starting to learn.
I learn something new everyday and enjoy that.
I can understand not being comfortable sharing hard dollars and cents data, but other than that…

Do you really believe that you are just that much better than the rest of us and we all should be graded. Wake up to yourself. You are not the messiah sent to “SAVE” us lesser doomed mortal mis-guided traders.

Dude, you completely missed the entire point of that post in response to vboost’s idea.
Do you practice yoga, a martial art, hiking or exercise? What in your life is eating away @ you subconsciously that causes you to flip like that on an internet forum?

Yikes…

I think it makes sense to go through that " verified user" titled with myfxbook backing it up if the person main intent is to teach or mentoring someone. I don’t know… is it that necessary? What is it to you or for everyone to see then if you are not teaching or mentoring? I like having myfxbook because it’s good to track my progress, other than that it’s none of their business…

I agree, what the hell was that from bobillbrowne, where did that come from, Some People don’t think before they say things, they just come out and attack, Perhaps a good question to ask regarding Superiority, Would be What person out there HAS THE RIGHT OVER ANY OTHER PERSON to just come out and yell at them, Regardless of what the first person did, Answer, No one has that right, People don’t like being yelled at, or abused, Sadly a large part of the world doesn’t understand this. … Pity

Martin, want in on the action, quite happy to share the wealth.

First, ain’t nobody “yelling” here BUT YOU. SO KNOCK IT OFF!

Now, yourself and funny man both have a problem understanding why

When new babypipers join (or mostly anyone on any FX forum) and post an introduction, I commonly see something like “I’m new to trading, want to be successful, I’ve lost some money and I want to help others…”

What’s with the desire to become a teacher of forex? Is it an ego thing?

You dismiss them as mis-guided. Yet as fair as I am concerned they have just as much right to express an opinion on any matter as you or I. Knowledge comes from failure not from success. I read somewhere here on BP that an “expert is simply someone that has made every mistake there is to make in a very small field of study”. Who are you or I to judge what someone-else might take away from their experience.

And as for the “desire to teach”, we have no intention of teaching. As stated our intention is to share.

Funny man however, now his desire is to teach. He strides onto the forum, charts in one hand, god knows what in the other. Here to save us all from our epic journey to failure, but I ask you, what has he brought to the plate that’s new. Nothing of anything I haven’t already researched in a book, on the web bla bla. Which is why I don’t trade his way. And bro, have you seen his website (sorry funny man, I mean trading journal). Man that’s one of hell of a journal. Feeds and links with FX Empire, FXCM, Daily FX, Forex Factory. Even BP is there. Market analysis, economic news events and emerging stories. That’s no journal, that’s a commercial enterprise with commercial arrangements in place. So all I did was ask the question back at funny man, and I ask it again “what is your desire to teach?”

Most (I’m being general now) of us fail in our first battle with the markets because we get caught up in all the marketing hype that goes with Forex. You see funny man the trader, unselfishly sharing his wisdom with the minions. After reading the first post I now see funny man as a businessman, executing a very well thought out marketing plan. I hate marketers (sorry funny man, just calling a duck a duck). They’re not interested in you or me, simply how to get us to purchase their product (in this case product is still to be released - like any service first you must build demand). Business rule, trust no-one, believe nothing. If he can’t accept that others have a different perspective to his own then he is the one depriving himself of knowledge.

So who has more to offer the community, the member (regardless of their “status”) that promotes independent thought. Dare to live the dream. God, I hope to be proven otherwise but people, beware of the wolf dressed in sheep’s wool.