Please share your story with us!
How did you lose everything and why?
How did you find the motivation to keep going?
How did you improve yourself and fix your mistake?
And how did you finally make it?
Thanks!
I didn’t loose everything (just demo account ‘value’), but I guess the way you have to think about it is the following:
As market is zero sum, someone (or a group of people) has got the money you placed yourself at risk. They thought obviously something completely different than you, as they took the opposite position. Think about it!
Read Jason Alan Janckovskys books, I think in ‘The Art of the Trade’ he tells about a situation where he has lost more than he had trading curde oil, with a big profit before.
I came close to blowing out my first account as I was learning how to trade. I didn’t spend a ton of time in demo because I don’t particularly agree with that approach. Anyway, dropped down to about my last $100 in my account before I realized what I was doing was stupid and I needed to change it. So I took a step back and a couple weeks off, researched some more trading strategies, and started again.
I had to identify what my weak points were. Over-management and tricking myself into seeing opportunities that weren’t there were the big ones. So I moved to higher time frames where I wouldn’t have to spend a lot of time staring at the charts. With Price Action Strategy- the entry signals are pretty clear once you understand what you’re looking for.
As for motivation- being stubborn. A set-back isn’t a failure unless you quit trying to improve and succeed. A majority of the success tales I’ve heard in my life have been because the person didn’t view their set-backs as failures. They were just growing pains toward a successful venture. That’s the mentality I took to forex. Took about a year and a half for me to get profitable but I was finally able to.
Went broker in my 1st business. I answered an add How to Grow Rich in your own business. The busiess was selling toilet bowl cleaners door to door. Basically you bought 4 cases of toilet bowl cleaners for $250 and a 1 time contract fee of $100 and you went door to door and sold them. I was 16 at the time. My motivation to keep going came from a real estate broker who said; tough luck, net time before you do anything, make the decision on FOE. Facts, Options, and Evils.
Next one and last was $700,000 in the stock market. I bought some shares made some money, so naturally I thought I new everything and invested all my money into a tech stock just before the crash. Motivation to keep going, that time came from wife and son on the way.
Ifixed the mistakes the same way. Make decisions on Facts, Options and Evils. Make a plan work the plan. Lastly Try to make same mistake the least amount of times, knowing that I’m going to make the same mistake more than once.
Well, I’ve had 2 “blown out” accounts I say that because I had about $25.00 left…lol but one started with 750.00 (my first account) and the following started with 250.00. After this period I was still determined and still trying to figure a suitable proven strategy and trying to understand how the market works. Long story short I end up managing momdukes 15k, came down to the last 1k and started paying deep deep deep attention to my own psychology. My own make up, how the market works, how much I was really actually risking per trade. The beauty behind risk and reward, and the value behind risk reward ratio over a series of trades. I started to pay attention to Mark Douglas trading psychology, I started to discipline my mind and excercise more often, long story short (yeah another long story that needs to be shortened)
You start the trading career trying to figure out what kind of trader you are, what type of system suits me, then you start to realize the potential of trading forex. But then you get lost in the potential (excessive gains, risklessness, catastrophic losses, overtrading). In the midst of getting lost in the potential you may or may not have a system, for me I found a system/strategy that works for me but you wont have no true system until you really and truly understand how the market works, who the players are and try to have an edge. As of now I am good. My success story is not necessarily a success yet, not until I reach my first 100,000.00. But I can tell you that my desire to succeed in Forex is at its highest and I am closer than ever. Only thing is now that I look at it, I could be placing trades with lower risk and making alot of money if only I would of managed my mind, and myself from the beginning of this 15k. But I am not complaining, trading forex is not easy and you will learn more about yourself than you will about the market before you become successful.
You couldn’t of said it any better, A setback isnt a failure unless you quit trying. Every failure plants a seed of success in you. Now I am journaling trades and keeping an intense journal of my emotions and my trades. Check out the last thread I started “The Proper Way to Journal Entries and Set Up A Trade Plan” I created that thread for a reason. Good Luck
Read more: The Proper Way to Journal Entries and Set Up A Trade Plan
Interesting reading!
Thanks for sharing!
Yours was a very good approach. However, you took too much risk by going to live account directly. You should have used a demo for at least two weeks. However, no matter how good you are, during your first stage of trading, you are bound to lose. Only a few persons summon the courage to stand back on their feet.