Well, I ain’t no JohnScott, I’m just a newbie nobody. But for what it’s worth I agree wholeheartedly with him. I’m going on 53 years old. I have been “passionate” about a great many things, and so far have been successful at none of them because I lacked the character and determination to follow through when the passion faded. If I had plowed on by sheer grit, as he suggests, no doubt my eventual success would have rekindled that passion in a more lasting way. Hopefully by now I’m more settled and less easily distracted and will be able to succeed at this in my own way and time.
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Hi M,
It depends on how you define success in the first place. If “making a profit from an interest in things”, it is possible this was the wrong definition from the start. I used to mentor young people on planning their futures. I hasten to add I am not and never will be a “financial advisor” which in the UK is against the law unless you have been to “financial school” and you can tell everyone how NOT to invest their money in the vain belief that you will be doing them justice. I often think “why would you teach me how to do this for £50 an hour if you say you are making hundreds of pounds per hour? Are you just philanthropic or stupid?” Anyway, I ramble. I read a book about 25 years ago by Richard Layard called “Happiness”. It changed my outlook on life quite a bit. I was supposed to separate those things I enjoyed doing from those things I worked to do. Problem was, I could not differentiate between that which I chose as a career to “earn a living” and that which I chose as a hobby “which I enjoyed doing”. I am lucky, but we can all be lucky if we do things that make us happy.
I work as a contractor, and so I am used to working from home extensively. Our home is built for that purpose, so I am lucky enough to have a dedicated office. Today, my direct boss, and his boss, and his boss’s boss were on a mass teleconference to about 50 staff discussing the problems of working from home. One thing they said is that when people work away from home (the norm - in an office, factory or retail outlet) there is a “phase transition” that happens between home life and work life. For example, a bus ride, a 15 minute walk, a 60 minute car journey. The problem with working from home, for those who are not used to it before Covid-19 lockdowns, is that the day becomes all mingled into one, and there is eventually no “phase transition” from work to life. I don’t believe anyone who says “I tried lots of things but were not successful at any”. It also reminds me of when I was a school governor and when I used to meet the pupils and ask them “what do you want to do when you leave this school” I was disturbed by how many said they wanted to be on X Factor, or play for MU, or be a social influencer. I used to say “that is a lofty goal, but you do realise there is only one Wayne Rooney for every million young footballers who aspire to be a Wayne Rooney? Do you have a Plan B just in case you break your leg?” The answer was the inevitable “No”. A goal needs to be SMART. Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound. I have never failed in achieving a goal when I have described it in those terms. I urge you to try this when you next have a goal. The reason that I am on my fourth attempt at being successful in Forex trading is because my other three attempts were time bound. This time around, that time duration is not a month, or a year. It is a decade. So I settle myself into my current Forex goals far more comfortably than the previous attempts, because there is no specific “money aim”. It is purely to be able to demonstrate to myself that I can achieve an “edge”, and that means “not losing money”. It may not make me get rich quick, but that is OK because I have defined Success as not needing to make me rich quick. It is a goal I pursue on the assumption that it MAY make my life a little more interesting than sitting around watching box sets of no lasting value to my future.
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Very valid points - had to chuckle at the MU, X factor, social influencer comments
You nailed it bang on, it’s an endemic problem in western society - and one only made worse with social media and instant gratification
Our forefathers never had the options we have today. They just got on with it.
We are much luckier but we often don’t appreciate that - we could learn a thing or two from them
Im Chinese Malaysian on my mother’s side, in a country where the Chinese born in that country, are not afforded the same rights as Malay bumiputeras, the Chinese grinded out a livelihood working many hours, in diverse businesses - none of these were ‘glamour’ business’ and passion never came into it - save the passion for making money and looking after the family.
Such is the case for many immigrants the world over.
Us born in the west (including myself) have been indoctrinated to think we are special, should have it all - its not a healthy attitude
Ironically it was trading that opened up my eyes to all that
This is just my view, but follow your heart unapologetically. Grit and determination have immense value when you need to wield them, but they are not a way of life. Remember the lesson of the willow that bends to survive wind that breaks other trees. If you suddenly find yourself not feeling it, stop. Go do something awesome instead for a while, and come back when you’re stirred to do so. Often when I do that, I find that previous blocks are broken, ideas are fresh, and outcomes are better.
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Hi, in my younger life, I joined Schlumberger as an oilfield exploration engineer and trained / lived in North Sumatra, Brunei, Sarawak (Miri), KL and Manila. I know about the bumiputras. In later life when I used to admire the Texan bumper stickers that said “Please God, let there be another oil boom and I promise not to p*ss it all away”, I got myself assigned to Syria as a country manager for refusing to fire my predecessor. That is where I met my wife and as a “second life expat”, I went native. I am an Arabist at heart. I used to see the caravan camel traders in the desert near Dier Ez Zor and worked out that some of them were worth over a million USD. I drank coffee with the Bedouin, and started to respect their 5,000 year respect for gold. Fast forward 30 years, and that country has been ravaged, most recently suffering a war-torn runaway currency inflation of nearly 5,000%. Now we know why the arabs respect gold, not paper fiat. I have been fortunate to meet a few of my friends from Damascus as refugees in the UK. It is a small world. They seem to get on their feet quite quickly since most of them are not afraid to work - even lawyers and dentists driving taxis here. You could not make up the stories if you wrote a book. Anyway, those who have lost much, or have never really had anything, have that fire inside them to make good of their lives. And those who have had everything delivered to them on a plate often do the opposite. It is a sad fact that fewer than 0.1% of the population can hold wealth for three generations or more (source - The Millionaire Next Door), and even fewer dream of creating inter-generational wealth for their extended families. That is what drives me to spend time with Forex (and recently with Crypto). Crypto is the gold without the 2% per year inflation. And if you limit your participation to only that which you are willing to lose, it is a one way bet. My most likely future use for Forex will not be in attempting to profit from trading, it will most likely be, this time around, using Forex to offset (hedge?) embarrassingly large positive moves in Crypto currencies by shorting with a proportion of “overprofit” from daily, weekly and monthly volatility of Cryptos. I just haven’t yet put together the strategy, let alone the Plan, to achieve this, but knowing there is a method available is more than enough.
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Your insights as usual are spot on.
To be honest I think one of the underlying reasons I got into trading was because I thought I could make good money without doing much work - again the western mindset for ya.
To a certain extent I’ve accomplished that but my mindset is different now.
While trading itself doesn’t take much time, I try to be as industrious as possible. My trading blog I guess is my small attempt to redress the karmic balance and help the knowledge of the world
As for gold I’m in the process of setting up a new site about physical gold, particularly about it’s history which is fascinating.
And crypto, a few years ago I would have laughed at the thought - but I’m pretty much converted now.
Talking bitcoin specifically it has some amazing things going for it
Limited supply
It can cross borders in a moment - unlike gold
No storage fees
And is currently used as a medium of exchange where gold only has the store of value card going for it.
I don’t think bitcoin is going ultimately be a currency - I think it’s going to be a financial asset - maybe in a way bonds are - but much more volatile
For myself bitcoin trades amazingly well , great with inside bars which is my fav technique.
I think bitcoin could change the whole game - so it’s nuts to be ignorant of it.
However I say that with a caveat. At the end of the day I’m a trader of what is moving - I’m not some bitcoin (or gold) zealot.
It never pays to get married to one specific market so while I want bitcoin to work - its possible it all falls flat on its face.
@Johnscott31
check out bullionvault which we have used for years. We have never had to switch jurisdiction in over 10 years, but never say never. It takes a few seconds to sell London gold and buy Swiss gold, and about 2 to 3 working days to do a change instruction to your recipient bank with suitable ID and you have potentially saved yourself from your government’s stealth tax should the UK follow the USA and do a “Roosevelt” or worse still a “Carter” on your gold. I agree about the Crypto mobility and only expect it to improve over time. We have friends who are temporarily parked in Turkey, Lebanon and other not so great places if you are a refugee. For now we can send them small funds via Western Union, but it would be a whole lot less stressful for them if they could just walk into a Bitcoin shop and get local currency that we could send them within 10 minutes. It is probably available but I guess when you are a refugee you trust nothing and nobody. Sad times, and we hope they improve. I was set to retire in Syria, and now will not return unless there is real peace there. Haven’t seen my wife’s family for 10 years, except on WhatsApp.
In my opinion, yes. It’s just a small hurdle. But after four months, you’re still just a rookie. Same for me. I’m just a rookie.
I’m learning the ropes, just like you. This, like all endeavours, take time. Every time you overcome a hurdle, you just outlasted your competitors who quit when they crossed a similar challenge.
If we want to become the best traders we can be, we must understand these two things (among others):
- The race goes not to the swift, but to those who can endure.
- You get out of it, whatever you put into it.
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Trading got to be devoid of emotions, so anytime is ideally fine for trading.
If you have not already seen this, I have found that this has been me since about February this year. I am still awaiting an operation stymied by Covid-19. But somehow - my family managed to find me out, and that has helped enormously.
(49) I had a black dog, his name was depression - YouTube
At the company to whom I currently consult, late last year, there was a flurry of activity of HR putting up posters all over the place. The one that stuck in my mind I have managed to find on the Internet. It is called The Mood Elevator. This has helped me to understand the external influences that introduced me to my Black Dog, and has been very useful in looking at that Mood Elevator every morning I sit at my desk, and prompts the “parrot on each shoulder” conversation that goes like this “You have done enough this week - take a chill pill” to which the other parrot replies “you have a choice - you can choose to be a loser, or you can strive to be a winner. Your family still needs you - your purpose in life is not yet finished. Go get 'em boy”
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Im going to say something very controversial, but like most here, I am a newbie and what I say should be taken with a pinch of salt, but here goes.
Now first of all lets be honest, we are all here to make money, but mostly not allways because we want to drive a Ferrari, live in a mansion etc. We are looking for financial freedom and the catalyst of that is to make money. Ok thats the truth out the way.
Now the controversial part, I think the pipsology school is on one hand usefull, and on the other hand not. Il explain. The start of the course touches on, what is forex? What is support and resistance, trends and ranges. That stuff is all great, and those are the basics… complete those sections, but then stop. If a newbie carries on with the rest of the course they will get bogged down with loads of information that most of the successful retail traders ive seen, dont really use. Because of that you think forex is this massive subject and you spend years trying to understand these concepts wilst not becoming profitable.
My (subjective) definition of trading successfuly, is passing prop firm evaluations, and making 5-20% per month to give you the freedom you need.
And for those that say 5-20% + is unachievable, then im sorry but thats the kind of numbers retail prop traders are making in trading communities using simple strategies.
So my advice to newbies (like me) would be to do the basics part of the course, stop, find some money to join a course/community that trades a specific strategy, this will force you to trade that strategy and force the chart time required to pass these evaluations, get you funded, and achieve the lifestyle you require. Failure do do this will put you down an endless rabbit hole, of gann fans, elliot waves, harmonics, indicators, trying this, trying that. Before you know it you will still be on here 3-5 years later trying to work out where it all went wrong.
Rant over 
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I understand your perspective: there’s no point studying what you don’t need.
However, as a rookie, you don’t know what you don’t know. Meaning, you don’t know what information is missing.
For example: Suppose you never had eaten cake before and there are 12 different slices of cake on a table.
If you taste the first one, love it, then you say “I’m gonna look for more cake just like this one,” you don’t know what you’re missing out on with the other 11 slices of cake.
Pipsology covers pretty much everything a beginner could ask for. It’s incredibly comprehensive. But if a beginner just reads the first 25%, he’s missing out on so much. But the beginner won’t even have an idea of what he’s missing. He’ll go out there trading and losing money, and have little idea why.
In my opinion, you gotta read it start to finish. Then trade. Then read it again.
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Yeah I get what you mean, but I think if a newbie follows my plan and gets profitable, they can then come back to babypips if further education interests them, and it will make a whole lot more sense as they will have hundreds of hours of chart time under their belt at that time.
The various other topics could be used more to reference some part of a strategy you are using.
But I get it that my views are a bit different from most.
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I hear ya! I’m all about skipping unecessary steps.
But I had no idea about anything. I had just read a TA book, but had not done any trading. So, I just read everything in Pipsology.
How would a rookie trader know what to skip in Pipsology?
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You make a very good point. Get good at the basics and then add to your knowledge as your experience grows.
That seems to be the path of many traders - myself included.
To be honest some of the topics in the Babypips course I am still pretty clueless of - and yet others (the areas that are of interest to me) I really went down the rabbit hole on.
If you try to consume it all in some belief you have to know everything you are likely not doing yourself any favours.
One of my core beliefs is get really good at the most simplest things, rather than attempting to master too much.
Once you are unconsciously competent at the basics only then find another subject and do the same there
To all beginners reading this, my understanding of most technical analysis theory is woefully small .
When some on here post their trade analysis complete with lots of lines, and potential target or retracement areas I am completely lost.
But it matters not - I make money.
My point is you don’t need to know everything to make money, just become a specialist in one or two things at least in the earlier years.
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I agree you are wasting time if you try to master everything in Pipsology.
I’m saying I think it’s wise to just read everything and be aware of what’s out there.
There’s a section in Pipsology about animal shaped chart patterns. I’m never going to bother trying to get good at that. But, I still read it. If I never read it, how would I know if it’s useful or not? What if I skipped the entire section on fundamental trading?
Or the technical trading section?
“I don’t think I need that. I don’t even know what that is…”
How much could I know if I just skipped random sections?
If I’m new, I don’t have the experience to discriminate between what’s useful and what’s not.
However, reading it the second time around, I’ve been skipping several sections.
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That makes sense - go through it all but then return to the points that work for you.
It’s said it takes reading up to ten times before something truly sinks in anyway.
Getting a general outline of the domain you are studying is like reading through a course curriculum or books contents page - it’s a necessary and often enjoyable step (for me anyway).
The key takeaway is to not stress yourself out if part of the course doesnt feel right for you.
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Yes! I think you have to figure out what kind of trader you will be. I think, unfortunately, you must learn this through actual trading—reading about different types of trading is very helpful, but might not be enough.
You gotta trade and see what feels right for you. For me, I tried trading several economic reports, and none of it worked for me.
However, range trading was very exciting for me. I think I’ve won more trades with ranges and breakouts than swing trades.
But I want to learn more about swing trades. Therefore, I’ll go back to Pipsology. Not the whole thing again, but just the parts I need.
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Yes figuring out what works for you as a trader is important and also not easy.
I liken my own development as like climbing a mountain and think you are at the summit only to get there and see you are not near the top at all
The place I went wrong with my learning was not thinking about how I was going to approach learning things as a complete novice.
I have never done a university degree - and I think in a way doing one can prepare you in how to approach an in-depth subject.
I was clueless, throw in the emotional ups and downs of trading and it was very easy for me to go astray.
For me one of the biggest none financial rewards of trading is it has taught me how to learn something - I just wish I had that skill I had before I began.
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When I am trading forex, motivation plays an important role. It fills me with confidence and prepares me for my upcoming trades. I like talking to professional traders who always have something to teach me that I, as an intermediate trader, need to learn. This gives me a more balanced view to accept my profits as well as my losses.