The Stock Trading Reality Podcast

There’s no way around it. As traders and investors, “fine tuning” must take place in order to truly build a valid strategy. I’ll be the first to admit that fine tuning can be really annoying. Sometimes just showing up and applying broad strokes is so much better due to the, deceivingly, time efficiency. This is why not fine tuning is so dangerous. The extra time is where the details are revealed and worked out. My guest, Jeremy is a great example of this. Been been in the weeds fine tuning his strategy, particularly, in regards to “letting it breath”. Is this an area you are struggling with? Maybe you aren’t even aware it is an area to fine tune? When you’re new and don’t know what you don’t know, this can happen (it’s normal!). Jeremy was great to talk with and was completely open about his journey. He shares some great stories that can help us all build and/or safe guard ourselves within our own journeys. Let’s get to it and hear about Jeremy and his journey so far!

All of this was pretty unintended. I routinely have people asking me about my thoughts on cryptocurrency, so I chose to do a quick social media post explaining my personal long term investment and wealth building/preserving strategy. For me, I feel most comfortable and at ease with assets that have, real, value. This opened up a can of worms as the crypto diehards showed up and droves to try and refute a very simplistic argument on my end. The fact that something so basic was so stubbornly defended forced me to do some reflections. After about four seconds it dawned on me that these people had no other choice. These people needed to do what they were doing out of pure necessity. The very nature of cryptocurrency, by default, creates cults. I wanted to expand on these so you better understand how to reason with the unreasonable. More so, I hope to help you understand (and therefore save time) in regards to realizing there is nothing you can really do to change a crypto cult member’s mind. Let’s hit on a few points that will clarify the topic and help you guard your time.

Have you been there? Something happens within your trading and it is as if someone else takes over your body in pure anger and rage? To the person who has never traded with real money, it’s easy to sit back and proclaim, “I would never let myself lose control in such a way!”. To the person who has experience trading with real money, it’s a feeling that we’ve all encountered. In this episode, I welcome back fellow member Kelly (”Kellynm” in the chatroom). He’s a great guy who is easy to talk to and is very open about his journey. As I’m sure you can tell from the title of this episodes, “rage trading” has been an issue for him; however, he is well aware of it and working very diligently to kick it to the curb. Kelly and I go down several interesting rabbit holes, including a great discussion on “letting winners win”. If you want to hear from the perfect trader (warning: this person does not exist), this won’t be an episode for you. If you want to hear from a genuine trader who is sharing his experience so we can all benefit, then I promise you’ll enjoy yourself. Let’s get to it!

We did it! We’ve hit our 400th episodes in a row without missing a single Monday release! I say “we” because you as a loyal listener keep the motivation fire kindled to continue to find volunteer guests. The fact we’ve been able to find people to volunteer of their time for 400 weeks in a row is a testament to the quality of people in our community. For this special episode, I wanted to bring back to of these volunteers who I admire in many ways: Michell and Ashlee. They are what I would call, Lady Monsters. These are women who offer a very different insight into the world and life compared to the main stream medias narrative. While we don’t talk a whole lot about trading, what we do talk about with help you with your trading. How? If you want to be at trader, you need money (capital). If you approach life with the attitude and problem solving philosophy of these two Lady Monsters, you’re going to have more money to trade with. In some ways, you’ll have more money because you just simply don’t waste it! For you younger women out there who want to get into trading, please listen very closely as we go down a rabbit trail about weddings. Again, does it have anything to do with trading per-so? Nope. But both of their attitudes towards the topic reveals why they have found so much freedom of time and wealth within their lives (along with having extra money to use to trade with!). Let’s get to it!

Anything you do in life will have phases. This fact is no different when it comes to the world of trading. What I have learned over the years of doing this show and talking with almost 400 traders is most phases are, broadly speaking, the same. The big difference arises in regards to how these phases are approached and navigated. This episode, fellow member Eli breaks down the various stages he has gone through in his trading journey so far. He came prepared to the show with a structure and as a former engineer, I can always appreciate a good structured process! I’m confident you’ll enjoy Eli’s perspective on how he has approached the world of trading and how he has navigated the various twists and turns that we are all guaranteed to face. As usual, we drift down some interesting rabbit trails that take us into some quality critical thinking conversations. Eli is a very humble man and one whom I respect. I’m confident you will feel the same way as you walk away from the discussion with several pieces of common ground. Let’s get to it!

There are some people you just sit back and say, “can I be your friend?”. They are just so similar to your approach towards solving problems and overcoming hurdles that it would be foolish to not want to build a relationship with them. My guest, Ashlee (chatroom alias “SassyPantsAsh”), is one of those people. She has been through a whole lot in life, particularly back during the real estate disaster of 2008; however, she never once threw up her hands and said, “I can’t!”. She found a way to keep trending upwards and her journey only improved in strength. I mean, at this point in her life, one of her streams of income is to recruit astronauts to go to space. Yes, you read that right! This life experience and mentality towards problem solving has prepared her in big ways for trading. Like us all, she is not perfect and has had several headaches when it comes to the world of learning to trade, but, she’s doing extremely well and has a great perspective about it. Ashlee and I get into some great discussions about trade management and other key areas that traders struggle with. It’s a conversation that is both motivational and I would like to think, entertaining! Let’s get to it. Buckle up! Ashlee ain’t playin’!

One of the most (if not “thee” most) powerful facts about the market is how flexible it allows you to be as both a trader and investor. When you first get started in the markets, most people get laser focused on a single type of market. In this day and age new traders and investors show up locked in on either the stock or crptocurrency market. While I can fully understand how this happens, you are unintentionally shoving yourself into a corner and limiting your flexibility. Life is an ever changing thing and at times that will creep into your trading and investing strategies. My guest, Christopher, is a great real life example of how all these changing dynamics can require compromising solutions. Christopher showed up in the markets having no idea about the Forex market. As environments around him changed and his journey to finding strategies that fit into his personal risk tolerance evolved, he ended up finding a sweet spot with Forex. Even if you have zero interest in Forex, set that aside and look at the bigger picture of how we can all learn from how other traders have navigated the ever shifting waters of life and the markets. This was a really great conversation and I have little doubt you’ll come away with some solid considerations! Let’s go!

Do you hang around people that make life harder than it needs to be? Let me be very clear to set the stage: life is hard. I’m not implying that life is easy or anything of this nature. The area I want to dig a bit more into (looking at a real world situation) is how some people choose to make life way more difficult than it needs to be. How does this relate to trading and investing? The smoother your “normal” life is, the easier it becomes to learn how to trade and/or invest. What I’ve found to be the case is too many people surround themselves with people making their life harder than it needs to be and then believe the system itself is the problem. This is extremely dangerous territory to tread on. How so? If the cause of hardship is “the system”, this would mean you have no control over your life. In my opinion, this is a very scary and depressing proposition. I would submit the claim that while life is hard, you do have a significant control of just how hard it is. In other words, as you’ll hear about in this episodes, this person is choosing to create massive hurdles for themselves instead of making their life so much easier. Don’t listen to the narrative that “the system” is rigged against you. It’s not. Too often people have the system working for them and then self sabotage themselves. Let me show you what I mean…

You certainly aren’t crazy. You by no means are being irrational. Using the logic, “I’ll learn from the internet” makes perfect sense in today’s age of technology. You can jump online and before you know it, you have information, opinions, facts, tools, etc. all being thrown at you in an instant… at the same time! A glaring problem quickly arises when you are new and you don’t know what you don’t know. Part of this is, what is a fact? What is an opinion? Does this tool pertain to me and what I am needing? Can you relate to this feeling of what I like to call “overwheminess”? That’s where our guest, Alberto, found himself when beginning his journey. He already had some investing experience under his belt, but the YouTube algorithm lead him into day trading and peaked his interest. This lead him into the vast sea of internet knowledge and attempting to learn how to day trade, properly. Where did this decision lead him? What were some of the mistakes he made along the way? What were his solutions to these issues? We get into that and a whole lot more. There are many relatable parts of his story I can remember going through, and I’m sure you will too. Whether you are a beginner or a veteran, there is something for everyone!

I always enjoy talking with successful people. There is constantly something to learn in one form or another. When you just sit back and listen, you can gather little bits (or who knows, big bits?) of wisdom through their experiments and general experience. When you applies these dynamics to your own life, things only get better. In this episode, I welcome back fellow member Sean for an update on his journey and life in general. He’s primarily an investor, but he’s also a business builder so we talk a variety of topics. I would argue all traders (day or swing traders) should also have, in the background, investing strategies at work too. I’m all about diversity of income streams, so don’t forget, investing into the stock market can serve as its own form of an income stream when done right. Even if you have zero interest in investing, there’s still plenty of great conversation that can be applied not only to your personal trading strategy, but life in general. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation and I’m very confident you will too. Let’s get to it!