The Stock Trading Reality Podcast

It truly is amazing just how powerful blaming the person in the mirror can be when it comes to your struggles and failures. I truly understand... blaming yourself for failures is not an enjoyable situation and no one likes to do it; however, there is freedom when you swallow the ego and blame yourself. My guest today from the community, Joey, started off about as bad as you possibly can. In fact, I called him a degenerate gambler to his face and he fully agreed with me. The crazy part though is how he transformed from a degenerate gambler to someone who is now consistently growing his account. So far, he's gone from $150 to $25,000 and it continues to grow. Thanks to his honesty and transparency, Joey shares many experiences that present fantastic nuggets of wisdom. Let's get to it!

While I can't say it is the top issue debated among traders, I can say with full confidence it is easily within the top 3 issues. What is this issue? Is paper trading (demo/simulator trading) worth it? Over the years we have heard both sides of argument on this topic, and to be fair, both sides have made valid points and arguments. My guest from the community in this episode, Joel, shares his journey in a very transparent way that sheds a very raw (and well explained) viewpoint of how not paper trading is dangerous. I realize that we all have varying opinions and experience in regards to this hotly contested issue, so all I ask is you listen with an open mind and be honest with yourself on whether or not you feel like you are on the same pathway Joel was....

If you have even a shred of trading experience with real money, then I'm sure you are well aware of the fact that we all have mental demons we need to fight against. Trading is an extremely mentally challenging business and it truly is filled with demons that need to be acknowledged and then punched in the face! In this episode, I welcome back long time member Donald ('speedster' in the chatroom community) to update us on his journey. Donald has made a whole lot of progress, but to his credit, he's also very aware of the bad tendencies that have the potential of creating problems within his trading. I really respected (and personally benefited from) Donald's self awareness and how he is by no means being dishonest with himself. He's focused on improving and making huge strides while also punching the demons in the face. Let's get to it!

I've had some people ask about my thoughts, but to be honest, another part of this is me just being sick-and-tired of all the media manufactured drama. I want to give you my thoughts on the stock market and how I am approaching the situation. Let's take a breath and walk through all of this in a slow, calm, and calculated way by using logic and a bit of common sense. What am I doing as the stock market crash and why? Let's talk about it.

Passion can be a powerful thing. In this case, it lead our guest Mitch to hijack his brother's social security number so he could open a trading account while still in high school. While I certainly do not advise or support hijacking anyone's social security number, I do love the underlying attitude of Mitch just doing what needs to be done to "make things happen". Now sure, there were much better ways he could have gone about it, but the will power and desire were there to succeed. Mitch is currently only 21; however, because he started so early in life he's already got quite the story to tell. So buckle up and let's get to it.

Courage. If I were forced to summarize this episode in one word, that's what I would use. My guest today is back for the third time and wow... he did some really dumb things, but you know what? We all have! The difference is Hamlet has enough courage to publicly talk about it so that others have the opportunity to learn and not repeat the mistakes he found himself doing. This is one of those interviews where if you take serious what is talked about, you can make a whole lot of money by simply learning what to avoid in the first place. A penny saved is a penny earned and if you heed the warnings Hamlet gives, you'll be thankful that you did. Buckle up. It's about to get bumpy!

Who remembers dial up internet? Can you imagine trying to trade with it? Needless to say, us traders now-a-days sure do take a lot for granted. My guest from the community, Roger, began his trading journey back when the internet was becoming more and more mainstream. Roger has over two decades of experience in the market and he shares it all with us. A portion of that experience was not exactly the pleasant kind, but Roger shares the downs and what he learned from them. Specifically, he discusses the problems he had to admit to himself and the decisions he made that provided a solution. Roger has now been trading consistently and successfully for six years now despite having a full time job. If you are someone with a full time job but also wants to create another source of income, Roger is your guy! Let's go!

I came across an article recently which centered around "mental traps" that successful people don't allow themselves to fall into. While the article is not about trading in particular, the science based observations and discoveries 100% can be applied to us as traders. If you are new to trading you many not realize just how big of a mental challenge it is, so whenever you can get insight into how the human mind (and emotions) work, you can be better prepared to guard yourself. As many of you can relate to, the minute you let your guard down within your mind is the minute problems and mistakes will show up in your trading results. Let's use some science to help make keeping up our guards as strong as possible!

I love it! We now have yet another data point in regards to people "finding a way" rather than "finding an excuse". My guest today, Jermaine, grew up in Jamaica and immigrated to the USA and had to hustle and grind to get to where he is today. This includes working multiple jobs and my favorite part, in Jermaine's words... "living aggressively". I'm well aware that many gurus/teachers/mentors focus on selling the dream, we're not going to do that. In this discussion we will be digging deep into exactly why it is so important for you to have a passion for the market... because yeah, things are not always rainbows and butterflies.

As traders we should love the fact that we can not control how high a price rises. Why? Well, that means we can not control how much money we make in a trade! How cool is that? We have a perfect example of this principle with fellow member Orval (better known as 'Sandman' in the community). Orval updates us on his journey which has improved dramatically since the last time he was on the show. It's been a journey of hard work, dedication and consistency, but the time has been worth it. Orval has fully transitioned from paper trading to real money trading and yeah... I don't want to ruin anything, but so far so good! Let's get to it!