Have you ever asked yourself what makes you so interested in the trading business? Why do you want to be a trader? There are a lot of great reasons why it makes sense (you can also read my latest article about it here), and for me, it all really started with a burning passion for loving the trading game itself. Without that, I’m quite sure I couldn’t have made it this far.
But let me make sure we’re all on the same page that trading is very risky. It’s not by any means a guaranteed path to success, in fact for most it’s a path to losing money. The stats say 9 out of 10 trades loser money. So if you are thinking about getting into the market, assume you will lose, and focus on trading in a simulator before you put real money on the line.
There are a number of common skills that are required to succeed as a trader. Beyond the ability to learn how to execute strategies that are proven to be successful (the Warrior Pro courses are where I personally started my trading career from), you must also acquire “soft” skills that are just as much important than the pure technical ones in order to be successful.
These “soft” skills are what will make a trader become a millionaire. It’s not the rush to make money or the desire to win big quickly but instead the patience and discipline in the long run that will make it real.
Would you wait ten years to become a millionaire? What would you answer if somebody asked you that? The funny thing is that almost everybody would answer “yes” to this question but the vast majority of them would not respect the time required for the learning curve to be completely fulfilled and will end up paying the price for it.
The Three Phases Of a Millionaire Timeline
Waiting for the right time to reap the rewards of being a successful trader means knowing that like for every other business, there are three unavoidable phases to be respected while learning how to master trading and they can be summarized as followed:
- First two years: survive. Here is the best time to invest into education and into listening to your own self in order to figure out what kind of trader you are. Maximize the opportunities in order to turn every trade into a lesson to learn. Meanwhile, be focused on controlling the losses and not blowing up live accounts. Best suggestion here is to trade in a simulated environment for as long as possible and to go live with minimal sizing and exposure. The ultimate goal is to close this time break-even;
- 3rd to 5th year: consolidate. Now, you have found out what kind of trader you are, what are the strategies that you like the most to trade and how to minimize your losses. The goal for this three years is to increase the yearly profit year over year while consistently going up in size. At this time, the generated income from trading activities should be big enough to make a living and to sustain a comfortable lifestyle;
- 6th to 10th year: grow. Here is when it is time to maximize on the experience made on the first five years of being a trader. At this point, your trading foundation should be strong enough to have the ability to play with bigger sizing without having the emotions influencing the decision-making process in a trade. In other words, if you have made it this far, odds are that you’ll become a millionaire within the end of this time span for real!
Of course, this isn’t supposed to be a perfect timeline that fits everyone, some traders will get there even sooner while other it would take a little longer, and many more won’t make it at all. But ultimately the mentality of winning in the long run instead of expecting to become a millionaire overnight is what will help you accomplish that one big goal in the end. I hope this is the path I am on, but only time will tell.
“No matter how small you start, always dream big.” ― Stephen Richards
See you in the chat room.
Trade safe,
Roberto Barbaro