I was looking down at the peeptoe shoe I tried on, pretty, but one of my toes was sticking out like a hotdog that’s too big for the bread. Can’t have that! My shoe size is 8 ½. I eventually landed on a size 10. Monstrous! I knowwwwwwwwww. But what the heck, it’s just a number, I will rather have what fits me perfectly.
That shoe shopping wisdom is definitely a springboard to success in any business. (Who knew?!) Just take a look at Sean “Diddy” Combs, the wealthiest hip-hop artist according to Forbes, now worth $475 million. Diddy built his wealth chiefly from music, clothing-line and vodka. The article points out that “Diddy makes his lifestyle coexist with everything else he’s doing” — making his wealth-building both enjoyable and lucrative.
http://blogs.forbes.com/zackomalleygreenburg/2011/03/16/why-diddy-will-be-hip-hops-first-billionaire/
So what do you do in your lifestyle that could coexist with Trading? You might have thought of these before:
- Have a thing for bling? Have a look at investing on Gold, silver, platinum called “Precious Metals” – they are a store of value and used widely in modern technology (phones etc) thus enjoying high demand, aside from physical things, you can invest on stocks or funds that mine / process them
- Are you the Homey type? Then check investing on banks as well as retailers of food, gardening, consumer goods, homewares or buying a house – understand when people (including you) feel confident to spend / borrow for these
- Walk everywhere? Usually we drive or fly – which burns Oil, if the visit to the pump is getting painful, invest in stocks, or funds that produce it to share in the profits from the high demand.
- Love travelling? Learn about countries. There are funds that hold country-specific investments, or see how their currencies perform against USDollar. Like China, Brazil or Indonesia Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) or take the example of Japanese housewives trading the Yen and USDollar because household budgets are affected by the currency moves.
- Big Fan of Fashion and Shoes ? You can definitely check out investing on retailers. If you are of the Fiercer Sex, (and been reading this for a while) you know what I’m talking about when I explain what we know about Shopping, Fashion and Shoes to understand Trading concepts.
Mesmerizing Indonesian Fashion - Tikma Photography
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Trade Up Your Lifestyle
Then there’s the question of how we achieve consistent success in Trading? With Self-Mastery! Hope you read the start of the blog as I covered it earlier, or review here for the juicy details. Self-Mastery is “The doing when something needs to be done and NOT doing when it is not supposed to be done (self-control)”. Undoubtedly, Trading will be a new addition that you should know how to fit in your lifestyle. This will help you to summon “Self-Mastery”, like maintain your self-control or keep motivated in Trading even when you are busy with your job or your children.
I will skip telling you my misadventures in trying to “find time” or “balancing” life for trading, they didn’t work! Instead I recommend that you understand and do your best to ensure the many aspects of your life support Trading and the ‘ultimate goal” which, for most of us, is Happiness in life. What makes up your life and how could it support Trading?
Spiritual
>Totally critical. Helps with maintaining attitudes that are essential for success in Trading or other endeavours. Be Open to Receiving the abundance of the Universe!
Relationships
> Helps to keep you motivated and people around you may be able to assist in monitoring your trades, or you can can delegate some tasks to them. I know in my case, having children makes me more aware of risks, and losses, so that help me with self-control to follow trading rules in Position Sizing ™ and Stop Loss.
Work / Career
> Use skills/powers you already do at work (especially in non-Finance roles) that could be helpful to Trading, for example :
- Nurses / Medical / Health professional — use emotional control like being detached “dissociated” so you make the right decisions, (can’t be emotional with your patients), following rules, discipline. You can also use skills in developing procedure, how to minimize risks or increase efficiency when time or safety is of the essence.
- Admin or Office staff — use patience, following rules, discipline, developing procedure and some technical skills at documentation and information management (filing, organizing) can definitely help your business
- Sales / Marketing / Entrepreneurs – you know what’s hot in the market so you can use that in selecting the investment/stocks you want to trade.
- Artists / Sports people- you can certainly use your drive to study plus commitment to practice for the best possible outcome. Having imagination on how you can win will greatly help too.
- IT / Engineering / Tradespeople- strong in analysis, breaking things down and solving problem, is handy for analyzing opportunities and developing solution /procedure. Remember sticking to rules and discipline counts massively as well.
- Teachers / Human Relationships / Mothers – certainly using patience, ability to act when required (flexibility and self-control), being conscious of contingencies (you bring extra nappies and clothes in case something happens!), don’t want to risk a lot and developing procedures for efficiency. More on this later, have a “Trader Mom Special” tips to give you.
If you notice, I didn’t mention any Content or Knowledge you’d have to have…. that is easily acquired. Your healthy mental state and emotional control is much much much more important in Trading. I used to think of how my IT job takes away focus from my Trading , it was hard. But then I know I have to have my job to build my capital and it pays for my lifestyle. When I changed my outlook into “how my work can help me Trade”, it got easier — I recommend that “attitude of gratitude” for what you have and just use it to move in the direction you want. (This is deep philosophical stuff right here!) You will feel better, and when you feel better, you trade better.
Health and Well-being
> Helps with stress management and peak performance, and of course allows you the Time to trade (can’t be trading on a sickbed!).
Social
> Helps with stress management or gives you a diversion so you are refreshed when you trade. Also associate with positive and inspiring people or those who have success in investing / trading, you might learn something useful. On that note, flattery will get you everywhere so do butter up a person you think can help you, be honest that you want to learn from them. He / She might even be an “Angel Investor” who may trust you with their money if you can prove yourself to be very very good at Trading.
Financial
> Tasks that include Budgeting, Pay Bills, Retirement Planning, Costs Control, Tax Planning that help you build capital and knowing how much to risk. These tasks are not exciting, even to me. I have a tip I’d give you though, when you do these tasks, you are ensuring your finances give you ability to enjoy life more. It’s like wearing stillettos, at first you’d have to gather the courage and then wearing them gives you the “high” (emotionally and literally) 🙂
Hip Heels by Via Uno
Housekeeping / Organization
> This includes tasks to organize / clean up your life so you can do everything else! And if you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you know your “Shopping skills” is a treasure trove of knowledge for Trading. You, genius, you!
I hope presenting this view starts you off with looking at how Trading fits your lifestyle and see everything where you can seek out “synergies” or what would work together with Trading. Remember multi-millionaires like Sean “Diddy” Combs use this strategy,,, how hard can it be?!
See you at the Top!
