Think Like A Trader Blog

Monday 3 August 2015

It's not a linear road to success!


Reading Time - 5 Minutes (PS Thanks Owen Fitzpatrick)

The road to success is not a linear one and it is not a short one. Save from winning the lottery (which I in no way consider success), you’re going to need to get your hands dirty. And in truth, the journey is just as fun as the arrival.
 
When you look at successful people, they’re brought to your attention when they are already ‘made’, at the top of their industry and making it look easy. This goes for athletes as well as entrepreneurs. And the main problem with this is that it can create a sense of difference between them and you. It makes them look like they have a special ‘talent’, ‘gift’ or were just lucky.

It isn’t true. Now let’s ignore the idiotic rise of famous people who are famous for being famous. Again, I don’t think of these people as successful. Rich, sure, but lottery winners are also rich. Success is something you earned, something you created. And for successful people, their journey was a difficult one which oftentimes seemed impossible.

Let’s take a few quick examples here:

JK Rowling – Living on state benefits, a single mother who struggled to make a life for her and her child. Was Harry Potter the first book she ever wrote? Of course not! There were countless books before that. And even Harry Potter was rejected numerous times by agents. But she kept going, kept working and believing that she could do it.

Walt Disney – Fired and told he had no creativity or original ideas.

Henry Ford – Declared Bankrupt

Abraham Lincoln – I’m not even going to begin to list the hardship this legend suffered throughout his life. Google him and find out for yourself. It’s a tough read!

Ok so why does this matter to me? To my trading journey? I’m here to get rich trading Forex and scalping points from the Dow Jones, not read biographies!

It’s very important. Because if you understand that no one is successful without hardship and that what got them through was determination and perseverance, then it can make your journey a lot easier. If you understand that you aren’t failing because you’re not good enough or because you just don’t have the ‘talent’, but rather that you’re just climbing the rocky cliff-face that is your route to success, it will encourage you to take that next step.

The successful people are the ones who kept going. Who maybe lost faith once or twice, but continued all the same. Most people face failure and they accept it. They give up. Or worse than that, they put it away on a shelf somewhere and tell themselves that they will get back to it ‘when I have more time’. In reality, they give up but try and make it sound like something different, something more palatable.

So get yourself mentally prepared. Expect to climb and then slip. Climb and then slip. Maybe plummet a few hundred feet, breaking bones and banging against every rock there is on the way down. But lick your wounds, turn over and start to climb again. And guess what happens when you’re almost there, when you can see the summit, almost reach it? Another plummet! I don’t know why this happens, but when you’re almost there, tantalisingly close, you will suffer a setback once more. Perhaps it’s life’s way of messing with you, of testing if you’ve really learned what it takes to be successful. Just keep getting up and climbing. Because what’s the alternative? Roll over and give up?

Everyone fails. But only failures give up.

Have a great trading week!






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