What will they say about you after your trading career?
I was interviewing a female retail trader for a spot on our desk and asked her one of my standard questions. She was self-taught, a single mom, former teacher, living in the Dallas/Forth Worth region and posting consistent six-figure returns, with a small trading account.
I asked: who is your role model and why?
She thought, chuckled in a friendly Southwestern charm, and then answered, “I would have to say my grandmother. All of her kids turned out great. Yeah all of her kids turned out great. I would have to say my grandmother.”
When you are in the heat of your trading career it is so easy to get sucked into:
- We could use a bigger house/apartment.
- It would be nice to get that new GMC Denali.
- We need to get them into (XYZ) private school.
- If I could make an extra 200k things would be so much easier/better.
It is important to strive for more as a trader. Trading is a performance sport that challenges us to be better each day. But for all the trading and teaching and writing and lecturing I do about trading, I hope one day someone will say that about me.
Raising your kids the right way is not the ultimate contribution some can make. Some are not fortunate enough to have children. Some do not want to have children. But we all do have something that is most important to us. And I doubt for most it is being remembered solely as a great trader.
Trading gives us the skills to excel at that which is most important to us. What do you want them to say about you?
*no relevant positions
Mike Bellafiore is the Co-Founder of SMB Capital and SMBU, which provides trading education in stocks, options, forex and futures. He is the author of One Good Trade and The PlayBook.
