What 20 years of marriage taught me about trading


content provided with permission by FXStreetRead full post at forexlive.com

You need to be in to win 

You need to be in to win 

Well, I recently had the pleasure of celebrating 20 years of marriage with my wife which I have been very thankful for. And as my wife and I reflected on 20 years of marriage over a weekend early in November I saw a number of parallels between keeping trading and keeping married. Here are a few observations I made

1. You need to have grit.

Stickability, not quitting, picking yourself back up. In order to become successful at trading from the retail side you need incredible stamina. No huge account to learn from, no experienced traders 2 desks away, limited time, and no reliable resources to draw from. If you are going to make it you need to be unusually resilient. 

2. Don’t let the bad times make you quit

Life is difficult. Even the best lives. Trading is difficult, even for the best traders. Markets change, circumstances conspire. The temptation is to quit when the going gets tough. Don’t quit. Slow down, re-group, re-arrange, but never, never quit. 

3. Invest in your marriage

It can be easy to just co-exist in your marriage. The kids, the jobs, the chores, the visits, the hum drum of life. This is all necessary, but spend time developing your marriage. Don’t get into a bad habit. In trading it is possible to do the same things, the same mistakes, the same habits – learn something new. read a book about trading, just keep stimulating your thoughts. 

Trading FX

Ok, this was a slightly spurious post about trading and marriage and i know that my/any marriage is way more important than trading. However, all good things (and i have had 20 great years) take time and effort. You know when my wife and I got married in our early 20’s (early by UK standards) some other people in our marriage prep class thought we were going to need all the luck in the world. (yes, they had the gift of encouragement). Well, I am not being cocky about my marriage and I take nothing for granted. However, what I can say is that those 20 years have been worth it all. I can say the same about my trading. Yes, it was a pig to learn, but the effort has been worth it.