3 Reasons Why You Need a Trading Mentor

Growing up as children, we’re surrounded by our parents, siblings, teachers, classmates, and tutors who all contribute to us becoming functioning human beings in society. We instinctively trust that they know what’s best.

It’s different with professions such as trading. Most people around us don’t know what’s best. If you want to become a commercial airline pilot, you can’t ask an uncle who plays Microsoft Flight Simulator in his spare time to teach you and expect to get hired at an airline.

With the proliferation of the internet, investment and trading knowledge became widely accessible and filled a gaping void in our financial literacy. Our education system never bothered to teach us the most important issue to thrive in modern society: money management.

It’s no wonder why most people fail miserably at succeeding financially. U.S. Census Bureau statistics suggest that 12.3 percent (40 million people) are poor.

Only a select few individuals become proficient with money, attracting it seemingly effortlessly. How do they do it? If you ask them, nearly everyone says that they had a mentor who inspired them and showed them the ropes.

You can try to succeed on your own, or simply learn from someone who is already profitable.

Go out and hunt for a mentor for everything that you’re trying to master. Don’t let limiting beliefs tie you down. People ‘who made it’ are generally more than willing to teach you because they want to pass on their knowledge. You’ll be surprised at how welcoming they are if you show signs of commitment.

By learning to trade consistently for profit, you drastically leverage your finances and fast-track towards financial freedom. Learning from someone who already built wealth in this way is the cheapest and easiest way because you avoid costly mistakes and do things correctly from the start. Don’t you agree?

1. Save Precious Time and Money

Before I started trend trading in November 2007, my mistake was to spend months trying to become profitable on my own.

I devoured trading books, watched YouTube videos, posted in forums, joined IRC chats, and even bought a day-trading course. I was naive and wanted to save money. Of course, I did not achieve consistent profitability that way — only losses.

You can find useful information in these places. You pick up a few insights here and there and concoct a patchwork of trading strategies, but they may be based on completely false or untested premises. What people post online is rarely validated. You’re wasting precious months, if not years, that you could save if you find yourself an experienced trading mentor.

Unfortunately, people don’t see the value in a trading mentor. They think so much before engaging a mentor but willingly incur huge expenses elsewhere in life in the blink of an eye:

• They spend $69,112 to $215,796 on a college degree in exchange for a paper certificate.
• Once they graduate, they spend $9,282 annually on a depreciating car to get to their workplace.
• If they find a soulmate, they blow $33,900 on a wedding that lasts half a day.

Yet they hope to become a professional trader and to achieve financial freedom by watching YouTube videos and reading a few blog posts. The priorities all are wrong to begin with. Being a consistently profitable trader is one of the hardest things in the world to master.

I found my trading mentor by accident after stumbling upon a forum post. I was struggling with day-trading and he introduced me to trend trading on a multi-week time frame. That completely changed the way I look at the market. Gone were the fear-driven days scalping random candlestick patterns for little profit.

He traded 3 YM contracts at the time and sailed through the 2007/08 crisis with ease. I witnessed first-hand how he completely destroyed all myths that circulated the internet up until today. “You can’t hold overnight” and all that garbage you hear regurgitated by complete fools.

I wouldn’t have looked into trend trading if I didn’t meet my mentor. Now I do nothing else but trade trends that last weeks to months and it’s the best thing that happened to me! I’m financially free and don’t even need to stare at charts all day long.

A trading mentor doesn’t give you a shiny certificate or a trophy to show around. The result will show in your trading account. That’s real financial freedom.

2. Get Continuous Feedback

People around you who are in the workforce will encourage you to take a job and get a stable salary like them. If you’re not profitable, they will notice and this can sound like the right thing to do.

Remember that they’re chanting the mantra of linear growth until they retire to a barely sufficient pension. Growth is linear because they’re paid the same salary year after year with occasional bumps from a promotion.

Traders aim for exponential growth. You trade a small account in the beginning but as soon as you achieve consistency you will be unstoppable.

A mentor observes and points out flaws in your behavior and mindset, and makes you reflect on them. It’s a technique to sharpen your self-monitoring skills and to help you avoid making the same mistakes in the future. I skyped during the trading day with my mentor for several months. I talk like him now, I think like him, and I obviously trade like him.

Trading is a tough business that takes years of commitment to master. Avoid day-trading ‘gurus’ and fake people on social media who promise you easy results, but whose track record you can’t validate.

3. Quality Network For Life

When you reach out to high-achieving people working on the same problems as you are, you often create lifetime acquaintances that will strengthen your network.

You’re the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. I really believe that. If all you do is surround yourself with people who chase the next meme stock and already freak out when they lose $100, aim higher.

The chance of you succeeding is greatly increased if you immerse yourself with profitable traders and mentors. You’ll adopt the right mindset to succeed.

You’ll grow faster as an individual and get inspired by each other’s energy, thoughts, or behavioral patterns. There’s no negativity and no limiting beliefs that would otherwise keep you low. You have new people in your life with whom you can bounce ideas off from. All of these are required ingredients for trading success.

Such connections are of a different quality than those at school or at the workplace. You may not find much in common with the people in such environments which is why most classmates or colleagues lose touch after they leave. You’d be lucky to find a profitable trader among them.

So overcome your shyness and make some new connections.