The Truth About Trading and Living Life on Your Own Terms

I’m so often asked, “What do you do?” It’s a common conversation starter when you meet someone, isn’t it?

For traders, though, it’s a difficult question to answer. When I’m with the other mums from school, I’m a ‘full-time mum.’ After my keynote presentations, to the audience, I’m a ‘professional speaker.’ To the people who have read my books, I’m an ‘author.’ But here’s what I really do.

I watch pretty little green and red candles do battle on the chart, assess which side is winning, and back that side with my own money.

We’re a funny bunch, us traders. We strive to perfect our entry, exit, and position sizing, and we struggle with our own self-concepts as we realise we’re creating money out of thin air.

My best friends are traders, and even though we have totally different backgrounds, we’re magnetically drawn together by our pursuits. There is no higher calling, as we are living by our wits, totally self-reliant, and jubilant that our way of life has bought us back the years that others are frittering away by working too hard and receiving too little recognition.

I think a much more polite question to ask people, rather than “What do you do?” is “How do you spend your time?” This will bring you a more interesting answer every time and also prevent the possibility that someone will feel they’re about to be pigeonholed into a preconceived role. If I’m asked how I spend my time, I can tell people the truth:

“My passion is share trading and putting money into other traders’ pockets and making it stick, even if they only have 30 minutes a day and limited knowledge about the markets. During the other 23 hours in the day, I’m a full-time mum, I love to travel, and I spend heaps of time drinking hot chocolate with the people I care about.”

There... see? A much more complete answer.

What is your passion? How do you spend your time, and is this the way you would choose?

Trading is a skill set you can learn. This isn’t out of your reach. It’s just a matter of learning the right skills so you can live life on your own terms as a trader.

Tell me: if you knew how to create money simply with the trading methods you implement, how much stress would instantly dissolve from your life?

How confident would you feel?

So, whatever your current role in life—wage slave, business owner, career junkie, or ‘between opportunities’—trading can dovetail right into your life and give you ultimate peace of mind. And TradeDelicious and I will be with you every step of the way.

Louise Bedford is a behavioural finance expert and the host of the Mind over Markets. She has been a trader for over 30 years and is a best-selling author of several books on the share market. Her titles include Investing Psychology Secrets, Trading Secrets, Charting Secrets, The Secret of Candlestick Charting, Let the Trade Wins Flow and The Secret of Writing Options. She is also the host of the Talking Trading podcast.