Always Be Prepared

Over the holidays, I encountered a door to door salesman while visiting family.  He was 23 years old and his name was Mike.  He was selling a cleaning product, and I mean he sold it!

Every single rebuttal thrown at Mike was overcome with ease.  Sometimes those replies were educational, sometimes they were entertaining, but Mike was ready for anything.  With it being the holidays and therefore plenty of time to spare, it became sort of a fun challenge to banter with him and watch his skill.  He knew his product inside and out, and he proved it with confidence.

I was most impressed by Mike’s preparation.  Anything we threw at him, he had a solution for it.  He was great at his job, because he had made it his craft.

How Do You Treat Your Trading?

That encounter with Mike proved to be a valuable reminder to me that I’ve got to be prepared each and every day for whatever the market delivers.  You do too if you have plans to pull any money out of the market on a given day.

The prepared trader doesn’t know what he will face each day, but he doesn’t have to.  He can handle it.  Mike didn’t know which rebuttals his customers would offer, but he still knew how to work through the situation.  Hard work, persistence, and a refusal to quit when the road gets tough…these are all the ingredients for honing a skill that will pay you over and over.

Those frustrating losses, the weeks when you keep fighting and adapting – sometimes just to break even – that’s what strengthens you and becomes a tremendous source of confidence that you’ll feed on in the future.  It’s the long days when you grind it out, win or lose, and you still stay after the bell to review your results and keep searching for ways to improve.

Look In the Mirror

Success in this world does not come easy, and anyone who tells you otherwise is misleading you.  Whether it’s a great salesman, a world-class athlete, or a top trader, they all have one thing in common – they work for it.  Even if they’re naturally talented.

So as you reflect on your trading of late, have you been adapting?  Have you made an effort to determine what’s working best and what’s proving to be costly?  Are you hoping that success will find you, or are you preparing in a way that enables you to go get it?

The thing about day trading the markets is that every day is gut-check time.  We find out quickly whether or not we ‘have it’ on a given day or if instead we’re funding someone else’s efforts.  The latter is a huge motivating factor to show up with our best as often as possible.

The first 6 weeks of the year are coming to a close, and I hope you’re making great progress.  But if you aren’t, then sacrifice a little extra time to get back on top of your trading.  It’ll be worth it.  Put in the effort to get prepared, and commit to doing it day in and day out.  That alone will make the difference.

And in case you’re wondering, yes, I bought from Mike.

Jeff White
President, The Stock Bandit, Inc.
Swing Trading & Day Trading Service
www.TheStockBandit.com

[tags]Stock Market, Day Trading, Stock Trading, Investing, Swing Trading[/tags]