How Much $ To Start With?
What is the most common rationalization new traders make to justify losing money?
“I have to lose to learn!”
By far the dumbest fucking saying that new traders alike have all thought sounds smart as shit, read a book? Thats for nerds, they rather fund their account and click buttons like monkeys expecting to figure it out. Not only is it stupid, psychologically that person is framing themselves to lose before they even entered the ring. They are up against Mr Market and that just happens to be Mike Tyson in his prime:
I walk around the ring, but I never take my eyes off my opponent. I keep my eyes on him, even if he’s ready and pumped and he can’t wait to get his hands on me as well (dumb money). I keep my eyes on him. I keep my eyes on him. I keep my eyes on him.
Then once I see a chink in his armor. BOOM! (I need to lose to learn!)
And one of his eyes may move and then I know I have him. Then when he comes to the center of the ring, he still looks at me with his piercing look as if he’s not afraid (cocky).
But he already made that mistake when he looked down for that one-tenth of a second. I knew I had him. He’ll fight hard for the first two or three (trades) rounds but I know I really broke his (account) spirit .
Dumb money admits there are willing to lose and guess what they do? They lose, like anything in life if you say that you can or can't do something, you're usually right. Dumb money is good at one thing, losing their own money until they figure out that they are dumb money once they know their dumb, there's nowhere to go but up.
The idea that you learn the most from failures is simply wrong. In the beginning you don't know what's right or wrong regardless and what happens is you just lose a fuck ton of money learning shit you could learn for free if you just did the boring shit. I know this because I was this person I am referring to and the same person that I am now faced with on a daily basis. When I first started trading I could not be more dumb money and lost money in days, hours and sometimes even seconds that cost me years of hard work to save up. Yet had I learned that losers trade penny stocks, or gambling on earnings was a bad idea, or just because it's going up doesn't mean it's a smart idea to get in (shout out to all the crypto busters), I could have avoided the thousands of dollars I burnt up “learning” instead doing the boring stuff like learning.
The reason why dumb money says this is that it makes them feel better, they can rationalize the dumb shit they are doing so they can have an excuse to play the game. When you want to learn how play football, do you film of the B squad who went in during the last quarter or do you watch how the professionals play? Do you ask the fat guy how to lose weight or how to get fit? Fuck no you ask your friend who is ripped to shreds. Study the winners and listen to what they do, if it sounds crazy, realize you might be too dumb just yet to figure it out.
Their is a time and a place to take risks however if you are reading this, you are not ready to take those risks just yet, people have a heavy emotional aversion to failing and in the beginning those dumb money failures can put you down a path of losing for years if you don't get the basics down first.
Now yes, you will lose, I will lose, every trader will take losses, however what matters is how much you lose to learn. This is why we hammer down learning first, if you are still wondering how much to start with. The answer is a big fat zero, until you can articulate what your A+ set up is, what your risk management rules are, and how to read a chart. If you cannot do those kindergarten grade questions, leave your lunch box at home because your not getting picked at recess to play the game.
Do you have balls?
In the Getting Started Group Chat share why it is smart to start with $0, if you were or maybe still are the dumb money example above share what you have learned that will help the bleeding that is going on in your account.