Welcome to another episode on Hungry for Returns, where I answer your trading and investing questions about the stock market, options, swing trading, and all those good stuff.
If you have a trading and investing question that you want me to answer, you can submit one by voice here!
Today’s question is all about how to accelerate your learning and what’s the next stage after you have been learning for a while.
Here’s the question:
“Hi Sasha, my name is Wayne Smith. I’ve only been learning for three weeks with a little bit of success, and that’s why I am probably on a demo account for quite some time. I don’t know which way to take my training. I’m on your start on the website, and I’m going through on the key points on the video lessons that are fantastic. But where do I go from there?
Which way to take to make sure I’m covering all my bases so I don’t get 1-2 years down the road and realize that I’ve missed something that I should have learned in the beginning. What are the foundations and to move forward to set yourself for a good future in trading? Where do you start first, and what comes second? Is there a certain level that you start and how to make progress?
Thanks a lot, bye.”
Answer: I get this question quite a bit. And we cover this question quite often in my coaching sessions. But I think it’s a great question.
We have a start page >>> check it out right here!
And we’re constantly evolving these things and these videos. This is a useful resource guide for you to start if you’re brand new. This is what he’s talking about. It’s a good starting point.
Then later you have to make a decision. You have to eventually get to trading real money if you plan to trade.
A lot of people get stuck with learning, and they never get over the hump to trade real money. They trade in a paper account, and that’s fine when you’re learning. But when you get to that certain point, you’ll have to jump the gun. You’ll have to go to that next step to push yourself a little bit. And sometimes a trading coach can help you do that.
By the way, I do coaching if anybody is interested.
There’s private coaching. It’s one of the fastest ways to learn, but it’s also one of the more expensive ways to learn.
You can get a one-on-one session, and that will help fine-tune things. We can go through and do some exercises. But if you’re brand new and you’re just starting, there is a better approach.
When you’re first starting, you’re trying to learn, and you’re going into this direction. You’re learning, but you’re learning a lot of different things.
And there’s no real clear direction.
You’re learning a little bit about everything:
- technical analysis
- day trading
- swing trading
- penny stocks
- options
All these kinds of things. And they all help grow you as a trader. Eventually, you get a little more knowledge, and your base continues to increase. But with the time you have to take a path that you want to continue.
Which path do you want to take?
Sometimes this is what a coach allows you to see. It’s tough to get where Wayne is at exactly. Depending on your age, intentions, retirement plans, your amount of time that you have will factor in what’s possible and what makes the most sense for you.
Pro Tip: That is what I focus on my sessions. What we do in coaching sessions is we fine-tune the path that makes the most sense for you. And then what you do is you’ll fine-tune it even further.
It’s hard to see that unless you have another perspective. Sometimes you can do this with a trading group. I encourage you if you don’t want a coach, go for a trading group or buddy.
That way, you get a different perspective. They don’t have to be better than you or worse than you. They have to give you a different opinion. You want somebody that has an entirely different viewpoint. That way, you can maybe get a different perspective or a different idea.
With that in mind is you choose a little path, and then you move forward. I find that the biggest roadblock is once people learn something about swing trading, they never really put on a swing trade.
Going from the actual swing trade to actual real money is a huge step. Remember, you could trade one share. I’m not telling you to have to trade 50 or 5,000 shares. You could trade one share, but that whole process gives you a huge and an overall new perspective.
Then from there, you might want to look at new things and new opportunities in terms of how to ramp things up.
Ask yourself these few questions:
- How to ramp it up in terms of profits?
- How to simplify things?
- How to make more money?
This is typically where the next approach is.
After you’re starting, you go into your learning phase. Then you go into your real money phase. Then you go into real money, but now you’re trying to optimize.
That’s the basics of the stages. When you try to optimize, you’re trying to make more money, or you’re trying to simplify.
If you have kids or a loved one that’s sick you got to take care of, you probably want to simplify your life. You don’t want to day trading quickly on these kinds of things. You probably want to do more swing trading or long-term options. You’re trying to simplify things.
However, if you want more money, you have to think about how to leverage and how to get more portfolio margin. In that case, you need to focus on how to ramp up your profits.
You’re thinking entirely differently, but these are basics in terms of stages that a lot of people go through. First, they start, they get a lot of knowledge and know-how. Then they’re learning a bunch. This depends on the speed of the learning that can ramp up. I would say coaching is the fastest way to learn. That way, we can do a one-on-one session; you can buy them in packs.
Or you could also then go to video courses which are cheaper on a per hour basis than coaching. And you get a lot more out of it. And then, of course, you could do free content, which is learning on YouTube or reading books (cheaper content). This takes the most time, but the least amount of money.
Coaching takes the most money, but you skip through things that you don’t need. It’s a direct path. It’s a trade-off, and that’s why some people balance courses with coaching — other people balance courses with free content. You’re probably in one of those boats. Or some people stick to free content until they’re ready to go to the courses. At least these are the combinations that I’ve seen.
Then eventually, you get to real money once you feel you have enough information. I would say start this sooner than you probably think. I say this because most people wait too long.
If you’re still holding out, I would say most people wait too long on that. But you have to make a decision and be honest with yourself. Are you six months into this, learning a lot, but not putting the trade on?
If so, then maybe you want to put at least one single trade – just one share. I’m not saying you have to go big.
Even if $100 stock goes down to $50, you lost $50 minus your commissions as well. And then you want to look at optimizing.
All these things you probably could do on your own. But sometimes they’re harder to see if you’re not sure.
This is what you’re looking to go with:
- starting
- learning and getting information
- you’re putting on real trades
- you’re optimizing it for your personal life
In the last step (4), you’re either simplifying it or trying to make more money. Or a little combination of both and ramping those things up.
That’s the way I would look at it. That’s the simplest thought I would think that you want to look at when you’re doing these things.
We have a lot of resources – free content. 98% of the stuff that we have is free.
You can check out:
- free articles
- my books and other peoples books
- our video courses
We focus precisely on what you want to focus on. Anyways, you have to balance those things out, depending on where you are in your learning.
If you’re not interested in the items that we have available, feel free to go somewhere else and take a look. There’s a lot of getting started material that’s free. We have a lot of free training you can find on our website.
We have a getting started page if you want to check out:
- day trading 101
- penny stock trading 101
- options trading 101
We have a lot of new great things coming up in the future. We relaunched our membership platform. The new website for all the members >>> Check it out here!
You can check out:
- swing charts
- practice picture charts
You could do membership things for a couple of months if that’s something useful for you. Some people do it for multiple years, and they get a lot of benefits that way.
They want to get some insight and another perspective rather than having a trading buddy. This maybe helps you get a different perspective.
Everybody’s different at different stages. A coach can fine-tune and narrow things down on where you should go. When you’re starting eventually, you might graduate to some courses or coaching. You’re getting a lot of knowledge, and then finally, you have to do action-based things. That would be the real mone. And then you optimize.
First, you need an idea. Then you learn, and you get the knowledge or know-how.
Then you go into the action. This is trading real money. And then the last thing is to optimize. That’s the basics and the process. That’s the four-step process you need to apply.
You can optimize for:
- more money or
- comfortable lifestyle (simplify your trades)
That’s the process. That’s what I would recommend. You start looking and seeing where you are in your stage of education learning and knowledge.
That way you’ll know where do you want to move to next.
This is what we’re doing in our coaching session:
- show you free videos that you may want to watch
- we put together an educational plan
Sometimes those things work for people. Other times people have their ideas and insights, and they want to focus on trades.
You can find online so many things that you can custom create a plan that’s suited for you. Sometimes you don’t see those big things, but this is a procedure when it comes to learning to trade and invest in stocks.
If you have a trading question that you want me to answer in detailed, then be sure to submit a question by voice here!
