What lengths have you taken in trading

I wouldnt advice you to quit your job immediately PIPMYRIDE. instead try to cut back on your hours or if that doesnt work try getting a part time job that can still pay the majority of your bills. For example i've been a bartender for 4 years, i work at a nightclub two nights a week. i started trading forex in november of 2008. bartending allows me to pay all of my monthly bills and still gives me more than enough time for trading/research. i plan on quitting bartending eventually but i DONT FEEL PRESSURED to do it. too much stress effects brain power. what i do instead of trying to pay ALL my bills trading is set reasonable goals each month for myself. for instance maybe i can make enough to pay my cell phone bill trading this month or my gas bill. JUST do this while building your account the whole time.
This way it may take longer before you can quit working jobs altogether but i can promise you there will be less headaches and you'll get much more sleep.

Who Said it took him 15 years to get good. If you read the sentence propely I said after 15 years he feels on top of his game. 19 in every 20 trades he places are winners. Do you think buying a £1,500,000,00 house, sending all his kids to private school and having a X5 just as his run around car could be acheived if he was not a good trader? Do you think Barcap would have kept him if he was acheiving sub standard results?

The above were rhertorical questions, dont overwork your brain to figure out an answer.

Anyway I'm just pointing out a statistic that the 95% failure rate stands true. If you manage to reach the 5% elite band then I would truly congratulate you for your acheivement. As for learning from forums 95% of threads here are littered with crap and usually die a slow death. There are a few gems, namely J16 & BRV.

Trading for a living is one of the most difficult endeavours mainly due to the Psychology factor & capital requirements. I'm under no disillusions that after 4 years of studying, trading & undergoing private mentoring from an accomplished trader there is only a 5% chance I will succeed.

But i'm still willing to give it all i've got and attempt it. Are the rest of you?

I agree, its not easy, requires a lot of work and you need to focus on the right things. I would add DarkStars postings to the required reading list. No offence im sure your Cousin is a great trader.

No Offence taken pal.

I agree Darkstar's posts are a must read for all Traders alike.

I'm still trying to figure out what the outcome was from Darkstar's private mentoring to MBQB11.

I hope you're not comparing an institutional trader to a retail trader!

After 15 years and if he's 'at the top of his game' then owning a 1.5m house (assuming you meant 1.5m and it's been brought cash) and a ~50k car could be considered only mediocre or even underachieving, some top City traders are pulling that in just in bonuses every year (or they were before the crisis). 200k Ferrari's, second and third homes totalling 6 or 7 million, 30k weekend breaks, 10k on a night out......those are the real high flyers with the bling factor.

I see you're in the UK too, did you ever watch the documentary about excesses in the City? Obscene amounts of cash, one 20-something making £375k I think it was, in one day on his own account!

I doubt any of us here will ever see that kind of money but we can all dream I guess

I did say that the X5 was just the run around car.

Well I think the method he uses piggybacks the stop sweeping and do with option barriers and order flow and using Thompson forex news for those levels, I have collected all Darkstars posts and am studying them for clues.

95% of traders fail. That right there is my motivation. Back a few years ago, I would talk to friends and family about trading. I would tell them about the amounts of money that can be made but on the other hand, all the money that can be lost. I would tell people how that day is coming that I will be one of the few that do make money at this. You should see some of the looks I would get. They wouldn't have to say anything, I would tell just by the look on their face that they thought I was just crazy. They are right, I am a little crazy. The crazy people are the ones that take chances and get somewhere in life. The non-crazy people are the ones that just go day to day doing what is expected of them from their job and family. They do the mundane things in everyday life.

I have been reading and learning about forex now for close to 6 yrs. I am no where near being a professional trader. I am still destined to be a professional. I will never give up until I am. I have always said that if a guy wants to be a doctor, he has to go to college for 8 yrs to be able to go out and make 100k/yr. It's kinda the same with trading. If you want to make it big, you might as well plan on being in this for a long time. And that is where so many fail at this. People give up way too easily.
Recently, I have started making much bigger trades than I normally have in the past.

Let me tell you a little story. When I got my taxes back this year, I sent in some money to my account. After sending in the money, I watched the charts very closely. I could see some very nice setups happening, waiting for my deposit to be verified so I could start trading on it. Finally, the money was there and I was able to trade those setups. So, Sunday night I opened a couple trades and started trading. 24 hrs later, I had made more than I have ever made at a full week of work including overtime. I was pumped. That was the most money I have ever made in that short of time. I thouhgt, if I could just do this again tomorrow, I would be set. That one day of trading made me feel like nothing could touch me. I did have in the back of my mind that it would be very easy to lose that money. It could go just as fast if not faster that I made it. I ignored those thoughts. I traded again the next day and the next, and the next. Needless to say, I lost all my profits and almost half of what I had originally deposited. It only took a week to deposit the money, make that huge amount, lose it, and lose half of what I had originally deposited. To be honest, I was mad. How stupid could I be to do that? Look what I could have do with all that money if I would have just shut off the computer when I was up that much. Look what I could have done with Serena (my daughter) with all that money. We could have went to a water park or a Brewer game. Nope, I had to get greedy.
Now, it has been a week since that has happened and it doesn't bother me too much. I went back and too a look at why I could make that much one day with confidence. I did have confidence. I knew when I opened the trades I did that I was gonna be right cause everything was set up. It was almost like guaranteed money. Once the setups happened and I made the money from them, then the setups had come and passed. I realize that after the setups were over and I had made that money, that I was looking for setups that weren't there. So I have a good idea of where I went wrong.

Your family should be your biggest motivation with everything you do. Thinking about family should motivate a person to want to succeed at this so they can quit their job to be able to spend more time with family. Motivation to provide a house and food for your loved ones. That is motivation enough for me. On the other hand, family should be the reason you need to be wise about when you quit your job. My daughter alone is motivation enough for me to never give up on this. I know it will work. It just takes time. It takes alot of time. But, it is definitely worth it.

Here is a little more motivation, all the people out there that say 95 people out of 100 WILL fail at this. To me, that is some of the biggest motivation I can get. So many people fail. That means to me that this isn't something to take lightly. That means this is a very difficult thing to get into. Isn't that a huge challenge? This is my chance to prove so many people that I know wrong. It's not that I want to get rich. I really don't want to be rich. Many problems come with too much money. I just want enough to live comfortably. The bigger picture though, I want to prove everyone wrong that said I am just wasting my time. Those people that gave me that look when I said I am gonna make money trading forex. Those people are the ones that motivate me to not give up. Life has kicked me so hard sometimes that it is very hard to even get back up and try. I even get kicked when I am down. But, I will keep fighting back until the day comes that I am out of reach of getting kicked.

Never give up. A person that gives up will look back in 5 years and wonder what would have happened if they stuck it out. A person that gives up basically says, I'm just not smart enough to do this. So many people expect to wake up one day and everything is on a silver platter and wants a hand out. If a person wants to get ahead in life, they have to earn it. Sure there are a few out there that have parents that are rich and get the inheritance or win the lottery.
I could go on and on.

No offence here but paragraphs make it easier to read long posts. Also you said you don't want to get rich? I'm not sure I believe that, everyone wants to be rich.

When I say I don't want to be rich, I don't mean have a lot of money. I want to be financially stable. I want a house with 40 acres of hunting land, put my daughter through college, maybe a 4 wheeler and a few other toys and just enough to know my bills are paid. Believe me, I want money. Everyone looks at being rich a little different. It depends on what people want. Some like to go to a club or bar and buy rounds for the house all night or be able to show off with all their cars and clothes.

I think too much money is a bad thing for people. Money leads to very bad problems. The bible says, the love of money is the root of all evil. I love giving people money when I have extra. If I have all the things in life that I want and need, what do I need extra money for if I know I can go and make some more in my trading?

When a person has too much money, they also have too many friends. People that wouldn't talk to you if you don't have money seem to be your best friend when you do have money. I don't want those problems.

I am a very simple person. To me being rich means, I have what I want and people that support what I do. Being rich is waking up everyday knowing everything is going to be ok and that the people I love also love me. Being rich is having enough money to comfortably live in an economy like we are in right now with a government putting us in so much debt that our kids and grand kids will suffer.

I seriously do not want to have so much money I don't know what to do with. It sure would be cool though to be able to say I made a million dolllars trading.

I would like to have enough money where I can light cigarettes with 100 dollar bills and have Gold shoes heheh.

I want all the "problems" of being rich.

If you work hard to get in the top 5%, you'll definitely make it. Profitable trading isn't rocket scienence, actually it's pretty simple. All it requires is strong S/R areas, a little price action study and tons of patience. 95% fail, because most of them have no idea of how the market works and they are not interested in studying it. If you work hard, chances to get in the top 5% are actually pretty high.

Very true!! Forget making money, for the first year study everything you can and watch price on a pair.

Trading is simple. Overcoming the emtions of fear and greed is the difficult part

Right on. Very true

Hi again all ...

i'm just bumping this thread in the hopes of hearing more stories and ideas from everyone

So what is your current status? Did you leave? Are you full time now? Did you sell the house?

Thx for asking

Well i have recently sold the house and my wife will be going back to work - the little fella is now 1 year old

What that gives me is:
1) income to cover main expenses
2) savings to cover 6 months worth of expenses (and more)

So the plan is to take 6 months to trade 'full time' with as little pressure as possible. It gives me ample time to find another job if need be and prepare for that next step.

Wish me luck

Sometimes you just have to go for it. Good Trading to you Sir.

thanks man - thats exactly what i'm doing - i'll never know if i don't try it - rarely does one get very far in life without taking a calculated risk or two