Hello there! My name is Gabriel, I am 25 years old and I am from Oradea, Romania. I have an engineering degree in topography and am currently enrolled to get my master's as well. I love to travel and I have worked a few months in the UK and the US while I travelled. A few years ago though I decided that I wanted a little more from life I couldn't imagine myself spending the next 30-40 years stuck in a 9-5 job and living for Friday night (as Gary Vaynerchuk puts it) while Sunday evening depression would start to creep in as it does in most people who haven't found a job which they are passionate about. I decided I was not going to be that person...it was time for me to find something that I would enjoy doing and that would also allow me to be mobile a.k.a work from anywhere in the world and be my own boss as well.
After a few months of blogging I decided this wasn't for me either although it did offer me almost everything mentioned above it just wasn't something I was really glad doing. Writing isn't my strong suit let's just leave it at that. I needed to find something that would fit my personality like a glove.
Enter trading
It was Christmas time 2014 and I was out for a coffee with a friend while we were talking about plenty of different topics at the time one of them was: young successful people under 30 that were living the life one can only dream of...the life I was dreaming of: earning enough so that you don't have to worry about money anymore, travel everywhere and still work and earn, and beyond everything freedom.
I knew all of these guys what they were doing to make their life this way. All but one. So I asked my friend who is this last guy he mentioned and what does he do for a living and he told me he turned a few thousand dollars into a few million by trading stocks in just a few years. As you can imagine as soon as I got home I googled this guy up and read about him (I will not name him here) and after I read his story and similar ones I was instantly hooked. My 2015 New Year's resolution was get off my ass and learn everything about trading that you can so that when you actually start trading to be fully prepared for it. (Haha joke was on me). I actually thought that by watching youtube videos and reading blog posts off the internet I would actually be able to make some money from the start. Little did I know...
So I did as expected I was going full force watching endless hours of trading videos every single day, I was reading trading books all day, looking at charts and learning some fundamental analysis as well...this is gonna be a piece of cake...believe me.
Fast forward into the future I went to the US with a summer work and travel program, worked 2 jobs 90-100 hrs weeks, at best I would get 4-5 hrs of sleep a night until I got to the point of total exhaustion and I was falling asleep at my jobs but hey it was all worth it I was building capital for my trading career, I was gonna turn this money into a trillion...believe me.
1 year later since my trading revelation and when I thought I understood the meaning of life and how the universe works, I had my starting capital, I had a brokerage account and I was ready to rock'n'roll. (Man...these guys ain't even gonna know what hit them).
I started off pretty well with a few small wins (I told you this was gonna be a piece of cake didn't I?) and then with a few breakeven days and then I started to have some red days (losses), well no biggie this is normal traders lose money from time to time even the best ones.
Fast forward 1 month and I was red, fast forward 2 months and I was more red then before. It took me 4 months of losing my ass to realize that I didn't know sh!t and that all the info I was sucking in everyday one year before was useless (or mostly useless). After 6 months during which I was constantly hammered in the stock market, felt like sh!t for months (which is an understatement), was highly stressed on a daily basis which led to compulsive eating and weight gain, and losing most of my money which I have worked my ass off the year before, I could see my dream of chilling under a palm tree with the laptop on my lap and a mojito in my right hand just flying away further.
I was back to square 1 no money, no knowledge (it was just 1-2 years later that I realized how much have I learned) and no million dollars either. Honestly I haven't felt better in months it felt like a fresh start after the most horrible 6 months of my life (and no I'm not exaggerating) I was glad to be out of the rough times.
Only a crazy person would put himself through all this again. Right? Well...hold my beer.
I already wrote a little more then I wanted to here. I will continue with my story in part 2 somewhere in the next few days.
Picture: https://hassonassociates.com/2015/11/05/flexible-working-can-employees-and-employers-find-the-perfect-balance/