In some businesses you have to be a hard worker. The harder you work and the more hours your spend, the more money you will make. I have a friend who is an engineer, but he also teaches mathematics for $40 per hour. He teaches for few hours per week. There is no doubt that if more students sign up and he teaches for more hours, he will make more money. The more hours he teaches, the more money he will make. That is all he can do as a hard working person. However, he can work harder and be smart at the same time. One day I told him that instead of going to each student’s place and teaching them one by one, he could teach a group of them through the Internet and video conferencing. He had to charge them less, but he could teach several students at the same time and make a lot more money. He could be even smarter than this and create videos for each topic, and sell them online. He had to spend some time and money to create the videos, but then he could sit at the home and collect the income without having to teach person to person. When you are hard working and smart, nothing can prevent you from having a better living every day. The sky is the limit. In some other businesses, you don’t have to be hard working at all. You only have to be smart. Trading is one of these businesses. You only have to spend some time and work a little hard when you want to learn how to trade. You have to read some articles, watch some videos, analyze the charts, demo trade and… till you become a profitable trader. This is the only stage that a trader has to work a little hard. Although even this stage also has to be done smartly, otherwise it will be nothing but wasting of time. When you become a profitable trader, then you only need to check the charts for 30 minutes per day, locate the strongest setups, and take your positions. This is all a professional trader has to do. Working too hard and spending a lot of time at the computer, doesn’t make sense in trading and will not have better results and more profit. You are not a taxi driver who has to drive his taxi on the streets for several hours per day to make more money. You are a trader. A trader has to be smart enough to pick the best opportunities. This is what most of those who start trading don’t know. They have a background from the other businesses they had, and so they think they have to apply the same style to their trading business too. This is wrong. You had to work hard if you were a doctor, teacher, engineer, taxi driver, nurse, carpenter, and…, but a trader doesn’t have to work hard. He has to be smart. How Can You Be A Smart Trader?
Learn the basics first. If you start from the right point to learn, even your learning stage can be smart, and you will not have to work too hard and spend a lot of time on learning. While many novice traders spend several years to learn and practice, but still get no good result, smart learners who start from the right point, can easily learn what a trader has to know. Learn a strong and simple trading system. Trade the long time frames only (daily, weekly, monthly).Demo trade your trading system to master it.Repeat your demo trading success for 3 months at least. Take the strongest trade setups only.Open a small live account and start live trading. Take the strongest trade setups only and grow your small account to a reasonable balance. By the time your account balance reaches an acceptable level, you have become experienced and discipline enough in live trading too. You can add more money to your account, but you don’t have to. You can keep on trading and grow your account bigger.You are done.