This story is jam packed with adventure, excitement, loneliness, and about a thousand other emotions. I walk you through the desperation of my earlier years so that you may also have the courage to continue on! Enjoy! I love you all!
Amazon Reviews
https://www.amazon.com/Trading-Barefoot-Ryan-Herron-ebook/dp/B018EZR58C
Forward by Rob Booker:
Ryan is going to tell you the truth. He's going to tell you what trading for a living is really like. It's what I love best about the book you're about to read.
Part of trading for a living - or getting to that level - is to define what success really is. Instead of thinking about success as a certain amount of money in the bank, Ryan reminds us that success is about much more than money.
But what's incredible is that once you take that leap - and broaden your definition of success - you start making more money. Paradoxical. But true.Ryan's the kind of guy who will live in a van to save money, just so he can have what he wants later. But he's also the kind of guy who will give you the shirt off his back.
He's not in this business of trading to look better than anyone. He's in it to make everyone else around him better. As you read this book, I encourage you to make some notes, and ask yourself:
* Where can I improve?
* How does this story relate to me?
* How do I make trading (and life) more difficult than it needs to be?
*In what ways do I compare myself to others that is unproductive?Ryan will tell you about his loneliness. His struggle. His darkest moments. And you might ask: What does this have to do with trading?
Well - I'm glad you asked.
When you overcome your demons, you are a better trader. It's as simple as that. Ryan will tell you about how he did that.
When you keep looking for opportunity even when life throws a zillion obstacles at you - then you’re more ready than ever for trading.But that's not all you're going to get.
Ryan is also going to teach you what goes into a profitable trading system. He's going to tell you what goes into his own trading system.
He's going to share with you some hard facts about losses. And how to add to a winning trade (I absolutely love what he says about that).
And he's going to show you some things that I've never seen a trader teach anyone in a book.
So: You are about to look over the shoulder of someone who made it. Someone who crossed the chasm of obstacles, and made it to trade for a living.I'm excited for you to get started!
- Rob Booker - Gilbert, Arizona November 2015
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10DIy8FI0EPPC_qwxiCsFxMNn-GcKJdZE/view?usp=sharing
Contents:
Here is Ryan speaking at the 2015 Rob Booker Traders Conference. This video will give you an idea of what Ryan has been working on for the past couple of years.
A few Excerpts from 'Trading Barefoot'.
Success is Overrated
Yep you read it, correctly. Success is overrated. The term success, according to a dictionary, is the accomplishment of one's goals, the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like. Success is when a person feels like what he or she has done, is an accomplishment in his or her own life; but there are different types of success.
I am a living example of success. I may not have the net worth or make as much as another trader on a given day but does that mean I am unsuccessful?
Does the fact that Joe Blow Moneymaker trades with a contract size of 1,000, whereas I only trade with 100 contracts, make him any more successful than me? Not in my eyes.
It doesn't always boil down to money, even though money is part of success. I don't give a flip if you are making $10,000 per day or $2 per day, you can be a success because there are different levels of success. What about other areas of success...family...marriage...health...the ability to travel...happiness...spiritual...etc...? Success comes in many forms and if you are doing something to be proud of, then stand tall! Enjoy your success and feel proud.
Look at the following 3 traders. I want you to ask yourself which trader is more successful.
Trader A. Let's call him Billy Bob – He lives in NY and trades with an investment bank. He has a super fast sports car and a 10,000 sq ft mansion. He snorts cocaine and has thoughts of suicide all the time. He treats everyone like dirt. He makes $1 million a month.
Trader B. Let's call him Jimmy John – He lives in a modest house. He trades from a home office and makes enough to support his family while putting extra cash back each month for the future. He has a beautiful wife and great kids. He enjoys every day with passion.
Trader C. Let's call him Willie Wee – He makes $5 per day trading extremely small contracts. He is doing it on a consistent basis, day in and day out. He works in a factory at night and when he gets home, he adds another $5 in his trading account. The account is building over time.
Which one of these fine gentlemen are successful? It's kind of stupid and arrogant that the 'world' would say that trader “A” was more successful just because he was making more money. Trader “A” would be the one aired on CNBC and filmed shaking hands with Donald Trump while the other 2 would be unheard of
Why doesn't the world think trader “C” is also a success? He had a goal of learning to trade and has accomplished that goal! All he ever wanted in life was to learn how trade consistently and this has been accomplished. He is happy as a lark. What I didn't tell you in the narrative above is that trader “C” will still continue to work at the factory for another 5 years until retirement as he already has 25 vested years. He is just fine with it. The 'world' however, would see this guy as a joke.... but why??? He knows how to trade successfully.
If he knows how to trade successfully, and he is making a profit each week or
each month, on a consistent basis, then why is he frowned upon? Why is he not given credit? I will tell you why in a few minutes. ..
Even if you do not feel like a success yet, there is still hope. This hope comes from the opportunities that you may be overlooking in life. Opportunities, especially in the U.S and most of the developed countries in the world, abound. If you look, you may find opportunity in places that you never deemed possible. They are, literally, around every corner waiting to be taken.
Let's take a look at my own son, Joey. Here is a prime example of taking a hold of opportunity and he is, at the time of this writing, only 19 years old. If anyone reading this is an avid 'herper' or is involved with the reptile community out there, then you may know my son, Joey Herron. He loves snakes, lizards, and all things venomous. For the record, I DO NOT! LOL!
Joey has been digging through the dirt, and turning over rocks to look for critters ever since he could walk as a toddler. His favorite TV show as a kid was ' The Crocodile Hunter'. He loved everything Steve Irwin stood for he and idolized this man. While growing up, Joey was always fascinated with the reptile world. I could never like snakes but I wanted him to pursue whatever passion he had so I supported his hobby. The life he leads today is super creepy in some peoples eyes but super awesome in his and many other eyes. He took opportunity and grabbed it.
He, at the age of 19, has friends with well known 'herpers' and well respected people in the reptile community such as:
- Jim Harrison – Curator at Kentucky Reptile Zoo
- Read the book to find out 😉
- Read the book to find out 😉
- Read the book to find out 😉
Now many of you reading this may have no clue about any of these folks but in the reptile community, they could be known as the 'higher ups'. Just like Rob Booker or Tim Sykes are known in the trading community, the folks above are super well known and Joey has a personal relationship with them.
How did he do it? He took opportunity and made something with it. He grabbed it. He didn't wait for opportunity to come to him. He did not sit around dreaming. The act of taking action, even if it seemed far fetched at the time, propelled him into working with some of the finest in the industry.
Opportunity is always there awaiting for someone to grab it. It doesn't care who grabs it and is always available around every corner. Our job, as humans, is to look for it and make it happen. Even when there is no opportunity, we can often force an opportunity by just taking a step in the right direction. Make a phone call. Send an email. Implement that trading strategy and test it. There are numerous and unlimited opportunities if we start thinking a bit differently about
life.
I will speak about my opportunity later in this book. For now, just be aware that it will show up if you make your stand. For instance, let us take a peek at someone looking for a job. Maybe they need a job as a second income. Maybe they are just looking for work to add to their savings account. Maybe they just got fired. The simple fact is that they need a job and need it now....
Irresponsibility!
Let us fast forward to 1999. I was 23 and an absolute mess. I had made so many horrible mistakes in life that I thought life was just going to be one big pile of crap until the day I died. I was miserable at the time and could not, for the life of me, figure it out. It seemed like everything I tried turned out to be the wrong move. Life seemed to be playing against me. I got involved with all the wrong people. It seemed as if I was always in all the wrong places at the wrong times. I had to either find a way to make my life better or just end it all in a blaze of self inflicted gunshots into the core of my brain.
1993 until the spring of '99 were the hardest years of my life. They were the most irresponsible as well. Here comes the part that I am most embarrassed to talk about but it is the truth and if I am going to write this story, I feel that excluding the truth would be a dishonest pile of garbage... so here goes...
I had a son, Joey, that I abandoned with his mom. I paid no child support at the time and just walked out. I had to find a better way to take care of my son even if it meant leaving him behind for a while. I left and went into the wild unknown. I had to find a way to take care of myself and my son. I wasn't concerned with the mother of Joey because I was just young and irresponsible.
There were no jobs to speak of in the town where I lived and I could not make ends meet by working at the local Papa Johns pizza store. I was just fed up with life. No opportunity it seemed. No fun that I could afford for me or my son except maybe buying a small squirt gun at the local dollar store. What life was this? I bent down and kissed my son on the forehead, looked into the eyes of his mom while she told me I was lower than scum, and walked out the door.
I was determined to find a better life for my son as well as for myself or I would die trying. Have you ever seen the movie, “Into the wild”? This movie kind of describes what I was doing at the time. I was wondering from place to place trying to find something, to try to find a way to make a living. It seemed as though everyone else was doing it but why couldn't I? I ended up spending the next few years moving from place to place, working at job after job. I kept searching for my place in life. I kept on searching for meaning. At the time, I was just as miserable as before I left my son but I had to keep trying. I had to keep going...
So I headed out on this greyhound bus to North Carolina to pick up the van I would be driving. The job entailed doing the same thing that 'over the road' truck drivers do but with smaller shipments. I also did not have to abide by the hours of service (HOS) law so I could drive unlimited hours to get my shipment to the proper facility on time. This is why they called it 'Custom Critical'.
I remember that first night. It was somewhat cold and lonely as I laid there trying to fall asleep in the back of a van, in the parking lot of a truck stop after driving all day to Missouri. I was actually doing the very thing I had prayed for! I was sleeping in a van instead of a car but it was really similar and making about $50K per year now.
Living in a van is wildly different than living in a home. The lifestyle takes some getting used to! Many people have asked me what it was like so I will explain that for a few minutes and then get back to my story. I'll start with the night time...
As I was working for this courier company, doing my regular 9-5 every day, I was always studying the markets. Reading the Wall Street Journal, listening to traderspodcast.com scanning the message boards, and then it hit me...
I am going to take everything off my charts and just start trying to follow price. I will use no indicators whatsoever. If price goes my way, I will take a profit. If price goes against me, I will get out. After doing this, I was shocked at how often I would profit. From that day forward, I never looked back! I started buying the highs and selling the lows
I have had many struggles since I started trading like this but I finally did become profitable. I found the system that worked for me in what seemed like one day. Through all the indicators and all of the theories and all of the analysts, I found the one thing that works as far as I am concerned. This one thing is most likely the simplest trading strategy on the planet and it just follows price.
The only indicator Is a line on the chart for the most part.
I want you to go Google something called a ( Read the book to find out 😉 ). This was created by a guy named ( Read the book to find out 😉 ) and it is by far the number one indicator on this planet. If you use it properly, it will be magical how much easier profits come to you. I will get more into this a bit later in the book.
I talked with my wife and we both decided, that since I was profitable now, it was time to start reducing my hours at work to focus on my trading. I was making a profit but not enough to become a millionaire overnight. As trading profits were beginning to come in, I started reducing my hours at work. Finally I went to my boss and told him I wanted to quit and I left on good terms in the event trading didn't work out.
It was not too scary to quit my job because my wife had a job at this time that eased our budget as well. We had enough money in the bank to live on while I increased my business of trading. We just vowed to keep hacking away at it...
How to create your own profitable trading strategy!
Alrighty folks, story time is over! Now let us get down to the nitty gritty. Let's take a stroll down technical-how-to-ville. Get ready because I am about to blow your mind!
The Rule
First, I want you to forget everything you know about trading for a little while. Forget it, at least, till you finish reading this book. I don't care what you normally do... If you use RSI or MacD or moving averages or heiken ashi, or anything for that matter, forget it for a few moments. As you are reading the following pages and you find yourself beginning to try to ADD your own spin to what I am saying, try to block it out for a bit. I know 99% of traders will tend to try to take something and add their own voodoo to it to try to make it 'better'. Do that tomorrow but for today, just follow along.
Have an open mind...
6 Steps to creating your own profitable trading strategy
- Get an overwhelmingly awesome Idea
- Read the book to find out 😉
- Read the book to find out 😉
- Read the book to find out 😉
- Read the book to find out 😉
- Read the book to find out 😉
Once you see all the steps of how it's done, at the end of this book, I will take you through a series of screen shots about what we offer at Joaquin Trading. We only use a handful of indicators and we like our charts to be super clean. I will show you everything we do... But first...
