{"id":11738,"date":"2011-05-23T12:01:58","date_gmt":"2011-05-23T16:01:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/?p=11738"},"modified":"2021-05-06T15:54:24","modified_gmt":"2021-05-06T19:54:24","slug":"is-passion-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/is-passion-enough","title":{"rendered":"Is Passion Enough?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>First of all, I would like to thank all of you at SMB for the work you do and the content you provide. I have not found a\u00a0better source out there for actionable, instructive lessons on trading, and God knows I have searched through a lot of content on the internet the past couple of years. I first learned about SMB after picking up a copy of <em>One Good Trade<\/em>, which I bought along with three or four other trading books on one of my many trips to Amazon. I tend to read several books at once, but after I began OGT, I did something quite rare for me: I put the other books away and read OGT cover to cover over the course of a weekend. I have not touched those other books since, and can now include OGT as one of a very select group of works on trading that has had a lasting effect on me, along with Jack Schwager&#8217;s first two Market Wizards books.<\/p>\n<p>I then discovered the SMB blog and Stocktwits videos. If <em>One Good Trade<\/em> piqued my interest in prop trading, then these lessons have pushed me to the brink of what can only be called a healthy obsession. It is all I can think about now. Each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I cannot wait until my lunch break so I can watch the &#8220;Live From the Trading Floor&#8221; videos, which I then rewatch once I get home. And therein lies my problem. I work full-time at a full service broker\/dealer in risk management down here in Florida, but all I want to do is trade. It&#8217;s gotten to the point where I am basically putting in the minimal effort in my job, which is a salaried position with no possibility for performance bonuses. That really bothers me too, since I&#8217;m a big <em>Atlas Shrugged<\/em> fan and strongly believe that productive achievement is man&#8217;s noblest and greatest activity. I have played sports all of my life and am very competitive, and I long to be in a position again where I am competing and working hard each day to better myself. Unfortunately, I&#8217;m afraid my current job is doing its best to extinguish the fire that burns inside of me. I spend a great portion of the day reading trading blogs, looking at charts, and learning as much as I can about trading and trading psychology. The problem is that I do not have many opportunities to take action and practice what I have learned. As a registered rep in my firm, I&#8217;m not allowed to have an outside account and our commissions are ridiculously exorbitant. A round trip would cost me $70. This has resulted in me just sticking my money in ETFs and trading very sparingly and on a very long term basis. I did get permission to have an outside forex account, but I am not allowed to trade during the day so I am forced to be an end of day trader. However, I know in One Good Trade, Bella talks about how traders find ways to trade, so I am doing my best to overcome these obstacles. I do subscribe to a trading simulator which has real past data, and over the past couple of months I have spent basically my entire evenings and weekends day trading on the simulator. I know it&#8217;s not the same as having real money on the line, but I find myself improving, and watching Steve&#8217;s &#8220;Live From the Trading Floor&#8221; videos has really helped me as well.<\/p>\n<p>I really want to make the jump to becoming a professional trader. I love this industry, but I&#8217;ve seen enough of the brokerage side of the business to know I do not want to do that, and the trading done on my firm&#8217;s trading desk is not the kind of trading I want to do. It seems prop trading or trading my own account are the only ways I can really do what I want to do, which is just trade all day and do research and exercises to help improve my trading. I love the pure meritocracy of it all, which gives anyone the chance to potentially prosper, be it the Ivy Leaguer or the state school alum such as myself. \u00a0I&#8217;m not really sure what my goal of this message is, but from what I&#8217;ve read and seen from you guys, you all seem to be down to Earth and very generous with your time. &#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>I do not currently have sufficient capital to strike out on my own and \u00a0make a living, so a prop firm seems to be my only option. Is there anything else you can recommend that I do to help myself prepare for what has become my dream job?<\/p>\n<p>Sorry for the lengthy message, but thanks for all the help you have given me via your book, blog, and videos, and I thank you in advance for any help you can give me on my inquiry above. Take care.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bella Responds:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I get five emails like this a week.<\/p>\n<p>There is a very real <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/give-yourself-time\">learning curve<\/a> for new traders. The longer you give yourself to survive the learning curve the better your chance of success. If you are not prepared emotionally and financially to survive this learning curve then you may run into that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/the-failure-rate-of-a-proprietary-trader\">wall of trading failure<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Your <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/do-what-you-do\">passion<\/a> is clear from your email. You are doing excellent work working on your trading game. The markets are not going anywhere. They will be here in a few years. Perhaps you should continue working on your trading game and improving your financial situation. Put yourself in the best position financially, emotionally and with<a href=\"http:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/what-can-i-do-to-make-myself-attractive-to-a-prop-trading-firm\"> improved trading skill<\/a> development before you start your career as a pro trader.<\/p>\n<p>A prop firm will help its hardest working traders who show promise financially. But your risk\/reward is significantly better if you are best prepared before you start.<\/p>\n<p>What would you do if you were him?<\/p>\n<p>Mike Bellafiore<\/p>\n<p>Author, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/One-Good-Trade-Competitive-Proprietary\/dp\/0470529407\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1306166222&amp;sr=8-1\">One Good Trade<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First of all, I would like to thank all of you at SMB for the work you do and the content you provide. I have not found a\u00a0better source out there for actionable, instructive lessons on trading, and God knows I have searched through a lot of content on the internet the past couple of years. I first learned about &#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/is-passion-enough\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,10],"tags":[1806,1805,1147,978,81,1193],"class_list":["post-11738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-comments-2","category-mike-bellafiore-bellas-blogs","tag-leap","tag-learning-curve","tag-passion","tag-professional-trader","tag-smb-training","tag-trader-education","no-post-thumbnail"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Is Passion Enough? | SMB Training<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/is-passion-enough\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Passion Enough? | SMB Training\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"First of all, I would like to thank all of you at SMB for the work you do and the content you provide. 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