Fail Forward and You Will Succeed

Today more than ever I think people are plagued by the thought of being viewed as a failure. Our lives are exposed on social media. People can see nearly everything we do nowadays.

I believe that this is a double-edged sword. There are some positive qualities of having such a transparent society and there are some negative qualities as well.

One of these negative qualities - though it could be looked at as a positive, with the right mindset - is that people can see your failures.

If you try to start an online business and you post about it on your social media pages, then 6 months later you realize that it's not working and you close shop, then your friends will know that you have failed.

They likely won't give you and crap for it. Why would they? Most people would just say to dust yourself off. Some people may say that you got it out of your system. Time to think practical.

When I started trading at 15 years old on the stock market, my friends & family members were telling me how cool it would be if I could "make it" as a trader.

They said: "imagine what kind of life you could live. It would be so cool... if it were possible... I would do it to, if I had the time and money!"

As a 15 year old, I looked at them in awe. How could they say that they have neither the time nor the money to get into something that I, as a 15 year old, started to teach myself with my good old friend Google.

How could they say they can't do it?

I started with $1,000. I lost the first $1k within 2 weeks.

Trading is a hard game, but the lessons strike you to the core.

I learned from the mistakes I made in those 2 weeks and then a few months later, I put another $1k in. Mind you, $1k to a 15 year old like me might as well be $1 million. Every cent I lost felt like a physical pain that I endured.

From that point, I traded my way up to about $20,000 by trading out of the money options for nearly 2 years. It was tough, but I learned so much in those 2 years. More than enough to realize this important lesson:

Doing, that is, being a practitioner is the best way to learn. You need to get your hands dirty and you need to do the work if you want to win. Winning is about losing and learning. Those who can fail hard and fail fast can build the skills necessary to eventually succeed!