Here’s a question for you; did you ever raise your hand at school because everyone else did, even though you were 99% sure you’d give the wrong answer? Bet you did, because who wants to look like the dummy who doesn’t know the answer, and odds were you wouldn’t be called on anyway. And for all you knew your classmates were all thinking the same thing.
Or this one. You stand in a queue to get into a new restaurant for an hour. Then someone comes along and just walks in the door. Just waltzes in. With no problem. How??? Because no one else ever bothered to check if the door was open.
You just assumed it was locked and joined the queue. Even though it got to past the advertised opening time, you didn’t take the initiative to check for yourself because of a fear of feeling embarrassed if you were wrong.
Both of these scenarios are about being a person who’s all about conformity. Someone who is bothered a lot by what other people think about you and your image. Stepping outside your comfort zone is not something you do often (if ever) because it scares the heck out of you. You like sticking with the crowd because it feels safer (even if the crowd seem like they might be morons sometimes…) And take risks? Heck no.
Does this sound a bit like you?
If so, don’t worry, you’re not alone. It sounds like a lot of people. Investors and financial traders included. These traits describe how most ‘serious’ traders respond to the sometimes turbulent ups and downs of the FOREX market.
Why do supposedly good traders, traders who want to make money, for themselves and/or their clients behave like this? Because they are, despite the inherently risky nature of their profession, conformists. They want to look good. They want the world to see that they always win. And even if they don’t they want to make it look like they do.
In practical terms it often means they hold onto (and hide) a losing trade. Or they refuse to try anything new, or original, or pioneering in case they look like fools. And they listen to other conformists. Who listen to others. Until you have a trading floor that’s full of sheep.
FOREX is a great example. Lots of ‘serious’ traders tend to look down on it as something that mavericks and ‘little guys’ do. Many have never actually tried it for themselves but they know someone who has. Probably. Whatever. It’s not a sensible idea. And that stuff with trading robots and AI? Nuts.
If you have problems with this, maybe you aren’t a conformist after all. Which is great, in anything in life. You should never let anyone else’s opinions or expectations decide your path.
If you are going to invest in FOREX you have to be OK with the fact that failure is to be expected. It happens to everyone. And lots of successful FOREX investors will tell you that starting out they had more failures than successes. But they took those failures, learned from them and then allowed them to play a large role in their eventual success.
TLDR; Winning traders learn from their failures, don’t care if they look bad and aren’t afraid to take risks.
There is, of course, a difference between moving outside the lines gradually and blindly throwing your money away like a madman (or woman) Take risks, but at the same time learn to implement proper risk management. You’ll learn, in time, how far you can go before you need to exercise more restraint for a while. Do this and you’ll be trading like a winner, a winner who’s victorious in their own way, own their own path. Which, for an individual retail investor, is the best way to be.
