As an experienced trader, I can attest to the fact that participating in mentorships, joining trading communities, and spending time (and money) on education has been essential to my trading success and my overall life. Today I want to discuss what I've learned from mentorships and education, including my search for the 'perfect' strategy and coach.
A quick background for those who don't know me: I am a fan of mentorships. You might say I'm a mentor junkie... I love learning and networking. Mentorships, classes, and education have been incredibly valuable to me, but they have also taught me some important, tougher lessons. I am sharing these lessons with you in hopes that you can learn faster and hopefully avoid some of the pain I've experienced.
I am writing this article on the day of January options expiration, which is a bittersweet day for me as I have a number of calls that are expiring worthless. I bought these calls over a year ago, at the time they were referred to as LEAPS (which are just calls with a lot of time priced in). I was following advice from a mentor, who told me to buy these calls as a stock pulls back and sell calls against my long calls (known as a "poor man's covered calls"). Not only did I buy calls, but I also pyramided into these calls, essentially doubling and tripling down. This was a strategy that had worked well in the past, and my coach had great success with it. However, if you haven't seen the market's performance in 2022, the market just kept going down.
So today, these calls expired worthless. Luckily, I hedged these positions and made some money as the stocks continued to pull back. However, for several months, I've forced myself to stare at these calls as a reminder.
These worthless calls and negative P/L were reminders that:
Past performance is not indicative of future returns and it doesn't matter how qualified a coach is or how smart they appear, do not put anyone on a pedestal and remember that what works for one person might not work for you.
It's important to understand the worst-case scenario and size risk appropriately so you can continue to trade tomorrow. Diversify your strategies as there is no holy grail strategy, nothing works all the time.
There are a lot of salesmen out there, so be careful and do your own due diligence. Just because someone is pitching you a strategy, you can still find value.
These worthless calls were also positive reminders. I am a better trader, and I've had so many unexpected, awesome experiences from these worthless calls:
Every single mentorship I've taken has taught me something unexpected. It's very important to keep an open mind. I've learned life lessons from a stock mentor, I've learned about my life's purpose from a real estate mentor, and I've learned new trading strategies from a small business owner.
Mistakes are learning opportunities as long as you use the knowledge. There is a lot to learn from bad strategies. It's even better if you can learn from others' mistakes, but sometimes the best lessons come from experiencing pain.
Learning, networking, and helping others opens doors you never thought were possible. As you learn and contribute, you meet new people and find strength in community. This mentorship was the catalyst that formed Good Kids Trading. I was supposed to learn how to make money trading options, yet I ended up making a friend and business partner.
Investing in your education is crucial for becoming successful in all aspects of your life. For trading it is important to gain a deeper understanding of the market, learn new skills and strategies, and be part of a community. Continual education is key to staying up-to-date with the latest developments in the market.
As previously discussed mentorships normally lead to unexpected benefits. I signed up for that mentorship to improve my knowledge of options trading. I ended up losing money from the strategies taught, yet the mentorship is responsible for starting the path to creating the awesome community we have here at Good Kids Trading.
If you want to learn how to trade options responsibility, mechanically, and successfully GKT is a trading community where you can network with other traders and share knowledge, which is a great way to get inspiration and motivation. Investing in yourself and expanding your knowledge on a continual basis is one of the most important things you can do as an options trader, and it can help you achieve your financial goals. Join our discord today: www.goodkidstrading.com/join
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