For the broke people!

Learning to trade well will solve a ton of your problems revolved around finances. Lets face it, when you are broke, everything revolves around finances. I was there a little over 2 years ago. I doubt any of you were "Broke Dawg Broke". When you are BDB, you are spending more than you make each month. You are borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. You drive like Ms. Daisy, only pressing the accelerator when absolutely necessary, so you do not use as much fuel. "Check Into Cash" knew me on a first name basis. I was one of their Platinum members.

You must want to free yourself from the weight of debt. You cannot continue to make the same mistakes. It is stated in the "Good Book", "The borrower is a slave to the lender". Slowly take the shackles off, and put in the extra work, devote your life to learning this art, and free yourself. No, it will not be easy, but you and your family deserve a better life. I literally prayed and cried at night. I am the man of my family, and what man places his family in such a pit of hell? Thanks for great people who will help. As Gary said, anybody can learn this. Now, he said a mouthful when he made that statement. I am like "Rain Man". My thoughts are "All over the place". My eyes dance in my head. For whatever reason, I MUST, MUST leave a very small portion of my food on my plate (each item). I sleep only about 4 hours a night, but wake up with a day's worth of energy. Heck, it is after 12:00 now and I am up by 5 AM. I am a mess, but Gary' s approach helped me develop the discipline I needed to trade well. I also discovered that my Rain Man like actions are controlled by meds, and as a result, I am focused and trade extremely well. You will be suprised what you discover about yourself when you "Go all in". Your issues with debt go away because the discipline you learn from trading starts to embed and manifest in other areas of your life. You develop a system and timeline, identifying dates to pay bills off. Also, money stops "being money". Money starts feeling like a vehicle to make money (if that makes sense). A carpenter has to have his hammer to earn money. Well, a trader must have money to earn money. When I started trading fairly well, I turned into a "fool". I never had much, and all of a sudden, money started flowing! After going on a spending spree for a month, I had a couple of bad trades and almost lost my basket again. That is when I started placing a different value on money. It is simply a tool. I have stopped watching and analyzing my account. I want to trade well, and everything else will be ok. As always, I will help anyway I can. We are all here to help, so keep asking questions, but learn this art. There is no easy way around the work.

Good night. I am going to get my 4 hours of sleep.

rookie30,
Great post. I too want to trade well. GW says, "You get to choose you." I have been blessed with good jobs over the years but when I have tried to climb higher from my position, someone was always chosen over me. It did not matter that I had better qualifications and more education. I am not bitter about that because it has made me realize how great an opportunity I have with what GW taught us. I can choose to work hard, put in the time, practice, study, read, journal, research, etc. and become better and better. It's a me thing!! No one else can keep me from being successful but me. At the end of the day, I have to look myself in the face and say, "Were you disciplined, did you follow the rules, did you trade well?" The great thing about this forum is that there are so many others who are walking the same path whose input encourages, corrects, instructs, and guides along the path. It really is not primarily about the money -- it's about the person I can become by overcoming my fears, controlling my greed, and developing the discipline to trade well.

Once you get it, it is yours forever! People can take a lot of things away from us, but no one can take away our knowledge. I have said before, this is by far the biggest challenge I have ever faced, but as all other obstacles, I found a way to make this work for me.

My wife has asked me to consider training and teaching this to others. As I told her, I am not going to work for anyone else. When I retire from my 9-5, I am trading from home and not working for anyone else. I grew up working from the bottom. My brother and I were "field hands". Yes, in South Georgia we worked as "field hands". My dad met people in his line of work as a garbage man who owned large farms. They needed people to harvest their crops, load their watermelons, hoe weeds from around their peanut plants, crop their tobacco, pick their peas or beans, bail their hay, cut their okra, pick up their pecans, etc. You get the picture. Well, my dad and mom needed help financially, so my dad offered up his two boys for a measly $20 a day. We worked all day, yes, sun up til sun down during non-school months. We worked after school during school months. Anyway, a man would come to our house before the sun rose. My brother and I would grab our lunches and jump on the back of his truck. There were other people already on the rear of the truck. Most of the people who worked with us were neighbors or community folks. He would drive us 8 or 10 miles down in the country to his massive fields. Whatever work needed to be done, we did it, usually cropping tobacco or picking peas. My brother and the others seemed to love it, but deep in my soul, I hated every, single minute of it! I despised being there, but I had no choice. Thanks God for my brother. He kept me motivated. I always said to him, "I cannot work like this forever. I just can't". He always told me, "When you get tired, just let me know and I will crop your row". These memories and emotions are really surfacing (thanks for allowing me to vent).

After growing older, I often think back to the small parts of all of this. This man would not allow anyone to ride in the front of his truck. He would not allow us to eat on his front porch. We either ate our lunch on the rear of his truck or under one of the oak trees. We definately were not allowed to use his bathroom, and of course there were no outdoor facilities. We did not have sealable plastics, sandwich bags, or tuppleware. We hand brown, paper bags, so the ants would take the first bite of our sandwiches. I really think Gary Williams is so successful doing this because he has hit "rock bottom" and had to work his way from his back.

My point to all of this is, I am tired of working for others and refuse to take "crapp" from people- been there done that! I do not want my name smeared among this arena because people want something for nothing. They would want me or you to teach them, but a lot of people do not have the work ethic that some of us have. They want it all- RIGHT NOW! Some of us have a different story, but we know what working hard is all about. The only people I plan on teaching, are my children, but if they are not willing to do the work, I do not plan to work for them either.

Sorry folks, but I just had one of those moments again and sometimes desperately need to tell part of my story. I love my wife as much as I love life, but she does not know how tough it was to work for families of people who do not extend any respect for who you are, but they enjoy the benefits from what you do for them. I think this thought process is very similar in trading because so many people in this field of work tend to not extend respect for who you are, but love to benefit from what you do for them. I know there are great people on this forum who simply need a little motivation. I hope someone finds strength in knowing that if a country boy from the back woods of South Georgia can do this, then I definately can do it. As always, I will help you anyway I can.

Rookie30