Remembering 2009 while I was employed by one of the Forbes Top 10 firm as a professional hacker. Looking back now, it's all well worth it, the determination, the reverse engineering skills, the late night hard work and the sheer amount of stress level that I underwent had all paid off when I learnt that anything is possible using the same mentality to hack the stock market and made my big $. I always remembered 2 quotes that Steve Jobs made and it will forever etched in my memory till this very day. I never knew I would become who am I today, but I knew back in those days, passion, drive, tenacity, simplicity, focus and sacrifices was all it took to become successful at this stage of my career. I am retired now and my goal now is not so much on making $ for myself, but to drive and replicate that very same success and formula I had in the stock market to all of my fellow students so that they can achieve financial freedom.
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” Steve Jobs
“That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” Steve Jobs
Looking back now at 2009, it had been hell of a roller coaster. The ups and downs working in the corporate world and all the politics that hindered me from progressing was just YUCKS! I mean my job was to secure the security posture from all kinds of attacks, but most of the time, I was fighting politics where I spent 70% of the time writing unnecessary emails and 30% of my time doing the actual hands on work! From all that monotonous work, I learnt one thing, one needs to be a hypocrite and learn to be humble in the corporate world so as to protect your rice bowl. To get everybody agree on something takes too long and by the time it's approved, everything is not relevant anymore. It's a total put off for me, because time should not be wasted, it should be used to do more constructive things. I was even more determined to succeed by training hard in my trading. When I mean training hard, I meant endure in my trading no matter how much $$ I lost. I need to forget and keep moving like water.
This job paid me $6274 per month back in 2009-2010. Considered that I was just an O level student and not a bright person and getting that kind of salary, working in a Forbes 10 fortune company was an accomplishment for me. While others were pursuing their degrees, I was already making a monthly salary of $6000 and bonuses. The year was drawing to a close and we were marching towards 2010. Reflecting back, I had not done much trading, fear was still inflicted in me and my emotion wasn't in tip top condition. However my stock market knowledge had supersede and accelerate way far beyond my imagination and thanks to Jesse Livermore's "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator". This book was truly one of it's kind. It was a real story on a real man and some of things he shared those days may not be relevant today, but I managed to pick up some fine points and improvise on it. The best part of the book is not the method, but his attitude and emotional skills which inspired me to overcome my short comings. I knew with knowledge itself is not enough, it's just 30% of the game. Another 70% is allocated to emotional skills. I need to apply what I have absorbed and learnt in order to succeed. And to trade big like Jesse Livermore was another ball game. I admire big traders who have guts and I had met a few of them in my life. Most I see today were all calls and talks, letting people know how good are they or how accurate their calls are. I am simply not interested, when I want to learn, I must learnt from someone who had done it, not an educator.
I was making progression in my emotional skills because I got to learnt some philosophy stuffs albeit rather slow. Slow is ok but it must be steady. Everyday I was doing small little things to improve myself and my overall being. I wasn't so focused on the chart reading part but more on the emotional skills because I was inspired to trade big like Jesse Livermore. It takes time and time is the best medicine that can heal your past wounds. I want to create something that no one had ever witnessed before with simplicity and execution at ease. It's like Bruce Lee, learning Wing Chun from Ip Man and then break free from his master's teaching to create his own Jeet Kune Do. There were a lot of people who put him down, but still he succeeded in his own way and created an impact in the martial arts world even after his death of 40 years. People still regard him as the greatest and best in the world when in comes to combat. It takes a lot of courage and guts and in the process, one may experience violent reactions from the public. I was all ready. I don't care what people say or how they looked at me, as long as I don't hurt them, then my conscience is clear. At the end of the whole journey, $$ in my pocket but the public can only continue to drool, hate and flame. And I can look back and say I had done it my way not using any technicals. I created my own way.
2010 was the birth of stockmarketmindgames. The inspiration, motivation and violent all sets in. When you are creating an impact and a revolution, it's not how many people who likes you, it's how many people who disagrees and hate your success. Stay tune!
Ronald K - Market Psychologist - The Big Speculator
