 What's shaking tradehacker nation? In this episode, I want to talk to you about dabbling in trading versus going all in. Trading the markets can be difficult to master and seemingly just out of reach. Professional traders have a secret. Trading requires total mental and emotional control. It requires the tradehacker mindset. Let's jump into our discussion of dabbling and trading versus going all in. If my audio in this episode isn't its normal, peaceful, quiet background, it's because I am driving. I'm actually on my way from Kansas City to Des Moines, Iowa, coaching my son's baseball tournament. So I'm sorry if the audio is a little off, but I think we'll make it through it. So basically, I've been thinking about this because I get a lot of emails every single day from members or other traders and get a lot of comments in our tradehacker community. And sometimes the feeling that I get based on the tone of an email or the tone of a conversation or comments in a post is that there are a lot. There are way too many people. There are way too many people who call themselves traders. Who are just dabbling. And when I say that, I mean, they haven't actually made the commitment that they are in this for the long haul. Either they're just getting started and they don't really know what direction they want to go with their trading. But the other side of it, there is a lot of traders who've been trading for years and are still dabbling. And here's why I say that because you can tell when somebody's dabbling when they commit too large of a position size, they commit too much capital to a position because they're still trying to hit that home run. They're still trying to hit that one trade or that just handful of trades that's going to get them where they want to be. It's kind of like the Wall Street vets on Reddit phenomenon where you've got this one guy who made all this money on GameStop and then you've got millions of people kind of rallying around him because they are so jealous, isn't the word, but I'm sure some are jealous, but they're so enthralled by this guy who made millions of dollars and do it, I can do it kind of attitude. And so they have this attitude that they're just going to go all in on this one bet where they're going to take way too big of position sizes to try to hit these home runs when I think they know in the back of their head, or maybe they don't, but it's very clear to me that very few people are going to hit that. It's just like very few people are going to win the lottery. Do people win the lottery? Yes, absolutely. Every single day somebody wins the lottery. But the chances of you winning the lottery are nil, next to nothing. And so a lot of people treat trading like the lottery and they're dabbling and they're not being serious. And here's the problem with this, is when you are dabbling, and not just in trading, but if you're dabbling in anything in life, as soon as something goes wrong, whether that's in trading, whether that's a losing streak, whether that's a situation where you've made some money and then you lose it all, so now you're back to even and you've spent all this time trading like this one mistake or this one trade or something that you did, took all of it away, now you're back to zero and you're frustrated, those types of situations will knock a dabbling trader out of the game. And so my question to you is, are you still dabbling or are you all in? Are you committed to becoming a successful trader? Because if you're committed, if you are truly all in, then your mindset is of the notion that no matter what happens, I'm going to figure it out, right? If you're all in, if you're committed, then you will figure it out no matter what kind of roadblocks or what kind of obstacles getting your way in the process of learning to trade. And it works the same way in a lot of things in life, when you think about a marriage, right? If you're committed to somebody, if you're committed to your marriage, you know that there's always going to be obstacles, there's always going to be arguments, there's always going to be disagreements between you and your spouse, there's always going to be situations that come up that can challenge your relationship. But if you are all in, if you've made the decision, and this is just a decision that you have to make in your mind, if you make that decision to be committed, then you know without a shadow of a doubt that no matter what comes your way, you're still going to be married, right? No matter what obstacles, no matter what challenges in life, no matter what arguments or issues come up, you're always going to be married. So that, so that it's like, it's not even a question. But we, in trading, it's the, it's the exact same type of mindset. You know, are you just, are you dating, trading? Are you just playing the field a little bit? Are you just trying to figure it out? Are you just trying to jump in and jump out, make a few bucks here, make a quick few bucks there, and then just, and then jump on to the next thing? If you're doing that, then you're never going to be successful. It's not until you decide, and this is a conscious mental decision, it's not until you decide that you're going to commit, that you're going to go all in with trading, that you actually even have a chance of becoming successful. Because like I said, if you run into that losing streak, if you run into that situation where you've made too much money, then you lose it. If you run into that situation where, I mean, let's say some type of law changed, where there's some type of tax on your trades, and now your cost is much higher, are you going to be able to figure that out? Let's say your broker goes out of business, and you have to change brokers, you got to figure out all this new technology, is that going to put you out of the game? Or are you going to be able to figure it out, and just understand that this is an obstacle, this is a roadblock, and there's no problem, I'll be able to get over it. Are you trading a strategy that works in some environments, but then as soon as that environment changes in the market, and you have to change gears, are you going to be able to do that, or are you going to be stubborn and try to stick with what you were doing before that worked previously, that's no longer working, and is that something that's going to put you out of the game? Or are you committed to the point where you're going to just be able to figure it out? Because when you're committed, that's what you do, no matter what comes your way, you're always able to figure it out. And I want to challenge you to really ask yourself this question, are you really committed, or are you just dabbling? Because if you're just dabbling, honestly, you should probably find something else to do. If you're just dabbling, you are kind of just gambling, right, it's just like going to the casino, you're not a professional gambler, you're not the casino, and so there's a very high likelihood that you're probably going to lose at trading. You might get lucky, gamblers get lucky, lottery winners get lucky, so it can happen, so if you're just playing this to get your gambling fix, then hey, who am I to tell you not to do that? That's fine, but I want you to at least be realistic with yourself. I want you to be realistic with yourself to understand that maybe you get this thrill out of putting large sums of money at risk. That's called gambling. There's a lot of gamblers who trade, but trading is not gambling. Okay, let me say that again. There are a lot of gamblers who trade, but trading should not be gambling. In other words, if you have a very methodical, precise, consistent way to generate profits out of the market, and you stick to your discipline, and you have the mental discipline and the mindset, the trade hacker mindset, to create that consistent profitability, that's not gambling. But there are a lot of people who gamble every day in the markets and they are, they're not being honest with themselves about what they're doing, or they're just trying to get lucky and hit a home run. So your homework after this episode is to really sit down and I would suggest even writing it down, writing down what it is that you're trying to get out of trading, and that's going to help you really work through maybe some subconscious things, some mental things to help get you over the fact that maybe you're dabbling and this is kind of a crossroad, maybe you need to either commit or you need to find something else to do. It may sound like I'm trying to push you away from trading, and that's not it at all because I think that trading is one of the most empowering skills that you can learn. Not only once you learn it, you don't forget it, but it's something that's a legacy. You can pass it down to your kids and your grandkids and when you're able to consistently profit from the markets, it's so empowering because now you know that regardless of what happens in the world, if you have a job right now, regardless if you've lost your job, if you can trade and make consistent money, you have the ability to do that and for many of you in the world, as long as you have an internet connection and a laptop, then you're not depending on anyone else for your financial well-being. It's such an empowering thing and if you've never felt that, if you've always been dependent on someone else or nervous about losing your job or just hate your job in general, when you have that empowering feeling knowing that no matter what happens, you're always going to be able to generate the income to take care of your family, to pay your bills, to do everything that you want to do, things get really different. They get really good and it spills over in all other aspects of your life and if you think about if you're stressed out because of a job, that doesn't just stay with you at work. It spills over to how you treat your family, how you treat your friends or maybe become distant with people that you normally would be embracing. It's such a life changing thing to have that empowerment and be able to know that you're going to be able to take care of yourself and your family financially for as long as you live and past that balance generations is a pretty powerful thing and I want that for everybody so I'm not trying to push you away from trading. I want you to commit but the reason I'm talking about this is because I see way too many people in our community or people who are thinking about joining our community or just out there in the world in general who are lying to themselves or not being honest with themselves about what they're doing. They say they're a trader, they put that they're an options trader on their Instagram profile but are they really committed or are they just dabbling? So that's my question to you. I'm asking you to sit down, write things out, write out, be self-aware about what you're actually doing with trading and how committed are you and put yourself on a crossroads to decide if this is what you're going to do or if it's not and it doesn't mean that you have to have the goal of being a full-time trader. Maybe you love your job, maybe you love your career, maybe you own a business, you love your business and you just have trading as a side hustle. Well you can still be committed to your side hustle, it doesn't have to be your full-time gig so it's a mental decision to become committed. It doesn't mean you can't be committed to other things, it means that if you're going to be trading you need to be all in, you need to be committed to trading from a mental standpoint because that's going to allow you to make better decisions in your trading and as we know as traders it's all about your decision-making capabilities. That's the difference between winning traders and mediocre or losing traders. I hope this was helpful, this had this on my mind, wanted to share it with you. Everybody have a fantastic rest of your day and we'll see you in the next episode.