My electrical rolling garage door was not working properly the
other day due to a loose cable. Upon called, the technician showed up and
finished the job within half an hour. He seemed to know what he was doing
and completed the job smoothly. After he finished the job, I complimented
him on a job well done. His reply: “I love my job and that is why I don’t
work for a single day”. He made a good comment worth thinking about.
I once attended an option seminar in West Los
Angeles area. The speaker lectured about option strategies,
trading psychology and his personal trading experiences. One student
raised an interesting question: “If you really make this kind of money
you claim you are making from trading, then why you are still working for
this company?” His reply: I take this job for the following reasons:
1. The owner is a
good friend of mine and I don’t want to turn him down.
2. After “locking”
myself trading in a confined environment, I get bored after awhile.
3. I enjoy myself
the most when I talk about the subject I love the most.
4. I have a
mission to accomplish: showing the public there are more than one way to make money
trading the market.
I know a trader whom I call Mr. T. He started as a floor trader in
the 1980’s and later opened his own broker firm and managed multi-million
dollars mutual funds. He later sold his broker firm and started his own
talk show about option trading. His show mainly features live trading,
market talk and
Q & A session. Audients from
around the world can call in and ask all kind of questions they have
about their positions. Mr. T. is a retail trader just like us. The
difference is he has a lot more capital than we do. With this kind of
money, he can happily retire but he chooses to stay in the business. He
openly says he is a better trader now since he starts hosting the show.
He teaches, talks and learns at the same time. I
am sure with the money he gets from selling his firm,
he doesn’t even need to trade for a living. He trades because he loves
trading. He hosts his show to share what he knows about trading to the
public. He does all those things because he wants to, not because he has
to.
Apparently, the garage door technician, the option seminar speaker
and Mr. T. are not working. They are enjoying themselves doing what they
love. I remember reading an article about Steve Jobs, the founder and
late CEO of Apple Inc. When asked about what one should do to start a
business, Mr. Jobs replied: “Find something you are passionate about and
start from there.”
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