How did my 7-year-old daughter make me a success in stock investing?
Several members of my investment club often asked about my personal history of investing in the stock market. Members asked me to share my lesson learned in stock trading and investing for the benefit of all.
Let me share with you the most defining moment of my life, which makes me a successful stock investor.
I have a big dream of making millions trading stocks to fulfill my dream of a 4 bedroom apartment on the beach, the red Ferrari, a big plasma TV in an office overlooking the surf beach 12 floors below, etc
On that particular Sunday morning in April 1992, as I was sitting at my computer studying the market, my daughter asked me when we would be rich so that she could enjoy a family vacation to the Greek islands.
I looked into her eyes and was met with a simple question: “Dad, why aren’t we rich?”
I looked back at my past and realized that I tried to build wealth for the last 10 years, but without any real success. My silent response to my daughter is that I have yet to achieve financial freedom. I’m still trying to get out of the rat race even though I survived the October 1987 crash on Black Monday somehow.
I introspected and realized that I bought some stocks that were going down and then didn’t sell them soon enough. I was making a profit, but why didn’t I really make a lot of money in the stock market?
I started going through all the transactions to find out what went wrong.
I wondered why I bought those shares in the first place. I began to analyze what prompted me to sell the shares.
After some number crunching, I found that there was no reason to buy those shares in the first place. I had no reason to hold on to them when they kept falling.
I learned my first lesson in my investing to ask the why question for every decision.
After a day, I got to my “Aha!” moment and changed my stock investment strategy.
I started by writing my vision: what I wanted my life to be like when I became a successful trader and investor. Once I envisioned the final state, I started taking baby steps to achieve my dream of making millions investing in stocks and trading options.
