It requires risk, courage, determination, persistence, grit, and belief in yourself. Take any one of those away and the whole thing gets shaky. The market tests every one of them, and it doesn’t wait until you’re ready.

A bad loss will do it. You’re one tick from your take profit, the market reverses, and it stops you out. One tick. Those are the moments that test you. Wanting to quit is normal. What matters is what you do next.

Nobody assigns your day. Nobody approves your time off. The results are yours, the good and the bad. Once you’ve felt that, it’s hard to imagine trading it back for a paycheck and a boss.

Risk is the price of admission. Ali built a career on stepping into the ring when the outcome was uncertain, and every trade starts the same way. If you wait for a guaranteed outcome, you will accomplish nothing, because the guarantee never comes.

Cersei was talking about politics in Westeros, but she could be describing the markets. Half measures don’t get rewarded. You commit to the craft and put in the work, or you pay tuition forever.

Peter Tuchman, the New York Stock Exchange floor trader known as the “Einstein of Wall Street,” keeps telling people not to be among the 85% who lose money in the markets. I can’t vouch for the exact number, and other estimates run anywhere from 70% to 90%, but the message holds up. Most traders don’t make it.

Business is no different. Government data shows roughly a third of new businesses close within two years and about half within five. That’s a lot of people who don’t make it. But anything worth achieving has risk. The bigger the prize, the bigger the risk, and there is no version of a meaningful life where you get the reward without it.

So why do people like you and me do it? Because the reward is worth it. The freedom. The opportunity to create generational wealth. Ordering from the menu without looking at the prices. Flying first class or private. The small things and the big things. Paying for a daughter’s wedding.

My first idol as a boy was Muhammad Ali. I still remember listening to the Ali Frazier fight on a transistor radio and being crushed when Ali lost. I have his George Foreman fight on my phone. Am I being hyperbolic, quoting Ali and Game of Thrones in a newsletter about day trading? Maybe. But the stakes feel that real to me.

This is my life, and it’s your life. Is the risk worth it? Only you can answer that question. I made my choice a long time ago.

Trade safe,
Jay Cradeur
Founder, Day Trader Dojo

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