Can Your Job Make You A Better Trader?

Hey, it’s Bryce here.   

Today let’s talk about jobs. If you’re balancing trading and work, I’d bet you’re itching to get rid of your job. 

The traders I know are all about freedom, flexibility, and making their own rules.  

I get it. I love those things too. But there’s another side to the story…

So is it possible that keeping your day job can make you a better trader? 

Read on for why I think keeping your job can have a positive impact on your trading. 

3 Ways Your Job Can Improve Your Trading

Let’s take a look at three important 9-to-5 skills you can apply to your trading career. 

1. Time Management

When you have a ‘regular’ job, whether it’s part-time or full-time, it takes up a lot of your time. You’re left with a certain window of opportunity to trade in. 

Maybe you can only trade during premarket, on your lunch break, or after hours. Whatever the case, you need to identify a strategy that fits your time frame. 

Some people like to trade stocks that pop in after-hours and sell them in premarket the next day. This way they can trade before the family wakes up in the morning. It’s how they can balance trading, family, and a job.

If you’re on the west coast, the afternoon trading session (2–4 p.m. Eastern) can fit in quite nicely around a lunch break. That’s one of Tim Bohen’s (one of my mentors) favorite times to trade. 

Whatever your personal situation, having a job while you trade can help improve your time management. It forces you to create a routine and maintain it. This could help your discipline when it’s time to create a trading plan and stick with it. 

2. Responsibility

Traders blow up accounts all the time. It sucks. Especially when you’re new and you don’t have that much money to begin with. You got into trading to make money, not lose it, right? 

Ron, a recent guest on “The Tuohey Talk Show” talked about how often he had to replenish his trading account with money from his day job in the early days. Check out his inspiring story:

Trading can work. But it’s hard. Be ready to put in consistent effort for the long haul.

And know that many day trades can happen FAST. And since they all happen digitally, it’s too easy to disconnect from reality. 

If you’re working while trading, it can help you to keep a healthy concept of the value of money. When you earn an income, it can give you a healthier trading perspective and help keep you grounded. 

Think about how long it takes to earn that dollar amount at work and be more conscientious with your trading risk levels.

3. Patience

Learning a new skill takes lots of patience. With any career, you need to first put time, effort, and resources into your education. You need to train before you start. 

Would you expect to be a scientist, a doctor, or a lawyer without any training? Yikes, I hope not.

Any time there’s the potential for high reward, there’s a lot of up-front effort required first. 

I was juggling school, various jobs, and learning to trade all at the same time when I started. It was exhausting. 

Malcolm Gladwell, the author of the book “Outliers,” famously said that it takes 10,000 hours to gain mastery of any skill. 

Thankfully, as a trader, you can start making money before then, but that just goes to show you that you need to be patient — and be prepared to put in the hours first. 

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Conclusion

It’s easy to think that total freedom will make our lives better. We all want to do our own thing our own way from time to time. 

But sometimes, working within limits and structures, around other people’s needs and demands, can be just the right amount of pressure we need to stay motivated as traders. 

Most traders I know started out with responsibilities in their life other than trading. Work, school, family — learning from these structures can help us create better routines for tackling the markets.

In the SteadyTradeTeam, we cover the most common strategies and setups in day trading that can help newer traders take their accounts to the next level. 

And we keep you up to date when the market changes. So your skills can stay current even when you’re busy and running low on research time. If you’re ready to invest in your trading education, join us here.