How I turned my day trading disaster into a successful passive income

This post is an example of the content I share every Friday in my Living by Experience Magazine. If you’d like your free copy, just click here.

I’ve tried a few things that failed spectacularly. That’s the whole point of this blog: Living by Experience – trying anything – and keeping whatever sticks. One of the things that didn’t stick: day trading. When several of my friends recently asked me about stock investment options I decided to share some of my experience, beyond what I talk about in my Happiness book.

At the time day trading seemed like a perfect option. I could work from home, or anywhere in the world I had a more or less reliable internet connection. Moreover I didn’t have to rely on people: using my very specific plan I had found a way to extract money on the market by holding positions for just a few minutes or sometimes even seconds. I signed up for classes to make sure I came prepared, and when I first started trading in a simulation environment I did pretty well and was able to make a consistent amount every day.

When I showed my new skills consistently, my mentor decided it was time for me to try the model in a real money environment. That’s where my account balance headed south. Whether it was psychological (many new traders freak out when dealing with “real” money), or there were significant differences in the “simulation” technology versus the real market effect is beyond this post. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Point is – it didn’t work and I blew out my account, losing thousands of my own dollars in a matter of days.

I learned a few important lessons, but was still intrigued by the idea of building a passive income through investments. I went back to the classroom and got my paperwork to become licensed financial advisor, allowing me to help others implement some of the smart money principles I teach in my Happiness book. Get yourself a copy on Amazon if you don’t already have one. While that was a fun experience that helped me understand the North American financial world from the inside, it wasn’t my passion. So how could I accomplish what I was after?

To get clarity, I redefined my goal:

Generate passive income through my investment market participation

Notice the contradiction: I wanted passive income through participation. To do that a few key elements were important to me:

• To maximize my earnings I was willing to take the highest level risk I was comfortable with

BUT

• Instead of actively managing all my trades myself (by staring at graphs that at times felt more like Las Vegas slot machines) I wanted someone to do that for me, all while allowing me to be more engaged in the game than simply giving my money to an expensive fund manager at the bank

The solution?

Social trading. I found a platform that introduced a social concept to trading, allowing me to connect to social traders across the world and copy other people’s investments as they trade contracts for difference on hundreds of stocks, commodities, indices, currencies, ETFs and ADRs!

For Living by Experience readers who are serious to give this a try: use promo code start to receive up to $4,000 in credits when making your first deposit – learn more and sign up through the link below.

P.S. Questions, comments, compliments? Join the conversation and text me: 604-210-8668. I’d love to hear from you.

If this post helped you, please consider buying one of my books, or checking out a more in-depth course on one of the topics I talk about. Thanks! 🙂