Don't let anyone's programming (including yours) to discourage you
I recently was catching up with a couple of different friends (on separate occasions) and they asked me how my job search was going. I responded it was slow and while I've been interviewing that I'm trying to focus on my trading and am only considering jobs opportunistically. I shared how during interviews, I feel like I'm lying when asked why I want the job, because I don't. I don't get excited about returning to a corporate environment, feeling drained after playing company politics, and working on stupid projects that feel like a waste of time. It's interesting how people immediately dismiss the notion of trading full-time even as I'm talking about it. They always focus the conversation back on jobs and interviews. I'm thinking of two conversations in particular where both people ignored the sentiment repeatedly and at first, I was annoyed, because it felt like they weren't listening to me. But, then I realized that they're both so stuck in their view of work and wealth building that they were dismissing the idea automatically.
Our programming around how we make money is so strong. I just started back up in therapy and my therapist pointed out how deeply rooted my own assumption about earning money. I grew up in household where having a corporate job was the best and only way to measure success and so I've held onto this long-time belief that in order to make money I need to be employed by a company. Working for a corporation means stability, benefits, and a chance to retire with security. This is very common for immigrant households who prioritize security over everything else.
Trading has been the first time that I've been able to make money outside of that construct and as I transition to earning a meaningful income through trading, I find myself sabotaged by not just others' perception about trading but my own limiting subconscious beliefs. Given that I just graduated from a prestigious Ivy League graduate degree program a couple of years ago focused on public policy, it feels shameful to think that my studies were for nothing, since you most certainly don't need any degree to become a full-time trader. But, if I dig deeper that that, the hesitance to make the transition to a full-time trader is the fact that it goes against everything I was taught and have spent the last thirty years believing. Being self-employed, owning a business, investing, real estate felt either like middle-class pursuits that as immigrants we wanted to get as far away from, or, for the ultra-rich who could afford to do so because they had so much security already. Corporate was the best path for upper middle class immigrants to achieve the American Dream.
When I reflect on what really matters to me, it's not the prestige that a fancy job can give me (already had that and it did nothing) and it's not the stability of a paycheck (also have had that and it wasn't enough). It's the ability to control my time and energy. I used to want all the benefits of self employment without taking any of the risks but I think I'm finally getting to the place where I am realizing that being miserable at a corporate job is not something I'm willing to go back to and if I want the success that is possible with self-employment, then I have to be willing to take risks, too. Even writing these words here on my anonymous blog scares me, but as my therapist told me: as we get older, it gets harder to lie. How many more times can I do an interview and pretend to want a job that makes my stomach flip upside down? How many more times can I lie to myself before I'm ready to take a leap of faith?
On the last note, I had an interesting conversation with this guy who spent 15+ years as an operator in the tech startup space and he finally left his job about a year ago to buy a small business. The best advice he gave me was that ultimately you have to trust yourself. There will always be unknowns when you decide to purchase a small business and once you've done all the due diligence you can do, the question is ultimately: are you willing to bet on yourself?