BIO: Tony Pawlak is a full-time stock trader and options instructor at Real Life Trading. It’s his life mission to help others face their fears and live their dreams.
STORY: Tony lost almost $100,000 in trading. More than half of this was bank loans and credit card limits.
LEARNING: If you view the markets as a get-rich-quick method, it will burn you. Assess risk before you go in and manage it when sizing your position.
“Stop trying to get rich overnight, and invest in yourself.”
Tony Pawlak
Guest profile
Tony Pawlak is a full-time stock trader and options instructor at Real Life Trading. It’s his life mission to help others face their fears and live their dreams.
Worst investment ever
Tony ran a trucking company for years, spending 60 to 80 hours weekly. After eight years in the family business, he was out of shape, miserable, depressed, and felt he was wasting his life. Tony had a feeling that he should go into trading. So for a year or two, he would listen to podcasts and try to learn as much as he could. Finally, he felt the time was right to quit the job and go to trade full time.
Tony started with a $30,000 trading account and believed he’d turn it into $500,000 in just a couple of months. In just a month, Tony had blown the $30,000. He had $20,000 set aside to pay bills for a couple of months. He took that out and put it in his trading account. That amount lasted another three weeks until it dwindled down to about a couple of thousands.
Tony went to the bank, took a $20,000 loan, and put it into his trading account. That loan lasted another month and a half. He went back to the bank a second time and got another loan. Tony lost that too. The third time he went to the bank, they gave him a couple of credit cards worth $15,000.
Tony wanted to abandon day trading for something more consistent. He decided to try credit spreads and built a trading strategy he hadn’t seen elsewhere. Tony spent about three weeks just figuring out the ins and outs of the process and finally put it to work. He started making $1,000 to $2,000 weekly on his $15,000 account. Tony began getting pretty efficient, earning enough to pay off bills and loans, including some credit cards.
Tony was going strong for about six or seven months until he saw this one trade outside his plan—day trading a credit spread. He jumped on it, thinking this was it. Tony put on half of his account on this one credit spread. Soon after, the markets reversed and started going against his trade. Tony figured he’d hedge it. He lost on that first hedge. Tony hedged again and lost. He kept hedging, and before he knew it, he’d lost the entire loan amount in one day.
Lessons learned
- Don’t quit; get up and find a way.
- If you view the markets as a get-rich-quick method, it will burn you.
- Succeeding in trading has nothing to do with knowledge but everything with managing risk.
- Have the right perspective to make money in the markets.
- Making money is not hard. You just need to know where to look and what to do.
Andrew’s takeaways
- Stop stressing about the outcome and focus on the process.
- Understand all the different emotions involved in trading because everything that’s happening in the market is a physical reaction going on in your body.
- Borrowing money and leveraging it is a number one risk factor.
- There are lessons you could only learn by losing. So embrace your losses and mistakes.
- You’ve got to find your trading style.
- Assess risk before you go in and manage it when sizing your position.
Actionable advice
Invest in yourself and get coaching from people that you trust, that are currently doing it, and that have done it.
Tony’s recommended resources
Visit Tony’s website, Real Life Training to join coaching sessions with him and learn the trading skill.
No.1 goal for the next 12 months
Tony’s number one goal for the next 12 months is to help 200 people replace their income through trading.
Parting words
“The only thing standing between you and your dreams is fear. You just got to walk through it. That’s it.”
Tony Pawlak
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