All right everyone. So in this episode, we're going to talk about day trading and working full-time Now There's no question about it. having a full-time job is a huge responsibility. Day Trading I Think for a lot of people that are still working full-time is kind of a side hustle.

It's something that maybe you're thinking eventually could overtake and you don't have to work full-time anymore. But there's a period where you're trying to do both and at the same time manage other things in life, whether it's kids or whatever. so you have your hands full. So in this episode we're going to talk about our various experiences trading and working full-time and so why don't we jump in? Well Timmy You're working full-time and you're doing it in a I Mean it's a your own.

You're self-employed It's yeah, you've got your own business. Yeah, so for me I mean I Guess full-time would be a little bit of a stretch for me I Probably I Probably clock for my personal business, me and my partner. You know he's a firefighter so he has one day on two days off. we only work on his two days off.

Okay, for us, we've been able to, you know, do every bit of work we need to and still have a little bit of time off. So I'm probably clocking in maybe 20 hours a week and then trading is probably another 20 hours. Okay, you know, which isn't You know? It's like it's just. it's awesome because I can kind of pick when to do the jobs and what time of the day certain things.

so I can to get my training in around. Okay, and so take note of this. So we're talking about a job that allows flexibility. Yes, you can basically schedule your hours around absolutely trading so you're not.

you know, a school teacher or something like that. Yeah, where you've got to be at school and that was my biggest fear was like coming out of college and having something to where I was not able to watch the markets in the morning. Yeah, and that's why me and my partner started it. I mean I started it when I was like 16 years old.

not professionally. you're doing it with a business license and all that, but just to get extra money. and I realized that it was something to where I didn't have to work a crazy amount of hours, you know. and I could still make enough to especially get through college stuff like that.

and I can do my classes and whatnot. And it was something. I honestly enjoyed doing just it's satisfying work well for the YouTube audience, it's pressure washing and soft washing which is some of you all know it's you know, it's a lot of like really filthy stuff that ends up coming basically back to its brand new forms. A lot of people are super like oh, it's not going to do that and they see it and they're like wow, you know that's awesome.

So yeah, it's definitely satisfying work and it's beautiful to do it while trading as well as I don't have to focus so much on my profits for trading I have that as a backup and I know, you know, Yes, there are up and downs with that, but I know I'm still gonna have income coming in so it definitely helps in that sense. Yeah, so and then how do you find do you find trading kind of rolls over into your day job? like do you ever have such a bad day trading? you're like I don't even want a good do my like day job today? Oh absolutely. It also does help though as well with um, like on days where I do lose money I'm like okay, I'm still making money somewhere. Okay so but then again, sometimes I'm like now I'm not making any money today because I've already lost 400 in the morning and then I'm not even going to make that in the evening.

So right? Um, it's tough for sure. But I just like that we get paid pretty much after every job, so it's kind of like instant gratification. Yeah, I'd say you know if we don't have any expenses for the business that we have to pay for, then you know I can get paid pretty much the same day, right? And having that cash in my hand feels a whole lot better after having a bad day. Yeah, and I still have most of my day, after that to still study and do what I need to do in my sense as well.

Okay, all right, that makes sense. So um, who who's kind of want to takes another stack? I gotta I got another story. Um, right now I'm fortunate enough that I'm not working full-time anymore. Okay, there was a time that I that I that I used to um and my first tip of advice would be to move somewhere in which you can trade on the Pacific Standard time because for people like myself, the Stock Market opens at 6 30 a.m Yeah, which allows me for me to trade.

Oh I used to allow me for me to trade from 6 30 to 8 30 and then go straight to a nine to five after that. Um, so that was truly a blessing living in that time zone. um another way. Another thing I used to do too is that I will only apply to jobs that are quote-unquote easy by that I mean I One of my jokes was I was um I was the guy that sat at the lobby of a hotel and you know I was just monitoring cameras and stuff like that.

which meant that I was getting paid and at the same time I had my laptop and the course is up I had live training archives up I was studying all the time and I was able to, you know, invest my money in two ways at the same time learning and getting betting in my trading and also at the same time guaranteeing some sort of income that's really smart. Yeah, yeah, I like that. I mean that that makes that makes a lot of sense because there's Listen, there's a lot of jobs where you know they're paying you to be there, but they are. they don't give.

They don't care if you're reading a book or right if you've got something going on, as long as you're doing your job when there's something going on. but there's a lot of jobs. it's just last sitting and waiting, right? Exactly. So yeah, I mean that that kind of makes sense to do that kind of job so you can keep focusing on learning.

You know about trading. Absolutely the only thing about those type of jobs is not going to be like high paying. and when I got into the Journey of trying to save for 25 000 uh, you know for my PDT account I had to leave that job I felt like all the learning was done. So I didn't need a job that allowed me to learn and at the same time work.

but instead I wanted a job that would pay me more so that I could get easily quicker to the 25 000. Okay, you know, line. So then after doing that job, I started paying houses okay, which kind of like similar. yeah, you can't bring your laptop to work when you're painting houses.

Pure hard work and you know getting hands dirty all day. But you know they they pay good money right? especially for for somebody that doesn't have a lot of experience for somebody that is Young it's very hard to find those High high-end paying jobs in like a corporation or something like that. so you have to get dirty and you know do those type of jobs I did that um for like a year I think I was able to say you know almost a PDT with that. but I gotta tell you, you have to love the Grind because for me it was.

You know going to bed early this the day started from the day before going making sure I was going to bed early because I needed to wake up at 4 30 or 5 to get ready for pre-market and then get ready to trade at 6 30. yeah great for two hours, three hours, then nine to five. then I'll go to the gym right after that and then I was already starting my side hustle. you know, making videos and stuff and I would make a recap or even if it's not a recap, you gotta come back and study your own trade.

So it was trade nine to five gym, an hour of studying my own trades and then to bet and repeat and you're doing that like like it's Clockwork every day throughout the week and then you have a little bit of a break during the weekends. But um, it definitely can be done. It's gonna, you know, take a lot of you. you're not gonna have a social life, you won't have a lot of friends.

um, but you know, are you willing to live like this? So let's say in the future you can live like you know, like us. day trading. Um I'm not working I'm not doing I'm not in that roller coaster anymore. That's awesome, you know? Yeah, and I mean that that's kind of the thing where sometimes I think that I'm like, you know, when you're when you're in that period of learning, you're really paying your dues.

You're in the trenches. You're not getting a reward for your work every day. When you paint, you work eight hours, ten hours, you get money that day or whatever. that week you get the money.

You get the reward for the hard work. With trading, you're putting in a lot of hard work for months, maybe years before you're seeing any real monetary reward. and you know Nick was talking about that yesterday. He was talking about seeing if you can find another way of getting gratification out of the learning process that's not tied to monetary.

And to be honest, tell me what. Tell me what that is because I I'm not even sure where this is such a job, where you don't see it, you don't see it anymore. Oh I can't hear you very well. Sorry, let me.

uh. refresh You don't. You don't see it anymore because you've kind of just like you've kind of absorbed all those all those traits now. Yeah.

but if you compare your personality and like your your thinking process and your skill set as just like a human to like before when maybe you were working in a gas station. There's so many things that you have to become to be a successful Trader and so many kind of like, uh, archetypes that it kind of puts you into as like a successful person just in general and being able to like see a goal work towards it. deal with the frustration. Um, deal with like setting smaller goals to achieve a bigger goal.

Um, all the mental aspects of keeping you engaged as a human. um to where you you're you kind of just like, really grow from it. uh as compared to just like spending your time and money on on like a Netflix or uh or like you're going out to the bars and drinking. yeah um there there's there's a huge like like you're living your life like like you're you're taking a shot.

Yeah, like like I think just that has has huge value. Um like even if it is just at something like this where it basically is like we're playing an esport Like right we're in a way yeah, like like in in a major way. like it's an esport. There's a zero-sum game.

The value that we offer like in in the trade. What that we're in is that we're providing liquidity. Maybe, but we're providing the liquidity. We're trying to trap somebody else, whether it's a short or whatever on the other side.

So it's like we're playing a poker game or whatever. Um, but the ability to become a person who can kind of like think faster than somebody else or think faster than the hardest game in the world which this is, uh, is is a reward in itself. And I think we all kind of have to be grateful like we have over 25k or a decent amount of money to like be able to participate in this game. Yeah, um and just that like is is we've had to save that to learn how to be a person that can like discipline themselves.

There's just so much value in that that you don't get from you know, going home and watching Netflix Yes, that's my only Point yeah. so I mean that's that's a good point. Uh, in terms of finding gratification or other areas where you can find gratification in the fact that you're participating in learning something that, uh, you know, if you get it, there's there's a lot of potential and you're learning something very complex and there's the reward of solving that puzzle. I Think probably with the hardest phase for trading I Think the hardest phase is the period where you're down trending where you're losing money being a break even.

Trader That's hard until you realize that you've actually you're actually doing something fairly Successful by being Break Even you're already. That's you're already on. like step three or four of the of the staircase to success, right? That's hard mentally, but it's no longer hard financially. It allows you to have more time, right? The part where you're still stepping down where you're just red month after red month after red month? That that's a place where it's really hard.

and I think that's a place where it's easier to get burnt out from the grind. This is what you have to learn from. Like whatever you do, yeah, you're gonna experience that patch. Yeah, like yeah, like like pick a profession, pick a job, pick a pick a career, pick a pick a martial art, pick a whatever.

Like, you're gonna get to that point. And like. That's the difference between people who who succeed or at least have the potential of succeeding and don't. Yeah, like, like, can you okay, deal with a little discomfort? Can you minimize your risk while you're trying to get it to work? And can you be okay spending this time spending this part of your life and your life experience doing this? And if you can't accept all those things you're you're you're You're going to be very sad and because you're going to keep missing your mark personally and I think that's something that people have to look at like I went through a lot of that uh personally where like I spent a year just break even and it it it hurts like I I was sitting at a computer most the time and you know looking at yourself in the mirror and like just seeing bags on your eyes from not sleeping and having to go to work and like um and then like seeing yourself like kind of age from the stress of it is something you really have to take into consideration and you have to be like am I okay with this right? um it's like it's a game but at the same time like this is your life and the time that you're gonna spend on this is is immense and and take that into consideration and you know what there there's I'm sure people out there who might be perfectly happy just doing the pressure washing or maybe just doing working in a Lobby of a hotel or or maybe just doing painting and and listen that's awesome that's hey that's fine but some people for whatever reason are the type of people and I'm one of them that I I can't sit still I have just always things I'm wanting to do and so for me you know when I would finish when I had a regular job I'd finish that job I get home and I'd have other things I want to do I just have so many things I want to do that.

Um, it just became inevitable that one of those things I was doing is sort of like a hobby ended up becoming something I was more passionate about and more excited about than working for someone else. Because you know when you work for someone else, you're kind of helping someone else's dream come true. the dream of being the owner of a you know painting company or you know, the owner of some big restaurant or whatever it is and I kind of want to participate more in making my dreams come true. So I think everyone that's working full-time and is day trading is doing it because they see you know, a year, two years or three years from now.

something something more by maybe transitioning away from the job so so well. So Laura so you're working full-time I do Yep, so tell me about how is that juggling. Learning to trade and working full-time start? Well I to just a little bit about me personally. I've always sort of been in that phase where you know you go to school.

you have homework to do at night so you can't just like relax and play around. You have homework to do. you have to get it done. Then you know you graduate school, you go to college.

You have more homework to do. you have to get it done. Uh when I started my first full-time career, it's the type of work that I don't report to an office like a nine to five job I had always worked from home even before Covid um along with a lot of travel. but because and and that gave me a lot of freedom.

but at the same time I was always bringing work home with me. So I never for my full life ever had a time where I can just like come home from work, kick my shoes off and relax like I was always having like extra work to do. Uh when when Covid-19 rolled around, it was the Prime opportunity for me to start something new and I was at the point of 12 years into my current career that I wanted to learn something new. So the first thing I want to say is um, sort of what Timmy had, uh rolled back on was that having a career no matter what it is, if it's a nine to five job, if it's driving taxis, if it's whatever, just having that extra income is going to help you progress long term because you're not relying on your profits from day trading.

And to be honest, you really unless you're a prodigy, you can't rely on your profits day trading when you're first learning if you don't even know what a stock is and you're just starting out, you need an additional source of income because you're going to go through all of these Ebbs and flows that we've been talking about all day. So that aside, I have the type of job that's very mentally draining. Um, so it takes a toll on me. Um, in addition to the the mental draining that you get from day trading.

so it's like sort of what Marcelo said as well I have a strict schedule that I adhere to every single day I get up at 5 00 am I work out I get ready to trade I trade for maybe you know, two hours and then I'm straight to my job and I work from home but that doesn't mean I can just you know fool around all day I have a job to do I have to make money I can't get fired so you know you do your job and then you know you make dinner, you study your trades and then you go to bed and you wake up and you do the same thing all over again. You need that commitment. It's going to be really tough and you know I have I'm lucky enough that I can work from home and I was able to make it work from the start and I'm still able to make it work and for that I am very grateful for and I see keeping this job right now as a stepping stone for where I do want to be like a year down the road. three years five years down the road.

where I want to make day trading my primary source of income and then roll back on maybe? uh what? I do now to just a passive kind of income for markets when we're not doing so hot. That's awesome. Yeah, that's where I see myself in a few years. but I don't see myself getting there unless I have this job.

Um, you have to have some sort of grind. you have to put in some sort of you know discipline and effort and make these sacrifices if you want to make it work. And that's of course with anything. But if you really truly want to make this work, you have to put in the effort.

and even if that means you know working a nine to five and then studying at night like maybe when your kids go to bed or maybe instead of watching Netflix look at your charts or watch your classes and then you know when you get into the market is when you get into the market, take a day off of your nine to five, take a personal day and you know trade the market and see how you do pre-market If you feel like it's something you really want to do well, then there's a decision you're going to have to make of changing your career, changing your job to something that will fit the schedule. So while you do well I Think you do need that extra income as especially as you're getting started, you're gonna have to make choices to make sure that you're going to set yourself up for Success Because we all know if you're going to an office from nine to five, you can't trade in your office. You have to do that work there. Yeah, well, Manoli did actually So something right? right? Um, but you know for the most part you know you can make it work.

You just have to be willing to make those choices. and they're scary. You know, like giving up a job that maybe you did for 10 years that you're so comfort you know, comfortable with or used to or that you know that's scary to do. But if you know you're going to be scared of making a choice like that, then you're gonna have a really hard time trading the markets to begin with because a lot of the choices you make when you trade are scary.

You have to sit through fear like that, right? So if anything I think it's just setting you up for success to have a job while you trade. But at the same time you just need to know that there's going to be sacrifices you have to make and there's going to be a lot of extra work you have to put in. You can't Just you know willy-nilly your way through the classes and think that your first, you know you get through your beginner's luck and you're golden because it just doesn't work out like that. and you'll see when you go through those slumps like a break-even year or even those slumps when you're just constantly losing money.

Uh, how much worse would it be if you didn't have any other income? see? that's like wrong, right? Yeah, you're a perfect example. You had to sell stuff from your barn to make it work. Yeah, and that's the thing for me. I actually wish that I had had a job when I was getting started because the pressure of having no income.

recognizing that I had a very limited Runway of how long I could keep doing this without making money before I hit this Apex of you're out of money, you need to get a regular job. so you know for me I I was looking at um I had a friend who was working at one of the ski areas up in Vermont as a um like a a uh was it uh like I don't know it was security I guess um but anyways his shift was I think three to eleven and you know I was like well, three to eleven. you know, maybe I could join him and um you know it's when you work with friends it can be not so bad. Time goes pretty quick and that his job you know that's skier is close it for.

So for the most part it's pretty quiet at that those hours and I thought I could study a little bit and that could give me a little bit of cash flow. and so I had talked about how it was August and it was the beginning of the new month when I had that big blow up and I gave myself you know, funded the account again and then September and October things turned around but I was kind of thinking that winter that I might have to go get a regular job and I was trying to think about a job that would work well with this schedule. You know where I could still trade in the morning for sure and still study. but that would give me a little bit of cash flow because the pressure of trying to learn how to trade and trying to just generate income for cost of living when you've got nothing else.

now that's a lot now. Sometimes people under pressure can perform really well. pulling the rabbit out of the Hat pull the rabbit out of the hat and you know, maybe you know I don't know I I do feel like hitting rock bottom for me in a way. did Force this? um, you know because I had this Apex Point coming but I also feel like my trading would have been a lot less emotional in the way I was learning if I didn't from the very beginning have this pressure and I also made this little bit of a mistake that I don't know if it was a mistake but I used the inheritance from my father when he passed away to fund my trading account so you know it was a real I had a real emotional attachment to that money and a real emotional attack response to losing it feeling of Shame and guilt and you know I So all of that got tied up in my Foundation of learning how to trade and so in a way you know in this Foundation of what is now a successful trading career, there's still these little little kind of things that sometimes are just like I feel like I still have that Association of loss and that pain and it's hard to undo it I still feel you know at times that I just have a real emotional response with trading and I think it's because of sort of the way I laid the foundation of that's how it was when I started.

It's hard to unwrite those bad habits that you can fall into and it could be hard just from a you know, like you know biology standpoint. the way your brain is wired to respond to things once it gets kind of in that uh I don't know that wire that neural pathway. it can be hard to break it. Yeah and you know I'm really any wrong choices.

it's just there's all choices. and if you're lucky enough to make the one that works out for you first the best, then good for you. And you know if you're blessed enough to have maybe you know, born into big wealth or something like that where you don't have to have a job while you learn how to day trade then that's great too. But if you're somebody like me who didn't come from money and had to work for every penny to earn that you earn I Think just in my own personal opinion, having some source of income while you learn is the best way and you know it's it's you, don't You don't know if it's gonna work, if you, you'll be good at it.

I mean treat it like playing basketball. You're not gonna quit your job to go right? play basket? Yeah yeah yeah yeah. But let's let's talk also about the the downside of having a job like what if it does make you too comfortable like I I didn't really start turning around until like I got frustrated and quit my job both times. Really Like: I I get so comfortable in life just when something's working out that I don't grow and so it was great having a job seeing kind of the even even like I hated working for other people so much.

especially because you know you get imposed on so many things you're like oh you got to do this and this process and this process and there's so many redundancies. Yeah, um but I actually learned from that with my trading and started putting redundancies into my own trading and disciplining certain things and timing and time frames that I had to adhere to and that helped a lot. Um, and it's like why aren't you the one owning the business and why aren't you the one there yet and like what in you is has to change for you to do that I think that's a big question because those the same things will have to change to you to be successful in trading. For me, it was actually the other way around when I was when I first became profitable and I still I still was going to the nine to five I was actually you know I had my best biggest green months while having a nine to five because day trading was in my entire life and day trading wasn't my entire Focus so it was still a little bit of a side hustle so I was able to push big size.

don't really care about the outcome because I know that I'm still getting this income every month and really just go big and really just rate the setups without the emotions of throwing the piano. Yeah, the biggest month at the beginning was while having the job on April that I quit in my job All the emotions that you know now I'm doing it full time now I better make money because I don't have this other source of income to you know sustain myself and all that you know. those emotions really got me and I went into my first drawdown on April in which I didn't make as much I was I was I still could them on screen but it was nothing. you know nothing in comparison.

So you know some. sometimes I feel like You by only having day trading as you as the only thing you do in life. it really puts the stakes super high and the days that you don't perform the data you end up read really can struggle with you mentally and sometimes I feel like I wish I had a job or something to do rather than just to focus on trading my entire day. But you have to do it right? right? Yeah, yeah, you can just like choose one to pop in and exactly because.

it gets your mind off of it right? and it stops. you know? And it helps you from becoming obsessed. It helps you from riding the waves of the Queens you know, super intensively. it helps you, you know, pull away and and step back from the losses.

It just softens the roller coaster a little bit. So yeah, you know sometimes having a job might be a good thing, even if you're profitable. Yeah, so uh, Timmy here's a question for you. how much money would you need to make trading to say I don't want to own a pressure washing business anymore? or would you say no I like this? Yeah, that's a great question.

It's something that I have thought about a lot honestly because there are days where like we go and something's wrong and you know it's just like there are definitely a lot of things that are nice about trading that I don't have to worry about in terms of my other business and certain clients that just are being super tough on us and whatever you know that stuff Insurance all this you know, but it's for me, especially with how me and my partner have it like we have fun on the job. so like I don't really see myself not doing it unless like my body which you know I'm pretty tall so like it's definitely something that I have a decent amount of back pain coming from that. Yeah, but at a certain point you know I know we'll be scaled up enough to where we can have employees and certain things and I know my partner wants to kind of run with it a little further. So yeah, if there's a point where I'm making I would just just to put a number on it.

if I was making like you know, over 200 probably 200 000 in that range 100 to 200 000 I'd probably step back a little bit more. Um, but it it kind of just depends. So um, I've got some certifications myself that there's like an army base next to where I live and yep, you got to jump through all these hoops to get your business out there. so there will be a certain point where I kind of have to be out there.

sure until I get somebody that can go through all those classes and different stuff like that. So, but I enjoy it and that's kind of the main thing with trading. like on the weekends I'm bored unless I have pressure washing to do. yeah and I'm waiting for Monday because like that fires me up and gets me up every morning.

and I never thought I'd have something that was like I used to hate Mondays like right? you know it's like why would I want to go to school and like even now that I'm when I was in school after I had like training to look forward to in the morning like completely changed my perspective. you know it was great. So even with a job I think every single one of us looked forward to Monday morning. Yeah, I mean I love Monday Mornings the weekends, the weekends are long.

they really are so you know. I I think that working full-time and learning how to trade I think that's going to be the way that most people start and I think it's awesome I think it's the best way to start if you're in a situation where you don't work full-time because you're retired or for whatever other reason. I think that's okay. but I think it's also nice if you could try to structure yourself.

So this is the block of time you focus on trading and then this is the block of the time that you do other stuff because when you sit here for eight ten hours staring at a computer screen, that can kind of be taxing and you know I don't know if there's a diminishing return of how much you learn after a certain number of hours each day staring in front of the computer. but I feel like there is somewhere and maybe it's different for everyone. You got to find that for yourself. But um, I hope you found this episode interesting.

This is the second episode that we've done on day trading and working full-time so if you want to check out the other one, we'll put a link at the end of this episode and we're gonna film another episode right here. So make sure you stay tuned and hope your subscribe to the channel. Hey I Want to thank you for watching this episode I Hope you really enjoyed it. This channel has crossed over 1 million subscribers as thanks to viewers like you.

If you want to check out a couple other episodes that other Traders are watching, you can see them listed right here. Thank you as always for tuning in I Hope you subscribe to the channel.