I'm sure some will look at this trader's journey and think it was filled with "boring" at the start. Our guest, Tim (alias in the chat room, "EarlyDawg"), may not have come out of the gates with guns-a-blazin', but he did come out of the gates the way it is supposed to be done. In terms of "how do I start to trade?", Tim lays a great blueprint for the steps to take. With that being said, even when you take the proper steps and go about the journey the right way, that does not guarantee complete smooth sailing either, but it does give you the upper hand in many regards. Notes: Tim’s introduction to the market was trading a small amount of penny stocks based on a family suggestion (from a newsletter). While the trade worked out for a 300% gain, his future trading would not be as successful. He has a large family and needed to focus on providing for them so he put the market aside for many years until he felt more stable. His wife saved up some money on the side and got back into the penny stock market and while her intentions were good, she got caught in a pump and dump. After heeding Clay’s warning that it would be foolish to trade without any education, Tim invested in himself and spent many months digesting the content before he even began to paper trade. He wanted to see all the options available to him and find what works for him personally. Everyone trades differently and Tim realized this very early on. Tim focuses on selling option premium (covered in the Advanced Options course). This is a great way to swing trade and essentially be ‘the house’ of a casino. He uses a blend of weekly options and monthly options to take in credit throughout the month. While he has only been live for 6 weeks now, Tim has already identified some problematic areas of his trading. He is slowly becoming comfortable not doing ‘something’ every day. The real key to credit spread trading is letting time pass and to trust his initial analysis which entails his risk profile and his profit targets. Quotes: “Bought an oil and gas company, let it triple and sold it. That was about 20 years ago and haven’t done much since.” tweet this quote “It took me about 3 to 4 months of just pure listening to the courses and podcasts before I even started to paper trade.” tweet this quote “Knowing that everybody is different, I have to figure out what works for me. Since this is my money, I don’t want to just jump in.” tweet this quote “I’ve got a capped loss, a capped gain, and if I lose I’m willing to lose that because I know all my other trades will make that back.” tweet this quote “I need to trust my initial analysis. If I just trust in the charts and the probabilities, I’m right more than I am wrong.” tweet this quote Links: Course: Options Trading: Advanced