Mercedes Oestermann van Essen is a trader and trading coach. She specializes in trading psychoology has written several books including The Buddhist Trader. She also runs the website, theBuddhistTrader.com.

Yvan Byeajee started trading in 2007. He's a full-time trader, has lived in France, Canada, and now is now on 6-month visit to the Island of Mauritius off the coast of Madagascar. He wrote a couple of books, including 'Zero to Hero: How I Went from Being a Losing Trader to a Consistently Profitable One". He also blogs at TradingComposure.com.

When Dominic D, the options trader from episode 21, a fellow trader and one of my mastermind members turned me onto his favorite book, The Slight Edge, it took me about 5 times of him mentioning it before I took notice. But I did take notice and I finally bought the book. According to “Dom”, it’s his single favorite book ever, and he rereads it once a year.

So I finally bought it. As I mentioned before, The Slight Edge is NOT a trading book. It’s a personal development book written by Jeff Olson. It’s one of those books in the ‘success’ niche. The author is responsible for building several multi-million dollar businesses and his book is about his story and his success philosophy. And I’m starting to think Dom is onto something with his recommendation. It’s so good, I thought I’d dedicate this episode of the podcast to the book.

So here goes.

On Monday, we aired the episode with Phil Davis from PhilStockWorld.com with lots of great info about stocks and trading. And it got me thinking about stocks a little more than usual. I got my start trading stocks back around 2000 and before that my introduction into the markets came from a stock options book back in the late 1990s. So I’ve got a special affinity for stocks though I don’t actively trade them.

Historically, most people have become interested in trading because of stocks. With the growth of forex trading, that’s not always the case anymore. From what I can tell by researching Google search volume, interest in ‘forex trading’ and ‘stock trading’ is about even these days. But with so much current and historic interest in stocks, it seemed natural to look into stock trading.

Most people in stocks aren’t traders. If they’re in the market they’re usually investors, not traders. And there’s a difference between trading stocks and investing in stocks. That’s what we’re discussing today.

Phil Davis is a widely followed stock and options strategist. He's a serial entrepreneur, has been involved with several software companies including the precursor to eHarmony, a matchmaking service. He's been featured on SeekingAlpha, has a over 1 million Twitter followers, and runs the successful stock trading blog, PhilStockWorld.com.

“Everybody loses, but take us back to your most painful losing trade.”

Or so asks the host of a certain podcast out there interviewing successful traders. And these traders know losing. Because every trader loses.

There should be a philosophy of losing, at least a philosophy of trading that incorporates losing as a fundamental aspect of that trading philosophy. Any trader who doesn’t incorporate those ‘losing thoughts’ into their trading, well, they will eventually wake up. And it may be a painful awakening.

As I’m considering this part of trading – I’ll let you know why in a short bit – I had three observations about losing in trading. Nothing too unique or novel. But something we all have to wrestle with as traders.
The fact is: losing is a part of trading.

Steve Burns has been trading since 1995. He's the founder of NewTraderU.com, "the best online resource for new traders" and is the perfect fit for the Trading Story podcast where we aim to help newer traders. He's the author of at least 10 trading books, including New Trader 101.

This week I wrapped up my initial training with my trading coach. Again, it’s Mike Gould at the Forex Winners Academy. The total trading time was about 10 hrs. Less than I initially expected, but I will be continuing the training via the 2-3 weekly webinars he offers to all his students. So the training isn’t completely done. Actually, I don’t expect it to really be done for another year or so. We’ll see how all this goes.

Jason Graystone is a UK-based business owner and a recently profitable forex trader. He came from humble beginnings, became a successful business owner, and then caught the trading bug. Investing in various trading systems, he was down an estimated £30,000, before clawing his way back into the black and has been consistently profitable for nearly a year. It was a great discussion with a nice guy.

I wanted to go meta with you guys for a bit. I just crossed the 6-month mark on this podcasting venture. As you may be aware, I’ve been doing digital marketing for a bit, but have never delved into podcasting until mid-April 2015 – 6 months ago. Launched the Trading Story podcast and it’s been a fun journey with you guys so far. I’ve learned a ton and hopefully you guys have enjoyed it too and got a little educated about trading along the way.

And it seems like a good time to step back and reflect on where we’ve gone together so far. I’ve got five lessons I’ve learned in the past 6 months of podcasting about the markets.