lystn

Hey everyone. Welcome back to the daily call. On today’s daily call, I think this is going to be an interesting topic for you guys. But if you really want to be successful in trading options, then you really have to hear what I’m saying here when I say – Options trading is not easy. It isn’t easy, but it’s very, very simple. What does this mean? I actually heard somebody say this a little while ago and I thought, “Man! That is so powerful.” Because they weren’t saying it about trading, but it’s really about anything in life obviously that sometimes they aren’t easy, but they’re simple. It’s really simple, it’s not complicated too much, but it’s not easy to actually implement. Options trading is definitely not easy. You actually have to do it every day or every week, whatever works out for your schedule. Now, I know that might not fit in with most people’s style of investing and I get that. I think people realize eventually how much work it does take. I’m not saying that it takes all of your day, but it does take work maybe every day or every other day and people realize that that may not fit in their own lifestyle or schedule or what they want to do. I totally get that. I respect that. This podcast then probably isn’t for you. But if it is something that you want to do, that you feel like you have a connection with into options trading and the lifestyle that it brings and the freedom that it brings, you have to realize that it isn’t easy, but it’s very simple. I’ll say this first. I’ll go through the five things that you have to do because this is how I always think about it. I’m like stuttering this morning as I do this. I’ve only had one cup of coffee, so here we go. There’s only five things that you have to do. You’ve got to trade small positions, you have to be non-directional, you’ve got to sell implied volatility because that’s our edge, you have to do high probability trades and you have to do it as many times as possible. That’s it. That right there in a nutshell is exactly what you have to do. Now, that’s incredibly simple. Every time that I do our onboarding webinar with free members, every time that I do a coaching call with somebody and I go through these things, everyone gets it. There’s no confusion here because it’s all rational, it’s all math-based, it’s all probability-based. Everyone understands the concept. In that sense, it’s very, very easy. Oftentimes, I actually get people who will say, “Kirk, why isn’t everyone doing this?” I’m like, “Yeah, I get it.” That’s why I’m doing this podcast. That’s why I built this website. That’s why I’m trying to get our message out there because I think more people can do it. I don’t think it’s really complicated. The hard part where it isn’t easy is actually doing it. It’s the mechanics. It’s the actual process of doing it every single day or every single week. Now, I totally relate this all the time to fitness and health. It’s the best analogy for this in the entire world. Everyone knows what to do generally to be healthy and fit and lose weight or whatever the case is. You go to the gym or workout. Run, do whatever you want to do, bike, swim, something, activity. You have to do that. You can’t just sit on the couch. It’s impossible to be physically fit sitting on the couch. Impossible. You have to go to the gym and you have to go workout and you’ve got to eat right. Now, that means so many different things to other people. This is where I say – It’s really simple. Go to the gym, workout and eat right. That’s all you have to do. That’s simple. Now, you can get really caught up in the details of either of those. Do I swim? Do I run? How long do I run? That’s all details. It’s very simple. You do both of those things, you’re going to be very successful in being healthy and fit. The hard part about doing that because that’s easy… What you need to do is pretty easy. The hard part is the actual application, the process of going to the gym everyday or every other day, the process of actually eating right and eating a salad versus eating ice cream which by the way, I love ice cream, so there’s always going to be a room for ice cream in my diet, but I’m just saying. That’s the hard part, is actually doing that on a consistent and daily basis. There’s no secret to being healthy and fit just like there’s no secret now because we’ve always talked about this for years and years. There’s no secret to what you need to do when you trade options, when you invest to the market. You do these five things, you will be successful doing them, but you just have to do them. That’s the tough part. The hard part is actually doing them. I definitely think the way that you get around this though is to build out a routine. That’s the best way to always do this because your mind naturally wants to avoid stress and it wants to avoid things that are challenging and hard. We’re prewired to avoid those situations and the pushback that we get mentally is from our own mind or subconscious that’s pushing back and saying, “Hey, this is different. I’m not used to this. We’re using a lot of brain power here to start to do this process.” What you need to do is you need to get into a habit or a routine, so it becomes automatic and that requires a lot of effort upfront. You have to push yourself early on to build this habit out of trading, to go through these five things and start getting into a routine of trading. Once you do though, it becomes second nature. I often get people who ask me all the time like, “Kirk, how much time you spend on trading? How much time do I need to spend on trading?” I’ll tell people all the time, “Honestly, you need to spend a lot of time on trading early on. It’s an uphill battle to get into a habit or a routine just like if you’ve never gone to the gym before, you’ve never eaten right in your life, then you have an uphill battle initially to get over that hump, that 30 or 40 or 60 day time period to get over that hump and get into a routine or a habit. But after that, it’s very much a level road. It’s very much smooth sailing and easy pedaling if you will.” What I do now at Option Alpha and the reason I can do these podcast in the morning and I can write articles and do coaching and send out the alerts and still have an insane amount of time with my kids and family is because options trading to me is a little bit second nature. Now, that doesn’t mean that I am just totally disconnected, I don’t think about things or I don’t try to improve, but the mechanics of what I do everyday are pretty much second nature. My routine is pretty much second nature. It’s part of my daily process. It keeps me accountable to not only myself, but also to you guys by doing this. I think you need to find some sort of routine or habit or start building one out. But again, options trading isn’t easy, but it is very simple. The basics of what require you to be successful are very simple. You just actually have to do them which means that you have to put in a little bit of work. Hopefully this helps out. I know this is a little bit of a different type of show, but I think this one has actually been pretty good, definitely a topic I want to talk about for sure. If you enjoyed this, please share it with somebody that you know that’s in trading or investing. I think it might help get them over the hump and obviously might help reach out to more people and get more people involved in what we do here at Option Alpha. Until next time, happy trading!