They say you can learn lessons from pretty much anywhere… and they are right. I recently rebuilt my deck, and I want to share with you what it taught me about the stock market and how it can help you in your trading, too.
A lot of what I went through in rebuilding my deck is very similar to the stock market. In life, we feel the only place we can learn something is in school, but I believe we can learn something from every experience and from people around us every day.
You can also listen to the podcast on these platforms by clicking the icons below:
How it Started
First of all, our neighbor rebuilt their deck first using wood. And there is something about if someone around you rebuilds something, the comparison shows how bad yours is. So my wife and I had the realization that ours was in bad shape.
How it relates to the stock market: when someone around you has the lifestyle that you want, the car, the house, etc, and they share that they invest and stock trade, you start comparing your house, car, etc, with theirs. It shows up, especially when someone gets something new.
In my case, it was needing to rebuilt the deck. And it all started when our neighbor rebuilt his.
1. Research
So we made a decision to rebuilt it. And the first step is to price it out, so we measured our deck, went to the store, priced out the wood, and checked it out. But once we went to Home Depot and Menards, the composite decks on display (material that looks like wood but it is not), looked very enticing. It was significantly more expensive than wood, because it was already stained and sanded, and lasts way longer.
In relation to the stock market, once we start doing research about it, we want to see what it takes to make it happen. You may come in thinking you just want to day trade or start with $100 bucks… but then when you start researching, you see that you may need a different strategy or more money than you initially thought you needed. That’s what happened when my friend Zo (licensed contractor) and I went to the store.
2. People Who Support You
To make the decision, I brought my wife back to check out the composite and she had the idea of doing multiple types of wood. I hadn’t even thought about it, I just saw a straight one-color. So I was very happy we brought her back to see it.
In trading, and in our relationships, we have people in our life that are not so supportive of the learning process. When someone in our life is learning about something new, it is important to be supportive. My wife could’ve been a nay-sayer when we were checking out the composite for the deck, and I would have been super bummed out. But she actually had a great idea, and showed me something new. She brought a new perspective to the market. So when you include someone important in your decisions for the market, they may bring something new to the table. Bring someone in who brings reasonable to the table.
3. Getting Started is Easy
So now I am super excited and getting fired up – we are doing composite, it’ll increase the revenue of the house, we don’t have to stain it, etc. We purchased the material and got back to the house. This is day 1, dollar 1. We start tearing up the deck! It was pretty easy taking wood off. I got pumped up and thought, “this is super easy!” No real skills or tools needed minus a crowbar and muscle.
In the stock market, it’s the same thing: once you make the decision that you want to learn about it and make money from it, that is how you feel: “This is easy! All I need is a computer, brokerage account, piece of cake.”
4. Takes A Little Bit More
But then the game changed… we tore the deck off no problem. However, we discovered the deck was sagging toward the house, the foundation was off! We needed to redo the foundation, and that does not come for free. Now we needed more wood and tools. My contractor buddy then saw the clips that were being used needed to be replaced. And had never dealt with composite before. It is different than wood where you need less space between the support boards, we needed double the wood we started out with to support the composite. At this point, it was getting a little crazy… we already had high cost material, now we needed more labor and materials.
But it’s the same thing in the market: once you start getting in the game, you see what is underneath your education and what is underneath your foundation. And sometimes it is scary because you see what you lack, your foundation is shaky, and some “boards” or courses that are missing that you need to support yourself.
5. Skills and Speed
After all of this was going on, we got a downpour of rain. We lost an entire day and our materials were wet and the deck is muddy underneath now. By this point, I am getting tired and kind of over it. So initially I was going to support by buddy while he worked, but not necessarily work myself. With a day lost though, this was not the case. I become a carpenter because we needed to get it done! I needed to get the skills he had. I realized I needed to learn something new.
In trading, some people come into the game thinking they can pay someone to invest for you. But you need to learn some new things, pitch in, and participate in your own rescue. Some people want the benefits without the work. If you turn your money over, if they rush through the process or loose your own money you are upset with them. You have to put in the work, too.
You need to learn new things to participate in your own rescue
So we approach day 5 trying to get it all done, I am out there hammering up stuff, etc. My wife came out there, bless her heart, kidding around “Oh, I didn’t know you knew how to use a hammer”. And I am so irritated right… we lost days, we had to learn new skills, and then here she comes cracking jokes. I can laugh now, but at the time it wasn’t.
The lesson is, when someone is learning something new, please be supportive of your friend or mate. The last thing they need to hear is “I told you so” or “why you doing that anyway”. We needed support and practical things, not jokes.
6. Get the Process Started
My best friend and I start laying the composite down. Even though my friend hadn’t done it before, he knew how to figure it out from past experience. We didn’t know how to do it initially, but we got a process down. We had a game plan.
You may start off slow in the stock market, but once you do something enough times, you figure out a way to speed up the process. No matter what, you should always have a process and you will learn how to do it more efficiently along the way. Just get started: don’t be afraid you do not know everything right away. And once you understand the process, it starts to look really sweet.
7. Even If You Want to, Don’t Quit
I can’t tell you how many times when I was building the deck that I wanted to just throw in the towel. Now I look back and think about what if we did quit? It would have been a mess the whole time… what were we going to do, just not have a deck?
Some people get started in the market and it is natural to want to quit, but you can’t. We all want to at some point, but you can’t. I am so glad we kept going. Are you just going to quit and just figure out retirement some other way? Have the things I want some other way? My kids will just have debt when they go to college? You are not quitting on the stock market, you are quitting on what it can do for you.
The knowledge you get is so important – you think it is about the money, yes, but the knowledge alone and showing how someone else how it works is even more important!
8. You Need a Community
So we got everything put together, now we have all this old trashy deck just sitting on the lawn. My buddy Vincent came over on a fluke, and he offered to help get rid of the wood. We got it in their trailer and they took it out.
I thought about how awesome it was that so many people helped out: My contractor friend Zo, Vincent and his dad who helped with the wood removal, my wife who helped out, and support from our Facebook group who offered tools for me to use. The community got involved.
What happens when you step out of the box, and learn something new, I can’t tell you how many people you will affect. So many people I talk to say “oh man I wish I knew more about that” when I talk to them about what I do for work.
Who is it going to be in your circle who steps out? You? Your kids?
It is important to be part of a stock trading community, to be around people who know what they are talking about, who can give you tools to use, to lend you their knowledge, and help you get where you need to go.
And that is what I try to provide at www.TheBrownReport.com and www.PowerTradesUniversity.com where we are all about Coaching, Courses, and Community. Because that’s what people need to take their game to the next level.
You need someone who knows how it works and the community. That’s what we provide. So if you don’t have the education, coach, or community, I encourage you to be the one who steps out and gets it. Change your financial situation. The education alone will pay dividends in your and your family’s future.