Dear Financial Voice Reader,
The volatility of the market tells us one of the classic mistakes people make when it comes to trading and investing – they do not have a mentor!
Reasons you need a trading mentor:
1. The markets are a skill
Like all skilled based activities you need a coach, a mentor. I’m lucky, in trading I’ve counted as a mentor Bill Lipschutz, former Global Head of Forex at Salomon Brothers when Warren Buffet was his boss. You need an outstanding mentor.
2. Learn from someone elses mistakes, not your own.
A mentor will have lots of mistakes in their experience. It will save you a fortune to learn from their mistakes.
3. Save time – time is money
The advantage of using a mentor is they can point you in the right direction for a broker, how to trade, pretty much anything and everything.
4. Access
A good mentor can give you access to their networks. When I mentor people to trade, I give them access to senior people at brokerages so they get best treatment. That’s what a mentor does.
5. Accelerate learning
A good mentor understands and is trained to mentor. I took mentoring education formally when I co-founded TIE – the Indus Entrepreneurs which is one of the UK largest mentoring organisations and whose charter members include mentors such as James Caan and Dinesh Dhamija of eBookers and Tom Singh of New Look. A good mentor is trained to know how to make sure you learn quickly and effectively how to trade. They accelerate the learning. They know the potholes and how to avoid them.
6. Access to capital
Mentors oftentimes have done the due diligence on you and so are the best placed to help get your trading off the ground. My mentors ended up being the initial investors in my hedge fund too. The great thing about mentors is they develop a mentoring relationship with you.
7. Business partner
A mentor eventually changes their relationship with you. As you become better at trading, they often become a partner, an equal. This is great because you chose your mentor based on who you aspired to be like, and now that is exactly what has happened. When they are your partner – a little like in Dragons Den, you know beyond advice, and money, you deep commitment.
So if the markets have been tough for you – get a mentor – it’s the answer to everything – and making profits.
