If you haven’t had a chance to check out the video from the appearance I made on the Steve Harvey show, along with my students Michael, who’s now up to $1.6 million in trading profits thanks to my teachings, and Ivan, who has made a solid six figures**, watch it here now. I’m honored to have been invited to appear, and I’m humbled to think that the clip Steve showed of my home and my lifestyle in LA might inspire others to experience the kind of success Michael, Ivan and I – along with plenty of other millionaire challenge students – have experienced.
Definitely check out the video if you haven’t yet, but then, I want to break down a few of the lessons that came up from my conversation with Steve, which lasted FAR longer than what was shown on TV, he was a surprisingly much better interviewer than this media legend. This might seem a little repetitive, but I really want to hammer these lessons home to you as you grow in your own journey towards real wealth.
Table of Contents
Lesson #1 – Keep it simple
Like a lot of people do when they find out I became a millionaire in college, Steve asked me what made me so good at investing. And I had to tell him the truth. At first, I wasn’t good. I started out trying to trade big blue chip stocks because that’s what everyone told me you had to do to get rich. The result was that my portfolio didn’t move until I started trading lower priced stocks with the kind of volatility I needed to bank 10%, 20%, 30% or more in profits on a single trade.
The lesson here is that, even though I’m always working towards big goals, it’s the small profits I’ve taken along the way that helped me get where I am today. You have to keep things simple. You’re not going to go out and start making $50,000 on a trade if you’re new to penny stocks, or if you only have $1,000 in your portfolio. But if you’re focused about taking profits of $500 here and $1,000 there, you’re going to get to that big goal eventually.
Lesson #2 – Money can’t buy you happiness
This one is totally cliche, but it’s true. And I love the way Steve explained it to the audience in our conversation. What he said was, if you don’t know your purpose, wealth and money will never make you happy. And unfortunately, according to him, the average person dies never knowing why they were born in the first place. How heartbreaking is that?
I have a hunch that, since you’re here reading this, you know what your purpose in this life is – and I’m guessing it isn’t to scrape by, day after day, while others are living the lifestyle you want. Maybe your purpose is travel. Maybe it’s giving to your favorite charity, or taking care of the family members that have taken care of you. If you know that your purpose is to become wealthy and to use your riches to help others, you’re already ahead of the game. You just need to learn the practical skills to make money.
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I’m living proof of what Steve was talking about in this video. You all know that I love taking luxury vacations, and I love buying expensive sports cars (even if I’m still learning to drive them). But while that kind of wealth and luxury is fun for me, it isn’t fulfilling. You know what is? My teaching career. Teaching gives me a whole new opportunity in my life to be the kind of mentor I never had. Making trades doesn’t always get me out of bed in the morning, but knowing that I’ve got a community full of students waiting for me gets me every time.
Lesson #3 – Find your community
Another tip I shared in my interview with Steve that I think deserves repeating is the idea that, if you have a motivated community behind you, you can do things you never thought possible.
If you’ve ever wondered what goes on in my TIMAlerts chat rooms, all you have to do is check out my Twitter feed. I’m constantly posting examples of my students who are making bank based off of information shared between my students:
https://t.co/zMaNy9P9nu $180 profit $EARS See my track record, daily watch lists & realtime alerts: https://t.co/vuP7BD5Yco
— Timothy Sykes (@timothysykes) February 4, 2016
Solid https://t.co/fljCJMRjtQ student trades RNtrader: Held $VHC in @4.83 out @9.39. $1840 profit AltonBell: $CLOW in @.44 out @.55 made $2k
— Timothy Sykes (@timothysykes) February 4, 2016
And I don’t just do that to brag. I do that because I’ve never been shy about the fact that I’m not the best trader out there. I’m constantly working on new training programs to benefit my students, so I miss things. I miss news that happens. I miss earnings winners that are announced. I miss premarket and after-hours spikes. But you know what? My students don’t. They’re in there every day, supporting one another. They profit together**, and they work together to figure out what went wrong when trades go south.
It really is an incredible environment, and it’s one that I’m proud to be a part of, even as it’s taken on a life of its own – with or without me.
Lesson #4 – Be patient
I’m going a little out of order from the video, but I really have to jump in with this lesson here. When I tell you that I’m not the best trader, I tell you that for a reason. I only make about 75% of my trades. That means that, for every three successful trades I make where I get to bank a profit, I have another one that loses me money. Sometimes it’s even more if I’ve been making stupid mistakes.
But I don’t let that stress me out, and I sure as hell don’t let it stop me. I’m patient. I’ve been around the stock market long enough – going on two decades now – to know that, as long as I’m calm and careful, things will turn around for me.
If you’re making the kinds of big leaps in your life that me and Steve suggest, you’re going to make mistakes. It’s inevitable. It sucks, but it’s also pretty much unavoidable. What matters is how you handle them.
If you let your mistakes get to you, you’re going to get frustrated. If you’re trading, you’re in trouble – emotions have the power to bring down even the most successful of traders if they aren’t controlled. But no matter what you’re trying and what mistakes you’re experiencing, letting them get you down serves nobody. It helps nobody. Look at them like learning opportunities. The sooner you recognize that you can’t improve and grow without making mistakes, the sooner you’ll arrive at whatever kind of success you’re chasing.
Lesson #5 – Never stop challenging yourself
Clearly, I’ve done well financially with penny stocks. If I wanted to, I could stop trading and teaching tomorrow, move to Bali and spend every day hanging out with my fiancee and my family. I’m financially set for life at this point. I don’t have to work another day in my life if I don’t want to.
But how boring would that be?
I trade and I teach because I love the challenge. I love waking up and knowing that all I have in front of me are endless opportunities to profit on great penny stock plays and to help my students build real, generational wealth. How amazing is that? How could I ever think about quitting when, every day, I have the chance to spend time on two things I’m truly passionate about?
I want you to have that same kind of enthusiasm. I don’t care what you’re passionate about. The world is so big and so vast that there’s something out there for everyone. For me, it’s teaching. For you, it might be art, or travel, or charity work. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you find it, and you never stop challenging yourself to pursue it.
I love this quote from Steve. Take it, print it out and put it somewhere you can see it every morning:
“If you don’t have joy when you wake up in the morning – if you dread the sound of your alarm clock, if you feel stagnant, or if you have the feeling that there’s got to be more to life than this – you should stop doing whatever you’re doing. That’s no way to live. You’re merely existing. You will become exceptional the moment you make an exceptional decision.”
How incredible is that?
So now, I have to ask you a serious question. Do you have joy when you wake up in the morning? Do you hit the ground running – excited about what’s ahead of you for the day? I do, and I want you to feel the same way too.
Make an exceptional decision today. If that’s joining me in my trading challenge so that you can learn how to use penny stocks to try to work toward the lifestyle of your dreams, I can’t wait to meet you. If it’s something else, all I ask is that you commit to it. Commit to your vision, and never stop challenging yourself in the pursuit of your best life.
Let me know by leaving a comment below what the exceptional decision you’re making is:
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