In this episode of Truth About FX, Walter talks about the pros and cons of getting a paid trading education course versus going online and searching the internet for free modules and forums. Walter highlights that while googling training modules can definitely save you money, having professional advice from experienced traders is still the best way for you.
Hugh also shares from his own experience the idea that if you pay for something that’s going to cost you more money, then you’re more likely to work on gaining the most from it.
Download (Duration: 07:22/ 8.43 MB)
In This Episode:
00:28 – free stuff out there
01:25 – snake phobia
02:06 – go to a psychologist
03:09 – raw informations
04:23 – level of expertise
05:02 – cultivate your mentality
06:51 – overall educational experience
Tweetables:
It depends on what you’re paying for. [Click To Tweet].
You can find someone that you can identify with and latch onto them. [Click To Tweet].
If you spend the money, then you’re more likely to take an action. [Click To Tweet].
Announcer: Sometimes, forex trading is a wild and wooly place to be. That’s why Hugh is here, to post your questions to Walter, the naked forex guy. Hugh’s got questions and Walter’s got the answers. Here at the Truth About FX Podcast.
Hugh: Hey, Walter. This is a question that I see in the forums a lot. Why should I pay for education when there so much free stuff out there.
Walter: This is a good one. There’s a couple of different things here and you might have an interesting take on this, as well. I’d love to hear what your thoughts are.
It depends on what you’re paying for. Think about it like this: let’s say that I’ve got some sort of fear — maybe I’ve got this fear of snakes — that’s really something that’s been affecting my life because let’s say that my neighbor has snakes in his backyard.
I’ve got this fear of snake since I’m really scared that the snake will come under my fence and come into my yard. This is my concern. I’ve got this unusual fear of snakes.
Now, what can I do? Well, I could go to the store and I could buy a book. Actually, I could go into the internet and just google and figure it out how to deal with my snake phobia. That would be free.
I could go to the store and I could buy a book first at a small price., probably twenty bucks or so. I could buy a book on how to get over that and probably other fears, as well — it would probably have something about snakes in there.
Or, I could go to a behavior modification specialist or psychologist and they could help me get over that. That’s kind of the way that I’ll look at this when you’re talking about trading because there’s a difference between having knowledge of these which I can get online for free, or I can buy a book where I can get knowledge about my snake phobia for a small price or I’ll go to a psychologist. That’s not going to cost twenty bucks.
The cost is probably going to be a hundred, two hundred something like that. When all’s said and done, maybe five hundred if I’ve had to go back six or seven sessions, six hundred or seven hundred who knows. It’s not going to be the same as googling it.
The big deal here is that people confuse this idea in trading as they do in everything else which is because I have knowledge of a profitable trading system, I have understanding of how to trade for profits. That’s not true. There’s much more to it.
Just because I have knowledge of what it’s like to process getting over a snake phobia doesn’t mean that I understand how to purge that snake phobia in myself. I dare say that probably the best option of the three options — googling, buying a book or going to a behavior modification — the very best would be going to the psychologist. Go to the therapist and have that expert basically work you through the process.
That’s the same way that I look at the training educations. It depends on what you want. If you just want raw information and you believe you can turn that into understanding and expertise, then go for it. You should do that. I’m going to tell you that I tried to do that for four years and it didn’t work. I mean for me, really, the light bulb came on when I started talking to other traders.
That was the most valuable thing and I would say if you’re looking at education, you might want to try latch on to the successful traders in the forums on the internet, see if there’s any way that they can help you. I know these things often cost money but it’s all worth it. That’s one of the things I like about our communities, traders helping each other out.
But, you know you don’t have to go to a paid communities like ours. There are other communities out there, they’re free for traders online and you can probably find someone that you can identify with and you can latch onto them then see if they’re willing to help you even if it’s for a small fee. It’s probably going to be well worth it.
That would be the way that I will approach it in terms of how do you view this
approach and it doesn’t make sense why this course cost two thousand USD but yet I can get this for free?
That’s different here. If you’re paying for something, you really want some help to work you through the process of getting to that level of expertise rather than just having the information you had. You want to have an understanding and expertise. That’s really what you should be paying for, in my opinion.
Hugh: Yeah, It’s a great point. My take on that is — at least for my perspective — if I pay for something, I’m actually more likely to use it. That’s not for everybody, obviously. I mean, I’m sure you and I know that when somebody buys a course, most people don’t even open the packaging or whatever.
At least one leverage point that you can get in yourself is if you spend the money, then you’re more likely to take an action. The second thing — and this is something that you help me with a lot in the past years — is that you really want to cultivate your mentality, I mean your psychology, and that’s something that’s a lot harder than just learning entries and exits.
I think actually paying for something and returning the favor if somebody gives you value goes a long way towards your abundance mentality. It’s just a good thing to do and there are free stuff out there, like in the forums or whatever.
Even if you pay just a little bit of money to be on the forum, you’re going to get a lot of high quality and you don’t have to sift through so much stuff. For me, that’s the biggest thing. I don’t want to waste my time talking to guys who were just saying some random stuff. That is the biggest benefit to me, but that’s just my point of view.
Walter: You bring up a good point, Hugh, because you don’t really know… Like, if you’re going to a forum that’s out there — trading forum — you can get attack from all angles, too. You might see someone who go out, “This is really cool. I like to learn more about this.” You start trying to connect with the trader who’s putting his ideas, these trades out there, and then all of the sudden, a little woodwork comes, peanut gallery and they start shooting arrows at and shooting arrows in all these.. You know what I mean?
They start shooting you down and that whole negative thing that’s another part of it where it’s not as likely to happen in a paid community because usually the overseer is going to say “Hey, that’s not going to happen in here”.
Hugh: Yeah.
Walter: In the free world out there, even if you get a bunch of traders together and you get ten traders together and you’re in a pub and then start talking about things, someone’s always going to drag it down and go “woah, that doesn’t work because of this or whatever.” That’s just the way it goes.
That’s one of the things that you really need to consider too. Is the overall educational experience that you’re getting really going to push you further and help you overcome your barriers? That’s part of it. That’s what you’re touching on, right?
Hugh: Exactly. Yeah.
Walter: So, I think that’s a good part of it. That’s a really good point.
Hugh: Okay, cool. Well, thanks for the answer and I hope people can learn a lot from that.
Walter: Yup. See you later, Hugh.
Hugh: See you.
Walter: Bye.
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