I have never met a trader who lived only on glory, who had not faced the abyss of losses or the weight of wrong decisions. I have never seen one who did not stumble, who did not suffer the bitterness of losses in silence, as if he had been dealt a blow by fate. Every successful trader I have ever met had in their eyes not only the glow of conquered freedom, but also the shadows of sleepless nights, when the computer screen displayed numbers that seemed to defy logic and dreams.
There are those who believe that success in trading is a path to glory, a staircase illuminated by increasing profits and precise hits. Nonsense. A trader's true journey is made up of stumbles and disguised tears, of falls that are not counted, of mistakes that echo like a burden in the silence of the room. They do not talk about the times when the stop loss was not triggered, or when greed spoke louder than planning. What they do talk about is the brilliant charts, the recent victories, as if that were enough to define an entire trajectory.
But what sets them apart, what makes them grow and prosper, is not the money they have accumulated. It is the ability to get up. It is the act of looking in the mirror, of looking into one's own eyes and saying: "I will continue." It is the choice to learn, to study, to retrace one's steps, knowing that each mistake is a stone that will one day become the foundation of one's own freedom. They do not boast, because they know that success is not linear, nor is it clean, but made of scars.
Being a trader means living on the edge between desire and doubt. It means understanding that the freedom they so desire, this promise of working from anywhere, of being their own master, has a cost. It is not an easy victory, but the weight of resilience. It is falling and knowing that they will fall again, but still continuing. Because, in the end, what they seek is not just profit, but the affirmation that they are alive, whole, and in control of their choices.
