Welcome back to our discussion on Napoleon Hill’s work The Law of Success in 16 Lessons.

If you’re just joining us or would like a refresher on the Laws of Success, they are:

1. A Definite Chief Aim
2. Self-Confidence
3. Habit of Saving
4. Initiative and Leadership
5. Imagination
6. Enthusiasm
7. Self-Control
8. The Habit of Doing More Than Paid For
9. Pleasing Personality
10. Accurate Thinking
11. Concentration
12. Cooperation
13. Profiting by Failure
14. Tolerance
15. Practising the Golden Rule

There are two things that are important to realise about trading before you decide to undertake it. The first is that trading is not a job. We do not receive a regular salary or wage just for showing up to work. We have to do our own work, identify our own opportunities, and take our own risks. We are well-compensated for this risk by the high returns available to traders, but at the end of the day, there are still risks.

The second thing to realise is that trading is not an ATM or cash machine. When I started out, an instructor told me “the market is like a cash machine – you can go to it 24/7 (which wasn’t true because the markets were closed on the weekend) and withdraw as much cash as you like (unless I would like more money than exists), as often as you like”. While there are seeds of truth in this statement, in that traders are not limited in how much income they can earn from trading, what the instructor didn’t mention was that you would first have to put in some work, and that you would have to learn before you earn, which means that in the beginning, you are working for no money.

In this article, we’ll be exploring the eighth of the Laws of Success, The Habit of Doing More Than Paid For. In the lesson, Napoleon Hill talks about the Law of Increasing Returns, and uses the example of a farmer planting a seed. When the seed germinates and grows, the farmer will receive a return many times greater than the initial seed that he invested. The return is not instant, however – the seed requires watering, and nurturing, and a period of time will have to pass before the farmer receives his return.

Hill compares the farmer’s work to his own labours in creating the Law of Success manuscript, detailing the long hours that he spent interviewing successful people, studying their methods, and organizing the information into lessons, often spending large amounts of time away from his family. It was a long time before Hill was paid for the work, just like most authors who aren’t paid until their book is published. The same is true for us as traders. Our work IS rewarded – just not immediately!

The essence of this lesson then, is that if you want to be a successful trader, and live the lifestyle trading can offer you, you will need to develop the habit of working without pay in the beginning. It doesn’t take long to be able to generate an income from trading. If you knuckle down and learn a strategy, such as our ‘Follow The Trend, Find The Turning Points and Fill In Your Trading Plan’ approach taught in the Active Trader Program Online Training, you can be up and running within a month or so once you have studied the material.

You will need to learn the strategy, for which you will not be paid. You will need to analyze markets as you look for trades, for which you will not be paid. And then you will need to find good setups to trade – for which you will be paid handsomely if you choose wisely, and use Self-Control (from the previous article) to stay on top of your Enthusiasm and other emotions.

I once heard a person in a very high position say “that’s not my job” when asked about a task that was not completed. The line “that’s not my job” has no place in trading. In this business, where we work for ourselves, and we are the only employees, EVERYTHING is our job, so we need to take responsibility (showing Initiative and Leadership) to make sure that things happen. Which means developing the habit of doing more than we are paid for.

What seed of work can you plant today to move you closer to a large trading harvest in the future?

Action Item:

• Set aside at least one hour per day, at least twice a week to work on your trading. You might still be in the “learn before you earn” stage, or you might be at the stage where you are looking for opportunities in the market. Aim to show up to work on your trading at the same time on a consistent basis. Then, make a commitment to keep showing up to your trading business until you have reached your Definite Chief Aim.