2 - George Soros Won't Return My Calls

Thanks for tuning back in… Where were we…?

Here’s a quick recap...

It was 1992, George Soros made $1 billion shorting the British Pound and was too busy to return my calls.

I desperately wanted to learn how to become a Foreign Currency Trader, but had no clue where or how to start.

Here’s  what I did next...

Remember it’s 1992.. No internet.. No Google search, life was a bitch.

I hit the phones...

I called every college, university and trading exchange I could find.. 

Guess what, no such program existed.

There seemed to be no-one who could teach me this… it made no sense.

I worked backwards…  I figured if banks hired traders, I would call them.

Ring  .. ring .. ring

ME: I’d like to apply for a job as a currency trader

BANK:  Do you have experience ?

ME: No, do you provide training?

BANK: No, you have to have experience

ME: Where can I get experience?

BANK: Another bank

ME: Do you think THEY would hire me without experience?

BANK: Probably not

Well that went well...

My next angle...

I turned on CNBC and watched for hours. 

I could care less about their market opinions, guests or interviews…

What I wanted was the commercials.

Every time a commercial came on for anything having to do with commodities, currencies, forex etc… I jotted down the name and phone number.

I literally let CNBC do my research for me as I wandered around my apartment blasting music, eating potato chips (I friggin love chips) and pounding coffee.

I endured 300 views for the Culligan Water Man...

And 168 renditions of Vita Nelson and her Dividend Reinvestment plan…

(Hey if you were watching back then.. You’ll remember those )

Within a few days… I had my list.

I started to make some calls.

It was a call I made to a commodities firm called Lind-Waldock that changed everything.

After explaining that I’d be happy to open a brokerage account.. But first I had to learn how to trade.

ME: If you want me to open an account surely you have some materials, guides, training manuals, that could teach me how to do this.

Lind-Waldock Guy: That’s a good point.. let me see what I can dig up. 

Lo and behold ! 7 days later a package arrived by mail.

It was a thick document size envelope and it probably weighed 11 lbs.

The Lind-Waldock Guy had come through big for me.

He pulled a copies of dozens of manuals, guides, and how to sheets…

Some, I am guessing were for internal use only. (shhh)

Some had been photo copied so many times that the font was 12 point mush-blurr.

But at last I had what I needed.

I dug right in...

By now I had quit my real estate job and had plenty of time to learn.

I told Lisa my then girlfriend and now wife what I planned to do.

What I explained almost made her cry...

Tune in tomorrow to find out what horrible thing I did that could make Lisa cry…

It also launch my 27 year trading career.

 

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