So when I was 16, I was all about math and science.
One night I needed chemistry homework help, and knocked on the door to my dad’s study.
I entered and saw him staring at his computer screen. With all these squiggly lines, covered with numbers, dates, and shapes.
I knew it was ‘something’. Why else would he be in there looking at it while my younger siblings were laughing and playing upstairs?
So I asked him what he was doing and he said he was…
Trading.
It was the first time I heard that word, and little did I know it would change my life.
My dad said he was trading something called commodities. I just stared at him lol
Then he explained there were soybeans to trade, and corn and oil and others.
Not trading them like I traded stickers with my friends (or maybe you traded baseball cards), but taking advantage of the movement in price for barrels and bushels of these things that huge corporations were trading in massive quantities.
He was just trying to be a surfer ride someone else’s big wave and take his share.
(It’s amazing what clear instruction can do, right? I’ll touch on that in a second)
Now, remember, I was just 16.
In my mind, any sort of investing in stocks had to be done with newspapers open and the TV on for breaking news.
But here my dad literally changing the world for me through math and probability in a way I never even knew existed.
He’d been a winning trader for years, leveraging probability to consistently lock in profit.
- Was. HOOKED.
My dreams of dancing on the moon with my husband flew out the window as the patterns I saw started to make more and more sense to me…
(Here’s the part where I picked up my unique approach to trading education)
My dad realized he had a trader for a daughter and made me a deal — finish high school and college at the top of my class, and he’d teach me trading himself.
So even though I didn’t finish #1, he kept his word and we made our own grad school focused on trading and investing.
The first rule he taught me? Make sure you can fund your account with money you can afford to lose.
That’s right. LOSE. Because in trading losing will be part of the process. And you don’t want to put your mortgage or meal money in there.
So I went and got some part time jobs to pay for my trading and pursue my dreams.
→ I trained upcoming teachers on how to take New York exam certifications. While the students were lovely people, my lord the content was mind numbing…
But I learned how to be a teacher, and that was vital to my successful training I offer today.
→ From there I went more “boots to the ground” to the baristas – Starbucks.
At Starbucks, I was a GREAT barista! I loved dealing with people and making their day better, but I have to be honest… Starbucks didn’t make it easy — at least my supervisors didn’t.
This is embarrassing, but I accidentally shut down a Starbucks one day 🙈
I was closing up the shop, and the guy working with me wasn’t really big on ‘details’…
End result? I turned off the machine that makes espresso and steams all the milk and everything.
Welllllll when my boss came in the next day, he called me freaking out. It turns out that machine was NEVER supposed to be turned off…
The result of my little mishap? Early morning customers who were NOT HAPPY that they couldn’t get what the sweet sweet caffeine they needed to start their day…
Oops.
I told him that I shut off the machine because I thought that’s what you do at closing time.
He got it, but I still felt terrible.
But this was a HUGE ‘aha’ moment for me! The whole thing could’ve been avoided with even a little bit of clear instruction. If I had a SYSTEM to close the store that I followed…
So I swore I’d always be crystal clear in MY teaching methods.
The last of my three part-time jobs was behind the scenes at a symphony orchestra in NYC.
I worked on billing and helped budget for upcoming performance seasons.
The math nerd in me loved it. But I remember making suggestions about how we could organize files more effectively, and how we could be more efficient overall to make the Symph more profitable.
Sadly, the folks at the orchestra office were not fans of my ideas…
Once I realized they’d rather “do it how it’s always been done”, I left. They weren’t willing to improve, and I refuse to surround myself with anyone with that attitude because I’m terrified it might rub off on me.
Because if I stagnated in life and stopped learning and pursuing mastery, I knew I’d lost my huge advantage in trading.
Thankfully, I had saved enough to fund my trading, and that was my last part time job ever,
The rest, as they say, is history =)
✅ Successful Trader
✅ International Speaker
✅ Best Selling Author
All these side jobs helped me become a better trader and analyst. I learned from real life experience in a way that I could never do in a formal school education. And I used all these lessons to improve my trading.
It was actually during this period in my life that the Skinn on on the Mini was born.
I’m proud of my journey, and wanted to share it with you to point out that no matter where you are in life, you can do anything you want if you have the right mindset and training.
And lucky for you, I’m here to shorten your learning curve and provide the right training !
~ Hima
