In this episode Agnieszka has a special guest, Kristen Vallejo - a thriving entrepreneur, a lifestyle photographer, and... a wife of the trader. Together they explore the world of trading but this time from a different perspective - a partner of a trader. Kristen and Agnieszka discuss challenges of trading faced not only by traders, but also by their partners, shedding light on the intricate web of emotions that both navigate. They emphasize the difficulty in providing advice or support, as the trader needs to come to their own decisions. Agnieszka shares her own story of how her trading impacted her husband. They both highlight the importance of emotional support and understanding in periods of poor trading decisions.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to gain insight into how the trading world can affect relationships and how to overcome those obstacles together.
About Kristen Vallejo
Over the years Kristen has become known for her light-hearted and thoughtful approach to portrait photography, and for the five-star experience that she provides to all of my clients. Empowering people to fall in love with photography (and themselves) gets her out of bed in the morning and drives her to continuously reinvent herself. She is a thorough planner, a dedicated listener, and she wants YOU to be the star of your own show.
Kristen eats, sleeps and breaths photography. If you start a new business, want to level up your dating game, refresh your corporate headshot, or you're ready to treat yourself to a transformational experience – Kristen is your go to. In a session with her you’ll laugh, you’ll feel empowered, and as she says "you’ll walk away with the best pictures that you have ever seen of yourself. You’ll feel free to be YOU, worthy of time and attention, and safe in a judgement-free zone. You will leave your session with self-confidence, and maybe you’ll feel just a tad invincible!"
Contact Agnieszka Wood | Ahead Coach:
- Website: aheadcoach.com
- Twitter: @Ahead_Coach
- YouTube: @aheadcoach
- Facebook: Agnieszka Wood
- Instagram: ahead.coach
- LinkedIn: Agnieszka Wood
Contact Kristen Vallejo:
- Website: www.kristenvallejo.com
- Facebook: Kristen Vallejo Photography
- Instagram: kristen_vallejo_photography
- LinkedIn: AKristen Basar Vallejo
--
Transcript
[00:00:03.730] - Agnieszka
Welcome to the Confidence in Trading podcast. I am Agnieszka Wood and I am very excited to introduce my special guest, Kristen Vallejo. Kristen is a successful entrepreneur and a lifestyle photographer, capturing people and their pets in magazine-style scenarios to help them tell their stories, sell their products, connect, and feel empowered. When she does not have her hands on the camera she's either cooking, playing with dogs, or working out on her peloton. She's also a big fan of Yin Yoga, cheese, coffee, and BlackBerry pie. And some day she wants to live in a little stone house in the European countryside. All this sounds absolutely amazing and seems like a pretty relaxing lifestyle. What I did not mention to you yet is that she's also the wife of one of my former students. That's how I met Kristen and it's exactly what I want to talk about today. The trading journey was experienced from the sideline as a wife of a trader. Welcome, to episode number seven, behind every trader The Untold Story of their partner. Hi Kristen. Welcome to my podcast and thank you so much for your willingness to come into the spotlight and share your personal experience and perspective on this topic.
[00:01:32.020] - Kristen
Hi, Agnieszka. It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
[00:01:35.010] - Agnieszka
So training is such a hot topic these days, especially with COVID a lot of new people stepping into the arena, and soon after finding out that it's not easy as it seems. Can you tell us a little bit more about your first contact with trading?
[00:01:53.050] - Kristen
Sure. Trading was always something that felt foreign to me. I grew up in a small town in Ohio and finance New York City, the stock exchange trading were not at the top of everyone's minds at that time. So when I was in grade school and in high school, I had very little exposure to anything financial and probably first started hearing about it when I got to college. But as you could tell by my intro, I am a fine arts person. So math, numbers, anything like that wasn't really in my purview. And to be honest, at that time in my life, I steered clear of numbers as much as possible because it made me uncomfortable. It changed a little bit, but it really wasn't until my mid twenty s I got a job as a graphic designer at an investment bank.
[00:02:51.730] - Agnieszka
Oh, wow.
[00:02:52.420] - Kristen
Yeah. Weird, right? So started to learn a little bit about the culture and what was going on there and it became a little more palpable to me than it had in the past.
[00:03:02.110] - Agnieszka
Okay, so that's how your first contact with it was. How did you feel about it? Were you immediately interested? Because a lot of people who get in touch with trading and stock market and they see, oh my God, this is a way I can make money. Were you ever inspired to just try yourself? Being in that environment?
[00:03:25.230] - Kristen
That didn't really happen until recently, honestly. In my early 20s, when I first was exposed to investment banking, to be really honest, I was very turned off by the culture. My job was kind of the bottom of the barrel. I got to work on everything when there were deadlines and everybody was amped up and this was the mid-90, and investment banking was having its heyday. It was crazy. So the environment was crazy and aggressive. At least that's how it felt to me at the time. So it actually kind of pushed me a little further away from being interested in finance because I was like, that is not the life for me.
[00:04:09.730] - Agnieszka
You were like, that's exactly what I thought finance is.
[00:04:13.330] - Kristen
Yeah, [chuckles].
[00:04:15.630] - Agnieszka
That's why I don't like it.
[00:04:17.890] - Kristen
Confirmed. So still, at that point, I didn't think I would touch it with a ten-foot pole.
[00:04:25.350] - Agnieszka
All right, so when did you decide to touch it? Did it change or how did you meet guys with Rob? Was it not until you met Rob that you actually got back into looking at stocks or at the market?
[00:04:42.380] - Kristen
Yeah, I would say that's true, and even not at the very beginning. And oddly enough, we met at Goldman Sachs. So I had been living in San Francisco and worked in this design capacity at an investment bank, wanted to move to New York, got a transfer from one investment bank job to another one, and was still immersed in that culture. But from such a different perspective, when you're in those administrative roles, you don't really understand the financial opportunities, even though you're working within that realm since you were there, pounding away at jobs that support it, and you're not seeing the same financial benefits that those employees are, you don't understand how lucrative and rewarding it can be. So at that point in my life, it was just a job, it was a paycheck, it was something I had to get in and do and get as far away from as possible. And when I met Rob, we had dual roles at Goldman. He was in one building and I was in another, doing the same job. And he was intrigued by the atmosphere. I wanted to get the hell away from it. But hearing his perspective and what he wanted to learn from it and how he wanted to change his life with it, always piqued my interest and the nature of our relationship is that we're both very respectful of one another's interests and support. So I listened and I paid attention and I did my best to learn about what he was doing so that I could support him.
[00:06:16.980] - Agnieszka
So was he already trading at that time when he was working for Goldman Sachs? For himself?
[00:06:21.950] - Kristen
He was not. He as well as in an administrative role, but rather than being repelled by it like I was, he was drawn into it and wanted to get some of that for himself in some way. So when we first met and got together, he was just talking about wanting to do it. And it took a few years into our relationship for him to take steps toward actually being a trader.
[00:06:45.370] - Agnieszka
So when he told you, hey, listen, I'm going to be a trader, what was your first initial reaction? What did you think?
[00:06:52.550] - Kristen
I think by that point, I had kind of softened my feelings about the financial world and had a more objective and open-minded approach to it. And it's funny. Funnily enough, I hadn't thought about this, but we read a book. I think it was a biography of Warren Buffett. Rob wanted to listen to it in the car on the way to work one time.
[00:07:18.990] - Agnieszka
All right.
[00:07:19.520] - Kristen
And that book, I think, changed my mind about things to really understand the power of finance and how it didn't need to be this elusive thing behind the curtain, that it could be something that was accessible to both of us. So my mind was open by the time he got around to it.
[00:07:38.530] - Agnieszka
So did you know what you were getting into? Because day trading is very different than investing.
[00:07:46.730] - Kristen
I had no idea.
[00:07:51.830] - Agnieszka
What did you feel at that time? How did you imagine it to go? Did you have any pictures of it? How it's going to influence your life?
[00:08:00.830] - Kristen
No, I didn't. And since my experience with it had been watching what would you call, a pretty typical progression, right? A person goes to college, gets their finance degree, gets picked up by a firm, gets put through the rigmarole of 90 hours work weeks, and then spits them out to be a millionaire at the end. At least that's what it looked like. So when he told me he wanted to do this, I think I was a little afraid of not having time with him. I thought maybe he would get sucked into this lifestyle that was so counter to what we had created for ourselves. We were both really hard workers and have had our own businesses and put the hours in, but the reason we became our own bosses was so that we could have freedom and time. And I was a little concerned in the beginning that he was going to be whisked away on that path.
[00:09:02.430] - Agnieszka
Didn't you have a feeling because a lot of traders get into trading to have freedom where you're not like, but you have freedom?
[00:09:10.290] - Kristen
Yeah, I think he was really zeroed in on the financial freedom, and at that point, since we don't have kids, so that's not an issue to have to be around for children. But I think he still felt energetic enough that if it was going to take time, that was okay with him, but it wasn't necessarily okay with me.
[00:09:33.750] - Agnieszka
So what did you tell him? Were you just very diplomatic or how did you do that?
[00:09:41.210] - Kristen
I think the way that we cope with all things when one of us throws something new out is - let's explore it and feel it out and look at the pros and cons. And I don't think there are very many things that even if I don't have the most positive outlook on, I won't still at least try. And I never would have said, I don't want you to do this or this isn't for you. There have been a few things that we've tried out over the years that haven't worked out, but we're glad that we gave it a try anyway, just to see.
[00:10:13.880] - Agnieszka
Right.
[00:10:14.340] - Kristen
So I didn't really need to be diplomatic because I was willing to give it a try.
[00:10:19.530] - Agnieszka
Yeah, okay. I mean, it's really good to have the openness, right? Especially like, if you're not sure, what are you getting yourself into? And you can always think, okay, if it doesn't work, then you just stop.
[00:10:31.880] - Kristen
Yes, exactly.
[00:10:32.940] - Agnieszka
And that's very interesting because with trading, somehow, once you get into trading, it's not so easy to stop.
[00:10:41.150] - Kristen
I see that!
[00:10:44.320] - Agnieszka
Even people who do stop, somewhere deep down, they have this thought, you know, one day I'll get back to it.
[00:10:49.252] - Kristen
I can see that...
[00:10:50.080] - Agnieszka
There's this draw, it's pretty incredible. And many traders have great plans, and most of them, don't really think that they are going to be losing money. Right. Because the idea is to make money. So they don't really treat it as business at first and say, okay, I will have to invest certain money. It's only that image of how much money I will make. And the second part of it is they don't really realize they will be struggling emotionally.
[00:11:17.610] - Kristen
Yeah.
[00:11:19.850] - Agnieszka
That's the biggest thing on the journey. Right. And then the reality hits.
[00:11:26.020] - Kristen
Yes.
[00:11:26.970] - Agnieszka
How did it look from your side? Did you see that switch of being enthusiastic, learning a new thing, and then suddenly, oh, there is the wall.
[00:11:37.230] - Kristen
In the beginning, it's funny because before I was going to talk to you, I was thinking about all of these things. And since Rob approached this very slowly, it took quite a while for all these things to reveal themselves. And there were so many different things that he tried to learn and platform, so to speak, different people as teachers, different ways of learning. And I'm listening to all of this with him because it's online and I can hear it and sitting here thinking like, oh, my God, that person's a terrible teacher, or, oh, how can he deal with listening to that? And that's where a lot of my judgments came in, is not so much business he was getting into, but who are these people teaching him? And the pain for me in that was thinking, oh, there's got to be somebody who presents this information more clearly or isn't so egocentric about it. I would be working on my pictures and editing and hearing whatever lesson he was. One of the things that was a little unsettling at first was how much he flipped around through teachers, flipped around through trading platforms. And it was hard for me to understand at first. Like, this is going to take some time to figure out. There is no one size fits all. And he's got to find the right teaching style and the right information, and I could relate. When I first started to learn photography, I didn't know what questions I had. I didn't know which questions to ask. I didn't know how to get started. And for my profession, the instruments are pretty clear cut, like the triangle and the light ratios, they're all kind of scientific, and this is what it is. And then you put your own artistic flair on it. But since he was learning something so intricate, in my opinion, intricate, complicated, dependent on psychological and sociological factors, it's like getting multi-levels of education at one time and trying to have to pick through which pieces make sense and how they influence your trading. And I just find it mind-blowing how complicated it can be.
[00:13:55.930] - Agnieszka
Yeah, and it's pretty amazing because nothing is black and white, right? Pretty much whatever question you ask, the answer could be, it depends.
[00:14:06.050] - Kristen
Yeah, I saw that. So I want to make sure that I answered your question.
[00:14:12.770] - Agnieszka
Whether you saw this switch from learning and being enthusiastic, to the struggle. Like, did you notice when the struggle?
[00:14:20.030] - Kristen
Started taking place, it would come in waves. So once he got through the pain, what questions do I ask? Who do I get to help me? Then the new pains were, now I have really specific questions, and nobody will answer these questions. I feel like overall, the biggest challenge for him is to just find mentors that will be forthcoming with information or at least point him in the right direction. And since he didn't have an economics background or a quote, unquote, or financial education, he was kind of starting from scratch with everything. So once he got that stuff ironed out, which kind of took a few years, then it was, well, what kind of trader am I going to be? Am I going to be a swing trader? Am I going to be a day trader? Am I going to be a long-term investor? And he would try out a little bit of this for a couple of months and a little bit for a couple of months, and you were like.
[00:15:16.870] - Agnieszka
Oh, my God, this is like training to be a doctor.
[00:15:20.190] - Kristen
Yes. It's taking forever. There was one time in particular I'm going to say this was probably about five years ago, where he really dramatically hit a wall and threw away all his books that he had bought. I'm not doing this. I quit. I can't do it, and then was faced with, okay, well, I've invested so much time in this. Now what am I going to do? And that was the first time I had seen him express so much frustration, and I lasted about a week. I'll admit I was a little nervous, like, okay, God, what is he going to do? And supporting that up and down. And that kind of emotion is tough because at least from my perspective, I want him to see this through. I know it's important to him. I know how much he's put into this, and I would feel heartbroken for him if he decided not to do it. And that first time, it was looking like that's what was going to happen. But then he dug all the books out of the trash. Yes, which is hilarious in hindsight, but at the time, it was very dug all the books back out of the trash, got back to it, and put his head so we've had a few similar moments over the years, but they usually only last about a day [chuckles].
[00:16:51.730] - Agnieszka
He never told me about that. [chuckles]
[00:16:53.140] - Kristen
I figured that [chuckles]! It sticks in my mind because I watched the visual, so it's in there, and it was funny, but it was sad at the same time.
[00:17:05.160] - Agnieszka
Yeah, it must have been hard to it's like, on one hand, you want to end the suffering from your husband. On the other hand, you don't want him to quit because you know that then he would suffer, too. And what's the right way? What's the right thing to say as a partner? I can imagine that that must be pretty difficult.
[00:17:30.270] - Kristen
It is... It is. And he's I mean, you've worked with him. He's been your client, so you know how he thinks, and he's the kind of person that really needs to come to decisions on his own. He takes my opinion into consideration, but there isn't much that I can do other than just be patient and wait it out. And I am having parallel experiences in growing my business, too. And even though they're such different businesses, there are a lot of similarities in the emotional nature of the ups and downs. For stock traders, it's ups and downs all day long of what the information is doing. For creative people, it's ups and downs of, okay, I'm really busy this month, and now this month, I don't have any work. The biggest difference, I think, is you guys are so self-reliant, and your worth is so tied up in that performance. Right. Like, if you're not having a larger ratio of wins over losses, it eats away at your ego. It eats away at how you feel about yourself. And that's been very challenging, is how do you watch from afar and convince someone, like, look, you're not doing as bad as you think you are, but all they can see is lose, lose, lose, lose.
[00:18:54.470] - Agnieszka
Yeah. It becomes very personal, and I think that also makes it very difficult for the partner to give any type of advice, because let's say you have some issue in your business, right? You can put that issue on the table and talk about it as maybe the photo wasn't really good. The client is not happy because of the quality or whatever, you can kind of put yourself I'm not sure you have to tell me if that's true. You can put yourself easier outside of it because there is a clear product that's coming out of your hands, a physical product.
[00:19:33.100] - Kristen
I think that's true to a certain extent, but where it marries with the trading, is that eating away at how you feel about yourself? Because as a creative person, this is a reflection of you. Right.
[00:19:49.080] - Agnieszka
That is true. Because it's your personal flavor that you put into it.
[00:19:53.290] - Kristen
Exactly. So it's been surprising, the parallels we've had emotionally with these businesses, being that they're so different, but they both end up being tied up in self-worth. And how do you be more accepting of yourself, the mistakes, and the learning process, and not have all of your worth tied up into one thing.
[00:20:18.550] - Agnieszka
So with that respect, it was actually maybe made it easier for you to understand what he's going through, projecting all those failures on himself.
[00:20:27.760] - Kristen
Exactly. Yeah.
[00:20:29.480] - Agnieszka
That's very interesting. I remember when I was learning to trade, my husband was already trading for many, many years. And when I was going through my difficult period for two years, it really took two years. It was horrible. I would like, to bang my head against the wall every day and then do well and then blow up again. We would go for a walk. I remember like, at the end of the day, the market closes and he's like, okay, let's go out, let's go for a walk. And we used to have a dog at that time. And we would walk around the neighborhood and I would cry day in, day out. And he would just walk next to me, just like, don't worry, tomorrow is another day. And just trying to keep me positive. But yeah, seeing from now back, I think this must have been a horrible period for him because, in a sense, I also got into trading. I don't want to say because of him, but that's how I got in touch with trading because he was trading and I got intrigued by it. So he kind of felt responsible for my failure. Knowing from my own experience, when you struggle with building consistency, it is really not easy to disconnect yourself from it because again, you project it on yourself and then in the end, you bring that into the dining table. Right. And your day is basically defined by two colors, either green or red.
[00:22:14.480] - Kristen
Yeah [chuckles]
[00:22:16.090] - Agnieszka
And the whole family, the moment you walk out of your office, the whole family knows what day there was. Was this also to that degree in your house?
[00:22:26.590] - Kristen
I think it's extra challenging since we both work from home. Right. We are together a lot. I mean, way more than the average people are. And that works for us. We enjoy each other's company. And we're happy to be here supporting one another. But yeah, we are in each other's energy pretty much all day, so I don't have to wait for the end of the day or the dinner table. I know what's going on every minute. It's funny because there was a while where I would always say how to go, how's it going? What's the market doing? But then I realized I should just not ask, because even though I wasn't putting pressure on him, I was just being curious or wanting to be helpful, me asking was an added level of pressure. Right.
[00:23:18.020] - Agnieszka
Right.
[00:23:19.630] - Kristen
Hopefully, stoped doing that. I don't think I do it as much as I used to.
[00:23:23.650] - Agnieszka
This Rob gave you some kind of was he informing you, like, what would help him if you do this? That would be really helpful. Like, for example, don't ask me those questions. How was the approach from his side? Because I know that a lot of traders, do feel guilt, responsibility, and sometimes shame, because they are trying to achieve something, and they know, okay, my partner is looking, and I'm not able to do this.
[00:23:55.710] - Kristen
So there is some tension, I'm sure that's definitely happening. And my intentions and my energy toward it have always been from a, you will eventually get this standpoint, and for now, it's going to be up and down, and sometimes you're going to lose money. And I can wrap my head around that. I look at it like me spending money on my business, on marketing. That doesn't work. Right. You don't know which marketing campaigns are going to work or which things that you invest in. You can't know right away, so sometimes you waste some money. I can think of plenty of times that I've said, "Yup, you know I'll do that ad", or "Put me on that golf course". Not one lick of business comes from that. But I try not to beat myself up about it because I wouldn't have known. And if I have that scarcity mentality about money, then I'm never going to be able to attract more to myself. So I try to encourage him from that perspective of, you have to take the risks, you have to take the chances. And I, as his partner, am okay with that. I don't dwell on the losses.
[00:25:06.930] - Agnieszka
But you would be a good trader.
[00:25:09.610] - Kristen
Pardon me?
[00:25:10.950] - Agnieszka
You would be a good trader.
[00:25:12.710] - Kristen
I'm told that every day. So we'll get to that [chuckles].
[00:25:17.170] - Agnieszka
All right, that's interesting.
[00:25:20.630] - Kristen
So I do ask him all the time how I can support him, and I think we have a pretty good system worked out, and a lot of times there isn't really anything I can do other than just go about my day and wait for him to feel better.
[00:25:38.010] - Agnieszka
Yeah, just be compassionate and loving.
[00:25:41.690] - Kristen
Exactly.
[00:25:42.750] - Agnieszka
Because I think that's the big thing. It's like when you beat yourself up because you had a red day and now you don't really feel that self-worth, the last thing you want is someone else to tell you, you know, about your mistakes.
[00:25:57.820] - Kristen
Right, exactly.
[00:25:58.480] - Agnieszka
You really want someone to come and hug you.
[00:26:00.610] - Kristen
Yeah.
[00:26:01.040] - Agnieszka
I remember I used to ask my husband, do you still love me? If I took like a bigger lot? Like, do you still love me? And he's looking at me like, what are you talking about?
[00:26:10.390] - Kristen
Of course, he does.
[00:26:13.590] - Agnieszka
It doesn't depend whether you have a green or red day.
[00:26:16.890] - Kristen
But it is funny how you feel like it's an expression of you that win or loss is so tied up in how you feel about yourself.
[00:26:28.240] - Agnieszka
Yeah. And eventually when you manage to disconnect and detach from that, not taking the self-worth from money. Because I think that's a lot of that's more in a culture where you translate your self-worth to what you make or what you were able to gather throughout your life. Your house, your car, and all those things, material things. I think then you're really tied up into like, okay, if I have a great day, I feel great about myself, but it's really disconnecting from it and focusing on rather on your effort and what you do, which is great. Not just for trading, but for life in general.
[00:27:09.240] - Kristen
I agree. Yeah. I've had to check myself once in a while, too. Like, okay, what else do I do besides photograph? There's other things. And I've always had a tendency towards workaholicism. That's a word. Yeah. But now I do more to have a more fulfilling day and not make it all about work.
[00:27:33.970] - Agnieszka
Yeah. Being able to let go. Right. It's almost like, at least in my experience, the more you let go, the more it comes to you. It's like you give space to actually things to come to you instead of trying to squeeze it.
[00:27:47.180] - Kristen
Yes, I agree.
[00:27:48.220] - Agnieszka
It is not easy to detach when you have your own business and when you really have to think like, okay, I have a client now, but what about the next day?
[00:27:56.570] - Kristen
Exactly. Yeah.
[00:27:57.820] - Agnieszka
And I have to say that personally trading really helped me to go through this process and to completely detach from that fear, from that need to hold on, like, okay, I need to make money. I need to make money because I have to pay the bills. And I always say now everyone has the need to pay the bills whether you have money or not. The need is always there.
[00:28:21.920] - Kristen
True.
[00:28:23.170] - Agnieszka
But how desperate you are to do that, that does not change the need, because the need is there.
[00:28:31.240] - Kristen
That's true.
[00:28:31.800] - Agnieszka
And it's better to be relaxed and putting effort in things that, you know, if I put effort in the right things, the money will come instead of just stressing about it. That doesn't change anything except for your own, how you feel. Basically, it stresses you up. So when was that moment that you thought and was there a moment that you thought, okay, now he's getting it and now he's getting more peaceful and we get our peace back in house? Or is it always kind of like you never know what to expect?
[00:29:09.390] - Kristen
No, I think the Pandemic was interesting for both of us. We have a separate business that we share that takes up a lot of our time. And I think being focused on that made it difficult for Rob to really buckle down and immerse himself in trading because that was what it required immersion. I think anything that anybody's doing that's going to majorly change their life, it's so much easier to do if you can immerse yourself in it. When you have to do it a little bit here and a little bit there, it's just so it just drags. Right. So not being able to work on our core business during the Pandemic let him immerse himself now, it was a weird market and maybe not what he's going to be typically trading, but it gave him the time to really think and methodically look through trades and learn new things and not have anything else as a distraction. I think that led to the beginning of being more peaceful about it. And then he worked with you and got well aware of some of the things he never would have thought were influencing his mind that was very personal and very not related to trading. And that made a big difference. And so now when the blow-ups, so to speak, happen, they're only an hour or two, and then he gets it together and feels okay.
[00:30:43.070] - Agnieszka
That's a huge improvement.
[00:30:44.360] - Kristen
It is a huge improvement. Yeah. I feel like his confidence grows daily and he's finally at a point where I feel like he has a strategy and a plan and he sticks to it. I think that one of the hardest things, was when things weren't quite going the way he thought they should, he would reconfigure the way he did everything instead of being patient and waiting for things to happen. And he's gained a lot of patience.
[00:31:17.330] - Agnieszka
Fantastic. Yeah, that's great to hear. He worked very hard on it together with me, too, to make sure that he sticks to your plan, because what is the plan worth if you cannot stick to it, right?
[00:31:29.820] - Kristen
Exactly.
[00:31:31.210] - Agnieszka
That's awesome. So now I'm terribly curious about that little hint you gave earlier. Are you getting into trading?
[00:31:40.200] - Kristen
I think I might.
[00:31:43.010] - Agnieszka
How did that come about?
[00:31:44.530] - Kristen
The finance hater has come full circle. So again, the Pandemic, where we both found ourselves unable to do our usual professions. I went a long time without a photography gig. A long time. And it really made me start thinking about other sources of income and what else can I be doing to just keep money coming in. And funny because I tend to have a knack for how do I synthesize information. I'll say it that way. So this is one of the ways that I support Rob is he'll read something and he'll say, tell me what that means. And I will read the paragraphs and I will spit it back out, back out to him in a way that he can understand. It great teamwork. And he'll say, Why aren't you a trader? I don't know. I don't want to. I don't want to. But more and more I feel like, you know, it's something that would help keep us afloat financially. And, you know, when I was telling you about me listening to all these courses with him, I'm also really good at working on my pictures and listening and retaining that information. So I am at the point of I think it's more than just a little bit of a fascination, and I'm ready to learn. So now I need to immerse myself and carve out that time. And I don't want it at the detriment of my photography because I do love doing it. So I need to figure out a way that I can learn enough that it's not going to take away from what I'm currently doing. So I haven't quite figured that out yet.
[00:33:28.610] - Agnieszka
That's so exciting. So you're at the beginning of the journey and now you know what you are getting yourself into. So it's like a very conscious decision.
[00:33:40.550] - Kristen
Well, it is a conscious decision. And I think I've gone through a lot of this pain with my current business, so that part of it doesn't really right now, it doesn't seem like something that will define me. So I think I can have a clear mind about getting into it, but we'll see. I'll talk to you after I get really into it.
[00:34:08.030] - Agnieszka
I can tell you one thing trading will always surprise you the ability to mirror everything that is like deep down in you. It has the ability to somehow drag it on the surface and trigger a lot of things.
[00:34:27.380] - Kristen
That's interesting because you would never think so. But I've watched this in, so I know exactly what you're talking about.
[00:34:33.960] - Agnieszka
Yeah, it's very interesting because we have a lot of contact with other people right, who trigger all kinds of things in us. Someone says something and you can always say "Ugh, that's not true, and it irritates this guy, irritates me." Right? But it is really not the guy who irritates you. He has triggered something in you that says more about you than about the guy. In the market, you cannot blame someone. You will try, probably you will try to blame the market, the stock, and whoever else. Maybe like if you are in a chat room somewhere, someone gave you a ticker, right? You can always blame them for it or the teacher that told you wrong. But in the end, you will realize that it doesn't matter. It doesn't make sense to blame anyone because, as you said, it is all on you. And the quicker you find out that it's all about you, the faster you will be able to disconnect from that personal feeling that everything is personal.
[00:35:44.180] - Kristen
Yeah.
[00:35:44.700] - Agnieszka
The personal element, detachment from it, from your self-worth, from being right, from having to make it. There are just so many factors that come into it. That's why I'm so excited for this journey, for you. Because for me personally, trading is not really just about trading and money, actually not at all. It's really that process of self-discovery that is helping you to enrich your life because you find out more to be in the present moment, and that just enriches your life in general.
[00:36:23.950] - Kristen
Yeah, I think being in the present moment has always been tough for me. I'm artsy and dreamy, but as I've gotten older, I turned 50 last. Well, I guess I'll be 51 in June. There's been a big change in me not really wanting to be like that anymore, wanting to be more in the present time. And I recently heard on a podcast, someone talking about killing off the version of yourself to become the new version. And the way he said it was like, oh, that sounds so aggressive. But at the same time, it's kind of the only way you really have to put the work in and discover the person that you want to be instead of the one that you always have been. And I can see where the trading journey facilitates that.
[00:37:13.560] - Agnieszka
Yeah, no, definitely. That is so exciting.
[00:37:16.990] - Kristen
I'm glad that surprised you [chuckles]!
[00:37:18.410] - Agnieszka
I am very surprised! Yes. But also very excited for you. For you both, actually, because I think the moment that Rob will see you going through that journey will also give him a sense of confidence because he will see how far he has come.
[00:37:39.250] - Kristen
Yeah, I'm sure.
[00:37:40.760] - Agnieszka
So I think it will work very well for you both and yeah, I will be watching on the sidelines, for sure.
[00:37:49.510] - Kristen
Thank you.
[00:37:53.190] - Agnieszka
Is there anything that you wish Rob would do or told you in an early stage that would help you support him in his journey, like, help you understand what he's going through or what you're both signing up for
[00:38:13.950] - Kristen
I don't know that there's anything he could have told me that would have made things different, because as I said, he wasn't really sure of what direction he was going in in the first place. He didn't know. I didn't know, and we've kind of done this together. I do think that if there's anybody listening to this that is supporting a spouse, I think it's really important to keep the pressure off as much as possible. What I've seen in other relationships is sometimes people who go into trading or professions like this go all in without a plan B. And I understand that I can be that kind of a person, but there's so much less pressure when you have an income source coming from somewhere else. And the other business that we have was, by design, made to have us be home and have time, and we do. And luckily that business has stayed afloat for 15 years and we're grateful to have that money to feed the other things that we're interested in doing. So I think it's important to give yourself the space to learn, but to also less pressure by having another income source.
[00:39:35.530] - Agnieszka
Thank you for that. This is, I think, so helpful because I have come across traders that are actually in the situation, everything put everything in, and it does create incredible pressure on the family, on the whole family. Not just a spouse, but also children, if there are children. And I think the one thing that you mentioned that is incredibly important is making sure that even if you don't know exactly what you're signing up for, you are both signing up for it.
[00:40:10.260] - Kristen
Absolutely.
[00:40:10.920] - Agnieszka
For that not knowing and still going into it. Because of that type of decision, it is not just, okay, I'm just going to have a new job, right? No, there is going to be an impact. Everyone involved around you will be impacted by it.
[00:40:28.510] - Kristen
Yeah. And I think it's important to give your partner the space to immerse themselves. That might mean they don't have time for certain other things. I mentioned that at the beginning. I was a little worried about that, but I saw how important this was to him and it was fine. We made it work.
[00:40:51.940] - Agnieszka
Very good. That's an awesome story, and thank you so much for sharing it. It also kind of brings me back a little bit from a different perspective, but yeah, it's just thinking about that impact and I don't think it's really lit enough in that industry. We talk a lot about traders, but there is always I call this gray eminence that someone behind you that is supporting you in all that, the journey, and that it's either your wife or your partner sometimes could be a friend, but it's really important that that person is there. That's definitely key. Well, that brings us to the end of this episode, and I hope it will help traders who are listening to this to understand that their trading struggle is affecting their partners and support them on this journey. The support network is incredibly important in trading, but if people do not understand what you're going through, they cannot give you the support that you need. And it is your responsibility as a trader to make sure that they know and also to respect that they might not want to go through it. And in that case, just keep your problems, your work problems at work, and don't bring them to the dining table.
[00:42:20.270] - Agnieszka
Thank you so much, Kristen, for joining us and for this incredibly enlightening conversation today. And I really appreciate you sharing your experience and your true feelings with us.
[00:42:33.360] - Kristen
It was my pleasure. I always share true feelings.
[00:42:37.890] - Agnieszka
That's awesome. That's what this podcast is about. Thank you for listening to the Confidence in Trading podcast. If you enjoyed my show, please review it and rate it on the Apple podcast. And be sure to subscribe so you can come back for a real-life conversation in the next episode. Until then, this is Agnieszka Wood from Ahead Coach. And don't forget, you too can realize your dream without losing yourself and your confidence in the process.
____________________________________
✉ Contact me: launchyourlife@aheadcoach.com
____________________________________
▶️ My website: https://www.aheadcoach.com/
▶️ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ahead_Coach
▶️ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/agnieszkawoodpage/