5 years ago, I decided to try forex trading as a way of leaving. I was playing with the charts for a while, also read quite a few books on the topic (fascinated by Steve Nison) and, overall, I was feeling confident. But I also tried to live off of being a tango teacher, so my penchant towards a certain way of living is not always an indicator of a profitable venture.

To make a long story short, I put aside 2000 EUR and started trading. For the next 6 months, my sleep patterns were severely changed. My judgment was most of the time foggy and I was living in a constant state of fatigue. I was barely sleeping because I wanted to trade all the markets, all the time. And there were money to be made at any time.

To make a long story short, I stopped after 6 months. I went out with the same amount of capital. Or, how I like to put it, with both my balls intact. But during the process, I lost a lot of money. I didn't have enough of a discipline, I was sometimes too eager, sometimes to fearful. Yes, the good ol' greed and fear. They _are_ ruling the world.

At the end of this 6 months period I wrote a piece called [12 things I learned by being a forex trader](http://dragosroua.com/12-things-i-learned-by-being-a-forex-trader/). 

5 years later, it's still in top 20 most popular posts of my blog. Feel free to give it a try if you want, but if you're not, I'm giving you the TLDR version.

## Things Are Not Always What They Seem To Be

I know, it sounds childish. But let me finish.

_I traded divergences heavily. In technical terms, a divergence is an indicator of something “going wrong” with a trend. A divergence is formed when the price seems to go up, but the indicator tells you that this is not exactly right. I won’t go into details about why this is happening, enough to let you know that, sometimes, things are not what they seem to be._

_In real life, for instance, a business may show signs of going strong, with a lot of sales and good karma. But behind the curtain things are not so good: employees are ready to leave the board, or the intellectual property is much thinner than you thought, or, and that’s the most common case, the product is already at the end of its life cycle._

_The fundamental lesson is to always look twice at a process (being it a business, or a psychological process) before deciding you’re gonna embark on it, one way or another. There might always be a divergence hidden way below the surface, waiting to hit you the moment you expect this the least._

That's why I always - and I mean, always - take a step back when things seem to go sideways. Doesn't matter if they go up or down. If they go sideways, I stop and ask myself: "what's exactly happening here?". 

When the _flag war_ exploded 2 months ago on Steemit (does anyone still remembers it?) I took a step back and took full responsibility for it. I just wanted to see if the greed, the imposture and the control-freakiness (is this actually a word?) were part of Steemit's core values.

2 months later, I'm back.

Take whatever you want from this lesson. :)
***
_I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at [Dragos Roua](http://dragosroua.com) where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua._
<center>
![Dragos Roua](http://dragosroua.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/bamf-e1448824881306.png)</center>
***
<center>_You can also vote for me as witness here:
https://steemit.com/~witnesses_</center>