EPThttp://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=283621¤tpage=3#52
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=283621¤tpage=5#100
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=283621¤tpage=8#146
Ok, so no, my dream isn't exactly a glamorous one (or maybe it is?). But I just felt like blogging some of my life.
I'm not really writing this for people to read, for people to find it cool. I'm writing this for me, because this is something important to me.
You know, because who is BrTarolg?
My name comes from Glorat, which is Tarolg backwards, who is my brother. Br stands for brother. It used to be BrGlorat but then i got bullied a lot in an online game which my brother was really good at (enough that his name was instantly recognized) so i changed it to Tarolg to be more discreet haha
Pretty much i've spent the whole of my life being insecure and looking for purpose. Heavily laden with autistic/aspergers tendencies and other socially awkward factors, life for me has been a continuous struggle of finding things which I think I could be good at, and quickly peaking or being frustrated at my inability to improve.
Pretty much most of my life social interactions suffered because these things were secondary compared to "getting good" at stuff. Whether that be academic, health, gaming or a whole bunch of other things.
So I spent the first 10 (!!!) years of my school life in a private, all male school, which totally wrecked me. I didn't fit in at all during these years. Fortunately, it was a fairly well run school, you get good grades and in some ways, kids there were trained to be mature. In the same way, they are trained to be extremely socially manipulative and game playing arrogant.
Safe to say these were fairly depressing years of my life. I never really achieved anything (I wasn't smart enough to get better grades than the smart kids).
There were a few things though that kept me going. Firstly, around the age of 14 I started kyokushin karate.
For those of you who don't know what this is, this isn't some pussies mcdojo. This is ultra-hardcore karate, and it is freakin tough. All of the fitness and health I have today started here. I have to give thanks to my teacher, Hanshi Steve Arneil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Arneil
It was an absolute honor and privilege to be taught by him. He is a really down to earth guy. When i asked why the highest ranked and most well respected kyokushin practioner in the world wasted his time teaching a few kids in a school (for what wasn't that much money!) - He said that he believes in tutoring the youth because they are the future. I believe to this day he still runs a dojo in greater london, though he is getting old. Trust me when I say you don't want to fight this guy. He was the second person to ever complete the 100 man kumite, probably one of the most brutal trials you could ever face. When you ask him about it all he will do is furrow his brow and tell you "it took me 2 and 3 quarter hours. My teacher told me that it would be faster and easier to knock out the guys I was fighting - that way i could have a little rest in between rounds"
I still remember to this day when we had a tournament in our school, and one of the kids got totally whacked on the face (non contact tournament btw, so opponent was disqualified) and the poor kid looked like he had his nose dislodged and couldn't see from the mass of tears falling from his face because of the pain
In a pure karate kid moment he conjured up some kind of magic and literally thwacked him in the face with his fist, and we all stood around and were like WTF DID YOU JUST DO, and the kid got up and said he felt better. He told us to keep it quiet because he wasn't supposed to do that.
I will never understand exactly what happened or what he did
Fast forward to uni, so I did a degree in Maths. Where i studied, my lecturers focused particularly on pure maths, and I was a fool and picked my subjects very un-tactically, and chose to study the following topics:
Group theory, group theory, algebraic topology, algebraic number theory, more group theory, functional analysis, and group theory
For those of you who have no idea about maths, lets just say this is not a set of subjects you should pick if you want to pass your uni and get a degree. Somehow, after a lot of pain and studying, I managed to get a 2:1.
So throughout this time, I had dreams and stuff. I wanted to be good at starcraft, at poker, at games. I did alright, i got to high masters on EU and NA (and beat a bunch of GM's on SEA) (you know, back when protoss got nerfed like 6 patches in a row making them the strongest race)
I made some in poker, and did pretty well in staking (which i still do to this day in my spare time with my business partner)
I played a whole host of games, trying to be the best in whatever i could until the effort became too much.
This was a common theme however, - at some point i realized that i couldn't actually be the best (or rather, get good enough to satisfy me - i never actually want to BE the ABSOLUTE best - but i wanted to be good for sure) at all of these things, and then i became demotivated and quit.
The result of this was that at all the things i ever tried/had a go at, i would learn at an incredibly fast rate (i went from being D- in broodwar to sitting near the top of the ladder within a few weeks of beta in SC2). Anything i tried people would tell me "wow how the fuck did you learn that so fast" - and at the same time i would quickly get bored and my "skill" would wane and stagnate.
This feature has constantly plagued me and made me feel like a lazy asshole because i couldn't conjure up the effort to work hard at something.
Throughout my uni and school life, i've been doing finance related work and internships (mainly at some of the bulge bracket institutions) - why? Because i thought "this will help me succeed and get good at life" - it felt like i was adding purpose to the long list of things i had to be good at.
Somewhere along the line I became interested in trading (who doesn't?) - soon i spent more and more time reading bloomberg, reading the news, scouring for free research, networking and talking to real traders anywhere i could. I had the hunger, the hunger to be good. I wanted to be good at trading.
Is it the money? Not really, i've never had financial issues in my life. Not only do i recieve support from my parents, but i'm a very frugal person who spends in a very utilitarian way, and i've made more than enough from poker.
Eventually i decided to do a masters course which is quantitatively heavy and finance orientated, because i thought this would help my chances of securing a position in trading. I wanted to be one of the guys who understood everything about markets, and understood them so well that I would be the guy that would have an edge over everyone else.
Then come august. From my own research, i knew it was coming. You guys should know its coming too. The financial system, particularly in europe, is coming into a meltdown. I've seen the EFSF package, it's not going to work. It stinks of everything bad about CDO's in 2008, repackaged and leveraged to make it look fancy. Quickly they are going to find out that it's not going to work, and they can't make money appear from thin air without printing it.
Since 2008, banking has been a shit sector to work in. The hours are long - i had it easy, i did 50-55 avg hour weeks with weekends off as an intern - i knew plenty of interns who did standard 65, and a few corp finance interns who averaged 90-95 hours a week. I knew one girl who was doing an absolutely brutal 110 hours a week, 16 hours a day 7 days a week.
One guy described to me the "taxi around the roundabout" schedule - he had worked from 6am the previous day, all the way to 6am the next day, (work pays for his taxi home) - he then asks the taxi driver to do a few roundabouts whilst he goes in to take a shower, comes right back out and drives straight back to work again.
As markets deteriorate (and btw, they will) situations and work are only going to get tougher and worse. Not only that, your pay won't get better, and your job prospects won't get better either. This is a time of cutting and firing. Over the years i've gotten to network and know a lot of traders personally, some who are incredibly successful. No matter how many contacts i have, no matter how well suited i am for the job, every single bank is slashing its jobs like crazy.
One trader described it simply like this: "times have changed. Bonuses arn't good anymore - I don't know why people complain about us, we work so fucking hard and we don't get paid for it. I don't even know whether i'll have a job next year. Banks have these fancy internships and grad programmes, and everyone want's in - what people don't realise is that they are selling a pipe dream."
About a year and a bit ago, one of my friends dropped out of uni and went to work for a prop trading firm. I told him he was totally crazy, and it had to be a scam. Indeed, i did some research, and there are a lot of scams out there. It turns out the place he went to was absolutely legitimate, and probably one of the best places to goto.
Personally, i thought he wouldn't last three months. He had very little interest in finance, was pretty mediocre at poker, and all he wanted was the money.
However, what i didn't realise is - here is a guy who has none of the knowledge, none of the thirst i have. And yet hes going to do exactly what i want to do. Today hes one of the extremely fortunate few to have been able to profit a fairly decent amount within his first year. Most guys in prop firms tend to be breakeven in the first year, its the coming years after that get good. He has put his heart and soul into it, and he is incredibly sharp about markets. I feel absolutely embarrassed discussing markets with him, his knowledge and logic is incredibly precise nowadays.
Then, a guy i knew in one of my internships turned down his offer to work at a bulge bracket, and started work in another prop firm. Not quite as good as the first one, but still a reputable firm with a legitimate programme.
At this point i was still skeptical, but within a few months he was absolutely loving it. Hes an incredibly smart, hard working guy, but i would have never seen him as a trader. Yet already, hes doing exactly what i've wanted to do for years.
To go into the standards for this industry, let me explain -
Prop shops consist of either scams or legit places. Scams claim to teach people how to trade, will charge punters hefty sums of money for "training" (rando shit you can find on the internet) and once you complete this "training" will then encourage you to invest your own money to trade. These places usually die out very quickly, scam a few guys and then let them burn their accounts up.
Legit places usually provide desks for seasoned traders, doing a commission deal with the exchanges, and they also run training programmes where they cover all desk fees and training costs (and sometimes even pay a small salary). Then once you're done, if you're good enough, you get a company funded account with a certain profit split and go live. They will continue to support you until you start becoming good and being profitable. If you suck, you get fired (quickly)
When my friend started working in a prop firm, it was the last straw for me. For years and years, i had been delaying. I was always so insecure about myself, trying to be "good" at things, and then becoming lazy quickly and never realizing my full potential.
University and a masters degree to me, was simply a delaying tactic. It was something that seemed "good to do" and had no real purpose to it.
I recently got an offer at a prop firm, one of the better ones. I start work next week. I'll be working 12 hours a day. No holidays (except maybe christmas/new years and some public holidays when markets are closed)
I've dropped out of uni to do this. I got a degree, i don't need a masters anymore
I'm not going to be a trader in a big bank, trying to get my big bonus every year
Probably, i won't make any money in my first year. For the next 12 months, i'm likely to be breakeven or worse, like a failed, skilless uni graduate.
But for the first time in my life, i'm cutting the nets. I don't have the safety of "oh, i'll just do this for another year" - "its ok, i've still got time to work it all out"
This is me going all in on life.
The risks are high - the vast majority of people who try this, fail. These kinds of places don't look good on your CV if you want to work for a financial institution. If you do change - they might ask why you dropped out - if you quit it basically means you wern't good enough.
For the first time, i am going to do something i REALLY want to do. I never wanted to work in a big bank. I never wanted to make vast sums of money (even though i will). I never wanted to do a degree, do a masters. All i wanted to do was find the one thing i could really be good at, and get good at it and make it my passion. All i wanted to do is trade.
So i'm chasing my dream. I'm putting everything aside to do it. I'll be sitting in front of a screen every day, for long hours, for the best years of my life.
Nobody is ever going to hear about me, i'm not gonna become famous. I'm not gonna contribute to society. I'm going to be the scum whos gonna make my fortune from the next financial crisis and global recession.
And i'll be damned, i'm going to put my heart and soul into it. I'm going to work the hardest i've ever worked in my life. I'm going to work so hard its going to be more important than eating, more important than sleeping. The guys i know who work at these places sleep about 4 hours a night.
The absolute key to success is working hard. You don't need talent, you don't need gifts, contacts or luck. You need to work hard, and work your damn ass off.
I'm going to work so hard, and why? Because i'm chasing my dream.
Sorry for the bad reply I just felt the need to say how awesome that comment was ;D
