“Why Teach When You Can Trade?” Part 2 of 3
Teaching isn’t what a lot of people make it out to be. Especially not at AKLTG. The three main criteria for being a good teacher in the seminar business is;
- You have to be good at what you do (Credibility)
- You have to be good at teaching it in terms that others can grasp (Clarity)
- You have to sell it (Cashibility)
The characteristics of a good teacher are;
- a “people person” who sincerely cares and gives
- a listener and learner who is never too proud to be wrong
- a tolerant and patient educator who who doesn’t mince words
- a tough and disciplined coach who goes the extra mile
- a role model who inspires and motivates
In the business of educating others in the business of finance, one must also have a high level of integrity and most of all, honesty. The ability to understand the business is only one half of the profession. The other half is being able to educate others about what you understand. The is no way to bullshit the subject matter if you don’t know what you’re talking about. There is no way to explain away what you don’t know. There is no excuse to not know your business. You are the educator, the teacher … you are expected to know it all and explain it all. If you don’t, it’s your job and responsibility to admit your short-comings and then find out what you don’t know so that you can teach it well.
The educator is always a student because the learning never ends.
The sacrifices I’ve had to make are another consideration altogether. If anyone told you that teaching for a living is easy and very profitable, that person has no idea what he’s talking about. I have had to overcome a fear of public speaking and give up my life of solitude and peace. When once I was an introvert who treasured his privacy, I now have to endure being in a very public spotlight and having my life exposed like an open book. I was happy trading from home making a small fortune and now I am flying between three countries and finding little time to continue making that small fortune. I have to put up with abuse from people who don’t even know me, people who write nasty things about me on the web, people who judge me before they even know me or know what I do. And I have to constantly answer those unreasonable questions which are so unfair in their query;
Do you make more money from teaching or trading?
If you are such a profitable trader, why do you need to teach?
Those are really one-sided and loaded questions that if not answered honestly, will make any teacher a fake.
I am not complaining about my life now. I love what I do and I do it of my own choosing and I accept the difficulties that come with the job. Is it worth it? Hell, yeah. I wouldn’t change it for anything. As long as I can trade and teach, I know that those who doubt will eventually know my truth and appreciate my efforts.
I have never denied that I teach for the money. I have always maintained that teaching is good money. But so is trading, authoring and consulting. But those are the obvious answers. Why not ask the not-so-obvious questions?
Do I lose more money from trading or teaching?
If you lose money, then why bother teaching or trading?
That’s right … I do lose money from teaching sometimes. If I put up a date for a tutorial, I will run that class even if I don’t meet my numbers in students. And it is easy for me to miss my numbers as I run a small class of less than 30 paying students. Most of the time the average is 18 to 25 as I keep about 10 to 15 seats for my graduates who wish to re-sit the whole tutorial for free. Unlike other workshops/courses that run their classes with no less than 50 to 80 paying students and make much more than I do, I keep my class size small so that I can give better personalized attention to those students who need it more. Those workshops also run a three or four day weekend course which is more profitable than what I offer which stretches over 10 sessions in 5 months plus an infinite number of re-sits, additional personalized attention and monthly gatherings for which I charge nothing. Thus, it’s not all about the money.
I teach because I love it. It keeps me sharp and forces me to be on top of my game all the time. It gives me confidence in my trades. It reminds me of my own discipline everytime I teach a student about risk and money management. It helps me to improve constantly as I learn new things from my own students. It challenges me to always be in the lead and never allows me to simply follow. It stretches me to think outside the box as my traders are never satisfied and ever hungry to learn more.
I teach because if I didn’t, I’ll be bored and jaded by just sitting at home and trading for a living. Teaching and trading has become my life.
Plus if I didn’t teach, how will others learn? Not everyone can pick up a book and learn this business. Not everyone is savvy enough to pick up the skill off the internet. Almost everyone needs to learn from someone else even if its reading a book or the internet – you are learning from someone who is teaching. So if no one teaches, how are we to learn anything? If I don’t teach, who will?
The real challenge about doing what I do is staying grounded and humble. It’s easy to get carried away with the fame and accolades. It’s even easier to let the ego and pride blind you and derail your original objective. What is really tough is keeping your program focused and consistent because to teach such a complex subject matter like finance to newbies can get frustrating. The reason why there are so few who truly teach at the beginner’s level is because it’s not easy. Most workshops will claim to accommodate newbies but end up teaching at an intermediate level and move quickly into complex and inflexible strategies that are not catered to individual needs and wants. The reason for this is efficiency – it is easy to teach like that and keep the business efficiently profitable.
Another problem with such courses is that the business becomes overwhelming and soon, the teacher becomes more of a businessman than an educator. The pressure of making each class more profitable than the last becomes more of a priority than the good of the paying student. It’s easy to get carried away and obsessed with making more money from teaching. There are ample distractions and temptations for the teacher to lose focus. What starts out as a noble cause can quickly become a greedy journey of self-fulfillment. So when credibility begins to get tested, these teachers resort to hyping up their programs. And that is when the eduation becomes a money-minded business.
When teaching alone can’t make more money, the teacher (who now owns the title of “Guru”) will look to leverage on his position and his growing database of students to milk them for more. This is when the “upselling” starts. There will be memberships, additional modules, advanced classes and subscriptions at prices that always seem just-beyond-affordable yet too tempting to reject. After a while, the student finds that the spending never stops but the education has stagnated.
Many financial programs hold the students hostage by “hooking” them to software and subscriptions. Others keep upselling stuff like software updates, modular upgrades and additional hand-holding support. Such devices serve the students no additional value but keep the program viable and profitable from a constant source of income from a steadily growing database. Such programs will keep milking their database for more money and more money.
Most courses even make a business out of their business by getting kick-backs from third party suppliers such as brokerages. When the gurus recommends a certain brokerage and that the students should open a certain type of account with that brokerage, every funded account makes that guru a passive income that will boggle your mind.
Such “value added” services and products and recommendation are only exclusive to their database and never for the general public on the pretense that paying students’ integrity has to be protected. But truth be told, such services and products will never sell well in the general public. Such items need to be upsold and hyped up. If you put these items on the sales shelves in a public store, it will never move. Why? Because in time, the credibility (or lack thereof) of the product will be obvious for all to see.
The really good gurus of the world never have to upsell their products. Such items will always be in hot demand in the stores and online and will sell themselves without hype and advertisement. That is true credibility. And that credibility is only possible with a product that is tested and proven and accepted as useful, reliable and cost-worthy. When you put what you teach into print, that is the true test of credibility because real essence is what makes it sell well. Real credibility needs no hype.
I wrote a posting in September 22, 2008, about picking the right course and the right guru. In that posting, I mentioned;
They say that those who can’t do, teach. But consider this … those who can do, may not be able to teach. And there are most who don’t do but can sell and then pretend to teach.
But I have found that those that can do and can teach, make the best teachers. Simply because there’s always a bigger plan than just teaching!
Here’s an analogy that Adam loves to use with regard to having a mentor;
Does Tiger Woods’ coach play better golf than Tiger?
The best way to learn is to teach. So I teach.
To be continued and concluded in Part 3.
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Comments
Agree with Dave. The Basic is the “Big Picture”. I attended many other class learning so much of the “strategy” without knowing the big picture of the market.
Now, as I slowly understand the big picture of the market day by day, I now understand how to apply “strategy” more effectively.
And the best part is Conrad’s Psychology of trading, never been able to think like that before attending Conrad’s class.
Wilson Ong
I love to call Conrad as ‘Conrad – The invisible man’.
It’s always easy to teach what is visible.Teaching the psychology behind trading – an elusive and an invisible thing – according to me is nothing but a spark of a genius.
I have taken his classes and I know how genuine a person he is.
God bless you Conrad with great accomplishments in the journey you have chosen!!!
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Pattern trader ‘BASIC’ tutorial was what I signed up for. I would like to relearned the ‘BASIC’. However, I am impressed with your knowledge and what you shared with us during the tutorial. In my opinion, it was not BASIC at all, it is the most advanced and detail stuff that I ever learned.
I have learned from a lot of so called ‘GURU’. However, I should put my hat off to you for your dedication, honesty and knowledge in this teaching field.
Cheers,
Dave.