Underestimating the Value of Sacrifice

Whenever we look at stories of people that have reached what common sense would define as “success”, it’s human nature not to raise further questions about what made these personalities ultimate winners at their scope. Even worse, some people may think that outstanding results just came as a consequence of a mix of luck and natural talent.

Of course both of them are important but we’d make a deadly mistake by believing that they are the most relevant ingredients for reaching the greatest achievements. Here is interesting to notice how we tend to overweight these two concepts just because they are the only ones we can’t control and, so, we can easily use them to justify not making ourselves really accountable in a desperate intent of self-protection from our own judgment.

Here I am to reinforce the concept that destiny it’s all in our hands and that, although we’re always free to find excuses for not taking responsibility of our own future, we should at least stop thinking that we’re just unlucky or give to the game of blaming others break because they are not the ones preventing us to get where we want to be.

As I often talk about the importance of working hard to get to the ultimate success, here I want to focus on another matter that has played a key role in giving to me the best possible shot for realizing the dream of a lifetime, make a living as a day trader. That is the underestimated value of sacrifice.

Limits Exist Only in our Head

Ok, here is where the story becomes a little more personal but I’m convinced that, especially when talking about sacrifice, it would be too easy to use example about anybody else. Indeed, I’ve always believed in the power of being the best possible version of myself rather than just pretending to be that way or just predicating others without executing on my own words.

Let’s start from here. As we speak, I still own no house and no cars because I’m choosing not to. Two years ago I was still living in Michigan and owning both of them. I owned a single-family house with three bedrooms, a decent sized backyard, a two-cars garage and an amazing finished basement that included a huge movie theater. Of course, I also had a decent paying job as an engineer for the automotive industry.

Everything seemed perfect, everything except one single tiny detail. But yes, it wasn’t that tiny and it wasn’t even just a detail to me. I wasn’t happy and the minute I’ve really realized it, I was totally determined to make a change. It did not really matter how much of a change I would have needed to make but I’ve felt that pursuing the best possible future for me was a mission I had to be completely committed to accomplish.

So, in a span of a few months I quit my job, left the United States and got back to my home country. At that point, my life looked like a clean sheet. As you can imagine, the majority of my relatives and friends thought I was a fool to have made this decision of sacrifing the hard earned comforts and starting completely fresh.

I decided not to listen to them because, within myself, I was feeling grateful and lucky to have found the courage to go all in a brand new adventure. I started chasing after something more meaningful to me than spending the majority of my days in an office full of engineers from 9 to 5. That’s when I met the Warrior Trading community for the first time and revived the passion I had about trading I had since I was just a little kid.

Now I am renting a small apartment because there is no more practical  solutions for me than this one and I’m still not feeling in a hurry to get a car at all because a scooter is all I need. After spending 6 years working in the automotive industry and really not having the passion for cars, I’m probably just still in need to let that old life go once and for all.

I’ve also decided to go just for renting because now I know my soul deeply enough to recognize that I’m wired as a citizen of the world and that I wouldn’t feel good at establishing profound roots, even here right now. For as much as I love Italy, I still don’t feel like I want to permanently stop my journey here.

Especially now that I’m so lucky to have a job that allows me to work from anywhere, there would make zero sense to me to put self-imposed limits and, instead, stay focused into living the life I’ve always dreamed of. Because the real limits exist only into our head.

Final Thoughts

Beware that I’m not looking for any kind of admiration from you or anything like that. The reason why I am sharing all of this is to do my part in giving back the immense source of inspiration that I’ve found into others and that made me believe this huge change was actually possible and that I could have done it. If even a single one of the articles I’m writing would have helped one trader in any possible way, all the effort that I’m putting in making these contents at my best would be fully worth it.  

“Borders? I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people.” ― Thor Heyerdahl

See you in chat-room.

Trade safe,

Roberto Barbaro