I am fresh out of university and as many of my classmates, without a job. I am only 22 so it is not the end of the world, but it is definitely not great either. It took a lot of effort on my end to become a chemist, but the job market has been tight. I started a job two weeks ago, nothing fancy but necessary to pay my bills as I don’t wish to lean on my parents for support. They have done a great job and now it is my time to take care of my life. Knowing that I could rely on them as an absolute safety net does give me a layer of comfort, one many don’t enjoy.

I will keep applying for careers where I can apply my skills, but until that happens I plan to lay the foundation for the rest of my life. During the last two years at university I was introduced to the world of forex together with three of my best friends. We had no knowledge about the topic, but came across an event which was held at an up-scale hotel. We decided to attend, it was free of charge and sounded interesting to say the least. Prior to attending we decided to do a bit of research in order to not be entirely clueless.

A lot of those events are sales pitches, free of charge with the hope that a few sign-up as new traders through the presenters affiliate links. We attended anyway, combined it with a girls night out at the hotel bar just to make sure it will be a great night no matter what. As the event started, we expected a typical sales pitch filled with presentations and tales of glory. I was surprised as the presenter did nothing of that sort. He actually talked about the opposite and the many ways forex traders fail. It was more discouraging at first, but the last part he did focus on the right steps to take if one wants to succeed.

I want to share some of the most important aspects that I have learned, the ones I plan to fully implement in the coming months and the ones I truly believe are necessary in order to have a chance of success. The presenter started with this sentence: “Everyone who came today wants to earn money by trading forex, otherwise you would not be here”. I think we all agreed and if you are reading this and nodding your head, then his next sentence may open your eyes: “In order to earn, you need to learn first. The word earn is part of the word learn. It is that simple.”

That got me thinking and not only was it that simple, it made perfect sense. At that time, I wanted to be a chemist and in order to start my career I had to spend four years on education. I could not just start as a chemist and learn as I go. Four years and almost $100,000 in tuition and related expenses just to be able to have a chance. Here I was, looking at a new profession which required the same. Without education, without learning how to become a forex trader it is not possible to become one. I understand that there is plenty of hype surrounding this issue and most point towards the low requirements.

My girlfriends and I decided to embark on this educational journey together. Over the past two years we spend at least one hour every day studying the topic together. While to some it may sound too little time and to others too much time, we had to create an action plan which allowed us to complete out studies and learns something new. Now we all earned our degree and at the same time feel confident to engage into forex trading. As we researched a good forex broker, one other sentence the presenter repeated time and again was: “You can’t learn how to trade forex in a demo account. Learn and practice in a live account, with small deposits and lot sizes of 0.01 and be prepared to blow an account or two.”

We picked PaxForex as our trusted forex broker, opened an account together and all contributed $500 into the account for a total of $1,500. PaxForex doubled our deposit and we started with $3,000. This provided us with a great foundation to work on a trading strategy. There are options to copy-past or follow other traders, but sit will leave us dependent on third-parties which we can’t control and we are three independent women so it’s not a choice for us. We put a lot of learning into forex so far, and we expect a lot of earning down the road. Just remember that without learning, there won’t be any earning.