Terry Tran
近幾年中，有很多人問過我相同的問題：你是做什麼的？你怎麼做的？你為什麼這麼做？
其實原因很簡單。
我喜歡投資和交易，我也想為家人和自己實現財務自由。
我實現了自己的目標，我也鼓勵其他人這樣做。對我來說，能夠幫助別人改變人生，過上更好的生活是件很幸福的事情。
人們常常忘記財務自由會有很多副產品。他們會擁有時間自由、地點自由以及人生經歷自由。
財務自由會讓你有更多的時間和家人相處，去做喜歡的事。雖然聽起來很平淡，但你不用送了孩子上學之後再急急忙忙地沖進早高峰去上班。
地點自由指的是你可以住在任何國家的任何城市，你可以去任何地方旅遊。只要你去的地方有網絡，你的投資和交易就不會受到影響。
我最熱衷的是經歷自由，我想要各種豐富的體驗。我可以駕駛著直升飛機飛躍尼亞加拉大瀑佈，橫跨新西蘭冰帽山，穿越阿拉斯加荒野，乘著獨木舟和座頭鲸一同漂遊，到斐濟追蹤詛咒射線，或是到巴厘島的湍急水流中泛舟。
我說的這些，我都做到了。
人們會把財務自由同很多事物聯系起來。一開始，我對“財務自由”的定義是銀行賬戶裡有一百萬美金。我想成為百萬富翁。為什麼不呢？
但擁有一百萬意味著什麼？其實你想要的不是印有總統和名人頭像的一百萬紙鈔，對吧？
你真正想要的是一百萬能為你和你的家人帶來些什麼。換句話說，你想要財務自由、時間自由、地點自由以及經歷自由。
很多人不知道我是誰，我先來介紹下自己。其實我沒有什麼背景，只是一個跟隨父母逃出越南戰争的難民。我們想要逃到新世界，但是除了身上穿著的衣服，我們一無所有。值得慶幸的是，當我們的小船在風雨飄搖的海上搖搖欲墜，即將沉沒之時，一輛貨船駛過，我們因此獲救。我們有幸在澳大利亞著陸，開始了我們的新生活。那是我第一次品嘗到自由的味道。那時的自由，是個新的國家，沒有共產主義的鎮壓。
為了重新開始生活，媽媽同時做了很多份工作，她到工廠做幫工，也到餐廳洗盤子。所以在我很小的時候，追尋財務自由的目標就根植在我的腦海中。我很饑餓，我需要的不是食物，是金錢的成功。
那我是怎樣通過交易和投資實現財務自由呢？我會交叉地進行交易或投資，因為它們從本質上來說是一樣的，只是時間框架不同。投資的時間更長，需要長期持有等待機會。交易指的是頻繁地進行買賣投資。
我相信，如果你沒有找到充分的理由，是做不了長期投資的。在你遇到難題或是虧損時，你要麼把它只當成一個愛好，要麼就會退出。因為你遭受的不僅是經濟上的虧損，還有感情上的損失。
對於長期投資者或交易者來說，他們會堅持不懈，克服這些困難。
這是我的經驗之談。雖然我在開始交易時看了很多專業書籍，也參加了不計其數的專家研讨會，但仍苦苦掙紮了兩年。賬戶裡的錢都賠光了，餘額變成了負數，最終欠下了八萬美元。為了追尋夢想，我不得不抵押了我的房子。
雖然付出了很大的代價，但是我真的非常熱愛交易，我相信總能找到出路。因為其他人已經做到了，所以我要堅持。不要曲解我的意思，困難是暫時的，我最終克服了他們。
幸運的是，這兩年連續虧損給我帶來了極為重要的經驗。在接下來的五年中，情況逆轉，我終於實現了夢寐以求的財務自由，我還建立了一個對沖基金來照顧其他人。
一本書改變了我對財務自由的看法。我曾提到過，每個人對財務自由都有獨特的看法，我最初認為財務自由就是成為百萬富翁。
但財務自由並不意味著成為百萬富翁，坐擁無數的奢侈品，而是指你因投資產生的被動收入可以負擔得起你的開銷。字面上看很簡單，但它卻有著深層的含義。
這種財務自由的理解方式不僅看起來可以實現，而且會緩解你的壓力。你的目標會變得很簡單，而不再是遙不可及的百萬富翁夢。
一旦實現了這樣的財務自由，其他的一切也會隨之而來。
如果你認為你的消費中有浪費之處，依照財務自由的概念，你需要控制支出，從而加速實現目標。
如果你的生活簡單、花銷不高，那麼實現目標就容易得多。你有沒有見過那種所謂的成功人士？他們高職高薪卻也沒有實現財務自由，他們掙得多，花的也多。我見過這種人，我就是其中一員。
我現在的生活很簡單，不追求大別墅、歐洲跑車或是名牌服裝，但我會四處旅遊。我曾夢想走遍一百個不同的國家，和我親愛的家人朋友一起，體驗不同民族的文化和生活。我很幸運，已經在三十個國家留下了足迹。
有趣的是，一旦你感受到了財務自由，你的投資和交易也會發生神奇的變化，因為你變得自由和充裕了，不再跟錢較勁，你會更註重過程。
事實上，大多數成功的長期投資者和交易者，比如專業對沖基金經理，關註的不是資金和回報，而是每天的操作過程，因為資金回報是自然產生的副產品。
我希望有一天，投資和交易能夠幫助你實現財務自由。
有些搖頭族認為這不可能實現，但我就是個活生生的例子，我沒有任何背景，我只是起於微末。
慢點再穩妥點，何必著急呢？
Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom
Author: Terry Tran June 04, 2015
I have been asked by a lot of people over the years about what I do and how I do what I do, and importantly for what purpose?
Well, the answer is simple…
I enjoy investing and trading and I do so because my ‘WHY’ is to create financial freedom for my family and myself.
As it happens, I have also helped inspire others to do the same, which gives me great joy, knowing I have been able to help change someone’s life for the better.
People forget that financial freedom has multiple by-products. They are time freedom, location freedom and life experiences freedom.
Financial freedom allows you to have time for your family, time to do what you love -which may be to just do the very simple things in life, like taking your children to school without rushing back to work or simply enjoying a stroll in the park.
When I say location freedom, I mean being able to be located anywhere in the world, whether it be to live or to travel and still be able to pursue investing and trading, as long as you are able to connect online to execute your trade orders.
The one thing I am most passionate about is the ability to have experiences freedom, which simply means I get to experience activities like taking a helicopter flight over the Niagara Falls or over the ice cap mountains of New Zealand, hiking through the Alaskan wilderness, kayaking with the humpback whales, chasing mantra rays in Fiji, white water rafting the rapids in Bali…
I get to live life fully is what I am really trying to say.
People associate financial freedom in multiple ways. Even for myself, I remember chasing ‘financial freedom’ and my definition was to have one million dollars in my bank account. I wanted to be a millionaire. Who doesn’t?
But what does having a million dollars actually mean? I don’t think you really want a million pieces of paper with deceased famous presidents and other famous people, right?
What you really want is what this million dollars can do for you and your family. In other words, you hope it gives you that financial freedom, time freedom, location freedom and experiences freedom I just spoke about.
For those who don’t know my story, I came from a very humble background. I was what one would classify as a refugee child who had just escaped the Vietnam War by wooden boat with his parents, seeking a new world with nothing but the clothes on our backs. Luckily we survived this treacherous journey in the rough seas as our boat actually began sinking but was rescued by a cargo ship who happened to sail past. We were fortunate to have landed in Australia to begin rebuilding our lives. That was my first taste of freedom. Freedom in a new country, without communist oppression for the very first time.
So from a very early age, seeking financial freedom seemed to have been ingrained into me because I saw with my child’s eyes my mother working multiple jobs at factories and washing dishes in restaurants to make ends meet and rebuilding a financial future.
So it was my intention from a very young age to ensure I could look after her once I grew up and hence this desire to become independently financially free drove me. I was hungry, not for food, but for financial success
Enough about me, so what is your ‘Why’ to become financially free through trading or investing? I will use trading and investing interchangeably as I believe it is essentially the same thing apart from timeframes. Investing just involves a longer timeframe for holding onto an opportunity you have found. Trading means you buy and sell your investing opportunities much more frequently.
I believe that if you don’t find a big enough ‘Why’, your chances of long term investment success is diminished because you will either treat it as a hobby or when the going gets tough and you make some losses (which is inevitable, by the way, even for the very best on the planet), you will quit because you have suffered not just a financial loss but an emotional loss.
For those investors or traders that succeed long term, their ‘Why’ enables them to get through these tough times and keep on going.
This was my experience. Although I read all the books when I began, attended numerous ‘guru’ seminars all around the world to learn all I could about investing and trading, I struggled for the first two years. My account not only went nowhere, but it went into the red to the tune of about negative eighty thousand dollars which meant I had mortgage my home to pursue this dream.
That was a lot of money but I loved the game so much and I knew there just had to be a way because I had heard of others who had done it, so I just kept on going. Don’t get me wrong, I had my doubts but my ‘Why’ was big enough to overcome this temporary defeat.
Luckily, after those two years of experiencing consistent losses but learning valuable lessons on the way, things did turn around over the next five years and I achieved that financial freedom I was seeking and eventually founded a hedge fund to look after others as well.
A very important book also changed the way I saw financial freedom. I mentioned earlier that everyone has their own perception of what financial freedom means to them - I thought being a millionaire was financial freedom when I began.
I learned that financial freedom is not about just becoming a millionaire, accumulating all the toys and luxurious goods you can get your hands on, but simply to gain enough passive income through your investments to cover your expenses in life. Such a simple but yet profound definition.
Not only does this way of viewing financial freedom seem very achievable, it also relieves the pressure you place on yourself because you can now strive for this simple goal when you begin, not some distant arbitrary millionaire dream.
Once this is achieved, everything else becomes a by-product of now enjoying your work.
This definition also allows you to adjust your expenses down if you believe there is a lot of waste in your spending habits and hence can speed up your journey to your own financial freedom, whatever that may be.
So it makes it much easier if you live simply and have low expenses. Not sure about you, but have you ever seen very high corporate income earners who, on the surface, seem very successful because of their position and high salaries, but never seem to be financially free simply because of very high daily living expenses? I have. I was unfortunately one of them in my previous life as a corporate employee with a large major bank.
I now live very simply; I don’t chase fancy big houses, European sports cars and branded clothing etc. etc. But I do travel well as I have a dream of setting foot on over a hundred different countries to experience the natural beauty of wildlife and history this world offers and really experience the joy of living through my travels with friends and family I love. I have been lucky enough to have set foot on over thirty different countries to date.
Funny thing is, once you feel the financial freedom, your investing and trading actually improves dramatically because you not only feel free and abundant, but you can now focus not on the money but on the process.
In fact, most long term successful investors and traders, including professional hedge fund managers, focus not on the money and returns but on their daily processes, and the money and returns become the by-product which naturally occurs.
I hope, over time, investing and trading becomes your path to the financial freedom you seek. It has for me.
For the naysayers who say it can’t be done, I am living proof that it can be, even from a very humble background and a very bad start.
Begin slowly and safely. What’s the rush?
本文翻譯由兄弟財經提供
文章來源：http://www.traderplanet.com/articles/view/168484-trade-your-way-to-financial-freedom/