By @AshJBibby

For the summer before unknowingly starting school I decided to have a dabble at trading in the forex market. For those who are unsure on what the forex market is, it is basically buying or selling some foreign currency against a different kind of foreign currency and hoping it makes or loses money in your favour. It’s all pretty simple.

I was stuck in a dull part-time job making a pittance and wanted to make a bit of spare cash in my time off, so instead of getting another mind-numbingly dull job I thought to myself ‘hey, why don’t I start trading? It was works out wonderfully well in those movies. How hard can it be?’ So I found a broker, signed up and placed my first trade. This was a huge mistake.

It wasn’t a mistake because I had zero knowledge in what on earth I was doing but a mistake because forex took over my life. With it being open all day, every weekday and with seconds and minutes meaning the world of difference in the amount of money you will take home, you can’t help but think about it all the time. The last thing I did before bed was check the markets and the first thing I did when I woke up was check the markets. There were countless amounts of times I was sat in front of my computer in my boxers just staring at charts. It became crazily addictive.

Plus when you realise that even the people that have been doing it for years, much like the creative industry, still don’t have a clue what they are doing it only encourages you further. But probably one of the greatest but most annoying parts of trading is that fact that once you close a trade, you automatically know how well or bad you had done. Which also sadly means it lets you know how well you could have done if your timings had been better. If only I did this instead of this, it was frustratingly stressful. Meaning even if you made a good trade you still couldn’t be happy as you could have done it better, perfection was near impossible.

Fast forward a few months to the present day and although advertising and forex are worlds apart the effect is still the same. Advertising & SCA are the new things occupying my life, from the moment I wake up to the dying moments when I’m failing to sleep, I can’t help but have advertising or random thoughts rattling around in my mind.

The frustrating stressfulness in my performance is still here as well. Whereas in forex after each decision you would know how well or bad you have done, in advertising it is the complete opposite. Subjectivity is everything. One persons idea of a great ad is another persons idea of a terrible ad.

Do I prefer this over the instant results style? I don’t actually know, both are annoyingly frustrating and leave you scratching your head. At least in advertising you know perfection is impossible, you should never be happy with anything you produce and should always strive to do better. Everyone’s a critic so try and prove them all wrong.

In the end I had to hang up my charts after getting an offer for the school. I made a tiny profit in the short time I was a boxer wearing trader, and the offer from school was the perfect excuse to quit on a small high before no doubt losing a shed load of money to the suit wearing traders.

Thanks,

Ashley Bibby