Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Coaching and Catches

I spoke with my personal coach, Rob Craig, this morning. This was the first of sixteen of our regular Wednesday morning phone calls. I'm really looking forward to working with Rob. He's very honest and to the point about things. When we spoke I informed him of what I've paid etc... He explained to me that coaching alone is $3,500. I've paid $12,000 to participate in this special program that the Teach Me To Trade folks sold me (see: The Next Success Story). Both of us couldn't help but wonder what the balance of $8,500 went towards. After further review of the program I signed up for, I have an additional day in person with my mentor and another advanced training course. I also get a discount on additional training courses (which I do plan to follow through with after I'm trading successfully in the market). I'm not sure exactly how those all balance out, but courses officially sell for $5,900 and the extra day in person with my mentor is certainly worth some money... Let's assume the balance.

This is a huge amount of money for me to carry on my credit card and leaves me with little to trade with. I'm still happy to be on the path to Professional Trading, and truly see it as a viable future, but it seems I've handicapped myself for the short term. I guess the good part about having spent so much money on training is that I can't afford to not pay attention and not put the knowledge to use as soon as possible. I do expect that I'll be able to recoup the cost of the classes through the market within a year's time (hopefully sooner). I practically have to recoup my money through the market. How else can I dig myself out of this kind of debt?

Am I in a precarious position? Yes, and it's unlike any I've ever been in before as I am rather conservative, especially on the debt side of the equation. If you think it's some strange dichotomy for me to be debt conservative, yet willing to put my money (and livelihood) into trading... I can sum it up with the following statement: I have an aversion to debt.

Do I feel that I've been ripped off by EduTrades, Inc./TMTT? No, I don't think so. Certainly knowing what I know now I would have rather paid only $3,500 for the coaching and kept the rest for trading. I am very happy to have personal attention and individually tailored coaching, and I couldn't be happier with Rob as my coach. I see personal attention as one of the most valuable of the services TMTT offers. After all, every professional trader that I've read about has had a mentor that helped them become successful.

Rob is rather insistent that I only paper trade for the majority of the time I'm training with him. He also informed me that 85% of people that begin to take the path to becoming a professional trader quit within 6 months. As you must know by now, I'm not in this for the short term. I have made a real commitment to becoming a professional trader. I'm obviously not going to recoup my money until I'm actually doing live trades, which won't happen quite as soon as I was lead to believe when Tim Kane asked me to participate in the special package they offered. Being completely new to trading, I'm ok with running paper trades while I cut my teeth. It's much better to burn paper than real money and I would like to learn from my mistakes as safely as possible.

I'm feeling slightly desperate being this much in debt. I'm still awaiting an update on my credit report in order to figure out what can be done to make the loan less costly. I certainly hope TMTT is able to help me negotiate my card rate and balance with Chase (as they have offered and claimed that they've done successfully in the past) to make it possible for me to float that money with a lower usage cost.

Knowing all that I've just shared with you, what would you do differently? Comments are very welcome.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mark, I have attended two of the TMTT 3 day seminars. One alone and one with my husband and two grown children.We have the software but need to wait on the classes for now. I look forward to reading your experiences. I am rooting for you!

Anonymous said...

Mark,

This is 18Chief from the scam.com forum regarding TMTT.

I admire your dedication and committment to achieving your goals. You seem to be intelligent and determined and I wish you nothing but success. However I am concerned that you have invested so much of your time, energy and especially money in an organization headed by Russ Whitney.

Perhaps your mentor indeed has his heart in the right place and that fact coupled with your own efforts will be enough to launch you towards attaining the life you desire via trading securities professionally. I just can't help but insist that if such a scenario ever plays out it will be in spite of Russ Whitney and not because of him.

Please visit www.johntreed.com and click "Real Estate guru ratings" for a complete profile of Russ Whitney. Mr. Reed exposes him far better and in greater detail than I ever could. I am in no way affiliated with John T. Reed. I don't profit in any way by referring people to his site. It's just that his scathing reviews of Whitney and other miserable thieves like him are so accurate, thorough and undeniable that any student of Whitney's should read them to get a better idea of the person they have cast their lot with. I believe you owe it to yourself to learn as much about Whitney as you can and then draw your own conclusions. I'm not sure you fully realize the type of person you are relying on and giving your money to.

In closing I'd like to again wish you luck and happiness and success in your endeavors. I'm pulling for you Mark.


Respectfully,

18Chief

taocode said...

Thank you both for the support. I'm really hoping everyone finds my blog useful. It's meant to be an insight into what it's like to go through the training, personally, financially, emotionally, etc...

taocode said...

To: 18Chief,

Thanks for coming and checking out my blog, and for the support. I am aware of John T. Reed, and the postings on his site about Russ Whitney. I do appreciate your concern, and I understand where it comes from given the negative experiences people have had with Russ Whitney's real estate classes. Where the line is drawn between EduTrades and Russ Whitney is a bit of a mystery to me, but EduTrades (TMTT), seems to be a fairly separate entity.

In terms of my success relative to others and what credit is do where: I can only give a personal account as accurately as I can. I'll give credit to TMTT, my mentor, coach and classes where they help and will take credit for my own diligence where appropriate. I will not speak to other people's experiences, because my blog is meant as a personal account. Perhaps someday there'll be a spin-off discussion board somewhere for other people with first-hand experience to share.

I'm glad to know I've got a couple people out there in my corner, your support and concern truly is appreciated!

Anonymous said...

Hello Mark,

I, too, am rooting you on. You may appreciate this even more by knowing my personal success with TMTT. A few years ago I purchased two camps and a mentor. Two years ago, June 14th to be exact, I was able to quit my job as a Sales and Marketing Director and trade full time. I've been trading seven years now, but my success didn't come until I got formal training from TMTT.

For me, the mentoring (personal attention) was the most valuable part of the whole program. Nothing beats sitting one-on-one with a professional trader.

I cannot speak for everyone, but I can certainly speak for myself; TMTT has helped me become a professional trader and I make far more today than I ever did working full-time.

des

Anonymous said...

Hi Mark,

I signed up for 2 classes and mentoring. Later I got a call from TMTT because they wanted to sell me the COACHING. (Apparently, they don't sell the coaching at the seminar. It is only offered after someone buys.) I got a call and a confusing offer for the coaching and some talk about levels for the cost of around $9,000 (and another more expensive level). But it was too much for me to add to my already big debt load, so I turned it down. Well, I got a follow up call from some other guy asking why I turned it down. I said it was too much. He was ready with a quick come back and clearly explained that the coaching was $3500, so then he tried to sell me the better offer. If I would have agreed to the first offer for coaching I would not realized that it included an extra class because the first offer was confusing. It seems like you got a similar offer for coaching which included other stuff as an up-sell, but may not have been all that clear. Anyways, I hope others can benefit from this. - Scott

taocode said...

Thanks for the additional information Scott, I think others will find it useful. Your experience seems to be the fairly normal path for things. I have heard rumors that the coaching has gone up to $4,000. I can't recommend the coaching strongly enough. My experience with Rob Craig has been terrific and what he has to teach me has really helped me to evolve into a Professional Trader. I know I'm on the right path and Rob has helped keep me there.