Introduction

Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the biggest names in football. In case you are not familiar with him, he is one of the richest athletes; he has won 3 Ballon D’ors (world best footballer of the year). He is the first player to win four European Golden Show awards; he has three Premier League titles, one La Liga title, two UEFA Champions Leagues, one UEFA Super Cup, and two FIFA Club World Cups among others.
For investors, Cristiano Ronaldo might not ring much of a bell but the footballer has close links with the financial markets – to start with, he is the brand ambassador of Xtrade. You’ll probably be wondering if there’s any correlation between a footballer and investors or traders. Over time, I have came to came to an understanding that learning is an ongoing process and that you could learn some life’s most important lessons in the most unexpected of places.
This piece seeks to intimate you with 5 things that traders and investors can learn from Cristiano Ronaldo.

1. Believe in Yourself

Ronaldo started training to become a footballer at a young age, but many people doubted his talent and he admitted to having some doubts as well. However, he never gave up on his belief that he could be an exceptional footballer – neither should you give up on your dreams for being a successful trader/investor.
Believing in yourself, your skills, and your judgments might be one of the hardest mental exercises that traders and investors must do – especially in this age of self-styled gurus, experts, and pros who will force you to second-guess every trading decision you make. You should invest time and energy into learning all there is to learn about trading and investment. However, after you have done your due diligence, you should believe in yourself enough to stay true to your investment thesis if the fundamentals and technicals align – even if it means going contrarian to what the gurus say.

2. Practice Practice Practice

Ronaldo practices football as if his life depended on it – it was said that he remains on the training pitch long after the training session is over and his teammates have gone home. On his practice regimen, Carlos Queiroz, the coach of the Portuguese national team says,
“some great players that have so much belief that when things are not going well on the training field they just stop. They think, ‘I am good, today is not right, but tomorrow it will be fine…. Not Cristiano. He works and works until everything goes right and only then is he satisfied.”
This tip will be most valuable for beginner traders but veteran traders can still apply it toward new trading strategies, stock picking screens, and market-timing movements. Beginners are often advised to begin trading with a demo account – Xtrade.com offers a demo account where you can hone your skills before putting your money to the test. If you are still practicing trading on a demo account, it’s in your best interest to devote time to honing your skill by trading with paper money through different scenarios in order to improve your odds of making profits when you trade with real money.

3. Don’t allow Setbacks to Set You Back

All traders and investors lose money on some trades/investments as different times – any trader/investors who claims never to have lost money probably trades in their mind and not in the market. However, what separates successful traders and investors from the unsuccessful traders is that successful traders have more winning trades than losing trades.
To be a successful trader, you need to ensure that setbacks do not set you back. Whether trading with play money on a demo account or real money on a live account, you should keep a trading journal where you record your trades. The trade journal will help you identify what went wrong in your losing trades so that you can avoid such scenarios in the future.

4. Stay One Step ahead of the market

One of the key factors that has made Ronaldo a demigod on the football pitch is his ability to stay one (sometimes two) step ahead of opponents. When Ronaldo started attaining renown and fame as a footballer, he was the king of step-overs. However, a couple of months later, opponents started to understand how he did the step-overs; however, Ronaldo has developed his game in other areas and defenders are still playing catch-up.
As a trader or an investor, you need to stay a couple of steps ahead of the market if you want to make profits consistently. Smart traders know how to identify trends and place strategic trades to exploits the trends in the market. Some traders make their decisions based on recommendations from the “pros,” “experts,” and TV talking heads – if you are one of such traders, you can’t be ahead of the market and you’ll always be chasing a dying wave instead of riding the newest wave.

5. Never Stop Learning

Ronaldo has attained the peak that most footballers can only dream of attaining in their careers. Yet, Ronaldo strives to be the best even after he has been acknowledged as the best. Carlos Queiroz, the Portuguese coach quoted earlier says “The way this boy [Ronaldo] has worked since he was 17, his perfectionism, his obsession, he wants to be the one. For him, it is not enough to be good. He has to be the best.”
As a trader or an investor, you need to invest in continuous training and retraining to gather knowledge about your preferred trading instrument. It is also important that you keep yourself abreast of the latest information in fundamental and technical analysis.