Samy Bououchcha

As a young man, Samy Bououchcha realized early that he wanted to pursue a career that would enable him to be financially comfortable, provide him with a stable balance between work and his personal life, and allow him to enjoy all that life had to offer. At the age of 17, after some thought, he decided to try his hand at investing, specifically in currencies, commodities, and cryptocurrencies. Armed with a $10,000 loan from his parents, he began his professional journey. With a lot of research, as well as trial and error, Samy taught himself the art of trading. He found success relatively quickly, making enough money in the first few years of his career to pay off his parents’ house. Now, in his mid-20s, he has accumulated more than enough in assets to cover his expenses for the rest of his life. While he still trades for a few hours each day, Samy Bououchcha now spends a good deal of time trying to better himself personally. He splits his time between Monte Carlo, Monaco and Montreal, Quebec.

Where did the idea for your career come from?

It came from the fact that I wanted to find a way to enjoy everything that life has to offer. I didn’t want to have a 9 – 5 job, I didn’t want to have a boss, I didn’t want to have any restriction in my freedom during my life. So, I decided to choose a domain where I could be self-sufficient, I could be my own boss, and I could foster my entrepreneurial spirit. Basically, trading was the domain that resonated with me.

What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?

My typical day starts around 6 am here in Montreal. I have my breakfast, I go for a quick workout, and then I come back and go straight on the computer. I look at the markets. I look at any relevant headlines and news. I look at opportunities for the day and the coming week. Basically, I’ll be on the computer until 9 – 10 am, and then depending on the potential of the day, I’ll set my alarms and I’ll set my orders—my buy and sell orders—and everything will get triggered automatically. This set-up leaves me with enough time to do other stuff during the day. Sometimes I see my family, sometimes I conduct other business.

Later, around 6 – 7 pm, I will make a follow-up on all my transactions during the day. A few hours after that, I go to sleep. Basically, I spend 3 – 4 hours between the morning and evening on the computer looking at charts, graphs, and other data.

How do you bring ideas to life?

First, I need to figure out which direction I want to go in my life, in my business, and in my trading. Then I’ll make a plan that is flexible but defined. I’ll try to execute that idea—or those ideas—by making a small bit of progress on them every day. If I have a large idea, and I know it’s not going to be executed within a few days or a week, I’ll make up a calendar and an agenda in which I can divide the idea into ten, fifteen, or twenty parts. Then, I’ll accomplish one part a day. I won’t let myself go to sleep until I’ve accomplished the designated part for that day. The total sum of executing all these small actions and small parts results in the achievement of my idea.

What’s one trend that excites you?

One trend that excites me right now is the crypto market, especially factoring in all the news and the movements that have taken place since last year. I think there is great potential in the future for Bitcoin, yes, but for other currencies, too. I think it will change a lot of things in our society; the way we buy things, the way we claim property, and many more things, as well.

What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?

I’m very organized. I plan well in advance what I need to do each and every day. That habit allows me to wake up every day and just go straight to work because I have all my ideas sorted out and organized in my head. Then, all that’s left to do is execute them.

What advice would you give your younger self?

I would tell my younger self to not be so stubborn. There are many ways to achieve your objectives. There is not one singular, specific way to go about accomplishing your goals. There are, in fact, multiple ways to do so. You must find the one that fits your personality

Tell us something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on.

You have to build yourself up and take care of your own business before thinking of others. If you want to be a strong person for other people, and if you want to enjoy life free from worry and want, work on yourself first. That means managing all your problems and solving all your issues. Once you’ve sorted yourself out, then you can start helping others. Otherwise, if you start trying to manage other people’s problems as well as your own, you may end up becoming overwhelmed with responsibility and making everyone’s situation—including your own—much worse.

As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?

I try to look at what everyone else is doing in my specific domain of work. It’s a very valuable exercise to find out the strengths and weaknesses of the competition’s practices, then emulate their strengths and learn from their weaknesses. If you analyze all the competing businesses in your field and find some elements lacking, do the opposite of what they’re doing with regards to those elements. If you find that everyone who is successful in your field shares a common weakness, recognize it, try to understand why they share that flaw, and then improve upon it. Develop a solution to the problem.

What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business?

I find it’s oftentimes useful to fly in the face of conventional wisdom. Do the opposite of what everyone else does. I find that people tend to follow trends a little blindly, and they tend to all share the same mistakes. When I see so many people doing the same things, going in the same direction, I generally find that over-saturation often follows and I’ll go in the opposite direction. Employing that strategy has rewarded me many times in the past.

What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?

At a certain point, I became a bit too focused on the success of my trading and on money in general. I forgot to focus on myself. I was so concerned with continually adding to my holdings and amassing wealth that I became a bit blinded. I forgot to focus on my health and grow myself psychologically and work on my personality. At a certain point, I just became fed up with it. I reached my limit. I said to myself, “I need to wake up.” After all the good experiences I’d had in life—the cars, the trips, and everything else—I finally realized that’s not what life is about. It’s nice, but it shouldn’t be all-consuming. So, I put that mindset on the side and started working on myself. I started getting in shape, eating healthy, and working on myself on a day-to-day basis. That became my priority in life.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

One good business idea would be to open a fancy restaurant with the twist being, on the weekends, an artist is invited to paint a painting during the meal—sort of as high-brow entertainment. So, as people are seated for dinner service, the artist stands in front of a blank canvas and as the food service takes place over the course of the night, the artist creates the painting. At the end of the evening the resulting artwork could be made available for sale.

What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?

I bought some really comfortable boxer shorts. It was totally worth the money.

What is one piece of software or a web service that helps you be productive?

I like the Google Suite a lot, which consists of Google Calendar and Google Spreadsheet, among other programs. I find it indispensable. I use it for everything.

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?

I would recommend 12 Rules For Life by Jordan Peterson, as well as 12 More Rules For Life, also by the same author. That makes a total of 24 rules for life. These books are great. I would recommend them to everyone because they allow you to have a great vision of how you can live the most fulfilling and happy version of life that you can. The author spells out how this can be done by working on yourself and by adapting your mindset. Overall, it just aids in making you a more complete human being.

What is your favorite quote?

Here’s a trading quote that I like: “Investing what is comfortable is rarely profitable.”

Key Learnings:

• Work on yourself both mentally and physically before tackling the problems of others.

• Everything is possible. There are no restrictions depending on your age, educational background, or where you are from in the world. There are no specific rules that need to be followed. As the years unfold, there will be fewer and fewer rules for entrepreneurs.

• Making a lot of money is great to a certain point, but after that, you need focus on becoming a complete human being with a healthy perception of life in order to use that income to forward larger, better, and more constructive purposes.