[Education] How Did I Evolve As a Person After I Started Trading
I’m a funded prop firm trader with over 5 years in trading the forex market. I’ve tried it all, searching for the legendary holy grail. I’ve lost over 5 figures worth of money before I reached where I am today. From the usage of expert advisors, signals, PAMM, copy trading, account management, indicators, grid trading, martingale, scalping on the 5 seconds chart to swing trading, I’ve tried it all.
I started out as a noob, thinking forex is a get-rich-quick scheme. Initially, my small account grew by more than 1000% as I was overleveraging with no stop losses. I thought I was a god in trading. After a few more trades, I blew my account. I topped up my account with more funds and found myself losing all my hard-earned money. I burst plenty of accounts this way.
Similarly, due to greed, I found myself in the land of copy trading and expert advisors that use grid and martingale. You guessed it, I burst many more accounts thinking that these will get me my FIRE dream.
I know it sucked being wrong. It sucked even more losing money to the market. I know the ins and outs of the forex market. To be a good trader, trading strategy is just 1 part of the equation. You need to take into account psychology and risk management which are equally important.
I didn't get the "Aha" moment on my way to succeed. It's the gradual realization and the application of what I've learnt over the years made me successful.
Trading teaches me a lot. These are the growth that I'm aware of.
Teaches me discipline.
Teaches me who I really am.
I am not what I think I am.
Think in terms of probability, law of large numbers, risk management.
No more instant gratification. I’m patient.
Appreciate analysis of data.
Being aware of now.
Better at regulating my emotions.
Being strict with myself.
More tolerant of others.
Being humble and showing humility.
More work doesn’t always translate to more result.
Instant Gratification
With the rise of the internet, people demand instant gratification. This is detrimental to trading where we need the law of large numbers and probability to play out over a period of time for results to show.
In the beginning, take your time to learn and absorb all the knowledge. Build a strong foundation that can be used later on in your trading career. Do not rush so that you can start earning money.
Many of you tried to look for shortcuts. Let me tell you, there is none. You won’t believe me now. Trust me. A few months or years down the road, you will realized that you’ve wasted all these time for nothing.
It’s not about how fast you can profit from the market. It’s not about how fast you can trade live. It’s not about how fast you can do your technical analysis.
Your journey will look different from mine. It can take me months to understand concepts like sell-side and buy-side liquidity, but it could take you only a few days. There is no shortcut to application. You have to put in the work to grow. You won’t see this immediately. You can only see growth over time. This is the only shortcut you have in trading.
95% of the traders out there don’t stick to a system of learning and applying what they’ve learnt. They think that by apply some RSI and EMA, they are able to make it big. If it’s so easy, why are 95% of the traders not profitable? Many traders think that a system is shit after a few losing trades. There are ups and downs in trading. You can’t win 100% of the time.
Losses are felt more intensely than gains. Psychologically, 86% of the people are affected by a loss twice as much as a gain. This is loss aversion bias. To avoid a loss, people give up favorable trades. This is because most of you only focus on that 1 trade. You have to understand that trading is a game of probability. You need to have a large number of trades to allow probability to work in your favor. Take for example a 50% win rate trading strategy with a RRR of 1:2. Assuming you risk $10 per trade. Over a series of 100 trades, you are expected to have a profit of $500. [50 x ($20) + 50 x (-$10)]. This is favorable to you as a trader! So you have to get rid of looking at a single trade. But instead, look at a series of trades to let the law of large number play out. You will come out ahead if you let your edge play out.
Afraid of Losing
There are 5 outcomes in trading:
You win big
You lose big
You win small
You lose small
Breakeven
If you can eliminate #2, you’re going to be a profitable trader.
I’m a human too. I get how a losing trade can be disappointing. It’s even more disappointing if a 1% loss is equivalent to $1,000 on a $100,000 account. Think about all the good food and stuff you can buy with that amount of money.
Once you’re in a bad trade, do not move your stop loss. Your stop loss is there to cut your trade once price action invalidates your trade idea. Trading is a business. You want to be in the game for as long as possible. This gives you the chance for the law of big numbers and probability to work in your favour. Since this is a business, you’re bound to incur business expenses. Losing trades are your expenses, while winning trades are your revenue. You don’t see businesses spending all their capital on 1 single product. Neither should you risk all your capital into 1 trade. By having a strict risk management in place, you can lose 10 trades in a row, and still end up as a profitable trader at the end of 50 trades.
I have a 40% win rate and ~2.5 RR strategy. I got the data from my backtesting. I know how I will perform in the live market if I trade according to how I backtested my strategy. I know what to expect, what’s my potential losing streak, what’s my maximum drawdown. I don’t cling onto that 1 losing trade as I know I can lose an average of 6 trades out of 10 trades.
The important thing in trading is your long-term equity. As long as you’re looking at a general uptrend, you’re already performing better than 90% of the traders out there.
Afraid of failing
I failed a lot.
I can show you screenshots of my failed attempts with The Funded Trader challenges.
These are just from 1 prop firm. But once you've found consistency, you can recoup all your losses.
It doesn’t matter who you are, you have to pay the entrance fees multiple times in order to achieve success.
Don’t be afraid of the entry price. You pay it, and you will earn it back. It’s just like your money. You pay for Coldplay’s concert today, at the end of the month, you will earn your money back.
You will fail, and it’s fine.
You will fail again and again. That happens to everyone.
You will learn when you fail.
Don’t trap yourself in a life you don’t want to be in.
Understanding The Basics
Understanding probability is the first step towards your success.
There are a lot of ways to profitability. You can have a high win rate, but low risk-to-reward ratio, or a low win rate, but high risk-to-reward ratio. Before you say you want a high risk-to-reward ratio trading strategy, you have to understand how your psychology works. Are you able to execute the same trade that fits your trading strategy again and again, despite losing 10 or 20 trades in a row? Will you start to doubt your trading strategy looking at your account balance going lower and lower every time you take a trade?
Next, you will need to understand risk management and probability. They both go hand-in-hand. When you’re trading live, you have to accept the risk for each trade you’re taking. You have to accept that you can be wrong more than you’re right. You cannot control the outcome of your trades. However, you can control the amount of risk you take per trade. I recommend risking 1% or lower for each trade. The goal here is to prioritize capital preservation. By limiting your risk to 1% a trade, you are able to keep your account balance relatively safe. Compare this to people who risk 20% or 50% a trade. In a few losing trades, their account balance will be very close to $0. These are the gamblers that do not have the right risk management skills.
A good trader will be able to differentiate between these trades. A good trade should be a trade that follows your trading strategy, risk management and trade management plans. Even if this trade ends up losing money or closing at breakeven, it’s still a good trade as you did not deviate from your trading plans. On the other hand, taking trades that deviate from your trading strategy is a no go, even if it ends up being a winner. This could be a lucky trade. Luck is not a sustainable trading strategy. What if you did this again and the trade turns out to be a winner again? It will inflate your ego and lead to more of such trades. When you luck runs out, you will find that you lose more than you win.
Relying On Others
But Keeley, I can just follow signals of profitable traders or get EA and courses from people who are successful. You need to understand that there are a lot of scammers in the trading world.
Scammers feed off human’s greed. Many times, they will tell you that they can help you pass your prop firm challenges, give you free signals or sell you highly profitable EAs which usually consist of very high win rate, using very low risk. If you think about it, why would you send cold messages to random people if you have such a good system? I could very easily use these systems and make millions of money myself instead of doing “sales” on these systems.
Proof can very easily be falsified in the online world. Make sure they are using 3rd party verification such as myfxbook or fxblue, using legitimate brokers such as Pepperstone, Oanda or IC Market. Many scammers can use white-label brokers. They paid to get a broker name, so that they can deposit “capital” into their account with the server showing “live”. Their track record and trading privileges can be seen as verified, but their records can still be falsified.
I’m not saying not to get any of the signals, EA or courses. You have to make things work yourself. Their system could be profitable for them because the trading style fits their personality. It could be a low win rate, but high RR trading system, but your trading psychology could not handle the period of drawdown. You will soon discard this trading system as it doesn’t fit your personality.
Accountability Partner
Having an accountability partner or a mentor is the best solution to you being profitable.
Having someone there for you when you feel down and unmotivated can be motivating.
It's hard to find a suitable mentor or accountability partner given the nature of the financial market. There are a lot of scammers out there selling course materials which you can find online. You need to know that the person selling the course or mentorship does not rely on sales for a living. But instead, he must be earning most of his income from trading. Look at his content, see if they resonates with you. Look at his track record, are they afraid of showing 3rd party verification? Do they only show you screenshots of trades that have already happened? Do they only show their results on excel sheet?
If you're serious about bringing your trading to the next level, consider getting one.
This has been a game changer for me.
Remember, trading is not an easy hustle. It take years of hard work, losses and, breakeven to achieve consistent profitability.
Stay consistent. Stay safe. Success is just around the corner.
If you enjoy such content, feel free to click the like button and subscribe for more.
Let me know what are your thoughts and learning points in the comments below so others can learn from you too!
Please let me know what kind of topic you would like to read next :)
Happy weekend!
I started out as a noob, thinking forex is a get-rich-quick scheme. Initially, my small account grew by more than 1000% as I was overleveraging with no stop losses. I thought I was a god in trading. After a few more trades, I blew my account. I topped up my account with more funds and found myself losing all my hard-earned money. I burst plenty of accounts this way.
Similarly, due to greed, I found myself in the land of copy trading and expert advisors that use grid and martingale. You guessed it, I burst many more accounts thinking that these will get me my FIRE dream.
I know it sucked being wrong. It sucked even more losing money to the market. I know the ins and outs of the forex market. To be a good trader, trading strategy is just 1 part of the equation. You need to take into account psychology and risk management which are equally important.
I didn't get the "Aha" moment on my way to succeed. It's the gradual realization and the application of what I've learnt over the years made me successful.
Trading teaches me a lot. These are the growth that I'm aware of.
Teaches me discipline.
Teaches me who I really am.
I am not what I think I am.
Think in terms of probability, law of large numbers, risk management.
No more instant gratification. I’m patient.
Appreciate analysis of data.
Being aware of now.
Better at regulating my emotions.
Being strict with myself.
More tolerant of others.
Being humble and showing humility.
More work doesn’t always translate to more result.
Instant Gratification
With the rise of the internet, people demand instant gratification. This is detrimental to trading where we need the law of large numbers and probability to play out over a period of time for results to show.
In the beginning, take your time to learn and absorb all the knowledge. Build a strong foundation that can be used later on in your trading career. Do not rush so that you can start earning money.
Many of you tried to look for shortcuts. Let me tell you, there is none. You won’t believe me now. Trust me. A few months or years down the road, you will realized that you’ve wasted all these time for nothing.
It’s not about how fast you can profit from the market. It’s not about how fast you can trade live. It’s not about how fast you can do your technical analysis.
Your journey will look different from mine. It can take me months to understand concepts like sell-side and buy-side liquidity, but it could take you only a few days. There is no shortcut to application. You have to put in the work to grow. You won’t see this immediately. You can only see growth over time. This is the only shortcut you have in trading.
95% of the traders out there don’t stick to a system of learning and applying what they’ve learnt. They think that by apply some RSI and EMA, they are able to make it big. If it’s so easy, why are 95% of the traders not profitable? Many traders think that a system is shit after a few losing trades. There are ups and downs in trading. You can’t win 100% of the time.
Losses are felt more intensely than gains. Psychologically, 86% of the people are affected by a loss twice as much as a gain. This is loss aversion bias. To avoid a loss, people give up favorable trades. This is because most of you only focus on that 1 trade. You have to understand that trading is a game of probability. You need to have a large number of trades to allow probability to work in your favor. Take for example a 50% win rate trading strategy with a RRR of 1:2. Assuming you risk $10 per trade. Over a series of 100 trades, you are expected to have a profit of $500. [50 x ($20) + 50 x (-$10)]. This is favorable to you as a trader! So you have to get rid of looking at a single trade. But instead, look at a series of trades to let the law of large number play out. You will come out ahead if you let your edge play out.
Afraid of Losing
There are 5 outcomes in trading:
You win big
You lose big
You win small
You lose small
Breakeven
If you can eliminate #2, you’re going to be a profitable trader.
I’m a human too. I get how a losing trade can be disappointing. It’s even more disappointing if a 1% loss is equivalent to $1,000 on a $100,000 account. Think about all the good food and stuff you can buy with that amount of money.
Once you’re in a bad trade, do not move your stop loss. Your stop loss is there to cut your trade once price action invalidates your trade idea. Trading is a business. You want to be in the game for as long as possible. This gives you the chance for the law of big numbers and probability to work in your favour. Since this is a business, you’re bound to incur business expenses. Losing trades are your expenses, while winning trades are your revenue. You don’t see businesses spending all their capital on 1 single product. Neither should you risk all your capital into 1 trade. By having a strict risk management in place, you can lose 10 trades in a row, and still end up as a profitable trader at the end of 50 trades.
I have a 40% win rate and ~2.5 RR strategy. I got the data from my backtesting. I know how I will perform in the live market if I trade according to how I backtested my strategy. I know what to expect, what’s my potential losing streak, what’s my maximum drawdown. I don’t cling onto that 1 losing trade as I know I can lose an average of 6 trades out of 10 trades.
The important thing in trading is your long-term equity. As long as you’re looking at a general uptrend, you’re already performing better than 90% of the traders out there.
Afraid of failing
I failed a lot.
I can show you screenshots of my failed attempts with The Funded Trader challenges.
These are just from 1 prop firm. But once you've found consistency, you can recoup all your losses.
It doesn’t matter who you are, you have to pay the entrance fees multiple times in order to achieve success.
Don’t be afraid of the entry price. You pay it, and you will earn it back. It’s just like your money. You pay for Coldplay’s concert today, at the end of the month, you will earn your money back.
You will fail, and it’s fine.
You will fail again and again. That happens to everyone.
You will learn when you fail.
Don’t trap yourself in a life you don’t want to be in.
Understanding The Basics
Understanding probability is the first step towards your success.
There are a lot of ways to profitability. You can have a high win rate, but low risk-to-reward ratio, or a low win rate, but high risk-to-reward ratio. Before you say you want a high risk-to-reward ratio trading strategy, you have to understand how your psychology works. Are you able to execute the same trade that fits your trading strategy again and again, despite losing 10 or 20 trades in a row? Will you start to doubt your trading strategy looking at your account balance going lower and lower every time you take a trade?
Next, you will need to understand risk management and probability. They both go hand-in-hand. When you’re trading live, you have to accept the risk for each trade you’re taking. You have to accept that you can be wrong more than you’re right. You cannot control the outcome of your trades. However, you can control the amount of risk you take per trade. I recommend risking 1% or lower for each trade. The goal here is to prioritize capital preservation. By limiting your risk to 1% a trade, you are able to keep your account balance relatively safe. Compare this to people who risk 20% or 50% a trade. In a few losing trades, their account balance will be very close to $0. These are the gamblers that do not have the right risk management skills.
A good trader will be able to differentiate between these trades. A good trade should be a trade that follows your trading strategy, risk management and trade management plans. Even if this trade ends up losing money or closing at breakeven, it’s still a good trade as you did not deviate from your trading plans. On the other hand, taking trades that deviate from your trading strategy is a no go, even if it ends up being a winner. This could be a lucky trade. Luck is not a sustainable trading strategy. What if you did this again and the trade turns out to be a winner again? It will inflate your ego and lead to more of such trades. When you luck runs out, you will find that you lose more than you win.
Relying On Others
But Keeley, I can just follow signals of profitable traders or get EA and courses from people who are successful. You need to understand that there are a lot of scammers in the trading world.
Scammers feed off human’s greed. Many times, they will tell you that they can help you pass your prop firm challenges, give you free signals or sell you highly profitable EAs which usually consist of very high win rate, using very low risk. If you think about it, why would you send cold messages to random people if you have such a good system? I could very easily use these systems and make millions of money myself instead of doing “sales” on these systems.
Proof can very easily be falsified in the online world. Make sure they are using 3rd party verification such as myfxbook or fxblue, using legitimate brokers such as Pepperstone, Oanda or IC Market. Many scammers can use white-label brokers. They paid to get a broker name, so that they can deposit “capital” into their account with the server showing “live”. Their track record and trading privileges can be seen as verified, but their records can still be falsified.
I’m not saying not to get any of the signals, EA or courses. You have to make things work yourself. Their system could be profitable for them because the trading style fits their personality. It could be a low win rate, but high RR trading system, but your trading psychology could not handle the period of drawdown. You will soon discard this trading system as it doesn’t fit your personality.
Accountability Partner
Having an accountability partner or a mentor is the best solution to you being profitable.
Having someone there for you when you feel down and unmotivated can be motivating.
It's hard to find a suitable mentor or accountability partner given the nature of the financial market. There are a lot of scammers out there selling course materials which you can find online. You need to know that the person selling the course or mentorship does not rely on sales for a living. But instead, he must be earning most of his income from trading. Look at his content, see if they resonates with you. Look at his track record, are they afraid of showing 3rd party verification? Do they only show you screenshots of trades that have already happened? Do they only show their results on excel sheet?
If you're serious about bringing your trading to the next level, consider getting one.
This has been a game changer for me.
Remember, trading is not an easy hustle. It take years of hard work, losses and, breakeven to achieve consistent profitability.
Stay consistent. Stay safe. Success is just around the corner.
If you enjoy such content, feel free to click the like button and subscribe for more.
Let me know what are your thoughts and learning points in the comments below so others can learn from you too!
Please let me know what kind of topic you would like to read next :)
Happy weekend!
Prop Firm Funded Trader
Find out more about me here: linktr.ee/kt_fx
Find out more about me here: linktr.ee/kt_fx
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