“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.” – Anatole France
It has never been easier to live a lifeless life. In the blink of an eye, you go from being a kid full of dreams to a penguin working a 9 to 5. Wrinkles, first grey hair, stress, and… dead dreams. When was the last time you dreamed? I’m not talking about taking a few days off in a cool place. I’m talking of a complete U-turn—a different life. I’m talking goosebumps, excitement, and pure happiness.
Something struck me a couple of days ago when I connected back to Twitter (shame on me): super low interactions across the board.
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It’s all cycles…
Remember the ghost town that social media becomes at year's end, like a once-thriving marketplace now echoing with the footsteps of the few? Fintwit is the perfect example of forgotten dreams. After an insane 2022 and an even crazier 2023, most players have lost their last chip.
Fresh blood will come and go. The question is, will you be part of it?
It's a cycle, much like the traders' journey. I've felt it - that rush of adrenaline in the highs, the crushing weight in the lows. It's more than just numbers; it's a rollercoaster of hopes and fears, where every dip and rise can feel like a life-altering event.
But it still hurts me. I’ve been there. Maybe I’ll be again in the future (touching wood). Why does it hurt me? Because I spend a good amount of time sharing stuff. Sharing 1 hour here and there with people every week to try to help some long-term readers.
Most of the time, I never hear back from people. I already know, even before taking on a call, that most of the time, it won’t be helpful. But I’m optimistic and still did these free calls quite regularly over the last two years.
What hurts me the most is that I’ve been there, and I know exactly what some of you are going through. The deep pain from failing day after day. The shame. Trading is a very personal adventure. It’s hard to talk about it to our friends and family members. Even more when we lose large sums of money. People don’t understand us. The adrenaline from high Highs and low Lows. These are all part of the bigger picture and form larger cycles in our lives as traders.
Deep pain… Let me tell you something about that. [2016-2019 bull market]
To be lucky, you need to position yourself for the next cycle.
What do I mean by that? There are times far easier to make money in the stock market. I believe 2022 and 2023 were incredible years. However, if I started trading last year, I would probably have been destroyed in both the 2022 bear market and the 2023 largest 1-year bull market. By sticking through the more difficult years and working on the price action from the older years, you give yourself a chance to make the best out of the easier times to come.
Sometimes, it’s all we need. Just one (more) chance. I made many mistakes during my first decade of trading. However, I stuck to it and ate more charts than anyone else. Even if my method was not great. Even if my approach wasn’t consistent. I watched so many charts that price action becomes second nature. Someone inspired me to stick to this, even during the hardest time.
Key takeaways:
Even if you’re in a tough spot now, do everything you can to put yourself in a good position for the future.
No one has it easy from Day 1. I still struggle - it’s an everyday battle.
Learn to live with the pain. Build resilience.
Finding your role model…
Growing up, my hero was Rafael Nadal. I could not watch tennis for 2 years, but if I turned on the TV for Rolland Garros, he would still be there. And he would win it. For more than a decade. It got me thinking… that’s what showing up looks like. Not only showing up, but excellence.
Seeing someone show up tournament after tournament with the same killer look in his eyes taught me a lot. Some of you already know, but I played chess at a competitive level during my younger years and was in the top ranking of my country (< 18 years old). I got lucky to start this from a young age, as many values translate to trading.
When I took the leap of faith two years ago, I promised myself to give it my all. 9 years of doing half of the work made me sick. I needed to change. I work harder than anyone I know at this. I allocated my time very poorly for too long because I didn’t know what I was doing, but now, my Python scripts do a lot of the work for me. I’m mostly doing the last manual tasks that require my brain (or that I can’t automate) and spending the rest of my free time on R&D and trade reviews.
Now that my process is stable, 90% of my efforts go toward execution.
Is it perfect? Hell no. But my framework works for me. It helps me from the daily and weekly preparation to taking trades and getting feedback from the market. With that in mind, it’s much easier for me to progress now than 5 years ago.
This is progress.
In trading, I don’t really have a role model. However, I have come across some interesting profiles over the years that have picked my interest. I’ll share them in no particular order.
EliteTrader - The Greatest Trading Forum. Ever
I must have hundreds of hours of reading time on this forum. Lescor and neke were my favorite traders. Oh boy… I spent so many nights reading these blogs. Dreaming… “What if (it was me)?” This is (to my knowledge) one of the first trading forums, and it survived the years. Many gems to be uncovered. Some things never change.
neke has a legendary series of threads taking xxK to xx million by Year End at the end of the 2000s.
Lescor has an incredible thread called ‘Grinding it out, day after day’. Even if it’s old, I highly recommend the read.
You can find the Hall of Fame Threads here.
If you have some spare time, have a look at this forum. At the time, no one had something to sell. Just sharing the journey. I guess that’s why I loved it so much.
Pax - The Hollywood Story
Could easily be a Hollywood movie. More ups and downs than at the amusement park. Here’s part one of his interview on the AlphaMind podcast. Highly recommend. Without spoiling anything, something struck me. When he was at his lowest point, he kept confidence in himself. This is something I can relate to for a very long time.
Tom Hougaard - Best Loser Wins
My favorite discovery of 2023. What a shame I didn’t discover this guy 5 years ago. I bought 11 books this year, and I finished 2. Best Loser Wins was one of the two. And I enjoyed it so much. If you haven’t read it yet, go read it. Yes, this is an advice.
Key takeaways:
Trading is a lonely game, find someone that you look up to. Reach out to them. Ask advice. Listen & execute.
Once again, if you read/listen to these stories, you’ll realize that no one had it easy. No one. You’re no exception.
Allow yourself to win
This is a very important section.
To make it short, do you believe in yourself?
When you look in the mirror, do you see a winner or a loser? Take the time to think about it seriously, and then give me an answer. Why is it so important? Let me give you an example. I once lost $80,000, which was more than 80% of my life savings. I lost them in one day. Even though this story is for another time, my girlfriend (now wife) told me while I was crying to take a few days of break and come back stronger. She believed in me. She believed in me so strongly that in my head, I couldn’t lose.
Having a partner that believes in you is a big help, at any stage of your career.
Over the last seven days, did you wake up every single day visualizing the amazing day that is ahead of you? If the answer is no, even if it was only for one day, then you might be stuck with a loser mentality.
Loser mentality is a bitch.
It can start with something small, that might seem insignificant to you at the moment. But that little thing will keep growing, day after day. Without realizing it, you start changing your healthier habits and get trapped in this vicious spiral. And sooner or later, it will be too late.
The funny part?
Most of you will not even realize that you are stuck in a loser mentality.
Do you wake up every day with positive energy?
Can little things in everyday life mess with your mood?
Are you confident that you will execute your trading plan every day?
Do you get jealous of furu’s fake P&L on FinTwit?
Do you feel the urge to change your method every time you have a losing day?
Are you scared to commit seriously to trading?
Answer honestly these six questions.
For most of my life, I have been the most confident person you’ve ever met. But trading took a toll on me.
Blowing $1,000 accounts month after month, I lost my superpower. I would reload my account, not even thinking of being profitable. Simply hoping to make it last a month.
Losses would not even affect me at some point. I would not even feel the pain of blowing an account. After all, it’s just $1,000.
Day after day. Week after week. Month after month. The compound effect of this loser mentality will turn you into an actual loser. You need drastic changes to get out of that vicious spiral.
How to become yourself again? How to start your trading day confident that you will be being in your A-game?
Of course, there are as many answers as readers.
What I can share with you is how I broke that cycle.
The first step is to acknowledge it. It won’t go away in a day. I needed daily “rewards”.
It started by doing something I would be proud of. I’ve never been an athletic person, and I love comfort. So I started taking cold showers and running super early in the morning. Even if I would run 10 minutes the first few weeks, I would be super proud of myself. ‘
‘‘If I can run at 5 am, then I can do anything during the rest of my day”.
Then, I forced myself to stop changing trading methods.
Fuck that. If you can’t master your strategy, you’ll never be a professional. Your strategy won’t work every day. You need to understand the roots of why you don’t trust yourself to overcome a losing day. Why can’t you commit to one strategy and build a solid foundation?
At the time I worked on this, Jared Tendler didn’t write a book on it, but now he did. I purchased “The Mental Game of Trading’’ on my Kindle, and it’s an amazing resource to start working on yourself (not affiliated).
You will need to work on this for the rest of your life. Every day, you need to do something to get better. It’s so easy to fall back into our unhealthy routine.
Six weeks ago, I realized I hadn’t exercised, practiced meditation, and had a healthy alimentation as much as I’d like to.
To me, these things matter on my road to success.
Friends: Allow yourself to WIN!
Key takeaways:
Take a moment to see where you are. Ask yourself the real questions. The tough ones. Are you positive or negative about yourself?
Break the cycle by doing something that you will be proud of. One step at a time.
Allow yourself to WIN!
Simplify your Trading (preamble)…
If you're not successful and decide to not give up, you'll either:
Make your situation worse; or
Succeed.
Everyone wants to be in the second bucket.
Statistically speaking? Most end up in the first one.
How to know in which you'll end up, and most importantly, how to maximize your chances to succeed?
1. Simplify 2. Get feedback.
Everyone has their definition of success. For me, it's (work-wise) not having to put on any alarms (even though I wake up at 5/6 am every day), not commuting & not having to communicate with people I dislike.
What I'm sharing here is my vision based on the past decade of ups and downs. If you've been doing the same thing for 5 years and are unsuccessful, it's time to take a step back and assess the situation. What did go wrong?
Someone with 1 year of experience who actively looks for feedback can be in a much better position to succeed than someone who's been repeating the same mistake for 5 years.
So, what did go wrong?
From my experience, it's a combination of lack of methodology, not actively looking for feedback & a bit of laziness. Eventually, one day the person will wake up and realize they wasted a decade of their life. This is what happened to me during my first 9 years in trading. Luckily, I started at 20 with no kids/girlfriend. But I could (should) have done so much better. The progress made in the last 3 years since I took this seriously can't even be compared to what I learned during the first 9 years.
Last year alone I learned more than in the last 11 years combined. The difference is, that now that I have a defined process and know what to look for, it's much easier to make progress. It's also much easier to get feedback from the market. Everything becomes easier, as long as we keep putting in the work.
I'm now at a stage where I start getting back some time and investing it into becoming a better person outside of trading. After a decade of horrible work-life balance, it starts to get slightly better.
Remove the surplus of ego. Simplify. Get to work, seek feedback, and don't complain.
Next month, we’ll dive into how to simplify your process with concrete examples. It’s the first step to get back to a healthier state. It’s the opportunity to start back from scratch while keeping the knowledge acquired along the way.
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
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The last Q&A podcast was released this week on all platforms (search ‘Trade with Retail’). Thank you to the 20 people who gave a 5-star rating, awesome!
📈 What’s coming up
Interview with [SECRET]
How I Trade (10h+ of video)
One setup to rule them all
📚 If you missed it, here are the latest articles
Last but not least, my good friend Kyle interviewed me last week. If you don’t follow him on Twitter yet, here’s your chance.
Best,
RC
Great post RC! I really needed to read this today and know I’ll read it again regularly. Thank you for sharing.
Great read. Excited to continue to learn from you RC. The podcast has been a great listen on my way to work