It’s a fine line between technical and mental.
Coming from a mathematical background, it had to be technical. It’s true. And wrong. I laid the foundations and my understanding of the market thanks to the countless weeks spent on that aspect. However, now, the heart of the war is on the mental. I’m constantly monitoring myself. I’m intentionally looking at times when I used to sabotage myself (we talk more about this on Sunday. God, this Sunday’s article took me like 7 hours).
Before we go further, here are some reviews I got on Hampton Traders.
I made a friendly price of $99 for the launch, but I will gradually increase it to $499 in the coming days.
If you enjoyed my work over the years, it’s a great opportunity to support it.
You can learn a different approach and be able to watch me trade live over multiple weeks of price action.
You can also become an affiliate and get 50% of the sales if you advertise it (email me if you’re interested and have an audience).
Alright, back to our discussion.
This is how I picture the split between mental and technical.
Of course, the technical aspect is required. And it’s hard to get. But that’s not what makes the difference between ELITE and average winning traders.
Price Action is probably the easiest skill to obtain of these 5. Funnily enough, when you’re on tilt, that’s when you forget how to read the chart. Hence why I put the mental above the technical aspect of this pyramid.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to see where you are on your mental strength:
How much time does it take you after you tilt before going back to a neutral state?
More importantly, what does it take to make you tilt?
At what frequency do you lose it?
How many times a week do you self-sabotage yourself?
For Price Action, you need to understand who is fucked. Once it’s clear, you can trade in the direction of the winning side until we reach the next liquidity target. Don’t overcomplicate it. Target swing highs/lows.
Execution = screen time. I had the chance to talk with J for a bit earlier this year and he told me my execution was not good enough. It helped me improve it even more and I think he’s one of the reasons I had such a nice streak lately.
Risk Management = don’t be a dick (seriously). Ok for aggression on prop firms, but on a personal account, don’t go over a 5 leverage. Be flexible based on the current market structure and adapt your number of lots. Micros are great. Yes, more commission, but such is life. It’s still much better than 20 years ago.
Tilt = don’t be a dick (really? again?). Here’s a list of things that tilt me:
taking instant stop loss after an entry;
trading while traveling (never ends well in the plane, car, etc.);
trading after an argument with the wife;
etc.
I’m just like you. The goal is to realize as close as possible from real-time when you’re about to act like a ****.
Don’t put yourself in these conditions. It won’t happen overnight, so manage your expectations. The Mental Game of Trading helped me map out my emotions. I talked about it in a few previous articles/tweets.
Performance = everything else outside of trading to fuel that energy into the best possible version of yourself during the trading time. The talks when you do good and bad. The coach.
So yes, you need the technical, but that’s not what will make you great alone. The goal, of course, is to trade with both at the same time. Here’s most of my P&L during my streams this week.
Damn son
You always write the best damn articles about this biz
👊🏻😎
Great visualisation of mental importance RC - it's really telling. No strategy will work for a tilted trader