What attracted you to trading?

I got in just before the big bull run proper after initially being blown away by blockchain itself and how it worked, plus of course, the ridiculous growth and gains it offered.

No outrageous success story from me, though, I put about $5k AUD (Aussie) in, then watched it run up to about $20k, only to watch it round-trip back. If I mentioned Wraith Protocol, some people who were around back then would probably know what I meant, haha. Others may also recall McAfee's coin of the day or week (that was wild!)

When I got my arse whooped by the market, it just lit this fire inside of me where I wanted to understand how the market worked and why. I find that I can get into one thing, get bored, and then move on to the next. 

This didn’t happen with trading, though. I found myself drawn down the rabbit hole, and found the likes of Crypto Cred, Trader Mayne, ICT, Rektproof, who truly inspired me. I ended up finding a few hours in the morning, then going to work, and then carrying on late into the night, where I just immersed myself in it all. I spent 8 hours in front of a computer each day charting, watching Youtube videos, or just obsessing over charts.

I purchased Larry Williams’ book (who was ICT’s claimed mentor). In it, he describes the term “The Chartist’s Widow”. I’m sure my wife would happily testify that she became just this while I was head down for a couple of years.

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the market lit this fire inside of me where I wanted to understand how the market worked and why.

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How long did it take you to become profitable? Were there any major milestones where things just started to click?

It took me at least a year and a half of being in the market every day before I could consistently see any form of breaking even, let alone profitability.

I recall just figuratively banging my head on the desk for so long, just wondering why I couldn’t get it. Once I found Cred’s vids, Mayne’s material, and ICT’s directional bias & risk management courses, this is when it all started falling into place for me. 

I cannot stress enough how much directional bias helped me in terms of drilling down from the Daily charts to the 15min or 5 min charts (as I focus on daytrading)

The biggest milestone for me, though, was proving to myself that I could grow a forex paper trading account by 25% over the course of 6 months. 

This was MASSIVE to me as I had a full-time job, and felt like I understood directional bias, and I was in sync with the market. Then, of course, I went live, and it all turned to shit, didn’t it? Haha. 

I truly experienced the Dunning-Krueger effect. Thought I was a smart arse (quietly, though), and then found myself living in the valley of despair, where I feel that I’m comfortably on the plateau of sustainability now.

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Any tips for trading moving from paper to live trading?

Backtest your setup across at least one month, or 100 trades (at least!) on the timeframe that you prefer, on the pairings that you want to trade. You can then work out your win rate. 

This is a psychological edge on its own, because if you understand that you’re going to win 5.5 trades out of 10, with a 55% win rate, and a 2RR target, you’re laughing.

Imagine that you start trading a setup, but you haven’t backtested it. If the win rate is 55%, but you don’t know it yet, and you happen to catch the 45% of trades in a row that don’t net results, then you’re going to get bored and move on, aren’t you?

This is a negative feedback loop where you continue to search for the holy grail of trading. Keep it simple, start at the start, work all of this out BEFORE you start with live funds, and then you’re going to be a weapon.

I can comfortably say the above because it’s exactly what I experienced and did many times.

Don’t trade more than one or two pairings if starting out; it will cause you so much confusion looking at more than one or two.

Start with a low-risk amount (say 0.5%) per trade and build yourself up. If you lose four trades in a row, cut the risk in half (to 0.25% in this case) until you recover half the losses you experienced at the 0.5% level. Then look to graduate up to 1%, for example, when you’ve netted some wins, and you’re on a streak.

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Keep it simple, start at the start

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Tell us about your most memorable trade?

For me, it wasn’t to do with a typical day or swing trading, but back from the Wild West days of 2018, where John McAfee did the coin of the week or day or whatever it was. 

You’d have his notifications waiting from Twitter, and then when he released the coin, you’d be scrambling here on a site in Australia called Coinspot, where sometimes you’d see the coin on the list to buy. 

Reddcoin was the one that I recall the most. Gave me a few multiple that evening!

They were wild times and were almost a piss-take looking back on it with how ridiculous it all was.

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Do you think there was more opportunity in those wild times or just different opportunities?

I think that these opportunities still exist today, and will continue to well into the future, but it’s all so trend based. Back then, it was the 2017/18 ICO altcoin mania, where alts were popping.

In this day and age, I feel this is true now with NFTs. Things like Landa Del Taco went wild in the NFT space and became a hit, but I’m not sure how that’s going now. I can almost guarantee that someone made some dough of it, though.

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What’s the best trading advice you’ve been given?

I think that Cred’s advice about suffering multiple losses in one particular market doesn’t mean that you should hang your head in shame, or feel like the sky is falling in, but keep it up instead and perhaps trade in a different market to build your confidence again.

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What drives you to keep trading?

It’s the fact that I’ll never, ever beat the market with a 100% hit rate. You can never master trading; you can only place probability on your side to maintain an edge.

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You can never master trading; you can only place probability on your side to maintain an edge.

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What does ‘making it’ look like to you?

I don’t think that I’ll ever consider myself having made it. I’ll always be looking to keep growing as a person while also helping others grow at the same time, giving them opportunities to shine and pass it on.

I also don’t think I’ll ever retire in the typical sense. Retirement, to me, is getting the next generation going with what I know to make it exponentially easier for them, while not giving it to them on a platter.

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What do you do to help newer traders?

I do believe in helping, and for me, 2022 was about sharing what I can in the form of a free 6-part video and PDF course, primarily though to further solidify my own understanding. I learn better when presenting ideas and concepts to others.

This led to finding likeminded traders along the way, where Johnnie Jacks and I then started chatting, which led to us combining our brand and offering up a free Discord as a hub to offer the protection of a group that doesn’t shill, scam, use them as exit liquidity etc. We called the group MindJacked as a play on our names. 

Johnnie and I both experienced these kinds of undesirable groups in our time, so wanted to establish somewhere for people to come to avoid this as we also continued to learn (as we do every day) as traders.

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What's the most important quality in a trader, and why?

Discipline, patience, and being humble. No one likes a smart arse, even if they're right all the time.

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No one likes a smart arse, even if they're right all the time.

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How would you describe the way you trade?

I trade using price action, supply, demand, ranges, & volume profile for confluence.

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Has the way you trade changed over time?

Absolutely - I went from the typical 3 or 4 indicators on a chart to nothing, then realising that you don’t have to try and be ‘cool’ by not having indicators or factors that offer confluence to you when trading. Just do what works best for you.

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you don’t have to try and be ‘cool’ by not having indicators

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Why do you think it’s trendy not to use indicators? 

It depends on which cult you’re following! With price action trading (i.e. no indicators), I’ve seen people get criticised for using indicators, but the reality is to just do whatever the hell works for you.

It’s like arguing about religion, in terms of who trades the ‘right’ or the ‘wrong’ way. If you’re consistently following your process and the results speak for themselves, then who cares.

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Why do you think you have success trading?

I like to think that I have success with trading because of the thousands and thousands of hours put into what I do. I’m not a pro by any means, but I know that I have an edge from not only trading, but the tools I’ve developed, shared, and use that help me when I’m not on the charts.

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What's the worst thing about trading and why?

It can be a very lonely place. Your real-world friends, family, and workmates might think you’re a nutter or dreaming with your newfound career. 

My advice would be not to tell anyone outside of your significant other what you’re up to. Ever! Just work in silence.

Find some online friends who you can share your journey with. This sped my personal trading situation up massively by finding a group and growing with them.

It’s you against everyone else, unfortunately, but build those solid relationships, and you’ll have half a chance. 

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My advice would be not to tell anyone outside of your significant other what you’re up to. Ever! Just work in silence.

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What's something you've learned in the last 6 months that has made you a better trader?

Probably more so over the last couple of years rather than the last 6 months, where I’ve realised that there is no growth without vulnerability. 

I’ve pushed myself through and put myself out there in the public space, which was really intimidating for me to do, but I haven’t looked back since doing it.

I remember when I started my telegram channel, and all of a sudden, I saw there were five people in there, which freaked me out a bit. I felt kind of silly that I was building this channel like I shouldn’t be, or that I was an impostor. We’re at 5.2k members at the moment, so a far cry from what it was.

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there is no growth without vulnerability. 

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What is your relationship with risk?

I’ve got the type of personality where I get bored easily, and of course, with that goes ways to try and cure your boredom, which the riskier things are that you can mitigate, the more appealing they become.

This can be a dangerous thing, of course, but I’ve had my fair share of having to pull my head in over the years which I’m pretty level-headed now.

I have also started a few successful businesses over the years as well, risking capital, and I have managed a fair bit of money and people in my regular line of work which also introduces a lot of financial risks. I’m more than comfortable managing these risks, though.

But for trading, risk management is key. If you don’t have this nailed down, don’t even start. I’m very disciplined in my approach and management of capital so have a very healthy relationship with risk.

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What's the mistake you find hardest to avoid when trading? Any tips to avoid it?

The hardest thing in trading not to do is to fuck around with your trade while it’s active. My advice would be just to get a trade going and stick with it.

I shared a thread not long ago that showed that a 5RR trade with partials taken on it ends up netting you 3RR at the end of the day. 

I believe it’s best to just leave the 3RR trade run out in comparison and look for the next opportunity, rather than hang on trying to take full profits on a trade that may last for days

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The hardest thing in trading not to do is to fuck around with your trade while it’s active.

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If you could give someone starting trading tomorrow one piece of advice, what would it be?

My strict advice would be to backtest your strategy over 100 trades or one month, document it to a tee, identify what your win rate is, and what trading time works best for you, and then ensure that you have a sound risk management profile and practice that you religiously follow, no exceptions.

Also, ignore the P&L cards that everyone shares. Just stick in your own lane and crack on trying to be better than you were yesterday.

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stick in your own lane and crack on trying to be better than you were yesterday.

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Fill in the blanks

• Most traders would be better off not touching their trades when open; just let them run

• What separates the pros from the rest is knowing that you have to learn to lose like a pro in order to trade like a winner (ie sound risk management in place)

• A good trader should never brag about their winnings or how good they are. The market will humble you sooner or later if you’re a smart arse

• The biggest misconception about trading is that people are making shitloads of money.

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