123: Darren Reed – Grit, Hustle, Intent—and Environment

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Tasty Trade Inc. is a registered broker dealer and member of FINRA, NFA, and SIPC. Podcast. What's up team? I'm your host Aaron Firefield and this is episode 123. It's a big episode, and I hope you listen right through to the end, because there's a lot you can gain from my guests. Darren Reid, who can be found on Twitter at LiftTheOffer. Darren's been a stockbroker, the head trader at a$300 million hedge fund, and an active prop trader at Australian firms PropEx.

Alliom and Genesis. At the later two, he also mentored traders as a part of his role in trader development. This year, twenty seventeen, Darren has returned to Perth on the west coast of Australia. To establish a new proprietary trading firm with a few partners called Signet Trading, which is spelt C-Y-G-N-E-T. The main focus of this episode can be summarized with just a few words grit, hustle, and intent.

Further, Darren speaks about paying your dues and what it takes to be a good trainer and a good trainee, why your environment is everything and a window into the life of a discretionary prop trader. Full show notes for this episode can be found at chatwithraders.com slash one two three. And that's all from me. Please welcome Darren Reed. Enjoy and pay close attention. Heheheh.

Uh, Darren, I'd like to spend a little bit of time talking about your experience because you've done a bunch of different things. You've worked at a hedge fund, you've been a broker and also a prop trader, which is where you're at currently. So Just backing up a bit, how did you get your start as a trader? Let's start there.

I guess it's a fairly convoluted story and if I track back and kind of think how did I get to how did I get into the industry and how did I get to where I am? Like if I'm really honest, it it all kind of started at high school. So I I think we probably need to go even a little further back. So and if I if If it sounds like I'm just telling old war stories about high school, I promise I'm not. I'll loop it around and tell you exactly how this all kind of happened.

So, like you can probably tell from my accent, grew up in South Africa. I've been in Australia now for about uh twelve, thirteen years. Um, had a couple of years in the States, as you mentioned, at a hedge fund. But when I was growing up in South Africa, I went to uh all boys' high school that was uh pretty famous and pretty well renowned as a really good kind of rugby school, sort of like perennially in the top

three to five schoolboy rugby sides in the country. Pretty old school, lots of tradition, you know, all that kind of stuff. And it was a public school. Um, but because uh of the level of rugby we kinda played at, we played sports against all of the private schools in the area, right? So we were the one public school and we were playing against all these private schools. So Basically they had just like better

better food, better sporting facilities, their boarding houses were better, like everything was just better. So Like I'm sitting down as I talk about it, I can remember to just to tell you to give you an example a a story about that. But typically on any given day during cricket season, let's say there was the under thirteen

A's to E's. Let's say so under thirteen A's, B's, C's, D's, E's, all the kind of way down. If if we were playing away against one of these other schools, one of these private schools, Because obviously if you're going to play cricket in a way school, they'll feed you for the day. You'll get lunch there.

guys would literally make teams just to go and eat food at that school, right? So all of a sudden there was like an F team, a G team, an H team, and it was literally just dudes trying to get on the bus. Basically what happened is that we were bred all the way from the beginning with people telling us, look, you don't have the best facilities, you don't have the best uh boarding houses, you don't have the best rugby boots, you don't have the best cricket bats, you don't have the best anything.

But what you do have is uh teamwork. Uh they bred into us like this attitude of just the best word is just. Grit, right? Like just that. that underdog like bulldog mentality from day one, it was absolutely

indoctrinated into you from day one. And so I went through my entire upbringing and the the years when you're kind of being formed as a person, right? It's like between thirteen and eighteen, with that really being like drummed into my head that It doesn't matter um what the obstacle is, if you if you put your mind to it, you trust the process.

You just, you know, go as hard as you can at your at your challenge and you work as a team that you can achieve great things. And I think the biggest what really cemented that in my mind, and I promise this we'll get back to trading. What really cemented that in my mind was when I got to my last year of high school. Okay. So, you know, like I said, uh very prestigious rugby school. So from day one you get there and I was just like, all I want to do, my entire focus in life was

just I wanna play first team rugby. I wanna play first team rugby. I wanna play first team rugby. You know, as long as I as long as I pass, I don't care about getting A's, I don't care about being anything. All I want is I just wanna play first team rugby. Like that's the highest standard you can achieve at that school. So

In my last year there was actually a guy who and I played all the way like through the A grades, you know, fourteen A, fifteen eight, sixteen eight, the whole way through. Um, and then a guy actually transferred from another school, like just absolute stud athlete, total machine. Like he actually has also immigrated to Australia a bit before me and is I think Australia's strongest man. Like he's completely in the world's strongest man and all this stuff. So like stud, stud, stud athlete.

Um he moved over in the last year, right? So everyone's kind of like patting me on their back and going, Well done, mate, second you'll you'll you'll be second team captain, which isn't bad, etc. etc, etc. And I kind of sat back and I thought, you know what? I can't control who the coaches pick, I can't control if this guy's moved over. I can't control any of them. but what I can control is I control my attitude and I can control the process right

So for like for five months I got up at four thirty AM. I trained for two hours every morning. Like I just did everything I could. And I just said All I can do is like just trust the process, right? Trust the process. And, you know, to to wrap this kind of whole high school war story thing up, I ended up playing first team rugby the whole year through.

paid for the um like the the town kind of under eighteenth side, the state under eighteenth side, like the whole thing. It all kind of worked out perfectly. And there was a real lesson to me in just trusting process and just like I said, that attitude of just grit and just grinding through day by day. You know, I d I don't you don't want to get up at four thirty AM. It's not it's not comfortable, it's not easy.

But if you want to achieve something, that's what you're willing to make that sacrifice, right? So coming out of high school, I don't know what I wanted to do. with myself. My dad's an airline pilot. Uh my brother came out of high school and straight away went, bang, dad, flying school, let's go. I wasn't sure. Like I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. What I did know was that I loved being in a team culture. I loved being in a culture of

excellence. Um I love being in a culture of competition where everyone is competing with each other, yes, but also pushing towards the same goal. So like, you know, if you have if you have a cricket team or you have a rugby team, you've got sure, eleven guys on the go in the field or fifteen guys go in the field, but you've probably got a squad of twenty guys, thirty guys that you can pick from.

And and the best environments are environments where, sure, you know, Darren and Aaron may be competing for the same spots. Okay. We're both going for that spot. And we are going as hard as we can in each other in practice and we're both doing everything we can. But there's no animosity around it, there's no uh ill feeling around it because ultimately we're doing it so that we can all achieve, right? We understand that I'm pushing you, you pushing me, and we're helping each other be better.

So I knew that I wanted to be a part of something like that. Once I finished uni, I uh I have an uncle who lives in the States and he'd been there quite a while and he was he was actually a pastor in a church. So like that uh one of these huge like you know thousand people in the congregation type of thing churches in a town in Connecticut.

in the States. And the town just happened to be basically one of those Connecticut towns where if you were doing really well on Wall Street working for a bank or a hedge fund or whatever it was. You probably lived in one of these towns, Connecticut, and commuted into the city every day. So I mean you may or may not know but There's two towns along that uh line, Stamford and Greenwich. Which eventually became sort of like in the day.

hedge fund central, right? Because the guys got sick of commuting to the city and started moving their offices out there. So I just said to my Uncle Mark. I was like, Uncle Mike, listen, can you kind of, you know, help me out? Sure. Give me a couple of interviews, whatever. And he said, mate, no problem.

you know, they sin from m Monday to Saturday and they're in the church on Sunday repenting the sin so they can do it the week after. So basically that's how I made that connection, right? And I um ended up getting an internship at um a hedge fund in New York. Um and I was there for I think my in my internship was initially for like eight weeks, something like that. Um and they eventually asked me to stay. And during that time I rotated through kind of each part of the business. So

I rotated through the back office, I rotated through, you know, the sales desk. I rotated through client relations, I rotated through legal, I rotated through all these different areas of the business. So it's a real good exposure for a kind of young, fresh faced kid to all these different parts of the business.

And the last part that I went through was the trading desk. The the guys who started the hedge fund were an ex investment bank prop trading desk that had broken off, got seated and they that started the desk. And I remember like distincty walking into that room and just going like

I am home. Like this is where I belong. And I I didn't understand I promise you Aaron, like I didn't understand what they were doing. I didn't understand how they were doing it. I I was so such an like such a dumb kid at the time. But just the energy in the room and the way they the way they reacted to each other. Like I was back in that environment and

And that's really where I went, Okay, I don't know what these guys are doing. I don't know I don't know how I become a part of this, but this is this is where I belong. There was just that electricity in the air where it just Clicked. So that's kind of how I realized, okay, like this is the world that I want to be, the world that I want to be involved in. Right. Okay. So you came to that realization and that was during your I think you said it was an eight week internship.

What happened after the internship? They obviously kept you on. Whereabouts did they put you? Yeah, so they kept me on. I uh I was there for it was about eighteen months, I think, somewhere around that. And basically they weren't they were saying, Okay, well, you're on your path now, right? So you go into the back office, um, you start, you know

doing the the grind there of, you know, reconciling trades and all that kind of stuff. You gotta remember that a lot of the things that happen in the back office now just automatically were all done still manually back then, right? So um a lot of just that that grinding uh you know type of very dull, monotonous work. But that's that's a part of your learning curve, right? That's a part of your business. I still I'm a firm believer in the fact that

You have to pay your dues. You know, you have to you have to pay your dues. And I think that's a mistake that a lot of uh a lot of people make these days is they wanna go they wanna go straight to um straight into a position that may take you years of just doing like menial crap to earn, right? I still had some contact with the trading desk, you know, but

It's it's even that it was just kind of menial, labor type like blue collar work on the trading desk, answering phones, booking trades, all that kind of stuff. There was no actual real um trading as such involved in that job because you've obviously got you've got to earn that right. You know, you guys are putting uh real money on the line, it's it's it's it's big bickies at the end of the day. So you've got to earn that right.

It then ended up that because of a bunch of visa issues I couldn't actually stay. So my time there ended. Um landed back in South Africa during that time when I was in the States, my folks had um immigrated to Australia. It's a purse. So I kind of landed in South Africa and I'm kinda like twiddling my thumbs going, Man, like what do I

What do I do with myself now? Like I I sort of have a rough idea of where I want to go in this in this uh finance world, but how do I like how do I make that happen? And during that time, my folks basically called me and said, listen.

Whilst you're getting your head together, why don't you just come over on a two-week holiday? Just come over and kind of, you know, we've we've we've moved over now, we've got a house, we're settled. Come over, just kind of get your get yourself together and figure out what your next step is. So I thought, okay, cool, it it can't be that bad. You know, Perth, beautiful weather, nice beaches, for two weeks it can't be that bad.

So I literally landed in Perth thinking I was here on a two week holiday and that was like I said, twelve or thirteen years ago. So I came with no kind of preconceived ideas. But I mean I landed in Perth in I think two thousand and four, two thousand and five. So out of sheer luck, I just landed in the city right at the beginning of like the the biggest

uh period of wealth creation that Western Australia and has ever seen. Um because that was basically when the mining boom really kicked off. And when I landed here, I saw a totally nondescript ad in the newspaper going like do you I think it literally said do you want a job in finance?

And I kinda thought, Well I'm here, you know what, I I'll go give the interview a whirl. What's it gonna harm me? Okay. So I went and spoke to the guys and the guy who was doing the interview, the recruiter, basically said, like, look, this is for a broken firm in in in Perth. I think they're actually looking for someone with, you know, ten or fifteen years of experience. But let me go speak to uh let me go speak to the guys and see what they think. Okay.

So uh he went away. Um, I got a call back and they were like, Listen, can you come in on Monday? I mean, I'd literally been a purpose for four days. Can you come in on Monday and have an interview with two of the directors? Yeah, cool. No problem.

traped into the city, um, went and sat down uh with two of the directors there, had a you know pretty good one hour conversation, left as I was getting on the train, I got a phone call saying, Listen, can you come in tomorrow and meet with the other two directors? Okay, cool, no problem. Same cheap suit, back into the city on the Tuesday. Had another qu some sort of um one hour interview. and they said listen can you start next monday and i basically started as a kind of a retail desk assistant.

to uh four um retail brokers, sort of high net worth, et cetera, uh retail brokers um for that firm. Um and and those guys were really, really good to me. I'm still good mates of them now. I owe them a lot. And they They were just at the time it was small to mid cap West Australian mining stocks, that sort of focus. Um, and that's what they were that's what they were dealing in. Our was like basically their grunt, right?

for I did did that for about six months, doing all the the account opening and all that kind of stuff, all the the kind of work that they didn't want to do, uh, wanted to fob off to me. Um, but I I learnt a lot through osmosis just by keeping, you know, uh keeping my head down, bum up, ears open and just listening to what was happening and After that, uh I'm

uh moved into being at the time what they called a DTR, so a designated trading representative, um, on the institutional desk. So the institutional desk obviously only dealing with kind of, you know, hedge funds, uh big asset management firms, that kind of stuff. So a DTR at the time was um You actually had to be licensed.

by the exchange. You had to be licensed by the ASS. And what a DTR did was you were the guy that had the license to essentially enter orders direct into the market. So just having like, as we say, DMA, direct market access. At the time It wasn't like anyone could just have it, right? So if there was an average broker sitting there, if he clicked an order, it kind of went to a compliance person, is that okay? Yes, that's okay, you haven't messed anything up. Okay, into the market.

Now obviously if you're dealing with uh a hedge fund or an insto, you don't want that kind of lag or delay because things need to be done. You know, if a guy calls up and says, Hey, sell me a million shares of XYZ, you potentially want it done right now. So DTR, you have direct access to the markets. And the old the old uh system is called uh seats, the stock exchange. Something trading system, whatever it was.

and basically my job then was to sit there with you know, five or six brokers in a circle almost around me. And they would just shout orders at me all day, you know, just all day, sitting there and so you are just working orders all day, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

Like you know, your finger your fingertips almost want to bleed because you're just working so many orders. But that was an awesome job in terms of uh boning up your your trading skills because what you were doing all day was you were watching order flow. You are watching how the market trades all day, literally tick to tick, right? Because

A huge part of how a broker makes money is giving uh giving good execution. So if someone calls up and goes, Sell me a million shares of XYZ, um, and you do a really good job of it. You know, th those small uh kind of basis points or ticks or dollars that you save that guy, that potentially goes into his PNL at the end of the year. And his bonus is paid off his P N L, right?

So that execution is a is a massive part of the game. Um, like obviously now a lot of that's all disappeared because there's V WAP al algos and TWAP algos and all of that is done. kind of quantitatively algorithmically. But at the time I would sit there with a pad of like forty or fifty stocks on a busy day and I'm, you know, set say twenty buyers and twenty sells. And all I'm doing all day is going, okay, I've got

fifty thousand of this to sell over the day. I need to do it the best price possible. So you start to develop. A decent sense of how is the market moving. So if the market's going really big and you're a seller, you kind of want to step back and ease off and let the buyers come to you.

if the market's going offward and you're a seller, you may have to be more aggressive and kind of hit the bid a bit more, you know? Um, because you don't want to get left behind. Because if if the market's going offward and you are not being aggressive enough,

the market keeps dropping, dropping, dropping. And now you're a seller. You want to sell at the highest price possible for your clients. And you may get into scenario get into a scenario at the end of the day where you've got to be super aggressive when the market is at its low. So you intuitively start to develop a sense of how the market is is flowing in order so that such that you can execute those client orders as well as possible, if that makes sense.

Yeah, right. So by this point in time you've done some work at a hedge fund, you've been a broker or a a DTR as you later became. Um, what led you into prop trading? Bring us forward to that moment. I can remember a conversation I had with this is called um Uh old Daryl. So old Daryl was one of the old bucks at the at the brokering firm. And I think at the time I was

Too naive to really appreciate some of the stuff that that he said to me. But I remember him saying to me, and this guy was really wealthy, independently wealthy. You know, he was in his He was in his like kind of mid seventies at the time, um, and just did it because he loved it, right? He just loved the game. Um and I can remember Daryl saying to me, he said, uh, you know, like boy, um, he said, your whole job

is just to get your bum in a good seat and stay there. Okay. So And he said, you know, in your first like I said, take a step back. This is when we're going through this massive mining boom, right? So there's just money flowing everywhere. I remember Omen Darrell, he said to me, he said, In your first uh your first boom or your first cycle, he was saying boom because obviously he's a long owner equities guy, so it doesn't

applies much to trading, but it still does. You say in your first, you know, boom or bust, whatever it is, you'll either lose a little bit of money or break even. Okay. In your second cycle, you'll either break even or make a little bit of money. And in your third cycle, that's when you've kind of got

enough experience, uh, you've you've seen the patterns a few times that you know what's happening, and that's when you really can really kill it, right? And what he was saying was is that You need to get somewhere where you start building your chops in something that

uh you are willing to really dedicate your your necessarily your life, I think that's a bit extreme, but you want to dedicate you know, a huge amount of time and a huge amount of effort to an industry or a craft or a vocation because this just takes time, you know. You need to play you need to play the long game. You need to play the long ball, right? Don't be in it for uh kind of the quick fix.

get yourself into a scenario where you're in a good seat and you go, right, now it's time for me to really put in the time. So that when the time comes, once I put in my years, I'm ready uh once I'm once I'm in that. you know, first, second, third, that into that third cycle that I can recognise what's happening and and take advantage of it. So I kind of looked at the at the at the brokerage world and for me, and I think I was

I think this is uh a part that I got right at a young age. I kind of looked and I went Like this model, this whole brokerage model is not long for the world, right? It's kind of dying in front of my eyes because, you know, the the the commissions in terms of a percentage of a trade was getting smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller because now

Algo execution domain was starting to take over more and more and more and more of the commission dollars that are going around, right? So uh clients were getting more demanding, handing out less bro, et cetera. And I kind of looked ahead in time and went, Man, like this this old model, this old school way of doing things. I I think it's going away. And I think that's been proved true, right? Like you look at

You look at what your average broker charges on a trade these days, it it's it's pretty tight. Like the margins are really small, right? It also started as I progressed from a DTR and moving more into the sales role, not there's any on the sales, but I kind of felt like You know, every day I was trying to make chicken shit look like chicken salad, if that makes sense. You know, that was all I was doing all day. And I think the the biggest thing was that.

uh I developed a sense of self awareness. Okay. And I think this is a huge, huge uh part of um what has helped me navigate my way through this world is that I think um I think I'm quite self aware and I I understand what what my strengths are and what my weaknesses are. So you look at I looked at the guys around me who are really succeeding in that world. And

you know, they loved the the sales part. They loved reading company reports. They loved having lunches with company directors. They were had a you know, obviously like I said, West Australian uh you know kind of mining resources focused. The guys had interest in geology. They loved going to mine sites. Like

I didn't like any of that, you know. I I find reading a company report the most boring thing on earth, you know, like I just and so I'm not saying that it's it's good or bad. It just didn't appeal to me. And I just had this thing inside me where I kept thinking back to that that moment that I had.

where I walked onto that trading floor in New York and just the way that I felt and I was like, man, I need to get back to that. So I started seeking out uh proprietary trading firms. Now obviously the prop trading industry very East Coast focused. So the only place to really go was Sydney. So I started reaching out to firms there, got an interview and again this this uh kinda reflects the um

Now I talked about that kind of you know, just go for your goals no mat no matter what type of thing. At the time I had uh moved in with my then girlfriend, now wife. So we were living together and it was literally like on her birthday I was like

All right, love. Um guess what? I'm leaving for Sydney in four days. Like, see you later. Um, because I just had in my head, like I I'm gonna go do this. Like if I have to pack all my stuff up and move across the country to give myself a crack at what I want. That's what I'm gonna do. Like I'm just I'm gonna go for it no matter what. Now, looking back at the time, I probably could have done it in a in a more sensitive way.

But, you know, like I was I was twenty five, twenty six years old, whatever, and I just had that bulldog mentality of okay, I'm just gonna go for this. So packs on my bags. moved to Sydney um and and got into a uh a trading programme at a prop firm. Um went through that and kind of that's how I I got my my start in in the proprietary trading industry. Are you ready to get serious about trading? Then join Tasty Trade, Investopedia's best platform for options trading in 2026.

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Okay, so what was that like? I mean Tell us about your maybe your first couple of years as a prop trader. Um I know you eventually uh went on to become very involved in trader development at some of these firms you've worked at. Um we'll get to that also. I'm keen to spend a bit of time on that. But yeah, tell us about maybe your first like couple of years as a prop trader. Like how did you go? Uh what challenges did you go through? Um, what things did you pick up easily? Like, yeah.

Well, I mean I think I think the what happened to me was the worst thing that can happen to a beginning trader. And that was I had some success early on. Now that kind of sounds counterintuitive. But I honestly believe that that is the worst thing that can happen to you because if you if you think of trading as a skill, okay, and I I firmly believe this trading is a skill.

Every skill has a learning curve. Okay. Whether you're talking about A baby learning how to walk, um, someone learning how to surf, someone learning how to play tennis, someone learning how to play chess, whatever it is. You know, like how does a baby learn how to walk? It falls over a lot, you know. And you don't look at it and go, gee, like it shouldn't be doing it. Like that's how a baby learns how to work it or how to walk, you know.

How does someone learn how to surf? They fall off the surfboard a lot, you know. So what happened through Through probably just blind lack. I was actually profitable at the beginning. So I went through the training program, um, you know, pretty basic.

Uh but at the time I think an advantage I had was from my time as a as a DTR, I had a good sense of like how the market moves, you know,'cause for many years, all I'd done, as I'd said, is sit in front of a screen and watch how stocks move up and down or futures markets move up and down. And so I had a a kind of I had enough screen time that I built some sort of intuitive sense of how that how that works. And I think that helped me at the beginning. Um But I think the fact that I had that

meant that there were other skills that I didn't develop where the market eventually caught me out. Right. So what I always say to guys is you're gonna pay your dues at some point, right? You're going to. You're gonna You are going to suck as a trader at some point. And you wanna you wanna be at your worst when you're trading your smallest, if that makes sense. Because then obviously, you know, you wanna you wanna be really bad with a one lot.

not really bad with a twenty lots, if that makes sense. Um so at the beginning I think actually got a bit cocky, right? And I was like, Man, I got this, you know, got through you know, started the training program with twenty guys. I think they took three of us, maybe. You know, mate, like I I worked I worked my butt off right because you've got to remember I was also I may have been naive, but I knew it was on the line. I'm going over to

to the east where I've got to find a place to live. I don't know anyone. Um I'm not earning any money. Like I'm only on a on a profit split, right? So I I understood how much was a gr how much was a risk. I was lucky that I had a bit of money in my pocket from the the kind of Perth days after that whole mining boom that I could facilitate that.

But it's hard, like particularly for someone coming into state, because what you really want as a beginning trader is you want as little financial commitment as possible. Because if you go through the natural learning curve that we've spoken about. Like when when someone's learning how to surf, they fall off their surfboard. Fine. They get wet, they get cold, no big deal. Someone's learning how to snowboard, you get a couple of bruises on your elbows and your shins, no big deal.

When you go through the learning curve as a trader, what that means is you lose money. Okay. Now obviously at a prop firm they are absorbing those losses, but if there's no money in your account uh to split profits on, then there's no money coming into your account, right? So the enabled the the learning curve for a prop trader is you go through a decent period of not making money.

Um and that's just the way of the game. It's like you know, being a prop trader is like starting a small business, right? If you go open a a a cafe or something, there's gonna be a period where you aren't you aren't uh selling enough cups of coffee.

to cover the cost of your rent and your staff, etcetera. You've got to generate You've got to generate that following and get a couple of locals that are coming every morning after the morning bike ride and you know, a couple of businesses that all the office workers are coming to you, and eventually you build momentum and away you go.

Um so the thing that happened with me was I had some success early on and then the market changed. Okay. We went through a period where volatility changed, liquidity changed, and because I hadn't Because I'd had a good run at the beginning, that was all I could do. And I was a one trick pony.

And then all of a sudden I was like, wow, like I don't I don't know how to cope with this, you know. And so I got I got smacked, you know, I I I I got the lesson that the market was always gonna give me, um, and I got smacked and I kind of had to take a step back. and sort of reassess like, whoa, like what do I do? Because I I kind of hit a patch where my um my developments had stalled and I was starting to to put it bluntly, I was running out of money.

Okay. Now just before we move off this point, you know, it's quite interesting because you're certainly not unique in the sense that you had beginners like, you know, we quite often hear it from other guests who have brought on the podcast and, you know, just other conversations I have, people who seem to have quite decent success in the very beginning, but then that kind of fades away. Why does that happen? Like why do we experience beginners luck so frequently?

I think there's potentially a couple of angles to it. Like I'm honestly I'll give you the I'll give you the fro-fru fairy dust one first and I'll give you the more practical one second. So I think I think there is honestly an element of karma. Like I really do think that uh the universe kind of goes, right, if you are really willing to to put it on the line, give us a real crack, I'll I'll give you a little nudge. Okay. I'll I'll give you a little nudge. I'll I'll help you out a little bit.

Um I really honestly believe that. For the people that really commit And I really committed, trust me, uh, at the time. I think the universe does kinda go, All right, bro, like you've knocked on this door enough times. I'll I'll I'll let you stick your toe in and we'll see how you go. I think the more practical more practical explanation

is there's probably a little bit of survivorship bias in what we're talking about because for as many people that get beginners like there's probably a lot more that just get blown out of the water from day one. I think that there may be an element of at the time Probably my natural skills, my natural proclivities, my natural kind of tendencies just suited what was happening in the market.

Okay. So if you just have a natural sort of like your first instinct is you want to buy a breakout. Okay, just to give you a practical example. And the market has just happens to be going through a period where there's ton of liquidity and it's trending a lot, you'll have a lot of success.

But then if the market changes and all of a sudden markets are range bound and it's not a lot of liquidity and it's, you know, kind of back and forth and then you're gonna get cut up because you're gonna be buying every false breakout, right? So I think a lot of that happens where Beginners get going and just out of sheer luck.

their natural tendencies suit what the market is doing at the time. Okay. And you've also got to remember there's some markets where the markets are very forgiving. Yeah. Like, mate, if you have If you really like uh commodity based equities um and that's what you were putting your money in in two thousand four. In two thousand and seven, you look like a goddamn genius, you know.

But that's got nothing to do with you. That's just because you're going through a massive mining boot. So, you know, it's the old quote, you know, the rising the rising tide raises all ships, et cetera. You know, you imagine someone that uh to give you a slightly different example. You imagine someone that came out of university with a degree in geology

um, from a university in Western Australia in two thousand and two. Okay. What does their life look like right now versus someone who came out with the same degree but just happened to be born seven or eight years later? Okay. their life looks very different.'Cause the guy born in two thousand two or three He's had the whole mining boom to kind of

grow through the industry when people are going like, Man, I need new people. I just have to employ people. There's such a boom going on and that guy can move through uh the seniority ranks very quickly.

versus someone who comes out with a a a degree um in an industry where it's just dead or stagnated. Okay. So I think that there's a lot of um luck involved in terms of how the market's trading at the time, what what liquidity is like at the time, um, what volatility is like at the time, all those type of things I think contribute to this kind of beginner's luck phenomenon.

Yeah. I think those are both uh really good explanations. Actually, you you nailed that. So that was that was really good and uh I think quite helpful. Like I said, we're going to get into this trader development stuff. Uh just before we do though, there's one little thing I'd like to speak with you about and that's

Is about what sort of trader you've evolved to today. So um, you know, you said you struck some beginners luck early on and you struggled for a while. What sort of trader have you developed into now? I think I'm fairly similar, but with a lot more nuance, right? So I'm still predominantly, you know, like I don't have many charts up on my screen. I I read order flow off the death of markets. Um I try and I'm training.

I'm I view trading as a competition, right, between between traders. So I'm always trying to think Uh when I look at the market Um, who's getting trapped, who's getting stuck, who's under pressure. Uh where are where do I think stocks are gonna be? I'm trying to kind of gauge the psychology of the market.

um not looking at it in a in a fundamental sort of way. So like if someone says to me, what do you think is gonna happen with uh interest rates in six months or whatever, like mate, I have no clue. I'm I'm not smart enough to to know that, nor do I really care to, okay? I'm I'm trying to read order flow on a on a tick by tick basis and trying to understand where traders are getting stuck.

uh where people are gonna be fearful, where people are gonna be greedy, um those types of things and placing that within the broad structure of How is the market trading? What prices are important? What is the market trying to do and how good a job is it doing of achieving that right? Uh I think that kind of covers most of what I'm doing these days. Okay. And you're predominantly focused on futures?

Yeah, so the the the the prop uh the prop trading um world in Australia in in particular is an end and Also the same in Europe is predominantly futures based. Um you would very rarely find I mean they do exist. But it's it's quite rare to find an equities prop trader at a at a prop trading firm in in Australia or Europe. Okay. This is actually one of the things I was gonna bring up with you. Um

is the fact that many Australian firms actually trade very similar products. Um there's not much kind of diversity. How come and do you think that's a good thing, a bad thing, or indifferent? I don't think it's a good thing, but I understand why it happens. It happens because it's it's very difficult to move away from something if you're making money doing

Okay, so I I'll I'll put it to you this way. Okay, so after After the GFC in two thousand and eight, um There were a lot of traders trading certain styles. It just kind of got blown out of the water, all right. Like the volatility just got them, right? And they they kind of blew up and went away. And then there was another style of trading that kind of got through that GFC uh volatility relatively unscathed. And I think that most of the trading happening in Australian prop firms now.

is is a derivative of that style. Okay. And obviously everyone kind of brings their little, you know, twist and nuance to it. But most of the guys are by trading a similar style on similar products, right? Um now that can be a good or a bad thing, okay? Uh The reason that it's happened that way, I in my opinion, is that you know ProFMs came out and went, okay, well, what's working now, okay, that's what we need to move towards.

The reason why I think it may potentially uh come back to to buy prop firms is that like we've just said before, you know, the market changes, volatility changes. And what I've seen over the past couple of years is The amount of uh dollars out there to be had trading that style is progressively getting less and less and less and less. So if if you're trading a certain way, the market's getting more efficient at ARBing out kind of

the uh the little inefficiencies that you are exploiting. Okay, so to give you an example, and this happened this has happened in the US for gas trading that way. It's happened in Europe for gas trading that way. Now you start to see it in Australia. Is that Let's say the gas trading

The guy's mainly a uh US tenure notes trader. Okay. So for the style that he's trading ten years ago, let's say he was making and I'm just throwing out random numbers here, let's say he was making two hundred fifty K a year. Okay. To make two hundred fifty K a year, he would need uh let's say limits of a hundred notes. Okay. Um five years later

To make that same two hundred and fifty K, he now needs two hundred and fifty notes, okay? Because he's making less per trade, so he's got to trade bigger to earn the same amounts of money. Nowadays that guy needs a thousand notes, okay?

Because there's just there's so you know, the the um the markets are pretty tight, like we're in a zero interest rate environment, all those types of things. So risk managers are are now, I think, starting to look at this and go, hang on, like this doesn't make sense because If if this guy's trading a thousand notes and he gets whacked, just like every trader gets gets hit at some point, that's that's a lot of damage to our PL, right?

So I'm actually of the opinion that some of the old school ways are starting to come back. Um, and I think the the pure cli the kind of the old school way of trading, if I can put it that way, will uh those skills are starting to come back into vogue now. Um so I think you potentially may see a shift in the way uh firms conduct What products they trade and how they trade them over the next few years as those new opportunities arise. Now, having said that,

a lot of the kind of the geopolitical things may change that. Like, you know, you've got the big Don in the US and all that where all of a sudden there's a bit more volatility, there's a bit more movement. So, you know, those kind of inefficiencies may come back. In terms of the same product set,

But I'm a hundred percent of the opinion that uh it's much better to have a diversified um group of traders. Okay, like I think that's just that's just absolutely fact because if you have a room of guys uh all trading the same product and trading the same way. If that stops working or they get smacked.

you you know, you there's nowhere for you to go, right?'Cause you've got ten guys all trading the same thing, all trading the same product doing the same thing, they're all gonna get hurt. Okay. So having a diversified spread of guys trading uh different periodicities, so uh different time frames, different strategies on different products.

I think that's the the correct way for firms to go. Um it's very much uh it's a casino model, right? So if you think of the Crown, you know, here in here in WA or Marvel or any casino around the world, if you You know, obviously, you know, most traders will know that the um casino games have a house edge that varies between various games, but it's always edged towards the house, right? Um so but the edges are very small.

Okay, so I let's as an example, let's say that in in blackjack the edges I think it varies between one and four percent. Okay. Let's just take somewhere in the middle. Let's say the edge is 2.5%. Now, if you think of that, all right, you think of a hundred hands of blackjack, the edge to the house is two and a half hands. out of a hundred, right? That's a extremely small edge. But it's it's a mathematical edge that the casino knows is there.

So if we sit chat and we go, okay, what are the chances of this single blackjack table? So one blackjack table, one limit, losing money tonight. The chances are that you know, forty what's it, forty seven and a half percent. Okay. That's not a really small amount. It's definitely still edge the casino. But there is a definite chance that this that this one black check table loses money. Okay.

But now take a step back and go, but if you put that same one to four percent edge across twenty different casino games. 30 different limits. You know, like you're talking against you're talking now 30 times 20, that's 600 tables. What are the chances of this entire casino losing money over the the the the month to come? It's extremely small. Extremely small, right? So this is why it's better for firms to have a broad, diversified suite of traders trading all sorts of different things.

across all sorts of different timeframes, all sorts of different products, because it removes that kind of like black swan risk where your one strategy just gets absolutely smashed. A hundred percent. Yeah. Well Darren, let's move on to the trader development aspect. So tell us how long it was before you actually became involved in the trader development space and what actually uh what did that look like? Like what sort of things were you doing on a day to day basis?

Post my experience, my first experience as a prop trader. Um, I then actually got a job at a hedge fund at Sydney. So pretty decent size. Like we had We had like oh three hundred million bucks under management, something like that. Um so not not huge, but not small either. Um and I was I was head of trading, right? So I walked into that job going, man, like this is it. Like I've done it. I'm I'm at a hedge fund. I'm head of trading.

You've got a couple of hundred million bucks under management. Like all I need to do, like w we spoke about old Daryl and getting a bum in a good seat. I was like, right, this is my seat. I just need to ride this pony. Into town until it drops, right? Like right until the wheels fall off. Now what happened was that when I when I got back into the hedge fund industry. I very quickly realized that that world had totally changed.

post the GFC. Okay. So, you know, mate, like one thing that I've realized when people lose money, even if it's their fault, it's very difficult for them to put the blame on themselves and they wanna they're looking for someone to blame. And they're looking for people to sue. So what happened was that that hedge fund world had become extremely regulated. And so where I wanted to get onto a true trading desk and be involved in trading.

I now find that my entire job as as head of trading at a hedge fund was, you know, like doing transactional cost analysis reports and sitting in meetings with brokers to try and squeeze the last couple of basis points out of them in terms of our execution. and worrying about, you know, uh sitting down and and making sure that every uh every R was dotted and every T was crossed and investment mandates and just real luck.

boring crap. And so I kind of went, man, like I I was very lucky at the time. I had an amazing boss. Um the the guy who ran the hedge fund was just in uh all probably the best boss I've ever had. Um and he was really good about the whole thing where I kind of went like you know, this is this is just kind of not what I was expecting. And

the the role wasn't going where I wanted it to go. The industry had changed. And what I kind of realized was that the the the prop world now is kind of the last bastion, the last outpost Of that sort of true entrepreneurial, true uh you know, true trading um kind of realm. And so uh an opportunity came up for me to be involved again with a prop firm as a trader and as uh as I guess someone helping develop young traders coming through.

And because I'd been through that experience and because I kind of you know, been through the heartaches and been through the ups and downs and and gone through a training program, kind of seen the good things and bad things about it and and dealt with people, mentoring me, um and because of my my background and sort of, you know, like I I said I'd bring it back, my background in in understanding what a uh a proper environment for someone to to excel in is, I thought

this sounds like a really cool opportunity. And so that's how I got started. Okay. And was it easy for you to split your day between trading and trader development? No. It definitely took it took a period of adjustment, for sure. On my part, obviously

If if you're involved with developing traders, you need to make sure that you when you're doing that, you can do it to the best of your abilities. Because I mean, let's be honest here, you're dealing with like I take it very seriously, right? Like you're dealing with a young person's hopes and dreams, you know, like this is literally if if you are involved with uh trader development and I feel very strongly about this realm and I've I have I guess fairly strong opinions on it.

You are dealing with the hopes and dreams of young people who are coming to you, um, probably fairly naive, looking to you for guidance, looking for you to point them in the right direction. And you have a massive responsibility to do the right thing by them. Okay. So There are times when you're gonna have to set your own ambitions aside. Now, at the time

I I I I want to be involved in the business of trading. I want to help people. I I get a kick out of it. I think I'm very good at it. It's a skill that I have because of my background. So I really enjoy doing it and I enjoy seeing people grow and I enjoy seeing people uh

achieve their goals. Okay. And I think I can I think I'm very good at at facilitating an environment where they have the best possible chance of doing that. But there was absolutely a period of adjustment. And mate, like I'm s I'm still struggling with it to this day. You know, like what's the correct What's the correct balance? Um, you I find that you have to be in terms of trading, you've got to be much more focused on, okay, what are the things that I'm really good at?

And I just really need to focus on doing very few things simply, okay? And I need to realise that there may be times when I have to set my own personal ambitions aside. in order to um help the the bigger group, right? Like this is the ultimate definition of uh if the team wins, I win. Okay, so you know, going back to the rugby scenario, like you have to go into this going

If the team wins, I win. So maybe my personal ambitions as a trader have to be scaled down a bit. They don't disappear, obviously. Um,'cause I don't think it's right that you can just stop trading. I don't th I think that that is uh I don't think you can do that either. But you need to realise that uh if you're going if you are going to develop someone as a trader, you need to be able to give them

uh the utmost attention when it's necessary. Okay. You can't be kind of half focused on trading and half focused on someone else. Like you can be you can be um when you're with them, you need to be with them. Okay. Uh so I think it it's It's definitely an adjustment. It's something I'm still tr struggling with the balance with, but I think I've got much better at it.

Yeah, and I think you may have answered this this next question I have for you to some extent in your answer there, but I'm gonna ask it anyway, especially because you do feel so strongly about this. What makes someone a good trainer? Like what are the things that a good trainer does? I think a good trainer is and again, I know I'm repeating the same things, but I think they're very important. I think a good trainer is self aware.

So what I mean by that is uh if you're if you're looking to find a mentor or you're looking to find a trainer, and I I I apply all these things with myself when I'm looking for mentors in in business or life or whatever it may be. They are self aware. What I mean by that is they know what their strengths are and they know what their weaknesses are. Okay. So if someone comes to me and asks me a question about, uh, I don't know, trading

currencies or trading um mid cap stocks or whatever, I'm gonna say very bluntly, I don't know. Okay. Like I just don't know. If someone wants to do, you know, uh if someone comes to me and goes, Can you tell me about candlestick patterns and all this stuff? Like my very honest answer is I just don't know, you know?

I know what I'm good at and I know what I'm not good at. And I think you need to look for people that are very transparent and very honest about what they can teach you and what they can't. All you all you want someone to do. is to tell you about what they have experienced and what is the truth for them. Because in trading the truth is different for everyone. Okay. It's like a golfer swing.

Your true swing is going to be different to my true swing. Okay. So it's different for everyone. And you want someone that accepts that and understands where their strengths are and where their weaknesses are and focuses on their strengths. not trying to cover up their weaknesses. I think that a good mentor or a good trainer is transparent. You want someone that you want someone that is transparent about

transparent about the grind, right? You want to be someone that's transparent about the fact that like this is hard. You know, you want to be transp someone transparent about the fact that they also have their struggle. You want to be transparent. You want someone that's transparent about the fact that like you never you never figure this out, you know, like you never solve trade.

It's like saying you solve trading is like tra is like saying you can solve golf or tennis. It's a it's a dynamic system. You'll never solve it. So people who say, I figured it out, or you know That's that's just such BS, you know. Um and this is like you know, I said I said you want some of this transparency about the ground and transparent about the hard times. Like I have a massive issue um with people pitching trading as some sort of glamorous lifestyle. Okay.

If you Aaron, if you said to me How do I know that someone is is not right? I would be like, if you pull up uh a video or a profile picture, whatever it may be, and it's them standing in front of their Ferrari or trading off their iPhone from their yacht. Like that's BS, right? It's because I don't know a single profitable trader. And trust me, I I know I know a ton of guys that make a lot of money doing this and been doing it for a long time.

Not a single one of them trades with their goddamn phone. Not a single one one of them trades from their yacht. Most of them, you know, d don't own fancy cars. Like it's This is this is a a craft, okay. This is not Gee, look at me at my penthouse and wherever and look at at amazing how I am and I've made X amount of dollars per day. Like that's BS. This is a grind, you know. And if you if you look at if you look at the guys that are really good out there

That's what they're showing you. Okay. They're saying to you, this is bloody hard. Like this is damn hard. Chances are you won't make it on your first crack. You know, like guys who come on and say, I've blown up three accounts. Um, but I kept struggling and I got through. And I know there's a couple of your of your guests who said that on on your on your show. Those are the guys you want to look for, right?

Like'cause those are the guys that are showing you like I've got scars from this, you know, I've bled for this. I didn't figure this out in one day. I still haven't figured it out. I'll never figure it out. I'm constantly evolving. I'm constantly having to Essentially relearn trading'cause like we've said, the market changes.

All the time. That's why you have to constantly be evolving as as a person and as a trader. So you want someone that that shows you that. You want someone that says to you, like, this is bloody hard work. And there you've described a a good trainer. How about we flip the coin here? How about a good trainee? What what makes a good trainee? All I can speak about is the guys that I've seen do well. Okay. So the the guys that I've seen do well, and I'm talking about someone who walks in.

literally going, I don't know what a bid or offer is, I don't know what a futures contract is, I don't know anything, right? To succeeding as a trader, making money, kind of living living the dream that they want to. And then, you know, once they get to that point, it's up to them, right? What the what how far they take it.

I think I think the number one thing, and again, this is why um I took the time to tell that boring high school rugby story, the number one thing is grit. Honestly, mate, it's just You need to be like that bulldog that gets his teeth around that bone, it just will not let go. Like because this

This is gonna be a slog. It's gonna be hard. It's gonna take you years. The struggle is never gonna end. You know, like you gotta you gotta keep grinding all the time. So grit is the number one thing for me. Someone that

someone just has that fire in their belly and and has seen a bit of hardship. Like one of the number one things I look for when I'm interviewing guys, I wanna see that you've had a bit of hardship in your life and you've got through it. Okay. So I'll give you an example, you building this podcast, okay? It ha it it definitely hasn't been easy. Okay. Like I I don't know the ins and outs.

But I can tell you right now, there's a lot of people doing podcasts out there and and very few that have had your sort of success and your sort of reach and be able to be able to get the people that you have. Um, onto your podcast, right? So you've had to grind, I'm sure, like go through tough times, go through hard times.

figure out for yourself like how to do something because you haven't got the money for someone to just do it for you. Like you've got to bootstrap something from the ground up, right? So for me that's a huge thing. Seeing someone that's got that grit. I don't know that you can teach that. I think that's just innate. Like for me, you know, that was that was drilled into me from

uh from essentially day one, right? Like, you know, I mentioned that um my dad was a my dad was an airline pilot. Like my dad started as an aircraft mechanic, right? Like he didn't do super well at school, started as an aircraft mechanic. Always had a passion for flying. Um and decided so he was actually uh he was a flight engineer. So I'm maybe going a bit far back now into the into history and maybe showing his age and mine. But

cockpits used to be in aeroplanes used to be a three man cockpit. So nowadays it's two pilot co pilots and computers do everything else. Back in the day, like you would have a third guy sitting behind the the pilots. Um and what he would do is his job was to

oil pr uh oil pressure and oil richness and move the flaps up and down and all that kind of stuff. Like he had to sit there with all these toggles and do that manually in flight. Then obviously once computers came along, computers now do all that stuff behind the scenes. So I didn't need a flight engineer anymore. And so my dad basically had a choice.

You take the golden handshake from the the the airline because you're all being made redundant, or you go and do your flying exams and you learn how to be a pilot. Like I said, my dad wasn't a genius at school, you know, he was pretty good at his hands, aircraft mechanic. And he was like, no, I want to go be a a pilot. And I promise you, Aaron, I remember that dude.

He grafted so hard for those exams. He he failed them a couple of times, you know, but he just he would not let go of that dream. And I remember him going into the into um study at old house. And I'm talking, mate, I'm like six years old now, right? and just studying for like literally fourteen hours a day, you know? And to put in that amount of work for weeks on end, go away. not pass, go back and do it again. Just like I am not going to let this go. Um and I think it

That's why I say I don't know if you can teach it right. I think someone needs to have uh experienced that or seen a real life example of that in their life to really understand the kind of what I'm meaning when I say true grit. I think another thing you need to look for is is competitive drive. Like you want competitors, you know. A and I don't I think when I say competitors, everyone thinks sports. I don't. Okay.

Mate, if you're competitive at Tetris, you're competitive at uh World of Warcraft, you're competitive at I don't know, whatever, whatever it may be. You you play in uh you play in the local uh you know, touch footy league or whatever it is. Um but I think you need a competitive drive because

Whether you like it or not, this is a competition. Okay. Trading as a proprietary trader is a competition. And the m the the earlier and the more traders can think of this as a competition, the better off they will be. Um I think you need someone that's uh intelligent but not too intelligent. Okay. I think people are make a mistake that they think that the smarter you are, the better chance you have of succeeding.

I've actually seen I don't say I've seen the I don't want to say I've seen the opposite, the dumber you are. But what I have seen is that people that are like super, super smart. The mistake they often make is they come in and they try and figure everything out. Like why is the market going up? Why is the market going down? Why did the market pull back like that? Why is that bid not dropping? Why is that offer keep refreshing?

And mate, the thing I've realised is that y you can't figure this out. Like you you need to almost You need to let go of trying to figure out every single uptick and downtick. Um so there's you definitely need someone that's that's smart, but Not so smart that they they think they can figure out the markets, right? And I think the one of the biggest things is you want to come in. You want to come into this as as a trainee as an empty cup, okay? You want to come in.

Not with any preconceptions or um not with any preconceived ideas. And this is why prop firms generally prefer people that have zero trading experience. Okay. So Someone that's been trading for a couple of years is often more difficult to train than someone that comes in like literally knowing nothing. Because someone that comes in with a couple of years experience, there's probably a lot of ingrained bad habits that you have to remove.

So um someone who comes in as an empty cup and someone who comes in with the attitude of This is a skill that I need to learn for myself. Okay. So you don't want to walk into this going, tell me what to do.

Like to come in and go, guys, tell me what the setup is. Okay. Tell me what the setup is and then I'll do it. Like what are your best setups? Okay. Um, tell me what to look for. Tell me what the exact pattern is. Okay. So if I'm talking about right uh if you see absorption on a bit of offer um

Well, I I don't know. There's no there's no exact number, right? Because like we've said before a bunch of times now, the markets are constantly evolving and constantly changing. So what's absorption or rejection or whatever that you know, whatever um kind of order flow sort of setup you're looking for, that's gonna change. It could literally change from day to day what you're looking for. So you wanna step away from this

Kind of tell me exactly what to do mentality. Okay. And what I always say to guys is it's almost like if you had If you imagine a tennis player, okay, and and they're sitting in the change room before they walk out to play in a big final and they're sitting with their coach and it's kind of the last final preparations before they walk out. And the tennis player turns to his coach and he goes, okay, so what shots should I hit?

Like, what's his coach gonna say to him? He's gonna go, uh, what what do you mean? And the guy goes, Well, what shot should I hit? This coach is gonna go, uh, Bro, I don't know, like it depends, right? Like all I can tell you is these are your strengths, these are your weaknesses. This is what I think your opponent may do based on his strengths and weaknesses. And then you have to go out and you have to play the game, okay? And what shots you're gonna hit depend on

A million different variables like, you know, uh what's the what's the weather like? Um what's the score? You know, are we in the first game or is it match point against us? Um what shot has my opponent just hit? Um, is there wind or is there not wind?

What's the humidity in the air like?'Cause that'll affect the way the ball flies through the air. Is the court playing fast or slow? Is my opponent injured? Am I injured? Is my opponent tired or not? Am I tired or not? Like there's so many different factors that go into what shot should I hit in a tennis game. But what young traders do is they want to be told what shots to hit before the game even begins.

Whereas good traders understand that trading is a skill. And what you need to do is you need to build your skills to the point that you can step into the market and you can understand how the market is trading, how the market is flowing. And then you can go, right, given that I understand how this market's trading and how it's flowing, and I think I have a good sense of what's happening, how do I, based on my strengths and my weaknesses, take advantage of that?

And just to add one more thing, as we're talking about being a good trainee here, and you can either agree or disagree and let me know what you think about this, but I presume As a trainer, one of the most rewarding and frustrating things for you would be seen trainees not take action and actually implement the sort of guidance or advice that you're passing on to them like It must be very rewarding to tell someone something.

or to to bring something up with them and then to actually see them go away and implement it, try it and actually come back to you and show you that they've actually taken action and and done something about it. Because, you know, it's very easy to hear things and and take information in, but it's really all comes down to execution and action, correct? Right, absolutely. And and let me I'll I'll I'll expand on that.

I think something that I've been relatively good at. There's not many th there's not many things I do well. But I think one of the things I do well is that I've been able to get people around me around me that are good mentors. Okay. So it so many of the good habits that I've learnt, I've learnt off other people throughout my life, right? I I've I've been able to get good people around me that can support me and guide me and show me the way.

And the reason I've been able to do that is that I think I'm a good trainee, right? So all these things I've spoken about. I do myself. So I don't just walk in and go, Tell me how to do it, okay? What what a good trainee does is exactly what you just said. Okay. You you show them a basic concept or a basic skill and they go away.

and they work on it themselves. They really put some deep thinking and deep work into it. And they they may They they absolutely should actually tweak it and adjust it to suit them because everyone's circumstances are different, everyone's personality is different, everyone's strengths and weaknesses are different. So they go away and they use what you've said and they adapt it to themselves and then they come back and they ask more questions. And you're mate.

You'll be able to tell straight away if someone's done the work because every time they come back, their questions are more nuanced and more are showing a a an everly an ever more progressive depth of knowledge, right? as opposed to the person who you tell them something and then you check up with them like a month later and you go, So how have you gone with that? Ah, well, you know

I heard what you said, but I kind of like, you know, I didn't do that, I did this and I thought that, oh no, this would be better and blah blah blah blah. Like I'm not saying that everything I say is gospel, but if someone comes to me for my opinion and I give it to them

at least give that person the respect of of actually going away and thinking about it, right? Like if you c if you if that person comes back and goes, I really thought about what you said and I did a ton of work and respectfully I disagree Perfect. I have no issues with that because that's you finding your way. But someone who isn't even willing to put in the work, like it can get it can get very frustrating.

But mate, the way I you know, like I've seen I've seen a lot of people come and go in this industry. Okay. I've seen a lot of people go through training programs and and not get through or quit or whatever it may be. I've seen a ton of people come and go. You know, I've someone asked me the question once like do you think you've ever Um let someone go. could potentially become a a a really good trader.

And I'm like, Of course I have. I'm I'm a human being. Like I've made I'll I'll make mistakes, right? Or maybe someone comes to us at not quite the right time in their life where they actually need a couple of more years of maturing and in two years time

they'll they'll get through the training program and they'll be away and they'll be profitable and they'll be a a really good trader for the rest of their careers. But right now, the timing's not quite right. You know, like uh So but the thing that that I've always said to them is that I put my head on my pillow and go to sleep like a baby every night because I know that every person that comes in, I give them my one hundred percent that I can.

And if that person is meant to make it in in this industry, they will make it with they will make it with me or without me. Okay. They will find a way. Like I I just know that personality. That that kind of those types of personalities They will find a way. You know, like at the end of the day, that's why I'm in this industry. That's why I love it. It's because of the people. Because you meet people that

that have all of these traits that are spoken about. You meet people and just sponges and they come in and they do all the right things and their attitudes are awesome. And you and to see them have success is incredibly satisfying. It really is. One of the It's one of the best things that I've ever done is to see someone

come and know nothing and to see them develop over six months to a year to the point where they know more than me about certain things, you know? And like I I'll I'll be the first person to put my hand up and go, Back in my old firm, there were guys where after a year there were certain styles of trading or certain things where they they were the master and I was a student. Okay. And that's that's awesome because that means that I've done my job right and that

I haven't tried to give them a recipe and go, yeah, I cook this. What I've done is I've taught them how to cook, if that makes sense. So a great chef He doesn't need a recipe book because he understands taste. and he understands flavor combinations and he through intuition and experience can understand how to cook things.

So you put fifty ingredients in front of a room of ten uh you know three hat chefs and they'll go, sweet, we don't need a recipe, and they'll come up with amazing dishes, right? But what too many people do is they want the recipe. They want the setup. Okay. This is not about setups. This is about developing skills. I'd like to ask you a few questions, I guess more specifically about prop trading.

Um and and naturally I presume or that you might be somewhat biased on these, which um, you know, i is totally reasonable. But Why do you think being in a prop firm increases your chances of success? This was something you s you said to me off air, so I just want to bring that up. Okay, so like we spoke we've we've spoken about the fact that

um that I think I've been lucky to get a couple of really good mentors in my life. So one of one of my closest friends, who was best mad at my wedding, um, but we, you know, we get really involved, very close. He's taught me a lot. He was in the special forces in the military for a long time. Okay. So I think like ten years in the army, eight years in the special forces. And I remember saying to him, 'Cause he's you know, like if you you think about

Um, how many people try to get into an environment like that and fail and can't get through s through the selection, all those types of things? I kind of said to him like, you know, what what made you different? Like what kind of got you through? Because if you look at the guy Yeah, he seems like a totally normal average bloke, right? So I said to him like kind of what what made you uh what helped you get through this and when you were in that in that scenario, uh when you were through selection

How did you kind of stay with the pack, right? Because you've got to remember those guys are the best of the best, you know, like a the top one percent of the top one percent or whatever you wanna say. And his answer was environment is everything. And I'm gonna say that again because I think it's so important. Environment is everything. And that's why being at a prop firm, in my belief, increases your chances of success exponentially. Because if you can get into a prop firm

that has its environment right. Your learning is accelerated so much. Okay. So My mates basically said, I'm nothing special. But when you get into that environment where everyone is pushing to succeed, pushing to excel and all working together to be the best they can be. And you see how like I've been saying that same thing from my high school story all the way through.

That's where you just get lifted up by the pack. You you get lifted up, right? Because again, as we said, the rising tide lifts all boats. So when you get into a prop firm that has its environment right. From the moment, from the moment you walk in that door to the moment you put actually let me rephrase that. From the moment you wake up in the morning to the moment you put your head down to the pillow and go to sleep at night, and probably in your dream.

All you are doing is eating, sleeping, breathing, shitting, trading. That is all you do. Okay? So you walk in, guys are talking about trading. They're talking about what happened last night. You sit in on the morning meeting, right. guys, this is what we can expect today. This is the news that's coming out. This is the order flow, significant order flow that happened last night. Because the guys trading the night session, it's now the end of their day. They're still there.

So they're saying to you, you know, watch out for that big seller refreshing in the ten years. Watch out for this guy lifting offers in XYZ. Watch for this guy selling lots of five hundred in A B C. Okay. You're trading during the day and in a good prop firm, guys are talking to each other all the time during the day. Okay. They're constantly calling out information. As a modern trader, there's so much information that you have to take in, right? That it becomes very difficult to watch.

um everything on your own. So being in a room where guys are calling out order flow, calling out bid and offer changes, calling out uh new highs in this, new lows and that, uh this has just got bid, this has gone offer. uh there's a iceberg on the bid and whatever. That's unbelievably helpful. It just accelerates everything. And then you you have a good trade. You get up and walk to the kitchen to get a drink of water. Your buddies there. How did you go? Oh no, I puked.

Oh, how did you go? I did really well. What did you do? And there so can you see what's happening there? Like you you're constantly re replaying all these things, um, over and over and over and over. You you're gonna hopefully have uh good mentors that will sit down with you and go, okay guys, we just had the morning session. Uh who saw what? Who had a good trade? Who did this? Who did that?

Um it's you know, it's the old uh Mike Bellefiore, one good trade, right? Like you turn one good trade into two good trades, into three good trades, into four, and your number of repetitions just increases. so much um that your learning curve is massively shortened because You know, the average trader sitting at home just can't replicate that. It's it's very well, it's very difficult to replicate that. Okay. So, I mean, I think there I think there's a few options nowadays.

Um where guys can get a taste of that. So like some of the stuff that uh FT71 is doing with stage five, I think is awesome. Um you know some of the stuff that like you know Alex Haywood at Axia is doing, I know you spoke to Brannigan a couple of podcasts ago, is awesome. Um You know, that's that's kind of stuff is is giving people that don't have access to aren't in a prop firm. Um

a a prop like environment, if that makes sense. But still to me, the the best way, the best chances of success are getting yourself into a prop firm with a good training program where you can be around traders and and just kind of learn through that osmosis and repetition and being in that professional trading environment. Okay. Okay. So with this being said, let's say someone is at home. Let's just come up with a scenario. They've been trading three years. They don't have any fancy

Education. They've just been putting in a lot of hours trying to make it on their own at home. They've been trading for about three years. Let's say they actually want to now become a prop trader because they've heard all the positive things you have to say about it.

What are the first steps? Like, how do you go about it? And what sort of firm should you try to get into? Because there's many different sort of prop firms as well. Like some are very quant-heavy firms, some are very um discretionary, uh point and click. W what are the first steps? Let's just break it down.

Okay. Well I think I think if you want to get into this world, your your first step is uh like there's a lot of this there's a lot of information obviously out there in terms of um Well, let me take a step back. I think there's a there's enough information out there for people to get a rough sense of

who's who in the zoo, right? But I totally understand how someone singer could be going, Man, I'm a bit confused by the terminology or I'm a bit confused, is this guy good? Like This guy wants me to do this and this guy wants me to do that and uh this guy's website's really good or whatever. I understand it can be really confusing, lucky. The one thing I'll say is, um, like reach out to me. Honestly, I'm quite happy to take I'm quite happy to take emails from

anyone, right? I'm happy to answer questions. Like I said, I know my strengths and weaknesses. If I can't help you, pretty sure I can point you in the direction of someone who can. But that that said,

The the decision for someone like that is really, okay, what what stage am I in in my life? Okay. Because Let's say you're someone that's, as you've said, been trading for a couple of years from home, but you uh still live with mum and dad, you have no debt, and you're about to finish uni in six months. is very different to the set of decisions that someone who's got a mortgage, a wife, and three kids can make.

you know, like I I'm again, I I said that a part of being a good mentor is uh or a good you know, all that is being transparent. So let me be very transparent. This is much easier to do if you have uh as little financial encumbrance as possible. Okay, that's just that's just a fact. Because

you know, sitting down at a prop firm and having sitting there going, Oh geez, I've got to pay the mortgage. Well I've been on my case. I haven't earned money for six months. What am I doing? Blah, blah, blah. Like the pressure to earn money is just going to The pressure to earn money is going to start making your decisions for you, if that makes sense. And you're not going to be in the right frame of mind to make good trading decisions.

Now that doesn't mean that someone who's sitting at home can't make the switch. So if you have a decent track record, That's your first start. Okay. Your first start is to reach out to prop firms and go, This is my story. This is what I've done. This is what I want to do. Here's my track record. Okay. Now. The number of times someone has come to me and said

I trade from home. I wanna I want uh someone in the prop industry to back me, um, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I've gone, cool, you sound like you got a good story, you sound like you're keen, you sound like you're earnest. Can you send me a track record? Crickets. Okay, like you get nothing back, right? So if if that's what you're gonna do, like get your story together first. Like this this is this is what shows intent and effort on your part is

Research the firm and what they do as much as you can. Okay. We don't all sit there and show exactly what we do and how we do it. Like I understand that. Prop firms are not I don't think we're secretive, but um because we don't take money from the outside world, there's no obligation on us to really show everything that we do, right? It's only our money at risk. So I would say research as much as you can.

get your story together in terms of this is my track record, these are all my statements. This is a broker I go through. This is what I want to achieve. Um this is what I think I'll need to achieve that. And then it's a matter of reaching out. Like, mate, I'm I'm here. I'll you know, I'm sure at the end of the show we'll talk about where go if people can get hold of me, but

I'm I'm not I'm visible on Archer and most people at pop firms are fairly visible. Like they all they all have their um contact details on the website. It just Be persistent, right? Like you also have to understand that people are busy. So if they don't get back to you in a day, like you know, give them a little time. If they don't get back to you in a month,

Keep pressing them. Keep pressing them, you know, because our our job as a prof firm also is to find talent. That's what we're here to do. We're here to facilitate we're here to facilitate traders. um, making their dreams come true. Like that's what I said before, right? So um it's a matter of you doing the work on your side, getting your story straight, getting yourself ready, having a keen understanding of what you want to achieve, and then stepping up to the plate and going,

This is who I am. This is how I found you. This is what I want to do. And is someone best to wait for a job to pop up on like a message board or is it better to like cold call and just sort of Put yourself out there before things start to appear. Yeah, it depends. Okay. So I'm I'm laughing to myself because Uh I think um

I think some of the guys that I've kind of mentored, they get so sick of me hearing it depends. Um, because in trading and as in life, there's no real definitive answer to anything, right? It all kind of depends on this on the scenario. So I I'll expand a bit on it. Um I think that's someone reaching out

uh kind of just out of the cold, out of the blue. There's no ad or anything. It's not, you know, something up on some job website, anything like that. That shows intent. Okay. Like me personally, I like that. I like it if And it's a big if. I like it if The person is reaching out when they have done the work on their end. Okay. So they reach out. I don't want someone reaching out and going, So, uh, I'm kind of keen on trading. What do you guys do?

I'm like, bro, come on. Like you can do you can do better than that, right? Someone that has done some work on their end, I'm happy to talk to you, right? I think Obviously if s if people are advertising, you wanna jump at that. Okay. You wanna jump at that. But this business is not to me this is not a business of uh okay, we're gonna recruit once a year. I'm I'm always recruiting.

Okay. I'm I'm always interested in talking to someone that that can uh that can that I can help and that can help me always. Like the door's never closed, right? So I think it really depends. Obviously, you know, if if people are advertising, they're saying we're actively looking for people, so you should absolutely go for it. But if you're at a point where you're like, I'm ready to go now Like there's no harm in there's no harm in reaching out if you do it the right way.

Sure. And just going back to an earlier comment you made about getting together a decent track record. Now, just to be clear on that, it's not absolutely compulsory that you have a decent track record prior to a prop firm actually giving you consideration, correct? Um, it depends what you're asking consideration for. So if if you if you're walking and going I don't want to go through a training program. I know what I'm doing. I'm a I'm a good trader. All I want is I want to plug into you for

uh capital, I want to plug into you for infrastructure, I want to plug into you for, you know, the the back office slash compliance stuff. I want to plug into you for all those things that a prop firm also gives people. And we can talk about all those different things a bit more if you want. Then you're gonna have to show that you know what you're doing, right? Cause you're basically stepping up and going, you see that Ferrari there? I want to take it on the track right now.

I don't want you to check my driver's license. I don't want you to do anything like I know what I'm doing. I just want to go from day one. Now, for a firm to do that, they're going to want to look at you from their side and be satisfied that. uh you're a good risk to take. So you're gonna have to prove that you're a good risk to take. Okay. Now what what do you need to prove that you're a good risk to take?

It's going to be different from every from firm to firm, right? So I can only speak for myself. For me, if someone steps up, I want to see. at least a one year and preferably a two year kind of profitable track record, right? And even the one or two year uh number is kind of misleading because if a guy is like a long term trend follower and he's like, Well, I'm massively profitable um because

uh I've done but I've done three the guy's done three trades over two years and the markets, you know, the markets you've trading have been just trending over that period. I'm kinda go I'm I'm gonna go, well You haven't really proved everything because your sample size isn't big enough, right?

And and also the markets have been trending whilst just happened to start trending when you started and they've been trending ever since. So you haven't seen a period where the market's range bound and whipsawing and you're going through a drawdown. You haven't learned how to deal with that yet. Um so even though he's got a two year track record, his sample size is not enough.

Now, the opposite is someone comes in and goes, um, I've built a and not that this would happen, it's kind of an extreme example. Um But I've built a an algo that trades uh fifty times a day and I've been running it for a year and I've got, you know, X thousand num X number of thousands of trades.

That's a totally different story. That guy could probably get back to maybe after six months, because after six months he's done thousands of trades if he's doing fifty trades a day, right? So it really just depends. I think that a lot of this stuff, Aaron, I think it's it comes down to like, you know, the

as as us Aussies are getting more and more keen to say, the pub test. You know, like you need to kind of look at it and go, right, does this pass the pub test or has this person not really done enough work? So that's That's a scenario getting backed where you just walk in and they go, Cool, what limits do you want? Here's your account that you log into, away you go. Okay. If you're talking about

getting in as a trainee, getting into a prop firm, getting into the training program and trying to do it that way. No, your track record doesn't matter at all. Okay. Like I like I said, I think I said earlier. Um It's all if you come in and you literally go, I don't know what a futures contract is, but

I I think I want to be a part of this world and I've done XYZ and blah blah blah. And that all satisfies um the people recruiting you, that's cool. Like you you've you've never traded before. But if you have certain personality traits that are right. Pop firms can work with that, okay? Um, or if you walk in and you go, Listen, I'm I'm super keen. Uh I mowed lawns and washed cars and got five grand together and I absolutely blew it in three months and I lost it all.

And I realised that gee, I don't know what I'm doing and I've I've actually come to you guys to learn and to help. That's fine because the fact that the fact that you were willing to go out And wash cars. and mow lawns in the hot sun.

to get a um a trading stake together, that to me shows intent, that shows attitude, that shows someone that wants to be a part of this. So the fact that you blew it up, mate, we all struggle. You know, like I said earlier, we all struggle, we all go through hard times.

Everyone's gonna lose money at some point. So it's more about intent and uh showing that you are going to be a good trainee, which is all the traits we've spoken about earlier, rather than any sort of track record if what you want to do is you want to start from scratch, which is getting into the training program and progressing from there.

Sure, okay. And a lot of what we've spoken about here, you know, it it makes prop trading sound all very positive. Let me ask you, what are the bad bits? What are the bits that aren't so fun about it? Yeah, well I mean uh depending on the firm, right? So let's talk about the bad the let's talk about the bad bits that are are I guess universal about about everything. So if we talk about prop trading just as a career, right? I think there's a lot of things

that people don't show you that uh traders have to deal with. So um and it kind of relates back to what I said before. Like I have I have a real issue with people showing trading is like this uh this lifestyle sort of thing, right? Like look at me on my yacht, look at me with my Ferrari, etc. Like that's total BS, right? This is a grind.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Trading is a competition. And if you want to win that competition, you've got to work your ass off. So What people don't see is they don't see the fact that you're gonna be in front of a screen sitting staring at a bunch of numbers flickering up and down for Hours. Like I always said it, guys, at the beginning to build up your chops, you've got to stare at the screen until your eyes bleed. You know? Now

It's also not just all about who can do the most hours, okay? But it's not about like models and bottles and all that kind of stuff from day one, right? Like this is a grind. I think people's expectations are often far too high when they come into the industry. Like if your first year, probably your first eighteen months is gonna be bloody hard, right?

And I don't say that in saying that your first year or eighteen months are gonna be hard and then all of a sudden it's you know guys uh drinks on me for the rest of the night kind of thing. That's just you breaking through the I don't know what the hell I'm doing stage. You then still got to get through the, okay, I'm making a bit of money, but I'm still not doing all that great stage. Then you've got to get to the

gee, I think I can actually do this long term. Um, I'm starting to do okay stage. And only after that can you start progressing to the stage, hopefully, where you start making good tin, right? So people don't talk about the learning curve enough, I don't think.

People glamorize trading far too much. I think that people don't talk about stuff like like boredom, right? You know, because sometimes there's there's not a trade to be done, you know, depending on what your style or proclivity or tendency or strengths are. There's not a trade to be done. So how do I deal with the boredom of sitting there going

I just don't see anything happening right now that I want to do, you know, because the the flip side is you start trading when you shouldn't trade, you start over trading. So and and that you don't want. So you need to find a way find a way to deal with boredom, right? Um you need to deal with the fact that your income is going to be very variable.

It's not you're not getting a salary where it's like, Okay, I get the same amount of money in my bank account every month. This is a game where you could You can have a guy who turns around and he tells you how much he's made that year and you go, Wow, that's a lot. And he made it all in a three week period. Okay. Now you think of what his year looks like the rest of the time. He's struggling. He's break even, he's break even, he's break even, he's break even, he's break even.

And the and he gets to month eleven and goes, Man, like I've I haven't earned any money this year And then he has a three week period where he absolutely kills it and now his year looks great. That's an extreme example, but that's the variability of income, you know, like I've s I uh I've said before to a bunch of guys is that this is a game where You can make your week in a day, you can make your month in a week, and you can make your year in a month.

And you can set yourself up for the next five to ten years in one year. You know, like I've seen traders do that. I've seen guys come out where they just have

an absolutely stellar year. Um I'm thinking of one guy in particular, a really good friend of mine, who you know, came out of out of two thousand and eight and you were sitting at the beginning of two thousand eight going, you know, I've got the the the three bed, two bath house, but I really want to expand because the kids have to kind of, you know, kids have to share a bedroom and really could, you know, have a bigger house, et cetera.

to at the end of two thousand and eight, basically buying a house cash where him and his wife will live their lives and die, right? Like the dream house. So that stuff can happen, but It all sounds great when you talk about the upside, but the downside, dealing with that variability of income of not knowing when your next next dollar's gonna come.

And mate, to be honest, the pressure the pressure of being essentially a solo small business. Because like I said before, as a trader, you're a small business. So as a small business. You live and die by your own hand, right? Um, you know, you asked me earlier about it being frustrating that uh you try and teach guys and they don't do it. No one can click the button for you. Yeah. No one can click the button for you.

So everything you do is by your own hand. And and that pressure can build up, right? It can build up uh on on a person's mindset and mentality. And it's it's very difficult to to maintain the rage, so to speak, for um for long periods of time. Uh it's very difficult to maintain dedication to the process over long periods of time. Um, it's very difficult to embrace uh the struggle over long periods of time. It's very difficult to embrace uh competition in particular, you know, like

You know, I don't know how many how many times I've said this is extremely competitive environment. And nowadays To be frank, people don't like competition. Like we we denigrate we denigrate competition, if that's the right word.

You know, like uh it the that kind of love of competitiveness and achievement is kind of being in in my opinion, sort of bred out a little bit of society. And that's why I think more and more people are starting to struggle when they come through a prop firm where it's like You know, people are just absolutely um going as hard as they can to be the best they can. Some people find that very intimidating.

So I you know, there's there's a ton of stuff that that I think people underestimate um about trading that they they think it's all fun and games, but I promise you it's not it's not. It's bloody hard. But having said that, there is no other industry, literally no other industry on earth I would rather be. Wow. That's um that's a realistic window into the life of a trader. Let's start to wind this down, Darren. Uh we're getting on a bit here. Time's gone really quick.

I know you're in the works of or the in the midst of um starting up a prop firm of your own, establishing your own prop firm. How's that come along? Whereabouts are you at uh with all of that? Yeah, mate, we are we're getting pretty close to launching, so I've I've moved. back over west to um sunny Perth uh for family reasons. My my wife is from here. Like I said to you before, my folks immigrated to here, so her family's here, my family's here.

Um, you know, and we wanted a bit of a a lifestyle change. Uh her folks are now retired, my folks are retired. We wanna kind of, you know, we we we had a really good time on the east coast. Um we both, you know, kind of progressed our careers very nicely. Um, but we felt it was time to move back over the West. And so I landed here and I kind of

you know, like I love trading, I love helping traders and I'd learnt a lot about the business of trading whilst I was over the those the kind of past, you know, five years. And I really feel that there's some some spots where uh traders are not being neglected, but where I think I think we can do better. Okay. Um, and obviously if you talk specifically about Western Australia.

Like I think West Australian traders have been neglected for a very long time. But if we talk more globally, uh I think that there's there's opportunities to be had where I think the way that people uh develop traders and grow traders has kind of stagnated. Um I don't think it's kept up to speed with kind of t a technology.

and B, the the things that we've learnt about how people learn very complex skills. I think there's been a lot of uh research and discoveries made over the past sort of ten years. um about how the human brain works, it hasn't really filtered into uh the way prop firms train their traders. So I've I've had an opportunity to team up with uh the guys at um Xia, so Alex Haywood, I know you spoke to to Branigan a couple of weeks ago. Um Brannigan's a really good guy. Uh Alex, you know, has just been

um kind of at the forefront of trader development for a long time and and we sort of got together to bring uh this product. Uh well, mainly Alex bringing this product to the fore, which I think is just gonna sort of revolutionized the way traders are are are are trained in a in a in the prop industry. Um and so I've kind of come over to WA to you know uh

get the family back here, get back in the sunshine, back on the beaches, living that kind of healthy WA lifestyle. I want to be able to help guys who are in Western Australia who want to be traders, not have to make the uh the sacrifices that are made. Like I I'm I'm I'm keenly aware. Like I can sit here and I can I can recall that young twenty five year old guy or twenty four, however old I was when I

when I moved over um to the eastern states, I think it was around that age. Um and the sacrifices I have to make and like I said to you, you know, uh the personal relationships I put at risk and all those kind of things. Thank goodness it worked out. My old my wife is a very uh

She's forgiven me for a lot of my a lot of my sins and um my uh I guess my my boneheaded nature back then. Um and it all worked out for the good. So I wanna make sure that West Australian traders don't have to make that sacrifice. I also think that Perth is becoming a lifestyle destination again, you know, like the the the the weather of the lifestyle like I've alluded to and the fact that

You know, like the property mark is not as expensive here and all that kind of stuff. And I just wanted to to do something unique and special. That really uh changed the way prop firms uh look at training traders. And when I found Alex and we got talking, I was just like, Yes, this this is it. Um so we're we're a fair of the way down the way. I think we're probably

a month to six weeks away. Like I said to you have a chat the other day that you know when you start going down this path, there's things that you think will happen easily that take a lot longer than you expected. and there's things that you think are gonna be very difficult that happened a lot easier than you expected. Um, I've been very lucky in that I've been able to lean on

some, you know, it's talk about mentors again, like, you know, guys like Morad, like FT seventy one, had a couple of conversations with him. He's been super helpful. Um, you know, Rob D T G super helpful. And so leaning on those guys has kind of helped a lot over the past couple of years. Um and so yeah, I think we're we're pretty close and I'm I'm I'm really excited. I think it's really gonna change.

Absolutely in WA, and I think on Australia in general and hopefully in terms of our partnership with Axia Futures, the way traders are trained in general globally. Cool man. Very exciting. I hope it all works out well for you. So let's let's wind this down now. If someone has questions for you, I'm just trying to think, like, should we get them to leave?

uh their questions in the comments of this uh episode or should they just email you directly? Should they hit you up on Twitter? Like how do you want to handle that? Yeah, I'm I'm happy for people to contact us through whatever medium uh suits them best. So the the new firm is going to be called Signet Trading. So C Y G N E T. Signet as in a a baby swan. So I wanted something that was, you know, kind of um based a little bit around WA. So the website is www.signetstrading.com.au

Um, I'm assuming we could just put all these in the show notes as we go. So Signet Trading.com.au. There is a little box on the bottom there where people can type in a message and it'll get sent through straight to my um my work email. Uh my email is Darren at Signatrading.com.au. Um the Twitter account for the firm is uh at Signa Trading, one word. And then I'm on Twitter. Um my Twitter handle is at LiftTheOffer. So make on a very trading focused uh handle so at Lift the Offer.

make any one of those. People can find me on LinkedIn, put in my name. Like I'm I'm happy for traders to contact me anyway. Like I said, you know, I I rarely do I'm I'm very passionate about this industry. Um, I've been in love with it from literally the day I walked onto that trading floor in New York and I'm still in love with it.

And uh even through all the hard times and all the struggles I've had, uh, you know, it it it hasn't been smooth sailing. Um it's not gonna be smooth sailing going forward. But man, I couldn't think of a better a better um industry to be involved in. I've just met such Amazing people. And so I'm happy for traders from anywhere. If you if you want advice, if you want to be pointing in the right direction, if I can't help you, uh um I promise you if I can point you in the right direction, I will.

So yeah, any one of those ways, whichever way people want to reach out to me, I'm more than happy to answer questions and help people out whichever way I can. Okay, excellent. Darren, thank you very much for coming on the podcast and spending this amount of time uh speaking with us and and sharing some really top insight. Appreciate it.

Mate, it's no problem. Like I I said to you before when we had a call a couple of weeks ago, I think you're doing an incredible service for trading in general. Probably more than you actually realise. Like I I wish when I had started that there was a a trove of knowledge like you've put together and I think you know you'll be helping traders for many years to come. So I I wanted to just say thank you because I've I've learnt

so much from some of the guests that you had had on your show and I look forward to your continued success going forward. Uh well thank you very much. It means a lot coming from you. Cheers man. Cool. Awesome mate. Take it easy. You've reached the end of this episode of Chat with Traders, but rest assured there are more episodes. And zero high. If you'd leave a rate That with traders.