¶ Intro / Opening
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¶ Listener Voices: Personal Drive
Having the ability to take care of my family, having the ability to help my communities. The markets also have pushed me to become a better version of myself.
Every day is unique and provides unique challenges and unique opportunities. psychological basis which allows me to be basically the best
Every day you you need to be those because every day is a brand new day with new challenges that we'll we'll face. Also the emotional aspect of the game, you you have to work so much on yourself in the long run, I'm pretty sure I'll be a better person.
What I found along the way and what keeps me in it really is is the challenge. It's the hardest thing I've ever tried to do and I'm completely addicted to the challenge.
What other profession can you look at where you specialize in and only need to only have to work one to three hours each? And creates that ability for more time and room for ha hobbies, time spent with friends and family and other business ventures. So that's my answer. Just the ultimate and absolute freedom in your life.
Doing it to be financially free and break out of this Babylonian debt slavery system that we're in, which is worthless fiat currency and make a positive contribution to society in some meaningful way. I dream about it, perhaps it's an addiction. I've offered be proven right, I need to be proven right.
Right.
I hate being wrong. It's my retirement and my second career.
Okay.
in the trading game is my passion that keeps growing and the fact that I'm getting better at it every day.
¶ Listener Voices: Freedom and Growth
It has to be the money. It's the reason why all of us doing this. And further that to say the to do what you want whilst making money and the learning, the constant improvement. Just have to keep improving, you have to keep learning and being better than the person you were the previous day.
The allure.
Yeah.
keep trading our freedom and a certain lifestyle. I also think that trading helps me improve myself. I think it makes me a more disciplined person, but the main motive is money.
It's the challenge of the person you have to become to gain the success you want. You have to be humble enough to change your perception of things. Nobody's born perfect, but we do have the ability to change. That's why I like to trade.
To reflect.
myself in the market.
What keeps me in the game of trading is the fact that with financial markets, every day is a brand new day. Filled with tons of opportunities where You and only you are responsible for making the best out of it.
What gives me
in the trading game it's easy and so
To explain.
It's mm.
Intellectual. stimulation and challenge every single day I learn. No matter how good I think I can get.
every single event.
new and lastly freedom I can trade whenever I want uh from any geographical location I want.
in the game of trading. Yeah, now file you can. Right? Sky's the limit. politics messing up your game. I've been there and I'm telling you that makes a lot of difference in your life, in the quality of life you have. The freedom that you have, for sure, the market's gonna lend you a few punches.
on your face.
But
Yeah.
¶ Listener Voices: Resilience and Purpose
Nice question. It's so valid today because trading really goes against all of
Mm.
human nature of the way I am But yet I still consider it to be worthwhile the time and
And effort.
I have not had a consistent profitability for five years now. The worst is I do it for fun, but I can openly admit that to myself. The best reason is I do it for really independence. to free myself from being dependent on anyone. And that's really all there is to it.
hope for a better future and I think that is why most people are doing this. If it's for fun or as a hobby, it's not going to work out. Fortunately, it is something that I've learned to take very
Very serious.
And we have had to learn the hard way that this is a long journey and it can be very frustrating at times. Some days I do want to give up, but changing the mentality from short-term benefit to what you actually want your life to be. I think it's huge and how you can use what you're doing to help other
It's this great competition against yourself. It's challenging to look at yourself.
of a war threat.
You know, it's it's it's as pure as it as it gets. If you master yourself and that can mean a multitude of things to different people. Because there are all these edges in the market that make sense depending on who you are. You don't get that
What keeps me in the game of trading is is this is this is is this daily daily fight uh with me, not with the markets, with my mindset, with my conscience, with my psycho trading that I have to always be aware. knowing my role in this in this business and my role in this business is just to follow the money
Currently I'm slightly at break even point, not profitable, not losing that much, improved a lot. As I am getting improved I feel that trading is getting boring. Uh I feel that once it felt like very, very boring to do trading, then it would be profitable. Yeah, that's all I want to share.
When I was younger, uh I was never really sure what I wanted to do with my life, both in school and professionally. Uh my dad always said that one day the light bulb would just go on. Uh I'm now 36 years old. Um I discovered trading in late uh twenty nineteen. Um and since then I've just never looked back. I spent every waking hour looking at charts. It's just my passion and my calling. And eventually the light bulb did go on and things will never be the same.
For me, it's the constant challenge of becoming a better version of myself today than I was yesterday. And I've not been a stranger to failures in my life, so I had the discipline to look back the review and then to improve on my system by tightening my risk and my whole risk management system and then having a positive feedback from it is what kept me in the game. And of course uh the money. Yes, completely, totally, a hundred percent the money.
I don't wanna be dependent on what s few people on the other side of the planet decide the future's gonna independency to me is the biggest motivator you having 100% control over your own faith over your own life with Trading, you can have unlimited potential, unlimited profits. There's no sky is the limit, literally. Now that's beautiful, that's amazing.
The grind. It's the grind that keeps me in the game. The love of the grind. Because the grind Exactly the characteristic you need to survive the markets for years and years. Please understand it. It is the grind that makes us traders.
A losing trade, I already know this could be the best trade, and a winning trade can be the worst trade. The exact same as gambling. The best bet I ever placed actually lost. in in the whole history of my last twelve years. Um it all came down to expected value of that particular bet. And the same thing applies to trading.
the ability to actually get on and get set is much better than that of the gambling industry where the bookmakers restrict you in Australia. So it's actually hard to even place the bets here. Extremely hard. But uh with trading and and all the different markets and various markets, uh the more I turn over the better. That's the reason I'm sticking to it and I absolutely love love this uh podcast you guys do and I appreciate it. Thanks.
🎵 Music
¶ Episode Introduction and Market Challenges
You're listening to the one and only Chat with Traders podcast, and this is episode 270. I'm Tessa Dow and Ann Cox is with me here today. We're the hosts of the Chat with Traders Podcast. Every once in a while we like to do something a little different and take a break from our regular programming. And this is that episode. So what keeps you in the game of trading?
What you just heard earlier was a compilation of our listeners' voices from across the globe. Thank you, listeners and traders, for sharing your voices. This is as real as it gets. In fact, many of the voices you just heard are also our members of the Chatwith Traders community that I have had the privilege to meet and get to know. We wanted to share these voices with you because we know that you can hear yourselves also in these voices. and what they have to say.
So Ian, I'm so glad you're here with me. Um in the present and last couple of years, it has been one of the toughest markets to trade in, don't you think, Ian?
Um yeah, I'm definitely twenty twenty two uh was pretty choppy, twenty twenty three. You know, it's not we haven't experienced uh a typical bear market, as you'd say, of um steady, continuous declines um in a trend. And uh so it's definitely been uh choppier than usual.
And I I guess it depends on what side of the market you're on and and for some it doesn't matter, especially for some, you know, if you're trading options, you can benefit in any market direction. But in general, from your perspective, um, what do you think makes it so hard about this market?
Uh well, we've been accustomed to uh nice trending uh markets, right? From uh the bottom of twenty twenty-one, twenty twenty, the COVID low, up to you know, the end of twenty twenty-one, thereabouts. Uh very strong trending markets, lots of liquidity coming in, uh, lots of action in um in a variety of stocks, especially the meme stocks, the penny stocks, and what have you. Uh in the past, often we've had uh nice.
trending markets, whether they're up or they're whether they're down. And this is one of the um different markets that despite the rising interest rates, uh, we'd have a uh a sharp rally. Uh, so that um that part is different. And I don't know, maybe part of that is due to the all the money that's been created um over the last few years. I don't know if that's distorting the markets, but It doesn't seem as clean and consistent as some of the bull and bear markets of the past.
Has it been personally um challenging for you uh in in your own trading and investing as well?
Uh yeah, it has. I'm I'm I'm I'm a trend trader and uh And in the past I got trained, you could say, by um, you know, these strong trending markets where I take a position and then hold on to it for a while.
¶ Lessons From Dan McDermott: Strategic Trading
Ian, so you've interviewed at least a couple dozens of guests now. What are some of the things that you have learned and observed that set them apart from many traders out there?
Yeah. So for example, uh recently I interviewed uh Dan McDermott and I was impressed by w how he phrased uh this. He says with every chart that he looks at, He asks the question, what is a bull thinking with this chart? And what is a bear thinking with every chart? So he tries to uh take the side of both bullish and bearish sides to see how they think. And then he chooses um the bull side or the bear side, depending on what's going on with the market direction.
And that way he doesn't be get married to a particular uh ideology, whether it's bullish or bearish, which is so easy to do. Um And also I I liked what he had to say about the relationship between different timeframes, you know, looking at uh whether it's a one minute chart, five minutes. 30 minute hour daily, weekly, and see how they correlate with each other to get a um comprehensive viewpoint.
um correlations between different ass asset classes. Like it looks at the dollar and its impact on gold and influence on market trends using, you know, different time frames, that kind of thing. Um Also, correlations are are real important within the same sector, just looking for different pieces of the puzzle. And lastly, with Dan, I enjoyed what he had to say about be aware, be consciously aware of the conversations going on in your head.
uh because psychology is such an important part of the process. Uh and this awareness of what his uh what his mind is going through, either being ecstatically bullish or being fearful, fearfully bearish. This awareness helps him avoid being ruled by his uh emotional extreme.
Yeah, so you were referring to uh episode two sixty seven, just to bring that up in case um any of our listeners wanna go back and listen to that episode. Any other uh episodes stood out for you? that you felt had an impact on even your trading as well.
¶ Patrick Peterson's Determination and Intuition
So uh one guest who I interviewed, uh, who I was really moved by his determination and passion was Patrick Peterson. uh a trader from Germany in uh episode two sixty. So I was really impressed by his determination to self study about the stock market as a teenager. And he was so excited that for his birthday on his eighteenth birthday.
He ran down and opened up a trading account and he was so determined to make it work. And this is in a country, mind you, where um the culture and his family did not approve of trading for a living. Sure, they are into investing, long term investing, but trading is almost incompatible with their culture because they're much more conservative than what we frequently find here in the US. He was so determined. Yeah, back then. I mean, this is twenty years ago, admit admittedly.
So back then he was so determined to make it work that he ignored his family and cultural attitudes against traders. And he blew up many accounts and He actually endured months of homelessness sleeping in his car because his family would say, Hey, that's your tough luck. You know, it's it's your problem. And so they sh didn't show any love and support for him.
And so, but he yet he still had the fortitude to approach wealthy bankers and say, hey, look, here's what I'm doing with trading. And he had the confidence to get back up and say, here's what I'm doing, being very transparent on how he trades. He says, ask them, you know, uh, can I manage your money for you? And he was convincing enough to get to get them to agree to ma uh so you can manage their money.
And they're used to getting quarterly reports like most of us are, right? You know, what did you do for the last three months? But he wanted to be different than all the rest. And so he gave them daily reports. And uh this transparency helped attract other investors. And so then he he was able to sell himself and
proof that his that he could deliver to them. And that was yeah, that was quite, quite moving. I I found um I really enjoyed that interview. So he's a very much of a feeler. He feels his way into the market and considers himself an intuitive trader.
And don't forget that he um yeah, he he breathes. He breathes in and out the markets, right? Yes. That is what he's known for in this episode as well. Amazing episode.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. He said, I must become the feeling of the market.
Mm-hmm. Something like that.
Yeah, exactly.
¶ Vincent Bruzizi: Statistics and Contextual Trading
So, you know, what other topics like um trading themes that you can recall in some of the episodes that really stood out to you?
Uh yeah, Vincent Bruzizi uh in episode two fifty five. Uh his knowledge of statistics. actually he was a statistics professor, uh, and a long term uh poker player, how he used these statistics to uh in his quest to find Can I beat the market? Is there a statistical edge that I can get to to give me that edge so that I can get the edge over, say, just buying the S P five hundred? He got into the market.
long after he had a well established career and it was his quest is investigate uh whether this was possible. So he he first he focused in on mindset, right? And he he found that to be the most important aspect for him because being a poker player, uh which he nearly did this professionally, that he found that, yeah, mindset is so critically important knowing when to walk away from your losses, uh, when to add when to add and when to fold. And so he looked for certain uh setup.
Which put the odds in his favor. And he was patient enough to wait for those setups. So for example, uh, a setup might include uh stocks with strong relative strength in conjunction with market or sector direction, breaking out of these, um compression zones. Uh, was key to help him uh wait until the right times, wait until he gets that good hand, so to speak, like what he was used to in the casinos, and then add the a sizable position and and trade, uh, wait for the trade to uh unfold.
Um yeah. Something I remember about this episode is that stood out to me is his approach to trading everything in context. Contextual trading. Do you remember that conversation?
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Uh in other words, he would look at many different factors that would be going into, you know, why is a stock moving up or down? And it's it's a it's an accumulation. It's a it's a uh kind of a mishmash of all these different factors which help
will help him give context to well, yeah, it looked bullish before, but now it's it's not quite so bullish because of these additional factors that are coming in. So he's juggling different factors that are going on in the markets, both technical and uh some fundamental as well, to g color his, you know, to give a different flavor of w how he should go long or short uh these stocks.
Prior to this he w he worked in the movie industry. Stood out to me.
Yeah.
You know, to go from go from Hollywood to uh to trading is just completely different.
Yeah, exactly. So he had a well established career and he was making plenty of money. He didn't need to get into trading, but it was his curiosity as a s if he could beat the game, so to speak. And uh he he's uh has a very giving back attitude and he created a a site called Real Day Trading, which is free of charge. Uh you can see exactly what he trades. He posts all his trades live when he goes long, goes short, and when he exits the trades.
So that is nice to see that he's wants to give back to fellow traders and he's very upfront and says, look, this can take years of education and it's not an easy path. Uh, but his wiki that he has is very packed, densely packed, full of great information, helpful advice on how to start the journey of um of trading full time.
¶ Christian Carrion: Overcoming Adversity
Yeah, it's amazing. Any other um topics uh or, you know, episodes that stood out to you?
Well, you know, every episode stands out in its own way. Um some uh are more moving than others, obviously. One interview that I did with a guy named Christian Carrion in eggs in episode two fifty four. I was really moved by his story of growing up in a financially illiterate family. They came here from Mexico when he was quite young. His sister had issues with uh her kidney, I believe it was.
And then he got kidney disease as well. So from a very young age, he was hampered by his freedom to uh, you know, learn and do all the activities that normal kids do. And it was out of the 2008 financial crisis where his um mother's business uh went down the drain and there was problems with alcoholism. And he said to himself, I have to learn ways to develop a passive income. because here I'm stuck here at home. I've got this machine that's trying to clean my kidneys.
And I can't get a normal job. So out of sheer necessity, he found out about the markets and he became obsessed with it out of necessity and passion as well. And then he developed a trading system. He convinced people, wealthy people, so that he could manage their money. And he's done quite well for himself in um trading uh the SP uh through this compression zone system that he's he's got. S and he actively shares his views on Trip Twitter, so I I felt really connected to to him.
I remember, I mean, right around the time uh well, actually during this interview, um, he was waiting for a kidney transplant.
Yeah, yeah, right. He was like stage five kidney disease.
Yeah. And then right after, I think shortly after we recorded the the interview, he had found a a kidney transplant, which was so amazing. You know, just the timing and everything. We were so relieved to hear that.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, and I I I last uh caught up with Christian um not too long ago, maybe a month ago or so on Twitter, and he's doing well.
Mm-hmm.
He's doing well and You know, trading and just taking it one day at a time.
Yeah, great.
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¶ Community Engagement and Guest Insights
The three uh episodes, the the three guests that we had on the show, they actually are well, Patrick is part of the Chatwood Traders community. He's one of the hosts. Um, but Vincent um Brussisi came back into the community. and um, you know, gave a couple of uh presentations and updates on on, you know, how things are going since the episode two fifty five with him. I thought that was cool that we got to know him more.
and his his strategy and thought process even more. So I thought that was really cool that he came back to give us more information. And then also Christian Karyan also came back into the community and provided more uh insight into his strategy. Yes.
Uh yes. Well what was helpful about their uh presentations within the community, uh being that it was video, is that we got a chance to see exactly uh what they're talking about, you know, the exact setup. Uh, what does a chart look like? Um, when they take a position long or short, how do these compression zones uh look like? That was definitely helpful.
¶ David Capablanca: Short Selling Scams
Any other um episodes that you just can't help but, you know, smile, make you smile.
Uh yeah, I I found um I really enjoyed uh talking with uh David Capablanca. Uh he has from the friendly bear and he calls his um cite that because he focuses uh exclusively on short selling. And he got into the business of identifying essentially scams. Scams really annoyed him uh because of, you know, the the very nature trying to fleece money out of people. And so he would uh sign up for these um message alerts from these companies, oh, a penny stocks essentially companies.
And he would get an alert every time they come out with a news story designed to pump up their stock so that the insiders could dump their stock uh on unsuspecting traders. He would um follow this so that He would time his uh was able to time the shorts. to an area of maximum liquidity. And uh given his study of the charts in the past and the companies in the past, that uh he was able to time this quite well and uh make a living exclusively shorting penny stocks.
Uh one story that he shared with us is um he was following the cannabis sector quite closely back during their run up. And he actually went down to Colombia to visit a site that supposedly this company was uh growing its marijuana. And this company's publicly traded on the US exchanges, but they have this place down way out in the outskirts in the in the country in Colombia.
And he'd go there and the security guard wasn't expecting them there. And it was, you know, he got nervous and called the CEO and and and so David had a chance to briefly talk to the CEO on the phone. uh, who was obviously trying to hide something from him and it was a total scam. The site there was nothing there, it was just a front and so David uh
would end up shorting this stock um just as they're trying to do a secondary offering. So they pump up the stock and uh David would short it and uh with great success. So I found that um the adventure, the the traveling trader Enjoyed his story so
I really enjoyed that episode as well. I mean, I can't help but feel like I was watching a movie, like an action movie or something. Doesn't it feel that way?
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I I also found it interesting how he focused in on sympathy plays.
To the meme stocks.
So stocks which had this huge run up like a GameStop or an AMC, but he felt were more were less risky than the meme stocks and that he would uh jump on these sympathy plays because investors were looking for the next greatest thing right after GameStop and AMC. So he would uh short the sympathy plays. Uh so I found that episode two fifty seven quite entertaining.
¶ Jack Kellogg: Penny Stock Specialist's Success
Yeah, me too. That was a very fun episode to listen to. Um what about um Jack Kellogg?
Oh yeah, Jack Kellogg, the episode two forty nine, uh the penny stock specialist is how I call him. Uh he concentrated in this area because of the what he says are cleaner chart patterns that are easier to read because
uh the institutions aren't really involved in penny stocks. And so he felt it was um less interference and less noise that uh you normally get in a stock that's uh traded by algos and institutions. So He concentrated on in this area and would uh follow the liquidity flows into and out of the stocks and uh ride ride the wave up and and the wave down and
He became incredibly successful, turning what, ten, twenty thousand dollars, I think is what he started off with, and turned it into over six million in I believe it was six years. Uh his performance is impressive. Very impressive and I felt moved by his gift to his parents on Jack's birthday, going to the bank and pulling out a hundred thousand dollars in cash and giving his mom, I think it was fifty and his father fifty, something like that. And it was uh kind of heartfelt.
to see this sense of gratitude to his parents who were not rich at all. They were just regular working class people. as a way to say thank you. Thank you for being such great parents to me and being so s being so supportive.
Yeah, I remember that episode very well. And I Jack's um candid way of speaking with you, with us, basically, uh, he just felt like the the guy next door.
¶ Lucas Froelich: Precision Shorting Post-COVID
Actually that reminds me um I did an interview with Lucas Froelich, uh episode two hundred and fifty nine. I was uh moved by his ability to capitalize on that uh very rare circumstance uh right coming out of COVID, where all this liquidity gets injected into the markets and many companies
uh feeling like this is their last time to do a secondary offering because they were thinking that uh you know the market's gonna continue to go down and this is their last hurrah to um raise money. And so Lucas would focus in on these companies with Very weak balance sheets, poor history. These are penny stocks, mind you, mostly penny stocks. He would study their patterns to see what they did in the past.
How much money was being raised, what the secondary offering price was, and he would time his short. with amazing precision and would add to the shorts as it was going down. So he would lever up his position, uh, adding more and more and more as the stocks collapsed due to um offering so many additional shares. And uh he made
Absolutely mind-boggling returns in the many, many thousands of percent. Sawed an audited report done by uh by this accounting firm. You can listen to that in episode two fifty nine.
Who forg who can forget that one, right?
¶ Jason Shapiro: Contrarian Trading and Sentiment
Any any other episodes that do you want to mention?
God, you know, there there are so many of them. One other one that comes to mind is the idea when we talk about being a contrarian investor. Uh, we've heard that term, but is it simply enough to say, well, I'm a contrarian investor, if people are bullish, I'm gonna be bearish? But you know, going that route, that simple route can end up, you know, you can lose a lot of money.
Well, one trader who is actually in um one of the market wizards books, his name is Jason Shapiro in episode two forty-five. He takes the approach. So he takes a very contrarian approach where he looks at the commitment of traders report that comes out every week. And he could he sees the level of institutional longs and shorts. as well as, you know, small traders, uh, longs and shorts.
And he times his position such that he waits for extreme sentiment readings, extremely bullish or extremely bearish, uh, in say the indices, like say S P five hundred or it could be oil or gold or whatever. And he takes uh if everybody is super bullish. And there's a news failure day, meaning that an important news comes out that is bullish, for example, and the market ends up, say, going down on that day or fails to go up.
He looks at that and says, okay, this is a very important news failure, meaning it should have gone up on this bullish news, but yet it actually went down. And so then he ends up going short that which um everyone else's long because when you've run out of buyers, well then in his view, you have nowhere else to go but down. And that's he's made a very good living doing that for decades now. So that was an interesting approach to be contrarian.
Yeah, I remember that was actually your first, very first episode in
Yeah, yeah, that was. That was my first My first interview, yeah.
Well well thanks Ian for sharing um some of your thoughts on on these trading themes and you know episodes that really stood out to you in the last 14 months or so. Um, there's obviously there's so many great episodes and there's something for everybody.
¶ Tessa's Insights: Risk and Business Approach
And some of the ones that, you know, that you didn't mention but I thought, you know, stood out to me also were the ones that are related to risk management and trading psychology. The risk management one I remember in episode with Alexander Moreno. Remember that one, Ian?
Yeah.
258, uh-huh, where he had losses and he was homeless at some point, and and um he came clean. And and what helped me in that episode was how he shared the the different kinds of losses. Um, I don't know if you recall at the top of your head, but there were different categories of losses that you should be able to, you know, distinguish like an acceptable loss is a loss versus a like a dumb loss or something like
Um was the acceptable losses that that was connected to if you follow your system and you end up taking a loss, well then that's normal loss. That's acceptable because you were you followed your own rules.
Yeah, I I I believe that's right. But it it really just kind of helped you to see losses in a different way and how to handle losses in in a more intentional way. I thought. And it's it's a huge part of risk management. You know, Alexander focuses on risk, risk control, risk management. Um another, yeah, and another episode was a recent one I I did with uh Mark Bennell, treating trading as a business. Mm-hmm.
it's impactful to a lot of traders as well because a lot a lot of times we don't think of it that way, trading as a business. So there's just so many great golden nuggets in there, very in depth. And I think if people want to really take trading seriously, should consider listening to that episode again. And that was episode two sixty six.
Two sixty six, great.
¶ Trading Psychology and Composure
you know, one more category that's important to me is trading psychology. So Ivan Biaji is another good one. Episode two fifty two, where he's the trading composure guy. Um everyone a lot of people know him on Twitter. I thought that episode was quite uh like a different take on trading psychology and how to handle uncertainty in the in the market.
Also, there were some great all-time past favorites. Um, these these are the older episodes with Brett Steinberger and Lance Brettstein. Again, there's so many great episodes and there's something for everybody.
¶ Common Threads: Strategy and Strong Why
Yeah, exactly. To me for me it's it it feels almost like a a big trading family and each family member has something very important to share. Uh and we can learn nuggets. uh from everyone uh and in our journey. So it's great that um w we get a chance to dive into their world and uh learn something from them.
you know and so Uh from my observations on on what most I mean, most all of our guests have in common. I I see a common thread. And some of the things I've noted were that they've honed their own strategy. They've ended up going with a strategy that worked for them and not really copy anyone, at least I don't think from what I heard. Like they had really unique strategies.
Yeah, their their strategies often was um derived and created uh through their uh through the troublesome times that they had. It some of its fits their personality. So um oftentimes strategies is to choose from are the ones that fit you personally. Some people uh can feel the market like Patrick. Others say, no, I gotta have my my process, my s my statistics behind me. And they take a different approach. But yet uh trading is a very personal journey.
And you need to find that system that uh methodology you could say that fits you personally, while also everybody's got to be aware of and develop their own risk management system. The why is so important in trading. All these guests had a very strong why. Why do they want to be in the market? What's the driving force to keep them in the game, to keep them pursuing that, they're pursuing their goal?
Of pursuing finding out what did they do wrong and how are they going to fix it? How am I going to fix my bad trading issues? What do I need to manage? And so this this fiery determination is a key factor, I believe, in keeping you in the game when the You know, when things are going against you.
Yeah, I'm so glad you brought up the the why, right? I mean, I I I noticed, I observed that. the traders, the successful traders, they were either very good at, you know, figuring out their process or their one thing, or they're, you know, very
passionate about trading or maybe it's a combination of these things, but you're right. I think it's important to have passion too and and the why, knowing why you're doing things because It's the Y that helps you to get back up, to pick yourself back up when things are really getting tough, right?
Now whether it's, you know, necessary to have passion in trading to do well is is a different story and maybe, you know, a different episode. But I really think the the passion helps too, but the why is so important, like you mentioned.
Yeah, exactly. And I wanna uh actually thank our listeners for uh suggesting certain candidates um to be interviewed, which we would have never known about them had we not had such a close community uh to suggest, hey, have you heard about this trader? Have you heard about that trader? for us to interview and we've got some great guests on there that I didn't know about and Tessa didn't know about, but thanks to our listeners who wanted to to support the community.
Uh they suggested uh certain um traders and um we thank you very much for that.
Absolutely. So yeah, I'd like to add on to that. If you know of any talented traders or, you know, traders that you feel like we need to get on the show for us to, you know, look into. feel free to get on our website, chatwithraders.com, and then click on the speak to chat with traders. You can record your voice or send an email to Hello at chatwithraders.com and and provide us your recommendation and any other information that you might have. Of course, we have our own review process.
Then that's a normal part of what we do. But um we would love to to hear from you if you have any great suggestions.
¶ Overcoming Losses and the Importance of Action
Oh, and continuing on to the common thread, another thing I noticed too is that with um all these traders is that they all went through m a lot of pain and a lot of losses. And I think people just don't realize that you know, success didn't just happen.
Exactly.
Rec recently, right? Mm-hmm. What are your thoughts on that, Ian?
Yeah, well they their determination allowed them to plow through their um multiple blow ups of their accounts and say, I will not stop. I will not stop until I uh become successful w at this. And they had to constantly innovate, relearn, get these lessons drilled into them. And they self-studied as well. I mean, they're they're seeking out advice from other traders, reading lots and lots of books. This determination is is the drive that uh keeps them going.
So I what I notice is that they didn't give up when when when things were getting tough. And they found a way to pick themselves back up and bounce back. So What keeps them going after having gone through the tough times? They didn't give up. They believed in themselves. From my observation, I I'm guessing that I would say that this is probably why these traders are in the top one percent to five percent of traders that make it.
One important factor that's been mentioned in the previous podcasts is that uh when one takes losses is to shrink the size of their trades, get it down, but to keep mentally in the game. You got to keep in the game. You got to have some skin in the game. So you keep some interest. So there's debate on whether um paper trading is really that effective because emotionally you're not in the game. But uh after having big losses
to um keep trading, but make the trading size super small so that you can build yourself back up mentally. Cause it's a mental game and it's uh can be devastating. to have large losses and you feel like, oh, I just want to quit. And it's a it's a natural thing to uh to want to do and say, maybe I'm not cut out for this. Fail often is a common word that's used. Yeah, the more you fail, the closer you are to success.
Yeah. I mean, people where they have the most most growth is that they learn from their mistakes and their failure more than they do. Yes, you can still learn from your successes, but the most impact I I believe happens when you when you're able to learn from your mistakes and your failures and your losses and then intentionally apply what you learned and practice and get better at it.
Mm another thing that I noticed, a common thread, is that uh they're all hardworking. They they're all willing to put in the work. They put in so much of their blood, sweat, and tears in this. I mean, you can't just manifest. You can't just um, you know, like think positively. You actually have to put the work behind that.
Um yeah, certainly. And for for some traders is um their attitude is I I cannot get a regular job. It would it would uh So not only are they motivated on the positive side by having rewards from trading, you know, hopefully in the near future, but they're also motivated to avoid a regular job that most people work because they find it so distasteful that the combination
of avoiding the distasteful aspects of a regular job and the rewarding aspects of a profitable trading account are make it um kind of an unbeatable combination to say like Like burning the boats. I will not go back to uh my regular job or jobs which I hid in the past. I will make trading work. There's no if, ands, or buts about it.
¶ Balancing Work, Risk, and Patience
Oh yeah, I can see your perspective on that, Ian. Um however Uh I think there's no shame in in keeping your full time job or your part-time job or whatever or a business that you're you're that you you're running until you
Until you feel you're ready, until you can prove that you can make money part time, trading part time. Because how I see it is that If you cannot prove to yourself you can make even just a little bit of money consistently doing it part-time, how can you make money trading full-time?
Well that that is a good point, right? And um and some traders we've had on uh have said that uh
They're
Them being supported by their family or having a full-time job allowed them the discretion to take on more risk and knowing that they had something secure to come back to. Whereas if they had no job and they were relying only on trading income from the get go, that uh it would make them uh too scared or too nervous. Uh they would get uh spooked by their own psychology, so to speak.
And then that could lead to uh taking reckless trades because they gotta make the rent that month. Right. So uh it's a very individual journey from my point of view. I I certainly agree for myself. to have a regular job on the side and then have um
trading income to supplement that so that you're not dependent. You're not trading because you have this deadline of money that you have to raise for just to live, but that you are trading for future profits and that uh y you can have the discretion of um of not taking positions if you don't need to or don't want to.
Yeah, good point there. Um, I guess, you know, it also depends on your tolerance level for for pressure.
Exactly.
You know, I wonder I wanna get your thoughts on this in, you know, how we mentioned risk management and all that is important. But what do you think of people who um or traders who are trying to, you know, get better? What if they have too much risk management and they're not taking enough risks? That's another that's that could be a you know, a challenge as well.
Yeah, okay, so not being w able or willing to take sufficient position size. Again, could be a sign that they don't have total confidence in their system or they haven't really flushed out their system yet. And so hence position sizing is not only important to avoid uh losses, but it's to take advantage of the uh good opportunities uh when presented. And so having a system where you get lots of chart time in, you're knowing, you know what you want to see in the charts, but having the patience
to wait until you see those great setups and all that training that you went through all those months prior. And then when you see the setup that rings that bell, that then you say, ah, it's here. Now I have the confidence.
to go in with bigger position sizing than I had in the past because uh I didn't see that great setup. This is um really important to get that screen time in so that you train yourself over time to see those opportunities, which may be rare depending on what you're looking at, depending on the system that you've created, right?
Yep, that's that's part of putting in the work and you mentioned the word patience and and Patience is so important too. I feel like um that sets the successful traders apart. And I'm not just referring to patience in the, you know, actual trading while you're trading, but but in general, patience in your in a trader's trading journey. Because it's it's hard to have patience these days when when everything is just all about instant gratification, you know, and getting results instantly.
Yeah, this also applies to regrets on missing out. FOMO, you know, fear of missing out. on all these different stocks that make these big moves and then you say to yourself, Oh, I should have seen that. I should have seen that. Well, you know, not necessarily because you're focusing on a particular setup that you're honing your skills on. And you're gonna miss a lot of opportunities. It's just that the vast majority of these pumps you may miss, but you're setting yourself up for the
opportunities in a system that you're focusing on, you're creating, so that you're ready when these moves happen. And you don't have to make that many profitable trades. at the right time to, you know, to to do quite well in the market. You just have to be disciplined to follow the strategy that you developed and don't worry too much about um the ones that you've missed.
¶ Mentorship, Mindset, and Accountability
And what do you think of mentorship? I I believe that almost every guest that you've interviewed. had some form of mentorship, whether it's casual or um, you know, like a professional setting mentorship, but I believe that played a big role in taking their trading to the next level too. What what are your thoughts on that?
Yeah. Yeah. The mentorship so that so that they could get guidance through their journey and get an outside perspective t on what's going on at whatever stocks that they're looking at, right? They think, oh, I should go long here, I should go short. Well, the mentor can come in as a neutral player and point out things that that the trader misses because it gets swept up in the emotion of the moment.
And it's fun, it's fine to learn all these things. And intellectually you can say, oh yeah, I've learned this and that and and and I agree with uh all these things I've learned. But when you're placed in the heat of the moment. And your emotions take control because some stocks moving making a big move, uh, either with you in it or you not in it, the mentor can keep you balanced to Help you have a clear head, give you a bigger picture. So yeah, mentorship uh can be very important.
Yeah. As you can see, you know, all these traders uh that have been on Chat With Traders have different trading styles and strategies and, you know, trading different markets, but they all have these things that we just mentioned in common. mostly. Uh were there any other common themes that you noticed?
Common themes, uh well blowing up your account at least once or twice uh seems to be uh often a rite of passage for most traders, right? Because they they uh there's nothing like learning a subject when it's burned into you emotionally, intellectual learning often is insufficient.
Right. That's so true. You gotta you gotta not be afraid to put yourself out there and and do the work and and to fail. Expect to fail. So in a nutshell, I feel like what I was trying to get at is that even though these traders have maybe different trading styles and strategies, trading different markets. But what brings them all together that we can learn from and improve on is the trading mindset. I think that plays a huge role, believing in oneself.
to be able to do that, having the discipline, the self discipline. to improve your your behaviors and habits and to to be consistent in that.
Yeah, don't forget don't forget about accountability, right? Uh
Accountability is a is a big part too.
Exactly. when they make trades and if they lose money, uh, they don't have to tell anybody about it. Right. And so they can end up diluting themselves to a certain extent because they're not holding themselves accountable by having, say, an accountability partner to help them through this journey.
¶ Trader Well-being and Taking Imperfect Action
Yep. Good point. Ian. And, you know, but guess what? Something that I think that is not talked about as much is that. they were not all necessarily balanced in their life. Um some of'em suffered physical pain. I remember Jack Kellogg talking about his his you know, he went through a lot of physical pain. or their health declined in some way to some degree.
But does that mean that the rest of us will have to go through this as well? I mean, I personally don't think so, because we can learn from the challenges that these talented traders faced and do something about it. So this reminds me of episode two fifty-six with our special guest, um Remember Louisa Nicola on on supercharging the brain and body with peak performance habits. I I honestly think that some of us avoid listening to this because if we do, we know that we have to change our habits.
But I feel like it's worth listening to again. Yeah.
Yeah, habits, habits are um can be challenging to uh create and uh also to break the bad habits. So uh our brain is like a computer. The brain likes habits.
It wants to it likes continuity and, you know, going to bed at the same time. Uh, it likes eating at the same time. So it's important that we take care of ourselves because Some traders, like for example, Jack Kellogg, uh shared with us uh how his health suffered, his body suffered, even though he's a young guy, by him not taking the time out to get outside, do some exercise.
'Cause many we have to keep this balance so that our mind stays sharp and being too extreme, just staring at the screen all day, not moving, uh, that'll could impact uh in a negative way our performance long term. So uh it's a uh comprehensive approach involving, you know, mind, body, diet. uh exercise, I kind of think, to um
Yeah.
trading at a top-tip performance.
I know we can say this, Ian, but I just know that many traders are are still gonna do what they're gonna do, right?
Mm-hmm.
Um but at least we we did our part and and and share what we think. is really important to to stay healthy and balanced so that you can so that you can stay long enough to last and and still stay in the game of trading.
Another thing that I think that we don't mention a lot is taking action. Taking action is really important. One of the things I have learned and observed that if you hear something that clicks with you, whether, you know, whether you're listening to um an episode or saw something on on the internet, um, whether it's a strategy or an idea to test out.
it's helpful to take notes and take action on it on it right away. At least that is for me, from my experience. I mean, I've heard a few things that resonated with me and and I took a mental, just a mental note to check into it further. But you know, guess what? I never did. Um, then that's how you kind of end up being in this, you know, forever learning cycle. I mean, it's great to learn and you can be, but then you can be in the cycle and never get out of it.
And that's when you start to feel stuck in your trading journey, uh in your trading journey.
Right. It's it's it's important to um write down, make reminders for yourself uh to actually implement uh some of the things that you learned. It's better to implement, you know, one or two things that you learned than to learn 10, 20, 30 items. and uh not actually implement them into your life, into your trading. Uh and you say, well, I have all this knowledge. Well, no, but you gotta practice it. It's got to be um put into effect uh as a habit because habits
take time to create. And yet what once you've created them, they they actually work in your in your benefit in the sense that you don't have to expend the mental energy later to keep up with this positive habit.
Excuse the last interruption here. This is Tessa. We hope you're enjoying this episode so far. If you love the podcast, Please give Chatwith Traders the best review you can on whatever platform you're listening from. This will help us to keep the episodes coming. Also, if you haven't subscribed to our email list, please hop on to chatwithraders.com and click on subscribe. so we can keep you posted of information that may be of importance. Thank you. Now back to the chat with our guests.
¶ When to Quit: A Courageous Decision
Exactly. And but to be to be fair, and I mean, sometimes people want to take action, but they feel stuck in their trading journey perhaps because they're overwhelmed because of like maybe work overload, um, yeah, having multiple jobs or analysis paralysis or waiting things to, you know, line up perfectly. Or even just putting too much pressure on yourself or not putting enough pressure on yourself. So then you feel guilty.
But I what I have to say to that is taking some action is better than taking no action at all. And one of the things that I've learned in my own life on on how to get unstuck and still trying to get better at this is from is is to try to take micro or tiny baby step action. Exactly. Um, yeah. An an an inspiring book that I've read recently is Atomic Habits by James Clear. And I you mentioned that.
Ja.
couple of times as well. What what did you love about that book?
So yeah, uh James Clear is is all about um, you know, creating habits, kind of the one percent improvement per day type thing. So you take off little bite sized pieces, write down the things that you need to do the next day, say the night before. uh prioritize them. Some people argue, you know, get the easy ones done first when you start your your day, so that you can have a sense of accomplishment and that adds fuel for you to tackle the more difficult things later.
Um different viewpoints on that. Some say you should uh tackle the most difficult things first, uh, first thing in the morning. But um it's it's important to make an appointment with yourself.
Cause your mind, you need to train your monkey mind. We all have this this monkey mind, and the monkey mind will lead you astray as it frequently does, unless we create positive habits, which it could involve Making appointments with yourself the the night prior, scheduling things in your calendar so that you keep a hold of yourself, that you um otherwise you can be led astray.
Um is that actually in the book or is this from your own um?
Um a lot of it's in the book. It's a it's a combination of different books that I've read on the subject. So it's a um it's like a kind of a mishmash of different things I've read on the subject over the years.
That's awesome. Yeah. So I, you know, this is what I really believe in. It's it's okay to take imperfect micro action, you know, as long as you're moving forward, as long as you're in the right direction. then you're making progress. So uh as you can see, there is no right answer to the question that we had at that we posed at the beginning of the episode. What keeps you in the game of trading? You heard those voices. Um, it's right for the person answering it.
So the thing to be intentional about though is whatever it is that keeps you in the game of trading. You want to remind yourself of your big why for trading every single day. Maybe your why will change because it wasn't compelling enough for you to, you know, fight. for fight hard enough to stay in the game, then that's okay. And maybe it turns out that through this process you're discovering that trading is not for you after all.
Um, so is it okay to quit trading? Well, I want to say something that is probably not very popular, but absolutely. Now this may sound like I'm encouraging you you to give up and quit trading and and you know and that won't obviously help the listenership of the podcast, but I think it's more important to be straight up about this.
I believe that it is okay to realize that trading is not for you. And there's no shame in that. As much as it takes courage to not give up, it also takes courage to know when to admit it's time to quit. Your thoughts on this, Ian?
Um, I think of it more in terms of taking a break uh from trading rather than just completely uh stopping uh trading altogether. May adjust your position size, right? So if you're used to trading, say with a I don't know, ten thousand dollar lot, maybe lower it to a thousand or five hundred. My view is stay in the game, even if you have to make the trades really small for a while.
Yeah. And I'm not saying not to um stay in the game. You want to do everything, absolutely everything you can to stay in the game. But at some point, because we kind of live in this this culture where it's all about, oh yeah, you never quit, never quit, never quit. But sometimes it takes courage to quit and say it takes courage to admit that this, for example, this path that you're going down is just not right for you. But only after you've done everything you can. That's what I'm trying to say.
Okay. Yeah. Great. Thanks for sharing. Okay. Okay. I'm done.
Yeah.
Okay, no, you have to add more to that.
No, no, we we we rehashed it.
¶ Final Reflections and Community Call
Okay. So we're wrapping up now and to circle back on what keeps you in the game of trading, if you feel compelled. Get on our website, click on the speak to chat with traders page and record your voice. Let it out, say it out loud and believe it and hold on to that feeling and remember it. When you're having self-doubt or you're you're feeling overwhelmed, you feel like you want to quit, remind yourself of that why, what keeps you in the game of trading, and let it energize you again.
Okay, well Ian, uh I had so much fun doing this with you today.
Yeah, it was nice having a a a review kind of reflect upon um the different guests we've had and uh what we learn from them and uh live vicariously uh through their journey so that hopefully our trading um so that we learn not just intellectually but emotionally as well.
Yes. We really enjoyed doing this. If you have any questions for Ian or myself. You can get on the Chatwith Traders website and record your voice or email us at hello at chatwithraders.com. Uh, we're very accessible as well inside the Chat with Traders community. You can request complimentary access to the Chat with Traders community. You just have to go to the community page on our website and request access. And we hope to hear from you soon.
Great. Thanks, Tessa.
Thanks, Ian.
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