Everything that I thought I knew before seems to be completely wrong now and that's a hard place to be to clear the slate and just be able to ask the question. okay, what comes next? why am I always like this? Or how does this flow into my trading? Why did these habits affect my trading? Any Journey worth taking is going to involve setbacks that will be emotionally triggering. Hey everyone. Okay, so uh, in today's episode episode from our trading Summit, we're going to talk a little bit about, uh, the biggest surprises we had in our first two years as a day trader.

I've got four day Traders with me here today. I've got two experts on trading psychology and it is winter. so I'm wearing my my jacket and a hat. It's been a rough winter so there's a padlock on the thermostat.

Uh I Do not want anyone to try to increase the heat in here. We're keeping it at 62. All right? So uh, what I learned in my first couple years of trading is that the income is definitely not guaranteed I continue to learn that today. ups and downs.

But why don't we go around and um, if if anyone wants to kick it off with uh, something that you learned in your first two years as a Trader, go ahead this. There's a few things. The first is the rate of change in growing an account. Uh, to give you an example, when I started trading in the simulator I was expecting a daily goal of $1,000 a day trading live.

And when you start out with an account that's $2,500 unless you have a crystal ball, that's pretty much impossible. So it really hit me hard to see that um, coming from someone who is a fast learner, how slow my growth and my progress actually was going to be if I really wanted to be successful in the long run. and another thing that sort of impacted that was what Ross had just said where he basically learned everything from scratch and we had Ross to learn from. You know, we had all these videos of watching him be successful and during the time that I started was some of the hottest times of the market that it's ever seen.

So so trading looked easy to me. Uh, when I started off and sometimes I actually wish that it was opposite where I had learned in a slower Market than in a faster Market or F you know, um, more a hotter market. So to say so the the rate of change of um success has been an eyeopener for me. And off of that, even the things that I learned about myself that I'm sure we'll talk about with the trader psychology, but parts of myself that I didn't even know I had.

And then when I finally discover that I had them, why am I always like this Or how does this flow into my trading? Why did these habits affect my trading? Um actually helped do a lot of like deep digging and personal growth on myself as a human being aside from being a Trader So it's often you know Ross does such a good job of like incorporating the trader psychology into trading because for someone like me, psychology is 80% of trading. the mentality is like it's definitely more than 50% I can say that. So I really like that? You know Warrior trading has that influence of Trader psychology on the markets because it's so overlooked and it's so important for your long-term success. and that's something that I did not realize.

but I'm happy that I do. Now that's a yeah I mean and that that's kind of why I wanted to hit on this topic W with Ted and Diane both being here because I didn't expect at all how much of trading would be like a head game and that this psychological battle and how much my ups and downs trading would bleed over into my kind of day-to-day routine. I mean it's it. It's much much more than I would have ever expected.

I mean to the the point where the the we met it's been maybe 12 years or so. not not quite that long. but I think it was um, 2011, it was 2011 going into 2012 I think so it's actually been around. it's over 10 years, close to 11 years now.

So when we met I was trading and I was you know I was struggling I I would have green I would have green days I'd have red days and it was just like I was in this constant Loop of two steps forward. two steps back, two steps forward, two steps back I wasting myself so frustrated I felt like I needed someone that could be my kind of um, support buddy in a way to help hold me accountable. Accountability Buddy a support buddy because you know I knew I I felt like I knew what I need to do and I didn't have the discipline to do it and I feel like that's something. You know what you're saying about how this has kind of opened up the realization of these sort of internal struggles you have I feel like if you put a really big sort of monumental task in front of almost anyone, there's going to be a realization that in order to get through this I have to work on something inside like let's let's say it's someone who wants to get like crazy like physical fit like do some like CrossFit or do like you know one of these big endurance things I mean it requires a huge amount of discipline.

It's not going to happen overnight I mean it and you're going to find in yourself probably a struggle to do it you know and is? we call it a marathon you know? and some people try to approach it like a Sprint like I can just come in make 10,000 this week or whatever and that that is never how it works. So for anyone tuning in who's hoping to get rich quick, this is not the place for you. This is something that some people have found success and have gotten rich but slowly over very long periods of time. and it's not without a lot of hard work and a lot of work internally on that psychology stuff.

So if you want to check out some more episodes, we can put some links down in the description and we'll have some. Depending on where this is hosted, we'll have some, uh, probably other videos that are from the same Summit where you can learn more about these Traders So um, we'll we're I don't want to get into the Weeds on that in this episode specifically, but um, there'll be some others where we cover that. so Timmy What about you for your first two years? Big yeah I mean piggy back off of what y'all were just talking about. For me, it probably would be that it was so much in the emotions I didn't think that like it is theoretically pretty easy to scale up from 100 shares to a th000.

but the mental side of that really? what I didn't think? would you know if I have a bad day I didn't think I'd be sad like all day some days from I'm like people are like what's wrong I'm like you know you have no idea Talk yeah I lost a week paycheck in like 10 seconds your friends and it's just and it's getting to the point too Where last year was really good year and this year's just uh you know basically to where I'm making the same I was last year which for me with my targets and everything is like tough to really tough to wrap my head around but at the end of the day it's There's so many less opportunities that if I'm still able to make and I can look at my stats I think I take 25% of the trades this year compared to last year. So four four times as many last year and it's like but I'm still making the same amount this year so there's definitely something on my PL side. yeah that is doing well this year you know and it's just there's not as many opportunities which is tough but you know you kind of just have to adapt and that's one thing too that I didn't think I would have to do as much of is pretty much every week changing something in my strategy as there's different I have to agree with that. like you know when when we hear and we sort of know it's a fact that the market is designed to go up but when I started out at like the hottest time of all times I just had this like oblivious state of mind that the market was just always going to go up and maybe we'd have these little dips a day or two.

but for the most part everything was going to go up and we would have this type of price, action and this type of momentum like every single day and then once the colder times hit and we had some uh, you know, less conviction and less resolution on the setups, that that's the times where you really didn't even realize when you first started out that maybe you're just now just getting good at something and then it's not working. so you have to go and redo your whole strategy and your whole setup to sort of make it work in the market. And that was something that was an eye opener for me this year for sure. And that's that's a place where you can really spend a lot of time beating yourself up before you get to even the place of that conclusion of okay I have to do something different because so many people will go through just you know, all that negative selft talk and even in states of denial of you know oh this is going to turn around.

this is going to get better. You know everything will be fine but not being willing to face that place where I don't know what I'm doing. Everything that I thought I knew before seems to be completely wrong now and that's a hard place to be to clear the slate and just be able to ask the question. okay what comes next? You know what's going on here that I haven't been able to see.

you know where's the where's the next Edge that's going to help me with my Trading and that that's a place where T and I talk a lot about the idea of Um trading like a scientist, ideas of honesty and empathy, being kind with yourself in order to allow for radical acceptance of where you are, where the market is and and that really helps in being able to come back to trading like a scientist where it's not your fault, you're not caught up in and self-blame around what's happening, but you recognize that the journey involves both um, successes and failures. It it it any Journey worth taking is going to involve setbacks that will be emotionally triggering and through that you know making it through that. One thing that's come very helpful is to be able to sort of put on your scientist jacket and say okay let's let's take this apart, let's see what's happening and going back to what Lissa said, making those adjustments to carry you through but without self blame and it can be really hard to get there like Tim when you know what you were saying you know with you have a bad trade and the sadness that hits you and the way that will just stick with you all through the day into the next day. Yeah, the last thing you want to do is dig deeper into the very thing that gave you that feeling, but that's actually what you have to do.

You know to get to that place and that's where you know. having you know the practice of kindness for yourself so you can meet that sadness when it AR arises um and then be able to go. Okay, I got you. It's okay, let's look and see.

you know. Can we figure out what went wrong? What actually went wrong in that trade? the more things you're juggling in your life the more you know if you if if you're not trading full-time and you have a job. if you have a family, if you have other obligations that you're trying to split your time between, you might not be making that time that you need to go back and investigate the things that you really really need to investigate to be able to Tinker with and make the adjustments um to to be successful and the other reason that people don't do it is because what if they do look at everything and there is no answer there? That's the the fear in the back of your mind. What if What if I just never really knew how to do this? What if I'm just a failure? What if I fail at this and so it's the fear of not finding what you might be looking for that would actually hold you back from looking at all.

It even goes beyond what you were saying just that that not only can you lose, you will lose, right? You know that you? How big do you want that to be? Yeah, exactly like that ability to just accept. You know there are going to be days when you enter in a trade that looks great to you and it's just going to go against you. Something that that makes me think of is something that I Found surprising in my first two years of trading was the need to go back and review trades that I had already taken I I kind of just I mean I You know I would log trades like I would just log like I bought and I sold and entry exit and maybe a couple notes. but I wasn't taking screenshots of every trade right early on.

You know I or I certainly wasn't screen recording while I was trading and so the thing is, I I would have days where I where I was read. but I it wasn't as easy to go back and really figure out exactly what I had done wrong. Now of course that that was. You know if on that very day I pulled up the chart I could go back and look at it.

but something that I think is really important for Traders to do is to go back and do that every day. So when they see, so when you have days where you're read, you can go back and you can say well, what was the pattern you know what was the setup I was taking? why did I take this trade And if you can't come up with a reason then it sounds like you might have been just chasing money on that trade and just hoping to get you know a winner, but without really a solid setup behind it. And then that's a area where you need to make a correction and try to improve. If every trade you took was a great setup and it just didn't work, then that's easier to cope with.

and it's like hey, you know I did the right thing. Now if that happens five days in a row, then maybe that's when you have to start thinking about how do I adapt right? I'm taking the right setups. but the markets. Hm, it's not responding the way I expect.

how can I adapt? Is it avoiding? maybe I don't know, You know. Just for instance, like right now, buying more dips is performing better than buying breakouts and trading with smaller sizes better because we're in a lower liquidity market. So like those are two little adaptations or adjustments that you could make to kind of fine-tune right. But you know that I I think it's super important.

So for those tuning in I would really encourage you to develop a practice where you know you don't just and I'm going to interrupt myself because I've I've met traders who they I'll say well, what are your metrics and they don't know and they're just trading like in a TD account or an E Trade account they've got positions that are open I mean they're so all over the place, right in what they're doing. they don't even have a strategy, but they're trading with real money. If that sounds like you look in the mirror and say I need some help I need to stop. All right you guys.

stop what you're doing and what I would really encourage is slowing down and starting to, uh, analyze the metrics of your trading, record your trades, take screenshots of your trades, document the ones that are working really well, but of course the ones that are not working as well and and approach this as like someone who's a scientist. Very curious, genuinely curious. I'm sure we all even some scientists have some you know motive of wanting to solve this so they can become famous or make money or whatever. but but trying to be just as neutral as you can at like what's What's Happening Here what can I learn from this information? no but to piggy back off of that I feel like especially for me I learn the most from my biggest losses and definitely from when I'm red I mean that's one thing that I got to work on too is when I am green I tend to not review those trades as much as when I'm red just because I'm like oh I you know I did good today, blah blah blah.

But there's still things even in my green trades that I didn't do well or maybe I got lucky today which happens and I didn't take the best trade but I am green and if I don't go back and review that then maybe I don't know that there is a mistake I made that I could make again and this next time it's going to really hurt me. You know? Yeah, Which, What a lot of beginners do. They get that beginner's luck and then they're like oh yeah, I'm you know, super confident and they start taking big losses. So and that's one of the things that I think Diane and I both see in so many traders that we've worked with.

Um, you know you if if you're having, if you're getting to that place where you're having more consecutive green days even like a I mean I don't know some of your like long you know Green streaks Yeah, um, it's that that very success can actually make it harder to deal with when that red day comes. Yeah, because you're so. it's like at that point you're like even out of practice of okay, how do I cut this appropriately because you're one, you don't see it coming. Um, there's some place in the back of your mind you know I don't want to end my green streak and you know the the biggest danger for for Traders moving into that place where there's starting to find success.

it's that falling off the cliff red day where they end up giving back like a month of profits because you know this internal refusal to let it go and the idea that the buying into the fantasy of like you know some some part of you in the back of your mind. okay, well you know this, just keep going. this will keep going kind thing. But what Timmy was talking about is really important in terms of um, adhering to process over profits, the idea of reviewing not just the red trades but also the green ones.

It's a grounding I mean emotionally and grounding into the idea of I'm continuing to review I'm continuing to um I'm I'm continuing to watch not becoming complacent. Yeah, as we're having this conversation, it's I'm having like all these memories of when you and I first started and um you had been trading for a little while and I knew absolutely nothing about trading so you would have to come and You' actually have to teach me about you know even the basics of what you were talking about and I remember times where you would come in after a day where you'd just given a whole lot back to the market? You know had one of those falling off the cliff days where you just kept digging the hole deeper and deeper. then you'd have to walk me through why someone would average down? You know why you would like, why would you add to a losing position That seems like the stupidest thing you could you could do and then have to slow talk me through this very painful process that you just went through? Yeah, but I think in many ways that was actually probably pretty helpful because it forced you to slow down and really ask that question of you know why did I do that and I think that's so important too that um Ross had you as a support system. So to say to um, not only empathize with, but help to understand like what he was going through because if you don't have someone who maybe can support you, not even so much as understand, understand, but to support you when you go through those drawbacks or when you're on the learning curve or you know, uh, when you're going through a red streak, even um, just you know.

for example, um, before my partner really understood about like what a stock was or how to trade, I would tell him maybe oh you know I had a $50 red day today and his reaction would be oh ew, that's awful but then I would have to say well no, it's actually not because I followed my rules today and I prevented this trade from being much worse than it could have been. Oh okay, well then that makes sense once you have someone that can under not only like I said, not only understand, but just so much as to support you. It helps you get through those times and it helps you. you know, sort of see that you know maybe you're not being as kind to yourself as you should be.

Um, or you know, maybe there are some things that you didn't know about yourself or maybe some advice that they can give you that you're not seeing because you're just so upset about your red day or your red streak or your learning curve. And so even if you don't have someone like that in your life who can be sort of like your support system, um, just attend the Fomo Friday sessions that Ted and Diane have or even book a private session with them because it's so helpful when you're going through something like this, you're not going to get through it alone. If you do great, that's great for you, but just to have that extra support is going to just help you. Uh, get back on the S to where you need to be.

That's what I think Well, I I Think that something that a lot of people struggle with with trading is not having not always having family support for it and having a lot of skepticism. And you know, listen, this is a career where most people don't find success. So right you know I don't know the metrics of every career out there I'm sure there's many others. um I don't know becoming a Broadway singer or becoming a performer in some you know arts and entertainment industry that is also very.

Most people might not find success and you probably have a lot of people saying well you know, make sure you keep your day job or oh well make sure you know you've got a backup plan and a lot of people that kind of give you you know sort of trying to talk you down and then then because of that at least I felt this way. but I think a lot of other people do too because of that. Then when you do have a bad day, they're the last person that you want to confide in because you right? Exactly. So you're in this situation where you feel like you have to just sort of talk yourself through things.

and so one of the things that I used to do a lot was um, you know of course I had sessions with Ted but even before that I would I where I lived in Vermont was kind of like everything was a long car right away so I would be driving and I would just be I would. It was almost like recording a podcast except it was to nobody and it was talking to myself. but I'm trying to glamorize a little bit so I was just talking to myself like talking through the trade that I had had the day that I had. and and just you know, it's like journaling in a way which of course is really for a lot of people is very meditative and helpful in processing things.

But um, but that was something that I definitely struggled with. and it's unfortunate that it's like that in trading, but you know trading is not exclusive to that. There's a lot of other careers, even starting your own business. A lot of careers that involve taking any kind of risk that I think people will tend to say well whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa.

you know isn't the safest thing you know to do this or that and something that Danny said um to you recently he he said that um, the his nightmare is having a fixed like annual salary like you know that this is what I make each year like he thrives on that he you know he eats what he catches this and that's a motivation for him to work hard. You know Timmy you've got your own business and you know of course I do. and I think a lot of people that are Traders we are fiercely independent and and you know we're we. We are driven by that feeling that you know I catch this for me like this is you know my thing right? But it is really important to find um you know some type of if you can outlet for unloading the stress.

it does come with uh with learning right and I didn't expect that I didn't expect that to be something that you know this would be like a test of relationships or that this would you know create tension between family or that I would have to dread at Thanksgiving someone asking me like how trading is going. You know something like that can be the worst question in the world can it? Yeah, how's that trading going and it's It's not only like your external relationships but like your internal relationship with yourself too. Until I started this journey I had no idea how hard I was on myself I and not even saying like you're your own worst critic and not even saying oh you're a loser whatever. but you know if I would have a a big red day or you know, uh, even a red day whatever it was something that did happened in the market that I did not like I would just force myself to work and to you know uh that was my outlet was working I would work harder I would do more I would discipline myself like to the max potential and I didn't even realize like how hard that was on myself and my emotional well-being and just holding all this in and going and going and going and going and working and working until finally one day like you just collapse and that's not healthy either.

So it helps to build that relationship with yourself that internal relationship and like Ted was saying earlier, really be kind to yourself and make sure you maintain that fine line of holding yourself accountable. You know, like even how Nick said, look back at your trades, find what you could do wrong, or find what you could do better. look at what, look at what you did wrong, and maintain that line of the accountability versus being kind to yourself because you also don't want to just be like oh I lost today. That's okay, I'll do good the next day.

A lot of this is the idea of meeting yourself the way that you would meet a friend or I even think about parenting models, right? you know? So it's like in a in in a ideal parenting model. you have both, um, some expectations or standards for your child and then you also have, um, an inclination towards supporting your child achieving that right. And so it's it's not. It's not turning the other way when you know the child's SM slapping the puppy or something.

it's not okay I just won't I just won't see that and then it won't be a problem. Um, but it's it's. actually. it's actually you know taking the time to State the expectation and to explore what kind of support is necessary and part of that support is kindness and so kind.

Kindness and acceptance too often can be thought of in terms of oh, I just won't I won't look at that about myself or I won't look at that about my my trades or my trading I won't I won't be honest with myself and that's the opposite of what Ted and I are are saying. That's why we often say honesty and empathy that that being being kind enough to ourselves that we're willing to look at what's really there in a really honest way. And starting with, you know, even when Timmy was talking about the depression earlier um, this first step just noticing it, you did that. you noticed it.

And and the next step befriending that part of you that is carrying the burden of that and helping that part to begin sorting that out. And what do we need to do. And hopefully that does lead to the postmortem or the analysis. You know all of that deconstruction.

and I I think that there's also there. There's a difference between being kind to yourself and forgiving yourself and not imposing some cruel sort of I don't know punishment on yourself. There's a difference between that and um, and and sort of lying to yourself or or I don't know being being kind to yourself, where you're where you're saying oh, everything's fine, everything's fine. You're I don't know what's I don't know what sugar coting? well the house is on fire.

Everything's fine, right? We talk about um, false positivity thinking right? and that's uh, and that's exactly what you're talking about. It's um, you know this compassion. This kindness is not the same as what we would refer to as a toxic positivity because if if you are desperately repressing any criticism of yourself, you know if it's you know that's okay. I'll get it tomorrow, but there's nothing backing that up you.

You know that's just. it's like I'm going to show up tomorrow and do the exact same thing I did today and you're probably going to get the same results. Yeah, you know it does. Ties it ties into the topic you were talking about earlier Ted um earlier on the drive over here topic of um, stagnation you know and and that same idea that there can be a way that we can kind of go so easy on ourselves that we with that we that you know I was saying the importance of the expectation and the support that the expectation begins to move down and down.

Yeah and I think that that's the area where as a beginner Trader Still trying to really figure it out. One of the things that um, you know I kind of found surprising was just the this complete absence of a written path of how to make money in the market like there's obviously the stock market is here and there's millions of people who participate in it, but there's not. You know when I was getting started, you know there there wasn't like a a guide a handbook of like this is how you trade to make money because you know the reality is I suppose every Trader is a little bit different, but but you know of course you guys had the opportunity to learn from me which helps you a lot. but it just feels like you know there's this, um, sort of just general absence of a very clear, concise guide of like this is.

that's like issued by the market. You know, because it's just this organic thing that changes constantly. and so when I was getting started and I would review my metrics, it was almost a little bit more exciting at that time because I was still looking for that. You know that diamond in the rough I was still looking for.

Oh is there in all this you know all my strategy practice. Is there something that's actually going to work at this point? Now when I have a rough patch it's a little bit. and and for you guys who you know you're all now have been doing this for a while. It's look different because I don't feel like I'm going to find a diamond in the rough anymore by going through and looking at all my stuff.

I I I When I have a week or a month where I'm not finding a lot of success or things are really slow. I I start to feel a bit more deflated and I'm just like I don't know, you know and I think that's where it it requires really detaching from that monetary goal. And I think when you get into when you've been doing this for a while, you know a couple years. Whatever it is you start to get accustomed to I'm making x amount of month I can expect that and so then when you start to have months where you're coming up short on that, you you naturally are aware of it and you start thinking ah, I'm coming up short and I feel this tendency to start to grasp for straws a little bit more to start to get a little bit desperate, right to flail a little bit you just want to grab because I'm looking I'm I'm trying to chase profit to kind of fill the gap between where I think I should be and where I am and I think those are the times when when I need the strength the very most to have the discipline to stay within the strategy or to have the genuine curiosity to keep the strategy going while experimenting with a variation of it with much smaller size.

Knowing that those experiments will not fill the monetary Gap Because this is the exploration phase, but that maybe I discover something in there like a variation of my strategy dip trading or you know, inversion. You know of bottoms reversals? Whatever happens to be? Um, you know because but I think I just find that you know what you were saying about being depressed. and you were saying what. Crying in the shower and crying while you're crying in the pressure washer? Yeah, they going to work with tears M It's just so easy to beat yourself up when it hurts really bad too, so you don't want to do it again.

After I took a $1,500 loss which is my biggest loss. Not crazy, but my my problem is scaling up so that's where other people have easier times with risk. and that's kind of where I struggle in terms of the monetary side. where I need to just cover my P&l and trade the the chart and the level two instead of my emotions.

Sure right. I mean well. and that's one that you know in the work that Diane and I do with Traders and and a lot of things that we talk about. you know that that idea of of of stair stepping your progression like you know cuz we all have this tendency towards All or Nothing thinking it's you know I'm going to go from Trading a 100 shares to a thousand shares in one day and as soon as you do make a big move like that all the the flood of emotions that will come in and completely hijack and disil you.

But if you know, if you go okay, I'm recognizing it's time for me to step it up, moving from 100 shares to 200 shares and next week you know, or the week after to three 400. Um, but we don't tend to do that. It's like we have that idea. Oh I need to, you know? step it up here and we and we take too big of a bite and we can't handle it well.

I I Think this is um I I Want to switch gears and talk a little bit about um, one of the other topics because I think this kind of goes into stagnation in trading a little bit because you sort of have your first two years where you're You know, having a lot of beginner experiences, you might be having a little bit of beginner's luck and then you kind of get to a point where it's like, okay, how do I start to scale? How do I take it to the next level? So why do we end this episode here and then we'll continue on to the next episode? So for those tuning in, thank you guys for being here today! I Hope you've enjoyed it and hey, share with us some of your experiences and biggest surprises from your first two years as a day trader. All right, we'll see you for the next episode. Hey I Want to thank you for watching this episode I Hope you really enjoyed it. This channel is crossed over one 1 million subscribers and it's thanks to viewers like you.

If you want to check out a couple other episodes that other Traders are watching, you can see them listed right here. Thank you as always for tuning in and I hope you subscribe to the channel.