Might be some really hot takes, but get ready. I don't think that there is any strategy that is significantly better than another strategy. There are plenty of people that make money trading ICT; there are plenty of people that make money trading Dave Ties FX. There's a million different ways to make money trading the NASDAQ; there's a million different ways to make money trading the ES. The hard part is keeping your money; it's not hard to make money in a given day; it's hard to keep it over a long run. How do you keep money?

[Music]

Welcome everyone to the Words of Wisdom podcast. We're back once again, still here in Miami, and we are still the number one podcast in the trading space, the fastest growing, thanks to all of you and our incredible guest. Talking of which, we are joined by a very special guest today, Matt Miller. Thank you for being here with us.

Yeah, absolutely. I always feel like an anticlimax after I say it, right? Wait, I need to go here, but um, yeah, thank you for coming. I know you just literally traveled in today.

Yeah, right. Um, well, how was the how was the journey?

Yeah, I mean, it's fine. I came in today and I'm leaving right after this, so it's just a quick down and back.

Well, I really do appreciate it because I know it's not like an easy thing to travel and do everything like that, um, you just to do a podcast in particular, but it's been a pleasure to have you on. I know we were talking back and forth about trying to get it done.

Yeah, um, and yeah, well, you know, we can go into we'll go into the thing that everyone wants to know about obviously, probably to begin with, which is the Robinhood World Cup.

Right. The funny thing is with the Robinhood World Cup, I'd never even heard of it until maybe a couple years ago, and that was because of ICT. Like you'd always say, "I'm joining the Robins," and all that. What is this? I don't know what it was. Uh, but how significant is the Robinhood World Cup?

You know, it depends on who you ask. Um, to me, it's like I would say it's like very mid-significant. Uh, I think it's just kind of like fun. Um, it opens up a door for a lot of people to put like actions to their words though, which is where it becomes cool, and like I think it's really powerful for the community. Um, when you have like a lot of these online anonymous or not anonymous like personas that are out there like, you know, talking a bunch or whatever and claiming certain things and like it just kind of allows for like an open arena in a way for you to kind of duke it out while, you know, taking it as serious as you want to, basically.

Definitely.

Yeah. So it has that accountability aspect.

Right. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. 'Cause the one thing I I heard or I read somewhere was that you can enter like multiple times, right?

Yeah. So there's like a few different things that I personally have a lot of beef with the Robinhood on. A few different things, and I think it my concerns are like everyone agrees, to be honest. Um, and those concerns are: one, the commissions are incredibly high; the margins are incredibly high; and then there's that aspect of like being able to put in multiple accounts. Yeah, it says you can in the rule books or like in the terms and conditions. People say that like it's not allowed or whatever, but it's like it's word for word it says it in the like T's and C's, so it is possible.

U the way that I this year have been like combating it is I just throw my account number on everything, and then I'm taking everybody else's account number who's willing. So like I have ICT's account number, I got Day Trader Par's account number, I have Dave Trade Dave Dave Trade's account number, Dave Trade FX or whatever his name is, um, and then I got like one other dude. And so they all just like send me their account numbers, and then I got all their account numbers, live logins, daily PNLs, and then at the end of the year, I'll just kind of like be mashing it all up to make sure it aligns, and that's like kind of the best route that we currently have to like make it somewhat like agreeable to the board given the fact that you can enter multiple times. Um, obviously like someone will always have something to say, um, but I'm doing my best to kind of be like somewhat of a third-party audit for these famous dudes who are all kind of, you know, throwing their shot in there.

Yeah. But how how does it feel to be be that person then, like to—

It's fun. Yeah, it's fun. And and like my approach to the Robinhood is I obviously like want to do well, but at the same time, I don't care about it enough to to like be busting my balls about it necessarily. I've been saying since the very beginning, because of like the commissions and the margin requirements and stuff, if I'm ever put in a spot where I can't trade minis, I'll just consider the account blown. You you go in with $10,000 and one mini margin, so NASDAQ minis uh is like 9750, so I have like $250 wiggle room. If it ever goes below that, I'm just going to call it blown. But it is fun to be able to kind of step up into this other role of like an auditor to the auditor in a way, because like Robinhood is kind of auditing this whole process, but like I get to kind of step in and help these other accounts, you know, have some form of—

I'm surprised they let multiple—

Accountability. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think the reason, and I might be speaking a little out of turn here, so Robinhood don't get mad at me, but I think it's at the end of the day there is no prize for winning the Robinhood World Cup. You get like a trophy, and then because it's a live money account, you get to keep your money. That being said, they have this thing called like the World Cup advisors, I believe, and if you win Robinhood, you get put into like this advisor pool where people can, you know, give—I think it's give money or copy your trades or something along—I think it's copy trades probably—and you get a percentage of those profits and things like that, to where they're making more money on commissions, and I think that's probably why they kind of funnel people more into allowing for multiple accounts, because, you know, at the end of the day it's all sales. Like they need to make money; it's a sales funnel for them to be able to make more commissions and get higher numbers and more publicity and all of that.

Definitely. But I think there's a lot of room for someone to come in and disrupt the trading competition industry from a live account perspective. I know that plenty of prop firms are trying to do like challenges and stuff, but from a live account, third-party audited, there's plenty of room for like someone to disrupt the industry and do it really well.

Definitely.

Do do a lot of people partake in the in the Robinhood?

You know, I have no idea. Um, I would imagine that this year's—ah, gosh, they don't they don't disclose. So they don't disclose, and they only show the top five on the leaderboard. Again, another big con that I'm not a fan of. I want to see everybody obviously who doesn't—so, um, yeah, like you said, there's innovation to be made.

Right. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just like literally make normal margins, normal commissions, and show the full leaderboard. Done.

Yeah. Someone out there can do that, and it will be like a new industry standard.

Definitely. No, 100%. That's what it takes though, normally people taking those risks and sort of making things happen. But in terms of January—January was an incredible month for you.

Yeah. Um, you know, you I think it was over 100%, right?

So it was—I got up to 128% on the Robinhood, took a couple hits end of the month around 50, and then like first day of February I got back up to like 80 something like that. So yeah. What's it been like, obviously, or are you trading how you normally trade or you trading completely different?

Man, it's it's so interesting; it's it's hard. Um, I feel like I'm trading differently than I normally trade. I was talking to Tom Dante about this on a call, um, and he was just kind of trying to like give me some wisdom on everything, and it's because there's so many people watching you, you feel—or at least I personally feel like this—you know, like I'm having a good stretch, therefore I can't have any bad stretches because everybody's like, "I'm on the leaderboard," everybody's nitpicking me, you know, uh, and like, "Oh no, Matt had a red day," or, "Wow, Matt did really well." Like it's all of those like micro things that people may or may not even be saying, but in my head people are saying it. Yeah, is like very challenging. So it's been hard, um, not to mention again the commissions and the margins. I don't want to keep ragging on it, but like it definitely plays a spot in your head of like, like I can't even get into more than one contract if I wanted to, and you know, like I'm having a red like a bad trade here, something, and I just go ahead and throw on like another like three ticks on the INQ is like just to cover margins, and so it just like all that adds up over and over again. I think I had I've already paid like almost $3,000 in commissions, I think, really in like a month and a half, which is like kind of a lot for single contract trades.

That's a huge amount.

A huge amount on a 10,000 starting balance.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. So it's a little ridiculous.

But that is crazy. So bizarre. I know. I'm telling you, like there's a lot of room for some innovation.

Definitely. Yeah, no definitely. And you know what what was your goal with the Robinhood? You're just having fun?

Yeah, my goal is really just to kind of—it started out kind of twofold. One, I tried it last year, but I hopped in super late. Okay. Um, well, not super late. I hopped in like five or six months late, and then I had my second daughter was born after like a month.

Congrats.

Yeah, thanks. And so I basically was just like, you know what, I don't really want to focus on this right now; like I'm taking time off anyways. I'm just going to come back and try it next year. And so come November or whatever ICT starts kind of chirping about it, I was like, oh, like I'm down. Like I said I was gonna do this earlier this year anyways. I said I was going to do it this next year, and so like I'll chirp back a little bit and get involved. And like for me, I don't really have anything to lose. I don't sell anything; um, I don't have a course; my Discord is free; my YouTube live stream is free; like I I'm just in in it for the community and the—so yeah, it's just like for fun and then to kind of trip out and like I'm not by any means like this like trading guru hunter or anything like that; like that is not my vibe, my personality.

Yeah.

But I do like seeing people like kind of rise up to the occasion.

Definely. And like see who's going to like, you know, stick their chest out a little bit.

100%. So what's it like, obviously, ICT's sent you his account number, right?

Yeah.

Um, but then you see ICT go, you sending shot to everyone, everyone join, yeah, prove yourself, make sure you're the best trader, blah, blah, blah. You know, what are your thoughts that obviously, you know, observing the space as a whole, like the whole industry is always a fun space to be in, but especially with this this sort of competition, this year—

It's really weird 'cause in January it seemed really loud, yeah, and now that everyone started, it's gone really quiet.

Right, right, right. Yeah, and it's kind of nice to see everybody quieten down a little bit purely because of what I was just saying: like it's so hard. Like part of me also like wants everybody to keep talking so they all get to experience that level of madness that I was going through in January, but uh, the yeah, I I think it's just like it'll be really interesting. I yeah, I think it's I think it's just gonna be interesting. It's a long year.

That's the other thing.

Definitely. Yeah, like so that was the other thing me and Tom Dante were talking about. He was like, "There's 230 trading days left," or something like along those lines when we had talked, and it was like the beginning of February. It's like, "Oh my God, that's like a long time," and you know, ICT kind of tripping, essent people or whatever, and like all these other guys joining. I think it's just very easy to forget that like a year is a very long time.

Definitely. So we'll see. So they always say, "Play the long game," and trading—

They're right.

Right. People, I can imagine in this this spirit of competition, it's so easy to try and try and force the returns a bit.

Right. Which is another—where it's kind of hard though, because like even for me, I think about things very monthly. So when I'm trading normal accounts, it's like very like very monthly based for me, um, and I think everybody's different there on like how they approach, and I know plenty of guys who literally like clean slate every week. I know guys who clean slate every month, and then guys that are quarterly or yearly. I think it just kind of depends on your like your quite literal like your financial needs and whatnot. But uh, having like the exact same—no, with like I didn't want to take a withdrawal for the entire Robinhood account, just kind of let it do its thing, but the exact same thing for a full year is like I don't really experience that even in my normal trading because I'm like I reset monthly on stuff, so it's just like a whole new ball game.

That's definitely—

Well, that's interesting actually. Yeah, so like you you're experiencing new things as you're doing this competition, right?

Yeah. Literally. That's probably not the most advisable thing, right, in trading anyway.

Um, but that is interesting.

No, for sure. And are you trading like you're still on the side like your own personal like your main things? Let's take a break for a minute there, guys, 'cause I want to tell you about the best trading tool on the market, TradeZella. The reason why TradeZella is the number one trading tool that every trader needs is because you can do back testing, automated journaling, trade replay, in-depth analytics, and so much more. And the greatest part about TradeZella is that it's all automated. All you have to do is connect your MT4 and MT5; it will pull all your data onto the dashboard. You can add playbooks; you can just add notes; you can add images from your trades; and you can get the insights that is necessary for you to progress as a trader. Now, TradeZella is for absolutely everyone, whether you're a crypto trader, whether you're a Forex trader, whether you trade prop firms, it is for absolutely everyone, and that is why thousands of traders have signed up using my link here through the podcast. Make sure you use the code Riz10 for 10% off your monthly subscription or W for 20% off your yearly subscription. Link is in the description below, and let's get back to the episode.

I am—

Yeah, so I trade uh I have my own my own normal account that I trade, and then I got some prop firm accounts as well.

Nice. Nice. So have you found that obviously since starting the Robinhood any sort of seeping over slightly?

Yeah, though the way that I typically use multiple accounts anyways is based on time of day a lot of time. So like I'll start in the morning on like a personal, and right now I've been doing the Robinhood um for the first couple hours and survive the main volatility for the session, the US session, survive the volatility, switch over to a different account for like 10:30 or 11, trade lunch on one of those accounts, and then kick back over or be done for the day after that. So that's kind of how I—and that's kind of ever-changing in a way as well, but that's lately how I've been kind of rotating uh rotating accounts. But yeah, I I trade lots of things kind of all the time, really.

Yeah. And why trading in the first place? Like we go normally that's where we kind of start, but like why did you get into trading in the first place?

You know, I don't really have like this amazing come-to-Jesus trading story, unfortunately. I uh I got interested in it when I was 18. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do in college. Uh, my dad had studied finance, and uh, to me finance meant trading. Okay, I didn't know that like finance was like a financial advisor or all these other routes. I just assumed Wall Street. And so uh 18 comes around, get like 100 bucks, I put it in Robinhood. I the very first stock that I ever bought was a GoPro at like 90 bucks, the peak top, um, and got just absolutely just railed from it. But that experience was like, "Oh my God, I can buy and sell things and make money, and I'm clicking a button. That's cool." Fast forward several years, I got heavily involved in crypto 2016, uh, while working full-time, and crypto was cool and really like shaped my futures trading world because it's 24/7, and so I could work all day and then come home, and while I was single, I would literally just like figure out trading all night. And with Bitcoin, you can take like really small like fractional trades to where I wasn't really risking anything. It was essentially like they didn't I don't think they even had paper trading at the time, but I was essentially paper trading with like pennies or dollars, you know, like a couple bucks on Bitcoin, um, and the other pairs at the time. But uh, that was like super pivotal into trading for me, um, and then found futures in the end of 2018, uh, went full-time trading in 2020, and then been doing it for the last four years.

Incredible. Incredible. What what were you working as during that time? What sort of jobs were you doing?

Yeah, all over the place. Um, when I first graduated out, I was a business analyst, uh, doing software projects. And so that was when I was trading in crypto. I got married and moved cities and became a consultant, and the consultant period of my life, uh, was when I really really really went like hard on trading. I know I was saying I went hard with the crypto side of trading, but with consulting I was on the bench, which means if you're not familiar, it means you're not on a project. So like my hours were billable to like research and development, education, whatever. So I would like go crank out something. I don't advise this, just like, like you know, be a good employee, but for me, I would literally go get into a conference room, and then I would trade all day long, all day, and then I would go home and I would trade all night, and I wake up early and I trade all day. And this is when I was this is this is late crypto, so I was like, you know, firing Bitcoin off at work and just like going crazy with leverage, and then discovered futures during that same time frame, um, but being on the bench with consulting is what like really kind of allowed for my massive growth, and I even got videos on my YouTube channel of me sitting in this conference rooms just like freaking—yeah, just you know, corporate background, the whole nine yards, and me just like cranking away on trading using a virtual machine on my computer because NinjaTrader was blocked and like all the fun stuff. But uh, and then from there after consulting, I went into private equity for a stint, um, and then I private equity is my last job. I quit before I went trading full-time.

Amazing. Absolutely incredible. And you know, would you say because of that time you're putting in like literally that dedication of morning, night, morning, night, just consistently was what helped you to really—you already mentioned in terms of really growing as a trader, but do you think that was necessary to really put that kind of time in?

I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I uh for two parts: one, it helps you figure out if like the if the passion is there, um, and it's kind of like so cheesy to say, but like I I truly don't believe that if you if you don't have passion for trading like the journey is just not worth it, because it's a lot of time, it's a lot of money, it's a lot of mental just wrecking, you know, it's all the it's just challenging, right? And so if you're not passionate about it and wanting to learn and wanting to get better, then like, you know, just figure out something else to do. Um, and that helped me discover that I was actually passionate about it. Putting in all that time, part two being I tried so many strategies during that time frame, and like I learned what I like to trade, what I don't like to trade. It's all just part of the journey, and like it does require so much time to figure out all those things. Someone can tell you something. I could tell you like, "Oh, you need to have a two-to-one risk reward," whatever BS, and you need to trade the NASDAQ. I don't want you to trade crude oil. And like if I tell you all these things, like it might like land for a second, but at the end of the day, until you go experience like some um event, it's not going to actually like register with your brain. And I think it's the very same thing here of just like I needed to go experience a lot of those emotions, a lot of those ups and downs, and sitting in front of a computer, unfortunately, it's the best way to do it.

Exactly. Yeah, that's true. And what did your partner think? You said you obviously got married in that time during this journey. What what did they think about trading? Were they on board with it? Did they—

Yeah, super—way more on board with it than I was actually. Um, she's awesome. She is the one that pushed me to like officially go full-time and stuff. She yeah, she uh really like believes more in me than I believed in myself a lot, honestly, of just like, you know, I it's like I can I know that I can crank out a lot of hours at work and trade and like have multiple streams of money and like do this, and she's like, "Yeah, you can, but like if you focus 100% on this, I know that you'll be able to produce more, and like I want you to do that," like you know, she was awesome; still is awesome; still is awesome.

You getting yourself in trouble, right?

Right. No, she's she's still awesome and still like pushing me forward.

And that's great to hear. How how important you think it is just generally, not just trading-wise, but to be successful to to try and push forward in progress to have someone who supports you and and to have that sort of significant other—

Massive. I uh I I think about it every now and then of like if I didn't date her and marry her, like where would I be? Like would I be trading? I honestly have no idea, and I don't think I would be. I I really just don't think I'd be trading the way I'm trading right now. But yeah, I think it's incredibly important. I mean, even just from like the anybody can go look at a chart and figure out if they should be buying or selling or at least flip a coin and be somewhat accurate, right?

Right.

Uh, but the emotional side is what really differentiates people in my opinion, and that's kind of a hot take maybe, um, but the mental side is so important. How you handle your losses and are you able to basically like just immediately forget about it after you kind of analyze yourself? How are you able to handle your wins, which are arguably just as hard if not harder than a loss, um, and having like a strong partner support system, someone that you can go and actually talk to about all these things is incredibly helpful. I mean, it's not like a therapist, but like a therapist in a way of like you much is get something off of your chest, you know, like I had—

A shitty day, or like, wow, today was great. But like, you need to be grounded, you know that type of thing? 100%, because it can really get out of control. Oh yeah, fast. Yeah, fast, definitely. And you know, you talked about in terms of your trading then, so like, what was your—I know I think you started with penny stocks with it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I so it was the GoPro, and then it was penny stocks because I was broke and I just assumed that penny stocks meant pennies. Yeah, were pennies, right? So I was like, penny stocks, I’m broke; therefore, you know, trade that. Uh, didn’t do that for very long. Got involved in like a few, just like caught, found something on StockTwits, buy into it, and the floor falls out or whatever. You know, it’s like, okay, cool. Uh, and then it was crypto, and then it was some big gaps, large gaps, and then Futures into Futures.

Yeah, 100%. And now, now I’m exclusively Futures in crypto. Yeah. In terms of Futures, I don’t know if you’ve seen, but so many people from options going to Futures. I’ve literally been speaking to people today. Yeah. Um, you know, the two podcasts before you, exact same thing—they were in options, now they’re in Futures. And obviously a lot of people in the the Forex space, especially in the US who are trading prop firms are now transitioning to Futures more so because they’re being forced to it, by looks of it, right? But what are your thoughts in terms of Futures, like why is it about Futures over these other markets?

They’re the best. It is the best. Uh, if you’re a US-based trader, there’s tax advantages to trading futures. Um, it’s a 60/40 uh long-term, short-term capital gains. Um, there’s no PDT rule, so pattern day trading rules. If you’re—a lot of these are probably US-like, US-based incentives, but if you’re not familiar, trading pattern day trading rule, you need $25,000 in your account to trade stocks more than five times a week or whatever it is. Um, margin requirements, leverage, so as part of the PDT rule, uh, or taking out the PDT rule, if I had like $5,000 in my account, I can trade—technically I could, I could leverage up pretty, pretty well and trade like, you know, three, four, five Minis on the NASDAQ. Um, so your dollar is going a lot farther.

Mhm. And at the end of the day, one of my, my favorite and arguably one of my favorite things is the fact that I know exactly what I’m going to trade every single day. I just log in. I don’t have to run a scanner for options. I don’t have to run a scanner for stocks. I don’t have to figure out what pair of Forex I want to trade or worry about spreads or anything. It’s just like, I know I’m going to log in, trade the NASDAQ, be done.

Yeah, definitely. In terms of strategy that you’re using now then, how have you developed that strategy? Did you have, did you have any courses or what sort of resources did you learn from?

Uh, so resources: YouTube, uh, YouTube and friends. I uh, and just a lot of screen time, like we were talking about just like a second ago. The—I never took an actual course. Um, I’ve never had a technical mentor. Um, I’ve been a part of several Discord rooms where it was like—I mean, specifically 2018, I’m thinking back to 2018, uh, when I was really leveling up on my trading. I was in a Discord with like—there was probably, there’s probably 50 other guys in there, but like every morning we were on a voice chat together watching the open, talking about stuff. We were dissecting our trading during the trading session, after the trading session, when the markets were closed, we were still in voice chats figuring out like new ideas. We were going through like Google Docs and forums, finding new words to like go like bunny hole out of and like figure out like new strategies based off that. So that’s really how I went deep.

Me personally, I learn a lot better when I’m given like, given a little nugget that I can like consume and then digest it, figure out what that like leads to, and then go tag those as well. Does that make sense?

Yeah. No, so it’s not just like consuming as much information as possible. Yeah, and then trying it all—like consume and try. Um, I think nowadays I would, I would prefer to have cut a lot of the BS out that I knew like I really shouldn’t have spent that much time going down that, that rabbit hole, right? But like, that’s part of the journey.

So, so how are you trading at the moment then?

Yeah, so I, I scalp. I scalp NASDAQ. Um, in a perfect world, I like to say a perfect world, like my trade’s going to be two to five minutes. Realistically, like sub 30 minutes is I’m happy with. Um, these days I trade like, not terribly big size. Um, on stream I trade ones, like singles contracts. Off stream I’ll trade sub five. Um, and I’m really looking for 10, 15, 20 points on the ASZ. Um, I use a lot of—I’m hesitant to use the word order flow because it’s kind of a buzzword—but order flowish concepts. Um, so volume profile, I love; cumul of Delta, which is the, the change in buying and selling going on, market buying and market selling; and I use initial balance. So it’s like taking a lot of these like kind of concepts that most people are familiar with and just kind of pairing them up with some other stuff.

Yeah. So, uh, another thing that I really like, so like when you’re looking at my screen, I got like a five-minute chart, pretty standard; a 30-minute chart; a one-minute chart, all standard. Um, the other chart that I trade off of significantly on the NASDAQ is a 22 range, and a range chart is purely price.

Mhm. And so, um, it’s not time-based, so it only makes a new candle after 22 ticks of price movement. So in this case for the NASDAQ, that’s five and a half points. And so Delta with a price chart like that really allows you to kind of like dive deep into like what’s happening in this given price range, which is really interesting to me. Um, and especially when you pair that up with the DOM, like the book, the ladder. Um, and so you can see these like large resting orders or large participants in the market paired up with Delta, paired up with volume that’s happening at a given price. Uh, and then just kind of, you know, trying to jump on the back of these, these movers and ride the way for a little bit and then get out.

So definitely. And would you say that you’re trading, if you were to break it down, would you say it’s simplistic, like a simple strategy, or would you say it’s quite complex?

It’s funny, I, uh, recently, I recently actually like wrote out all of my strategies, which I’ve not done before. Um, and there’s like six different things that I really look for. Um, not all at once necessarily. To me, my strategy is simple until I try and film a video, and then I realize that it’s like confusing to, to, to talk through or whatever. Um, but yeah, I think it’s pretty simple. Like the simplest things I use would be like a wick test. I call it the wick test. Um, I’ve recently learned it’s an ICT concept in some capacity. Um, everything is, everything is an ICT concept. I’m not an ICT trader. Um, I’ve told him that, he knows that, we’re just friends, so it’s all good. Um, but same with like order blocks, another thing that I learned was his, one of his coined words, which is something I watch. And so pairing up those like price action principles with like opening range, initial balance, point of control, where is all the volume being conducted. Um, I do look at some options data as well on where dealers are dealing on options, uh, intraday. Um, but again, a lot of these things I’m really just trying to get a little piece out of the pie.

Yeah. Um, to me, trading is about breadcrumbs. Um, you get enough breadcrumbs on your table and you scoop them all off, you’re going to get filled up, right? I don’t need a full loaf of bread, that’s hard to find. I don’t need a big slice of the bread, that’s hard to find. Just like someone else can take the slices, someone else can take the whole loaf, and I’ll just, when they take it off the table, I’ll grab those little bits and get filled up off of it.

So I like that. No, that’s a great analogy for sure. And um, would you say that in terms of that analogy then, you’re, you’re—have you gone down the road during your journey where you’ve tried to get the, the whole slice, you get the whole loaf as well?

Yeah. In fact, it’s crypto, I can imagine.

Yeah, crypto for sure. Uh, and it’s, to me, it’s a lot easier to do in crypto. Um, NASDAQ Futures, it is my—it’s like the devil on my shoulder.

Mhm. It always is the devil on my shoulder. I got, I got the angel on my shoulder that’s saying, hey Matt, like scalp it out, take your money, get a green trade, five, 10, 15 points, 100, 200, 300 bucks, that’s great for a single like trade for a couple minutes. And then I got the devil on my shoulder being like, oh, but Matt, it’s a 500 trade, it’s like lined up, it looks perfect, right? It’s a $1,000 trade, it’s simple. And whenever I start having this guy that just like gets filled up a lot and I’m scalping, I’m doing well, this guy always comes out to play, especially when volatility happens and like all of a sudden the moves do get bigger, then I start wanting more and wanting more, and then I have to take several steps back and be like, pause, stop looking for the big plays.

Mhm. So how have you built—is that something you’ve always been good at doing naturally, sort of being self-aware and sort of accountable to be able to step back, or something you have to build over time?

I built it over time for sure. Yeah. Uh, it didn’t even—I didn’t even know that that was a thing for a while. Um, until I started looking at kind of data back in 2018, 2019, 2020, even. Uh, I mean, even again, it’s something that I battle frequently every month at some point, probably. Um, but having a live stream with, you know, a lot of accountability partners essentially, um, definitely brings it to life faster than me being by myself these days. So definitely.

I was going to actually ask about the, the live stream side of things, so is that something—what was the sort of thought process behind starting that?

Being bored by myself. So yeah, I, uh, was like, man, I wish that—I know, like, I wish I knew other traders, and I didn’t know any traders in Austin. I still don’t know any traders in Austin. Um, I mean, I know of a few at this point just from my community that have come through, but like I didn’t know anybody. So just, I started my live stream, and it was to be able to like kind of hang out and have like a normal like office vibe while I was trading for the first hour and a half, and then, you know, in the stream and be done with it for a little bit. But that’s why I started it to begin with.

Yeah, was picked up you quite nicely though, right?

Yeah. Well, it’s something I love now. Um, people all the time ask why, like, why do I still do it? Cuz I’ll, I’ll get tilted and I’ll rage or whatever, and like, yeah, you know, it’s trading. But uh, at the end of the day, I, I just love it. I love hanging out with people. I’ve met a lot of really good friends. Um, the live stream has brought me a lot of really good like business, like business deals and investments and things like that that I get to be a part of. Um, so there is definitely some like multiple reasons nowadays why I enjoy doing it as much as I do. But people are cool. A lot of times it took a while to sift out some of the not cool people. I can imagine. You know, nowadays people are cool.

So definitely. No, definitely. I can imagine though, cuz it is such an interesting thing. Like most people couldn’t fathom or even try to trade live themselves, but they’ll happily comment on someone else doing it, right? You know, and it just doesn’t make sense. You know, it doesn’t make sense, like, because it’s hard enough to trade anyway, let alone trade in front of an audience essentially, right? Um, but no, it’s great to see. It’s great to see. And I think it’s so important for people to see because, like you said, like sometimes you go on tilt, for example, and uh, you know, for people to be able to observe the reality of trading, I think is so important, right? Um, it’s kind of partially because the, the podcast, if you will, was to try and just show the reality of this journey. You know, not everyone just—no one really starts from like A and then gets to Z, and no one just starts straight at the top. You know, everyone has to go through this grueling journey and and sort of get that self-awareness, that self-accountability we talked about, for example, and develop the trading skills to get to being a hopefully a full-time trader and and to actually make money from trading. Um, and yeah, it’s great to see the, the live streaming already kicking off. And you mentioned as well you have like a free Discord as well.

Free. Yeah, yeah. It’s popping off all the time. Uh, it’s just, yeah, it’s just like another like fun area for people to hang out in, like when the stream is done, everybody’s, you know, just chatting, cheating the [ __ ] in Discord. Um, but it’s a very powerful, like, it’s as powerful as you want to be. I think Discord, as specifically is, it’s very easy to, to mooch off of anything, right? In social media. Um, it’s easy to mooch off of a live stream, it’s easy to mooch off of just a Discord or whatever, you’re just looking for call-outs and whatnot. But if you like actually find a few individuals in, in a different server that you like mesh with and uh, you know, you’re actively trying to be better and you’re picking up on things that they’re talking about and asking educated questions that are not like Googleable questions, but like educated questions, and then taking things and running with it and then coming back with like an educated response to something that they say, to where you kind of build that back and forth rapport, that is powerful for a trader, and I love hosting that and seeing that happen real time. Like I get to see it all the time, just when I’m lurking my own server, and like it’s exciting for me because I’ve gotten to see like over the years, like people who are still with me, you know, three, four years, five years later, who are really freaking good traders now, all because they kind of put in the time and the effort to, to grow themselves, all from some free server, which is really cool.

Definitely. Very, very cool. Yeah. But something you mentioned there, which I think is so important to highlight, which is asking your educated questions. Yeah, your effort that’s gone into the questions as well as then coming back afterwards, right? But even just the first step there, why do you think that people are so lazy with their questions a lot of the time?

Unfortunately, I think it’s probably more of a societal issue of we live in a world where everybody’s entitled. Um, I’m entitled to get the information fast. I’m to like—I don’t know you, but you’re entitled to give me information for some reason. I don’t know, something like that, probably. Um, that would be like my, my, my guess. But I think that people are so much more likely to want to help you when you’re bringing an educated like response to them. You show that you put effort in to try and get to, right? And like, something that annoys the crap out of me, and it’s something that I’m willing to do for the 5%, maybe 5%, hopefully it’s 5%, which is like when someone asks me for some s of form of like information or an experience that I’ve had, and I go through the effort of sharing the information that I learned from that experience or anything like that, and it comes with a, do this so that this doesn’t happen to you. Most people don’t listen to that.

Yeah. True. They ask you for this advice, they ask you for whatever, but they don’t actually care to follow through on anything that you’re talking about, which annoys me a lot. But then you have the, the couple people who actually do follow through with it, and those people are very—it’s very encouraging and energizing to be around those people. Same thing with asking educated questions, it’s like when those people are asking like good questions, it makes you energized, it makes you want to like help them.

Definitely. And you build rapport and you build those relationships as you said, and that’s what most traders, I think, struggle with is that they don’t know any traders. It’s incredible to hear your journey of like you didn’t learn from, let’s say, like a course or anything, YouTube and Discord servers and communities. Um, to then obviously host your own and sort of help build the next generation of traders, if you will, or the next set of traders using those same techniques and that, and that sort of—I don’t know how you describe it, I guess it’s like mentor-less in a way.

Yeah. But it’s also not at the same time, right?

Right. Exactly. Like I don’t want to be, I don’t want to be your mentor, uh, maybe in business or like something, but like I really just want to be like a person that you talk to.

Mhm. Um, and I want everybody in my server to be that way. Like I don’t want anybody to be like sitting on some awkward pedestal.

Yeah. Like let’s just all like call it what it is, which is we’re all on a never-ending journey of trading. It’s hard as [ __ ]—trading is hard every single day. It will always be hard. The markets are always changing. We’re always having to learn. The day that you think you’re not learning is the day you’re wrong, and you’re going to get humbled real fast.

Right. And so, yeah. Then you, and then you actually learn, or you have no money left to trade with, and then you’re gone, and you’re one of that, one of those statistics. And so having this mindset of thousands of people all having that mindset of like we’re not really geared towards listening to this Almighty trading figure, but we’re all like actively trying to learn and imbue better ourselves every single day is so much healthier.

Mhm. In my experience so far. Um, and it’s something that I really try and nurture day in and day out.

Definitely. I think it’s so important, cuz there’s so many mentors, for example, who are put onto a pedestal. Uh, and I think there’s not just mentors, like putting that to one side, there’s so much in our industry that’s put on a pedestal.

Yeah. Right. And it’s not helping anyone. I think it just, it pushes more emotion, which is like the opposite of what we need as traders anyway, right? So we’re not helping ourselves by doing that. Wow. Like you said, what you found—what I found so interesting there, sorry, is the fact that as you said, it’s always going to be hard. It’s, it’s something that’s always going to be changing as well. So what, what is your philosophy or mindset towards trading? Like do you feel like there comes a point where—not easy, I don’t want to use the word easy, especially after what you just said—but where it becomes simpler, it becomes more of a routine-based thing, or is it something that really has its challenges very consistently?

I’m going to say it’s a blend of both of those things. I think that there is consistent challenges in trading. Uh, I mean, this month has been hard for, for me. January was easy, December was easy, November was easy. Normally Q1 as a whole is easy for me. Normally the summer sucks. It’s just like this like weird cyclical pattern for me. And so I think that there is, there will always be levels to, there will always be levels to the madness. Like this is an easier week, this is a harder week. Not every—I think some people out there totally claim and probably like give them benefit of the doubt, do crush every single day. I’m not a crusher every single day. That’s just not—I wish I was, just not who I am. Uh, and the only like consistent thing at the end of the day is truly it’s like Murphy’s Law, right? Like something will always happen at, at the end of the day. I could have a nice green streak, and then something’s going to happen that ruins it, and then it kills my confidence, and then I take two weeks to recover to, like, get back to where I was. But there are totally moments where like I feel like I’m like one with the market, that’s so cheesy, but like you enter like the, the flow state or whatever, where you’re just like, you know, you’re carving the market and it, you can’t miss. So like, I definitely experienced both of those awkwardly often.

How would you say you manage that as someone with have a family and full time as a trader, you know, because if you know you’re not going to have, say, like profitable months every month or, or every day, um, of course, well, not every day, but every month, let’s say, how, how do you manage that? How do you maintain that? How is it very stressful, or, or have you set things up in the right way to still, you know, go through that process without getting overly stressed out about it?

Right. Going through the proc without getting overly stressed out about it, is that just takes time. That just like, there’s no other—that I’m aware of—there’s no other quick route to that other than you got to experience really high highs and really low lows and know that you can bounce back from either one in order to, and be stressed out as, as can be during both of those swings, and then come back to normal after those swings to know that it’s all good. Um, everything in life gets a lot more mellow when you actually realize that like I’m still capable of living after something bad happening or after something very good happening. Um, good spouse kind of helps that process also. Um, and my partner is very good about allowing me to hit it hard when I’m in my flow state. I will literally text her or walk in—off out of my garage, so I’ll walk inside and be like, hey, I’m really seeing the market right now, like I need you to just like kind of carry some of this other slack and like I’m going to go like sit and for a while, and like I’ll probably end up trading all day, and I’ll just like let her know that, and she’s like, cool, like fair game, like I’m not going to text you the rest of the day, like you go do your thing. And then there’s other times where I walk in, I’m like, man, I just like not seeing it today, and she’ll be like, okay, don’t, do not go back in, like you’re not allowed to go back in. You know? And that is that, like accountability in a way that’s super, super helpful. That being said, um, it’s actually funny, the last four, three—the last three Q1s have had something massive happen that has set me up for the whole year, and then it just is a budgeting thing. Um, we had like, man, AMC, the meme stock mania. Um, and then Luna, crazy crypto cycle. Yeah, this Q1 we haven’t had anything nutty, uh, nutty yet, so we’ll see what happens. But it really is just like, can you manage money? If you can’t manage your money to begin with, you should not be trading, uh, in my opinion. Um, if you’re in a ton of debt—I’m obviously, like, I’m a random guy on the internet, don’t listen to me—but like maybe take some piece of advice from this, which is like, if you’re drowning in debt, don’t trade, like go figure out your [ __ ]—trading will always be there, the markets will always be there. Um, I don’t think trading—I personally don’t believe trading is a good route out of debt.

I agree with you. I, I was literally saying on the last part, yeah, same thing. I, I was, I was that person trying to—if anything, I wasn’t trying to, because I got myself into debt because of trading, and then

Equally, try to get out of debt through trading. Right, um, and when I say debt, it wasn't like crazy amounts, but still, you know, it was a few thousand pounds, so maybe, maybe getting close to $10,000. Right, um, and I was just using account, uh, credit cards to fund accounts. Um, and then luckily I hadn't come across prop firms at the time because that would have been way easier to try and do, just crank out. Yeah, so this was going into live funds, but it was just silly because it was like 300 at a time, 500, like very small amounts, right, but they add up. And then all that would happen was at the end of it, it would be like, I, you know, I, I'm going to be nice and calm and try and trade, and then you start to try and trade, and you actually follow your plan for two weeks, three weeks, and you start making some money, and you're like, finally, the debt's going to go, I'm going to finally start making some money. Gone emotions, gone, right?

And then literally, I had to have an ultimatum with myself, um, or with like, yeah, pretty much with me and my wife, but with myself in regards to trading because it's like if you keep doing this, it's going to get very dark and dangerous, cuz you're essentially just gambling, right? And you're using debt as well, so you're not even using money that you have. And now, at this point, I have a family and kids, so when I started trading, I had no one; it was just me. I could be reckless and do—I wouldn't advise it still—but at the end of the day, those decisions only reflect on me. But by that point, I had a wife and child now, so now those decisions are now impacting them. They didn't, they had no choice in the matter; you know, they didn't see the chart, they didn't, um, you know, deposit the money, etc., but yet it's shared money now at this point, so, um, yeah, I had to make that decision to basically: I was either going to quit or I had to change. And the change had to be that: sort the finances out, like you said, sort it out first. And while you sort that out, the beauty is the markets are there to learn from still, right? So you still learn; you can still demo trade, paper trade, you can still watch videos to learn more about the skill and develop your strategy. And by the time—yes, it's a long process to fix finances, a lot of the time, because, you know, you're not going to just make 10K out of nowhere from your job, right? No one's going to just give it to you—but that process of doing that, I think, builds discipline; you respect money a lot more, um, and in that time you get to learn. So, but, but by the time you are in a better position, then you can trade, right? Cuz now you've learned the skill set, cuz it might have taken you a year, maybe two, to build it back out of that, uh, out of that hole that you didn't need to be in in the first place, you know, right? So, um, no, I definitely, I think it's very valuable advice, and hopefully people actually listen to it. Yeah, it's just, it's powerful, and like, I mean, there's just, I think prop firms have elongated the life cycle of a trader.

Um, when I was starting out, prop firms were, they were around, but it was just a few, um, and it was a significantly different landscape than it is right now, um, and I think it, like, I mean, there's the, the classic, the classic phrase is like 90-90-90: like 90% of traders lose 90% of their money within 90 days or whatever. I think through my live stream and Discord, I probably see a six-to-nine-month like kind of turnover, and I think prop firms have naturally opened that life cycle up to where people are able to last a little bit longer because they're not having to lose their whole life savings, you know, in two days, which is a good thing. But it's just the amount of people who are still like, tell me, and it, it's like sad to, sad to read that they're like actively trying to get out of debt with trading, and you're just like, the day that you are really, really, really, really needing to make money with trading is the day that you're going to have a terrible day. It just, it's inevitable; it's Murphy's Law; it's the: if something is going to go wrong, it's going to go wrong. Trading is so much easier when you have like additional forms of income in some capacity, uh, and like when you just don't need the money. Yeah, yeah, it's so true. And I think that's why a lot of people rush to try and go full-time. I've met so many people in their job where they had one green month; they quit. Oh, God. Or I've seen people where they're in university or college, and they don't have any backup; they haven't got results yet, but they quit it; they drop out just cuz they say they want to go all in on trading, but that's just not how it works. I don't think it's a smart idea. Like, know there is a notion where a lot of people in trading and just generally in entrepreneurship, like the online Wi-Fi money if you will, they're very anti-university and college and getting a degree or diploma, whatever it may be. And now I didn't actually go to uni myself, and this is why I say it, and this is why I, I try and like highlight like: if you've gone already and you're already there and you've chosen something to do, maybe you're not massively passionate about, but you're already there anyway, so you've already started the sign, the, the form to get some debt on your name or whatever it may be, um, don't quit then just cuz you're trading or whatever online thing it may be. Because I went through the journey where I didn't go there, uh, mainly because I didn't know what I wanted to do, and I knew I wanted to do entrepreneurship, so I went that way, but I had to work jobs, which was no problem, and, uh, I worked some good jobs that made some decent money, like sales, for example. But I had no other option other than that, so if I wanted to make any decent money, it had to be sales, which is no problem; it's a great, I think it's a great skill set to have. But I couldn't even then, I couldn't make like good amounts of money to really save and really, you know, on a ladder in an easy way; it would be grueling; like the hours are crazy, the environment in sales environments, it's very tough as well, um, but yeah, like, would it have been better if I was learning a skill set like trading but I had like a degree where I could get a job where I'm making maybe 40, 50, 60K a year, right? So then I can actually save and actually put money into the trading, right, you know?

You get value for your money. Like, I, it's so—sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off either—but like, it, it's so easy, and I'm pretty passionate about this: it is very easy for traders to lose a sense of reality on like how much is much, like how, how much is actual like—like you see these crazy, like, and again, I'm not like some like calling out guru guy, but you see crazy numbers online, right? Maybe it's real, maybe it's not, maybe it's a pure highlight reel, maybe it's faked, who knows, who freaking knows. These dudes though, making 20, 30, 40, 50 grand, right? It's a lot of, it's a lot of money. 500 bucks is like decent for like most of the world; it's decent in America. It's 100 grand, 100 grand a year, right? It's 500 bucks a day, maybe a little bit over actually, and it's so easy to lose touch because everybody's paper trading, everybody's trading prop firms or whatever, you're trading prop firms, and so like you're needing to make, you know, whatever it is, $5,000, $9,000, and so you're used to these thousand-dollar days, $2,000 days, you're trading crazy size because it's just part of it, and it's like, get a grasp of reality a little bit. It's just like how we were talking about like, don't trade while you're on debt; it's like, try and understand what like actual money is like. If I was to put a $1,000 on your desk right now, are you gonna take that and run? Like, are you gonna be happy with that? Or like, are you gonna be like, nah, like I'm down to like risk that cuz I want four grand? Or I put $4,000 in, you're like, nah, like I actually want 15, and it's like, no, like it's a lot of cash, and like, I don't know, I, I just think people are losing touch a lot of times. 100%. And I'm really trying to, like, it's, it's everything I say is a reminder for myself at the end of the day, but it's a reminder for me to like, don't lose touch with reality, don't, like, don't get, like, all, you know, caught up in a wad of like, you need to be making $10,000 a day because some other dude on YouTube making 10 grand a day or whatever. It's like, no man, like stay in your lane, make your money, be happy with it. Same thing with like how much time it takes to do it. Another big, like, not necessarily myth because there's plenty of people that do do it, and I, I used to do like one-hour sessions, hour-and-a-half sessions and make a couple grand, but I was having to size up like crazy. And then since then, it's like, I love this phrase, being overfunded, underleveraged, and it just allowed for longevity in the game, right? Like everything is about longevity, and once I actually started taking trading as a career and not like this fun thing that I can make a bunch of money on, but instead, like shifting my mindset of like, you know what, this is a job; I need to be prepared to sit here for eight hours a day, just like any other job; like I need to be prepared to put in the work so that I can get better and put in the work and not try and like get out within an hour and a half and not make like a doctor's salary in an hour and a half or whatever, but like, sit here all day, take really good setups, make my money, get a sense of reality on it, and be overfunded, underleveraged; it's just like, it's a natural good spot to be in, but it's so easy to lose touch with that. Like 100%, very easy. 100%, it's because, do you feel like a lot of it is because it's all on a screen? Like it's just all numbers on a screen; we lose and win them, and you know, everyone's always, as you say, you know, the examples that a lot of the time we see online are just like big green days of 10, 20, 30K, even into six figures sometimes, and, um, you so you see that, and we're desensitized cuz it's not real cash, right? Yeah, there's no hard—it's just numbers on a screen. Like I remember one little mindset hack I used to do is like, if I was risking £500, let's say, I would have £500 cash at my trading station. Yeah, so then I would just—just even though it didn't really do anything, but it was more so just like, okay, I'm risking that; I'm risking that every time I'm trading, so I don't want to just risk it for the sake of it, you know, just put it on a really poor-quality trade, right, you know? I think that's powerful, um, and yeah, I think it's because it's just on a screen. I mean, it's so easy to forget about it; it's like slots, like, you know, you go into a casino or whatever, and you see someone just like mindlessly pressing a button, and their money is just evaporating, and it's like, what the hell are we doing here? It's the same concept at the end of the day of like, you, you got a number on your screen, and you're just clicking buttons, just like, all right, it's going up, it's going down, whatever, and it's just evaporating your money or whatever, so it's true. Yeah, yeah, it's true.

Like, in terms of the personal account wise, is it something that you are scaling, uh, like compounding, or are you just sort of at a figure and you kind of just withdraw consistently? Yeah, no, I don't, I don't compound it anymore. Um, we, I talk about this fairly often as well, of like this level of, every, every trader, I think, and maybe I'm still kind of floating this idea around as well, but I think everybody goes through a level where they are trying to compound until they reach a certain point, and then they realize that they don't need that much money to trade with, um, once you have some form of reality touched, right, kind of back to that conversation just a second ago. Uh, for me, I was scaling, scaling, scaling, scaling with crypto, scaling with futures, um, and you typically get this weird scaling concept with like really small accounts; people have small accounts, um, which there's nothing wrong with it; it's just it's when you're naturally going to see it take place more because they, they need the money to make more trades, right? Um, I ran an account up to 10 grand to buy my, uh, wife's engagement ring with crypto, right? And so like at that point, hyperscaling, I got a goal; I'm trying to scale, scale, scale, so I can do this thing. The flip side of that is that like with futures, there is not a lot of benefit; I like to reset monthly, like I had mentioned earlier; there's not a lot of benefit to, you know, having a million dollars in a cash account versus 500 grand versus 100 grand when I'm trading limited size. Insert a comment on YouTube: why AR, why don't you size up, Matt? Because it becomes a stupid mental game for me that I just don't, I don't see the upside for. But how much would you say it's so important to understand yourself, like to recognize these patterns, and how have you gone about doing that? So like when you've recognized that you make these sort of decisions that are sort of detrimental to your progress and to your trading or your finances that you then able to say, okay, let me step back; how have you gone about identifying them and, stupid [ __ ] I've done on YouTube, really, documents?

Yeah, I mean, dude, there's so many classic examples of me being an absolute just grade-A idiot. Um, I mean, there was first day of the year 2022 or 2023, I don't remember if it was last year or the year before, but it was the very first trading day of the year, January 3rd, um, it was a Tuesday, I think, and I got just like literally first five—this is when I was, this must have been 2022, I can't remember, but this was when I was like still trading heavy size, um, for me, which was all the way up to like 15 contracts probably, um, and trading heavy size and wanting to be done in the first hour, hour and a half, so I could go do other stuff, startup stuff, whatever. First trading day of the year, I'm all stoked; it's going to be a great year. First five minutes, I scale into a trade that I shouldn't have been scaling into; it's going down; I'm adding contracts; I think I'm like 13 deep, 14 deep or something, and I'm down like 10 grand in the first like seven minutes of the market being open, 10 or 15 grand in the first seven minutes of the market being open. It was horrible; it was so embarrassing, so stupid. And it was like one of those things where you're just like, oh my God, like you take a step back, like you finally are able to get the blinders off, and you're like, I know I shouldn't have done that; what was I doing? I ended up grinding the entire day; I sat in front of my computer just so I could go to break even, and it was a line-in-the-sand moment for me of like, I'm not going to put myself in that situation again; like that is stupid; like what did I get out of that? I got the exact same thing that I prob would have gotten had I traded like a tenth of the size, you know, which is a break-even day without a lot of the stress. And so yeah, I think it just comes down to like documenting yourself, looking at data; data is very transparent; you can't hide from it. And so if you're doing a good job about—I mean, like there's great software out there, TradeZella, um, you run your own Excel sheet, whatever it is, look at the data; see what times a day works for you; see how much, how many contracts, like how, how much size you're trading; whether the correlation is there for you doing well or doing poor, like so many things like that. And for me, it was just like, okay, there's certain levels to the madness, and I am more inclined to—back to your original question about like how much money do I know to have in there—there's levels where I know I'm more inclined to trade more size because I have X amount on my bank or X amount on my broker, and don't let it get there, mhm, right? Like let me just like put up a wall to where I'm not going to put myself in that position, right? Definitely. I remember there was a trader I had on the podcast; his name's Jake, but Rake Trades, and he basically said that let's say if he, his account's meant to be 100K for example, he would just deposit 20% of that. Yeah, so that should he go on tilt and lose that, he's only technically lost 20%, even though technically speaking on the broker it'll say 100%, if that makes sense, right? Because of the same principle, like he understands this is a huge amount, and if you, I have these tendencies, I'm going to take a portion of and trade with that instead. Yeah, which, and then, then risk a 10%, which would technically be like 1%, right? Um, and I found that so interesting, and I think like these are the little things that traders need to do, like rather than saying, let's say, oh, they just heard you and said, oh, I'm going to do that, or heard what Jake said and said, I'm going to do that, rather than that, it's like, like you said, look at yourself, right? Know how—and that kind of leads me to a question, which is: what would you say the most important aspect of being a trader is? Is it technical? Is it the fundamentals? Is it psychological? Is it the data?

I don't think it has anything to do with what's on your screen or the underlying asset. Um, I really truly believe that anybody can master trading in some capacity. I think there's a million different—these might be some really hot takes, but get ready—I, I, I think that like there's, I don't think that there is any strategy that is significantly better than another strategy. Um, at the end of the day, like there are plenty of people that make money trading ICT; there are plenty of people that make money trading Dave T's FX; there's plenty of people that make money with, you know, insert F, insert any strategy combo for any like trading guru out there or style of trading or algorithmic software maybe or whatever it is; there's a million different ways to make money in the markets; we all know this; there's a million different ways to make money trading in the NASDAQ; there's a million different ways to make money trading the ES. The hard part is keeping your money; it's not hard to make money in a given day; it's hard to keep it over a long run. Um, how do you keep money? It comes down to the person, to me. Um, I don't think that everybody was made to be a trader; I think everybody can be a trader; I don't think everybody was made to be a trader purely from the mental side. I've been seeing a lot of things that like trading psychology is BS and like all these things like that recently, um, and I think that there's probably some levels to the truth; I haven't really watched any of those videos because I don't really want to get tainted that well, um, and if trading, trading psychology is BS, then we'll just call it like, yeah, sure, it is BS, but you as a human need to be able to master yourself. If you have no discipline over your life, you'll never be a good trader. Um, if you have no ability to look into your mind, you're not going to be a good trader, right? Like it's the—and this is so classic, but it's so hard—it's the hardest easiest thing to do or whatever; that kind of phrase is really corny, um, but very accurate. And yeah, I'm taking a long way around here, but I really don't think it has anything to do with technicals; I don't think it has anything to do with fundamentals; those both of those might give you a leg up potentially in your journey, maybe, um, but at the end of the day, if you do not know how to dissect yourself, analyze mistakes, keep a cap on your risk and on your tilt and on your own mental, then you're not going to make it as trading. Yeah, no, definitely. And it's interesting you mentioned there that the psychology is a [ __ ] sort of thing that people are saying; I know there's like different arguments, um, which is like, you know, you can have the psychology, but if you have a [ __ ] strategy, it's worthless; that's what a lot of people try and say, uh, which makes sense; I think like it is a, a, a multiple-layer thing rather than just one, of course, cuz one without one you wouldn't have the other either way. But one thing you mentioned which I thought was interesting is, you know, even if you say trading psychology is [ __ ], but more so regardless if you want to be successful at anything, including trading, you need to be a disciplined person; you need to be someone who is self-aware; you need to have psychology, a good psychology as a human being, which is actually a very interesting take to be honest with you because it's so true, right? It's like you could say that the T, the, the idea of having a trader's psychology, you don't need to have this whole thing of like, I need to, the trading psychology, the trading mindset, throw that away, and instead just say, I need this mindset generally in life, right? It might be a bit of a, an easier push if you will. Yeah, um, but yeah, I think, I think it's so interesting what you're saying in terms of the strategies as well, um, because everyone is battling it out all the time, and I think that's like, I guess that's part of the industry to kind of maybe get their name up or sell their, whatever, service, core sales at the end of the day, right? Like, um, so it's like marketing 101, I guess, but it still always is interesting because it's like, it is so true; like every strategy does work, you know? And I think I, I wish there was a way where people could have that mirror in front of them to just say, okay, this is what, where you do well, and this is where you do [ __ ], and then just really try and focus on when these [ __ ] things happen, you have protocols in place, but when things go well, you have these protocols in place, and then, you know, people could just work that out. But, and it's very possible to do that, by the way; it's just like, I mean, you just have to look at your own data, and it takes a lot of time; no one, no—and that's what people don't want to hear, and, and a lot of people just don't survive long enough for that, but that's something that I've gone through; like I now know like XYZ happens, like be prepared, right? Or this happens, like, all right, like I need to, I need to dive in harder. Yeah, and it just takes a lot of like being vulnerable with yourself, which people are terrible with, but be vulnerable with yourself and be like, okay with knowing that you're trash, to be able to look at your own data and do that long enough, you're, you're going to start noticing small improvements. There's this beautiful concept called Kaizen, which is continuous improvement, and it's like, it's from supply chains what I started in school, and so it's just like, how can I continuously improve bit by bit every single day to where it almost doesn't even feel...

Like, I'm improving, but I look back, and I'm now, you know, I took a step up the ladder every single day, which was very simple to do. Didn't look down, but then now I'm like, you know, way higher than I was. Yeah, and it's very possible for everybody; it's just hard to do.

No, definitely, but it's possible. That consistency, you know, I feel like most of us have gotten very lazy in in today's society, of trying to push beyond, say, a three-month period, six-month period, etc. Right? It's just building those habits, and and then I think most of the time the reason why people don't stick it out is simply because they don't see the results quickly, or any sign of results quickly. And that's the same with everything, though. I don't think there is anything really where you can do it and then get instant feedback, right? Versus seeing the feedback, saying three months, I would say probably around the six-month mark is where you start to see signs of it—not even like loads of it, but signs of it. So like every single day work in terms of your trading, you probably won't see the result of that show up maybe in six months. Right? And that might just look like, in terms of your understanding or your confidence, not even profitability. You know, that might be another six months, but it's like you said, it's building that every day, every single day, uh, improving, and then being able to look back and say, okay, there's the bigger picture; there's there's where I was started from A, and then I got to B, and then I got to C, and then now I'm at F, and I still want to try and get to Z.

Yeah, you know, I love that, by the way, of just like having those little goals—like write it out. Yeah, like I mean, manifest it in a way, right? Like I had a journal; that same when I was in doing consulting, I wrote out the exact same thing every day for a year of what I wanted to see like my trading become, and it just like puts it in your head, you know, and it like brings it to the surface of like, like I don't want to lose $1,000 today, like even if it's demo or whatever; like I want to like, like I want to have a control on my risk, and like all these different things. I think it's super important to write it out.

No, definitely. And one thing you talked about in terms of when things aren't going so well or you're not feeling too clear on the market, you'll step away versus the opposite, obviously, step in more and really dial in with that. Do you use—and I've been asking a few traders this recently actually, which is like—do you use dynamic risk or fixed in your risk?

Uh, dynamic. So I follow three strikes, I'm out, um, which is pretty like standard, I feel like. Sometimes it's two strikes, I'm out; sometimes it's just one trade; um, sometimes it's realistically four or five, uh, but like the reason I do that is just so that I can, one, like it it it brings it to the surface of pre-tilt; like it allows me to be pre-tilt on like what's going on. Uh, my actual trading itself is not like a standard 2:1; I risk 10 points to make 20 points every single trade. I I don't trade that way. Um, I know some people out there probably do and crush it. Um, for me, I like to trade where the market like what the market's allowing me to do. I think it's significantly based on volatility on a given day of how much I should be wiggling around versus not wiggling around, and uh, kind of depends on the level as well. So like if it's around initial balance high or low on the session, like I'll be able to tighten up my stop as opposed to, you know, trading the bottom of value area where it's not going to be as tight of a level.

So definitely.

No, definitely. And what would you what would you want to see changes in the industry? Like if someone could change in the industry, what would it be for you?

Oh, man, there's too many; the list is—are you prepared? I I actually have really thought about that. I I think that I think one of the biggest blessings and curses of the in like of trading recently is prop firms. Yeah, um, it is such a blessing and such a curse. I think that it is like so powerful for traders to be able to, if done correctly, elongate their life cycle, not be able to have like too much, you know, too much too many eggs in one basket. Um, I trade prop firm accounts; I love them; like I just want to be like very transparent. I love prop firms; I trade them; I talk about them often. I think it's very dangerous for people to get in the cycle, yeah, of fail on account, try again, fail on account, try again, fail on account, try again, and like they're like expecting something different. It's like it's the insanity or whatever where they keep doing the same thing expecting something different. Um, I think that people probably need to be like taking a step back a little earlier in like reevaluating everything. I think people also—and the reason I said it's a blessing and a curse is that like I said earlier, some people are just straight up not cut out to be trading, um, and I think it kind of like elongates that process of people figuring that out sometimes. That's—but would you say—but it's also some of the best things ever for people is this; it's is that obviously a lot of people are stepping into the Futures sort Futures props, right? For yourself, so like obviously there's going to be a lot of new players I think over the next by the end of this year especially because of the change in the FX side, right, the CFD side. So what would you like to see from Futures props like to make it better for the trader, right?

I'm actually a little nervous with all the 4X props coming into the Futures space. Um, I think that they're kind of clowny sometimes—not really throwing [ __ ] at any specific thing; I just like on Twitter and whatnot, you see all these firms pop up because some influencer owns it or whatever, and it's like I don't know; I just think it's super sketchy, um, and I don't want that to taint the Futures side. Um, I don't really want to be like a boomer about it either.

And like I think that's fair, though. I think that is very fair because at the end of the day, the the whole reason that Futures is quite ideal is because of its sort of legitimacy and professionalism. Yeah, you don't want it that tainted.

I don't want it tainted at all, um, and like there's been a few companies that have popped over from future or from Forex, and I'm like this is like this is not this is not it, um, and that's fine; it is what it is; competition at the end of the day will be good, uh, assuming that the companies don't just clown themselves out of the, you know, out of the industry and bring a bunch of stuff that we don't want to happen.

Yeah, you know, oversight-wise, I think Futures companies right now, though, are pretty competitive for traders. Uh, the biggest differences between Futures and Forex that I'm aware of that I don't know if people are aware of as well would be like a lot of times Futures are going to be a lower entry fee because it's a monthly recurring as opposed to like a one-time upfront larger fee that Forex has a lot of times. Um, Futures are also not dictated by broker spreads and things like that; it's all centralized book, so you're not going to like you're not going to experience those weird things from like MFF, for instance; like that's just not physically possible because Futures are all through centralized, the CME for instance, so all the orders are the orders for the same for everybody; like there there's nothing different. Um, I think risk and appetite size for everybody is honestly pretty good. I use Apex, which gives you 20 accounts; I think that's fine. Um, I really wouldn't change that much to be honest.

I I I think that you don't want to change is what he's saying.

Yeah, well, I mean, like I think there's things that like yeah, I really don't see a lot that where I think like that needs to change because that's just like not fair at all. You can trade news on almost every company; um, most companies are like sub a week to get through it, um, which I think is fine, like honestly, a lot of it is like if you know how to trade, they're like it's LWH hanging fruit, yeah, for like a lot of people at least to get funny 100%.

Yeah. One the one thing I've seen that is different in comparison is that with Futures it's like a high turn; it's like a a turnover rate if that makes sense; like people don't plan to keep the accounts long term; they just plan to make money from them and then just go through the process again.

Yeah, I think that's something to do like when the withdrawal happens; it's like it it like goes back to is like a trailing drawdown or something. Yeah, the the the when the withdrawal happens on almost every account, every firm or whatever you want to call them, uh, a lot of times it moves it up to zero or whatever, so if you didn't have a buffer, yeah, like like say you at $5,000 and your withdrawal is at zero, and you take out $4,000, now you only have $1,000 a wiggle room, and that is going to like kill your account pretty quick with Futures, yeah, um, which is, you know, 50/50. I personally don't know of anybody that has thought like I'm gonna have this account for like two years, yeah, which I didn't even—is that a thing in Forex? Like maybe. I guess very few there are people who who have done—I don't know about two years, but like a good amount of time, like good year, year and a half, um, and there are people who have done like some really really good numbers on them, but again, very very few; very—there's a dude for Apex who had his stuff for like a year, and he took out a million bucks.

Wow. So that's pretty cool. Um, so that is out there, but I mean, that's the only guy I know of who's done that.

It's always the case, isn't it? The minut the the sort of smaller number, just the ones everyone's looks at, though, goes, I need to do the same.

Well, yeah, and that's like a classic—I didn't know if you were going to ask me or not—like I was prepared to go down that whole that whole rabbit hole of uh, biggest losing day, biggest winning day. I'm like I was about to—the extreme outliers are what everybody always cares about, which is so interesting to me because it's like it is it's exactly that; it's an outlier; it's like you're asking me about my one my single single unique experience on the good side and the bad side when I have had thousands of of normal experiences; like like let's talk about the middle of the bell curve, not like this extreme, but that's what people always want to hear is like the massive good and the massive bad, so I get it. I feel like—I hope to say anyway—that we focused on the middle through the podcast, um, but like to to sort of finish on our finishing points, what would be, you know, a memorable win, you know, that really stands out to you?

Uh, most of my memorable wins have actually come from crypto as far as like above uh, you know, make the heart pound like crazy. Yeah, I've had big big days on Futures, um, but Futures for me was always meant to be more systematic; crypto is always meant to be a little bit more wild.

The fun, right?

Right, right. And what about a losing one? Why I normally ask people in terms of like what is the biggest loss that sticks out to you that you would say you took a really a big lesson from those as well?

That would probably be from Futures, um, and it always happens right after a really good day typically for me, yeah, uh, and I I would say that that's probably the case for most people if I had to assume is that if you have a really solid day, you're probably going to come in guns blazing the next day a lot of times, and you're going to get humbled pretty quick, um, but yeah, I definitely have been humbled several times of the Futures.

Would you say those are the losses that kind of taught you about the whole, you know, learning to step back?

Yeah, for sure, um, because during those losses I always have a moment, a a conscious moment of what am I doing here right now, and then I stay, and I'm like, oh my God, like, and then at the end of the day you look back, and you're like, I could have saved myself 15 grand.

Yeah, yeah. Like I literally had a conscious Mo like a conscious thought of like what am I doing here right now? I'm down $5,000; I could have saved myself 15 grand had I just listened to myself and walked away. Yeah, and that type of thing is where it's very defining and where you start to actually listen to that small whisper in your head of like whoa, that there is a little seat of doubt in there right now; like the last time I felt this [ __ ] hit the fan like I need to listen to that.

You know, that's an interesting thing actually because I recognize that as well in terms of my journey. I've had so many times where I'm sat there in drawdown looking at saying you should close this, right? Like you shouldn't be here, so you should close it, but then it's like leave it 'cause you're like I could go back to break even and go to profit ET one time he did that before, you know, so this time it could be that time, and then no, and then when you lose it, you're like, I should have just—I would have been way happier, yeah, you if I just hadn't lost all of it instead of just lost that chunk at the time, which seemed like a lot. It's so interesting how our mindset does that. But one question I was going to ask you actually earlier which I just came back to me which was do you think more people would be better off if they were stop trying to be the best trader, right, and be the the trading God, and instead just had fun with their trading, be—and that doesn't necessarily mean you have to be unprofessional or just be reckless, but more so just enjoy the process, enjoy the process of trading, be more realistic that you are going to maybe go on tilt here and there, and you need to be aware of it; you need to try and control that of course, but it's going to happen, yeah, versus like trying to be this perfectionist?

Yeah, oh absolutely. I mean, something that that is that is what I'm trying to personally like live by; it seems the last like year and a half I've really gone through like a mental shift the last year and a half of like just lower my own expectations, lower everybody around me's expectations of me, and like just do my thing, like enjoy what I'm doing. I'm I'm getting to do something freaking awesome, and like I love trading; I truly love trading, and it's always the moments that I feel like I hate trading where I'm like I'm choosing to do this; at the end of the day, I chose to do this; I'm choosing to do this every day when I wake up, and like I do love it, so like enjoy it. Like my dad actually taught me uh a great little phrase, which is no one loves there like no one loves doing anything 100%, but if you can get like 80%, you're having like a damn good time, and that's me with trading is like there's that 20% of like you're going through the mental like mental [ __ ] right, and like you're having a hard time; you take a terrible loss, but if you can like enjoy it like 70 or 80% of the time, you're lucky.

How much has that changed since you had that shi there? How much has like the enjoyment come back into trading as well? Because I could imagine before that then if there was a lot of pressures and stuff there, you probably wouldn't enjoy it as much; it probably was a bit more of a stress every day to be training.

Oh, was horrible. Yeah, yeah, it was horrible. I I it was February of—it was literally a year ago, so I was saying a year and a half; it was a year ago because we went to Hawaii as a family, um, and I came back, and it was a—that was like the defining—I love spending money on experiences; it's like my thing, and so it allows for very seasonal like look backs for me, which is cool, but so Hawaii was the this one specifically where I just remember coming back home and being like why am I doing like why am I doing this? Why am I trying to push the boundaries every day? Why am I trying to do like heavy size scaling infinitely? I'm not having fun; when I'm not having fun, my trading is [ __ ] with, which makes me have not fun; like it makes me not have even more fun, you know, like it's just like this terrible snowball of—

Did—would you ever find yourself as well in those moments, sorry, just good in the home as well, just kind of being really down and not really present, if that makes sense?

Yeah, for sure. I think uh like I think what my—and I don't want to speak necessarily for—but I think what my wife would probably say is that it would be like uh like I'd be very quiet and like pulled back, yeah, because I was just constantly in my thoughts.

That you're there but you're not.

Yeah, there but not there, exactly right. Yeah, of just like—and it's because I would just constantly be thinking about like like God, like what am I doing? Like why would I do that? You know, it's like that whole conversation that we were having just a second ago, but like anyways, trading a lot less size, being overfunded, underleveraged, having these like core concepts of like be smart, be patient, uh, trade smaller size, be in touch with the reality of how much money money is, and like don't try and get every trade to be some like crazy viral social media clip, like you know, just like stay in your lane, and that was the eye opener that was like, okay, I'm down to have a lot of fun. It cleaned out a lot of negativity from chats, my YouTube chat and stuff, and like my close network of people, uh, and it's been awesome.

Yeah, yeah, it's just like it's just way more fun. So no, I love it, man; honestly, I do really do. It's like a a breath fresher even for the pod, for example, because it's like just such a more relaxed approach to trading, realistic approach to trading as well, and just kind of a reality that I hope a lot of other traders can try and adopt because I think that I get it; like we talked about like I get why people speak in a certain way around trading and stuff, but I think it's very dangerous to the masses because they they chase that perfection. I've met so—I've met people where they were making money, but they changed strategy because they're looking for a strategy where they know every single move in the market because I don't know if that's what's been, you know, sort of promoted to them or they they just have this false idea and fantasy of the market.

To be fair, it can very much just be people, human nature, because I remember me thinking just about business that you get into business, and then you're going to be rich, and you're going to be free, right? But it's complete opposite; it's not it's not even the reality in business, you know, um, so I had to learn that the hard way too, so it might just be human nature that we assume trading; there has to be something out there that allows us to read it like a book, right, predict every move, um, but I'm hoping people really took a lot from you today because I think there was a lot that you shared, and you know, thank you for being so open as well about certain things too, um, and yeah, hopefully we can do this again at some point.

We'll have to meet up in Dubai.

Yeah, absolutely, 100%. But everyone, thank you for tuning in; the links format will be in the description below, so make sure you check them out; check out his live streams as well. I want to see—I want to go back and see some of the the tilt movements, just just—

Oh, God, there's plenty.

Definitely, but um, yeah, make sure you check those out and drop a comment of your biggest takeaway from this episode; we'd love to hear that as well. There'll be other episodes and playlists here to check out too, but until next time, everyone, take care. [Music]

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Trades by Matt: ICT Said He’s The Best Day Trader On YouTube | WOR Podcast - EP.111

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