Over the years I was approached by around 100 people learning to trade and had an opportunity to talk to them. I've observed that most, if not all, were telling lies to themselves and as a result had unrealistic expectations. And, as a consequence of that, their teachability index was low - meaning that they were not open to learning anything that appears controversial - i.e. deviating too much from what they had learned about trading before. In this article I'll provide some quotes - what those people told me - and will explain how I see what's behind those lines and how you should think to avoid falling in those self deceptions yourself.
"This is not professional trading, professional traders use VWAP!"
- one very motivated woman once told me, who had completed the full training course with my mentor Rob. It was after a long series of emails with her during which I tried to help her with her trading. But in the end she gave up by finding a weird excuse about VWAP and I never heard from her anymore. I believe this excuse came after watching some "guru's" video on YouTube who was teaching how trade VWAP. Because it's what most people do (including myself in the past) when things get tough and they are not seeing the level of success that they once expected. They don't want to admit that they were not attentive enough and they didn't learn it fully yet. As a result, they don't approach their mentor, who cares deeply for their success and doesn't charge for help. So they silently blame the mentor, go to YouTube to find another mentor (greener grass syndrome) which fuels their false hope and they fall into a fantasy world again, where they continue to be average traders without doing any real effort to improve, yet for them it appears that they're learning something because they keep changing the teachers, when in fact they're simply consuming the dopamine hit that comes every time after starting a new course.
This whole problem stems from the highlighted words - inability to admit that you lack knowledge. If your ego is big it's just simply not possible. Ego must be brought down to admit it and to be able to approach the mentor and actually learn something from him. This is known as "teachability index". The more you can control your ego, the more teachable you are. And you must do whatever it takes to raise your teachability index, otherwise there will be no progress. Approaching the charts thinking that "you know it all already" or that "my mentor is bad" is certainly not the correct way.
As a side note regarding VWAP - if you're trading on the professional side of the forex market you don't need any indicators per se. There is no indicator that would give retail traders that "edge" that they're relentlessly looking for. Even if you use a combination of 5+ indicators, my statement is still correct. So VWAP is not that magical indicator that makes you a professional trader - if you heard that, it was simply somebody's marketing trick. However, professional traders are free to use any indicator that they want. But there is a big difference compared to retail trading: professional traders make their trading decisions based on their professional understanding of how the market works, not on indicators. They might use indicators simply for easier entry/exit timing (to avoid being glued to charts all day) and to give some structure to their trading (to avoid overtrading). However, if they were to shoot entries on every indicator signal that they receive, they would be losing money, because understanding of what's going in the market, human judgement and prediction comes before using any indicators for entries. Also, as a consequence, professional traders do not try to derive any probability models from their indicators (that's the retail modus operandi). Professional traders do not rely on any probability models, they rely on their understanding of how the market works. If my argument is not convincing enough then just do a mental experiment for yourself: imagine that there's a combination of indicators that have a workable probability model and gives you a real edge. This would mean that this trading plan can be 100% automated - no human judgement is needed. If no human is needed it means that it's simple. If it's simple, it means that millions of people ranging from sit-and-home traders to the smartest developers at quant funds have already thought about it (there's not that many indicators that you can think of actually, as none of them rely on any external "secret" information - all of them are derived from the 5 simple datapoints - candle open, close, high, low price and tick volume). So if everyone has already thought about it, it means it simply can't work. I hope you understand why it can't work, but if you don't, then it means you need to get some knowledge :)
"I've been losing money for 10 years, I'll take your course next year"
- good promise but I didn't hear back from that guy anymore. Well if you've been losing money for a prolonged time, it's very obvious that you're doing something wrong. Professional trading does have a steep learning curve, but it's not THAT steep after all. What that tells me that that guy was trading the retail side of the market and he's simply on the wrong path that will never yield any results. This also tells me that he was aware of that, because he promised to take my course next year. But we kept communicating for the following 2 years until he just completely disappeared. It's sad to see how people give up on their dreams, but I've seen this pattern repeating very often. I'd estimate that 80% of people with whom I had a conversation are no longer trading. I think the consensus is that most people give up trading after 6 months. This can't be proved with any reliable data, but since I'm at the charts every day I do feel this simply by remembering when was the last time a certain retail pattern worked. Because if I see something retail occasionally working out, it means that the people who were trading that thing already gave up - they're not there anymore. Then another guru has to rise, preaching that pattern/methodology to the masses, pointing out that "hey this recently worked!", attracting new gun meat to the game. And they'll try trading that until they'll finally give up. That's how the cycle works. So, as in everything else, people come to trading for the wrong reasons (primary goal is making money instead of becoming a great trader) and as a result the majority give up. Don't be the majority - choose your mentor wisely and never give up - make it as important as your life and then you'll succeed.
"I haven't found my edge yet, but I'm on the way"
- I told him that you're never going to find YOUR edge because it doesn't exist. Again, this was after a long series of emails. He simply couldn't accept the truth, persisted with his own dead-end way of learning and our conversation stopped. Retail educators have created a fantasy that "consistency is the most important thing". The idea is that you study the charts, pick up some indicators, come up with some rules and act upon those rules with military degree consistency and then you'll have your very own edge and that's how you succeed. Unfortunately, this is not the case - this is a 100% dead-end way. Again, you need to know on which side of the market you're trading (retail or professional). Nobody will tell you that, except for actual professional traders which you don't accidentally find on some trading forums or social media. To succeed, you need to trade on the professional side of the market, and you need to have a professional understanding of how this market works. If you don't have these elements in place, you might be "on some way", it might even feel exciting, but you're definitely not on your way to success.
The persistent losers
Many years ago I was also a student at one of the retail trading education companies. After the company closed down, their lower tier students have been approaching me and asking for PDFs of their "premium" tier course because they can't buy it anymore (or wouldn't pay anyway). I'd tell people that I won't share the PDFs because it's a retail course and it won't help them to achieve any success in trading. One persistent guy continued to flood me with emails begging for those PDFs... That's the power of marketing. Just imagine - the company closed down, founders ran away, I'm telling them it doesn't work, yet they still can't accept this reality and they still believe they're going to find some hidden treasure in those PDFs that others were "too stupid" to understand. Good marketers can sell anything. I'm not a good marketer and I never intended to build a business out of teaching trading, so that's why almost nobody believes what I say, they simply disappear, and I find it quite funny.
I don't know how else to tell it, but if you're talking to me, and you know I'm an actual professional trader who can teach you how to make money trading the forex market, and you continue telling me your bullshit self deceptions, and you can't recognise the opportunity in front of you, and you don't want me to pull you out of your ignorance, then what are you doing in trading and why are you talking to me?
If you can't stop lying to yourself and others, I'm afraid you won't make it in trading. Not just in trading but in any other activity that requires high performance. So do yourself a favour, get grounded and sober, and take logical action. If you want me to teach you - I can do that, and you know how to contact me. So, cheers and have an inspiring day.
