Marco Trades on liquidity traps and learning to take a loss

0:00Prop firms are an incredible opportunity to make money in trading. However, there's people out there that have found ways to like gamify the system where I can just hop on heavy risk, blow the account, whatever, onto the next account. I'm never going to be again that guy that just spend 40K and I make 90K. I want to spend a couple thousand and make a couple hundred thousand.

0:18And if that takes more time, so be it. I hate to break it to everybody, but most traders believe the market is moving because of support and resistance or some fancy indicator. Today's guest thinks very differently. He thinks most of that exists entirely for one reason, to create liquidity, which is to be exploited. There ain't no golden key out there. And I know a lot of people are like, "Oh, the enigma."

0:36There's certain individuals out there, cough ICT, that know how the market actually moves. These are all strategies. They're all theories at the end of the day. Capital preservation, game of survival, learn how to who limit your losses as much as possible and be a good loser. I wasn't a good loser. I didn't know how to take a loss and just move on with my day. But I think a lot of things changed for me once I learned how to do. Today's guest is Marco, a trader known for challenging most mainstream concepts and focusing almost entirely on one variable, liquidity.

1:05I truly believe market structure is used as a form of liquidity. That's why it works sometimes. And then there's other times it leaves people scratching their heads wondering what's going on because they're just getting trapped left, right, and center. The foundation of how these moves occur. Typically what I call it is the market will typically build liquidity. It'll trap those early traders, I call it, and then the actual move will occur. The way I trade, my system as a whole, revolves around.

1:27In this episode, you're going to understand exactly how to start thinking differently, and why the biggest mistake that most traders make isn't actually their strategy. It's misunderstanding what the market is trying to do. My best advice for people out there in the challenge phase, especially people out there that are trying to pass their first accounts or achieve their first payout, is What's up, guys? Welcome to the Prop Firm Trader podcast. the number one podcast for interviewing your favorite prop firm traders. I'm Sanjief.

1:56I'm a trader performance coach and most importantly for what we're here for today. I am going to be taking you on a journey to get inside of the mind of some of the most successful prop firm traders out there. Now, today's guest is an interesting one. He's known for challenging a lot of mainstream concepts and focuses purely on liquidity when it comes to how he approaches the market.

2:16It's allowed him to take six figures from the markets and I'm really looking forward to getting inside his mind to understand what we can take away and improve our approach into trading. It is my pleasure to introduce Marco. Thank you, brother. What a wicked introduction. I appreciate it. We got there eventually. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I haven't I haven't had an introduction like that. I appreciate it. Always, man. Always. Um, if you don't mind, I'm going to get stuck straight in. Um, I want to start with probably one of the most interesting takes that I saw from your notes and what I've seen from you online.

2:46Um, you have quoted, "Market structure as taught to retail traders is a lie. It's why most people are unprofitable. What I want to know is where are most people going wrong?" Yeah. So, I made I won't lie to you. I made it I made it a little clickbaity when it comes to the uh the YouTube content. Um but yeah, in my in my opinion, the way I trade my system as a whole um revolves around liquidity like you were previously mentioned and yeah, I also look at market structure as a form of liquidity.

3:18Now um I'm not saying it doesn't work by all means like there's some wild strategies out there that uh that work somehow, right? Um but what I'm trying to say is I truly believe market structure is used as a form of liquidity. Um, that's why it works sometimes and then there's other times it leaves people scratching their heads wondering what's going on because they're just getting trapped left, right, and center. So, typically to kind of summarize it, I I I wait for those market structure traders to enter and it it it shows them that their their position or their trade is profitable and then eventually it'll come back, take them out.

3:56That's where I'm entering. And usually that's the actual expansion or quick move to the upside or downside. Um, but I'm I've never been the one to say it doesn't work. Um, again, there's plenty of examples out there of traders using market structure that do make money. Um, I just trade against it. That's my edge. That's my system. Um, and yeah, that's what I found consistency through. Yeah, I I'm always an advocate of the idea that I think everything can work sometimes.

4:22It's just not going to work all the time. And that's usually the hardest part for most traders is accepting that ultimately what we're seeking here is not certainty. We're seeking probability and I think the moment you adapt that line of thought then actually picking up and trading any strategy is possible. It's just finding I guess what aligns best for you. Yeah. No, 100% I agree. Um I think there like I said I previously mentioned there's some wild strategies out there.

4:47That's uh and then like you take some of the most profitable traders in the world. Uh let's just use for example like there's some ICT big time ICT traders out there. Um and then there's also sorry there's IT ICT traders out there that do find success in the system in the strategy and then there are uh plenty of others that don't find success right so it's the systems out there um they do work uh most of the time it's not the system that's the issue it's the the individual right the psychology related to that individual so yeah to each their own I think uh some strategies resonate with certain people more than others um that's why I kind of I came from like uh support resistance for a while.

5:28Never found consistency. Eventually moved into smart money concept. So kind of like break a market structure to the upside, pull back into like an order block people would call it. Um and then you would long or short the market. And I found what I would call short-term profitability where yes, I could make money here and there, but let's just say I passed the challenge, got a payout account blown after that.

5:49Um so it was just I was always like I said I was always left scratching my head thinking like okay why is why is it working sometimes why is it not working others um so I just I kind of took a deep dive and

6:06um that's when I kind of developed and built the system I trade today kind of revolved around just kind of literally liquidity nice that cycle I think is interesting because I think there's going to be a lot of people watching this that can resonate with exactly what you said either they've never made it to payout in its entirety or they get to their first payout out and then they can't seem to keep hold of it.

6:24They either blow the account, they give the money back to the market, whatever it is. The one thing that you touched on which I really resonate with is it's not really the strategy that makes something profitable. It's about the person that trades it. Mh. So I guess my question for you is based on what you've shared, what you've experienced in the struggles with finding consistency depending on a certain type of strategy. Did you find that your journey it was you that was the problem or it was the strategy or maybe a little bit of both?

6:48Very good question. Um yeah, definitely in the early stages it was a mix of both. Um again kind of figuring out what strategies I enjoyed, what strategies made sense to me. Um but also a mixture of having no emotional control. M so some of my some of my most common mistakes early in my journey was definitely like I didn't know how to take a loss. Um so I always wanted I always wanted to be right you could say.

7:22So when I took that loss like I would sit there like mm- like the this is the the strategy is telling me to long like I have to continue to long and maybe I' I'd size in more or I'd take the trade again revenge trade overtrade essentially I wasn't a good loser. I didn't know how to take a loss and just move on with my day. And that's something I I preach on uh on streams every single day or just on social media every day is I think something a lot of people struggle with is learning how to take a loss and just literally just take it to the chin and move on with your day, right?

7:47A lot of people they take a loss and they're just like immediately emotional, frustrated, thinking like ah like this is not going my way. Um but I think a lot of things changed for me once I learned how to take a loss. It just it removed a lot of bad habits. Yeah. Yeah.

8:07Uh, so that's something I noticed earlier on that uh was almost like an ego thing for me. I don't even know how to explain it, but yeah, I take that loss and I'm just like, no, like I have I have to be right. And again, I take the trade again. So, uh, yeah, that was one thing I definitely needed to fix in order to achieve more uh, profitability. I would say trading education is completely broken.

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9:50Experience a completely personalized trading plan tailored to you and your goals. Reach milestones, redeem points, and earn rewards with a massive global community. Whether you trade forex, futures, stock, options, or crypto, Chart Academy has something for you. Join the weight list now and be part of a movement that is going to change trading education forever. I I've always found that dynamic very interesting about not just traders, but human beings. And I think what I've fallen on is the idea that actually we've been wired to think this way, right?

10:26You think back to the modern day schooling system, right? We're taught that if you want to excel, you want to do well in exams, if you want to get a good job and live, I don't know, the American dream, whatever it is that people are after, it starts with you have to be right.

10:44You have to do well in your exams. You can't fail an exam and still come out and do well in the end. At least in the traditional way that most people are taught. Yeah, 100%. And I think if that's your your wiring as a child, a young adult, whatever it is, and then you bring that thinking into the markets, whilst it may be logical in some other areas of life, it doesn't necessarily apply to a probabilistic environment like in what we're playing. Yeah. So

11:08that dynamic makes a lot of sense to me, right? I I'm what I'm really interested to know is how did you go from point A to point B? So you started off like I would say 99% of probably most people not really liking the idea of being wrong. M wanting to fix that usually through some type of emotional or impulsive output. Yeah. Um how do you go from that to actually gaining some level of control or consistency in how you approach the markets?

11:32So yeah, going back to kind of I feel like as a trader especially ear earlier on, you need to be able to identify your strengths and weaknesses strengths and weaknesses. Um so again, one of my weaknesses was um not knowing how to lose. So, you have to identify these things and if you don't, you'll just fall into that toxic cycle of making that same mistake over and over and over until you eventually catch on and then you fix up.

11:54Um, but yeah, again, I I noticed that the me not knowing how to take a loss was something I needed to change in order to see more consist consistency in my trading. So, one thing, for example, that helped me was um for a period of time, a couple months, I was doing basically one trade per day. Um, and that just allows you to, so you take the trade, win or loss, you're done.

12:23You're done for the day. I feel like that will build more discipline within yourself, um, which will eventually lead to more consistency. And then once I realized that I was overall, um, leveling up as a trader, I'd allow myself to take more trades. So now, for example, I have like a fixed amount I'm willing to risk per day, whether that's a a dollar figure or a percentage. Um, and yeah, I I I relatively will stay within that.

12:44very rarely am I breaking my rules now nowadays. But um I don't care what anybody says. I feel like if if you're even the best in the world, people traders still fall off their rules and they will break rules nowadays. Um it's just a normal thing. However, I feel like the more you grow as a trader, um you learn to limit those mistakes as much as possible.

13:05So, I feel like that's kind of the stage I'm at where, don't get me wrong, I'll fall off my plan. I'll break my rules here and there. Um, but I've learned to maintain and uh and again limit those mistakes as much as possible. Another big thing I feel like is as I've grown as a trader before if I made a mistake, I fell off my plan, broke my rules, it took me a while to bounce back.

13:25Like I'd be down on myself. I'd beat myself up a lot. You know what I mean? So that's something I feel like as you grow, as you get those reps under your belt, you learn to just move on more. Understand that, okay, we're human. We're going to make mistakes. Um, so yeah, you learn to kind of stomach it and move on. The past, the the past, the past. You got to focus on the now and the future.

13:45Yeah, of course. I I always I mean, I can resonate with a lot of what you say there because I fell into a lot of the same traps very early on as well. I didn't like the idea of losing. I wanted to be able to get to this dreamland that I had at the beginning of my journey, which was I wanted to always be able to understand the market and make money all of the time.

14:01uh obviously as most of us come to find out it doesn't exist that way and I think the a paradigm shift for me and I I think I resonate and and hear it a lot in how you speak which is I stopped judging my performance by I I stopped looking at it in terms of profitable days I started judging my performance by how do I handle my bad days because if I can make my red days a little less red then actually the upside will take care of itself.

14:21Yeah. And so this this is where the whole mindset of focusing on risk became just a very big part of my edge, right? It wasn't necessarily about finding the the best or the sniper entry as as most people are looking for. Actually, it was just became a game of risk management, which is always something you can control. Yeah. Yeah. The 100% definitely agree with that. It's uh it's a game of survival in my opinion because even for myself right now um literally as we're recording this I came out of January rough rough month like really rough start to the year um in the sense where I wasn't even too red at the okay nearing the end of the month I was about 2% in draw down um overall on like all my futures accounts um but like the positives I took out of that was I was I stayed level-headed the whole time I didn't blow a single account um I understood that losing period periods come, slow periods come.

15:13Um, and yeah, I was able to stay level-headed, understand that, okay, [ __ ] happens. Uh, slow month is what it is. February could be the best month, and I'm, you never know, right? So, I ended up finishing up the month with a couple decent trades, and I'm like basically break even in January. Now, most people, again, going back to the point of it's like a game of survival, they don't they won't see that point because they go through a red period or a rough week, a rough couple of days, and then they just blow their accounts.

15:42They're gone. So, capital preservation. Um, again, game of survival. Learn how to to limit your losses as much as possible and be a good loser. I feel like again, it always roots back to learning how to become a good loser. If you don't know how to be a good loser, then you won't survive. It's as simple as that because you just hit one or two red days, boom, blow up. All the accounts are gone, right? So, again, it I feel like it always roots back to um again, I'm going to sound like a broken record, but learning how to be a good loser, man.

16:07I preach about this [ __ ] on a daily basis because it'll naturally just bring better habits into your trading. Yeah, it's it's one of those things that I think with a little bit of experience, everyone comes to accept is a big part of the game, but it's always easier said than done, right? Creating that transition. There's I I'm yet to hit a stage where I can talk to a trader and instantly transform them by the words and experiences that I can share.

16:31It's it's something I would love to be able to do, but some people have to learn the lessons through a little bit of pain. And pain's a very powerful force for human beings. Yeah. So, one thing that I do like to focus on when it comes to overcoming these moments is having a little bit of a reset. Now, I think this is something that you'll probably be able to give some good insights on, especially given what you shared about your performance in January.

16:52I am no stranger to going through losing streaks, periods of draw down. I typically have a fairly I would say subpar win rate as from what most people would classify. I'm I fall into the realm of kind of 25 to 40%. Um, so losing streaks, periods of draw down, they're very very normal for me. I've got very good at bouncing back from them, but it required me to have a little bit of a protocol to reset. Mhm. So, I'm happy to share mine.

17:26I would love to know if you have something practical that you like kind of uh bring into play at these points in time. So, when you end January and your performance hasn't been what you would have liked P&L-wise, is there something that you're doing mentally, physically to try and reset from that? I I wish I had a better answer for you. Uh I I don't think there is. Um I still show up to the charts.

17:47I'm a strong believer in showing up every single day. Um no matter your performance, um I feel like yeah, cuz I don't personally I don't even trade too much. I show up every single day, Monday through Friday, but I'm not taking a lot of trades. M um but again I'm I'm a big believer in showing up every single day because let's just say you show up Monday shitty day Tuesday you're like you know what I don't really have a motivation to hop on the charts Tuesday and then all of a sudden Tuesday was beautiful for your system you're there you're there kicking yourself now asking yourself oh my god why didn't I just hop on for Tuesday um and which could lead to maybe Wednesday Thursday Friday is [ __ ] now and you're like the only good day was Tuesday and I didn't show up so I feel like again I'm a strong believer in showing up every single day um and I'm I've gotten better at just understanding that Yeah, losses happen.

18:27Uh, losing streaks happen

18:33like you just said, rough months, rough quarter. I haven't experienced a rough quarter, but man, it's going to happen in the future. I've been through many. Yeah. So, again, these kind of things are inevitable in trading. Um, but again, as humans, we're wired to think differently. So, it's it's difficult to stomach these times sometimes. Um, but yeah, I to give you a short answer, I don't I don't really know if I have like a reset. Um I just kind of take each day um each new day to a new opportunity.

18:57So Monday was Monday, now we're back on to Tuesday and we same thing. We practice the plan, we follow the rules, and eventually the numbers will do the work for us. So that's just something I just tell myself all the time. I I don't know whether you're conscious of it or not, but for me, when I listen to you speak about all this, I get the impression that you you have a very mindful approach. You you live or you at least focus on being very very present, which is what allows you to come into each day focused on that day and leaving the performance from yesterday in the past.

19:26So, I cycle back around. Is being present or mindfulness ever something that you've actively worked on or do you think again that this is something that has just been you've been molded into as part of your journey as a trader? Maybe maybe kind of molded into me. Um I'm again I wish I wish I had a better answer for you. I'm not I'm not entirely sure. Um I'm not sure, dude. No fact. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. That's too good of a question for me. So, one thing you did mention which I think will actually encompass a lot of what you've said here or at least I I think you touched on this idea.

20:10You sound very selective in the positions that you take. Mh. Now, I get the impression that it wasn't always that way for you and judging by your views on again a lot of uh typical trading strategies, you either molded yourself like consciously to do so or something about your approach was subconsciously moving you towards this idea of this philosophy of like less is more.

20:35Yeah. Right. Which a lot of people preach about online, but I do believe there's a lot of power in it. Um, talk to me about your selective approach. like is that something that you purposefully adopted and how do you feel like it's helped you? Yeah, man. So, so important and I feel like it's very important for a lot of people out there except maybe the the minority of like hyper scalpers or people that take 10 to 20 trades a day. Um, but again, teach their own.

20:58There's probably people out there that are killing it doing it that way. But for myself and for the masses, I strongly believe that yeah, less is more when it comes to trading. Now, I was not always like that. Um, I was hard-headed in the beginning, early stages of my journey and I believed uh, which blows my mind now, but I I used to believe that, yeah, the more I traded, I feel like the more money I would make.

21:16Um, so yeah, there was a time where I was sitting on the M1 time frame trying to catch every single move on my chart and I would end up taking 10, 15 trades in a day. Um, don't get me wrong, there was some great days and there was also some insanely bad days.

21:30Yeah. Um, so I just noticed that like, okay, it came to a point where I'm just like, I don't need to be in every single move. Um, I've just learned I I feel like I've learned that through experience on the charts, through the reps on the charts, that I only need a piece, one one piece of the move, right? So, and I also like to position myself to trade the most highest probable conditions per my system, per my strategy.

21:52So, yeah, I've learned that um I'm not I'm not really the type of person that that takes the kind of I call it like the the [ __ ] it kind of trades where it could work, it might not work. I've kind of just pushed that to the side now where I'm just like I'm taking the trades that I'm sure on.

22:06Um and I feel like that's where my performance um really comes in is when I'm just taking the trades that I'm like my A+, right? Why not just take your A+es all the time? They're not going to come every single day. Sometimes uh I'm taking one trade in a week. Sometimes I'm not even trading in that week. I'm still showing up, but I'm not trading. So even I'll give you an example like I was just talking about my futures performance.

22:26Now going over to the my forex side of performance in January, very slow month. I had like two break evens, a loss, and then a nice winner. And I was up like still almost almost 7%. Um, but like I'm not taking a lot of trades on on the Forex side of things. I only focus on the higher time frame moves. So, especially on FX, I'm not trading a lot. I only want one entry and I'm usually holding it for a couple days, even maybe a bit longer than a week.

22:52So, all my accounts are swing on forex side. Okay. Um, but yeah, just going back to what I strongly believe is just less is more. I feel like a lot of people will find more results if they learn how to trade less. Um, again, I talk about this lots on stream, but don't expect to take a trade every single day. Like, if your initial approach to hopping on the charts is I deserve to take a trade, right?

23:12I've I've shown up Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, now you're it's Thursday, you show up to the computer like, you know what, I was patient for three days. I deserve to take a trade now. If that's your approach, you're only going to hinder your performance in my opinion. Um, you need the approach of showing up to the charts and understanding, okay, if my setup's there, awesome, I'll take it.

23:30If it's not, no big deal. I'll have to stay trade listless for two weeks if that if it needs to be like that. Um, I feel like in October,

23:38I think I took two trades in October or something like that. It was September, October. Um, but that happens, man. And people don't understand that. People don't know how to like stomach that. It's just I feel like the initial approach is the most important. When you show up to the charts, tell yourself, okay, if my setup comes, awesome. If it doesn't, no big deal. On to the next day, right? You don't need to trade. Don't never have that approach of needing to trade. It'll just cause so many bad habits.

24:03I I think the problem is for most people, at least again, in the experiences that I've had and conversations that I have with traders, that need to trade often comes from the need for money, right? And I I think the one of the biggest issues especially in the prop game where the barrier to entry to to attempt this game is very very low. It attracts a wild variety of crowds all from different industries, backgrounds, countries, all sorts, but they all come in with a very similar philosophy like they're trying to escape their current situation and they want the markets to pay them now.

24:32And it's obviously amplified by social media, people comparing their day ones with somebody else's day 10,000 and it, you know, kind of makes that spiral a lot worse for people. But that need for money is it's a performance killer. Yeah, I definitely agree. The trading from the perspective of I need money, I need to pay my bills, I need to pay my rent, my mortgage, whatever it is.

24:56Again, it'll only destroy you because that goes back to what we were just talking about where showing up to the charts and having that that need to take a trade because I need to make money. I need to pay this. I need to pay that. Again, it'll destroy you. Um, I feel like, and I' I've mentioned this a couple times on socials, I usually said, oh, there was a line of the more money I make outside of trading will aid me in making more money inside of trading.

25:20So, and people don't understand that. Again, there's always going to be the exception Joe Blow out there that only trades and he's absolutely killing it. for the most pe for most people out there and for myself as well. I noticed that as soon as I started making more money outside of trading, whether that's businesses or working with companies, whatever it is, I noticed that it took a lot of pressure off my trading.

25:37Once that pressure was taken off my trading, boom, skyrockets. Um, and it's just a natural thing of it removes that need to trade. Once that you remove that, I feel like the performance just increases more and more. Okay, let's take a quick break here and I want to tell you about a prop firm that's actually trusted and proven to pay their traders. There's only one name you need to know about. It's Traderify. You see, Traderify Futures is one of the most trusted names in the industry.

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27:08I personally think regardless of whether you trade futures or crypto, Tradeify is the move to make. Now, make sure you use the code PFT at checkout to make sure that you get the best deal available. Links in the description below. I I've said it's probably one of my most like unpopular takes online, but I often say like the quickest hack to improving your psychology, get a job. Have another form of income that comes in. And I promise you that need to not make money from the markets will help you infinitely is what you do.

27:34So what you said about making more money outside of trading, I have the exact same approach in in it's the exact reason as to why I coach. I started off in a completely different field, but I stuck with it for exactly the same reason because I started to realize now that I don't have a job. The more I feel like I need something to happen, it crumbles me from the inside and out.

27:54And it was it was always a terrible move for me. Yeah. Like going back to my January performance in futures, I didn't make a dollar, right? Forex, I ended up making something, but still, there's going to be months where you don't make a penny whatsoever from trading. And again, people don't understand this, but this is the reality. You got the top dogs in the world.

28:10Sometimes people that are making billions of dollars or a billion millions of dollars from trading, they'll have like one or two months of no money or like a little bit of red or maybe just a little bit of green. These things happen. However, if you need money, it's hard to accept that, right? It's hard to accept that you're going to go two months without seeing a dollar.

28:27So, yeah, making money outside of trading, whether that's a part-time job or even having some sort of project or working with online business, whatever it is, I feel like making money outside trading is is definitely important. Yeah, I completely agree. Um, there's something that you touched on a little bit ago that I kind of want to dive into a little bit and I think you're going to give a great insight on this because you're in a good position for it, which is you do a little bit of both.

28:50You swing trade CFDs, FX and then you day trade futures. Yeah. Right. So, you you have a balance of both there. See, I'm on one side of this. I purely swing trade and I

29:05purely trade FX. I've never touched futures. And a lot of the reason that I was kind of put off is because I realized I couldn't take my the approach that I have now and apply it to the future space. I can't swing trade. Consistency rules would absolutely kill me. Um and so it would mean coming up with something new, which is something that I'm very interested in, but I would love to know how you find the balance between those two things.

29:24Yeah, it's interesting because it was last year 2025. I believe it was like March, April time, I decided to just solely focus on futures and I did that until until I had that very very slow month. I think it was September, October where I only took like two trades. And that was because all the assets I was looking at, NQ, YM, and gold, they were all at all-time highs.

29:46And for the people out there that watch my streams, they understand that I don't do not touch any sort of assets at all time highs. I don't care what anybody says to me. It's just it's not conditions that favor me. Not high prob high probable in my opinion. So I stay away. So there was a point in time I think again September October where all my assets were at all time highs.

30:04All the assets I looked at and monitored. So I was just like you know what like it doesn't hurt to bring back uh FX. Like I I did well. I made money in FX. So I was like you know what? So I bought some accounts. I passed some actually I passed an account um both phase one and two in one week. Um, and since then I've just again added more and more accounts from FX back into my portfolio.

30:26And yeah, I've been I've been loving it because in my opinion, per my my system and my strategy, I make I even make more than I do in futures in Forex. The reason being in my opinion is because when I have a higher time frame idea or higher time frame target, I love to hold volume to these areas. I'm very confident in my model to hold to these uh targets. Sometimes they could take days to play out, but I want to capitalize on that move.

30:49However, on futures, if I have a very if I'm very confident in a higher time frame target, the downside is I have to close my position at the end of the day because of the end of the day rule where before a market close, you have to be flat. Um, so then I'm missing out. Yes, I caught the entry. Yes, I caught an in I caught an intraday move, but I'm not capitalizing on that whole higher time frame move to my higher time frame target.

31:09However, on Forex, if I caught that intraday position and I hold it to a more intrae swing target, I'm capitalizing on that whole move and I make quite a bit because sometimes I go to bed um and Asia has start to move and then I'm I'm sleeping and London's having a move and this whole move is playing out while I'm sleeping um and then I wake up in New York.

31:30Sometimes the targets already hit from a swing position. Um but yeah, I've noticed that my performance is definitely better in FX than it is in future. So, I'm still I hasn't even been a year I've traded futures. So, I'm still developing my edge in my opinion in the futures market. Um, I'm not the strongest scalper, intraday trader.

31:49Okay, I'm very confident in my ability to hold positions for a long period of time. So, that's why FX definitely favors me right now, but I do love trading futures. I enjoy it. Um, I love the precision of it. I love how like regulated is where you're only trading one feed. You don't have to worry about trading, Forex.com, none of that BS. Um, so it's just NQ. It's just YM.

32:09It's just GC for gold. Um, so I do love it. Um, I do feel like my performance could be a lot better. So, I'm I'm endlessly working on it. Um, but I mean, who who isn't as a trader? I mean, you should be always endlessly working on yourself as a trader. I I always say it's the mountain that has no top 100%. I know. I love constant journey like that. Um, there, you know, there's one aspect to performance that I think obviously you're in a position where you kind of have almost the best of both worlds, right?

32:35you you have the swing trading for FX, you have the day trading for futures. I think the one part that I'm very interested to learn a little bit more about is how you manage the selectivity between both of those things with regards to boredom because I always like to say boredom is it's a silent performance killer for a lot of people. It's the thing that nobody really plans for.

32:58Uh and I think it's a lot of the reason why so many people feel like they have to be active every single day. Now, you've obviously shared that you have this philosophy that regardless if yesterday was a good or a bad day, you're showing up, right? You show up every single day. And I think the more that you have the charts in front of you, the more attractive anything will start to look.

33:18You could talk yourself into any position in any market if you stare at it long enough. How do you manage the the natural boredom that will creep in with being so selective and still remaining consistent as part of your approach? In my in my early stages, I completely agree on on the boredom side of things where you stare at the charts long enough, eventually you're like, you know what, the setup does look pretty good. And then boom, you take it, it's a loss.

33:41You're like, [ __ ] you know what? That setup was ass. What am I doing? Yeah. Um, so yeah, I definitely encountered that. I've experienced all of that in the early stages. I'm now at a point where I hop on the charts in the morning and I do like a pre-market kind of analysis to get myself ready for the day. It takes me I'm no word of a lie 90 seconds to think to understand if there's going to be a trade that day just based off the higher time frames.

34:02Sometimes I'm like, "Okay, there's there's a chance I need to see what New York does um for like a scalping intraday kind of position." Um but most of the time I hop on and right away I know if there's going to be a trade or not that day, which is difficult sometimes because I stream almost every single day. I I trade live um with Chart Fanatics and then even with my my private community almost every single day.

34:24So, there's times where like I know I'm not going to trade today, but I'm still going to hop on and stare at the charts and monitor. Sometimes it's more of just like an educational or we just chat the whole time. Um, but I'm at a I'm at a point now where even though if I even if I stare at the charts for like 2 three hours, I I never find myself forcing to take a trade anymore.

34:36However, it was never always like this. So, I feel like after I've built that experience, I now understand, okay, charts are ugly. Sure, we're monitoring them. I'm talking with Chad or whatever, just enjoying ourselves. I never end up forcing myself to take a trade nowadays. Um, but again, it was not always like this. Uh, another a tip I would have for people out there for sure would be have a time window. So, for example, if you guys are futures traders, um, somewhere between, and this is Eastern Standard Time, 9:00 a.m.

35:06to like 11:00, 11:30, um, which is about 2 hours after the New York open or stock open. And then just finish up. Done. You hit that time window, no trades come, you're done for the day. Show up the next day. Don't find yourself staring sitting there and then the lunch New York lunch comes and you're you're still staring at the computer.

35:26All of a sudden the PM session opens up and boom, now you're forcing yourself to take trades. You're bored. Boom. You're blowing your accounts. So, I feel like having a strict time window will help people stay consistent and tell yourself, okay, I I'm focusing on the price action in the time window. What happens outside of it is irrelevant. I don't care if there's good trades in PM session. There's going to be times where there's beautiful

35:48trades in the PM session. However, I feel like if you have a very specific time window, you stick to that and and that's all that that matters. Anything out any price action outside the time window, it's irrelevant. And I feel like that takes a lot of um FOMO out of your out of your uh your day-to-day basis in trading where again, you're only focused on that price action in that 2, three hour window.

36:04Anything outside of it irrelevant. Um and yeah, I feel like that also that smaller window allows you to not get bored as well. If you're sitting there for London and then you're sitting there for New York, yeah, I feel like you're more prone to make mistakes. For sure. But I I've spoken to a lot of traders that trade specific windows of time. I I'm generally not an advocate because my edge doesn't really rely on that.

36:30I'm a swing trader. I trade Yeah. Yeah. Of course, areas of price, right? Um why why limit yourself to specific windows? And again, I'm playing devil's advocate here because there are going to be people watching this that want to trade all hours of the day and don't find it easy to not feel FOMO if a market is moving and they're not participating in it.

36:50What would you say are the advantages for someone to only trade a specific window of time? So, when I say that, I'm more more targeting the futures traders out there. Um, I do feel like there you could catch something here and there London open for like NQ and stuff like that. However, based off my experience and time on the charts, the best moves will occur. Like, if someone is holding a gun in my head and they said London or New York session, you have to choose.

37:11I'm always going to choose New York. Always. Um, and that's not that doesn't mean that there's never trades in Asia, there's never trades in London. No, there's going to be times where there's way nicer trades in these sessions. But over a six-month period, New York, in my opinion, will always have the cleaner um opportunity. That's for futures. I will only ever focus on that time window in futures. However, I trade I I take higher time frame entries sometimes even on FX.

37:38So, I don't have a time window on FX. If if I'm if uh my alert goes off and it's Asia session and there's a higher time frame entry on EuroUSD, I just open my phone up, I take the entry, put the stop loss, I'm done. I don't care. Um I don't have a specific window in FX. Uh the only time I will be like monitoring FX is again only in that New York window, but that doesn't limit me to enter outside of it.

37:56Futures, I really focus on that window. and that's it cuz I don't care what happens at that. It's intraday scalping. So again, I'm in and out of the market usually within 30 minutes to 2 hours, 3 hours. Um and I take what I get and then I move on with my day. But uh yeah, just to kind of make it easy, FX I don't. Futures I do have time windows. Fair enough. Fair enough. Uh so going back to the approach that you have and how it differs between FX and futures, do you have uh a methodology or a process around how you go about switching from one asset class to the next?

38:35And I I'm not talking about on a an intraday or intrae perspective. I'm talking about if someone was in the mindset of I want to start trading a different asset class. What advice would you give them on how they go about that? Because obviously FX and equities they move very very differently, right? Conditions are different, volatility is different. How how do you get someone accustomed to the idea of trading in very different market conditions? Okay, so um this is like a a topic actually I spoke about recently on on stream and and I actually I I strongly believe all markets move relatively the same.

39:08The only difference is volatility and uh the speed at which these moves occur at uh but I truly believe the the foundation of how these moves occur typically what I call it is the market will typically build liquidity. It'll trap those early traders I call it and then the actual move will occur. So the only difference is you see this happen almost on a daily basis on the the uh like in the futures market NQM because of the volatility the volume is so high in those markets you don't see it happen a whole lot in FX like there'll be days of just pure consolidation in FX sometimes so you won't get those quick moves that occur a lot of the times on the um in the indexes in the futures market so actually I strongly believe all these assets actually move relatively the same.

39:54The only difference is just like the speed at which these moves occur, how long they take over the course maybe a couple days or maybe just the session. Is this something that you have data or back test on at all? Are you an advocate of of doing any of those things? I just feel like yeah, I've looked at a lot of assets. I've I've traded a lot of assets in the forex space.

40:12I mainly only focus and like I'll always recommend it to everybody as well to only focus on the majors. So like the dollar pairs, the dollar cross pairs. Um, and like if you wanted to trade any like cross, I think they're called cross or exotic, whatever, like GJ, typically those will have more volume. Um, but I wouldn't go and recommend you guys trading like pound Swiss or stuff like that. Like I know those typically will move a lot slower. But again, it always goes back to the market builds, traps, and moves the other way in the intended direction.

40:38So, um, yeah, you typically want to stay away from this, I guess, the slower pairs because it can get frustrating watching a rangy market for a long time. Um, so yeah, again, I would recommend the dollar pairs, uh, gold, the indexes. You can even trade the indexes of course on CFDs. Yeah. And then like GJ and stuff like that, the quicker ones.

40:58I feel like you always want to stick to the the more high volume. Yeah, makes sense. Favors the trader as much as possible. So it it sounds like the approach that you have it works kind of universally across many different markets, right? Have you ever found any markets which kind of struggled in and it hasn't worked as you expected? Um I've only ever traded FX futures and uh I actually took my first crypto trade. It was a spot trade last year.

41:27Um, but I've monitored the crypto market quite actively. And yes, my system is it works great in all markets in my opinion. I the only market I would say I just don't know because I'll never speak on a market I've never participated in is the stock market. So I don't know if it works there because I've just never traded the stock market. So I'm not

41:46sure. But I truly believe Yeah. the way I trade, the system I trade works in every single market I I've I've traded at least. M and something that we cycled I'll cycle back to which we kind of started with was it's important to find a strategy that also works for you as a person. Right? We both agree that the strategy is not the be all and end all and actually it's it's the person it's the trader.

42:03It's the mindset of what somebody brings to the table which will determine whether they're profitable or not. So I guess the question that I have is you've clearly found something that works best for you as a person. What advice would you give to someone that is still trying to find their edge, right, and trying to figure out, I guess, who they are as a person?

42:24How do you guide them to figure out what works best? Yeah, that's it's it's always a tough one because it's a common mistake in the early stages of a lot of people's journey is is trying to find what strategy works, what strategy um you can resonate with the most. Because what happens is typically the common mistake is people find a strategy, they study it, they learn it, they apply it for like a month or two, they don't see profitability or they go through a losing period, boom, they want to switch.

42:47They want to do some they want to learn something new because they think there's like this golden key out there. I hate to break it to everybody, but there ain't no golden key out there. And I know a lot of people are like, "Oh, the enigma, there's certain individuals out there, cough ICT, that know how the Listen, no one knows how the market actually moves. These are all strategies.

43:11They're all theories at the end of the day. Um, but yeah, to go back to what you were talking about, yeah, it's it's a it's a hard one. It takes time. I feel like you need to go out there, find a strategy that makes sense to you. Find one that you genuinely enjoy and feel like, you know what, I'm interested. Study it, apply it, and don't just apply it for a week. Don't just apply it for one month.

43:30Gather data. And when you gather data, I'm saying three to six months of applying this system. And once you see consistency, figure out, okay, why is it working here? why isn't it working over here? So, there's certain market conditions that favor your system. There's certain market conditions that don't. So, you need to gather this data. And when you gather this data over time, you'll naturally tweak and refine your system. And then the system that you learn at the very beginning can actually be a little bit different than to what it is later on because you're refining on the way.

43:52So, I mean, going back to what we were talking about, like let's just say you have one of the best traders and let's just I say best like let's just talk about um Kyle Jadecap. Great example. Sick ICT trader. Let's just say he sat down with some average Joe taught him everything he knows. Is that guy going to go out and trade exactly like Kyle and perform like Kyle? No. There's there's no way, right? So, um there's only so much a strategy will do for the individual.

44:24It always comes down to uh the psychology in my opinion. Uh emotional control and uh I feel like that only comes from gaining experience in the markets and learning about yourself. the markets is uh is definitely going to expose your weaknesses as a person. If you're not uh if you're not disciplined, the market will show you. If you're a greedy kind of individual, the market will show you these things.

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45:31Use code PFT for 20% off the yearly subscription or PFT 10 for 10% off the monthly. Try it out and watch your trading transform. I know you mentioned I think this was just before we got on air, you started trading, was was it just pre-COVID? Just before CO time. Yeah. Yeah. So I and yeah, some people ask me how long I've been trading and like we were talking about before um I never really know how to answer it. I was introduced to trading I think

46:05by some furu scammer kind of guy on Instagram or a YouTube ad Lamborghini. Buy my course, you'll you'll retire your parents next year. Yeah, I fell for that. I paid a couple thousand dollars from for some stupid course. This was back in early COVID times. And at this time I was working full-time.

46:22Um I came out of high school and I got into plumbing. I worked in plumbing for like six, seven years. So, I got an experience uh I got to experience the the real world out there of hard work. And like I'm talking I was paid for 40hour weeks, but I was working ridiculous hours sometimes.

46:39And uh yeah, it was not I knew right away it was not going to be something I wanted to do till I retired. So, I found out about trading again. It was like 2020, I thinkish, some sort of ad, whatever it was. Started learning about it. Um, and then it got to a point a couple years later where I started seeing some payouts and I started seeing some consist consistency. And at the time I was trading smart money concepts and that was when I was like, "Okay, I want to put more time and effort into this.

46:58I got rid of my full-time job and I was just doing side work. So, I was doing like part-time plumbing. So, I would trade in the mornings and in the afternoons and the evenings, I would do plumbing to make my money." Because again, that goes back to what we were talking about. You need to make some sort of money outside of trading. It will help you. So, yeah, I was doing part-time work and focusing a lot more time on trading, taking a lot more seriously.

47:25And then, yeah, eventually I got to a point where I was making good money. Um, and then stopped doing the the part-time work and got into trading full-time and then eventually growing businesses, working with different companies, making content, all this kind of stuff. Nice. Did you at the start of your journey, did you ever start by trading your own capital, personal broker? Were you straight in with prop firms? Yeah, definitely. I feel like I don't want to say people have it easy nowadays, but trading the amount of opportunity out there with prop firms, especially now, is crazy.

47:49When I was learning trading, I feel like there was only, and I say this cuz I only come from Forex. I think there was still quite a few futures. Um, but there was only like the big dogs out there. Um, FTMO and all the other ones, they're not even around anymore, I believe. Um, and even back then, I don't know if you remember, there was in FTMO, for example, 30 days you needed to pass the account. Yeah. Right. Now, you got no time limit, man.

48:22If you want to take three years to pass your 100K account, so be it. Back then, you buy an account from that point, you got 30 days, bro. If you don't pass the account, there goes $600, $1,000, right? So, it's a lot. And and again, take this for for how you want. It's not easy. It's easier nowadays. Um, but yes, to to go to what you were asking me, I did trade personal account. Um, and actually what I was doing was I'd have like a couple thousand in a personal account.

48:44I'd make a little bit of profit and just a couple hundred bucks and withdraw it. And that's what I kept doing that for a while before I got into prop firms. Um, it was never I never grew an account to like an a massive amount. I would just make my profits, withdraw, make my profits, withdraw. I wouldn't look at it from a percentage perspective because I was only trading like $3,000 $4,000 in an account.

49:07If I was using 1%, you'd be trading like $30 risk, $40 risk. I wasn't doing that. I was risking like a 100red to 200 bucks a trade. I would make sometimes five, six, 700 bucks and I just withdraw it and rinse and repeat until I got to the point of taking advantage of prop firms, which I recommend everybody to do, especially in the early stages. Feel like prop firms are an incredible opportunity to make money in trading, especially because there's next to no risk for the trader.

49:33M it's an interesting take because I think with some of our previous guests a lot of our conversation has actually gone on to focus in on some of the downsides of prop firms right and I'm not saying they're a bad resource by any means but the the gamble mentality the idea that you can just hit reset there are some downsides to what you do much like anything in life right but actually I like the way that you've put a spin on this in that there are some actually some huge upsides relative to trading your own capital I much like yourself started at a time where I didn't have enough capital of my own to fund a decent sized account.

50:05Y and the only way you actually can make somewhat good money is by risking an amount of money that will eventually lead you to blow up. Yep. And whilst props, you know, some people will love them, some people will hate them, some people will hate all the rules that are imposed, when you really strip it back, they're teaching you good risk management, right? to to stick within draw down limitations to not overtrade the consistency rules teaching people this idea of you know just taking base hits and little things like that I think if your mindset is focused on looking at it in the right way they can actually be a great training ground to go on to do bigger and better things into the future.

50:41Yeah. Um I I do I agree in I don't want to say disagree but like for example I've spoken to um I've spoken to some top I guess just some professional traders you can call them some guys that even uh Riz has recorded podcast with and these guys are like hedge fund kind of guys and they kind of look down on prop firms and I see their perspective because there is um I'm not going to I'm not going to say names and stuff like that cuz to each their own.

51:08I'm not going to be that person that uh calls out people or anything like that, but prop firms, there's a way of like gamifying prop firms and and and I hate it to be honest with you because I'm I I love the art of trading, trading professionally. Um I've I've always that's always been my thing. Um however, there's people out there that have found ways to like gify the system. And listen, at the end of the day, you're making money. So, to each their own.

51:31I'm not going to hate on it. Um, I'll it's never it's never going to be a route I go where I can just hop on heavy risk, blow the account, whatever, onto the next account. It just promotes bad habits. And that's not what I'm here for. I'm here for the long game. I want to eventually do a lot of cool things in trading. So, prop firms isn't the isn't the end goal.

51:50It'll never be the end goal. And I'm never going to be again that guy that just reset, reset, reset. Bye-bye, bye bye bye. Um, again, I don't want to be that uh I spend 40K and I make 90K, right? I want to I want to spend a couple thousand and make a couple hundred thousand and if that takes more time so be it. I feel like it'll just again promote healthier habits, healthier habits long term, which is the goal for me anyways, right?

52:10Like again, prop firms isn't the end goal. I want to eventually do more more things in trading in the future. Is that a perspective that you think you've always had coming into props? Because I think a lot of people are stuck with just the short-term outlook. They can't look past, you know, the daily P&L and they don't see the bigger picture in that even though you might do something wrong today. As long as they made money, it's okay.

52:33They don't understand what you said about like it ingrains a bad habit. And once that bad habit sticks with you, it kind of screws with your process and the overarching goal of what you should be building, which is consistency in your approach. Yeah. No, 100%. And to be completely transparent and open about this, I wasn't always like this. There was a time actually last year um where I got sucked into it kind of where I was on social media scrolling.

52:53I'm like [ __ ] these guys like yeah they're spending but they're making so much still and I'm just like you know what like maybe I can do something here. So I remember there was a week one week where I was just like I was full porting just accounts and like if I blew it by and I and I did it for one week and I finished that week off and I think I passed an account or two but I spent money and that was never like me to do that.

53:15And I sat there I'm like I can see where this is heading. It was already instilling and I had funded accounts. I wasn't trading at the time. I just wanted to do challenges and I could felt I I felt at the end of the week it was instilling bad habits in me slowly but surely. I'm like this is not a route I want to go. Um but yeah, I feel like I I got sucked into it and that goes back to kind of uh focus on yourself, right?

53:33I was scrolling on social media seeing other people do these things and naturally it it led me to make poor decisions in my own trading. So, um I did fall into that, but it was like literally just a week and it's not something I'll ever uh I'll ever do again. Um for myself, my process nowadays is if I buy if I'm doing any challenges, I will risk a little bit more because I've already proved to myself I'm consistent.

53:55I can make money. So, I don't need to spend a whole lot of time on challenges. Now, I don't just hop on in full port. I will tend to just double what I'm whatever I'm risking in my funded, I'll risk it double in the challenge. So, let's just say I'm trading 100K account. I'm usually risking half percent to a percent on the funded, then I'll just risk like 2% on the challenge per trade. Now, is there going to be times you you you um fail the account?

54:19Sure, it's going to happen here and there. Um but overall, I feel like it speeds up the process for me. I'm not there to just trade challenges anymore. I've already proved to myself that I can trade, so I don't want to spend a whole lot of time on challenges anymore. I literally I feel like I've lived almost the exact same journey. I don't think I ever went through the the one week where I was fullporting anything. Yeah. But so again, very long story short, a few three years ago now, um I took a challenge.

54:43It was one of my first at the time and I spent eight months in a phase one. I went through a really long period of draw down. Um survived, recovered, passed my first phase and I got to the end and I was kind of like very similar to how you phrased it. I'm already confident in my ability to trade. I've been only trading personal accounts before this. I know my approach works over a large enough time frame. Um, and now I I've proven that it works.

55:12But the question that I had to ask myself was, was spending 8 months in a phase one actually worth it? And then, long story short, I sized up and I failed phase two after eight months of progress. So, you kind of go through that cycle, but it's it's a mentality that I've kept. And so I've started my last prop firm run um last well 2025 middle of 2025 and I have the exact same approach where I'm heavier risk at the start but I accept going in that I'm probably going to fail a few challenges but it's going to speed it up in terms of time which for me was was more important at that point.

55:42Um and then I'm the same once I've got my funded account conservative. Yep. No, I agree. And keep it very very very chilled. Now, I I say this and I'm not telling everybody out there, um especially the I don't want to say the newbies or just the people that are newer to trading out there. I'm not telling you guys to now go buy your challenges and size up. Um prove to yourself that you're profitable. Prove to yourself that you're actually consistent first.

56:11Um so, my best advice for people out there in the challenge phase, especially the people out there that are trying to pass their first accounts or achieve their first payout, is actually size down in your valuation in my opinion. Now use half percent for example um and yes if it's if you have a for in the FX space if you have like an 8% target yeah you need to make 16R right if you're risking half percent but if you're able to pass an account with half percent risk that tells you that you can actually pass accounts that you it wasn't luck right if you're using if you're using half percent again you got to make 16R in order to achieve 8% so you've just proved to yourself that you can actually pass accounts yeah Um, unfortunately people out there what they'll do is they'll use heavy risk, pass the challenge by luck, get to the funded, and they they're not realizing that they just pass the evaluation by pure luck because they were just sizing up and they caught a random trade.

56:58Um, and then boom, they they fail the funded and they just go back in that in that cycle. So, my best advice is size down in the evaluation. prove to yourself that you can be consistent and profitable first. And then once you hit that, you hit that point of uh you've gotten a couple payouts, uh you know that you're confident in your ability to stay consistent, then yeah, you can size up and pass these challenges a little bit quicker.

57:20You got to also understand and stomach that there's going to be times you you lose or you fail one or two evaluations. So you have to stomach that loss as well. 100%. I think that's solid advice and again something I I practice and preach myself. So I I can really resonate with that. the the one part which I think the the main message that I really take away from that is actually understanding the difference between luck and skill.

57:44This is something that I think a lot of traders don't really get, especially at the beginning. They immediately think if they've made money, they've done all of the right things. And I I always like to instill into people this idea that the moment you confuse luck with skill is the start to every single one of your bad habits because you've just instantly trained your mind to reward all of the wrong things and it just it sets you up on such a bad path in in the long run.

58:04Yeah, I I I definitely agree and that just goes back to what I was just saying about sizing down on your in the early stages sizing down and just prove to yourself you can be consistent first and then once you get to that point of consistency then yeah, you can you can tweak some things here and there. That's fine. Yeah, but don't be that guy that just luckily passes evaluation and then you get to your funded and then you think you're the end all beall and you're just going to blow it, man.

58:30Yeah, I and I do like this approach and I think for people watching at home that is definitely something to take away from this that you can use these prop firm accounts as a testing ground if you do it in the right way. Where I think where most people go wrong is they just start off like you said full porting at the start.

58:51They get lucky. They might pass an account. They think they're on their road to success and actually they've again confused luck and skill. Hasn't really set. Definitely agree. Cool. Marco, um before we wind things down today, I have a couple of things that I want to

59:06run by you. First one is nothing crazy. I'm not going to surprise you with anything. Uh I want to do a few quick fire questions. Um and then we're doing something at the end of today's episode which I'm calling Confessions of a Trader which I will explain a little bit more about. Okay. Um so first one, we'll start with a few quickfires. Um, very nice and easy. Uh, what is one belief that you had to unlearn to become profitable?

59:27What is one belief I had to unlearn? Um, like is this basically something that I I strongly believed in earlier on that I had to change? Yeah. Um, that I needed to be right all the time to make money trading. I like that. Um, if you could only trade one market going forward, what would you pick? Forex. Interesting. any specific pet? Um, I I'll give I'll give two just because I I love gold. Gold is probably one of my favorite assets to trade.

1:00:02It's just in especially now at the time of recording it's been in parabolic conditions to say the to say the least, but I would say gold and uh euro. Nice. Okay, cool. Um, what do you believe is one behavior that kills most traders performance? uh poor discipline in their personal life. Nice. It'll definitely leak into your trading. Very interesting. Um and last one. One thing that you would remove from most people's shots. Indicators. Yeah. I thought it were going to go that way. Indicators.

1:00:36Yeah. I feel like the best indicator is no indicator in my opinion. Fair. Yeah. Fair. Okay. Cool. So, last segment of today. Uh like I said, we're calling Confessions of a Trader. I love it. Okay. So what we are working towards in the future is we're going to have uh our audience, our viewers write in with their confessions around experiences, situations in the market um that they've been through.

1:00:59But for now, I'm curating a little bit of these and these are based on all real conversations that I've had with people at some point in time, but I'm framing them in a way which I want you to listen to, take on board, and I want you to give me your honest thoughts, perspective, advice.

1:01:14Okay? So if I was talking to you like this was my confession, what would you tell me and how would I fix it? Okay, I love it. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. So today's confession or maybe statement for today, right? Uh I was an unprofitable trader for years. I started taking the gym seriously at the start of 2025 and I made $80,000 from prop firms last year. I wonder if there's a correlation.

1:01:37100 [ __ ] percent. 100%. Like just what we were saying before about um poor discipline in your personal life will lead to poor discipline in your trading. Um if you're someone that can stay consistent enough to go to the gym every single day or five six days a week um that tells me you have a a level of discipline instilled in you and that will naturally um leak into your trading.

1:02:01Uh, I don't know, and there's always going to be exceptions, but I feel like the majority of um good traders out there have some level of discipline in their personal life as well. So, yeah, to the to the guy that uh made that much money because he's going to the gym, I feel like there's definitely a relation there. I I get the vibe that you buy into the idea of how you do something is how you do everything.

1:02:24Is that something? I've never heard of that. Really? No, I've never heard of that. But yeah, I could I could agree. I I I've always liked that idea. I it's something that I try and practice and preach in a lot of aspects of life. Yeah. But I I follow the similar philosophy. Like I I don't believe that it's again exceptions to every rule, but I don't believe exceptions disprove the rule.

1:02:44I don't believe it's possible for most people to be very very unstructured and lack discipline in one area and not have it spill into other areas. Like I find that something that I often get bad at is sometimes I procrastinate. And the one thing that I often procrastinate with a lot and my friends and family that are watching this will tell me is responding to messages. And when I find the moment I get slack with doing that, it leaks over into other areas.

1:03:09Yeah. No, that makes sense. Um, I've spoken about this a lot. I feel like if you learn how to do difficult things over and over, it's like the art of doing hard things. Um, I like as soon as you hit that point, if you're ever sitting on the couch and you're like, "Okay, I told myself earlier in the day I was going to go to the gym at 4 p.m. All of a sudden, you look down at your phone, it's 3:55."

1:03:33And you're like, "Fuck, I have to get up now and go to the gym." And then you start thinking, "Okay, but do I have to?" Or maybe I push it to 5:00. As soon as that thought ever comes into my head, right then and there, I get up and I go because as soon as you get into that that mental space of allowing yourself to make excuses and maybe we'll move it to 5:00 or maybe, you know what, screw it.

1:03:51we're going to have dinner. I'll go to the gym at 8:00 p.m. I promise you once 8:00 p.m. hits, if you've moved that time three times, you're not going to the gym at 8:00 p.m. So, yeah, procrastination once you hit that point in your mental, this is something I do, and it's helped me drastically in the last couple years. You hit that point of like, okay, may maybe I won't do it. Um, or let's let's move the times, boom, get up and go do whatever you promised yourself you were going to do.

1:04:12Are you a big advocate of reading? Oh, man. I I speak I speak a high game, but no, I don't I don't read at all. I don't. So, I I only ask purely because what you were talking about there, there's a great book called The 5-second rule by uh a woman called Mel Robbins, and she talks about this same principle of like you basically countdown from 5 to 1, and then you go and do the [ __ ] that you're supposed to do.

1:04:33No, I love that. I definitely agree. And she she explains it in a very similar way like the moment your mind starts like you let it loose and allows it to start talking um you talk yourself out of stuff, right? If you just don't give yourself that time and you just start action, um, you find that you become a lot more consistent with the things that you're supposed to be doing. Yeah, I definitely agree.

1:04:56Just like we're talking about the charts, you start at the charts long enough, you'll eventually find yourself taking some dumb trades. If you sit there long enough and keep putting that that gym session off, eventually you'll just put the gym session off, right%. And then that habit of going to the gym will turn into the habit of not going to the gym. Yeah. 100%. 100%.

1:05:12Marco, it's been an absolute pleasure, man. I appreciate it, bro. I've really enjoyed this. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here and uh I appreciate you letting me get inside your mind a little bit. Awesome. I appreciate you, bro. Good time. Thank you, man. All right, guys and girls, that is the end of another amazing episode with Marco. As always, I want you to comment down below and let us know your biggest takeaway.

1:05:30What was that perspective shift? What was that lesson that you took away from something that Marco said that is going to allow you to improve your performance in the long run? you put it down in the comments. We'll be sure to read every single one of them and we're looking forward to seeing how you implement them into the future. If you want to take part in one of these episodes, as I mentioned, we're doing Confessions of a Trader.

1:05:49If you want to submit your confession, there will be a link in the description below where you can submit yours and we'll present it to one of our guests in the future. Otherwise, if you enjoyed this video, make sure you like it, subscribe to the channel for more just like this, and check out some of the other episodes on screen. I promise they'll change your life. See you guys in the next one.