110: Key Experiences & Breakthroughs As A Forex Trader - Etienne Crete

Key Experiences & Breakthroughs As A Forex Trader – Show Notes Episode 110 of the Desire To Trade Podcast is a reversed interview! My show gets taken over by Forex day trader Kevin Hunt, who asks me questions about my key experiences & breakthroughs as a Forex trader. It was definitely nice talking with Kevin and getting to share more of my past experiences on the podcast. If you haven't done so, I recommend you listen to episode 105 in which I interview Kevin. To learn more about me & what I've been up to, head over the About page. You'll learn what I think of trading, why I do it, and more! Do you enjoy the podcast? If you enjoy the podcast, I’d love if you can take a few seconds to leave a review on iTunes or Stitcher. Let me know honestly what you think of the podcast. Reviews are always appreciated! Share This! "Consistent actions lead to consistent trading results. Plan, trade, review, act, but never ever compare yourself to other people." - Etienne Crete   My 6 Key Lessons From This Episode A Trading Strategy Is Built By Combining Things From Various Sources/People I believe that there's a common path most Forex traders go through. They start to trade and take pieces from other traders they meet over time. Very rarely you will find a trader who just copied someone else and then became successful. That's why you might need to invest in many courses & coaches before jumping to full-time trading. The key is to keep building things over time. I never regretted investing in myself because I always got a new lesson I hadn't got before. Find/Use Indicators That Make Sense To You Some traders love indicators. Some traders hate them.  What I think is essential is to find things that make sense to you.  Trading using the Bollinger Bands makes sense to me, but that doesn't mean I'll use them forever. You must be willing to adapt. The thing is, you'll discover pretty quickly whether the tools you use to trade are right for you or not. Adopt A 'Continuous Progress' Mindset For me, it doesn't matter if I fail a little or if I don't perform as I expected it.  That's because I come into trading, business & life with a 'continuous progress mindset'.  If you screw up today, don't think about how bad it is. Instead, think of how you can make things better. Be action-focused & keep your eyes on where you're heading!  Listen: 034: Trade With An Edge & Growth Mindset - Mike Bellafiore Hang Out With Other Traders To Overcome Hard Times Without any doubts, the thing that helped me the most in improving my trading was hanging out with more traders. I started to trade by myself and stayed by myself for roughly the first 2 years. Then, I began going to Meetups & events. I started the podcast. Those were occasions for me to get bits of advice from the people who had achieved what I wanted to achieve. I can't urge you enough to do that. The key when you want to surround yourself with more traders and/or successful people is to add value. Don't try to gain/take from other people. Honestly, provide value and you'll be amazed by what you get out of it! Being Convinced A Trade Is Right = Worst Trading Mistake During the interview, I share an example of one of worst trades (taken on the SPX500). That was in 2013, I believe. At the time, I was completely sold on this trade and found all the reasons why it would work out. I kept adding to the trade, and of course, it didn't work out. Look At Your Results At Intervals Of 10-20 Trades Only A few months ago, I began sharing my trading results on this blog. I think that was a mistake, but let me explain...  The results of a month's trading aren't significant if you only took 5-10 trades that month. It doesn't really show whether your stats are accurate because your sample size isn't big enough. I intend to keep sharing my trading results but will do so only at intervals of 20 trades. This will be a better opportunity to go back and re-evaluate whether those 20 trades respect the typical statistics of my trading strategy. You should do the same when looking at your results. Don't look at your stats after every trade! Resources Mentioned The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham: the very first book I read about the markets. Kim Krompass' Interview: mentioned when talking about trade results. Desire To TRADE's daily vlogs: I grouped my travel videos by countries. Perfect to binge watch them :) Desire To TRADE Top Resources DesireToTRADE Forex Trader Community (free group!) Complete Price Action Strategy Checklist (free checklist!) One-Page Trading Plan (free template!) DesireToTRADE Academy How To Find Me? I typically list the various places where you can find my guests here. I'd be happy to connect with you on the following social media: Facebook Twitter Youtube What is one thing you are going to implement after listening to this podcast episode? Leave a comment below, or join me in the Facebook group!