Psychology lessons from students of the previous cohort

Core idea

In this session the teacher invited students from a previous cohort up to retell the exact spots where they'd stumbled. The common thread in every story: the technical system isn't what cost them money — their psychological state was, and the stronger the system, the more easily it breeds arrogance. The biggest operating lesson to take away: measure everything in %, not in money; work independently; and trace every mistake back to the psychological state that produced it, instead of just fixing the symptom.

(The stories below are retold anonymously, distilled into behavior patterns.)

Details — typical failure-psychology patterns

1. "Muscle memory" — carrying a previous phase's tactics into a new phase

• Context: many months of sideways market, used to trading both directions back to back (long → close → short → close).
• Mechanism: the market is very good at "training" a trader's psychology — a pattern repeated long enough gets nailed into your reflexes.
• Consequence: when the market shifts into a 1D uptrend, you still short out of the old reflex, i.e. trade against the higher timeframe.
• Fix: "consistent knowledge, flexible tactics." During a 1D uptrend, only buy and wait to buy; during a downtrend, only short and wait to short. Every time the market changes shape, you have to actively change your tactical mindset. See sideways vs. trend strategy.

2. Expecting the wrong timeframe → overholding or closing too early

• Context: entering on an M5/M15 signal but mentally expecting an H1-sized target → "restless, not knowing where it's going to stop, not knowing how to manage the trade."
• Two ways to die from this: (a) price returns to the lower-timeframe support and bounces without you closing → it turns into a stop-loss; (b) getting scared and closing too early, then being stunned when price keeps going, and then re-entering at a worse price.
• Fix (a hard rule): a wave on a given timeframe should only be expected to reach that timeframe's nearest resistance/support. Identify the right timeframe correctly → the right SL and the right TP follow automatically. See staying consistent on timeframe.

3. Ego tied to a publicly stated call

• Mechanism: once you've shared a call in the group/on social media, your ego gets attached to it; if the call is wrong, you won't accept you're wrong.
• Consequence: stubbornness, clinging to the scenario, trading against the real market. The people listening get hurt too — they lose their own independent thinking.
• Fix: build a scenario but don't cling to it; if the market breaks the scenario, follow the market immediately, and have the opposite-direction trade ready to go at the same time. The ultimate goal is profit, not being right in your analysis.
• Note that with the same scenario, each person has a different risk tolerance and size → the same trade produces two opposite psychological states; the other person has already closed, you haven't, price comes back → you get frustrated.

4. Overconfidence after a winning streak

• Context: seeing the system deliver high-probability entries → breeds complacency → trading every little wave carelessly, raising leverage.
• Consequence: the account goes down almost 10%.
• Fix: slow down, gradually work back to break-even, let belief return. Lesson: the stronger the system, the more easily it breeds arrogance — discipline is what protects the account.

5. The escalating chain: delusion → aversion → craving

• One session had a beautiful trade → you feel like you're good (delusion/conceit) → you see someone else doing even better and wonder "why can't I catch a move like that" (aversion/resentment) → you jump into a small timeframe to trade because "I know what I'm doing" (craving/ignorance) → you lose → you interrogate yourself, a "terrible internal struggle."
• Fix: trace that mistake back to which psychological state it came from, and treat the root, not the symptom.

6. Comparing yourself to others → resentment → all-in

• Mechanism: everyone enters the market from a different position (capital, financial burdens, family). Seeing someone else's results → comparing → resentment → losing discipline → all-in once, twice → blowing the account.
• Fix: minimize, as much as possible, knowing how much someone else made or which trade they won. Don't pay attention to it.

7. Doubting the system

• Context: someone from a profession that demands absolute precision (e.g. a programmer) comes into trading.
• Mechanism: the market runs on probability, usually only about 50% of the signs line up, never a full 100% of signals. You enter with enough confirming signs and it still goes against you → it breeds doubt about your knowledge, doubt about the system.
• Consequence: not daring to enter even on a beautiful setup, or trading erratically.
• Fix: accept the probabilistic nature of the job.

8. Fear of losing profit (different from fear of losing money)

• One person diagnosed himself very precisely: "I'm not afraid of getting stopped out, but I'm very afraid of losing profit" — the root is greed for money in order to buy freedom.
• Consequence: closing too early over and over, never capturing a full wave.

The "greed – aversion – craving – conceit – doubt" framework and how to use it

Core idea (coined by a student, endorsed by the teacher): a strength in your old profession usually becomes a weakness in trading, and vice versa — "coming into trading is like looking in a mirror that flips everything."

• Someone with a high academic degree/financial certification → conceit (arrogance about their knowledge) is the ringleader → they lose → it breeds aversion toward the market. Fixing "aversion" is fixing the wrong thing; you have to fix "conceit."
• A programmer (who demands absolute precision) → doubt is the ringleader.
• Someone who's not very attuned to what other people think (a weakness back at their old job) → becomes a strength in trading: someone else winning or losing doesn't affect them.

How to use it:

1. Among the five culprits there's always one ringleader; the other four are just consequences. Find and eliminate the ringleader and the other four cancel themselves out.
2. To find it: analyze your own strengths/weaknesses in real life, at your old job.
3. You have to get specific, not generic: is the greed greed for money or greed for knowledge? Is the aversion aversion toward the market or aversion toward a peer who's better than you? Is the craving craving for the market to the point where you have no other activity left in your life?
4. The "do the opposite" method: whatever you're afraid of, go do exactly that, until the fear is gone. Afraid of getting stopped out → let it hit stop. Afraid of closing too early → close early on purpose. Do it until it feels light — that's when you've gotten past it.

The pen–paper–candle exercise (the tool rated most powerful)

• Midnight, a dark room, one candle, no electronic devices, no flickering lights.
• A pencil (writes fast, no fear of mistakes, keeps up with the flow of your thoughts) + a sheet of paper.
• Write a guiding question and then answer it, for example: "Am I good yet?" → "Why am I not good yet?" → write out everything, hide nothing.
• A variant one student added on their own: every time you stumble, first write out a professional trader's whole mindset, then ask, "why did I let emotion override reason when the scenario was already laid out?"
• The teacher says this is essentially meditation broken down into step-by-step stages: real meditation takes 5–10 years before you can observe an emotion the moment it arises, but this exercise anyone can do right away.
• A warning in advance: "crying while you write is normal, even for men."

Operating rules distilled from this

1. Measure in %, not in money. Looking at "$20,000 ≈ nearly 500 million VND" while earning a salary of 10–20 million VND/month is a guaranteed way to close too early. Set goals in percentage terms.
2. Only exit on a reversal signal, never exit because of a feeling.
3. Stay one beat slower than the market.
4. Prefer a prop (funded) account over your own money — when the money isn't yours, $50,000, $100,000 is "just a number," which cuts the emotional impact.
5. Separate the phases: while you're still refining your knowledge, switch to demo, don't trade real money — because "greed for knowledge" compounding with "greed for money" creates too much pressure. "I can't do both things at once."
6. Work independently: don't ask each other for signals, don't hand each other scenarios to trade off of.
7. When entering on a higher-timeframe wave, average into it across the zones you've already marked out — and it has to be averaging IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION (price getting progressively better), not averaging against the trend. "Averaging against the trend is death."
8. The "price line = train" mindset: reaching support doesn't force you to close right away; let the train's acceleration slow down until it fully stops, and only close once you see it curling up on the lower timeframe.
9. A very tight SL + a very wide TP are two sides of the same thing — minimize risk to the max and profit rises on its own; a short SL lets you enter a bigger size for the same amount of risk. "The two are like communicating vessels."
10. Ration your tools. The group tends to dig too deep or use too many extra indicators outside the system → sees signals everywhere → enters too early.

Timeframes & realistic expectations (as stated by the teacher in this session)

• 2–3 months to round out your knowledge; 6 months to 1 year to master the skill set.
• The fourth skill — psychology — needs "10 years, 25 years, 35 years, you still have to keep practicing it."
• The teacher only contributes 10–20% of the result; 80–90% is individual effort.
• One student self-assessed that psychology accounts for ~60% of trading results.
• Reference results from the previous cohort: passing a $300,000 prop account, income of ~$20,000/month; some people scaled up gradually from $50,000 → $100,000 → $300,000. (These are reference points for a few individuals, not an average.)
• A prolonged sideways phase is when psychology gets worn down the most: the market "tortures" you with a loop of hope and disappointment until the trader runs out of patience and quits, and only then does the market move. Some people lost sleep for many nights, tested a prop account up to 4 times before passing.

How the five afflictions show up on A SPECIFIC TRADE

The greed–aversion–craving–conceit–doubt framework above is a diagnostic map; session 22 translates it into how it actually shows up in your order actions, which is much easier to self-check. Everyone has all five, just in different proportions:

The typical destructive chain in this session: regretting a noisy peak you didn't manage to close at (even though the parent timeframe hasn't changed character) → it breeds an internal conflict → you flip into shorting recklessly. This is exactly the explanation for the phenomenon of "the analysis is fine but the account goes sideways": you catch a beautiful wave and then torch it right back in a zone with no data.

A hard rule to block all five afflictions at once: if it's clear, play; if it's not clear, skip it — even a thousand-point wave with no data behind it, still turn your back on it. The reasoning is simple: a real wave that's big enough will have data behind it; a wave with no data that happens to be big is just luck.

A warning about regret: letting regret drive your actions sets a bad precedent. A few individual trades might do better than staying consistent, but across the whole process that's a probability imbalance. The teacher is blunt about the survival rate: "out of 100 guys, maybe one succeeds, not 5%" — the first filter is people with no knowledge (~80–90%); the second filter is people who have the knowledge but can't hold onto their mind.

Putting it into practice

1. Write out your own five culprits (greed/aversion/craving/conceit/doubt), one specific line for each, then circle the ringleader. Start from the question: "What's my biggest strength from my old profession? What weakness does it become in trading?"
2. Convert your entire set of goals and reports to %. Hide the absolute cash balance if you need to.
3. Cut off your sources of comparison: turn off group notifications that show off trades, don't ask who's making how much.
4. If you're still in the learning phase → switch to demo until the system runs steadily.
5. Do the pen–paper–candle exercise after every stumble, not on a schedule — stumbling is what triggers it.
6. Before posting any call to the group/social media, ask yourself: "why am I posting this — to be right, or to profit?"

What the teacher stresses / common traps

• "Whatever you're afraid of today, go do exactly that thing." (verbatim)
• "Nothing is as brutal a struggle as struggling with yourself." (verbatim)
• "The more each of you stands alone, the better off each of you is." (verbatim)
• "You might be able to fool someone else, but you can never fool yourself." (verbatim)
• "Just stay one beat slower than the market and you win." (verbatim)
• The biggest trap in this session: it sounds great when you hear it, but you can't trace your own mistake back to which psychological state caused it → so you fix the symptom instead (cutting losses sooner, setting a tighter SL) while the root stays intact → it repeats a few weeks later.
• A second trap: fixing the wrong culprit. Losing because of conceit, but going and fixing a bout of aversion toward the market instead.

Related lessons

• SMART goals in trading — measured in %, with a deadline, guarding against bottomless greed