005 Interview w Rid Hicks and Glenn Nabua of Hawaii Trading Academy

Hello and welcome to the Consistent Profits Podcast brought to you by Inside out trading and Brian McAvoy, where the focus is on consistency, because when you have the consistent part down, profits become easy. Hello, everybody. This is Brian McAvoy with a new episode of the Consistent Profits Podcast. Totally stoked to be interviewing Glenn Nabua and Reed Hicks today, the founders of the Hawaiian Trading Academy. Thanks so much for being on the Consistent Profits podcast day, guys.

Thank you for having me here.

Cool. Well, what caught my attention, Glenn, actually it was you that I first ran across, and I saw you and Reid. You know, between the two of you, you got 17 years of trading experience. But honestly, no offense, you guys, you know, you look pretty young compared to most traders of similar experience. And so when I saw that, I thought it was pretty cool for you to be starting so young, you know, because usually it's around 40, 40 or later when most people get started with their trading career. So I had to reach out to you, you know, find out more about you. Now, as far as kind of starting at the beginning of things, I see that you guys both have businesses with your wives. You know, how do you go from that to being, you know, interested in trading and helping other traders?

No, that's great. Yeah, it's, it was a snowball journey. I'm sure everyone has their own story. A little bit about how I got started. It was right after my wife and I got married back in 2016. And that's when I was like, oh, okay, I think we're, we're entering a new season. I got to start adulting, you know, and take things seriously about our finances. So, you know, scourging the Internet, like, I had my nine to five, I'm figuring out, okay, how do I make extra income? I came across this article on Google in Forex, and it was something about like a million dollar trading in Forex. And I had no clue on what, what was, what the article was talking about, but I was super intrigued. And from there, you know, led to YouTube, led to me signing up for courses, and it led to like, it kind of like segued into us actually starting our own business because at the same time, my wife and I were like, you know what? Yeah, let's, let's start a photography business. We do wedding media here in Hawaii. And, you know, that's building while I'm pouring lots of time energy into learning this thing called trading. And it has opened up our or my perspective and horizon because we're, we're here on an island in the Middle of the Pacific Ocean. We are kind of limited to, you know, the different things. Right. We don't see the, the view you have all the way in the east coast or anywhere else in the world. But it has opened up a new world for me to understand about how the economy works, how to use your money to leverage, how to gain actually financial freedom. Trading is one of those vehicles aside from real estate, aside from business, you know, and it just snowballed for me and to land where we are. And it's the best part. Well, one of the best things other than, you know, making profits is the growth and connecting with awesome people like yourselves. And like my partner Reed here read, you could, you know, share a little bit about how you got started.

Yeah, so I started similar fashion, actually started trading first. So 2013 is when I really, I placed my first trade. Didn't take it serious in, in the sense that I didn't journal and document come 2015. My wife and I do started a social media business. So we market for certain companies, hotels, restaurants, really focus on the travel industry. And then from there, you know, since we're, we have an online social media presence, I figured take that to the trading world. It's like it's a cycle through using to using it together. So there wasn't really a community or there wasn't really a connection out here with the trading world and so use social media. It worked for my wife and I's business to grow. So maybe I could reach out, find some traders out here on, on the socials, right. In Hawaii. Because I didn't know an actual trader other than myself who actually traded in Hawaii. Born and raised in Hawaii and actually trading the markets. You know, a lot of people say they, they were doing something, but they were just in scams or losing money. And that was, that's kind of going further. Why Glenn and I started Hawaii Trading Academies because there were so many scams at the time. You know, the bitcoin bubble. Right. Or like the crypto bubble really. And it's just, it's. That's really why Glenn and I got together and we linked up and we meshed and now we're here, man.

So. So did you guys meet through trading or were you already friends before that?

We met through social media, but, but because of trading, like I made a specific profile for trading only and I didn't market it to anyone or show anyone. I just wanted to see Hawaii trading. That was really my hashtag Hawaii, hashtag Hawaii trader, hashtag Hawaii trading. And then we found Each other through online.

Yeah, I was just scrolling through on Instagram and I saw this guy and you know, I sent him a, a message dm and he was telling me. At first he was hesitant, you know, about answering. But eventually we met up at a coffee shop and from there we stayed connected. I think this was what 2019 read. I think.

Yeah. Just before the pandemic.

And we had two different. We didn't even tell each other all this yet. Like we had visions or ideas on like, okay, we need a community here. There's, there's lacking. Right. And then it wasn't until we just continue to, you know, build our friendship. On top of that we're like, you know what? Like we, we have so much synergy between us. Let's go create something. Let's go just plant a community, plant a seed here. Put, put, put a flag in a stake in the ground, you know. And from there it just took off.

So now do you guys community, is it strictly online or do you also have like face to face get together?

We have, we have, you know, the online community and then on top of that we do monthly meetups. Yeah. So we call it coffee and charts. So pretty cool. You know, we just get together, share some insight, you know, whoever is around, be able to just connect.

Buying some physical activities too. Planning a hike with our own like trading community. But it's hard to get everyone's open schedule to line up, you know, that's on the books.

Well, yeah, well, especially since you're. You guys, you said you're in Forex. Are you trading anything else or do you focus primarily on Forex?

I trade in the futures market.

Okay.

Yeah, I focus on Forex and usually the S P500 indices. That's really it. Bitcoin here and there, but not lately.

Nice. Now I mean the thing about Forex and Bitcoin, it's not limited to, you know, exchange hours like some of the other markets. So yeah, as far as. And I know with like my Forex experience, I was in Forex for a little bit day trading and it just totally consumed my life. I was like almost round the clock six days a week and it's like, no, I gotta stop, I gotta. This ain't for me. Yeah, futures much prefer the commodities markets. Definitely. Personally. And it's nice when they close and it's like, all right, cool, set it aside for a while and focus on the family and that kind of stuff. So cool. Very cool. Well now I noticed that you guys, I know. Are you both funded traders or just you, Glenn?

Yes. I'm funded with my Forex fund and then I just got funded with Surge Trader. I just paid for like the accelerator one for it's a 25k initial one. Glenn and I had it on our checklist to do on the first quarter is sign up for a funded challenge and another one went with Search Trader just recently.

Cool.

Yeah.

Let's add to my forks one.

Yeah. How's that going?

It's a. It's tough, man. So when I first came in I was going full 1% like full blast. And then I realized with. With prop firm money you have to trade differently. And by that I mean lower risk entirely. Like lower risk to 0.25 to half. Like half to and less. And that's the way not. We're not looking to make more money, we're looking to save as much as possible. Like that's how I have to flip it. I have to see it that way. So yeah, that's. It's tough right now but my. I'm good with the. The trading strategy that I'm trading with so just going to trust the system, trust the plan.

Cool. How about you go.

Yeah, it's. It's been going like lots of learning, you know, you. I've read in a book, I think it's trading. I don't think some. Somewhere is there someone was saying that you. You don't master trading ever, you know. And so throwing in these funded prop accounts, you know, you're learning new things about you. Your system, your approach, your mindset, it focus heavily. For me it taught me about risk management and just you know, being mindful of that at all times, you know, seeing what you're exposed to in the market and whatnot. Other than that. Yeah, it's been. Been great. I was with Top Step last year and now we're. Me and Reed were starting this try. We're testing out these different prop firms. We're doing it for our members. You know, we want to give our feel for it before we, you know, share it amongst other members. See, making sure we're trying to vet it for them, you know, because there are a lot of fake ones out there or not great ones. So.

True.

That's kind of what we're. We're doing. We're getting being the guinea pigs as. As you would say.

Yeah, very cool. Well, so how is it trading on Hawaii time? Because I mean we're like I'm on the east coast and we're like six hours apart. So how is it. How's it for you guys trading on, on the alternate schedules or do you.

So I've learned, you know, after first few years of trading, I've tried waking up 3am our time because that's they'll be opening bell in New York. And I would say it's tough, you know, but I know there are some people who go religiously do it here. For myself I've, you know, I had to go through that learning curve to figure out okay, what kind of schedule would I want? You know, is this realistic for me? Is this a lifestyle? I want to go and just wake up super early in the morning, trade for a few hours or whatnot and then you have the rest of the day. My, my style is more of a swing trend following type of style. So therefore I don't have to wake up at that super early of a time aside. So it kind of works out. I'll just find my spot, my groove, stay on the charts for half an hour, hour or so and then I'll be good with the day. Forex does help with our time zone because London I think is opens up 9pm our time. So you know, we can, we have access to taking use being able to be in the moves for that those different markets as well. I don't know if you want to add anything, Reed.

Yeah, or like 10 o' clock is when there's like the volume pops up 10pm so like I'm in bed by, by 10pm Holy time, you know. But as far as the way I trade, I'm only in my trades for 19 hours. That's my average holding time. And it went from dailies to like holding dailies, swinging to. Now I'm just really dialed into the five 15 minute time frames and I day trade. So I'll wake up at like 4:20, just 10 minutes before 4:30. Because that's when the volatile kicks in. I'm not up at like 3am But I'm up at 44 right before 4:30. And then I'll trade anywhere between 4:30 to 2 to 10am Just dependent on the market. And then I won't look at the charts until the evening time. And that's just a clear. That's like spending time with family. That's just getting a clear mental space, getting my mind right, taking care of my health. And that's I think used to be where I'm like at the charts all day. I was telling Glenn, I was like, dude, I could look at the charts all day. I just want to be at the Computer screen and it kind of reminded me like dude, this is not why we trade though. Like we trade to go spend time with our family, do life, you know, I'm like, oh yeah, that's a good point. So now I'm kind of implementing like that huge gap before looking at the charts again after the morning.

Well, and that is one thing and it's good that you're already paying attention to it. I've had a number of people come to me over the years where they want to be day traders and in talking to them it's like, well, you don't really enjoy staring at the church for six to eight hours a day and you know, you're not, this isn't something that you are passionate about. You know, you like trading because the freedom that it offers but the actual trading itself is not something that really amps you up. So why don't you change styles? Because really day trading isn't for you and if you're not enjoying it, you're not likely to be successful at it. Just the nature of the beast when you know, you're self managed and self directed. And so that's been helpful. But it's amazing how many people will trade in a manner that really isn't congruent with their goals and their lifestyle, you know, for a long time without ever switching. And then you know, they wonder why they're struggling and not having any fun or profit. So it's good you guys are already paying attention to that.

Yeah.

So now as far as your Hawaii Trading Academy, how did you guys wind up deciding to start that and how do you, I mean what's like your focus on how you help traders?

So one of our, or one of our main missions is to help create an environment to cultivate, you know, ultimately profitable traders. We do that. You know, we have three main pillars we create all our content off of and that, that is risk management, edge and psychology. And we believe, you know, we ourselves, Reed and I when we started out, we're just looking for that holy grail that, that ultimate trading strategy that will never lose money, you know, but we're trading, we're chasing a false hope. So with what we're aiming for with way training academy we understand we, we are like create helping people get aware of where they're at and throughout our course and what our coaching, we help them remove mental roadblocks, you know, limiting beliefs, you know and, and because I, I, we know that you, a lot of people need direction because they, there's, there's, they get overwhelmed. The market, there's so much information, especially out there on YouTube. All this noise you like, what do I. Where do I begin? Where do I start, you know? Right, right.

Yeah, it's. It's like, it's way beyond the wild west and the nonsense. It's like, yeah, I took my account from a hundred dollars to two million dollars.

Yeah. See you interviewing them, Brian.

I mean, the, the other. Yeah, like these guys out there, they're better, way better marketers than actually traders. You know what I mean? And that's the thing that a lot of people starting out don't realize. Like, yeah, they're, they're catchy. Their YouTube thumbnail pops up at them, they're running ads, blah, blah, blah. We're approaching it from an organic point of view, you know, really just focusing right now on the community. You know, we did. We have our own little podcast that we launched, I think last year. And it's, it's just amazing to see what kind of distance or people were reaching with this. So, yeah, we're just trying to be that. Be authentic as possible. Sharing great information, hopefully valuable and, you know, meeting and helping people along the way.

Cool, cool. Now, with your community, how do you, how do you guys actually run your community? I mean, I've seen different, like Facebook groups and, you know, different groups around the Internet. How are you guys doing yours as far as, you know, working with your traders and your members?

So we, we have a Discord channel. We also have our online library and it also has a community page. So with our Discord is just click messages. We have different chats in there. From there, the students, we, we schedule coaching calls with them, you know, one on ones or we'll do a group, we call it Topic Tuesdays or do a group call. And you know, we invite all the traders weekly to do talk about different topics, you know, depending on what, what this, what our schedule is like. And so from there, lots of it's online. Then like I said, we do have the monthly meetups and when I. We're always building and planning for the future. And so we're looking to add a few more components to this where, you know, I think Glenn Stern says, you know, build the plane while you trying to fly it. You know, that's what we're doing. Exactly. So it's, it's not at its potential, but, you know, we're enjoying the ride right now.

We're learning a lot.

That's good. I mean, I don't know about you guys. I'm sure you have, you know, where you've gotten into a, you know, a training or something and they have a, you know, a community along with it. And it's really nothing more than, you know, just a Facebook group and it's run by some, you know, hired moderators or just other students. And that's it. And it's like, okay, yeah, not really a community. So sounds like you guys got some good stuff going on. That's, that's very cool. Especially the weekly calls and stuff. Very cool. Excellent. So Reed, you got any. You got anybody who's been a particular hero to you in your life and if so, how's they impacted you?

Okay, it may not be. Well, I'll just say it. The first guy that came into my mind, Brett Steenberger, psychologist, trader and psychologist. You know, heroes is. Hero's a big word. But like, you know, I mean, I, I definitely look up to him, man. Like, he is one of the most. I love all his books. I gained so much from him, you know, I can't really name one. So I gotta throw out Mark Douglas. I gotta throw Van Tharp. Those are like the, the trifecta of my learning and just enhancement. I still read their books. I've read Psychology of a Traitor. I gave it to our bot, Glenn, one version as well. We're both reading that and I'm still going back and I'm still reading that thing. So I mean, like, it's just a never ending journey where Uncle Brett, as we call him, Glenn, I call him Uncle Brett because like in Hawaii, the culture is like, if they're respected, they're older than you. You give that reverence and call them auntie, call them uncle, even like just Auntie at the cashier bar. You know, you, you help her out, you try to be nice to go, oh, hi Auntie. So we, we call Brett Uncle Brett because he's helped us so much, you know.

How about you, Glenn? Who's one of your heroes?

Yeah, you know, everything.

It doesn't have to be limited to trading.

Yeah, it doesn't have to be limited to trading. It's great. You know, first of all, you know, just a lot of it is, is God's doing. So give praise to him. But other than that, I don't know if you see the 10x. Yeah, Uncle G, he's the other uncle in our lives. Uncle G definitely expanded my mind on another level. I mean, going back to trading Tom Basil, I just resonate well with him. Michael Val, you know, some awesome guys that there's a Lot of people also in the 10x community that I just meet throughout, just awesome, amazing people that we just constantly look up to and just put push us in a way, even though we're just following them on social media. You know, that's the best, One of the best things about technology nowadays. We're like, how we're able to just connect with these awesome people and indirectly learn from them, indirectly get impacted by them. And, you know, that's. That's something that I feel like once we get our cup full, then, then we have to pour it out to other people.

Very cool.

I'd love to hear about your, your heroes.

Brian. Yeah. Question back at you.

Oh, I got different. A couple of different heroes, actually. Odd as it might sound, one of my biggest heroes was President Reagan. When I was young, when I was in high school was back at the end of the 70s, and the morale around the country was really low. Everybody was really down on America and, you know, there's a lot of nonsense going on. And I remember even sitting at homeroom, you know, I'm listening to my buddies and they're talking, you know, saying, oh, you know, they're talking about starting up the draft again. You know, screw that, I'm going to Canada. And it was like I was kind of bummed out because, like, I was a Boy Scout when I was young and, you know, to just have everybody down, down on, you know, being an American, I felt bad about that. And so the cool thing about Reagan, what I really appreciated about him was like, doing the restoration of the Statue of Liberty with no government money. He tasked Lee Iacocca to run that project and he said, you know, no government money, you rounded up all private money. And he did. And when they did the unveiling of the Statue of Liberty, it was really cool because Lee Iacocca, he gets a nice introduction, but then he steps up there and he says, I want to introduce the man who made patriotism fashionable again. And I was like, yeah, that's really true, because he got everybody feeling good about being an American again. That's what Reagan did, and that's why he was one of my heroes. Not that he was perfect, he wasn't perfect, but he did that as much as anything because there was a lot of negativity going on in the 70s and a lot of angst, a lot of conflict and a lot of stuff was able to, like I said, just really kind of raised morale in general. And that was. That I thought was really excellent. So, yeah, he's always been one of my like life heroes as far as trading. Yeah, Mark Douglas. I mean his name always comes up. It's funny, almost everybody that I talk to, he's. He's impacted their life one way or another. So yeah, I gotta give credit to Mark. He's. He's pretty cool guy. So now if, as far as your Hawaiian Trading Academy, what's the best way for people to reach out to you if they want to contact you and find out more? Is it through your site or social or. What's the best way for people to reach out to you and make contact?

Yeah, great. You could also always Visit us at hawaii trainingacademy.com Find us on all the main social media channels around Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, you know, all those different social media channels. So feel free to follow us, subscribe, give us a DM and we'll follow you guys back and you know, we'll connect. Guys, looking forward to it.

I think the handles are all at Hawaii Trading, just Hawaii Trading. If it's not Hawaii Trading, it's Boy Trading Academy.

So very cool, very cool. Well, guys, definitely, you know, thank you for all you shared today. Very worthwhile and enjoyable for sure. Now, as far as, you know, in the future, you said that you have a podcast of your own. What's, what's the name of your podcast?

Yeah, it was super exciting. We rebranded it this year to called the Edge up podcast. And so. Edge up, yeah.

Okay, very cool.

Yeah, yeah, Edge up on. You know, we're going to be talking about like the performance, physical, psychological way of how everyone levels up in their career field, life, you know, because we feel that, you know, there's always room for bettering ourselves in any aspect, so.

Oh, very cool.

Yeah, definitely. We would love to invite you on at some point, Ryan.

I love to get you on.

Yeah, yeah, love to do that. Sure. Well, again, you know, thanks for taking the time out to, you know, being up early for, for doing this today. It's like, you know, bright and early, 7 o' clock for you guys when we started. So yeah, again, and for everybody listening, you know, if any of this resonated with you, definitely take some action and you know, reach out to Glenn or Reed, you know, so that you can, you know, benefit from their help. They do seem pretty active, not just passively, you know, generating information, but involved with their students. And you know, you guys definitely do seem to care about helping other traders, which is excellent. So yeah, for everybody listening, you know, don't just listen and then go about your day. Go ahead and do something. Go ahead and reach out to these guys. Good guys. So, again, thanks for being on today. Loved having you on.

Thank you for having us, Brian. Appreciate it. Thank you to all the listeners out there.

Yeah, Glenn, thanks for being on here as well. And everybody, you know. Thanks. Well, you guys especially. Yeah, thanks for being on the Consistent Profit podcast. And I look forward to having you on again. Talk to you soon.

Thank you.

Aloha, Cheers. Thank you for joining us today on the Consistent Profits podcast, brought to you by Inside Out Trading. If you enjoyed the show, make sure to subscribe on your favorite channel and we'll see you on the next episode. Cheers.