From Plasterer To $300k Full-Time Trader In Less Than a Year | Student Interview - Scott Dunham

Right, okay guys, I've got another awesome video for you today, and this one is an interview with one of my students, Scott. Scott joined me in February last year, and in less than a year, he's gone from somebody that had literally never traded before in his life to somebody that is now trading full-time for a living. He has multiple six figures in trading capital, and he is very, very consistent with the way that he does things. Again, make sure you've got a pen and paper. Watch this one all the way through because there is a lot of things that you can be able to learn from this one. Um, but yeah, that's it from me and I'll see you in the next one. So obviously, firstly, thanks for, for hopping on. Uh, I think you've got a good story to tell. Um, obviously become very successful in the markets in a very short period of time, so I think there's a lot to be learned from, from the way that you've sort of gone about doing things. But I wanted to initially start and just sort of understand the journey a bit and understand sort of what got you into trading, because, um, as far as I'm aware, you didn't really have any experience when, when you first got into trading. So So yeah, let's, let's start at the beginning then. Obviously, before we had our initial call when you enrolled with us, I mean, what, what were you doing before trading, firstly?

So before trading, I was in the vaping industry, and we produced our own vapes, essentially. Um, I was in the industry 2 years, I think it was, and then things started to go a bit south in America with the FDA, and it was having a detrimental effect on the market over here. So at that point, um, we put it up for sale and we sold it. It was lucky we did sell actually, because just as we sold it, COVID hit, and then we had the first lockdown. So if we hadn't sold it, we'd have probably ended up making nothing because we wouldn't have had anything coming in. Um, so then COVID hit and I was doing nothing. Now, before I was in the vaping industry, I was always in construction. I was a plasterer. And general skivvy, I suppose. And, uh, I remember sitting down in COVID and wanting to decide what I wanted to do. I didn't want to go back into vape or anything like that, but I never really enjoyed working for people. When I worked— when I did plastering, I worked for myself. I've never been one to take orders, really, in that respect. I like my own freedom. Um, and I remember at the time we was all at home and the missus was working from home and I was just like, I need to do something that works around the family life, but I don't actually answer to anybody. Now, at this time, trading wasn't even a thing. The only knowledge I had of trading really was what you see on TV, whether it be films or the stock market, I suppose. Forex wasn't really a thing I had any knowledge of. And, uh, I remember certain things during COVID you spend most of your time— well, I did— on Instagram. If I wasn't walking the dog, I was on Instagram watching some Crazy stuff. And training just appeared on, on my feed constantly. And then the more I was watching it, the more you're clicking on it, the more it feeds your feed with the same thing. And then that's when you popped up, and I started watching you and your ads, etc. And then I started doing a bit of mooching, as you do. Um, and then I remember speaking to the missus and saying, you know, this is something I quite like to look at. And at the time she was like, trading? Like, you're mad. Like, you're not a bank, you know what I mean? All the negative things you can imagine, because no one really knows anything about trading at all. If you want to speak to people now, they, they can't get their head around what actually it is I'm doing.

Yeah.

And she was, she was quite, uh, negative about it, to be honest. A bit, you know, a bit like, come on, yeah, surely there's something else, like, you know. Um, but I was adamant this is what I wanted to do based on the knowledge I had and what I'd watched and certain things. And then that's when, um, I decided to pull the trigger, and that's when I reached out to you. Um, at the time we were supposed to be moving to Sweden, but we didn't in the end. It fell through. So we spent a bit of time out there anyway, and it was during that time I, I said, right, this is, this is what I'm going to do. But the missus was like, well, something like trading you can't really do like half-heartedly. You're either in or you've got to be all in on it, really. And I still actually agree with that now, looking back. And we basically come to agreement, well, if you're going to do it, then don't look for work or anything like that, just go all in. And we'll— I'll be the income for the house, basically, but you've got to be all everything, all chips on the table. So that's what I did. I spent 10, 11, 12 hours a day, week in, week out, just do— going through the course, studying the charts, blowing demos after demo after demo, as you do, and just sort of escalated from there, really.

Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. Well, again, I think, I mean, there's a lot to take from that in terms of, like, dedication that it does take to, to make— I mean, not just trading, right? I mean, trading is, is notoriously difficult to do, especially without the right training. And I think you do need to sort of be in that mindset of you're either going to do it or you're not. And it has to be, I'm 100% going to make this work, or you're not going to do it at all. But just going back to your decision then, I mean, what about what we did do you feel like was, well, I sort of led you to actually make the decision to join us as opposed to sort of other companies, if there is anything, of course.

Yeah. So I was watching a lot of stuff because there's so much out there. I can understand why people run. Because, uh, there's just, it's just so much information. It's all conflicting and it's all like Lambos and APs and all that, which is great, but like, it's not realistic in the short term at all. Uh, I don't care how good you are. But, um, what stood out to me, I suppose, um, what you was talking about, you wasn't talking about that side of things, like the glorified side of things or the materialistic side of things. You were talking about Everything was based around education. And when it came down to like, what, how, you know, pulling the trigger in it and investing, I suppose, and put the money on the table, that was a deciding factor really. The fact that you was only talking about— and you're talking about the same things, you wasn't missing a beat. You was constantly talking about having a an edge in the market certain times. And when you were posting results from your students at the time, that was marrying up to it. No discrepancy. It's like a lot of things, you think, hang on a minute. And you even like now, you look at some courses and people and you're looking at it and think, where are you getting your entry there? And when you understand trading, you know it's BS. But it's hard when you haven't got really a clue, especially, you know, I remember when I first looked at a chart and I was just, oh my God, I didn't even know how to use TradingView. I just scared to press anything. I don't know what I'm doing. It's like anything at first, it's a bit like overwhelming. But yeah, it was the fact that you were focused on the process as opposed to the outcome. And then obviously the outcome is always going to be the byproduct of that.

So yeah, yeah, that's for sure.

That's yeah, why I said, well, I'm going with this fella. At the time, and I pulled the trigger. So, and the rest is history, really.

So yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess I kind of agree with that. I think, I mean, if you look back through even, even in the community results section, it's like every single trade in there is basically identical for the last however many years, because it's like trading, trading should be monotonous, it should be boring, and, and, and the fruits of that labor are what make this exciting, right? It's not about having fun on the charts every day, it's about you have a set process that, you know, provides you with that edge, and then it's just about sticking to that and and obviously building capital, and that's where your money comes from. And I think, of course, when you do walk the walk like we do, I think it's a case of that does show quite clearly, sort of opposed to other people in the space, really. But going to those early days then, obviously you were relatively successful relatively quickly, really.

Yeah.

What sort of struggles did you face when you were first starting?

Uh, I would 100% mindset. I still stand by it now. Obviously it's subjective and everyone's different, everyone approaches the markets different, you know, certain things that even though you trade in the same strat, everybody just got their own little confluences or the way they attack the market differently. But, uh, mine was 100% the market. I found when I— so in the early days when I was struggling, I constantly go back to the charts and be like looking for reasons why I was wrong or looking for reasons why I should have been right. And almost as if the technical side of it was going to solve my issues, when the reality was it was just my mindset. It's hard to explain, but, um, I find just if you just focus on reacting to price as opposed to reacting what you think, it makes all the difference. You'll think, oh, we've not had a chock here, or be a breaker, or XYZ, but you can blatantly see price is going in that direction. So you just got art for me was just act on it. Um, and I was blowing demo after demo, obviously, on down the FTMO demo route. And I must have blew about 5 or 6 demos on the trot. And it's getting to the point where it's like, I just, I can't seem to get over that hurdle, you know. And then when I focus more on my mindset and simplified things and simplified my charts as well, like I don't really mark much on my charts either, keep it very, very minimal. Just, I thought, like, focus on the session, that's it. Not, yeah, before it or after it, just on the session, what's happening within that area of Asia. And that's when I sort of like turned the corner then. And I, I suppose I became a break-even trader at that point, and then it just escalated from there. But it happened really quick. I sort of like went from I can't do this to okay, okay, I'm break-even now, to consistently hitting TPs, I suppose. And then that gave me the time then to focus on my risk management. But I, I feel as if a lot of people— I think trading is very much emphasis on, um, technical analysis, and there's all sorts of stuff out there, whether it's ICT, um, support resistance and all that. But I think, uh, the emphasis really should start like, you've got to go into trading with the right mindset. If you focus on the psychology first, I found, and then add the technicals, and then add anything else like risk management, that's what worked best for me. Almost reverse engineered it.

Yeah, you know, I, I think, I, I think I probably agree that I think if you come into trading thinking that you need to, you need to do a load of things to find trades, you kind of, you then find out actually, no, I'm focusing on the wrong things here. You kind of need to come into the, into trading with the mindset of there's, there's going to be a set of rules I need to follow on a day-to-day basis. I need to find out what those specifics are so then I can focus on them. But I think a lot of people come into this and they're like, what do I need to learn in order for me to become profitable? Where in a lot of cases it's, what do I need to unlearn to become profitable? What do I need to strip back from my trading to find that, to find that simplicity and to find that edge? And I mean, that's kind of what, what I try and instill in, in everybody that does join our program. Some of them come into, into what we do with, with a lot of, uh, with a lot of sort of bad habits. They've picked up things from YouTube and stuff like that, and they're kind of just trying to build on top of it. But it's not really about that. I mean, the way that we trade is so simple that a lot of people probably, probably wouldn't believe that. But this is how we actually do things, really. And again, it is just a case of trying to, trying to identify what those 3, 4, 5 rules may be, and then it's just a case of just being able to really just dial in and focus in on those rules, really.

Yeah, definitely, definitely.

Yeah, yeah. So obviously you were— you sort of turned things over fairly quickly. How, how long would you say it was— it took you to go from obviously starting this to being in a position where you were profitable and you were able to get that first funded account?

So I got my first funded account in, uh, end of June last year, and I started the course February, I think it was.

Okay, so about 4, 4, so about 4 months to get to that.

But again, some people are like, that quick? But they forget I wasn't working. So if you think about that 4 months time on the chart, if someone who is working a normal 9 to 5 or whatever, they're never doing that in that time. It's going to take them about a year to put that much time into it. So I had an advantage in that respect. So I'd say I got funded and then I lost my internet and it was a major issue and I couldn't get internet anywhere because we live really remote. So we ended up just, uh, as a family going to the Balearics for like 3-4 weeks and just winding down, as it were. And I feel like that break was really good for me because when I came back, I just sort of like slotted straight back in. I was just constantly consistent. I was tweaking with a few things like risk and whatnot which I now implement. But, uh, yeah, and I was doing it, and then I had a really good month in October, my biggest payout, and, uh, the rest is history really. I don't, um, like anyone, I have ups and downs. I struggled a bit in December. Yeah, and I found myself wandering into indices, which I probably wouldn't do again. It is, um, this is all savage for me anyway. I just find it a bit too volatile. Um, because I found myself— again, it's emotions. There wasn't really much going on in EU and GU. It's just really slow month, I thought, December, whereas there was plenty of volume, whatnot, in say like US30 and other indices. And I found myself leaning towards them, but looking back, that was probably a bad decision. Yeah, yeah, I learned my lesson, you know.

Yeah, I, I think— I mean, this is a very common problem that a lot of traders do face is a lot of people don't realize that their edge is what makes them a good trader. So as soon as you start to veer away from your edge and you start to implement new things or go down a different route, you instantly lose that edge. Your edge might not work on any sort of indices. It might not work in any other market apart from the pairs that you trade. So yeah, I think that's also a really important thing to understand is what does your data say about your trading? Can you have 2 consecutive months of losses? Probably you can. So it's about understanding your data and understanding, having the expectation that this could happen. So when you do get into those stages, it's like, okay, I just need to stay focused towards this. I'm going to get out of it. And then, I mean, you come into it until I think January. I mean, January, February was really, really good. I mean, we had one where we were up about 20R or so. So it kind of evens out. It's all about your long-term average as opposed to your sort of day by day or month by month. Profits, essentially. Um, so obviously, 4 months in, you've got yourself your first funded account.

Yeah.

How, how did you go about then scaling beyond that? I mean, what, what sort of process did you follow to, to again scale up further than that sort of first funded account? And how did you handle that mentally as well?

So I wanted a—

I—

it doesn't matter how good a trader you are, you feel losses. I remember I'd get a loss and I'd be sat in Costa and it'd be like eating me alive, like all day, like, oh my God, it's just, it's just one loss. And I come to the conclusion I couldn't handle the losses. Now, everybody always says, oh, you've got to trade like with zero emotion. It's impossible. We're human, we're emotional beings, you know, but you can like manage it or you can hear it in the background, but you can just put it in a box, as it were. And I set, I, I set my risk up to deal with that. So I only really chase now 3R, 3 and a bit R. I'm happy. I just find, I found when it goes past 3R and you're looking at 4 or 5R, you start getting a bit squirmish in your chair and you're like, oh, should I get out? And straight away, that's it, it's game over. Your emotions in control at that point. I don't care how good you are, you, you're thinking not logically. Whereas, uh, 3R I'm comfortable with, and it's— you haven't got to have mass volume or movement really to hit 3R, especially on the 1-minute in, in the London session. So there was that. So I only really focused on 3R and just concentrate on compounding 3R. If I'm doing a challenge, I say to myself, well, I just want 3R a week, that's all I want. If I get any more, bonus. If not, my baseline's 3R a week. I know you shouldn't really set targets, but I feel you've got to have some sort of target, you've got some sort of goal, some sort of structure to work towards, and you can journal it and build on it. So if I'm in a challenge, I'll just compound 3R basically. It might take a bit longer, but I'm cool with that. Yeah, not a race. And then you can just build your equity. I think people forget when you've got large equity as well, like 3% a week is enough for you to live pretty much the life you want to live. I don't, you know, there's no job paying that. There just isn't. Especially if you get into the regions of like half a million in funding. I mean, 3% is a lot of money. Yeah, you know, and it's just about being patient and building up to that, and then you can just go into like cruise control. Then you haven't got to change your trading, you just trade how you've been trading. The only difference is the size of your funding. Yeah, and obviously, for sure. Yeah, um, so with my, my risk now, I, I tend not to really go break even anymore. Just because I found for my personal trading, I get taken out breakeven and it— what happens, it retests and it just rallies away to my 3%. It's just, fuck's sake, you know, it's a nightmare. So, um, I don't really get a breakeven now. What I do is if, um, we retest and we get in and around like 0.5%, I'll just close. And then I know I've got to lose a few trades in a row just to lose 1% of my account. And that in the back of my mind, then I'm happy with that. And I'm never going to blow the account, you know. And I found setting up risk to manage my emotions instead of capital, if that makes sense, was what worked for me best. I think everybody says, oh, I'm gonna go, you know, I'm only gonna risk half a percent here, but are they truly accepting it? So I found if you manage— if you use your risk to manage your emotions, it takes away all that fear and not getting in or getting in and You know the probabilities with the strat, you know, you're never going to— even with losses, you're not going to blow an account or you're not going to be in silly amount of drawdown. You can stay profitable essentially.

Yeah. Yeah.

No, I get it.

Yeah. I mean, a number of things you said there. I think number one, having that process, you need to, regardless of what you're doing, if you're going for a challenge, you need to have some sort of plan. You don't just go and start a business with no plan. You know, you've got to hit certain targets to be able to do certain things, and you have to have the same thing with trading. Obviously, you don't want to say when you're trading live funds, you don't want to say, I want to make 10% a month and that's my target. And you chase that. That's not what you want to do. But you need to say, okay, well, I need to hit, I need to hit 10% to pass phase 1 here.

Yeah.

How am I going to go about this based on my strategy? What can I expect to be doing here? And you have something that you can sort of try and stick by really. And also as well, I think the whole mindset shift that a lot of traders need to, need to face is that this isn't a game of making percentages. This is— trading is not about percentages. It's not about R, it's not about any of that. It's about capital. Trading is a game of capital, and the more capital you can get behind you, the easier your life is going to be. It's much easier to get capital than it is to make percentages in the market. And I mean, like you said there, if you can make 3%, even if you can make 3% a month, right, which is really one trade. Yeah. I mean, if you've got, if you've got $400,000, $500,000, $600,000 worth of capital behind you, you're going to be earning a silly amount of money from that.

Yeah.

I think, I think that mindset shift is something that a lot of traders do need to face in order for them to actually get into, into the cycle. They are in the top 5% of traders that can actually, actually generate consistent returns within the market. Um, so obviously I just want to sort of touch on, uh, that sort of transition from you. I mean, what was that? Was there a moment where you would— that you can sort of pinpoint that you sort of had that shift where you said, okay, I'm actually, I'm actually trading full-time now, I am a full-time trader, because obviously you were kind of doing this full-time for the whole sort of process, really. You weren't actually going to a 9-to-5 job. But was there any point in that sort of early part of your career that you had that sort of shift in a mindset where you were— maybe you started to become consistently profitable, maybe you made a certain payout? Was there that sort of time in your journey?

So two things, really. One, I had my biggest payout in October. Um, which almost confirms to you what you're doing is right. When you, when you see it in your bank account, that's for me, that's when the penny drops. Okay, I know what I'm doing now. The system I'm using is working. Um, but for me, it, um, when I— because as you say, you've got to have a system. And before I didn't, I was just like waking up trying to get as many trades as possible, trading London, trading New York, chasing the R. You've got a structure. When I stuck to my rules, as in I'm only after 3%, and if it— if prices just— I'm getting out and I'm not doing this and sticking to those rules, it's when I start to get profitable but consistently. And that's when it was a turning point then in the data, that okay, as long as I don't change what I'm doing now, then there's no reason why I'm ever going to blow an account or lose money essentially. There'll be good months, there'll be poor months, might even be break-even months, but I'll never really focus on the weeks. Uh, I'm not really fussed if I have a losing week, to be honest. I, I only look at my P&L over a monthly thing really. Then people get so screwed up with, um, oh, I've had 3 trades this week, I've lost this, and they're scratching around, they're going to the next week, then they get excited on a Sunday evening and then they jump in on a Monday, like just focus on the month really when you start, and then look at your P&L at the end of the month. Don't even look at what you're making, what your percentage is. Just focus on getting in and getting out consistently and well and managing the risk. I find that's a big thing. The risk— the managing the risk was a big thing for me because I used to always let trades run and take me out, and that's fine. Some people were fine with that, but it just didn't work for me. So I very rarely take 1% loss anymore. I get out and have small losses, because the more small loss— you've got to have lots of small losses to have any detrimental effect on my account. And that is just what changed my mindset completely and I suppose made me profitable.

Yeah, in the long run. Yeah, I think that is sort of one of those things that— I mean, it's difficult to teach, being able to sort of manage risk, isn't it? I mean, you can obviously manage risk, you properly position size, but you kind of get in tune with the market, you understand the sort of variations of your, of your trade ideas, and you can kind of understand when you should probably cut your losses and when something is, is probably not going to go your way. And you kind of get in tune with, with the way that you do things. But I guess that only comes really from, from repetition, right? I mean, you have to spend a lot of time doing the same thing to understand the different variations.

Yeah, because you can tell, you can— I can look at price now. I mean, if you can't always be right, if we'd all be trillionaires, with Daisy, Margot Robbie, if we was, you know. But you kind of like in tune with it. You kind of know when price isn't going to do what you want it to do. I don't know if it's muscle memory or what, you can just tell like whether, you know, this is getting people in too early or you've missed the boat. That's just, as you say, that just comes from time in the charts really.

Yeah.

To be honest. Yeah. You just get a feel, like you say, when you're dialing in, you're not really thinking, you're just acting. I find when I'm not really thinking, I'm just like, oh, oh, oh, get in, is when things happen really well. And when I'm sat there thinking, ah, do I— is when it goes wrong. I think the more you think about it, that's indicating to me anyway that I'm wrong. And when I'm just acting and going bosh bosh bosh, get in, is when I'm usually right over the course of the month.

Yeah, I mean, I think like, not making like blind statements, but I think trading— obviously when you're following the right system, trading should be easy. It's— you shouldn't have to, you shouldn't have to think about getting into a position. It should be clear and obvious. And if it's not clear and obvious, then like, like you said, there's a, there's usually a telltale sign there that this is probably not going to go your way. Yeah, again, that not being a blind statement, if you don't know what you're doing, you haven't got a good system there, then it shouldn't— I mean, it, trading shouldn't be easy. You shouldn't just jump into trades with just, just by guessing, right? You should obviously make sure you have a right good system in place, and then, then that's when it becomes easy. It becomes a much easier process to obviously follow your system. But again, I just want to sort of touch on some of the numbers that you've done. Obviously, you've only been trading really for a year now, so you've done some great things in that time. I want to sort of touch on the funding side of things. Obviously, the funding space is changing quite a lot at the minute. My first question is, again, it may be a bit of a crude question, but how much funding have you got in total in the last I mean, you've basically been trading for the last 12 months.

So I'm up to 310,000 at the moment. Now that's really actually 210,000 because I had a 100K account with Funding Pips, but they've switched, uh, to— I think it's MatchTrade or something like that. I just— it's a personal thing, I just don't like it. I really don't like it. I like my MT5 and that's where I want to stay. It's where I learned. I'm comfortable with it. I know it works. I understand it. And I looked at that matched trading, I was just, oh, I'm not going through all this over again trying to learn a new platform and whatnot. So I essentially bought my mouth for that account. But, um, so I've got my Alpha Capital, £200,000, and I'm on a scaling plan with Stocknet. And it's, you have to scale up 10 times. Each time you scale your W account, you start on £550 quid, and then when you get to the year 10, it's £1.28 million, I think it is. And I'm on, uh, phase 4 now. So that is actually my goal this year, to get to 7 figures in funding, and then I'm comfortable with that then, because that will then, uh, mean I don't have to trade a lot. I can get very small percent each week or each month and make good returns and give me the power to put into a personal account. And there's some things I want to do outside of trading, um, in property, which I want to invest in eventually, um and the large capsule is what will give me that power, I suppose.

Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, I think one key takeaway from that is, I mean, you don't really need a whole lot of capital behind you. I mean, obviously $200K, $300K is still a lot of capital, right? But you don't need, you don't need stupid amounts to be able to go and do this full time, right? You could probably go full time off of $100K. Obviously the more you've got, the easier it becomes. But you don't need to have millions in capital to be able to do this as a career.

No, um, I was comfortable on 100K. I was. Um, I just wanted to get to the point where I want to trade less. I want to spend as least amount of time in the market as I can. I'm at the point now where I find it quite boring. I don't know if that's a good thing or bad thing, but people say it's a good thing. Where sometimes I'll sit in front of the charts, here we go. Where's the point? Be dead keen, like a dog, you know, tail wagging and all that. And you— I feel when you made that transition into Okay, come on then, let's, let's see what we can get out of the markets. You're in a good place at that point. I want a large capital just so I can trade less and get good returns to be able to make investments outside of trading, basically, with the intention of one day being not really needing to trade because I'll have, um, passive income coming from other places, essentially.

Yeah, no, I, I think, I mean, I, I think a lot of people look at funded accounts is like the end goal. But I'm sort of quite against that. I see funded accounts as, as a tool that's going to allow you to bridge that gap from going from, from somebody that hasn't got the income to somebody that has got the income, they've got surplus income. So you can then use that surplus income to go and invest in, in wealth-building assets, essentially something that's going to provide you with, with passive income per se. And you obviously then have that income that can feed into your personal account, which is then you can also run alongside your funding Yeah, yeah. The wealth that way. Again, sort of touching on the industry then, the funding industry, obviously things are switching up quite, quite a bit at the moment. What are you doing? What are you doing to sort of mitigate some of those risks sort of going forward with the uncertainty as to platforms and which firms are going to survive?

So I'm only willing to stay with companies that are using MetaQuotes. I, I, I feel it. If MetaQuotes are accepting you, then you're good. That's how I see it from the outside. Obviously, I don't know everything, so I'm not involved in the prop space, but I look at a lot of companies and I think FTMO are like the, the best in the industry. I'll always fight that. Um, yes, they can be a bit more expensive on their challenges, but there's good reason for that. And also, you notice they never run discounts, which very rarely anyway, which is a very good sign. Alpha Capital are brilliant, UK company, got all their MetaQuote license, etc. The boys that run it are— have got a wealth of experience in the financial markets. Stocknet are really good as well. I suppose I'm just avoiding the American firms. And yeah, you know, at the end of the day, you don't really need multiple firms. I only went with Stocknet because I really like their scaling plan, and I don't know what the deciding factor was actually with Alpha. I just, there's just something about it I really liked after speaking to them, and I didn't actually go with FTMO in the end, although I am going to do an FTMO challenge at some point in the summer. But I think you don't really need to look beyond FTMO, Alpha, really, in my opinion. Um, I just think they meet all the criteria that MetaQuotes want to see. They're, they're regulated, their customer service is great, uh, little things like spreads is great. Like with Alpha, you can have raw spreads or you can have commission-free, great options, always pay out, uh, you know. And if you look at a lot, if you look at a lot of these American firms, there's always some kind of issue.

Whether it's on social media, always drama.

If I could give any advice to anybody, stay— run from Twitter. Just run. Twitter's just toxic. It's not just the trading space, any space on Twitter is just chaos. It's just opinions, opinions, opinions, and most of it's rubbish. But yeah, if you, if you are on Twitter, you'll see what I mean. Like, if you look at all the American firms, they're just— they don't even behave well in terms of the way they are. Like, I see some— I won't mention names, but some owners of some big American firms, and I just think I would never invest my money in, in you, let alone your company, just by some of the things they say and the way they behave. Where you never see that from FTMO. You never see it ever. You never see it from our— they run a tight ship and they run it professionally, and that should stand out for you and be worth that extra few quid.

Yeah.

Challenge, in my opinion. I can't see it going anywhere, whereas I think America, the American side of things, I think is slowly going to fade away. I'll do—

yeah, no, I definitely agree. And I think, I mean, you can quite clearly see just from the conduct of a business, I think, yeah, the way, the way in which— I mean, the conduct of a business on social media is to the way that they run their backend. Uh, I think, I mean, it's, it's very clear that a lot of people can learn a lot of things from how FTMO operate. They've been around for the longest. They've got the best reputation and they're not airing up their dirty laundry on social media every 5 minutes. So I mean, that's a place that I think you'd want to, again, invest your money in. Obviously, you trust them as well. But yeah, so last question for me then, really just giving some tips to those people that were in the same position as you were when you first started and want to get to the stage that you are now. What 3 tips would you give to people that want to, that want to begin this journey and get to the stage where they can actually go and trade full-time?

So the first one would be I would treat trading like a business and not a side hustle, 100%. Think about everything, treat everything, you know, like your loss, overheads, etc., like run it like a business for sure. If you want to be a full-time trader and have longevity, you have to run it like a business. It is a business essentially. It's not just something fun on the side. If you treat it like that, you'll just blow up. Second thing is, um, we— with We Trade, you have a statistical edge. You don't need to keep going back to the charts and thinking the answer relies in something different, or you've got to find something new in technicals. Like, your psychology is a secret, um, your risks, the way you approach the markets, everything. Just like outside of trading, if you look after yourself, you perform better. Looking after, you know, your mindset. Um, that'd be my second thing. Don't, don't try and look for too many things. Just, you know what the rules are, you know what you're looking for, and then focus on just being very strict with it. Um, third thing, um, your risk management. I, for me personally, I, I set up my risk to manage my emotions and not my capital. I think if you set up risk so you can happily— not happily, but comfortably lose maintain profitability, as opposed to not have, you know, just saying, oh, stick my stop loss there, and if it takes out, it takes out. No, you've got to be a bit more than that. I feel you've got to manage it. I think you'll be on a good keel to where you want to go, really.

Yeah, yeah, I definitely agree. I definitely agree. But yeah, I mean, thanks for hopping on. Again, there's going to be a lot that a lot of people can learn from this practically, and also mentality as well. But yeah, I appreciate you jumping on and yeah, thanks a lot, mate.

Ciao, mate. Great.