Most Paid Prop Firm Trader Okalanq Traded A Simple Trading Strategy To Make 5 Million

TITLE: MOST Paid Prop Firm Trader OkalaNQ Traded A Simple Trading Strategy to Make $5+ Million CHANNEL: Words of Rizdom DATE: 2026-03-26 ---TRANSCRIPT--- We have a trader who has taken $5 million plus from prop firms, of which over three million in 2025 alone. Last month, I brought in about $23,000 in payouts, and my spend was about $13,000. How I built myself was I got paid on one, then I bought two, then I bought four, and now I I’m at like 76 accounts that that I’m trading. you you have to to get these massive payouts. You kind of have to leverage yourself in that regard. But it’s still possible to do just starting with one. This trader has made $5 million in payouts trading just from his phone using a simple 8020 strategy. Introducing Okala. I’ve seen a lot of traders get blown out trading and chasing moves and putting on that huge size before the setup was formed. The road map that I used for any trader that asked me, any new trader was get paid out from that one account first. Don’t start buying 20, 30, 40 accounts when you’re learning because you’ll just end up In this episode on words of wisdom, Oka goes through the exact process he took to find consistency and huge profitability using a very simple scalping system. I would be completely fine with taking smaller profits, with taking, you know, quick profits. And that just goes back to me as a person. I kind of want stuff to happen now. I’m okay with taking that that fast profit or fast stop when it came to developing my own strategy. I noticed that he explains exactly where he and many other traders go wrong and exactly the steps he had to take to find profitability. The best advice when I first started out with props and I take it to this day was welcome everyone back to the Words of Wisdom podcast. Number one trading podcast in the world and the fastest growing thanks to all of you and our incredible guests. We’re on another US tour, our third so far of the channel, and it’s thanks to our incredible sponsors, everyone over at Alpha Capital and Alpha Futures, Alpha Prime, the only proper with a professional route to professional trading. So, thank you to them. Their links are in the description. But back to our incredible guests. Talking of which, today we have a trader who has taken $5 million plus from prop firms, of which over 3 million in 2025 alone. of which $200,000 was just last month in January of 2026. All of this has been done trading only from his phone. It’s the one and only Bala.

Hey Rez, happy to be here. Thanks so much. Absolute pleasure. And this just absolutely blows my mind. I remember when you first mentioned that you did all of this trading from your phone. I was blown away because you don’t really hear that, right? Normally you see the six screens and the, you know, all the different setups to try and take a trade, but it’s amazing to hear of someone who’s actually simplified that all down. But the real question to start with is $5 million plus in payouts, $200,000 just last month, all from your phone. How did you do that? Well, it’s not uh the question shouldn’t be really how did I do it, it’s why did I do it? And uh the reason is RZ is because I came from a workingclass family. My dad’s an electrician and you know in high school I had a 1.3 GPA. So you know I was I was doing other things. I wasn’t going to classes. I was making I was making money doing other stuff. And um and when I graduated high school I didn’t really have the option to go to a university or whatever. So I went to I followed my dad’s footsteps. I went into the electrical field and uh and you know you’re working with your hands. You’re not in front of a computer. So I had aspirations to do bigger stuff than that. And one of the things was uh that got me into this whole journey really was um I took a trip to Seattle to see my my buddies up there. And at the time, I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you, 40 hours a week, I was making $1260 an hour and my paycheck was $38760 for 40 hours a week. And uh I went to that trip and I saw my buddy, he was trading options. And I saw him, he made $300 in 5 minutes. I’m like, what am I doing with my life? So, uh, at that point on, you know, I I started trading on my phone and and trying my best to kind of make that income and, uh, that’s kind of where it all started. That’s that’s the reason why, you know, uh, I started trading on my phone is because I had no other option. That’s my field didn’t let me have a computer in front of me. All I had was was the phone. So what you’re saying is you purposely made a strategy or made sure to trade from your phone because you had no other option because of the work environment that you were in. Like did you try other things originally or was it the strategy that you’re using that we went over on chart fanatics just now which is probably out by the way. So if you want to really have an understanding of the strategy we’re talking about and how Okalo has achieved all these payouts, the strategy behind it, check that episode out. Um, but was that something you started with quite early on or were you trying other stuff from the first? No, no, no. So, the the strategy I have now is is more of a scalp futures trading strategy where, you know, you capitalize on short-term moves. But, uh, when I first started, I started off with like like many people, I would say, is is trading uh options, low expiration options, uh, that expired either that week or that day. And uh you know that’s that’s kind of how I got my feet wet in into trading is is I started trading options knowing absolutely nothing about the markets knowing nothing about uh derivatives or how they work. I started you know immediately uh with with that. And then when it came to the pros and cons of trading from your phone are there any things that kind of you felt kind of restricted you or maybe was slightly negative of doing that? Well, I’ll tell you I’ll tell you what, you know, this whole industry, like you like you said, a lot of a lot of the uh traders that you see online that showcase, you know, they have the six screens, they have, you know, that big 49 in monitor and uh and I didn’t have that and I thought that was holding me back. But at the end of the day, what it really did was it honed me down into a specific um set of of restrictions that actually ended up making my edge into what it is today. And we could stick on like the phone topic for a while, no doubt. But the the other element, and there’s multiple to go through, but the other element is that you’ve completely completed the the prop firm game. you know, $5 million plus in payouts and still continuing to push. Like, what are the secrets to mastering that prop firm game? Honestly, what it really is is uh is consistency, but also uh and I tell this to to all the new people starting out is uh not blowing your entire bankroll when you’re just in that learning phase. Because as you know every tra every successful trader knows and unsuccessful I guess is is once you’re out of the game I mean you’re out you’re you have to go and and get that capital back and if you are learning you will be blowing your capital I mean you’re going to bleed it out nobody started starts off a success not in this industry I mean you’re not born uh Mozart in in trading you have to go through the flames every successful and unsuccessful successful properform trader knows once you blow your capital you have to you have to you know make it back and you’re out of the game. Well, uh that’s that was kind of the key thing is as I was learning I wasn’t overleveraging myself. I wasn’t spending you know thousands of dollars a month because I didn’t really at the time I didn’t have it. you know, you’re you’re making you’re making a a a wage that doesn’t sustain, you know, these huge these huge, you know, astronomical prices and um and you can’t afford to blow all your accounts at once. That’s not that’s not an option. So, uh, as far as making it in the prop firm game, you know, everybody has that learning curve, just until you get to that point where you’re making money consistently and you have a proven track record of it. Uh, definitely keep your spend low, you know, try to try to understand exactly what you’re doing. put some risk on anyway because nobody nobody makes money with no risk. But definitely try to keep your expenses down until you have you know your strategy and your edge uh to the point where you’re making money consistently. And one thing to mention I think is and I think it’s a a credit to you as well is that you’re one of the I would say rare few within the prop firm industry especially with the accolades that you have with the 5 million plus in payouts and still continuing to absolutely crush it is that you don’t sell anything and you’re not affiliated to anything either. Uh which is very rare. So huge credit to you and which then leads me to a question that a lot of people ask of of others when they’re seeing sort of big payouts is $5 million paid out so far. What’s what does the cost look like in terms of so far would you say to allow you to achieve that 5 million? Oh, okay. So, so that’s that’s an interesting question and I’ll answer it just uh based off last month. Last month, you know, um I I brought in about $23,000 in payouts and my spend was about $13,000. So, you know, uh, in profarmms, profirms you have to treat a little bit differently than your actual live capital. I have I have a live account that I take, you know, withdrawals out of, but for me, I just want to, you know, put on more size there and and swing that position rather than proferms. You know, my real uh the real goal is to take money out of that account, to take money out of that firm, to get a return on my uh on my initial capital spent, and to make sure that no matter what, I’m getting that high percentage back. Trading education is completely broken. For years, the industry has been purged and poisoned by bad actors, fake results, and strategies hidden behind pay walls. But in every industry, every once in a while becomes a catalyst, a moment in time for change. Now, imagine a world where elite trading education was entirely free. Education with no hidden agenda, verified trading results, and real profitable strategies, all for free. Welcome to Chart Academy. Chart Academy is the world’s first all-in-one platform for trading education. Chart Academy is free. 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And going back to your point and one, you know, it’s a phenomenal result for last month in particular, uh, you know, that’s over a 10 to1 ROI, you know, in terms of spend to to payout ratio, which is incredible. But taking it back then, as you mentioned, first starting out, you want to make sure you’re not overspending, right, and spending all your bankroll, you know, trying to do these challenges and getting funded. What was it like for you when you first started to utilize prop firms and trying to deploy your edge? Like, was there a process you went through to scale and get to sort of where you’re getting these really large consistent sort of payouts per month? Yeah, sure. So, so when I started prop firms in 2022, I never got into the forex firms. I only I only had futures at the time. There was only uh I think like three prominent futures firms and and uh I only used one of them at the time and uh uh there was no massive discounts, there was no, you know, one time 90% off, etc. It was uh it was you buy a challenge, you do a 7-day evaluation, if you pass it, you pay an activation fee, etc. and um to get to the point where you would you would scale, well, obviously you need to get paid out first because you’re still working a job and and uh and you need that money to be paying for itself. So, uh initially what I did was, and this is kind of the the road map that I use for for any trader that asks me, any new trader, was get paid out from that one account first. Don’t start buying 20, 30, 40 accounts when you’re learning because you’ll just end up blowing your money. I mean, you you will and you’ll end up blowing all those accounts and you’ll get frustrated. Get paid on that one account first. Use that capital to buy two accounts, three accounts, and kind of uh leverage yourself that way where you’re not using money that you need for rent, for bills, for food, for etc. Use the properforms money that they’re paying you to then get more accounts. And that’s how I built myself was I got paid on one, then I bought two, then I bought four, and uh and now I I’m at like 76 accounts that that I’m trading in. And and uh you you have to to get these these massive payouts, you kind of have to um leverage yourself in that regard, but it’s still possible to do just starting with one. Well, you started with one, right? Correct. That’s it. And you know, is there any problems you face when managing so many accounts across so many different firms? Yes, I I the biggest problem I have is uh I don’t copy trade everything together. I I do not. So if if so what I’ll do is I’ll segregate every single prop firm individually. And the huge issue with that is is by the time I’m on on my on my last firm, well, the day is almost done. You know what I mean? and and there might not be that opportunity. So right now my biggest issue is that I just have too many accounts and not enough time in the day. It’s a good problem to have I guess. Um which is interesting. Have you during that journey though as you were scaling was there any times where you know you had to face uh whether it’s firms sort of closing down or doing retroactive rule changes or like a negative experience that a lot of the audience may have felt at some time. Absolutely. I mean, there’s uh there’s there’s a couple of them and and there’s a couple that actually even shut down, which is never great for the industry. That’s that that’s uh that’s all your money and your time gone. But retroactive rules have been applied and they’ve been applied on on a lot of firms. But that’s kind of what makes uh a good trader into a great trader, a great prop firm trader is they’re able to adapt to those rules and to make, you know, make that uh make their strategy or maybe make their edge and and tweak it just a little bit to make sure cuz no prop firm is making these huge drastic changes where you can’t, you know, do something and if they do then then they might be in trouble. But any edge you can tweak towards any prop firm I believe. And when those moments did happen where a firm went down for example, like how did you overcome that? Was any of them like kind of more earlier on before you started to scale and so the impact might have felt a lot heavier than it might now? Uh well not not entirely. And and uh the biggest one I lost around 800,000 in in in funds that I’ve made, you know, and and I never got to see. So 800,000 in profits you could have. Yeah. Wow. And uh that that stung. Correct. But you can’t just you know what what do you do? You know what I mean? At the end of the day it’s it’s simulated capital and uh and you can’t just be you can be upset but you can’t let that stop you from making more money on other great firms that that pay out consistently and and don’t have, you know, an issue. So, how do you get rid of that sort of feeling of I should have had that feeling of, you know, I shouldn’t have had that loss or that capital should have been mine? The reason I’m asking is because there’s no doubt a lot of people you’ve seen um who get affected by these things and they it’s a years past and they’re still talking about it, right? And rightfully so, obviously, you know, it’s not a great thing and it wasn’t their fault. But you can also see with that a correlation where they haven’t grown as a trader because they’re probably still stuck with this baggage and weight of this shouldn’t have happened or this could have been different. So how did you release that and just focus on moving forward? Uh for me it’s it’s all about opportunity cost and a lot of trading. I would say I would say for me at this point uh it’s it’s 40% setups 60% mental um you know what 30% setups and and and 70% mental because if I come into the day and my and my you know and my mental is just not there or something happened or my sleep is off or I’m thinking about something else it doesn’t matter how good the setup is if I cannot execute. So, the same thing can be said for, you know, for thinking about past mistakes that weren’t your fault or maybe they were your fault or or a firm shutting down and and you not, you know, having the opportunity to take your money out is well, you have to ask yourself if you’re going to be living with that for the rest of your life. And if and if you are, then your mental will never be 100% able to execute at the level that you would need to be a consistently profitable trader. Very true. And is that something that you would do on a regular basis or check in with yourself to to try and notice, you know, how you’re engage, you know, where how self-aware you are, how in tune you are with yourself at that time. Is there anything that as you said, maybe it’s poor sleep, maybe it’s something else going on in life, or maybe it was the trading day the day before or week before. Is that something you have as a regular habit as part of your sort of routine? It’s something that I’m continu and I think a lot of traders continuously work on. Um, and to that point, you know, there’s trading psychologists and all that, but I think every every trader at the start of the day after their first trade or maybe even before, they can feel if they’re off. And uh my goal is to make sure that I either can control that, I can talk to myself and say, am I able to control this on this day or or I need to take a step back. And that’s something I’m continuously working on. Um, it’s something that has been, you know, a problem because I’m I’m a my sleep is terrible. I’ll just I’ll just be honest. My sleep is not is not great. I wake up in the middle of the night and if it’s not and if it’s really bad, then then it definitely does affect my my trading and it’s something that I have to be cognizant of all the time. And I do do those, you know, midday checks or like, okay, am I am I being hazy? Am I not seeing the market correctly? It’s something that I think every trader should continuously monitor if they’re especially I mean especially if they’re doing it full-time and and that’s their only source of income. It’s a good point you make at the end there in terms of being full-time because again, you know, the premise of where we started was trading from the phone. And I think that’s a good topic not to go back to the phone bit, but more so, you know, your advice to people out there who are in your position who who are in your position that you were in, sorry, where they have work, so they really can’t concentrate on the charts during the day around sort of the open or anything. What would your suggestion be to them when it comes to trying to trade around their jobs? Uh, I think that’s that’s the position of most most traders is is, you know, I’m in a unique spot where I can do this full-time, but for for most traders, they started off just like me where they don’t have the AV availability. Uh my advice to them is is either seek out time in the day where you have either a lunch break, a break, or or at the end of the day, if you want it, you’ll make it work. You’ll make it work. You’ll find time. You know, I I have it’s it’s terrible, but I have gotten yelled at for being on my phone because I was too busy looking at the charts instead of working. It it made me a bad worker in at my job, but it made me a damn good trader because I was so focused on just on identifying those setups. And you know, not everybody can do that. I totally understand. But like I said, you know, if you want it, you will find time in the day. If the futures market, shoot, even the forex market, I mean, they’re open uh crypto markets are open, you know, longer than an 8 hour workday. So you can definitely find setups. You know, right now metals are moving. Metals are moving great in New York session. They’re moving great at in London session. So you can definitely find time if you’re willing to sacrifice, you know, a different aspect of your life. But there’s never going to be just a take take. It’s got to be a give and take. So you think it’s a case where people have to really just identify where they can create time because a lot of people everyone has something going on for the most part, right? Whether they’re young and and they have their sort of social time and maybe university or college or maybe a starter job or even if they’re older and they have a family as well as trying to look after themselves and spend time with the family while working. There’s always a sacrifice that has to be made in order to progress whether it’s trading or not. That is the same principle I would say that is necessary regardless. But talking of which, what did that look like for you and going back and you’re starting to scale? So like you haven’t broken out yet in terms of maybe going full-time or making that sort of income that would allow you to be full-time. you know, how are you managing your expectations and your emotions when starting to see numbers that probably were reflecting the 40hour uh, you know, uh, weeks, but yet you’re making similar income or starting to make similar income from trading from your phone essentially, but allowing yourself not to get too greedy, allowing yourself not to push the boundary. What did it look like at that time? Honestly, it was one of the hardest moments of of those years was was not not fully not fully understanding what my limits were. I wanted to just just throw it all, you know, screw this job. I’m going I’m going full-time. And uh but you know that’s where people around you can either make you grounded or they can motivate you. So that’s that’s where family comes in and and you know one thing is is you don’t want to tell everybody you’re a trader because then they either start asking advice and you know what you’re talking about or or you know they they start asking you to trade their money etc. But you know the close people around you, you know, your your parents, your spouse, uh you can definitely share with them and and see see, you know, if they’ll ground you or they’ll motivate you. And for me, the hardest part was was listening to the people that care about me say, “Okay, finish this first. Finish this first. Get that safety net.” Because I have a California certification. I’m I’m certified in California to do electrical. Um now, God willing, I never have to do it again, but um but having those people kind of give that plan for you when you’re still hazy minded and and you don’t really uh understand all the consequences of quitting right then and now when you don’t have that that safety net. Let’s take a break for a minute there, guys, cuz I want to tell you about our incredible sponsor, Alpha Prime, the first of its kind in the industry. Now, evaluation firms have been in the industry for the last few years and done absolutely phenomenal in terms of its impact for traders. As you can see here, through Alpha Capital and Futures, so many payouts to so many traders across the world. But now, for the first time, there is an incredible route for traders to become professionals and to trade live capital, and that’s through Alpha Prime. So, let me quickly tell you how it works. You could just buy a challenge on Alpha Capital, Alpha Futures. Doesn’t matter which one. So, Alpha Capital, you have phase one, phase 2, phase three challenges. On Alpha Futures, you have standard and advanced plans. Whichever one, purchase a challenge, show consistency, build your track record, and then you can be invited to Alpha Prime. Alpha Prime, you will get access to live capital. You will get access to risk management and resources at a professional level. You will have a salary as a trader and access to trade on live trading floors starting here in London. This is the first of its kind where a evaluation firm is finding talented traders and then backing them with live capital and creating a route to professional trading. I am very proud to be sponsored by Alpha Prime. The links for both will be in the description below. Alpha Capital and Alpha Futures. Use the code RZ for 20% off all challenges. Link is in the description below. Now, let’s get back to the episode. So, at that time when you first felt like doing that, it was just starting. The trading was just starting to sort of pick up and therefore, you know what a lot of people do make the mistake of doing is that they cut the the safety net. They cut the actual fixed income, start adding this pressure to this side and things can collapse and get shaky. Um, so do you think having that accountability and people to just kind of ground you and say, “Hey, no, finish it first and have that backup gave you that time where that momentum by the time you did finish.” Where were you at by the time you finished? So, by the time I finished, I was making uh three times my annual income in a month in trading. Yeah. So, so, uh, it I mean it just it just goes to show that that you can progress. You can be you can be amazing but still do, you know, still have that little safety piece and and at the time you don’t understand exactly, you know, how much risk you can put on because all you see is the money in your face. You know, you see the huge bank account. you see that that everybody’s favorite thing is is I made in in 5 minutes what I make in a day you know that’s that’s yes but you can also lose that in five minutes but that’s the trader mindset right there not everybody can be a trader not everybody has that risk on mindset and you know as long as you understand that you can lose it just as fast as you make it if your leverage is wrong if your mindset is wrong if you just position you know lots of stuff can happen. Black swans happen. And um as long as you understand that that you know your the people who are close around you who can see your you know your potential, they don’t want to hold you back. They just want you to be safe and uh and and have the ability to have something to go back on. One thing I’m interested in on based on what you said is when you did go full-time, even though you were making on average three times your salary in a month, was there any either hiccups or changes that came to your trading when you did finally transition to being full-time? Yeah. And and that was another, you know, another part is markets change, markets shift. you know, we went from in 2022, we went from a consistent downtrend to 23, 24, 25, you know, where it’s just it’s just an uptrend and and and uh it’s it’s you always have to shift with the market, you know what I mean? You the market won’t shift for you. You have to continuously adapt your edge, adapt the uh approach to that given market structure, to that given regime. And uh at at I’ve seen a lot of traders that they couldn’t adapt and and they kept trying to, you know, push through that brick wall when it’s when it’s not working and that’s just, you know, that’s a losing strategy. And so when you were developing your strategy, you know, you’re doing this uh as you you’re developing your strategy while you’re working full-time, you’re working, you’re trading from your phone at the time, but like how did you start to develop that confidence, that edge within the market? like what did that process look like? And that’s that’s kind of you know another piece of the puzzle was was I was I was not able to look at you know how how the position would run. I would just be okay with making you know 10 15 20 points. That’s great because it can happen in seconds on the NASDAQ and then I can just you know right go right back to work. Well, you know, that’s that’s the um that’s kind of how I developed my my strategy around is is these fast quick moves and and um and you know I wasn’t able to look at these 1 hour, 2 hour, three hour moves. I was just okay with the 15 points, 20 points, 40 points. And as I was, you know, as I was doing that, I would see that the prop firms have, you know, the ability to take those 15 points and multiply it across 20, 30, 40 accounts. And there you go. You know, you were, you would be just fine at just stacking that profit day in day out. Um, kind of like a compound growth over time. Do you think that people out there when it comes to developing their strategies, what should they be focusing on? I think really, you know, as far as strategy goes, everybody kind of has to be unique. I see a lot of people trying to copy this to the tea, copy that guy to the tea. You know, he’s successful. What? Well, how do I copy his exact strategy like to the to the tick? Well, every person has a unique situation. And that’s not to sound cheesy or anything, but every person is unique. And when it comes to trading, you have to kind of uh are you are you a you know, are you are you following the trend all the time? Well, then you’re not going to have success with with a strategy like mine that’s that’s reversionbased or or so a person has to understand themselves. Not to sound like like Buddha here, but you have to understand yourself first in order to understand what kind of strategy works for you the best. So, what did what did that look like for you as an example? Like how did you start to understand yourself and your personality and how did you then sort of develop your strategy to match that? Uh, you know, for me, I want everything here and now I want it immediately. Uh so so that’s I think every trader goes through through a phase where they initially when they start out they want to they see a successful trader they see that what they’re doing is working. They see the profits and then their next question is how do I do it exactly like him? Well for me I did the same thing is is I tried to copy someone else and I could just see it’s not working. Um, when it came to developing my own strategy, I noticed that I would be completely con fine with taking smaller profits, with taking, you know, quick profits. And that just goes back to me as a person. I kind of want stuff to happen now. Like I want it to go now. And uh that’s that’s what my my stop is for. You know, if it’s not working now and it stops me out immediately, that means my trade is wrong. And it doesn’t matter if it goes, you know, 11 points and then reverses back. That’s fine. For me, that trade was wrong and and I’ll find another opportunity where that instant, you know, that instant 15 hits, my trade is is off off risk and uh and I can kind of ride the rest. But that that’s how I developed, you know, that my criteria is I’m okay with taking that that fast profit or fast stop. and I’m okay with uh being either right right away or right out. From your experience with not only yourself but just people other traders that you know, do you think it’s possible for someone to sort of have a personality like that, let’s say, who wants something now, who sort of appreciates the speed of things, but then them try to adapt and and force themselves to be say a swing trader for example. I think that they are putting themselves into a very very difficult corner where they have they’re fighting themselves and and knowing their personality. And I’ll take myself for example, they would be constantly monitoring that swing. They wouldn’t let that trade play out. So, for me, that’s something I’ve worked very hard on is being able to let, you know, letting a a swing play out and utilizing more capital with it on on, you know, the option side where I’m putting a lot more uh a lot more size on than than you know, my my futures account or or my my properform account. Um and but that takes a long time and and something you have to consistently work on and it’s very difficult. There’s no reason to fight, you know, you yourself as a person. Um if you are okay with taking those longer positions and you’re okay waiting those four, eight, you know, hours or maybe even weeks, you know, if you’re swinging, why box yourself into a scalping mindset? you’re, you know, you’re not utilizing your own mental edge and where you you can uh excel the most. And when it comes to you becoming the trader you are today, is there anything that you really had to change in order to make that happen? Uh the biggest thing I I would say that that changed about me is the ability to uh be okay with taking losses. Cuz for myself and and my my trading, uh it’s it’s very difficult to be wrong because it’s it’s a scalper strategy. It’s a uh high win rate percentage strategy. So when you are wrong, not on the trade but on the day it is very difficult you know just to swallow it. Be okay with it. Realize that expectancy will play out in your favor. You do have that positive you know the the positive expectancy to swing your way and you don’t need to force that red day into a green one. And that was probably the most difficult pill I I would say in trading to swallow is is you know being wrong on the day is fine because it only happens so so rarely when that happens even now is it something that kind of still there is that something that you feel like for traders in general is always going to be a case where you have that negative feeling look no trader wants to be wrong. I mean if you’re wrong all the time what are you doing? You know what I mean? But um as far as as far as myself, yeah, it’s it’s definitely it’s definitely still there. It’s I think even even the best traders, you know, I know I’m I’m definitely not speaking about myself. The great, you know, traders that do triple quadruple my size and profit, they do um they struggle with that, too. I mean, nobody no trader wants to be wrong, but it’s something that does happen. And you and you don’t want that wrong day to turn into a blowup black swan. Now you’re all now your whole bankroll is gone because you couldn’t swallow that red day. And that’s a reality as well. That is a reality. You know, you’ve seen there’s countless examples of people who are hedge fund managers who, you know, had one of the best performing uh hedge funds and lost everything in a short space of time due to literally going on tilt and having that exact feeling, which is crazy to think, right? Because I think the general assumption is once you’re profitable, you know what you’re doing and you don’t really find yourselves in those situations. But that can happen at any time to anyone regardless of how good or how much profit you’ve made. But when it came to identifying that, were there certain things that have helped you when those moments do come to handle it better? Yeah. So, so, uh, one of the things I work on consistently now is knowing when I have that tilt mindset, when I’m when I’m fighting tilt, because when you’re when you’re on fire and you feel it, I mean, there’s there’s a completely different feeling than when you’re on tilt. And uh one of the things that I worked on the most I think in the last year is knowing when I’m on winner’s tilt. When I’m up a lot on the day, when I’m feeling on fire and once because I I let me let me say this. The market, if you’re in it long enough, will always win. It will always win if you’re if you let the opportunity come and you’re in it long enough, you will have that loser. Now, when you’re on uh you know, you’re on a winning streak and and you’re up, you know, thousands and and sometimes even hundreds of thousands of dollars and you keep going, well, you’re let you’re giving yourself that opportunity. You’re giving the market the opportunity to take that money back. And I call that winner’s tilt is when you take that loss and then you want to get back to your win because that’s your high point, right? you want. And then so you take another loss and then oh snap, now you’re even further away. And now that that that that positive edge that you had in the morning, that positive mindset where you’re on fire starts starts deteriorating rapidly because now you’re you’re fighting tilt. Now you’re fighting now now you’re not thinking about the trade. You’re thinking about where was I 10 minutes, 20, 30, 40 minutes ago. I want to get back there. And that’s something that I uh that I’ve put a lot of progress into. It’s something that I try to, you know, teach um or try to um tell people when they ask me, you know, what what can I do about about tilting about tilting my day away? Well, you have to be able to identify it. For me, I’ll tell you where it starts. It starts in my stomach. I feel it in my stomach. So when I so when as soon as I immediately you know feel that that you know butterfly effect in my stomach and I can feel it in my in my neck um I’m sure a lot of people you know if they pay close attention to their tilt days they’ll have that same that same uh same feeling and um uh as soon as that starts happening you have to take a step back you know go eat a sandwich go drink some water or maybe even close out for the day because now you’re not fighting fighting you now you are fighting the market instead of instead of really utilizing your uh mental edge and your strategies and your setups. You make an interesting point there which was going to be one of my questions which is which do you struggle with more handling wins or losses? Oh, I handle wins just fine. Win wins are great. Uh lot definitely losses. I mean, it’s it’s it’s hard for me to handle it’s hard for me to handle, you know, being wrong and and not like I said, not on the trade, but on on the day. And if it’s two or three or four consecutive losses, now you’re now you’re fighting uh being completely off, you know, and now you’re you’re you’re if you’re if you have a 70% win rate or 78 and you’re wrong four times in a row, what’s the chances of that happening? And for myself, you know, if that happens, then you have to be cognizant enough of of the fact that you might just be reading the market, the structure, or maybe you’re you just didn’t sleep well or you got an argument with your wife and you have to be just okay with, you know, that that that’s it for the session that you don’t need to make a red day into a blowout day. So, in you following the same lines, do you I know we talked in Chanatics about you having rules of number of setups a day. Do you have like a loss limit for the day or do you kind of just really try and gauge it of how you’re feeling on that particular day? Uh, so so I don’t have a set rule, but I do have a feeling rule and that that feeling is is when I get uh hotheaded, you know, and I start, you know, scratching my head. I’m like, what the heck is going on? As soon as I start doing that and I start, you know, questioning what what the market is doing and start throwing my hands in the air, that’s that’s the time for me to take, you know, take a step back, start start looking at myself from a third person’s point of view or second person’s point of view, I guess, in this case, and and uh take myself out of the market because my reads are just wrong on the day. I love that. And you know, when it comes to the biggest issues you see prop firm traders face, like what really stands out to you is one that they shouldn’t really be facing if they just did certain simple steps. Oh, that’s a great question. Um, I think honestly the the biggest one would would be the biggest one I’ll I’ll speak personally. The biggest one that helped me succeed in in prop firms is being uh okay with having that, you know, the base hit day. I call them Casio days. The the reason is because the watch. Yeah. The watch. Cuz nobody, you know, when you’re starting out, nobody starts starts with a with a with a Rolex or an AP or whatever. They start off with a Casio. And and that’s my base hit analogy is nobody starts off with that three or four, you know, the $20,000 day or or or whatever. Depends how big you trade, but everybody starts off with that, you know, especially if they’re new, they start off with that $200 or $300 session. And if you stack those up for 10 days, well, guess what? You just got to pay out. So, so you know, being being okay with those small days, being okay with stacking those those base hits, those Casios, and and working your strategy and yourself up to the point where you can size up higher and you can take bigger profits and and just being being cognizant of the fact that even smaller days stack, you know, over the course of 10, 20, 30 days will get you that, you know, that maximum payout. Don’t know where the market’s going next? Stop worrying about your trading. Just get informed on exactly what’s happening in the markets and what to expect. From forex to futures to stocks to crypto, be on top of it all. That’s why tens of thousands of traders are subscribed to Market Journal, a free newsletter that allows traders to keep up to date with the markets every single week. Remember, an informed trader is a profitable trader. It doesn’t matter if Trump tweets, AI stocks are pumping, or if Bitcoin drops out of the sky. Market Journal has you covered. Join for free today using the link in the description below. Let’s take a break for a minute there, guys, cuz I want to tell you about our sponsor, Tradezeller. Tradzella is the number one trading tool for all traders. Doesn’t matter whether you’re a crypto trader, a futures trader, or a forex trader, whatever trader you are, all you do is connect your trading platform directly with Tradzella. It automates and makes your trading journaling so easy. If you want to be a profitable trader, you need Trading Edge. And that is exactly what Tradella does. It allows you to identify edge, maintain your edge, and optimize your edge by automating your trade journaling, in-depth analytics, back testing, bar replay, and so much more. Now, W gets you 20% off your yearly subscription with Trade Zeller. So, use W for 20% off your yearly subscription or RZ 10 for 10% off your monthly subscription. The link is in the description below. Now, let’s get back to this episode. Going off the same line of the base here, do you think more traders then should be focusing on base hits first rather than trying to identify like you know the outlier trade or trying to identify their aar setup? Like they focused on their base hit trading first dayto day build that consistency. Do you think that’s a better path for traders to take? I mean look you know you make you make most of your most of your days consist of base hits. Mine do. I mean, uh, most of my days aren’t 30 or or $80,000 days. They they’re consistent profits. And the outlier days, you know, they’ll come I if you if but the only way they will come is if you are alive long enough to get to them. So, base hits kind of get you to to the point where where you can get those, you know, home run swings. I’m using a lot of baseball analogies, but that’s just that’s just trading. trading is is uh kind is a mental sport, I guess. Um, but base hits should be your your, you know, the most of your days. And the outlier days, that’s the reason why they’re outlier days is is is you’ll have those huge profits, but you shouldn’t be focusing on only hitting those because then you’ll just miss out on opportunities or you’ll just continuously get stopped out looking for those huge swings. Well, you’ve seen the the film, I think it’s called Moneyball. Yeah. Have you seen it? So that’s, you know, to your point, the whole premise of that film is someone de developed an algorithm that broke down the stats of the the baseball roster, if you will. They created a bespoke team all based on who gets on base because the statistics said whoever got on base statistically would make more points. I don’t know how baseball works. Apologies for the American audience who will slaughter me. But um but yeah, the whole premise of that is based on that base hit uh analogy of the more people who get on base, the more likely we’re going to have or be the champions essentially. And it’s a great film. Watch it because it does have sort of like not trading element to it, but it’s got that statistical sort of edge element to it which is very translatable. Yeah. So it’s a it’s a great analogy and I think to your point you know being alive long enough you threw base hits but would you say also if you are someone who wants to execute those you know a star outlier trades you have to be sharp enough to do so and sort of in tune with the market and the only way to do that is to be participating on that base hit level. Yeah, correct. And and there will there will shoot, you know, by when this when this episode is airing two two days ago, we had a 35% move in silver and and you know, in order to take advantage of a move like that, whether it’s it’s through options, shares, you know, short selling or or f the future side, you had to have stayed long enough to to endure the huge uptrend as well. So, you know, I’ve seen a lot of traders get blown out trading and and chasing moves and putting on that huge size before the setup was formed. And um and you know, what’s the point of a 35% huge drop where where you could have made millions? I’m sure I’m sure some people even made hundreds of millions uh funds. I mean, maybe not individuals. Uh but there might be so a year’s time we’ll hear a story of a trader in their bedroom who did something. Absolutely. You know that that’s a completely outlier move. But what’s the point if if you’re all out of capital, all out of risk and and you know you could take that analogy to prop firms, you could take that analogy to real, you know, trading your actual real capital is in order to capitalize on the opportunity given, you must stay alive long enough. And the way you stay alive long enough is being okay with taking those smaller days and stacking those so you can so you can get to that point where you can have that humongous session. How would you describe if you were to look at your trading over the say last year or six months even? How would you describe the dayto-day? Would you describe it as exciting or No, trading for me now isn’t isn’t very exciting at all actually. It’s it’s quite it’s quite boring because I’ve I haven’t had that discovery period where I’m making these these uh new setups etc. I will say this in in the last six months and actually all of 2025, I gave myself a kind of new target where I would I looked at professional traders, you know, that have done much better than me. And the one thing that I’ve noticed is that all of them have not just one instrument that they focus on. They have multiple they have multiple instruments. And uh that’s that goes for equities. You know, on the future side, it’s also the same way. You can do the same thing. If the NASDAQ is chopping around and it’s going in in a 30 point range, well, maybe gold or silver or or shoot, I even started trading trading copper as well. Maybe they are utilizing your playbook much better. And uh and that’s that goes for for any trader. You know, when you’re starting off, it’s great to know one instrument and utilize and and really execute on it. But once you are at the point where you have taken that instrument and you know its ins and outs and you know how the market behaves, you can start you you can start writing a playbook for other other um markets, other instruments, other asset classes and uh and that’s how you stay sharp. When one market isn’t moving, another one is and that’s how you can make money even in in a dead market, you know. So you would say you get your excitement really from developing and learning as a trader. Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s that’s you know the money the money is is amazing. That’s why I started you know but the actual uh the actual process and the actual uh aspect of learning the markets and learning how an instrument moves and and knowing when to press the gas on an on a certain asset class or or when on a certain setup. That’s what really, you know, that’s what really gets my love for for trading. Do you find that every trader has to get to that point where they really have that passion if they’re looking to sort of achieve the numbers you have and have mo most of all longevity within the markets? Let me put it like this. If you don’t have a love for the markets, you won’t make it even to the point where you are uh taking money out consistently. You you must love the process. I think every trader, you know, who has who has not just been around for for a year, but for many years has a love for the actual process and not just a love for the money. If you were to describe your trading today, would you say trading is easy or hard? Uh, let me put it like this. Trading for me right now is easy and boring. Um it’s I’m not fighting the market. I’m not fighting, you know, uh my setups. If anything, the only the only and that’s why in the beginning I said it’s 30% setup, 70% mental. The only thing that I’m fighting really is myself because the market will always I mean it’s always going to come out on top. It’s always going to be moving if you you know it’s always going to give opportunities as well but you know the only way to execute on those opportunities is if you’re sharp and you’re 100% and you can you can take you know yourself to to that level. And if you can’t, you know, on the day or or something happened, then you must be able to not fight yourself and and just be okay with with taking that um taking that day and maybe calling it an early session or or whatever. You’re predominantly price action. Well, not only predominantly, you are a price action based trader. Nowadays you see all these debates between orderflow and ICT and and all these different indicators and all these different styles that are available that people come across whether it’s through a social media influencer or whether it’s even channels like this one or or chafanatics like there’s so much out there. What would you recommend people to do to try and identify the right strategy for them? Oh, I love that question, RZ. And uh you know, for me, I I never had the opportunity to look at like ICT or order flow, but that’s just because of the way that I was set up. But that’s not to say, you know, you you can’t take a piece of every single thing and kind of develop your own style and your own edge. doesn’t have to be a concrete block where you can’t, you know, you can’t utilize order flow because you’re, you know, you trade, you know, something else or you can’t you can’t utilize uh price action trading because all you read is the DOM for example and the price ladder. If you if you can take multiple great aspects of every, you know, trading is not just one way, one one way and and one sizefits-all. If you can utilize different aspects of everything and and combine it into a single, you know, single edge, you know, you you take you take uh levels from here and you combine that with this and you have all this confluence that comes together. That’s how you become successful and and have a trade that you can put some risk on and know that you have some confidence in in that that position. Off the back of that, would you say though because after doing our chart nice episode, again, if you haven’t watched that, check it out. But off the back of that, there was one element where we were talking about how yes, you’re price action based, but you show a great understanding of what I would describe as like the mechanics of the market or you could say the DNA of the market, understanding where the buyers and sellers are trying to position, where they’re trapped, where the market should move based on that. Do you think regardless of what strategy you use, that is the sort of mindset that is necessary to really stay in tune and sharp and profitable? I mean, absolutely. Every every strategy that that you know you can utilize at the end of the day, day trading, all you’re really trying to figure out is where a certain side is trapped and how to squeeze them out and squeeze out their positions. That’s all day trading is. How can you find the most amount of trapped participants in a move and squeeze out their position? And you can use that using any number of ways. You can use a price action, you can use order flow, you can use, you know, reading reading the the the ladder. There’s so many ways to do it. But that but the core concept of everything as far as strategy and and actual day trading is in the short term where are the most amount of participants trapped and which side is pushing the other ones out. I love your system where you have uh the fixed stop, right? It no doubt probably simplifies in in many ways. There may be certain drawbacks there, right? um of of not being able to be too too flexible. But in terms of risk, you have your fixed stop. Do you based on, you know, depending on which account you’re trading, no doubt, but let’s say you have a a proper account that has a 5,000 just for random number and an easy number to work with has a 5,000 max draw out. Is there an allocation or percentage or or a monetary amount that you would then allocate to these trades? Uh no. And the reason being is is because every trade and every position has different uh different characteristics in terms of how much you know risk you should be putting on and how much risk you know how much profit you can squeeze out of that trade. If it’s you know if there’s not enough confluence maybe you don’t want to put four or five contracts on. Maybe you want to put one or two on and but but it when that A+ setup, you know, I I love I love when people say A+ setup. For me, I just I can kind of just visualize, you know, right now the perfect setup. You have everything going together. And at that point, you should be putting more risk on. But as far as the fixed stop goes, it’s just a way for myself to control my risk and and uh because my strategy has a lot of entries throughout the day. I’m okay with taking that 10point stop. I’m going to take I’m okay with taking, you know, the the first initial stop I’m getting in at a price higher or lower because, you know, that 10 points isn’t going to kill me. But taking that 50 point or maybe 100 point loss uh will you know and that’s that’s just me personally but there’s there’s people who are completely fine with that and that just goes uh back to what we were saying is is every person’s personality plays on on how they take a trade and how they position themselves. So would you say it actually helps you having that fixed stop because of the nature of your style of of being very scalper and quite a lot more volume of trades it allows you to accept a loss easier and equally by having that fixed rule does it allow as well so you don’t care if it does 11 pips or points sorry 12 points or whatever because you know my rule is 10 every trade regardless. Yeah. So, so it I’m I’m completely okay with getting I mean, yes, it does suck having a 10point stop and then it goes it goes uh you know 11 and then reverses. Of course, that sucks. But what that means is your idea is still valid. So, you did get stopped out correct, but you can still make, you know, you can still get another entry in there. It doesn’t have to be a 10point stop and I’m done for the day. That’s where that’s where, you know, a stopout, a small stopout is not the end of the world, but let’s say you have, you know, and you’re not positioned right. Let’s say you have a a 150 point stop uh and you’re not positioned right. Well, most of the time that’s in prop. That’s a blown account. That’s true. And when it comes to uh blowing accounts, like I’m guessing now, and correct me if I’m wrong, I’m guessing now it doesn’t really have much of an impact on you when it does happen, if it happens. But when it comes to earlier in your career, how would you look to overcome those scenarios when you get to that unfortunate stage? And I’ve, you know, that’s a that’s a great question that just all comes back to your to your mental and and uh you can even say the same thing about prop firms changing rules and and you know it it’s stuff stuff like that happens. You know, that’s just the nature of the game. If everybody was making money and everybody wasn’t blowing accounts, you know, then then props wouldn’t be around. But, uh, when it comes to blowing the account, and I’ve seen it time and time again, especially on newer people, uh, newer traders is they’ll just just, you know, like like have put a funeral on for that account, you know, they’ll just it’s the end of the world. You know what I mean? and and at a to a certain point, you know, it does suck losing that $100 or $150 depending on on the account size, but you can’t think about it for too long. Otherwise, you just you you miss out on so many more opportunities that that come your way and you’re messing up your your mental fortitude if if on the next account you keep thinking about the last account that you just blew. There’s a notion in the industry when it comes to prop firms as well in regards to moving to live. Like a lot of people kind of share a sent a negative sentiment when it comes to moving to live. Like what’s your thoughts as someone who’s really, you know, maximized payouts probably one of the top payout holders in the industry? You know, how have you found moving to live if you have moved to live? Like a lot of people really try and avoid it or just don’t want to go down that path. But I understand, you know, the nature of prop firms is so appealing, but you know, what’s the reality like of transitioning to live and and what’s that been like for you? Has there been any changes you’ve had to do accordingly to to really try and maximize that? Is it a pro or con in your opinion? Uh, it’s I would say it’s it’s neither. It’s just the reality of the situation. For myself, I’ve gotten transitioned to live on on uh five firms now. you know, it’s it a firm can’t keep paying you out simulated money on on scale. It just it it you know, that’s just the reality of it. For me, yes, it it does suck because you’re going from all this leverage and all this all this uh the I mean, I’ll just be honest, simulated fills are even better than live fills. And you know, you’re going from from 20, 30, 40 accounts to to like five, you know what I mean? And uh a lot of times the firm wants to protect itself. They don’t want you blowing that account in one day because a lot of a lot of you know big prop traders, they’re really good in simulated funds. They put on a lot of risk and they cannot take that same mindset into a live account and props want want to protect their capital as well. And uh as far as as far as it being a negative or a positive that’s just I mean the reality of the situation is a lot of firms they have to do this and as we go you know further into this game and more people you know start participating and I’m sure it’ll blow up even more in the in the coming years you’re going to see a lot less of this churn and burn mindset. M it’ll get phased out I believe and a lot more of this perform well in a live account and perform you know great in sim perform well in a live account and keep that account alive as as long as possible because that that’s just how the I mean you can see it right now the industry is is changing from sim only to to get a couple payouts and you’re live off the back of that would you say that If you were to try and replicate the same sort of payout numbers you have now, but starting from today, do you think that would be possible? Well, I would say that the the biggest the largest amount of payouts I’ve gotten uh in terms of monetary value has been from the live program at a firm. I’ve you know, but that is because they allow their traders to have more flexibility and to have more risk. However, if I was to start, you know, now today, I I I don’t think that it would be possible to scale as fast as it was back in the day. I would call them the the the golden days uh of prop was it was just a lot easier back then than it is now. A lot of firms have have taken a a different approach, a more slow down approach to to prop traders, successful prop traders. So with that in mind, what would you do if I say you’re starting today to maximize the leverage, maximize speed as an element, but you’re starting from today to try and rep not replicate the exact results, but replicate the consistency and the leverage that the props provide, but it was in today’s environment. uh going into this and and um thinking that this is this is just not a brand new person. I’m assuming this is a person that that has someone yeah got their edge. They may not have been funded yet. They may not have, you know, built up a big nest egg, but they’re in a very good position to utilize this leverage. What should they be doing? How should they be, you know, transitioning? And which steps should they take? So, if they’re already profitable and they have an idea of and and they know, you know, a general sense of prop firms in terms of of what they offer, I would definitely maybe not go uh max out at one firm and try to take as much as you can from one firm, but maybe do do that same thing and use multiple, you know, multiple prop firms. Uh because there’s so many now and there’s so many really good ones that pay out and there’s no hassle that you can take a great trader and he can become an absolute machine just based on on copy trading and the amount of profs that are reputable in the space. Now mentioned earlier in terms of like researching other trading professionals, right? And and sort of really pushing the boundaries and where you can get to as well throughout your career. Has there ever been sort of anyone you’ve looked to even though you developed your own strategy, but anyone who inspired you or took some value from that helped with your trading, even if it’s outside trading? So to answer that question, RZ, I really haven’t taken any inspiration from uh any other traders. And not because there aren’t any great amazing ones. There’s there’s ones that are so far above me in in in every regard. It’s just because I haven’t had the opportunity, you know, when I was starting out to look at what other traders are doing, other big successful traders. I was just focusing on my own thing and and I didn’t have the time for inspiration. I just wanted, you know, I just wanted to develop me myself and and um that’s that’s the answer to that question is as much as cocky as it as it might sound, but but it’s the truth. you know, I I really I really just didn’t have the opportunity to look up to these other bigger traders to off the back of that though, have you noticed a reoccurring theme from the traders you may know personally? Obviously, you know, we know from your journey now, but even others you may have heard of now or are friends with now. Have you noticed that as a reoccurring theme that actually the ones who do end up performing well especially end up performing very well usually it’s a case where yeah they may have read a book here or there or whatever it may be but when it comes to actually developing their skills it was done in solitude and internal focus. I think the answer to that question it’s it’s a two-part answer. What I’ve noticed most, you know, in most successful traders that I’ve been around is that they really enjoy the process of learning. They really enjoy the process of of being wrong and correcting themselves. And they really enjoy the process of just of just being one even 1% better the next day, even 1% better the next day, and and how can I fix the previous day’s mistake today? That’s something that I’ve seen uh a re it’s a reoccurring theme in successful traders and and people and traders that I know personally that have taken you know in real life markets and prop you know it’s all it’s all as far as mental goes it’s all the same in that regard but there has you know there’s there’s uh great traders that take inspiration from others like like um you know even on e we’re in a golden age of information where you can find amazing traders and and take inspiration off them off Twitter, off YouTube, on on any platform really and even trader meetups. I mean it’s it’s a great opportunity. One thing that is quite unique in this scenario as we talked about earlier which is in regards to you don’t sell a course, you don’t have affiliation, your sole income is trading. So, how do you how have you set up like a strong foundation or how do you make sure that the need for money to pay the bills, for example, the need to consistently make money month, day after day, doesn’t impact your psychology, your mental, is there anything that you put in place to kind of alleviate that? Uh, so, so I’m gonna get I think I’m gonna get a lot of hate for this, but all my money is in my is in my savings account getting two and a half percent. It’s It’s pretty sad actually. I know I could be getting like a higher percent and in the markets and whatnot, but I’ll be honest, I’m a I’m a permanent bear. Like, when when markets are at all-time highs, I I uh I think, you know, this is the one this is the crash. And it’s it’s definitely, you know, proven wrong for for hundreds of years. You know, the market has has gone up, but um my my money just sits in my in my savings account and and I’m completely content with that. you know, I’m I don’t really have a a fear of of uh not being able to provide for my family the next day just because of it would take a lot of uh bad decisions to wipe out my savings. But, you know, it’s definitely something I’m looking I’m looking to uh diversify into whether it’s it it it’s probably not going to be, you know, compound interest in the markets, but but real estate and and getting, you know, getting maybe some businesses set up or being that angel investor in a couple businesses. That’s definitely something I’m looking into. Me and my wife actually uh are looking in a place down here in in beautiful Florida where we can, you know, util utilize some of our some of our money in a market that has fallen off its all-time highs. Definitely. Where there’s a couple things I want to touch on. We’ll stay on this topic quickly. first, but would you say that having the financial cushion whether you know all savings or but a good financial cushion has really allowed you to sort of have that focus even earlier on where you kept your job for example because no doubt you probably heard horror stories that I have as well over the years of people who quit very early people who aren’t even profitable who just stopped to focus on trading double down on trading so the mindset is in a good place or the intention’s in a good place but they end up doing themselves 10x more harm and probably never get to that consistency because of all that pressure. So, would you say having a financial cushion is almost necessary as a trader? I I wouldn’t say it’s necessary. I would say it makes things a hell of a lot easier to to stomach on days that the market does not go your way or or something happens in your life where where you have that that immediate necessary need for money. It’s a lot easier to stomach things like that where if and I’ve seen it too, you know, I’ve I’ve seen it where guys have, you know, maybe a month’s worth of expenses and they go full-time and and that second month does not go well and now they’re they’re scrambling trying to figure out what the next steps are. Do I need to go back to work? Do I what’s you know, in that mindset, you definitely cannot perform to the best of your abilities. uh more it’s it’s like a fight or flight which you definitely you know in the in the market it’s definitely not something that gives you an edge of course and talking of performance actually you know as someone who is taking multiple positions a day very quick decision making is necessary what allows you to do that you know to operate with speed and precision and have that confidence in real time uh you know that’s that’s a great question RZ And let’s go let’s slow down a little bit. Let’s rewind. The reason I was I was getting, you know, 1.3 GPA in high school and and had all D’s was because, you know, at the time I was I was uh making money by playing video games and and I was, you know, boosting people’s accounts. And that’s how I would make, you know, I would make money is I would uh I would, you know, just grind out these uh these people’s accounts and and make money that way. And I would just skip out on school. I would do the bare minimum and and just get my D. But uh you know, now going forward, all all of that skill, I think, you know, as as far as scalping goes and uh and being able to quickly react, I’m I’m younger, so that helps too. But also, you know, having that ability to to, you know, your brain starts forming pretty young, early on to make those quick decisions very fast, very early. Interesting. Very interesting. How old are you, if you don’t mind me asking? 25. Wow. 25 years old, 5 million in payouts. It’s a it’s incredible journey. Like, what when you think about that, you know, you still have such a long career ahead of you when it comes to trading in particular. like where do you see yourself going within the trading industry in your career? Like what is your do you have a goal? Like what is your vision for that? Uh honestly the last year you know I really tasted what uh financial freedom can bring and and that’s the the best part for me was being able to spend you know all of my time with my wife when I’m not trading and being able to you know have those vacations every month and and being able to really see the world. But you know that’s like you said I still have a long life to live you know hopefully God willing and uh trading I trading is not something that I would like to be doing for the rest of my life. Interesting. I I think every trader will you know every successful trader will always have that you know the the need to know what the market is doing. But as far as trading every single day, that’s just not something that I want to do. I want I want to put risk on, you know, I want to put huge amounts of money on the line on certain setups later in my life where I can, you know, kind of swing that position and and get those returns on on the capital that I have. But I definitely don’t want to be in the market every single day for the rest of my life. I just think that takes away time from the more important things in life like family and and you know health and and being able to really really utilize the one life we’re given. Do you have a number in mind? Is there is there like a benchmark in mind where you would then look to tone things down or I I really honestly haven’t thought about that. I’m you know I don’t look at my bank account dayto day. I just really don’t uh I I know the number is around some some number but uh as far as as far as a static number I don’t think so. I think more so it would be how what can I accumulate by you know the 30 or 31 and and at what point do kids come into the equation and what at what point am I going to be um just more committed to being you know in my family’s life more than I am staring at charts of course and you know one thing that really stands out to me is uh something you mentioned very early on in terms of having the amount of accounts you have in terms of proper accounts and eval um and then you’re in cash account. Do you feel like it’s necessary for traders to have a cash account? Uh so a bit of a a bit of a two two-part answer to that. I think for the most part for a trader that’s just starting out and this might go against what a lot of people think is that having your own live account and learning on an own on your own live account is very harmful to your success very early on because taking that two or three or 4,000 or $5,000 account and blowing it and learning maybe a single thing or maybe not even learning anything at all is going to cost you a lot more financial strain than if you were to take that same, you know, $5,000 and learn a lesson every single time you would, you know, end up blowing your own account. Now, when you have sufficient enough capital where you’re not worried about, you know, losing accounts here and there and and you’re making money consistently, then opening up your own account where you can take, you know, take larger swings, you could put on more risk, you can take those those um those swings in the market where it’s more than a day because prop firms for the most part, they only offer that that window, you know, from from you know with the one day window you cannot hold a position. So, you weren’t really able to capitalize to the full, you know, to the full effect on, let’s say, a uh a parabolic move in in let’s say silver, for example. You know, that that that move was a multi-monthlong move and and you were able to capitalize on your own personal account, but you weren’t able to capitalize on a prop from account. And that’s huge amounts of profits and and uh you know once you’re at the point where you can have no stress in your life in terms of financial gain or finan financial stress I should say then absolutely you you can open up you know your own b personal account and I would even you know suggest that you do that but not until you really have you know that edge in place and you have the uh no financial stress in place as well. I think that’s very interesting point you made very very interesting because it was actually a question I was going to come to which was in regards to like how should people begin do you think do you think people should when developing their edge should they be sort of using uh prop firms sort of on a on a low level to do so or should they develop their edge first through like back testing and maybe just a simulated you know demo account and then once they’re starting to see the data understand the data and and sort of building that edge out then look to use props like what do you think to that side of things when it comes to actually developing a strategy very early days. I I’ll use myself an as an example. You know, when I first started trading futures, I traded on a on a simulated account on a on a fully simulated account, not a proper account. And it did me no good whatsoever. It taught me really bad habits like DCing until you’re green. It taught me habits like putting on more size with every single entry. Even though even though that is, you know, you can play into into a positive expected value with adding more size, you know, especially if you’re a version trader, but when you’re brand new, you don’t you don’t know all that. You’re just adding until you’re green. And that really a simulated a fully simulated account and was just a waste of time for me personally. Uh a prop firm, you are risking something. even though it’s simulated, you are risking, you know, that that $50 $100 that you are putting some risk on. So, you’re you’re trying your best to pass that account to get through the evaluation and get to fund it. Um whereas a simulated account, there is no really end goal. I mean, what’s what’s what’s the goal? You know, the goal is to learn a strategy, yes, but you know, your approach to it should be individual. I think some people would benefit from starting from sim and doing the back testing. I’ll be honest, I never I never did any back testing. All my all my strategy is all forward tested in real time markets. But, you know, again, it goes back to the thing where where every single person is unique and and different in trading. You know, some people back test religiously to make sure that that they’re still on top of their game and and there’s that’s how they get their competence. Whereas myself, you know, I don’t really care too much about that. I just want to make sure that the next day ends up being, you know, and then the next day my edge is in play. The next day my edge is in play. Um, and as far as sim and prop, for me personally, sim was a waste of time. uh you know prop being sim as well you’re still putting on some sort of risk. It’s a lot you have something to gain right there’s something on the line versus pure and something to lose. Yeah which is actually probably the most important bit right being able to build that risk appetite when it comes then to the prop side of things. Is there a particular rule that stands out to you that traders should always make sure they are checking firm to firm because it’s the one that kind of catches you out or the one that you know can really change or hinder things in your performance? I think years ago it was the intra intraday trailing draw down rule. A lot of traders got cut off. They’re like, “How could I possibly have blown this account when I’m green on it?” Mhm. Now a lot of firms have went a different route with the uh end of day where where whatever money you you make if you lose you’ll be you’ll be fine whereas intraday you know if you made money and then lost that same amount the account would probably be blown. Uh nowadays I would say you know with this evolution of of prop firms and and you know how they stay safe is is a daily loss limit and consistency rules. You don’t want to have, you know, a, let’s say, let’s say, for example, let’s do a 20% consistency rule account with a daily loss limit. And you need to get uh $9,000 for a payout. Well, that’s I believe I don’t know what that is. That’s like $1,500 a day, I think. Maybe maybe it’s a little less. Well, you do the first day of,500, the second day of,500, third day of,500. So, you’re trying to stay in the lines of that account, but you also have a daily loss limit. Let’s say on the fourth day, the daily loss limit is $4,000, right? So, on the fourth day, you hit your daily loss limit. M well now it’s going to take you like like 2 weeks just to get back to where you were. If you if you do the if you you know you take it slow and and you take into account the uh draw down left in the account. You’re not going to be risking the same amount of capital, the same amount of of of risk that you would be when you first started the account because you only have so much, you know, left to risk. Mhm. When it comes to the the definition of a trader, like what is that to you? The definition of a trader to me is someone that that sees the opportunity and risktaking and is not scared of the outcome of being wrong. I’m sure the audience will as well. And when it comes to prop firm accounts now there’s a lot of options, right? There’s straight to funded, there’s uh one steps. I don’t think there’s anything beyond one steps. There’s different rule parameters, but there are a lot of different options now compared to when you first started. But is there a go-to eval type that you think is like the best one to really master or go for? Does anything stand out to you in that regard? Yeah. So, so I’ll answer that question a little bit different way. I will say I will never do a straight defunded account. Okay. I think that the uh the cons vastly outweigh the negatives of not being able to do an evaluation. And I I’ll put it like this. If you cannot pass an evaluation, what makes you think that you will do better in a straight to funded account? But for me personally, uh I would I enjoy the uh one day to pass accounts. Okay. Um I like the as far as evaluations go, that’s that’s what I would do. I like no consistency rules on funded accounts. Um or if there’s a consistency rule, maybe maybe definitely not 20%. You know, um but no consistency rules and one day to pass. That’s definitely something that I look for. I love that. And to finish up now, there’s uh two or three questions I like to ask. One being one being, what is the best trading advice you’ve ever heard? Uh, RZ, the best advice when I first started out with prop firms, and I take it to this day was you can only lose in prop firms one of two ways. Uh, way num the number one way is just you are not cut out for this. You can’t make it. You you you’re just not built for it. And that goes back to your mental. And number then the second way is not taking the money from the profirm when you are where you are eligible. So those are so if you have a return on a prof firm on your spend the only way you can lose that return is by not taking the money. That is the only way. Once that money is there most of the time it’s it’s 8 to 10x your spend. So you have eight to 10 times the opportunity to to replicate your success again and again and again. And um that’s that’s probably the best is always take the money from profirms. To throw another one at you, what’s the worst trading advice you’ve ever heard? The worst trading advice is it’s funny. It’s probably the opposite side of that equation is is uh is only only you know take nothing you know take not keep growing that account grow this is this is prop firms you know a live account is is different but on prop firms you know how many times have you seen personally or me or the audience I’m sure they felt it or I’ve even done it shoot where you’re trying to you’re eligible for a payout you can take the payout you can s you and secure that return, but you decide not to and you keep growing that account and a day later you end up blowing it up. Mhm. It’s that uh wanting for more to use that leverage even further, right? And a lot of the time, especially nowadays, it’s like trying to be a record holder of some kind or on some sort of leaderboard or whatever it may be. Pros and cons always with these things. And uh to finish up, I would love for you to kind of just give we’ve gone over so much and I I know that the audience will, you know, be loving this episode, but if you can just look down this camera right here and just give a your your best motivational speech directly to the audience, if you picture yourself back when you’re just finding consistency or not consistent yet, what would you have loved to have heard um you at that stage that would help you to to progress and become consistent? Sure. Absolutely. Uh, I’m just a regular guy. Like, I’m a 25year-old person. I’m married to to my beautiful wife. I started as a construction worker making $12.60 an hour. My parents aren’t rich. Uh, and I made it. Like, I I have financial freedom for myself and my family. And if I can do it, a straight D student from high school, you know, that isn’t the smartest person in the world whatsoever, then you guys can do it, too. You absolutely can. You know, prop firms and trading in general give such a huge opportunity to regular guys and girls just like us. I love that. Huge congratulations on everything that you’ve achieved so far and I have no doubt you’ll continue to do in the future. And uh very excited that we will be rolling into tomorrow uh the incredible roundt. Oh, that’ll be awesome. Incredible round table. You don’t know the details yet, but you’ll see. But everyone at home, drop a comment of your biggest takeaway from this episode. I know there was a lot that we covered, especially going through the proper route and just generally being a consistent profitable trader. Any questions you have, drop them in the comments section below, but links for Okala will be in the description below. So, make sure you check those out as well. Other episodes are on screen right now. Hit like, hit subscribe, and until next time, everyone, take care.