Steve Willis

I design learning systems for course creators who want to know if their members can execute.

[Steve Willis @WillConnect_]

The members who train the hardest in the gym are not always the ones who perform on competition day

They know the technique. They’ve drilled it a thousand times. They can walk you through every step

And then the moment is real and the body does something completely different

Course creators, this happens inside your community every single week.

[Steve Willis @WillConnect_]

Most of your longest-standing members are still quietly avoiding the one honest look that would actually transform them.

They joined for results. They stayed for the community.

But deep down they know the real reason they’re not profitable yet has nothing to do with missing a module.

It’s the gap between what they’ve consumed… and what they’ve actually done with it.

The modules are there. The strategy is there. What’s missing is the bridge between learning and doing.

That’s what actually separates the ones who make it from the ones who stay trapped.

If you’re a trading educator, ask yourself this: are you actually tracking execution, or just activity?

[Steve Willis @WillConnect_]

I have lost more times than I want to admit chasing the next strategy

New setup, new indicator, some edge I read about on a Sunday night that was going to change everything

And it always felt like progress, like I was doing the work, learning, getting sharper

But if I am honest most of that was the fun part, the part that feeds the bit of me that wants to feel like I am getting somewhere faster (ego)

The thing that would have actually moved me was never the new strategy

It was sitting with my own trade history and asking why I keep closing too early when I am scared, it was being honest about the same mistake showing up for the hundredth time, it was the slow unglamorous work of looking at what I actually do instead of what I tell myself I do

None of that is exciting, so I put it off, and I think almost everyone does the same in their careers

We would rather learn something new than face something true

What changed it for me was realising the deep work does not have to be miserable

If you build the process so uncovering the hard stuff is actually interesting, even a bit of a relief, you start running toward it instead of away

That is the difference between a course that adds to the pile and a place that actually changes someone

I think about that a lot now, the members out there doing everything right, collecting strategies, quietly avoiding the one honest look that would move them

I just want to build the thing that makes that look feel worth taking.

[Steve Willis @WillConnect_]

Around one in eight people finish the online course they start

The other seven are gone, mostly exit stage left

And the ones who do finish, the engaged ones, asking good questions in the community, are not automatically the ones who can act on any of it

Showing up is the easiest thing to see

It is also the easiest thing to mistake for progress.

[Steve Willis @WillConnect_]

A course gets built on what the creator can see

Right now that is completion, activity, and a poll asking members what they want next

Imagine you could see something else, the actual ability of your members, where the understanding falls short, where they go quiet and push through anyway

You would stop guessing

You would build toward where they actually struggle, not toward the thing that sounds good in a poll

What members ask for is usually the shiny version, the new strategy, the next setup

What they need is the gap they cannot see in themselves

A course that can see that is not flying blind, it is building from the truth.

[Steve Willis @WillConnect_]

Stop building your next module on completion data

Completion rate, watch time, quiz scores, it is all already on your dashboard, and it feels like knowing your members

Every one of those numbers tells you the same thing, someone reached the end

None of them tell you if that someone could use it the moment they have to act on it

A ninety percent quiz score is proof they remembered it that day, not proof they can apply it

So before you build the next thing, run one filter, does my data show they can do it, or only that they finished it

If it only shows finished, the next module is a guess instead of a plan.

[Steve Willis @WillConnect_]

Online education is booming toward $840 billion by 2030

The skill being sold has never been easier to put online, record it, upload it, call it a course

The skill of teaching it has not moved at anything like the same speed

So there are more courses than ever, built by people genuinely excellent at what they do, and a learner can finish one and still not be able to do the thing it promised

Course creators are not the problem, the craft just never caught up with the money

Knowing something and being able to get it into someone else are two different jobs.

[Steve Willis @WillConnect_]

For years I was the trading community member who devoured the content

Finished every lesson, watched every live call, did the hard yards learning the craft

And I loved it, I was improving every week and my results showed the effort going in

But the gaps started to show when I was trying to put certain concepts together and there was no direct feedback to tell me if I was actually getting it or just thought I was

I didn't want my hand held, so I ended up building my own resources and figuring out my own way through, it kinda felt like I'd been handed the keys and told to drive

And knowing how I learn best, sitting in a community where the course was never really set up for someone like me to succeed, that was a hard pill to swallow

I bought all the way into the culture, the leaders were genuinely great at what they do

But I've spent years teaching, and I could see it, the content was barely being assessed and no one was tracking outcomes

This isn't a shot at trading course creators, I honestly think they just don't know there's a better way

Posting questions into a Discord was never my style

So I sat with it quietly

I just wish there had been something that could find the members who are doing everything right and still feel helpless, and let them know they are not on their own.

[Steve Willis @WillConnect_]

Every trading community has the member who is always "fine"

How's it going, yeah good, learning heaps, getting there

Everyone moves at their own pace

But fine is the easiest thing in the world to say and the hardest thing to actually check

I spent years being the member who said fine.

[Steve Willis @WillConnect_]

Your members can all tell you why they failed the last challenge

Ask them what they will do differently at the exact moment it happens again

That is where it goes quiet.

[Steve Willis @WillConnect_]

Before the next module, before the next live call, one question worth sitting with

Of the members who have been with you the longest, what would actually tell you their thinking has changed

Not that they are still here

Not that they still turn up

What would show you the strategy is in there when it is just them and the screen.

[Steve Willis @WillConnect_]

The member who has been in your trading community for years

Watches every setup, knows the strategy blindfolded, asks the sharp questions in the chat

Course creators read that as someone who is developing

And often they are

Sometimes it is someone who has been absorbing for years without ever finding out where their gaps actually are.

[Steve Willis @WillConnect_]

Years in the community, every live call, every module finished, every question asked

That is real commitment, and it is worth celebrating

But commitment is not the same as transfer

Records tell you they kept showing up

They do not tell you the strategy actually made it into how they think when a decision is in front of them.

[Steve Willis @WillConnect_]

A white belt taps, comes off the mat and says they just need to get stronger

Any coach who has been around knows it is almost never that, so you don’t coach off what they tell you, you run the same round from the same position over and over and watch where it actually falls apart, the hips stop moving the second there is pressure, it was never strength

Prop firm educators are trying to coach without that round

The member does the challenge alone, blows it or scrapes through, comes back with “I panicked” or “I got greedy”

And that story is the whole report

What a member says went wrong and what actually went wrong in their decision making are two different things, one is Risk, one is Emotional, and the report almost never tells you which

The coach gets to see the round

The educator only gets the story.

[Steve Willis @WillConnect_]

Been thinking about how easy it's become to build a course

AI and platforms like Skool and Kajabi, you can have something live in a weekend now

And a lot of it is pretty decent, real expertise, proper communities, people putting skills out there that are worth paying for

But here's the thing I keep trying to wrap my head around

Most of these never let the creator see what the member actually does with what they're taught

You teach it, they watch, maybe they finish it, maybe they answer a quiz, then they go off and try to use it somewhere you can't see

You don't find out if it held up, you don't find out where it fell apart, you don't find out what that person actually needed from you

And that's the feeling I'm sitting with right now

A resource hands someone the knowledge and says go use it

A course closes the loop, it shows you if they can actually use it, and what to fix if they can't

The first one is easy to build now

The second one is harder, and it's the only one that shows you if any of it actually worked.

[Steve Willis @WillConnect_]

@Bradgohtrades Guide

[Steve Willis @WillConnect_]

Something I keep coming back to

When a member fails a prop firm challenge for the third time and reaches out, what they usually get is encouragement

Keep going, you're close, trust the process, the funded account is coming

And I get it, that's what you do, you keep your community motivated, you keep them in the game

But encouragement is not a diagnosis

A member who keeps failing the challenge at the same point, in the same conditions, under the same pressure, does not need to be told they're close

They need to know specifically what is going wrong in their decision making and where

Is it Risk, are they oversizing when they're behind, are they trying to claw back a bad day in one trade

Is it Emotional, are they holding positions too long because they can't stomach the loss, are they revenge trading after a two losses in a row

Those are two completely different problems with two completely different fixes

And right now most prop firm educators genuinely cannot tell which one it is for which member

Not because they don't care, they do

But because nothing in their program was ever designed to show them that.

[Steve Willis @WillConnect_]

86% of prop firm traders never reach a funded account

Course creators in this space built entire programs to fix that problem

The content is good, the coaching is consistent, the community keeps showing up

And the pass rate inside most of those communities is probably not far off the industry avg

Good content does not guarantee a member holds their nerve when it costs them real money.

[Steve Willis @WillConnect_]

The member who has failed three prop firm challenges knows exactly what went wrong

"I need more discipline." "I took too much risk on that one trade." "I let the drawdown get in my head."

They've named the problem

They just don't know what to do with it before they're sitting in the same position again.

[Steve Willis @WillConnect_]

Some prop firm educators have been running their communities for years

Good content, consistent coaching, members who keep showing up after every failed challenge

What doesn't get figured out is if the failure is a Risk problem or an Emotional one

Because both look identical from the outside, a blown account and a trade review that doesn't go deep enough to tell you which one it was

Before the next live call, one question worth sitting with: for the members who keep failing, is it Risk or Emotional that's doing it, and what in their current program would tell them that before the next challenge runs.