Mike | MasterTrading

Founder, PsychoIogy first. Helping traders rewire the patterns that sabotage their trading. 15 yr Trader.

[Mike | MasterTrading @MikeChavla]

@t0mbfx The rule isn't the problem, it's that you can't hold it the moment a loss registers as a threat and your nervous system takes over. Fix that, and everything else follows.

[Mike | MasterTrading @MikeChavla]

Nobody has ever revenge-traded their way back to calm. Doesn't stop any of us trying.

[Mike | MasterTrading @MikeChavla]

I traded for years before I accepted the uncomfortable part: the human brain was never built to do this.

So I stopped trying to out-discipline mine and built a tool to recondition it instead. This is why I built MasterTrading.

[Mike | MasterTrading @MikeChavla]

Nothing humbles a trader like telling your therapist "I'm fine" and then revenge-trading the London open twenty minutes later.

[Mike | MasterTrading @MikeChavla]

@deartrader__ What trading taught me about myself in a decade no therapist ever could.

[Mike | MasterTrading @MikeChavla]

You don't need a new strategy. You've got three that work. What you need is to be able to follow one of them when your hands are shaking. That's the whole game most people never train.

[Mike | MasterTrading @MikeChavla]

@tradericch There is no lesson here as long as the plan was followed. What if it had worked out, entirely possible. What would the lesson be then? Were the rules applied? If yes. This is part of the game.

[Mike | MasterTrading @MikeChavla]

The five stages of grief, but it's one losing trade.
Denial: it'll come back.
Anger: move the stop.
Bargaining: just to breakeven.
Depression: close it.
Acceptance: revenge trade.

[Mike | MasterTrading @MikeChavla]

The hardest skill in trading isn't entries. It's sitting flat and doing nothing while your hands itch to click. Nobody teaches it because there's no indicator for it.

[Mike | MasterTrading @MikeChavla]

@t0mbfx A copied strategy has no reps behind it. When it draws down you've got no memory of surviving that exact pain, so you bail at the worst moment. Building your own is really building the conviction to sit through the drawdown. That part can't be handed over.

[Mike | MasterTrading @MikeChavla]

A state where you can detach yourself from the outcome of each trade is not an easy one to master. The market does what it does, you have zero control over it. The only thing you have is probabilities. Assuming you have a statistical egde. 

You can train your nervous system though. It takes time and effort, but it's possible.

[Mike | MasterTrading @MikeChavla]

Your strategy has a win rate. Your nervous system has one too. Most traders I have known, only ever work on the first, then wonder why nothing changes. Don't be that trader. Once you learn how to tame the lion (your nervous system), everything else falls into place.

[Mike | MasterTrading @MikeChavla]

@RijhwaniSheetal The reason the reckless one becomes a story is that it gave you a dopamine hit the boring one never could. The nervous system logs the rush, not the plan. That's why "just follow your process" fails, the body is quietly rewarding the wrong thing.

[Mike | MasterTrading @MikeChavla]

@BearBullTraders Deep inhale - indicates you are about to tilt.

[Mike | MasterTrading @MikeChavla]

Over the years I've worked a lot on myself, with several genuinely good therapists. None of them ever really got what trading throws at me. The problem was never in the room. It showed up the second the money went live, in my body, before I could think.

[Mike | MasterTrading @MikeChavla]

"Just be more disciplined" is the most useless advice in trading. Discipline is a battery, and it's flat by the afternoon. The ones who last aren't more disciplined. They're better conditioned. And you can condition yourself too. How? Find your triggers and process them one by one. Its reps, time, consistency.

[Mike | MasterTrading @MikeChavla]

Plenty will disagree with this. I'm happy to have that argument. The revenge trade you took wasn't a decision. It was a body trying to discharge a feeling. You knew it was wrong while you were clicking. That's the tell. It was never about information.

[Mike | MasterTrading @MikeChavla]

Discipline is the most overused word in trading. You don't have a discipline problem. You have a nervous system that overrides your plan the second money is on the line. No willpower beats biology. Train the body, don't scold it.

[Mike | MasterTrading @MikeChavla]

Just over seven years ago I became obsessed with one question: why do traders who know exactly what to do still break their own rules? I had the problem myself, so I went deep into the science to find out. It took me on a long journey inwards. 

Most trading psychology answers it with journal, breathe, be more disciplined. All of it works on your thinking. But the thing breaking your rules is not your thinking.

Your triggers, the stop-out on the exact pip, the funded account creeping toward its limit, the third loss of the session, have become conditioned. Your body learned to fire an urge the moment they show up, faster than thought.

So I built MasterTrading to work at that layer. You name your specific triggers, then take them one at a time. Desensitise each until the urge stops firing, and install the calm, focused state you want in its place. It takes time, reps and commitment. But it works. I use my tool every day. 

The trigger still happens in the market. What it does to you is different.

Not a course. Not signals. Not therapy.