Alright, so, I’m taking a break. A multi-week, maybe longer, break from full-time active trading. I’ve been thinking about it, and I wanted to share what I’ve been going through and why I’m making this change.
For the past few months, during a gap between jobs, I decided to go all-in on trading. The idea was to see if I could just dedicate myself completely and finally “crack the code” as a human trader. Truth is, it hasn’t quite worked out the way I hoped. Let’s be honest, trying to make a living just trading actively? For me, it just wasn’t clicking. I couldn’t pull in the consistent gains I needed. And I’ve got these weaknesses, these “faults” as I’d call them, that kept tripping me up, especially when the pressure was on.
See, about every six months, it seems to happen. The money starts to get tight, the pressure mounts, and boom – I start making bad decisions. I push past my own risk limits, and things go sideways. It’s a frustrating cycle. When your back’s against the wall, and you feel like you have to win, that’s the absolute worst time to be trading.
Don’t get me wrong, this whole sprint has been incredibly productive in other ways. I’ve learned a ton about myself and the markets. My trading has definitely improved. I had some good runs, for sure. But the intensity of it all… it just taxes your nervous system. You need to reset. So, that’s what I’m doing. I’m probably going to step away from active trading for a bit, reorganize my office, and really focus on crafting a killer CV and resume. I need to find a job, something maybe a little less high-stakes, even if it means a bit less pay, just to recover and recharge. I went hard at this trading thing, and I got close, but it’s time for a different approach.
Interestingly, even with the trading struggles, I had a burst of creativity. While I was in the thick of it, I actually developed two product ideas. One’s a trading card game – think Warhammer meets Magic: The Gathering, a tabletop strategy game with cards. And the other is a deck of cards, encapsulating all my trading psychology lessons, designed to help other traders. Pretty cool, right? It’s been a really intense three or four months, full-time. Honestly, I’ve had my fill for now. I need to shift gears, become more passive income focused, and get serious about that job search.
Speaking of which, I recently got rejected from that game studio. Darkbright. That stung, and it took longer than I expected to hear back. In hindsight, I should have been sending out resumes way sooner. As soon as that rejection email hit, things started to unravel a bit in my trading too. It’s like everything compounded.
The good news is, I’ve been grinding on prop firm challenges. So, even if I do go on tilt, the actual money lost is only in the three-figure range. I even had an eight-month run on a $300 challenge, got refunded, and funded again off of it. So, I can definitely see progress, even if the full-time active thing isn’t sustainable for me right now, it’s not far off. I’ll never lose my ability to find a good entry point on an investment. It’s a life skill, something most people are unaware of when they buy or sell assets.
The real issue, I’ve realized, is the stress and “tilt” that inevitably creeps in, especially when you’re running on fumes. Eventually, it bites you. You get stuck in your “thinking brain,” as they say. You start thinking, “This has to work,” “I must be right.” That’s when the bad decisions really start to compound. You just can’t trade effectively when your life feels like it depends on every trade.
Right now, I’m still holding onto a TFT short position. If that pans out and I get paid, fantastic. I’ll probably reinvest it into more FTMO challenges, maybe explore copy trading to scale things. But fundamentally, I know I need to shift gears.
The future for me, I think, is definitely more quant-driven. I’ve got to lean harder on the quantitative side of things. With AI and these new reasoning models, the possibilities are huge. I was reading Bellafiore recently, and he talks about a time when his dad had a stroke. He realized, “I’ve logged too much screen time – I know better than trying to trade in a state like this.” And it hit me – when your bank account is heading towards zero, you’re definitely not in the right headspace to manage risk effectively.
I’m pretty certain this will be my last foray into traditional employment. From here on out, I’m going to hustle hard on side projects and keep pushing things forward, but with a more sustainable base. I’ve got enough edge and trading insight now to really approach a purely quantitative strategy. I’m thinking of rolling back into statistics courses while working over the next couple of years, and then diving deep into machine learning models, focusing on building models for specific trading tasks.
Honestly, I’ve got so much screen time logged now, if I can train models on what I understand as a trader, I think I can build something really powerful. Maybe even… well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. But the potential is there.
So yeah, that’s where I’m at. This whole trading journey, especially this last sprint, has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Nothing about this is easy. But I’m learning, adapting, and figuring things out. Time to pivot, recharge, and come back stronger, smarter, and maybe a little more… quantitative. And hey, maybe I’ll finally get to chat with @jalenb1 this week – sorry we missed each other last time!
k-xs 
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