It’s been 3 months since my last update in August. Surprisingly, I feel I’ve managed to progress a lot since then, albeit by taking a slightly different route, which I’ll explain in detail below. It’s designed to change the neural pathways in my brain to pick better trade entries and exits. And the good news is that you won’t lose any money doing it.

Listen to the full episode or keep reading below.

While the direct route always seems the most logical, in this instance I listened to my trading mentor Andre Stewart who recommended I take a 30 day detour from trading live markets (after blowing yet another account) and instead spend that time practicing (or in trading terms “back testing”) before even thinking of placing another live trade.

Now, simple as it sounds “practicing”, to me, has the same connotations as someone telling me to “be unproductive”.

You see, every time I sit at a computer I’m all about being productive. At my work, on this blog post, recording interviews… all of which has an outcome at the end. I’ve move from A to B.

Practicing something on a computer comes as a completely foreign concept. I practice for football but also find it fun. So, the thought of practicing to trade was hard to ‘compute’.

I couldn’t find a place for back testing in my mind, so would always put it in the procrastination basket, i.e. to be avoided at all costs!

How I overcame “back testing procrastination”

Everyone is different, but this is how I did it:

1. Havign a mentor tell me to do it really helped – thanks Andre!
2. Made it “downtime friendly”. What does that mean? Easy, I bought a laptop so I could back test while I was doing other things like watching TV.
3. I realized that although the back testing software options weren’t perfect (a contributor to my procrastination), my mentor Andre had used the one I picked and if it was good enough to make him successful then it should be good enough for me.

With all this in place I was actually eager to get started… And as soon as I did, I realized I quite like doing it.

I found it most similar to playing the old arcade game ‘pong’ but with less reaction and more thinking,

Mental note: Record some of my back testing session and upload it to the site for Pro members.

Here’s the list of Metatrader 4 back testing software for I tested, and my choice, in the end, Soft4FX:

• Soft4FX (my choice)
• Forex Tester
• FxBlue Trade Simulator (free)

Sleep hacks for traders

With all that extra back testing screen time I can’t be good for your eyes right? It also can’t be good for your circadian rhythms (I mean it’s like looking directly into the sun for 3 hours – usually right before bedtime).

So, here’s a hack I discovered recently which (added to my cold showers) acts like a tranquilizer right before you hit the hay.

They’re called Swannies for short, or Swanwick Sleep Sunglasses. I ordered a pair online a few weeks ago and was too excited on the first night for them to work but since then I’ve been sleeping like a log.

They work by blocking out the blue light that’s emitted (by virtually “every damn thing” in this modern world we live in) and takes us back to the caveman days where the only light in the evenings was sunset and fire.

You can get a bit more detail in this Facebook live I did a few weeks ago (Remember to like the page if you want to see more behind the scenes stuff).

Golf is not a game of perfect and neither is trading

I just finished my annual “Chaps Cup Golf Weekend” and it got me thinking about a book recommendation by past guest Peter Davies – “Golf is not a game of perfect”.

I’ve never read the book so grabbed the summary here and go through it in the show.

The main takeaway’s for me were:

• Practice (Ed: the irony)
• Visualize your trades before taking them
• No fear
• Be positive and go in with a winners attitude
• Accept losses and don’t focus on them

Now, this is all well and good. But (the summary at least) left me saying “Yes, but how?”.

So, in the coming weeks I’ll have a trading mindset guru on the show to help us with the “But how?!?”.

Watch my full mentoring session with Andre

Now, if you listened to the audio recording above you can hear the full session I did with Andre, but you won’t be able to see the charts he’s talking about.

If you’re a pro member, simply login here to reveal the full video below.

If you’re not, simply just give pro membership a try for just $4.97.