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Funded Habits

Education

Traders I follow

Over here I summarise some of my favourite traders. I've watched all their videos, so you don't have to.

Their channels are linked on each page. I have no affiliation with any of them, it's just what I enjoy watching. All credit and advice goes to them.

Patrick Wieland

Patrick was one of the first YouTube day traders I actually stuck with. No fluff, lots of screen time, and he's honest about the losing days. His message for beginners is simple: survive first, get rich later.

Patrick Wieland on YouTube

Their rules

  • Trade small while you learn. Your first year is about staying alive, not making a fortune.
  • Blowing up your account ends the lesson. Protect capital above everything.
  • Get your execution sorted first: know your platform, your buying power and your hotkeys before you chase money.
  • Cut losers fast. You're trading, not investing, so don't marry a position.
  • You don't need to be right often. Keep your losers smaller than your winners.
  • Only trade things with real volume. No volume means no safety net.
  • Know where support and resistance are, and use the higher timeframe to find them.
  • You'll never buy the exact low or sell the exact high. When you're in profit and the plan says take it, take it and be happy.
  • There's no secret indicator. Everyone is looking at the same chart, so find the style that fits you.

Quotes worth remembering

Videos to start with

Bernd Skorupinski

Bernd is a full-time futures trader who has spent years near the top of the FTMO leaderboard, and he teaches a clear, rule-based supply and demand method. What I like most is how calm and grown-up he is about the hard parts: losing streaks, doubt, and the urge to quit.

Bernd Skorupinski on YouTube

Their rules

  • Expect the dip. Every trader hits a stretch where progress stalls. It's normal, not a sign you're bad at this.
  • Trading is a long game. Consistency can take years, so ignore social media highlight reels.
  • Focus on process, not profit. Chasing money during a rough patch only adds pressure.
  • Journal every trade and study your mistakes.
  • Follow a strict risk plan, and backtest your strategy instead of tweaking it at random.
  • Losses are part of the game. Treat them as tuition and never revenge trade.
  • Judge yourself on executing your plan well, not on one day's result.
  • Find serious traders to learn alongside, and stay away from get-rich-quick spaces.
  • Know a dip from a dead end. If you're still curious and improving, keep going. If you're only here for quick money, have a rethink.

Quotes worth remembering

Videos to start with

Adam Mancini: level to level

Adam puts the same education block in every newsletter, The Run Down on The Level To Level Approach, because he thinks it matters that much. I agree. This is how I'd sum it up. These are my words, not a transcript.

Trade Companion newsletter

How I'd sum it up

  • Trading is simple, but not easy. There are only a few principles to learn. The hard part is sticking to them every single day.
  • The golden rule: about 90% of intraday moves don't follow through into a clean trend day. Only around 1 in 10 days trends open to close, and those days tend to come in clusters.
  • Price takes the messiest path possible. It squeezes one way, flushes the other, and traps people on both sides. In his words, price does not move in straight lines.
  • Stop trying to predict the day. Predictions just build bias and stop you reacting to what's really happening.
  • Trade level to level. Since most moves go a few levels and reverse, lock in gains as each level is hit.
  • Stop hunting home runs. Treating every move as the big one gets you trapped, turns green trades red, and chops you up until you miss the real trend.
  • Leave a runner for the big days. Take most of the trade off at the first level, more at the next, then let a small piece ride.
  • His rough template: take about 75% at the first level, move the stop up, take more at the next level and leave about 10% to trail. Adjust the numbers to suit yourself.
  • Never let a good trade go fully red. Give it room as long as nothing structural breaks, like losing a major support.
  • Do it the same way every time, however you feel. That's what lowers stress and lifts results.

All credit to Adam Mancini. This is my own summary of his education section. Read the full thing in his newsletter.

Trading in the Zone: my top 15

If I could only hand a new trader one book, it'd be this one. It isn't about setups. It's about the head you trade with. Here are the 15 ideas I keep coming back to, in my own words.

In my words

  • The market isn't the problem, your thinking is. Most traders have a decent edge. What sinks them is fear, hope and ego getting in the way of carrying it out.
  • Take full responsibility. The market owes you nothing. Every result, good or bad, comes from your own decisions.
  • Anything can happen. Any single trade can go either way, however good the setup looks.
  • You don't need to know what happens next to make money. An edge plays out over many trades, not one.
  • Wins and losses are randomly spread across an edge. A losing streak doesn't mean your system is broken, and a winning streak doesn't make you a genius.
  • An edge is just higher odds of one outcome over another. Nothing more. It's never a sure thing.
  • Every moment in the market is unique. The chart looks like last time, but the people behind it are different. Don't expect a repeat.
  • Think in probabilities. Treat your trades like a casino treats its tables: a numbers game over a big sample.
  • Define your risk before you enter. Know your stop and your size before you click, and truly accept the loss before it happens.
  • Accepting risk kills fear. When the loss is already okay with you, there's nothing left to be scared of, and you see the market clearly.
  • Fear makes you miss what's in front of you. A scared mind filters out information and sees threats, so it hesitates, jumps early or freezes.
  • Don't take losses personally. A loss is a cost of doing business, not a verdict on you as a person.
  • Euphoria is as dangerous as fear. After a big win you feel unbeatable, and that's when you oversize and break rules.
  • Consistency is a state of mind you build on purpose. Write your rules, follow them every time, and the habit becomes who you are.
  • Do the 20-trade exercise. Take one well-defined setup 20 times in a row with no deviation, so you prove to yourself that the edge works when you let it.

Douglas boils it down to a line I love: being a consistent winner means learning to think in probabilities. Summary in my own words. Please buy the book; it's worth it.

My words of wisdom

Things I've learned the hard way, mostly by doing the opposite first.

My favourites

  • It's hardly the strategy that's broken, it's the psychology and discipline and trade management that's hard.
  • Trading is the hardest way to make easy money.
  • Trade level to level. Wait for a setup, don't force a setup to happen.
  • Never add to losers.
  • Re-enter a trade only if there's a setup.

Risk and sizing

  • Most blown accounts come down to wrong sizing, not a bad strategy.
  • Greed shows up as oversizing. If you're getting stopped out more than usual, check your size first.
  • Size still matters, whether your target is close or far away.
  • Funded accounts with an intraday trailing drawdown need even tighter risk.
  • Keep the losses small and the wins consistent.
  • A buffer isn't a shield. The run-up to a payout is where discipline matters most.
  • Don't grind an account down chasing the payout threshold.

Execution

  • Trade levels, not profit targets.
  • You can only take what the market gives you, not what you want.
  • Whether you need $50 or $500, the setup has to be the same. Otherwise a small target turns into a big one and you tilt.
  • A setups only.
  • Give a trade room to breathe. A stop that's too tight gets you out of good trades.
  • Don't override your system on a hunch. Stop hunting is usually just you being wrong.
  • Headline days are brutal. Big news can stop you out in seconds.
  • Before you walk away, flatten and cancel every working order on every account.

Psychology

  • You make a mess of things when more is on the line. Know that about yourself.
  • Markets humble you after a long winning streak.
  • Revenge trading turns one bad day into a disaster.
  • After a rough patch, take a break. Come back fresh.
  • Trading is hard, but every time you get back up you learn something about yourself.
  • You've done it before, so there's no reason you can't do it again.

Prop firms

  • Hitting the daily loss limit ends the day, not the plan. But count what those resets cost you.
  • Know your payout maths before you start.
  • Daily payouts often mean smaller accounts. It cuts both ways.
  • Hedging rules apply across all your accounts, and even a forgotten order can count.
  • Read the firm's live-transition rules before you get there. They can change everything.

Routine

  • Stack green days slowly.
  • Keep a journal, even if it's only for yourself.
  • Review your log trade by trade. That's where the fixes come from.
  • Pick your session based on where the setups are, not habit.

My own rules

1R = the risk from entry to my hard stop.

Their rules

  • Risk: Size every trade so a full stop costs exactly 1R, and place the hard stop when you enter. Stop for the day at about -2R. Stop after two losses in a row. Once you're up about +3 to 4R, the day is done. Never add to a losing trade.
  • After a loss: Wait 15 minutes before the next trade, and don't flip direction just to win it back. After a stop-out, wait for a fresh setup instead of re-entering out of frustration.
  • Taking profits: Scale out in thirds: first third at about +0.8R, second at about +1.2 to 1.6R, trail the rest as a runner. Move the stop to breakeven once the trade is about +1.2R. Once a take-profit is set, never move it further away; only the runner can chase. If price pulls back through your second target, close the trade. Use bracket orders set before entering, so decisions are made before emotion kicks in.
  • Mindset: Think in points and R, not dollars. Trade the setup; don't force one. Make sure the 15-minute and 5-minute charts agree before entering. Don't think about payouts while you trade. No revenge trading, no impulse eval buys, no late-night trading when tired. Prove consistency on demo at real size before risking money.

Need another eval? I've got you covered, grab my code here.

Nothing here is financial advice. It's education and my own opinion. Trading futures and leveraged products carries real risk of loss.

If you sign up through these codes I earn an affiliate fee, at no extra cost to you. It never changes my rankings, and I list firms I don't get payouts from too.