--- title: 'If I Want to Win... I Have to Quit My Trading' source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=4msXhJPwEgI' video_id: '4msXhJPwEgI' date: 2026-08-05 duration_sec: 1337 --- # If I Want to Win... I Have to Quit My Trading > Source: [If I Want to Win... I Have to Quit My Trading](https://youtube.com/watch?v=4msXhJPwEgI) ## Summary The video argues that traders often fail not due to poor risk management or psychology, but because they fall victim to the sunk cost fallacy—continuing down an unprofitable path simply because of the time, effort, and money already invested. Using an analogy from a food channel about a 'dog shit sandwich,' the speaker explains that quitting is sometimes the right strategy for success. He emphasizes that trading is about making money, not accumulating knowledge, and that traders must be willing to pivot when their approach lacks a real edge. ### Key Points - **The Problem Isn't Always Risk or Psychology** [00:01] — Many traders fail not because of risk management or psychology, but because they are trapped in the sunk cost fallacy—continuing a losing path due to past investment. - **The Dog Shit Sandwich Analogy** [01:21] — A food channel's video about a sandwich filled with dog shit illustrates society's demonization of quitting. The speaker uses this to argue that sometimes quitting is the right choice. - **Two Paths: Harmful vs. Difficult** [02:29] — There are two paths: one that is difficult but rewarding, and one that harms you. Abandoning the difficult path is harmful, but quitting a harmful path is wise. - **Traders Emotionally Attached to Strategies** [04:01] — Many traders use the same strategy for years without results because they are emotionally attached to it, over-intellectualizing their knowledge instead of focusing on profitability. - **Trading Goal is Money, Not Knowledge** [05:06] — The ultimate goal in trading is to make money, not to be an intellectual of the markets. Knowing a lot is useless if it doesn't translate into profit. - **Continuing on the Same Path** [06:10] — Traders often keep going because they look back at the time and money invested, thinking they can't quit now. This is the sunk cost fallacy. - **Sunk Cost Fallacy Explained** [09:01] — The sunk cost fallacy is the tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment in money, effort, or time has been made, to avoid wasting it. Also known as the Concorde fallacy. - **Gambling Addiction and Sunk Cost** [10:19] — The sunk cost fallacy is central to gambling addiction: losing $50, then betting more to avoid wasting the initial loss, leading to a spiral. - **Quitting Can Be the Right Way to Succeed** [12:03] — Understanding when to quit is crucial. In trading, quitting a losing strategy can be the path to success. - **Sunk Cost Affects Three Levels** [13:10] — Sunk cost in trading affects traders at three levels: hormonal (pain of loss), identity (ego attached to a method), and psychological (making excuses for losses). - **Real Example: Trader with Perfect Backtest** [15:26] — A trader with a 60% win rate and 1.5 ratio in backtesting lost for 3 years in real trading because the strategy had no real-time advantage—it only worked in hindsight. - **Time Invested Doesn't Guarantee Success** [18:35] — The amount of time you've spent on a strategy doesn't matter. Markets don't reward perseverance; they reward effective strategies. - **Sergi's Story: Pivoting to Success** [19:14] — Sergi, a trader on the channel, spent 8 years failing in Forex, Futures, and Funding. He then pivoted to small caps and became successful in 2 years, showing that quitting can lead to victory. - **When to Quit** [20:33] — Don't abandon what you're doing if it offers a genuine advantage. But if you've tried everything and still not succeeding, it may be time to pivot. ### Conclusion The video concludes that traders must recognize the sunk cost fallacy and be willing to quit unprofitable paths. Quitting is not giving up; it's a strategic move toward eventual success. The key is to stay flexible and not fall in love with a market, asset, or strategy. ## Transcript because you may not be failing as much as you think. Perhaps the problem isn't risk management or the psychology, as you may be trapped in one of the traders, which is known as sunk cost. Let me describe this to you so you can see that I'm definitely talking about you. You've probably been trading for a couple of years, three, even 5 or 6 years without results. You've tried strategies, you've backtested strategies, you've tried all kinds of management approaches, and yet, for results. But that doesn't mean you lose, or lose a lot. You must be that feeling of being about to touch the light, right? It's like seeing an oasis reach the water, but in the end it always gets delayed more and more and you don't know why. And the years go by, the months go by more and more, there go well for a week and you think you've made it. For a month you feel like you've finally hit the right note, and the next month you're back to square one. And for some reason you don't give up, you keep take a few more steps because you're so close that you look back and it makes no sense to go back. You've already taken so many steps, you've progressed so far sense not to try a little more. You're probably saying to yourself, "I've been doing quit?" And what many people mistake for perseverance video that you are seeing here on the screen which deals with when to know . This video itself has nothing to do with trading, but the video trading channel because believe me, what we are going to see will open your eyes. There's a rather curious channel that's dedicated to making food videos, usually about cheese sandwiches. It is one of those channels that, despite focusing on a specific topic, in this case food, talks about different issues, sometimes more comical, like when his girlfriend kicks him out of the house, and other times more reflective. And she recently uploaded a short video whose content was not ironically philosophical. Don't eat dog [ __ ]. I know the title may sound ridiculous, but in the video this good man criticized how society demonizes abandonment. If you start something, you must finish it. And he used, of course, a sandwich as an example. and at the first bite you realize it's filled with dog [ __ ]. started it and you must finish what you start. This is a matter that, to some extent, because last year I left university to change my major, and I must say that I feel wonderful after no longer eating dog [ __ ]. Obviously, and as Chef Tyler pointed out in the . In life there are two paths that, according to this thought, you may want first is the path that does not harm you and in whose objective you do find reward, but it is difficult and requires your time and effort. Abandoning this path, simply because it requires effort, is indeed harmful, and this is where the rule applies: if you start something, you must finish it, because it 's simply a complex path and you can't spend your life dodging difficulties, because life isn't easy. Then there's the other path that harms you, or eating you want to do with your life, that neither this path nor your subjective one will lead you to unhappy. And in these cases, it's often better to step aside than to keep finish what you've started. Although you shouldn't be stupid. is hardly a good option, no matter how shitty it is. However, if you still feel it's healthy to quit, perhaps you should do so, provided you do n't waste time and find a new path to take up again. I left but that doesn't mean I'm going to stay still. We have to keep going one way or another , because life doesn't stop. With this introduction, I believe I have summarized and expanded upon the idea presented by Chef Tyler in his video. And these types of topics are discussed, one must take into account the complexities of human life and the different circumstances that can influence the issues we can consider their point quite coherent, since clinging to the idea of continuing simply because you believe that the phrase "What is started must be finished" is a universal rule can generate quite a few problems. Okay, that's all we've seen in this video, which was a bit... crazy, wasn't it? with this analogy, right?, of the dog [ __ ] sandwich. It's deeper than most of you use this video because it seemed very easy to understand, suitable for apply to our daily trading. I encounter many traders, a great many , who have been using the same strategy for years without results or doing the same type of trading without results. And that has to do with being emotionally attached to something that doesn't lead you anywhere. Well, many traders are more enamored with their knowledge, they over-intellectualize learned so much about a type of trading, a type of market, a type of results they really deserve or expect to have simply because they know too much about it. And knowing a lot about something is legitimate, it's everyday life. There are themes, right? Hey, they are very interesting, and the more knowledge you accumulate, the more knowledgeable you become, and therefore welcome. But here in trading, the ultimate goal is not to have knowledge, it's not to know a lot about the markets, it's no use being an intellectual of the markets, a genius at, I don't know, reading the charts, if that doesn't translate into money. Honestly, I know this may sound harsh to some, I understand, but the truth is we are here to make money exclusively. You 're not the smartest person around just because you can better identify a change in an asset is going to do, if you're not able to turn that into money. It's good for nothing other than making money. So if you've been using a certain strategy, a certain market reading model, a certain type of tool, or operating in a certain type of market for years without results, even if you difference I wanted you to see with what he said, right? It's not the same to 're lazy about and don't want to do, so you quit, or something you've dedicated difficult. And yet, after doing everything you're supposed to do—courses, backtesting, real-time trading, proper management—after trying everything, you still don't get the result you want. Why haven't you arrived yet? And n't it? Because you start wondering, as a trader, uh, I'm still a few years short, have I been doing this for a short time, or a long time? Do I need to learn something else? What to be smarter about? Do always have to do with continuing on the same path. Instead of thinking that perhaps there are more options and that what you should do is back off and turn in another direction, what is most likely to happen in most cases is to keep going because, as I said, you look back and see that if you have studied that model, that strategy, for so many nights, if you have done so many give up at the first sign of trouble. If you've paid $3,000 or €3,000 for winning strategy, you can't be the one to abandon it, because otherwise, that money saying sounds familiar because it happens to most people. Let's inclusions. And trader, if you're lost and trying to find your way, whichever path you choose, they will all lead to the same thing: I hope that after so many years of telling you exactly the same thing, and I think it has already been proven that what I said was true, the best place to create your own track record is Darwin Extero. There is nothing similar. record because you had to open your own real account, put in your money, risk it, spend years creating it and I understand that was difficult, but barrier to it. You don't drawdown, no goals, no time, there's nothing. It's like your real account, makes someone look external is what you see on the screen. What it does is audit those journal where you can see all your statistics, as you're seeing here on the screen, for this trader: how much you win, how much you lose, your drawdown, what your win rate is, your ratio, which assets you perform best with, what times of day you 're a better trader—everything any trader needs to know about their strategy is right trader and you demonstrate with a track record that you make money, there are many people with money who want to invest in you, want to put their real money in, want to risk with you if you win, like what example, this one manages 15,000 dollars. Here you see another one managing 2.5 million, another one with even more millions. There are many traders on Dragon Extero who have managed to impact many investors, hundreds of investors who put in their real money and they take 15% of the profit. They risk nothing, the investor risks everything, and you as a trader take 15% of everything you weren't enough, in addition to journaling and real investors, every month Darwin Darwinia, in which, just by paying your monthly subscription, they themselves invest money in traders, virtual capital. As first one gets €500,000, the second € 300 and something, €1000, and so on down to the top hundreds. So trader, please create your own track record now, left below and you also get a 20% discount just by using the someone in the industry who truly supports traders, let's with Darwin Extero. However, I haven't come here just to translate another channel's reflection and monetize their effort. And I wanted to add to his reflection another important factor to consider related to this issue of knowing when to quit, the sunk cost fallacy, also , the lost cost fallacy or the Concorde fallacy, referring to a famous aviation project where those responsible fell into this fallacy. I would say there is no better way to explain this fallacy than with Minecraft. Imagine you're streak mining, or "heterosexual mining" for those who don't know English, and you literally find nothing, just rocks, rocks, and more rocks. You've easily been at it for 30 minutes and you've already broken two iron spikes in the process. And if you're leaving, maybe you should give it up and look for diamonds some keep trying your luck and moving forward, as you have the feeling that invested in this project now, both the pickaxes and your time, it will have been a waste, whereas if you keep going and find diamonds, it will have been worth it . With this mindset, you keep digging and again you find wasted four picks and an hour of your life that you should have been using to study prehistory. This is the sunk cost fallacy, the simply to avoid wasting the effort, time, or money you have already invested in it. In this fallacy, we once again find the importance of knowing when to quit. In fact, it is in the sunk cost fallacy where we find one of the most relevant aspects of gambling addiction. Hauesto $50 to zero. I've lost. If I give up now, I will have wasted those $50. So he put 50 on the cer. I've lost. If I give up now, I'll have wasted those 100. So he's put 50 on the pin. I've lost. If I give up now, I'll have wasted those 150. So I'm betting on zero. I've lost. If I give up now, I'll have wasted those 200. What's happening here is pure math. After spending €200 on this bet, I'm left with, for example, €1000. If I bet again, I'll spend another € 50, probably leaving me with € 950. However, if I don't bet, I'll stay at €1000. But I have the feeling that at this point, the decision not to bet will cost me €200 when in reality that money is already lost and I'm not going to get it back in any way. Even if I bet 50 now and end up winning those 200 from before, I'm not anything in my victory now. Let's cinematic example that I really like. You are trying to defend an thinking of the good of his side above his own life, decides to buy you some time at a crucial moment in the combat, sacrificing himself for it in a suicide attack. However, despite your sacrifice, as the realize that at this point, the best option is to retreat, cede this point and prepare a counterattack at another time, because if you stay here you will all die. That's when one of your allies, a close friend shoulder and tells you that you cannot run away. If we leave now, his death will have been in battlefield to give value to your comrade's sacrifice is absurd. He is already dead and the value of his life does not affect your current decision in any way. That makes sense, right? Ultimately, with this video, I wanted to show you first that you understand the cost of quitting and when, many times, quitting is the right way to succeed in an activity, in this case, trading. And on the other hand, this sunk cost cognitive bias affects us all, truly, all of us, and often sets us back years in achieving explained in the video, this type of bias means that when you have already time, too much sacrifice, money, whatever you want to something, it is much more difficult to abandon it. This happens in types of strategy analysis, for example, strategy, even if it's not a winner when you send it to the real market, you probably created a bond with it and therefore, even if you lose, you're always going to leave it a little longer to see if it works, to see if it You have to somehow justify that effort and that investment of time, of situations also occur in investments where many people invest in a stock, invest in a type of asset because they have done a doctoral thesis, right?, asset is going to go up, and after years that asset falls and falls and falls, and instead of understanding that you were wrong and that you have to keep moving forward, because that's stock, you fall so in love with that decision that in the end you lose everything sunk cost in trading affects three levels. The first of these is in hormonal level, in terms of how your body reacts, what hormones it releases when certain things happen; pain always hurts twice as much as the pleasure you abandoning a strategy, a type of market, or a type of trading does not feel like a normal loss. It's irrational. You don't feel like you're against your human nature because you want to avoid that pain. If I quit for nothing. The second element, apart from the all have as traders. I am an ICT trader, I am an Orflow trader, currency trader. If you change that, you're not just changing the method or the market, you changing your identity and your ego will fight as hard as possible to prevent that. And the last of the psychological factors that influences this sunk cost is 've seen this many times, I really do follow a lot of YouTube channels these To see what they're doing, to see if there's anyone who's doing give it a little bit of a loudspeaker or something . And I find many traders who mantras that seem to give me goosebumps because it has happened to all of us. Um, for example, someone might be operating a strategy, doing a certain type of trading system that obviously has no advantage, because anyone can see that from the outside, it's very easy to see, but that person is so immersed in good month they say it's the best, that everything has gone very well, that this month the expectation has been met, I don't know what. Since it starts to go wrong due to pure system is simply not winning, is not a winner, as surely happens when randomness, right? Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and that trader starts mistake here, I made this error because my psychology failed me." No, there's always a reason to make excuses for a loss, but there's never gain, is there? And it's typical, it's happened to all of us and you're trapped in that , sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, you have two good months, two bad months the years go by and suddenly you've been trading for 8 years, you look around different path are having a success that you would like, you would be dreaming of with your own thing that you haven't been able to open up a little, be humble and say, real examples so you understand. This is truly not something . I perfectly remember the case of a trader, sessions, who I'm sure will feel identified when he would, that I would talk about him very quickly. And it turns out he was a trader who after a very thorough backtest, right? With an impeccable Excel spreadsheet, it really was, I seen in my life in terms of how organized and detailed it was; he had noted down acted. It was incredible. It had a win rate of 60%, it was close to a ratio of 1.51, 1.71, that is, everything added up. Uh, numerically you were saying, "Damn, this guy's got something he's good at, right? At the Excel level." But then he came to me saying that he had been losing in real games for 3 years, that he would lose in real games, done in the backtest and that he would accumulate a should. And he would repeat that to me, saying, have to execute it better." It 's simply a psychological problem. And after much digging, analysis, seeing how it was operating and trying to strategy did not have an advantage in real time, it had an advantage in hindsight. In they are very easy to read, they are very easy to understand, but it was a type of real-time timing. If you acted correctly in real time, it was strategy because in just a few disappeared and therefore your advantage also vanished. These are strategies that that are on paper that can withstand anything, they are winning, but then in reality, they cannot be carried out. You have no idea how hard it was to get that trader to dismiss that idea, who had been that it worked, that it was impossible, it was very difficult to change his work." We really went through hardships to be able to change come to me too, and there are many of them, who really operate, especially the models are very subjective, they have 1000 concepts, 1000 theoretical elements, which really was crazy. I would talk to those traders, they would sometimes ask them, "What's this for ? What are you telling me? What's it for ?" And they would tell me, "No, because I do n't know, because it makes the shot more accurate." And aim? Will it give you a higher ratio, a higher win rate?" No, no, I don't know. You say, ? Why are you adding so many concepts that are just nice to ?" Well, those kinds of strategies that lead nowhere, that are subjective. Many traders get bogged down in them for years because, having already dedicated so much intellectual time to learning them, they can't From that moment on, everything you see on the chart is embellished, it has that ICT touch, or that touch of whatever you want to call it. I know, I'm talking about CT mind, but there are many like that. You 're no longer able to see anything other than ingrained in your mind, and that makes you emotionally attached to it because if you're an ICT trader, you're already part of a group, within a certain kind of identity, and therefore it's easier to relate to the market, even if it does n't lead you anywhere. And here's the key to all of this. The amount of time you've matter to anyone. I want you to understand this. It's not the key to anything. more likely you are to succeed, because it's very likely that the time you're dedicating to your trading is in the wrong direction, and possibility. I'm not saying it's a given, I'm saying you have to accept that it can happen. Here in the markets, trading, the charts, don't reward you for this trader has been trying for so long , I'll just let them karma, not even points for perseverance. You don't have a scoreboard where points you accumulate, and it eventually turns into money. A trader who starts in the right strategy for them can earn more money in six months, a year, than going to give you a real example of someone who's been on this channel so for me, he's the most—how to put it? —representative case of all this, of sunk cost, and that's Serg. CG Down is an incredible trader, an even better person best I know. When he came to this channel, I'll explain, he spent eight years fighting to win in Forex, Futures, and Funding. He tried everything, everything we've all tried. And smarter than average; that is, he probably has more potential than you or I have to be a winning trader. His was incredible, and yet he didn't make it. But there was a day when, out of that frustration he felt, after so much time trying and not succeeding, he didn't let himself be consumed by sunk cost. He looked back. He spent those eight years—not everyone would do that—and shed that burden and pivoted, turning towards a different way of trading, which in his case is small caps, taking shots. And in two years, since that happened, two and a bit years, he's become a n't mean everyone has to do the same as him. It's not like, "I'm going to fund," no, no, no, it's not about that. It's about showing that many you're constantly clicking on the same thing, even if you think that's what you have to time, looking at charts for hours and hours on the screen, clicking, clicking, clicking, when in reality, maybe what you should have done is click somewhere else that, I'm saying that it exists and that don't have to give up on First of all, you don't have to suddenly abandon what you're whether what you're doing truly offers an advantage. If you see that it does, given enough time and a reasonable amount of time, if you've been trying everything— training, backtesting, trading strategies—and you're not succeeding, perhaps it's time to 're doing really has a genuine advantage. Because there might be a lot going on in the markets, but if you're not making money, it means you're doing something wrong. Notice that in Sergi's case, Sergi Down, quitting is the right thing to do. At that moment, accepting defeat, saying, "I'm not going to continue down this path," even with all the pain that it might entail, is the road to victory. It's no one wants to make. You have to look in the mirror and accept that you've goal of ultimately winning the war. Because it doesn't matter if you win, whether you after 15 years; what matters is that you eventually reach that point. So sunk cost trap. Understand that sometimes quitting is the right answer. Think it through, reflect on it, talk about it with other traders in your circle, and never fall in love with a market, an asset, or a type of strategy. you believe exists exists, because the world out there is truly enormous, and perhaps what you think you're missing to reach that oasis I mentioned at the 're walking through. You simply have to take a plane, go to a different all the oases you want. It's a bit of an odd analogy, but you know, , traders. I hope this makes you reflect a little on identify with this, think it over. Don't forget to give the video a thumbs up; it really helps us keep creating this kind of content. And visit which is left down here, okay? As always, that helps the channel a lot.