--- title: 'It Changed My Trading Career' source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=hpm3SZP0CxI' video_id: 'hpm3SZP0CxI' date: 2026-08-10 duration_sec: 61 --- # It Changed My Trading Career > Source: [It Changed My Trading Career](https://youtube.com/watch?v=hpm3SZP0CxI) ## Summary A trader explains a simple but powerful lesson: watching the P&L tick in real time hijacks your rational brain and leads to poor decisions. By covering the P&L with a sticky note for 30 days, he achieved a 40% increase in average winner size. ### Key Points - **The Problem: Obsessive P&L Watching** [00:01] — Watching P&L every tick (green/red) causes emotional reactions that lead to bad trading decisions. - **The Brain's Response to Losses** [00:15] — Seeing red on screen makes your prefrontal cortex (rational decision-making) go offline, causing you to trade pain rather than the chart. - **The Green Screen Trap** [00:28] — Profits are equally dangerous: your brain wants to lock them in, leading to cutting winners short out of fear of losing the gain. - **The Sticky Note Solution** [00:41] — Placed a sticky note over the P&L for 30 days. Result: win rate stayed the same, but average winner grew by 40%. - **Part of a Larger Series** [00:53] — This is one of seven common trading mistakes covered in a new video (link in description); the other six are supposedly even more surprising. ## Transcript second monitor, all day, every single tick. Green, red, green, red. And I can trace almost every bad decision I made back to the moment I glanced at that number. So, here's what happens to your brain when you see red on the screen. Your prefrontal cortex, the part that makes rational decisions, goes offline. You stop trading the chart. You start trading the pain. And when it's green, it's actually equally dangerous. Your brain screams to protect that. Lock it Don't make a mistake. Don't let it come back. So, you cut your winner short. Not because the trade told you to, but because the P&L told you to. So, I did something that felt insane. I put a sticky note just over my P&L for 30 days. My win rate didn't change, but my average winner got 40% bigger. 40%. Same setups, same strategy, one sticky note. This is one of the seven mistakes I break down in our new video. The link's in the description. The other six might surprise you even more.