---
title: 'I Studied Every ICT Concept, These 3 Made Me Profitable'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=sY7KzAJko1Y'
video_id: 'sY7KzAJko1Y'
date: 2026-07-05
duration_sec: 0
---

# I Studied Every ICT Concept, These 3 Made Me Profitable

> Source: [I Studied Every ICT Concept, These 3 Made Me Profitable](https://youtube.com/watch?v=sY7KzAJko1Y)

## Summary

This video breaks down the three most important ICT (Inner Circle Trader) trading concepts that helped the speaker become profitable: draw on liquidity, market maker models, and the right mindset. The speaker emphasizes that context and alignment across timeframes are crucial for taking high-quality trades.

### Key Points

- **Draw on Liquidity as Foundation** [00:29] — Draw on liquidity is the most important concept; every trade must have a clear draw on liquidity (e.g., swing high, swing low, imbalance, fair value gap) that provides the framework for why the trade is taken.
- **Three Timeframes for Trade Framing** [00:54] — Align internal draw with external draw using three timeframes: higher timeframe (e.g., 1H, 4H, daily) for order flow, middle timeframe to determine when the market will move, and lower timeframe (1m, 5m) for entry.
- **Four Things Markets Constantly Do** [02:43] — Markets always do one of four things: draw to liquidity areas (buy/sell side), rebalance equilibrium, rebalance to inefficiencies (fair value gaps), or generate liquidity. Every trade should align with at least one of these.
- **Market Maker Models (MMM)** [03:25] — MMM helps identify when and why liquidity areas will be met. It includes looking for manipulation, smart money reversals (SMT), displacement, and aligning time and price to determine rejection zones.
- **Mindset: Observer, Not Predictor** [05:41] — Traders should be observers reacting to the market, not predictors. Focus on building good habits and satisfaction from process, not money. Wait for the market to be 'dumb clear' before entering a trade.
- **Expect to Lose and Not Trade** [08:58] — Come into each day expecting to lose and expecting not to take a trade. This prevents emotional decision-making when expectations aren't met. Build conviction through paper trading and journaling.

### Conclusion

Mastering draw on liquidity, market maker models, and the right mindset—being an observer who waits for clear setups—is the path to consistent profitability. Focus on habits and process, not money, to keep what you earn.

## Transcript

lost with all of the ICT content that's on YouTube but the truth is you really successful Trader So today we're going to talk about the three most important trading concepts with ICT that made me become a profitable Trader I'm going to
keep this as concise as possible cuz I know you guys are probably tired of stupid titles if you don't get what you're looking for out of this video you let's dive into it this is concept number one now the most important thing
in trading when it comes to ICT Concepts and the overall Foundation of every single trade that you will take is draw on liquidity it is the most important concept because every trade that you take the drawn liquidity is going to be
the framework of why that trade should even be taken in the first place so one the three time frames in understanding why the draw liquidity is important and what the time frames are used for when actually looking to frame a trade now
these three things is when taking quality setups you have to align the internal draw with the external draw meaning when you're looking at higher time frame order flow and again higher time frame could be 30 minute 1 Hour 4
Hour daily it really doesn't matter because price is completely fractal in could be a possible 5minute chart if you're looking at it right so for example if we have a draw on liquidity on the 1 hour and I know that we're
we're reaching towards cell side I'm going to go down to my middle time frame which is used to determine how in most important when the market is going to we can start zooming into lower time frames like the 5 minute the 15minute
and start looking at is their manipulation recognizing where the market is most likely to reject from why the market is most likely to reject from towards the lower time frames like the 1 minute the 5 minute to look for an
actual entry targeting the external draw a lot of the times the trades that to lose are the trades that you're taking that go against whatever the external draw liquidity is right so every trade that you take with ICT the
trade that you take needs to have a clear concise draw on liquidity where is the market drawing towards is it a high is it a swing low is it an imbalance is it a fair value Gap where is it and understand why most importantly is the
how to find the draw on liquidity more in depth there's a separate video that right here on the page that you can go click to actually learn more in- depth a big part about draw on liquidity as well is having a daily Buy right when
week and you're trying to find okay where is the market expanding towards that's how you start to frame intraday biases in intraday trades off of that overall bias going into the day or going into the week because the market is
always constantly doing one of four things and every single trade you take needs to have at least one of these four things in your mind number one market draws towards liquidity areas buy side and sell side number two Market
rebalances the equilibrium number three Market rebalances to inefficiencies which is fair value gaps and number four markets generate liquidity so every the Frameworks are you targeting some sort of draw liquidity a swing high or a
inefficiencies are you targeting back yourself of these reasons why the markets move and align trades with these ideas now the number two most important Concept in my opinion that comes to ICT
Concepts is Market maker models Market maker buy and sell models now we know like I just said before that the markets are constantly doing four things when we Market maker models to it it gives us an identification to find exactly when and
why those areas are going to be met we can look for manipulation in areas which we already expect to reject like fair value gaps after a buy side or sell side level is taken we can look for a smart money reversal which is an smt look for
displacement and use those Market maker models to figure out where the market understand exactly where in the chart should we be rejecting and where should we be looking to take a trade now when I'm looking to
take a trade I'm looking for an area in which time and price is aligning meaning relationship to the model let me dive further into this a draw on liquidity doesn't necessarily mean anything unless you know exactly when the market is
going towards that level you might think the market is drawing towards a high in high because you're focused too much on the high instead of what prices actually showing you our goal is not to predict when we are trading our goal is to
Simply Be an observer in React to what the market is showing us is there a reason for price to draw towards them have we reached back to equilibrium has is there all of these Concepts that is telling us exactly when and why the
lot of the time I find myself seeing newer ICT Traders looking for random fair value gaps taking trades off of random entries because they don't understand that context is the most important part of ICT Concepts fair
value gaps breaker blocks buy side sell side they it means absolutely nothing unless you have some sort of context as to why the market should be drawn towards those areas Market maker models gives us an understanding as to when and
of when that we should be actually taking trades when we can expect the market to actually start working towards buy side or sell side or whatever the to learn more about Market maker models
which I highly highly recommend you do I have a whole video on YouTube about Market maker models how to see them what exactly are they I'll link that in the you can click and go check that out now the third concept of ICT that made me
profitable which isn't honestly really an ICT concept but more of a mindset it's a mix of kind of two things number one every time that you come into the market you cannot be focused on making money as Traders we are simply observers
I am simply coming into the day in watching the market in being told what are not paid to sit in front of the charts all day you are simply paid for treating it as a business every time that you come into the market you need
to be focused on building satisfaction you need to reprogram your mind to get satisfaction from building good habits not making money because what's going to happen is those habits are going to continue to hold over over time and
in the long run when you start focusing on these things every day you need to be focused on trading your Edge building conviction having good risk management overleveraging if a student comes to me and says Justin I made $10,000 today but
they broke every single one of their rules they overleveraged they took a dumb trade I'm going to say that money is not yours there is no reason you because guess what that market is going to take it right back from you because
you don't have the habits in place to keep that money trading is more about keeping money than it is making money because guess what it is extremely easy to make money it is hard to keep it now the second part of this is be an
opportunist do not try to predict what the market is going to do have an idea have a bias of what you think the market might react but wait for the market to be dumb clear and show you exactly what it wants to do how many of you guys have
trade and you think it's good you think it's ready to go you're hesitant on the doesn't work out and then maybe 20 minutes minutes go by and then the looking for and it is exactly what you want to see and you have zero hesitation
because a lot of the times you guys are taking trades based off of ideas because you're focused on making money and focused on just pressing a button than looking for when the market is dumb clear it's dumb clear it's easy you're
going to see it happen and you're going to execute when it's not you're going to setup why do you hesitate why are you it's not exactly what you're looking for so the second part of this is wait for
the market to be dumb clear if the market tells you it's ready to go it's ready to go this one idea completely changed my trading because I found myself taking unnecessary losses of Trades that I thought might work out but
them because I couldn't sit still I wanted to press the button the longer I trade in my career as the years go by I find myself trading less and less and spending less time on the charts because I know exactly what I'm looking for if I
wake up and I spend an hour and a half on the charts 2 hours and I see exactly nothing I know that I shouldn't be trading there's no reason for me to be even sitting there now a big part of it is also building the confidence and the
for and that takes time when you're in your early stages of trading you should be testing ideas on paper paper trade Journal test ideas that's the only way that you can build actual conviction in yourself and actual experience cuz when
put on Capital you need to have the actual confidence to do so by seeing it happen over and over and over and over again so come into every day expecting to number one lose and expecting to not take a trade because when you come into
a day setting expectations and those expectations don't get met is when emotional decision- making happens you come into the day thinking I'm going to my funded account and then there's no setup that you see that's right but yet
you take trades anyway because you've set intention you've set expectations when your intention is to make money your decisions reflect that when your intentions are to build good habits your decisions reflect that and you are paid
from your decisions not your time so start treating trading as a business not with your friends and taking random setups for fun a lot of you guys might say that treating trading as a video game is a good thing in reality it's not
explained in this video You're already ahead of 90% of traders who just keep running in circles looking for the next best strategy so go do what you need to do get the [\h__\h] off YouTube start working and start practicing these
all the love I hope you guys enjoyed this video and I'll see you in the next this video and I'll see you in the next one