---
title: 'How I Would Learn to Trade If I Could Start Over'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=F6HKKVi1EZY'
video_id: 'F6HKKVi1EZY'
date: 2026-08-19
duration_sec: 600
channel: 'TradingLab'
---

# How I Would Learn to Trade If I Could Start Over

> Source: [How I Would Learn to Trade If I Could Start Over](https://youtube.com/watch?v=F6HKKVi1EZY)

## Summary

The video is a personal narrative and guide on how to approach trading, emphasizing long-term thinking, realistic profit expectations, and the importance of surrounding yourself with profitable traders. The creator shares his own journey, including early failures, and provides actionable advice to help viewers avoid common mistakes and accelerate their learning curve.

### Key Points

- **Personal Trading Journey** [00:02] — The creator has been trading for 11 years, originally studied finance and worked in investment banking, but was inspired to trade after watching 'The Wolf of Wall Street'. He admits to being 'absolute garbage' for the first 3 years, losing money, and wishes he had a mentor to guide him.
- **Long-Term Mindset** [01:23] — Citing Warren Buffett, the creator emphasizes that trading is a 'get-rich-slowly scheme'. Thinking in terms of 7 years instead of 3 years and deferring gratification gives a head start against competitors, as most people lack a long-term mentality.
- **The YouTube Mindset Trap** [02:05] — YouTube has destroyed the mindset of many traders by showcasing YouTubers flexing Lamborghinis and making thousands in a day. This is not the norm and only happens with large capital. A 5% monthly return is actually a huge number, but short-term thinking makes it seem small.
- **The Capital Disparity** [03:00] — Trader A with $100 and Trader B with $1M take the same trade with the same risk and return percentage. Trader A makes $5, Trader B makes $50,000. This disparity leads Trader A to risk more, lower entry standards, and rush the process, which kills their portfolio and traps them in a losing cycle.
- **Realistic Profit Targets** [04:12] — Targeting 5% per month on $1,000 yields $50, which seems pointless. But on $100,000 it's $5,000/month, on $500,000 it's $25,000/month, and on $1M it's $50,000/month. Rich traders don't need high percentages or high risk, so they can stay in the game longer.
- **The Power of Compounding** [05:22] — Starting with $1,000 and making 5% every month, reinvesting all profits, would result in $121 million in 20 years. The point is to focus on the 5% (the process) rather than the $50 (the immediate result). 'You need to be going for base hits, not home runs.'
- **Surround Yourself with Profitable Traders** [06:34] — To get better at trading, it's crucial to surround yourself with profitable traders. This compresses years of trial and error into weeks. The creator recommends trading communities, conferences, and competitions. He mentions his own Discord with 50,000 members and 8 professional analysts who share all their trades.
- **Transparency and Performance** [08:47] — The Discord posts a monthly performance report regardless of results. This ensures quality by showing which analysts perform best and allows removal of underperformers. The 2025 yearly report showed over 1,600 trades, a 77% win rate, and an average gain of 98%.

### Conclusion

The video concludes that successful trading is a long-term game requiring a marathon mindset, realistic expectations, and a supportive community. The creator emphasizes that compounding small, consistent gains can lead to extraordinary wealth, and that learning from profitable traders is the fastest path to improvement.

## Transcript

last year in trading alone. Now, for some context, I've been trading for 11 years now. Got to feel old. I originally went to college for finance, graduated, going into investment banking. You know, the whole typical college route. But
then something pivotal happened to my life. Something so monumental, something that completely altered the direction I wanted to go. I watched The Wolf of Wall Street. So, the 18-year-old version of myself said, "Hey, that seems pretty
"Fuck working in a cubicle the rest of my life. Why would I do that when >> [screaming] >> I instantly got hooked, and I quickly realized I could make just as much money from trading, if not more, than a
{quote} {unquote} real job, so I thought. Then reality hit. When I first actually, I was absolute garbage. For the first 3 years, I didn't make a single cent from trading. Absolutely nothing. Actually, I was losing money,
and I could only imagine if I found a video exactly like this one where I had a mentor teach me step by step on how to go about trading and actually make a career out of it. You know, some young Padawan type [ __ ] Cuz then I could have
not only learned a lot more from the beginning, but I could have also skipped those three negative years and instantly improve my learning curve right from the start and not make all the stupid mistakes I made in the beginning. So,
Warren Buffett, "Why don't more people copy your investment strategy? It's not principle." And he said, "Oh, Jeff, that's easy. My My approach is a get-rich-slowly scheme. People don't like those." But there's a lot of truth
in that for everything, which is if you can think in terms of 7 years instead of 3 years, and you can defer gratification and think long-term, that will give you a head start against all of your competitors, cuz most people can't do
that. One thing I always like to tell traders is that this whole building wealth game is a marathon, not a sprint. You have to have a long-term mentality, which 99% of people don't really have. And the reasoning behind that is
YouTube. YouTube has helped destroy the mindset of millions of profitable traders. They see the YouTuber flexing their Lamborghinis, buying fancy thousands of dollars in a day, making stupid amounts of money in a short
period of time. Now, don't get me wrong, it can definitely get to that point, but you have to understand this is not the norm. This only happens if you have large amounts of capital to begin with. You see, there might be a month where
you make 5%, which realistically, 5% in a month is a huge number. Now, if you think 5% is not a huge number, your mindset is already massively misaligned. That is because you are not thinking of this game from a long-term perspective.
You are thinking of it from a point where you currently are in the short-term. Now, I completely get it. Say if we have two traders, trader A and trader B. Trader A is trading with only $100. 5% of $100 is absolute garbage for
trader A. You only made $5. Great, enough to buy a coffee. Trader B is trading with a million dollars. Well, now that 5% is $50,000. $50,000 in a month is pretty damn good. Trader A and trader B took the exact same trade, the
exact same amount of risk, the exact same amount of percent in returns, and even more frustrating, did the exact same amount of work, but trader B nearly made $50,000 more than trader A. So, seeing this, trader A thinks they need
to risk more of their money to get higher and faster returns like trader B, because they want that Lamborghini now. I WANT IT NOW! AND $5 in returns is not going to cut it. Which by doing this, they end up doing a three catastrophic
things that kill their portfolio. They end up raising their risk, lowering their entry standards, and most importantly, rush the process, which the butt and getting them in the process you're likely in now of lose money, make
money, lose money, make money, lose money, make money, and consistently stay in the exact same spot or even worse start going negative, which in return keeps them in the exact same cycle, the cycle of a losing trader. Now, the good
thing is we can get you out of that cycle, but in order to get you out of that cycle, you first have to understand big profit target expectations are potential. Now, say if you're trading with a thousand dollars. If we target
only 5% a month, 5% of a thousand dollars is $50 a month. Again, if you're trading with only a thousand dollars right now, this may seem completely pointless to you. $50 is absolutely nothing and will not pay the bills. Even
But, say if we raise your account balance to a hundred thousand dollars. 5% of a hundred thousand dollars is 5,000 per month. 5% of 500,000 is 25,000 per month. 5% of a million is 50,000 per month. And this brings me to my next
point. Why does it seem like the rich traders get richer and the poor traders stay poor? Because the rich traders don't have to target high percentages to have to risk a lot to get a lot. So, they can stay in the game a lot longer
with a lot less risk and still make exceptionally good returns. Now, you thanks Trading Lab. It's pretty obvious the more money you have, the more money you'll make." But, that's not the point I'm trying to make. You have to
understand the profitable traders that are making all of this money have a very long-term mindset. Let me blow your mind real quick. Even if you're only starting thousand dollars, then target it again, say 5% a month, which even 5% a month is
still pretty high, but we'll go with it for this example. 5% with a thousand dollars is $50 the first month, which again is probably absolute garbage to you. But, if you made 5% every single month starting with only $1,000 and kept
reinvesting that money in your next trades, do you know how much you would have in the end if you consistently did that for 20 years? You would have 121 million. 121 million in 20 years getting only 5% a month starting with only
$1,000. If that doesn't open up your eyes, I don't know what will. You don't need to be going for home runs. You need to be going for base hits. The point I'm seem like a small amount now, and it
probably is a small amount now. But, if you consistently do it and keep your snowball intact, the compounding of that 5% can do absolute wonders. So, don't 5% can do absolute wonders. So, don't think about the $50, think about the 5%.
But, this next tip makes the last one look like a grain of sand. Look, if you want to get better at football, I can guarantee you if you practice with Tom Brady, you would get better at football. And if you wanted to become the best in
the world at toasting bread in a toaster, you'd probably hang out with someone who's weirdly good at toasting bread. My point is trading is no different. Now, here's the part I wish someone told me on day one. If you want
to become better at trading, it is super detrimental you surround yourself with profitable traders. Because if you were like me, you'll end up making the same mistake over and over, and there's nobody there to tell you what you're
doing wrong. Which, if you're doing this, your learning curve will be very slow. And your first couple of years, you'll likely be losing money. Let me learning curve. When you're surrounded by good traders, you can show your
charts, someone points out what you're missing, you're able to watch how other people think through a setup. And most importantly, you can compress years of trial and error into weeks. There's a lot of ways to do this. You can go to
trading conferences, trading competitions, networking, whatever it is, you need to do it. But for me, it was joining a trading community. For example, I have a Discord community with 50,000 people in it, and all of them are
trying to do exactly what you're trying to do, become better at trading. What's nice about this is you can post your charts, ask questions, and see other people's ideas and strategies, but the main goal we focus hard on is how to
think about trades, not just copy them. I have personally hired a team of eight professional analysts in the Discord to do just one thing, share all of their trades that they personally take throughout the day. Every single one,
exiting, and most importantly, you can see how they think about the trade itself. So, you can see the process, not just the outcome. I myself even post every single trade I take in there as
well. That $300,000 I made last year from trading, I shared every single trade I took in the Discord while getting to that point. But my biggest rule with this Discord is transparency. You see, we post a monthly performance
report, and we post it no matter what the month looks like. It's good, bad, ugly, it doesn't matter, we post it. This monthly report provides two things. One, you get to see which analyst performs the best, and two, it allows me
to see if any analyst ever underperforms, so I can remove them from the group as a whole and cycle in better analysts to take their place. This keeps the quality of the trades super top tier. For example, this was our yearly
report for 2025. We had one of our best years yet with over 1,600 trades, a 77% win rate, and an average gain of 98%, which I'm super proud of. And don't just
take my word for it. This Discord has genuinely helped lots of people, like these guys, these guys, these guys, them, and them. And here's some more. You don't have to join my community, but I'd at least recommend trying one
because the fastest way to get good is feedback from people who are already check ours out, the link is in the pinned comments. And since you made it thanks by giving you a discount code. I'll call it toaster. See you next time.