Look in the Mirror
By the time you finish reading this, you’ll either nod in quiet agreement or scoff in denial. But the truth remains: trading is not about the market—it’s about you.
Most traders spend years chasing the perfect strategy, the magic indicator, the secret formula that will make their account grow in a straight line. They burn through books, forums, YouTube videos—convinced that success is a matter of finding the right “edge.”
But the harsh reality? The edge is inside your own head.
The single greatest reason traders fail isn’t because they don’t understand delta or theta. It isn’t because they don’t have the right brokerage account or enough capital. It’s because their emotions—fear, greed, overconfidence, hesitation—lead them to self-sabotage. And unlike a bad trade, you can’t just exit your emotions at a loss and move on.
If you want to be a successful trader, you need to stop treating the market like your enemy. Your worst opponent is the person staring back at you in the mirror.
I. The Most Dangerous Market Force Isn’t Volatility—It’s You.
In 1906, the British statistician Francis Galton stumbled upon something peculiar. He attended a county fair where hundreds of people were trying to guess the weight of an ox. Most individual guesses were wildly inaccurate. But when he averaged all the guesses together, the result was shockingly close to the actual weight—within a fraction of a percent.
Markets function in much the same way. Individually, traders make irrational, emotional decisions. But collectively, the market is brutally efficient at pricing reality.
What does this mean for you?
It means that when you feel certain about a trade—when you think “there’s no way this can lose” or “this trade has to work”—the market has already priced in everything you know and then some. And the more convinced you are, the more likely you are to be wrong.
Traders who let their emotions control them don’t lose because they’re dumb. They lose because they believe too much in their own intelligence. The market humbles those who refuse to listen.
II. Why Losing Feels Twice as Bad as Winning Feels Good
Psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky discovered that humans hate losing twice as much as they enjoy winning. This is called loss aversion, and if you’ve ever watched an options trade go against you and refused to close it—because “it’s not a loss until I sell”—then you’ve felt it firsthand.
Here’s how this plays out in real life:
- You place a bull put spread on SPY, expecting it to stay above support.
- A week later, SPY is testing your short strike, and suddenly, you’re not a trader anymore—you’re a hostage.
- Your rational mind tells you to cut the trade, take the small loss, and move on.
- But your emotional mind whispers, “Maybe if I just wait, it’ll bounce back.”
- The next morning, futures gap down, IV spikes, and now your manageable loss is a disaster.
This isn’t a market problem. This is a you problem.
The best traders don’t just “accept” losses. They plan for them. They expect that some trades will fail and never let a single loss dictate their next decision.
The moment you start trying to “make back” what you lost, you’ve stopped trading—and started gambling.
III. The Casino vs. The Gambler: Why Most Traders Play the Wrong Role
Imagine two traders sitting across from each other.
One is selling options, collecting premium, and managing risk methodically.
The other is buying OTM calls, chasing moonshots, and hoping for a big win.
Who is more likely to win over time?
If you said the option seller, you’re right. But what if I told you that most traders know this—and still do the opposite?
Why? Because our brains crave excitement, not probabilities.
- Buying a lottery ticket feels good, even though the odds are terrible.
- Selling insurance feels boring, even though it’s the most profitable business on earth.
- A trader who sells premium wins more often but never “hits it big.” A trader who buys OTM calls wins less often but dreams of 1,000% gains.
The casino never plays the lottery. It sells the lottery tickets. The question is: which side are you on?
If you want to win long-term, stop playing for excitement. Play for edge.
IV. How to Trade Like a Machine (So You Don’t Trade Like an Idiot)
The best traders aren’t emotional robots. They just have rules that stop them from acting like fools.
1. Risk No More Than You Can Emotionally Handle
You can tell yourself all day that you’re comfortable with a 2% loss. But if you’re checking your P&L every five minutes and feeling sick when a trade goes against you, you’ve sized too big.
If your position size is small enough that you can sleep peacefully—win or lose—you’re doing it right.
2. Never Trade Without an Exit Plan
The second you place a trade, you should already know exactly how you’ll get out:
✅ If it works, take profits at 50-75% of max gain.
❌ If it fails, cut losses before they spiral.
If you “decide later,” you’re not trading. You’re improvising. And improvisation is how traders blow up accounts.
3. Ignore Individual Trades—Focus on the Next 100
One trade means nothing in the grand scheme.
Five trades mean very little.
Only over 100+ trades can you measure real skill.
If you let one win make you cocky or one loss make you fearful, you’ll never reach 100 trades with a rational mindset.
Final Thought: The Market Doesn’t Care, So Why Should You?
The sooner you stop expecting the market to reward you, the sooner you’ll start making money.
The market doesn’t care how much you need a win.
The market doesn’t care that you’ve had a bad week.
The market doesn’t care that you feel like you’re “due” for a lucky break.
The market rewards traders who follow probabilities and punishes those who follow emotions.
If you can detach from your emotions, follow your system, and trade like the casino—not the gambler—you’ll be ahead of 99% of traders.
And when you do that, the profits will take care of themselves.
I’ve been trading options professionally for 20+ years, and if there’s one thing experience has taught me, it’s this: success isn’t about chasing moonshots—it’s about discipline, probabilities, and consistency.
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Probabilities over predictions,
— Andy Crowder
