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What It Really Takes to Trade for a Living Podcast: Find out more about Blueberry Markets – Click HereFind out more about my Online Video Forex CourseBook a Call with Andrew or one of his team nowClick Here to Attend my Free Masterclass #619: What It Really Takes to Trade for a Living In this video:
00:01 – Summary of the interview.
00:31 – Andrew Mitchem interview with Etienne Crete.
01:13 – What it takes to succeed in the market long term.
04:37– How long will it take to be a good trader?
06:25 – How do you know if your strategy is not working?
10:40 – What time frame charts should I trade?
18:23 – Prop firm advantages and disadvantages.
22:15 – What returns can I make?
27:40 – Mindset of trading.
30:36 – Contact Andrew Summary of the interview. The amount that you make as a dollar value is not important to me. It's the percentage that you make as opposed to the percentage risk, because you can go on to a prop firm and use their money if you're good. You know, it doesn't matter whether I lose $10, $100 or $1,000 if it's still the same percentage. I'm going to make $30, $300 or $3,000. You know, if it's a 3 to 1 trade, providing that you get your mindset away from the numbers and you look at it as percentages. Andrew Mitchem interview with Etienne Crete. Something not to do with Andrew Mitchem. And Andrew is a trader that I really admire for his consistency in trading the same methods mostly for multiple decades now, I believe. So it was good to see you back on the podcast. We had a chat a few months ago, I believe, and then you were the very first guest on the podcast. Always kind of welcome back here, which is cool. But tell me what's going on with you and kind of what you're up to these days. Yeah. So nice to be here, first of all. And lovely. I think this is our fourth or fifth one. So, really good to be here. Yeah. Life's good here with summertime over in New Zealand. Markets are good, which is nice. Now we're, you know, we're over that Europe to be in the northern hemisphere summer season. Yeah. It's good. Life's good, as in very good. Awesome. What it takes to succeed in the market long term I want to address certain topics it's going to come down to, I believe, is the theme of what it really takes to succeed in the market long term. I know you have students who are very profitable now. Yeah, students who might struggle a little bit. Have maybe a lot of people who will see you, and then they see you trade full time and they kind of wonder why you're so successful. Can you kind of start to unpack this and kind of figure out, what does it take to make a living in the markets in the long term? Yeah, I think there's obviously a lot of dedication required to trade and to trade well. A lot of dedication and learning up front. I think one of the things I see that a lot of people today are not doing is I don't think there's a lot of people there that are willing to put a lot of time and effort into their trading. And I think as a full-time trader, I'm noticing that's getting possibly worse. You know, whether it's a social media thing or people want instant results, I'm not entirely sure what the actual reason is. But one thing I do notice is that people aren't putting that time and effort in. And if things aren't going well and they're not suddenly making a fortune in a month, they give up. But I find from my point of view, from what I can help people with, it's just being honest with people and saying, you do need to put some time and effort in to do it properly. You can become a full-time trader. Absolutely. It's not going to be for everybody. You still have to absolutely love it and have that passion to want to do it and to turn up, to expect that not everything's going to work perfectly. Market conditions are not always going to be great. You've got to take losing trades, losing weeks, losing months sometimes, but you've got to stick through it and be consistent. And I think that's one thing I can tell people with my years of experience: that's how you're going to get through it. It's a little bit harder for some people to actually accept that because, you know, when you're in the middle of a slump, it's quite hard to see the other side. It's funny how trading seems to get easier in the sense that you have more information. You have more coaches that can help you how to trade and stuff, but people seem to be putting less effort than before, I feel. Yeah, absolutely. People are not willing to put time in or dedicate some time to try and learn. Look, I've got these things behind me here. That's my new passion, playing guitar. I'm putting daily practice into it. I'm learning to sing. You know, I've done the helicopter thing, I've done the karate thing, and now it's this. And I can't instantly expect to turn up and play and sing and be in a band without doing, you know, several years of time and dedication. And it's getting better all the time. And you go through ups and downs and it becomes easy, then it's horrible, then you feel dreadful. And I think that trading is exactly the same, but you've got to want to do it. I think you've also got to make sure that you're doing it because you enjoy the trading aspect of it, not simply because you see it as a way to get rich quick or you hate your job. So you think that trading is going to solve all your financial problems. It can do, but you've got to give it time. How long will it take to be a good trader? If someone were to ask you, what's the amount of time it's going to require for me to just sit in trading, what would you tell them? Can you pinpoint how many years it's going to take them, or can you just say that it takes what it takes and that's it? Yeah, I think that you need to dedicate — I mean, I suppose that's how long it's going to take you. But if you can give yourself half an hour or an hour a day to learn properly, that would be good. Do your homework on the terminology of trading. You know, when we start talking about limit orders and stop losses and currency pairs and all those type of things, it's easy because we've done it for so long. But if you're new to it, you've got to give yourself — like learning a new language — time to understand that terminology. Then I think you need to find yourself either a strategy that someone else has created, or put some time into observing the market yourself. And when you're doing that, don't worry about making money. Don't even contemplate money. Get onto a demo account, look at charts. So time-wise per day, I think even giving half an hour, an hour a day to learn would be nice. That must be every day. But give yourself like six months. Give yourself a year. Don't rush it. Don't expect miracles. If you do it properly and do it slowly, you'll find that it will come together. And you'll find that you'll pick up so much because you're observing real market conditions without the pressure of feeling that you have to make money from it from day one. Something I see a lot is people that don't know when to stop learning. Like, of course you should always try to learn and train and always try to become better, but there's a time where you have to stop learning different strategies, stop kind of jumping between different strategies, and you've got to apply what you've learned so far. How do you know if your strategy is not working? How do you advise people to know when it's time to stop learning other things and other strategies? Yeah, that's an interesting one because you're right. The issue that people will have after a certain length of time is if it doesn't work really quickly, they'll then go back and try and find something else again, back onto a forum, reinvent the wheel. I'll give you a great example: just this week I had a guy who wrote to me who's a client from a number of years ago, and he said it didn't work for me. And I came back to your system about six months ago and I started again. And it's working and I'm loving it. And I'm doing well. I'm on a prop firm and everything. But a lot of people give up too quick. And I think you need to, once you've got something that's proven — maybe not proven to you, but proven to other people — you've got to dedicate some time to forgetting everything else. Because if you get yourself a strategy that has been proven to work, you don't need to go out there adding to it, and you just need to apply it in real market conditions. You know, I think it's really important that you do that. And again, like I said earlier, you have to accept that not every trade is going to work, but providing if you're looking for — like in my example, I'm looking for candle patterns, etc. So providing I'm taking what is a good quality trade at that time, if the trade works or the trade doesn't work, I can't help that. All I have to do is go back and look at it and go, at that time, did this trade meet all those criteria, yes or no? If it did and the trade loses, well that's fine. That's part of trading. But you've got to stick to that system. One of the other things I find I get questions about when it comes to things like that is what time frame should I trade? And when people are new, they naturally want to trade lots and lots of trades. So they go to like one- and five-minute charts and fifteen-minute charts — and look, I did exactly the same years ago. You've got to not do that. You've got to, in my opinion, get to something longer and more reliable. And
00:01 – Summary of the interview.
00:31 – Andrew Mitchem interview with Etienne Crete.
01:13 – What it takes to succeed in the market long term.
04:37– How long will it take to be a good trader?
06:25 – How do you know if your strategy is not working?
10:40 – What time frame charts should I trade?
18:23 – Prop firm advantages and disadvantages.
22:15 – What returns can I make?
27:40 – Mindset of trading.
30:36 – Contact Andrew Summary of the interview. The amount that you make as a dollar value is not important to me. It's the percentage that you make as opposed to the percentage risk, because you can go on to a prop firm and use their money if you're good. You know, it doesn't matter whether I lose $10, $100 or $1,000 if it's still the same percentage. I'm going to make $30, $300 or $3,000. You know, if it's a 3 to 1 trade, providing that you get your mindset away from the numbers and you look at it as percentages. Andrew Mitchem interview with Etienne Crete. Something not to do with Andrew Mitchem. And Andrew is a trader that I really admire for his consistency in trading the same methods mostly for multiple decades now, I believe. So it was good to see you back on the podcast. We had a chat a few months ago, I believe, and then you were the very first guest on the podcast. Always kind of welcome back here, which is cool. But tell me what's going on with you and kind of what you're up to these days. Yeah. So nice to be here, first of all. And lovely. I think this is our fourth or fifth one. So, really good to be here. Yeah. Life's good here with summertime over in New Zealand. Markets are good, which is nice. Now we're, you know, we're over that Europe to be in the northern hemisphere summer season. Yeah. It's good. Life's good, as in very good. Awesome. What it takes to succeed in the market long term I want to address certain topics it's going to come down to, I believe, is the theme of what it really takes to succeed in the market long term. I know you have students who are very profitable now. Yeah, students who might struggle a little bit. Have maybe a lot of people who will see you, and then they see you trade full time and they kind of wonder why you're so successful. Can you kind of start to unpack this and kind of figure out, what does it take to make a living in the markets in the long term? Yeah, I think there's obviously a lot of dedication required to trade and to trade well. A lot of dedication and learning up front. I think one of the things I see that a lot of people today are not doing is I don't think there's a lot of people there that are willing to put a lot of time and effort into their trading. And I think as a full-time trader, I'm noticing that's getting possibly worse. You know, whether it's a social media thing or people want instant results, I'm not entirely sure what the actual reason is. But one thing I do notice is that people aren't putting that time and effort in. And if things aren't going well and they're not suddenly making a fortune in a month, they give up. But I find from my point of view, from what I can help people with, it's just being honest with people and saying, you do need to put some time and effort in to do it properly. You can become a full-time trader. Absolutely. It's not going to be for everybody. You still have to absolutely love it and have that passion to want to do it and to turn up, to expect that not everything's going to work perfectly. Market conditions are not always going to be great. You've got to take losing trades, losing weeks, losing months sometimes, but you've got to stick through it and be consistent. And I think that's one thing I can tell people with my years of experience: that's how you're going to get through it. It's a little bit harder for some people to actually accept that because, you know, when you're in the middle of a slump, it's quite hard to see the other side. It's funny how trading seems to get easier in the sense that you have more information. You have more coaches that can help you how to trade and stuff, but people seem to be putting less effort than before, I feel. Yeah, absolutely. People are not willing to put time in or dedicate some time to try and learn. Look, I've got these things behind me here. That's my new passion, playing guitar. I'm putting daily practice into it. I'm learning to sing. You know, I've done the helicopter thing, I've done the karate thing, and now it's this. And I can't instantly expect to turn up and play and sing and be in a band without doing, you know, several years of time and dedication. And it's getting better all the time. And you go through ups and downs and it becomes easy, then it's horrible, then you feel dreadful. And I think that trading is exactly the same, but you've got to want to do it. I think you've also got to make sure that you're doing it because you enjoy the trading aspect of it, not simply because you see it as a way to get rich quick or you hate your job. So you think that trading is going to solve all your financial problems. It can do, but you've got to give it time. How long will it take to be a good trader? If someone were to ask you, what's the amount of time it's going to require for me to just sit in trading, what would you tell them? Can you pinpoint how many years it's going to take them, or can you just say that it takes what it takes and that's it? Yeah, I think that you need to dedicate — I mean, I suppose that's how long it's going to take you. But if you can give yourself half an hour or an hour a day to learn properly, that would be good. Do your homework on the terminology of trading. You know, when we start talking about limit orders and stop losses and currency pairs and all those type of things, it's easy because we've done it for so long. But if you're new to it, you've got to give yourself — like learning a new language — time to understand that terminology. Then I think you need to find yourself either a strategy that someone else has created, or put some time into observing the market yourself. And when you're doing that, don't worry about making money. Don't even contemplate money. Get onto a demo account, look at charts. So time-wise per day, I think even giving half an hour, an hour a day to learn would be nice. That must be every day. But give yourself like six months. Give yourself a year. Don't rush it. Don't expect miracles. If you do it properly and do it slowly, you'll find that it will come together. And you'll find that you'll pick up so much because you're observing real market conditions without the pressure of feeling that you have to make money from it from day one. Something I see a lot is people that don't know when to stop learning. Like, of course you should always try to learn and train and always try to become better, but there's a time where you have to stop learning different strategies, stop kind of jumping between different strategies, and you've got to apply what you've learned so far. How do you know if your strategy is not working? How do you advise people to know when it's time to stop learning other things and other strategies? Yeah, that's an interesting one because you're right. The issue that people will have after a certain length of time is if it doesn't work really quickly, they'll then go back and try and find something else again, back onto a forum, reinvent the wheel. I'll give you a great example: just this week I had a guy who wrote to me who's a client from a number of years ago, and he said it didn't work for me. And I came back to your system about six months ago and I started again. And it's working and I'm loving it. And I'm doing well. I'm on a prop firm and everything. But a lot of people give up too quick. And I think you need to, once you've got something that's proven — maybe not proven to you, but proven to other people — you've got to dedicate some time to forgetting everything else. Because if you get yourself a strategy that has been proven to work, you don't need to go out there adding to it, and you just need to apply it in real market conditions. You know, I think it's really important that you do that. And again, like I said earlier, you have to accept that not every trade is going to work, but providing if you're looking for — like in my example, I'm looking for candle patterns, etc. So providing I'm taking what is a good quality trade at that time, if the trade works or the trade doesn't work, I can't help that. All I have to do is go back and look at it and go, at that time, did this trade meet all those criteria, yes or no? If it did and the trade loses, well that's fine. That's part of trading. But you've got to stick to that system. One of the other things I find I get questions about when it comes to things like that is what time frame should I trade? And when people are new, they naturally want to trade lots and lots of trades. So they go to like one- and five-minute charts and fifteen-minute charts — and look, I did exactly the same years ago. You've got to not do that. You've got to, in my opinion, get to something longer and more reliable. And