My son FaceTimed me Thursday afternoon.
The kid doesn't call. He texts, badly, in fragments. So when his face showed up on my screen I picked up, because FaceTime means something is on fire.
I was wrapping up an All-Time High Trade class for Trader X. He was at a gas station, standing in front of an air compressor, completely stuck.
Three steps. That's the whole job.
- Take the cap off the valve.
- Press the nozzle onto the spout.
- Push the button.
He did all three. I could hear air through the phone, so I figured we were fine. Then he read me the gauge: 11 PSI. A passenger tire runs 30 to 36.
We troubleshot for a hot minute. Finally I had him point the nozzle away from the tire and hit the button so I could hear it fire.
Nothing.
"Mark, weren't you pushing air in?"
"Yes."
Then it landed on me. "Did you turn the compressor on first?"
"How do I do that?"
"It takes credit cards."
Long pause.
"Stay there. I'm getting in the car."
I gave him the business the entire drive over.
Then I got there, put my card in, and the compressor didn't work.
It was dead.
That tire was never getting filled. I bought a couple cans of sealant, got it drivable, and finished the job at the station up the road.
One Trade Tells You About Luck
I blamed my kid for a machine that was broken.
Traders do this to themselves constantly.
You size it right, you pay the vol you wanted to pay, you take profit exactly where you planned, and it loses anyway, because the tape did something your plan had no reason to account for.
Then you tear the plan up.
That's the mistake.
I've watched perfect trades go bad for 25 years. What I haven't seen is 10 good setups in a row failing to produce a profit. One trade tells you about luck. Ten tells you about your process.
Learn to tell a great setup from everything that isn't one, hold your risk plan while you do it, and the math over a run of trades starts working for you.
It's a lot faster to learn that from somebody who's already made the mistakes than to figure it out yourself at a gas station at 11 PSI. I'm clearly no mentor when it comes to tire maintenance. Licia is a better one when it comes to trading.
That's what her NXT Mastermind is. Six weeks of live sessions on her 1DTE overnight options method, Mondays and Wednesdays, starting Monday the 17th. You trade it alongside her the next day, live, so it actually sticks.
Sign-up closes Sunday. She's not running this one again. Tap here for a seat.
Your only option,
Mark Sebastian