As a trader at one of the largest CFD brokers in the world, I witnessed tens of thousands of traders execute millions of trades every year. As the years rolled by, and the charts got better and the Bid-Ask spreads narrowed, and the trading platforms improved, I would have argued that our clients should have performed better.

But they didn’t.

When I left the brokerage trading floor, I was well capitalized, and I had a decade of experience observing clients and trading for myself. On paper I was perfectly equipped to trade. I had a solid strategy. I had made a lot of money trading for my old employer. Now I was alone, but surely everything else was the same.

One month later I had lost 15% of my trading capital and I sensed something was wrong. I began an in-depth analysis of my behaviour and that of my old clients. It led me to a deep understanding of the human psyche and how our “old brain”, which thrived and survived as a hunter-gatherer 100,000 years ago, was ill-suited to navigate modern society, and especially risk taking in trading.

I underwent a mental transformation and when I started trading again, I was a changed man. I regularly doubled my account in a matter of days. Yes, I admit I also took bigger risks, but more importantly, my new mindset was perfectly aligned with being a risk taker in the arena of trading.

I wrote a book about my research, which is called Best Loser Wins. It has 138 reviews on Amazon, of which 91% are 5 stars. The essence of the book is that you don’t need more technical analysis to become a better trader. You need a restructuring of your mind.

In this 2 hour talk I am taking you through the discoveries I made about the human brain during the research and how I was able to silence my Default Mode Network, so I was able to make risky trades without self-combusting, when things didn’t work out how I had hope – and also how I handled success.