I interviewed 5 of the world's top trading psychology coaches for my undergraduate dissertation. The findings weren't what most traders want to hear. 🧵

I haven't posted for 11 days. I spent them building. I write about process drift. Traders don't blow up on one decision. They stop doing the small things first. Skip the review. Skip the prep. Tell yourself you'll catch up later. That's exactly what happened to my posting. Same pattern. Same excuse. "I'll do it when the build is done." So I'm back, with a rule small enough to keep. One post a day. Process over ambition. That's the whole idea.

Your most dangerous trading session isn’t the one after three losses. It’s the one after three wins. Took years to actually believe that — it goes against instinct. We tighten up after losses, not after wins. For my dissertation, I asked five world-leading trading psychology coaches — Jared Tendler, Steve Ward, Steven Goldstein, Mark Randall, Louise Bedford — where overconfidence actually shows up most in the traders they’ve coached. Steve Ward: “Markets that offer traders the chance to make above-average gains are often where overconfidence emerges. This overconfidence typically stems from winning streaks.” Above-average returns distort risk perception. The process starts feeling optional — not because you decide to abandon it, but because you start crediting the results to skill instead of discipline. A few clean sessions and the explanation that feels true isn’t “I followed my process.” It’s “I’m reading this well.” That belief is what opens the door. Size creeps up. Entry criteria loosen. The review you’d normally do starts feeling unnecessary — why review what’s already working? This is why the worst drawdowns so often follow the best runs. Not bad luck. Distorted perception, at exactly the moment you’re least likely to notice it. The traders who avoid this aren’t the ones who never get hot streaks. They’re the ones whose process doesn’t change shape depending on whether last week was green or red. Full dissertation — free — trdforge.com/resources

Overconfidence doesn't go away with experience. I used to think it might. Survive enough sessions, and maybe you build some kind of immunity. Five coaches I interviewed for my dissertation told me that's not how it works. Jared Tendler, Steve Ward, Steven Goldstein, Mark Randall, Louise Bedford. I asked each of them, "Does overconfidence fade with experience?" It doesn't. Every trader experiences it. Novice or professional, six months in or twenty years in. What separates the traders who survive it isn't immunity. It's recognition. Jared Tendler put it precisely: "Overconfidence is more common among novice traders; experienced traders do not last long if overconfidence persists." Persists is the key word. Not "if it shows up." If it persists. Every experienced trader still gets overconfident. The ones who last are the ones who catch it before it compounds. Here's what connects it all. The earliest sign overconfidence has crept in usually isn't a feeling. It's a behaviour. Process drift. Slightly early entries. A little more room on a losing trade. Skipping the review you'd normally do. That drift is often the first visible evidence overconfidence has already taken hold — before you've consciously noticed anything has shifted. Which is exactly why every single coach, independently, pointed to the same tool for catching it. Structured journaling. Not to eliminate overconfidence — none of them claimed that was possible. To build the habit of noticing the drift early, before it becomes a pattern. The real finding isn't that experienced traders don't get overconfident. They do. Every one of them. The difference is whether they've built a process that shows them the deviation before the market does. Full dissertation free: trdforge.com/resources

One thing took me far too long to realise. I was getting better at preparing the market, but I wasn’t always preparing myself. I could analyse levels, news and market structure properly, then still trade badly because I was tired, frustrated, impatient or simply too eager to trade. Now I think preparation has two parts: •Prepare the market. •Prepare the trader. The second one is probably the part I ignored for the longest.

Before TrdForge was an app, it was literally a Word document. I made a simple pre-market sheet for myself because I was tired of turning up to the market unprepared and then wondering why my decisions were poor. Economic calendar. News. Higher timeframe analysis. Plan for the day. At the bottom, I had one reminder: “Be aware of the bias!!” It looked basic, but that document became part of the foundation for everything I’m building now.

Seven years of trading. Dozens of psychology books read. Communities joined. Coaches studied. And still the same patterns. The same mistakes. The same gap between knowing and actually doing it. This is why I built TrdForge — and what it's designed to fix. 🎥 First video is live. youtu.be/iikKH1iizLM?si=bhMs…