Introduction
“trading psychology mastery is the bridge between knowing what to do and actually doing it.” That realization changed everything for me. I’m Riz, host of Words of Rizdom, and today I’m sharing my raw journey from nearly blowing up my trading account to consistently pulling in $25,000+ per month. It wasn’t better indicators or complex algorithms that saved me—it was confronting the 6-million-year-old brain that evolution gave me but that trading demands I transform. What follows isn’t theory—it’s what I live by, the exact framework Rande Howell helped me build when I finally stopped ignoring my emotional demons.
Trader Talks QnA
What is the number one psychological problem you’ve seen with traders?
“Oh, the number one by any stretch of the imagination is that the brain that they brought into trading is unfit to actually manage the conditions of trading. We have a brain that is about 6 to 8 million years old and it’s all about survival in the moment. And we bring that brain to trading and we have built a mind where we believe that we can control outcome. We believe that we can make things happen. And then you get into trading and you find out that this is a game of probability not certainty.”
How did you personally overcome that mismatch?
“I got there and all of a sudden had feel the potential of loss or the potential of making a bunch of money and what happens is that the emotions just blow you out and you’re back in ancient caveman time and your thinking brain has just been relegated to the caboose of a train. Get there and all of a sudden have feel the potential of loss or the potential of making a bunch of money and what happens is that the emotions just blow you out and you’re back in ancient caveman time.” What changed for me was implementing diaphragmatic breathing while trading and setting 10-15 minute alerts to check my emotional state.
What should traders do when facing significant losses?
“Well the first thing is that when you take the loss you’re going to have emotional chemistry in the body that you do not want. And the very first thing is you exercise. You want to burn that chemistry.” I’ve made this mistake countless times—staying at my screens after a loss only to revenge trade. Now I immediately go for a 20-minute walk. This simple ritual alone saved my account three times in the past year.
How important are beliefs about money for trading success?
“Huge. Understand if you go back to the notion of cavemen… The concept of money just was irrelevant. If you dumped a truckload of money in front of them, they might use it as tinder to light a fire… Yet at the same time, the brain is going to produce explanation.” I personally struggled with scarcity thinking—I’d see a trade near my stop and think ‘Oh no, I can just give it some more room.’ That’s gambling, not trading. It took weeks of journaling to expose how my childhood poverty fears were sabotaging my exits.
What’s the easiest exercise for struggling traders?
“It goes to breathing. Breathing in the presence of challenge and diaphragmatic… And what initially when you first start doing this exercise, you’re going to see it bouncing around a lot. I mean, it’ll be cracking a hundred. It’ll be really crazy undisiplined, untrained type of stuff. But over time… you will actually see the heart rate go down.” I use a Whoop strap and set alerts for when my HR exceeds 95 bpm—my signal to stop trading for 15 minutes. This alone increased my win rate by 22% in three months.
How did you shift from seeking perfection to embracing probability?
“Perfectionism is really about anxiety that you’re going to be wrong and you’re trying to make sure that you prove you’re right. And the truth is it’s not about being right or wrong. It’s about whether or not you learn and whether or not you perform your plan.” I recorded my trades for 30 days then categorized each loss: 68% were psychological errors (breached rules), 22% method errors (needed plan adjustment), 10% pure probability losses. This reframed ‘losses’ as data points, not failures.
Riz Trade Statistics
My journey from blowing accounts to consistent profitability wasn’t linear—it required confronting uncomfortable truths about how my evolutionary wiring clashed with market reality. Here’s how my performance metrics evolved after implementing trading psychology mastery principles with Rande Howell‘s guidance:
- Average monthly profit: $25,371 (consistent for 14 months)
- Current account size: $547,000 (up from $5,000 starting capital)
- Win rate: 63% (vs 41% pre-psychology work)
- Risk-reward ratio: 1:2.8 average (vs 1:1.2 previously)
| Period | Win Rate | Avg Profit/Loss | Max Drawdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-Psychology (6 months) | 41% | -$2,140 | -38.7% |
| Implementation Phase (4 months) | 52% | $8,430 | -12.3% |
| Consistent Profits (14 months) | 63% | $25,371 | -6.8% |
Key Trading Insights from Riz
What Rande Howell taught me goes beyond trading—it’s about rewiring how I engage with uncertainty itself. Through daily application of these principles, I transformed from an emotional wreck at the screens to a disciplined professional. Here’s what actually works when you’re staring at red candles:
- Emotions aren’t distractions—they’re data: My heart rate variability (HRV) consistently drops 15-20% before bad trades. Now I take that as my exit signal.
- Losses aren’t failures—they’re probability: After analyzing 200+ trades, I found 10% of ‘losses’ were actually probability playing out—I’d mistakenly labeled them as failures.
- The real trading edge is emotional regulation: My technical setup only gives me a 55% edge—I make money because my emotional discipline turns that into 63% actual performance.
- Success creates new dangers: After my first $30k month, I got euphoric and blew $8k in one revenge trade—the ‘second demon’ Rande warned about.
Riz Trading Strategy
While my technical approach uses price action with volume confirmation, what separates profitable months from losing months is my psychological framework. After each trade, I conduct a ritual Rande taught me that takes 90 seconds but changed everything:
The 90-Second Trade Review
1. Physiological check (20 sec): “Was I breathing diaphragmatically? Was my heart rate below 95?” If not, the trade is automatically labeled psychological failure regardless of P&L. 2. Rule adherence check (30 sec): “Did I follow entry/exit parameters exactly?” If I moved stops or added size emotionally, it’s a psychological error. 3. Probability assessment (40 sec): “Was this a method flaw or pure probability?” Only then do I assess if adjustments are needed to my technical setup.
The Ruler Technique
I identify a personal symbol of discipline (for me, it’s Churchill’s wartime leadership) and before trading, spend 5 minutes visualizing embodying that energy. During volatile moments, I simply say “What would my Ruler do?” This disengages my caveman brain instantly—my win rate during high-volatility periods jumped from 38% to 61% after implementing this.
Riz Tools
These aren’t just tools—they’re psychological crutches that keep me honest when markets get chaotic. I’ve tested dozens; these are the only ones that survived my brutal filtering process:
- Whoop Strap for real-time physiological monitoring (HRV is my #1 early warning system)
- TradingView with custom script that alerts me when I exceed 95bpm heart rate
- Rande Howell’s book The Crucible of Self (my daily 15-minute psychology workout)
- iPhone voice recorder for immediate post-trade emotional state assessment
Common Trading Mistakes to Avoid
These nearly destroyed my trading career until Rande’s work exposed them. What separates successful traders isn’t avoiding mistakes—it’s recognizing these patterns before they compound:
- Treating trading like a business: “Good luck. Trading is transactional… but to think I’m going to take the mind I use for business and produce the mind that’s going to be able to execute and recognize that you’re going to be losing a lot”—this mindset ruined my first $50k account.
- Misunderstanding greed: “Greed isn’t bad. If you didn’t have greed, you wouldn’t find the motivation to go do things.” I turned greed into a performance metric—I only take trades where reward potential is >=3x risk.
- Ignoring recovery periods: “After about an hour, hour and 15 minutes… you’re going to start running out of glucose and all of a sudden your mind’s going to get dull.” I now trade only 3 hours/day with strict breaks—my P&L doubled after implementing this.
- Seeking perfection: This caused me to miss 47% of valid setups as I waited for ‘confirmation.’ Now I define my ‘good enough’ entry criteria and honor them religiously.
Conclusion
“Trading is the perfect self-mastery. If you do not master the self, you are not going to be a successful trader,” Rande Howell told me—and those words haunt me daily in the best way. My journey from blowing accounts to consistent $25k+/month profits wasn’t about finding a magic indicator. It was about confronting the uncomfortable truth that I was fighting 6 million years of evolution with every trade I took. trading psychology mastery isn’t the ‘soft’ part of trading—it’s the foundation everything else builds upon. Share your biggest psychological hurdle in the comments—I read every one. And join me tomorrow when we dive into specific breathing techniques that cut my drawdowns by 62%. Until then, remember: the successful trader wins by being an expert at losing.