Your Obsession With Making Money Is Why You Can't Make Money Trading

Hey {{first_name}},

I need to tell you something that's going to sound backwards.

Your obsession with making money is the exact reason you can't make money.

Let me explain.

Most traders don't struggle with trading because of their strategy. You know your setups, you understand risk management, you've done the work to learn how to trade…

But you still blow accounts and give back profits. You still feel empty after green days...

The root of the problem in trading is what money means to you.

Finish this sentence three times in your notebook: Money means I can finally ____ because of ____.

For me, money means I can finally breathe and feel safe because debt won't be able to control me anymore.

For you it might be: Money means I can finally buy a home and leave my toxic job. Or money means I can finally leave my 9 to 5 and live financially free.

When money stands in for freedom, identity, or escape, you will quietly sabotage any system that threatens those meanings.

I learned this the hard way during an FOMC announcement a few years ago.

I had been green all morning and I was so close to passing my funded account. Everything was going great. I told myself to stay flat for news, just watch and learn.

But as soon as that first candle hit, I felt this shot of electricity in my chest.

My brain started saying “this is the one. This is going to get you out of the grind. This is the answer to everything.”

Within 30 seconds, I doubled my size, chased the move, and blew the entire account.

I was gutted.

I knew my setup wasn't there. But the fantasy of freedom... freedom from debt, from a job I hated, from a lifestyle I wanted out of, it had a chokehold on me. It controlled everything.

And my brain was doing exactly what I had trained it to do. Protect the dream at all costs, even if it meant sabotaging the work I was doing to get there.

When you're under stress, the logical thinking part of your brain goes offline.

You literally lose the ability to think clearly and you resort to automatic habits and behaviors.

This is why your plan melts away the moment urgency shows up.

And by the time you realize your emotions are taking over, it's already too late. Your subconscious mind is in control and it's hard to stop unless you have the tools to stop it.

When your emotions take over, the outcomes are predictable…

Even in calm conditions, losses hurt more than gains feel good. And without a way to counter this, you'll always exit winners early and babysit losers too long.

Let me show you the three biggest emotional drivers I've seen destroy traders from the inside out. You can be one, two, three, or a combination of all of them.

Notice which one hits home the most because that's the one controlling your trades even when you're following your plan.

This is the most seductive story in trading.

Freedom from the 9 to 5, financial freedom, not worrying about the dead end job… This is the escape fantasy.

It sounds like “I'll quit my job once I get X amount of dollars.” “I'll retire my parents when I get funded.” “I'll prove everyone wrong when I pass this challenge.”

On the surface this sounds inspiring and like a strong reason why.

But here's the trap…

When you secretly believe one trade could bring you the freedom you've always wanted, losing a trade feels soul crushing.

And your body interprets that loss as a threat to your survival.

When your survival is threatened, you become more emotional and reckless because your brain is scrambling to protect you.

Which means you'll continuously keep yourself in a loop of dreaming big freedom dreams and watching it blow up in your face the second things go wrong.

The urgency to reach these goals + the stress of actually reaching them + the get rich quick mentality of funded accounts kicks your brain out of planning mode and into emergency mode almost instantly.

Meaning that most of us are trading emotionally the second we sign up for a funded account or fund our own accounts. And we never leave that mindset because our goal of freedom suddenly feels so achievable.

If we could just get funded, then everything else will follow…

Do you ever notice why it's so difficult to get funded?

That's because of what it's tied to mentally.

Getting funded means your goals are now a possibility. Your lifestyle, your freedom you want, your dreams for your life are all now within reach.

And when you get to that payout, you're almost guaranteed to blow your account the next trading day or week.

This pattern is so predictable that I can tell you now it’s likely that you won't reach a second payout because your mind can't handle the reality of your dreams potentially coming true so easily and quickly.

The brain can't mentally understand what it's like to make $1,000 a day or lose $1,000 a day without building that tolerance up to it.

That's why when it takes 10 or 15 years to get a business to a multi million dollar level, that's fine. Your brain has had time to acclimate.

But when you go from working a dead end job to making $10,000 a week with payouts, your brain can't handle that.

That's too quick of whiplash. It makes the brain feel scared.

And when it feels scared, it doesn't think logically. It wants to get back to feeling safe and familiar. And it's going to do whatever it can to get you back to that, even if it means sabotaging you and blowing those accounts.

Here's how it plays out in your trading…

When you take a loss, the future you want for yourself is at risk. Your brain screams “get the dream back now.”

It's not that your account is threatened. It's the potential future that you're wanting to have. That's what's threatened.

So you end up sizing up and doubling down. You force trades, you black out, and you no longer execute from a system.

This is because you're trying to buy back this feeling. And that feeling is hope.

The next time you think “this trade could get me out of my job”, recognize what you just told your nervous system.

You told your brain that a loss equals a cage, a trap, a prison.

And of course you're going to overrisk right after that.

That's biology doing exactly what you asked it to do. Protect you from being trapped.

It's going to thrash and flail and freak out until it finds a way to get you out of that prison.

And nine times out of ten, getting you out of that prison is going to end in blowing your account, giving you that relief, and now you're going to start the loop back over again.

This one is more hidden but even more dangerous.

This is when profit and loss become a complete measure of your personal self worth.

If you win, you're capable, smart, lovable.

But if you lose, you feel like a loser. Not just a trader who lost but a person who is less than and unworthy.

Psychology calls this contingent self worth. Self esteem that depends on success or approval in a specific thing. Grades, appearance, career, or in this case trading performance.

Instead of “I have value because I exist”, the internal rule becomes “I have value if I win.”

When people hinge their self esteem on external outcomes, they experience wild mood swings. Happiness spikes after wins but collapses after losses. They experience higher stress during setbacks. And they start avoiding feedback, hiding mistakes, and chasing validation to quickly repair self esteem.

And when your P&L becomes your worth, a losing day is not just a negative number. It becomes the definition of who you are as a person.

Your brain treats losses as ego threats, triggering the same fight or flight chemistry as physical danger. The leads to you feeling this urgent need to repair your identity with a fast win which leads to classic revenge trading.

The cruel thing is that even large wins rarely bring lasting relief.

Positive feedback provides only a temporary high before the next test of worth appears.

This is why you can work so hard, reach your goals, and then just feel worthless and empty after.

One of my most discussed issues with my therapist is the fact that I've accomplished everything I've set out to. I love the challenge that comes with reaching goals.

But every single time I reach one of those goals, I get depressed afterwards and I just feel empty, low, and worthless. Then I start the cycle over again with a new challenge.

When I hit $10,000 in my first month of my first business, I felt dead inside afterwards.

When I paid off all my debt with trading, it was super exciting for a week and then I felt depressed and empty inside.

This is what happens when your self worth is tied to your external goals in life.

Another concept called self complexity explains why this is so painful.

Self complexity refers to the amount and types of meaningful roles you hold as a person. A parent, a spouse, an athlete, an artist, a friend, a volunteer, a student.

People with low self complexity, meaning you have few roles, they show wild emotional swings when one role is threatened. For example, if trader is one of your only roles your value, a loss is no longer just a trade. It's a threat to your entire identity.

Normal movements in the market start to feel catastrophic, and this is because there are no other roles in your life that you value to absorb the shock.

Conversely, traders who have high self complexity, who also value being a parent, a musician, a student, a business owner, a community leader, they tend to experience more mood buffering.

A losing day might bug them but they have emotional balance with their other roles. They're able to shift perspective and reduce the obsession of the loss.

This is the silent addiction of trading.

When trading becomes your primary way to feel something... Relief, excitement, distraction, getting away from boredom, dealing with stress.

Each entry alert, each candle flicker, each P&L update acts as a trigger. These triggers cause dopamine to fire not only when you win but when the reward is uncertain.

Dopamine trains the brain through prediction.

When an unexpected win happens, it feels electric and exciting. It lights you up and makes you feel alive.

This reaction causes the brain to learn “this environment gives me random hits of pleasure. I want more.”

So now you start craving the setup itself, not the outcome.

And over time, the want to trade grows even when the enjoyment fades.

This is because dopamine pathways become hyper sensitive to triggers. Over time the triggers (the charts, the notifications, the candle ticks) they create more dopamine than the PnL itself.

The result of this is wanting to trade without enjoying trading. You’re flooded with an intense urge to jump into something despite this lack of enjoyment.

Signs you're caught in this:

Now that you understand what's behind money obsession, the freedom, identity, and escape, let me show you the first step to breaking these patterns.

Many people think that detaching from something means developing a cold indifference.

That's incorrect. It's simply disciplined engagement.

Think of your mind as the pilot of an aircraft and the market is the weather. You can't calm the storm but you can protect the cockpit and control the plane.

Detachment is not about ignoring the turbulence that comes with the bad weather. It's about keeping the pilot, your logical mind, fully functional so you can steer the plane no matter how violent the market gets.

With every trade you take, a surge of dopamine is released. And the more surprising the result is, the more intense the dopamine release gets.

You can't really stop the spikes, but with practice you can blunt its power by lowering stress and tightening your control over your trades.

When you experience stress, your logical thinking mind is flooded with chemicals that weaken the parts of your brain that handle planning and impulse control.

Which means when stress is high, you default to automatic reflexes and habits to survive because you lose control of your logical thinking. Essentially, you get stuck in autopilot.

But when you focus on rule based execution instead of your P&L, it reduces stress activity, protects your logical thinking mind, and keeps long term goals possible.

Here's how to do that:

Every extra trigger you add creates a dopamine spike and fewer triggers means fewer impulsive trades.

I also need to stress getting off of social media while you're trading.

Social media releases dopamine roughly every 19 seconds.

When you have that constant dopamine hit, you're much more likely to jump into trades, be more aggressive with your trading, and do a lot more emotional trading than you need to be.

If you have to be on your phone while trading, do something that forces you to use your logical brain like Sudoku, crossword puzzles, or other brain games.

Do this before the bell every morning:

1. Take three slow breaths. When your heart rate rises, that signals to your brain that perceived danger is approaching and the brain starts thinking “I need to go into fight or flight.” Deep breathing activates the calming part of your brain. It slows down your heart rate to signal to your brain that you're safe and the perceived danger is gone and allows your logical thinking to come back online.

2. Read your execution rules out loud. Your brain processes what you speak out loud differently than what you think. Not only that, speaking out loud interrupts the automatic habit and thought loops that happen when your emotions take over. When you interrupt the automatic loops, you give your logical thinking brain becomes activated again.

3. Write your identity in one sentence. “I am a trader who executes my edge in any state of mind.” No emotions. Just focus on the facts of who you are and what you do.

4. Visualize one urge, whether it's FOMO, revenge, or impatience. Then silently repeat your if then plan. “If I feel FOMO, then I lock out of my account.” “If I feel impatient, then I wait for the 15 minute candle to close.”

This simple 4 step 90 second routine becomes an anchor for your logical mind and reminds it that you have a plan, even when your emotions take over.

Most importantly, it primes your brain to be ready for when your emotions try to take over.

Implementing this routine helps lower your baseline stress and makes your logical thinking mind more likely to stay in the driver's seat.

Now you understand the three drivers behind money obsession (freedom, identity, and escape), you understand why they destroy your trading, and you have a 90 second routine to implement to help keep your emotions at bay.

But this is just the beginning.

Next week I'm going to show you the exact system I use to rewire my brain to crave discipline instead of money.

We’ll go over:

Because here's the truth: your job in trading is not to make money. Your job is to make decisions.

Money is the market's scoreboard. Decisions are your scoreboard.

And the more you grade your decisions, the more money will take care of itself.

But we'll get more into that next Sunday.

Hope you have a great week,

Sarah

P.S. Which driver hit home the most for you? Freedom, identity, or escape? Hit reply and let me know. I'll reply with few tips to implement and help with that in your trading this week.