 Welcome back to the trade hacker mindset. In this episode, I want to share a little trick that I use that has helped me become a more profitable trader. Trading the markets can be difficult to master and seemingly just out of reach. Professional traders have a secret. Trading requires total mental and emotional control. It requires the trade hacker mindset. All right, let's jump into this discussion. I want to share something with you all that has helped me actually become a more profitable trader and this is gonna sound potentially a little bit counterintuitive at first, but it works. And so I want to share it with you. So one of the things that when we day trade, we stream live every morning to our community for the first 90 minutes of the day. So from 8.30 a.m. to 10 a.m. central, we do intraday trading, we day trade. And one of the things that we use to do that is volume. So we look at volume to help us determine if a move is running out of steam and we use volume to help us determine if a price of a stock is going to continue in a direction. So there's some different criteria that we use to help us determine this, but that's one of the things that we use. And so when I'm looking at my trades and I get into a trade based on this very specific criteria and I'm in the trade, one of the tricks that I've used to help me manage the trade to the best possible degree is I hide my P&L, okay? So when I'm trading, I actually remove the P&L on my platform. I actually have a little window that I can slide out of view so that I cannot see my P&L at all. Now, you might be thinking, well, gosh, that's crazy. I like most traders, once they get into a trade, that's exactly what they stare at is their P&L. They say, oh my gosh, I'm up $100, I'm up $1,000, I'm up $10,000, I need to take it off or I'm down, I get nervous and I gotta get out. And that's one, that's actually a very detrimental thing to your trading because if you are focusing on your P&L, then it's taking you away from your focus on your actual trade. So what I do is I hide my P&L and the only thing that I look at to determine whether I'm getting out of the trade is I look at the chart right in front of me. Now, I know that sounds simple to some. I know that sounds crazy to others because it's honestly, I used to look at my P&L all the time and going from looking at my P&L constantly to not looking at it at all, it's kind of a difficult thing to do. But I would encourage you to try to do this because it'll be very eye-opening in how your decision-making process works as your trading. So I have very specific criteria for how to exit a trade. So if the trade's going in my favor, for example, I am going to take half of my position off. So let's say I did 10 contracts, I'm gonna take five of those contracts off once I hit around a 10% profit. So as soon as I'm in the trade, I set my limit order to close half my contracts once I hit that profit level. I don't need to watch my P&L to determine that. I can put that order in as soon as I'm in the trade and once that hits that level, it'll automatically take me out and I'll hear a little chime from my brokerage platform that lets me know that that order's been hit. Then once I have removed half of my risk exposure and I've booked some profits, the next thing I do is I look for an area where I think might be a next target. And so my next target is I'll take off another quarter of my position. So if I did, I started with 10, took off five, then I'll take off another two or three contracts as another quarter of my position size and I'll scale out as it continues to go in my direction. And so as soon as I close that half, then I'll look at the charts and determine, okay, if price gets to this level, that would be a good area depending on pivot points, depending on previous days, high, low, open, closed, depending on the velocity of the move, I set a profit target to close out the remaining piece. And then the last piece is a little bit more discretionary where I will potentially let it run or if it starts to chop, I may just cut out. But all of these decisions are being made based on what's going on with the price action, okay? It's not being determined based on what my profit or my loss is on the position because here is what I know, and this is obviously from personal experience, is if I'm watching my P&L, it will affect my decision-making abilities both on a profit and a loss standpoint, right? If I am seeing a significant amount of profit, I may want to close that trade out. But if the price action is not telling me to get out, then I shouldn't get out. So if you're watching your P&L, you may close too early, okay, on the flip side of that is if you see, if the trade's just been chopping around and then all of a sudden it starts to move in your direction and you see a little bit of profit, you might say, you know what? I just gotta take this off the table. I just gotta take it off and you close it out again too early. Whereas if you had been focusing on the price action of the chart and the chart was telling you to stay in, then you may not have taken that off, okay? So that's on the winning side. On the losing side, if you see a trade going against you and you're watching your P&L and you're watching your P&L turn red and starting to accumulate and get bigger and bigger and now I'm down $100, now I'm down $500, now I'm down $1,000, you know, depending on what size you trade and what your risk tolerance is for those P&L swings, that's going to affect your decision making on closing out that trade. Whereas if you were just looking at the charts, if you hide your P&L and you're just looking at the charts and you're only making trading decisions based on what the chart is telling you, it's going to take that emotional factor. Now, trading is emotional, I get it. It's not gonna 100% remove the emotional factor, but it is certainly going to lower the amount of emotional factors that come into your decision making process. It's going to make you trade the setups. It's going to make you trade the charts, not trade your P&L. You know, one of, I would say, you know, in my self-analysis of my own trading over the years, I would say one of the bigger issues with when it comes to my trading is holding on to trades longer than I should. And it works both ways. It works, sometimes I hold on to trades too long, even if they're going in my direction, because I, you know, it's the whole greed factor. Okay, I'm up $1,000, but I could be up 2,000 if it keeps going, that kind of mindset. So I'm holding on to positions too long from the winning perspective, and sometimes I hold on to positions too long from a losing perspective. Oh, now I see my account, my P&L going down. Well, I don't want to take that kind of loss. Surely it's going to bounce back, so I hold on to it too long, and what inevitably happens is it continues to get worse and worse and worse, right? That's Murphy's Law. So in my kind of self-awareness, I realize that can be an issue for me. Now I've gotten very good at controlling that over the years, but I know that that's a tendency that I can have. And so by removing the P&L from my screen, by not viewing the P&L while I'm in a trade, it really helps me focus on the chart and get out when I'm supposed to, if it's a winning trade, and get out when I'm supposed to, when it's a losing trade. So even if you're not sure if this can help you in your trading, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it will. And so here's what I would just ask you to do. Try it out. It's going to, and just understand, it is going to be uncomfortable at first. You are going to feel like you're flying blind. You're going to feel like, oh my gosh, I've got to see how much I'm up or down on this trade. But I promise you, if you can practice hiding your P&L and just focusing on the charts, like I said, it's going to take a lot of the emotion out of this. Now, if you are struggling to find consistency in your trading, this can also help you. And remember, and we talked about this a couple episodes ago, where if you want to make a change, if you want to make a positive change in your trading, you have to change your environment. You know, if you're doing the exact same thing every day and you're continuing to lose money or you're continuing to have inconsistency, then something needs to change. And sometimes that can be just a tiny little tweak. And this could be that tiny little trick, that tiny little tweak that you make, that could make a significant difference in your trading. Remember, when you're dealing with your own money, when you're dealing with your finances, it's emotional, it just is. And so if you're watching your P&L swing around, that can cause you to make decisions that you wouldn't otherwise make. Whereas, if you're just watching a chart, you don't have the same emotional attachment to that chart that you do to seeing money come in and out of your account as your P&L swings as you're in a position. The other thing that this will help you do is become self-aware. One of the biggest struggles for, especially newer traders, is being aware of how their emotions control their decision-making process. And so when you first try hiding your P&L, you're gonna have a little bit, like I said, you're gonna have some anxiety, but I want you to think about how you're feeling when your P&L is hidden. I want you to write down how you're feeling when your P&L is hidden. It'll create an awareness about your emotions. It'll create an awareness about yourself that you may not have seen before. And we all know this is, I mean, the whole topic of this podcast is mindset. The mental struggles that you have sometimes are just little blocks that we have in our mind that if you just tweak it a little bit, it can help tremendously. And I think this is one of those things that I want you to try that can really shed some light, not only on your P&L and potentially make you a more profitable trader, but will also help you be more self-aware about your decision-making process and how your emotions affect those based on your P&L swings. One thing that I do also do during my trading, if I catch myself taking a peek at my P&L or if I even catch myself thinking about my P&L during the trading, sometimes I'll take a little time out. I will take a couple deep breaths, I'll hide it, and I will either talk out loud or I will write down what I'm seeing in the markets at this time. Is there a bullish sentiment? Is there a bearish sentiment? Is the market coming to a grinding halt? Is it extremely volatile? I'll just kind of try to reset and refresh my mind because if you're watching your P&L, those different thoughts start to creep into your mind, like, oh my gosh, I don't wanna have a red day. And let's say I had a red day yesterday, oh my gosh, I don't wanna have two red days in a row or maybe you're on a real hot streak and you've got 10 winning days in a row and you don't wanna break that streak. And so you start focusing on your P&L, oh, I'm taking and you start taking winners too quick because you're trying to just keep that profit, keep that green streak alive and all of those things ultimately are going to work against you and your profits over time, not help you. Your goal as a trader is to be market focused, not money focused. And if you follow this exercise of not watching your P&L, it's gonna create a positive habit and this is gonna help ensure that you're keeping your mind in check and that's keeping your mind in the flow with the market, not on your financial goal or the monetary P&L swings that you're seeing. So I hope this was helpful. If you wanna join a community of traders, like-minded traders who are all focused on helping each other become better traders, go to community.navigationtrading.com. We also have a free membership that includes an options basics course. It includes an implied volatility indicator that you can put right on your charts and it includes four core strategies that we teach. This is all at no cost. If you're interested, just go to community.navigationtrading.com and meet some of the other great traders that we have. Everyone has the sole purpose of helping each other become better traders. I look forward to seeing you on the inside and we'll see you in the next episode.