Can’t hold spot, contracts get liquidated—put simply, it’s not that you’re lacking technique. It’s your position pushing you along. Here’s my plain-language version: make every loss feel like “you lost a meal’s worth of money,” not like “your rent is gone.” Before you enter, write out your exit button first: cut where it drops to, clear where it drops to again. Keep your orders sitting there—don’t count on staying calm in the moment.

Futures are even simpler: trim your position down to the point where you can sleep, then talk about direction. Leverage is a magnifying glass, not a paycheck. Lately everyone’s been talking about rate-cut expectations, the US Dollar Index, and risk assets going crazy together—my approach is to guess less about macro, and look more at how many times my own account can take the opposite move. Staying alive matters more than comparing. In any case, I’m going to save my life first.