Three years ago, I hit my first $10k trading month.
Called my parents. Took screenshots. Posted on Twitter.
Felt like I'd finally made it.
Next month? Gave back $7k.
Wasn't bad luck. Wasn't market conditions.
It was the celebration itself that killed me.
The Problem Everyone Misses
Took me a while to understand this, but emotions work both ways in trading.
Everyone talks about fear and panic. How to stay calm during losses.
But {{first_name | default:}}, nobody mentions that excitement from winning creates the exact same problem.
When you're emotionally high from a good trade, you stop seeing risks clearly.
You get loose with your next entry.
Skip parts of your analysis. Take setups you normally wouldn't.
The emotional state distorts your lens.
I noticed this pattern across different domains recently.
Athletes who stay calm after scoring.
Businesspeople who don't celebrate deals until they're fully closed.
There's this concept called emotional detachment.
Not being cold or robotic. Just not letting feelings hijack your decision-making.
When you're extremely happy or sad, you see everything through that emotional filter.
And you miss critical information that's right in front of you.
In trading, this shows up as inconsistency.
Good week? You feel invincible and overtrade.
Bad week? You freeze up or revenge trade.
Same strategy. Different execution based entirely on emotional state.
What Actually Changed Things
The shift for me came when I stopped trying to "control" emotions.
You can't really control something once it's already activated.
Instead, I started building detachment at a deeper level.
Treating every trade the same way. Win or loss.
Close the position. Log the data. Move to the next setup with the same systematic analysis.
No high from winners. No low from losers.
Just mechanical execution based on structure.
This applies beyond trading too.
Institutions aren't emotionally attached to any single asset.
Complete systematic allocation.
Diversification across real estate, private equity, even alternative assets like fine art.
Contemporary art has consistently outperformed traditional markets.
Banksy pieces that sold for $50k in 2010 now trade for $8M+.
Most people can't access this because it requires millions upfront.
But fractional ownership platforms changed that.
You can own shares of museum-quality Picasso, Basquiat, Warhol.
Same detached approach institutions use.
Wall Street Isn’t Warning You, But This Chart Might
Vanguard just projected public markets may return only 5% annually over the next decade. In a 2024 report, Goldman Sachs forecasted the S&P 500 may return just 3% annually for the same time frame—stats that put current valuations in the 7th percentile of history.
Translation? The gains we’ve seen over the past few years might not continue for quite a while.
Meanwhile, another asset class—almost entirely uncorrelated to the S&P 500 historically—has overall outpaced it for decades (1995-2024), according to Masterworks data.
Masterworks lets everyday investors invest in shares of multimillion-dollar artworks by legends like Banksy, Basquiat, and Picasso.
And they’re not just buying. They’re exiting—with net annualized returns like 17.6%, 17.8%, and 21.5% among their 23 sales.*
Wall Street won’t talk about this. But the wealthy already are. Shares in new offerings can sell quickly but…
*Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Important Reg A disclosures: masterworks.com/cd.
The Practical Side
Back to trading.
One thing that helped me maintain this detachment was automating the mechanical parts.
I used to spend hours marking liquidity levels manually.
Every decision felt personal.
"Did I mark that right?" "What if I'm wrong?"
Constant emotional engagement with the process.
Now I use tools that handle the identification automatically.
Plots institutional bias. Identifies liquidity pools. Confirms sweeps in real-time.
Removes that emotional investment from analysis.
I just respond to what the data shows.
Not required obviously. But it does handle the mechanical work so you can focus on execution.
What This Really Means
The broader point here is about how emotion affects everything.
When you're attached to outcomes, every result feels like a referendum on you.
When you're detached, results are just data points in a larger system.
Institutions aren't celebrating wins or panicking at losses.
They're recording data and adjusting systematically.
That's the difference between consistent performance and emotional volatility.
You probably already know most of the technical stuff about trading.
Liquidity sweeps. Fair value gaps. Bias identification.
The gap isn't usually knowledge.
“Execute what you know without emotional interference.”
Something to think about.
Talk soon,
Atif
