The 3 Human Traits Holding Back Your Trading

More from Traders Mastermind All episodes →

1. 

   E249 · 18 Sep 2026 · 11 min

   When Trading Becomes Procrastination

   Sponsored by Pepperstone Sometimes trading feels productive when really it’s just helping you avoid the harder work. In this episode, I look at why stepping away from the screen to tighten up your playbook, trade management, routines and trading rules might be exactly what you need to make real progress.

2. 

   E248 · 11 Sep 2026 · 12 min

   The 3 Phases of a Trader: Learning, Earning, & Scaling

   Sponsored by Pepperstone Most traders move through three phases: learning, earning and scaling. The trouble starts when we confuse which phase we’re actually in… In this episode, I look at why experienced traders sometimes need to go back into learning mode, when it’s time to take the pressure off, and how we know when we’re ready to start scaling again through size, better holds, and cleaner execution.

3. 

   E247 · 4 Sep 2026 · 13 min

   The Crowd Does This. Do The Opposite.

   Sponsored by Pepperstone Prop firm data reveals some interesting patterns in how losing traders behave. In this episode, I look at two common behaviours that show up again and again… and why doing the opposite could make a big difference to your trading.

4. 

   E246 · 28 Aug 2026 · 15 min

   Why Trading Strategies Stop Working

   Sponsored by Pepperstone Why does a trading strategy that once had genuine edge suddenly stop working? In this episode, we look at how markets adapt, participants change their behaviour, and profitable edges can become crowded and decay… using the famous Turtle Trading strategy as an example. More importantly, what does that mean for us as traders, and how do we make sure we can evolve as the market does?

5. 

   E245 · 21 Aug 2026 · 15 min

   I Won by Doing Almost Nothing

   Sponsored by Pepperstone Years ago, I found a strange edge in a head-to-head trading game: while everyone else rushed to trade, I waited. In this episode, I share what that taught me about patience, understanding the real objective, exploiting other traders’ mistakes, and why sometimes the best trade is no trade at all.

6. 

   E243 · 7 Aug 2026 · 10 min

   The Stripped-Back Drill For A Losing Streak

   Sponsored by Pepperstone Trading has too many moving parts. Entry, exit, stops, targets, scaling, hold or fold, how many trades, breakout or mean reversion. When you're in a drawdown, it all turns to noise. So here's one drill to cut through it. Strip out the variables and answer a single question. It won't fix everything. But it gets you off the back foot and gives you something to work with instead of just bleeding. Have a listen and see if it's right for you.

7. 

   E242 · 31 Jul 2026 · 9 min

   Be Your Own Boss: The Carrot and Stick Method for Trading Discipline

   Sponsored by Pepperstone When you trade for yourself, you wear every hat... CEO, risk manager, senior trader, junior trader. Nobody's holding you accountable, and that's exactly the problem. In this episode, Mark Holstead unpacks why most traders stay stuck in the same cycle: feel bad about a mistake, promise to do better, repeat. The missing piece? Real consequences. Here's how to engineer them, using trade hesitation as the worked example. It won't fix everything, but if you've done all the right groundwork and still can't shift a bad habit, this is probably the piece you're missing.

8. 

   E241 · 24 Jul 2026 · 10 min

   Why Closed-Minded Traders Get Left Behind

   Sponsored by Pepperstone No big claim in this one. Just a thought on why staying open-minded might be one of the most underrated attributes a trader can have... and what being open-minded actually means in practice. A clickbait short came through my feed the other day. Guy ranting about how a specific strategy was total nonsense, how "this is how the funds do it." Except a bit of digging turns up four or five firms running exactly the strategy he says doesn't work. Twelve-year track records. All public. So this episode is about the alternative. You look at a strategy and you land on one of…

9. 

   E240 · 17 Jul 2026 · 17 min

   I Flew 20 Hours To Learn 3 Strategies I Couldn't Trade

   Sponsored by Pepperstone Early 2000s. I flew from the UK to Las Vegas to sit in on a new trader intake at a prop firm. Three strategies, all working, all making the firm serious money. I went home and couldn't trade a single one of them. Not because they were bad. Because they were never going to fit me… I didn't have the capital, the stomach for size, or the appetite for spreadsheets. Took me a long time to work out the difference between "this doesn't work" and "this doesn't work for me." In this episode, I break down all three strategies (NYSE opening print fair value, ECN liquidity…

10. 

    E239 · 10 Jul 2026 · 8 min

    Two Traders, Same Start… One Blew Up, One's Still Winning

    Sponsored by Pepperstone Two traders. Same meetup, same market, same year. One bragged about every win… until the week he vanished, fifty grand down on borrowed money. The other never bragged, and ten years on, he's still trading and thriving. Mark unpacks the one thing that separated them: process over ego, long-term over the quick win.