Until that point, I had been managing things on my own, which was mostly profitable, but I craved more. I realized that I had reached the limits of my self-taught knowledge and needed assistance. While browsing WallStreetBets, I noticed a user who posted daily analysis on SPY and shared some of his options trades based on this analysis. He also had a paid Discord channel where he promised to teach his strategy in real-time. The fee was under $30 per month, so I decided to give it a try in the hopes of expanding my knowledge.

The good news is that I discovered TradingView, which has become my go-to charting tool. I also learned about indicators like EMAs, SMAs, VWAP, RSI, and many others. These indicators, when used correctly, supposedly lead to winning plays 🤣. However, for some reason finding winning combinations was only possible in hindsight, and in real-time, the win rate was at best 50%.

The mentor I was following primarily traded 0DTE SPY options, aiming for a 10% gain with a 20% stop-loss. Despite the negative risk-reward ratio, this strategy seemed to work for him. However, following his trades was nearly impossible due to the high volatility. His strategy was primarily based on EMA/RSI and required a significant amount of screen time. The few trades I made following him were mostly losses. However, the community was beneficial, and I learned about futures from one of the traders there.

I continued to pay the monthly fee, hoping to glean some valuable knowledge, while continuing my own "strategy" of selling naked puts. The group helped me refine my narrative and make better decisions based on the feedback of the more successful traders. One of the members correctly predicted the imminent failure of some banks, which prompted me to hedge my bets.

Unfortunately, my learning was limited, and I found myself constantly flipping between different indicators in search of the “one”. I even upgraded to the highest tier subscription on TradingView to have more than 20 active indicators at any given time 🤯.

As the saying goes, “all good things must come to an end,” and indeed it did in March 2023, when Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was closed down, followed by Signature Bank (SBNY) a few days later. I was left holding naked sold puts on these ‘fail-proof’ stocks. The catastrophic failure was slightly cushioned by the fact that I heeded the advice of a trader on Discord and hedged my position by buying some puts and selling some calls just a day before. Despite this, my losses were substantial, wiping out all my gains thus far and then-some.

SBNY was closed over the weekend, after being largely halted for trading on Friday. The news left me devastated and completely shattered. My girlfriend was with me that weekend, and despite her best efforts to console me, the magnitude of the disaster was overwhelming. My strategy and mindset were completely destroyed that week. Sleep eluded me for the next few days as I replayed the what-if scenarios and tried to understand how a strategy that had worked for so long could fail so spectacularly.

I couldn’t bring myself to open the broker for the next few days and only resumed trading a week later because I got margin called and had to close a few more positions, further adding to my already big losses.

To add to the turmoil, the start-up I was working at full-time was on the brink of collapse. While I had anticipated it, the news a month later that my tenure was ending was unwelcome. The company itself shut down a few months later. Truly, when it rains, it pours…

It took me some time to honestly reflect on my situation, primarily because it was difficult to acknowledge that my approach was flawed. However, I was determined not to give up. My persistence, perhaps to a fault, wouldn’t allow me to admit defeat.

The first step I took was to cancel my Discord subscription. I wasn’t learning there, and it felt like most of us were just part of a retail mob, gambling on price movements without any real strategy. Somehow, I stumbled upon ICT, who was just beginning his 2023 free online mentorship on YouTube and Twitter.

ICT’s approach, which focused on predicting rather than reacting, was a revelation. It gave me hope and inspiration. I began watching his videos from the 2022 mentorship (also free), along with his earlier videos. I would watch 3–5 videos per day, trying to absorb as much knowledge as quickly as possible. However, this proved to be an impractical approach. I was retaining very little and getting confused between Fair-Value-Gaps, Order Blocks, Breaker Blocks, and a host of other concepts. But his concepts and live tweets, predicting market movements ahead of time, gave me hope and inspiration.

I naively thought that I would master the Fair Value Gap concept in a month, maximum two and have the market at my fingertips. Fortunately, I refrained from attempting to trade ICT concepts live and instead tried to demo trade on TradingView using the built-in Paper-trading platform. As expected, my failures far outnumbered my successes. I realized I needed help.

While I didn’t find much useful ICT-related content on Reddit, Twitter was a treasure trove of ICT disciples sharing their knowledge. I added dozens of them to my feed, hoping to glean insights that would help me master ICT trading strategies. Looking back, I can’t help but laugh at my naive belief that consuming information in the form of videos, commentary, and tweets would make me a successful trader.

I did come across a few excellent traders, such as Kplus, Hydra, Opsec, SirPickle whose insights I still value. They were, and still are, publishing lots of free educational ICT content on X and YouTube. But I felt I needed more personalized guidance to make significant progress quickly, I was rushing to undo my losses.

Kplus tweeted that he was starting a small-group mentorship program. Although it was a bit pricey, I saw it as an investment in my learning process. So, I signed up for what ended up being a three-month program where we would analyze price action in real-time with our mentor a few times a week and watch selected ICT videos on various key topics on our own at other times.

Paying a significant amount for the program made me take my learning more seriously. I started taking detailed notes in Notion on every video I watched and every group session we had. I also spent 6–8 hours per trading day watching price action on my own, trying to apply what I was learning to real-time price action. I refrained from live trading and mostly focused on watching and trying to predict the market. Although I was mostly wrong, I was convinced that it would eventually “click”.

About a month into the mentorship, I discovered Dodgy on Twitter. He was prolific on Twitter and YouTube, offering tons of free educational content. I started following him and joined his Discord where he educated and called out plays. Since Dodgy was streaming and commenting daily, along with the occasional 🚦, it seemed like a great way to get more guidance during my "off-time" from Kplus' mentorship. After a 7-day free trial, I paid for a month of his paid mentorship tier, which also offered a monthly 1:1 session. This was around mid-April 2023.

Around the same time, after roughly 140 hours of screen time, I felt ready to take on the market. I had developed a “strategy” of taking 5 points on ES (S&P 500 Futures) from an FVG, as ICT suggested, and all I needed was an FVG for entry. I was confident that the market makers wouldn’t see me coming! When Apex had their 90% off sale, I seized the opportunity and grabbed two accounts. I believed that with Dodgy’s occasional signals and what I had learned, success was guaranteed. However, my accounts lasted only about two days before I made every textbook mistake possible: over-trading, over-leveraging, revenge trading, and so on.

Despite this setback, my overconfidence persisted. I paused trading for two days, reloaded a few more accounts at 80%, and tried again. Somehow, in the beginning of May, I managed to pass two evaluations and got my first funded accounts after trading the minimum required time of 7 days, adding approximately $500 to the balance each day. This was a significant confidence boost and seemed to validate everything I was doing. In reality, a few of my wins were the result of simply following Dodgy’s signals or lucky plays based on taking the first 1m FVG during the AM Silver Bullet (10–11am EST) or PM Silver Bullet (2-3pm EST) time windows.

The euphoria was short-lived. The first funded account blew up the very next day, and the second one didn’t last much longer, taking about four days to blow up. This was somewhat painful, as getting a funded account cost $160, significantly more than the $19 or $38 evaluations.

To borrow Dodgy’s catchphrase, “not gonna lie,” this cycle repeated a few more times during the months of May, June, and July. I would get Apex accounts on the cheap (80/90% off), blow most of them, pass a few, and then blow those up as well. Each time, I felt that my knowledge was growing and that it was just a matter of time before I succeeded, but each time, I ended up failing. During that four-month period, I blew dozens of evaluations and probably 8–9 funded accounts. Fortunately, I was doing okay with my options trading, which covered the losses I was taking from blowing up accounts. At least, that was how I rationalized my “process.”

Simultaneously, I was still studying, filling Notion with copious notes, and so on. My charts became largely free of indicators, but they were now filled with dozens of FVGs in every direction along with every possible swing high/low from higher-time-frame (HTF) down to 1m. Needless to say, it was very confusing. I could understand how ICT, with his 30 years of experience, could work with naked charts (just price action, no doodles), but how my mentors could keep their charts clean with 1–3 FVGs and maybe 1–2 lines showing draw-on-liquidity (DOL) after only doing ICT for a few years was beyond my comprehension at that point. I was convinced that there had to be some sort of trick, some formula, or an ICT indicator that would make all the difference.

By July 2023, my initial mentorship was drawing to a close. I had secured a lifetime membership with Dodgy back in May for $350, which, in hindsight, was probably the best investment I made during my entire learning journey. Unfortunately, I was no closer to receiving a payout from a funded account. Despite being able to pass an evaluation 30–40% of the time, I couldn’t keep a funded account alive for more than a week, no matter what I did. I would incur a loss, attempt to recover it, become frustrated, and end up depleting the account.

One particular instance stands out. On a Friday uptrend day, I entered a short position around 3 pm, near what I thought was the peak. I figured there was no way we could continue to rise; we were already up over 300 points on NQ, a reversal had to be imminent. I kept adding 1 NQ every 10 points, thinking a reversal was just around the corner. However, seven minis in, I was hoping for a break even. The market makers had other plans, and the market continued to rally until about 3:55 pm. At that point, my account was blown, just before a small retracement of about 20 points before the close.

A few months earlier, based on Dodgy’s suggestion during one of our 1:1s, I had switched from S&P 500 (ES) to Nasdaq (NQ). The volatility on Nasdaq made it much easier to get 12.5 points (equivalent to 5 ES points) and typically didn’t require as long of a hold.

As my first mentorship was coming to an end and I was struggling to find consistency, I began to question things. Aside from a few funded certificates, I had little to show for my efforts. At this point, I had probably watched over 100 hours of videos, spent over 50 hours in live sessions with mentors, and dedicated over 400 hours to my own screen time. I was growing desperate and starting to realize that my initial estimate of mastering ICT concepts in 1–2 months may have been a bit optimistic. I attempted to pass one more evaluation using only the signals that Ryan (Dodgy) would occasionally drop on streams. As you can imagine, I failed. My entries were never as good, I was chasing because I was too scared to enter during the initial “signal”, then ended up entering late (chasing) due to FOMO and using far too much leverage. What happened then is that a draw-down of even a few points would scare me out of trades (3 points on NQ with 5 minis is $300) and then close at BE due to fear of losing a play, missing out on winners and only ending up with the losing plays.

To give you an idea of some plays I took (please learn from my mistakes), Ryan would say these equal or relative-equal highs should hit (and he was right 90% of the time) when we were a few points away, so I would enter with 3–4 minis thinking this is guaranteed and the price would reverse and drop 15–20 points effectively taking me out before going to target. These chases seem to always work out for other people, at least what I could see in discord comments and Ryan himself, but for me, they were like a 3rd rail of trading I would get fried nearly every chase.

Something had to change. By mid-August, I largely stopped getting evaluations (about 3 between Aug – Oct, all blown), focused on Ryan’s videos & live streams, and continued to revisit ICT’s older content along with the new stuff he was putting out in 2023. I actually stopped taking as many notes as I did before, and focused all my efforts on trying to understand the Inversion FVG strategy Ryan was teaching. I could see him winning using this strategy every time he would come on stream and while I could understand the logic & mechanics of it, I for the life of me couldn’t do it still. 4–5 months into the mentorship, I was still struggling. My inherent stubbornness was pretty much the only thing keeping me going, perhaps a dash of refusal to admit defeat.

Around this time, I came to a realization: having too much information was just as detrimental as not having enough. The wealth of knowledge I had accumulated led me to question every move and doubt every potential entry, as I could always find a reason why each setup might fail. For instance, this FVG seemed risky because of that Order block, that inversion seemed risky because there was another FVG above or below, and so on.

I also began to understand that I was often my own worst enemy when it came to trading. My personality traits made it challenging for me to hold onto long-term trades, especially when they fluctuated from green to red, only to return to green and hit the final take-profit target. I realized that I wasn’t a day trader who could hold positions through significant up/down swings or aim for 40–100 point plays like some traders I followed on Twitter or in Dodgy’s discord. Even though I could handle it when it came to options, when it came to trading futures, I was a scalper at heart. I needed to enter the market, make my profits quickly, or accept my losses and move on to the next trade.

I attempted to implement Ryan’s Inversion model in this manner. While Ryan was producing a ton of quality content, which I would watch without fail in real-time, I had to admit that I couldn’t execute it on my own. At this point, I knew that relying on signals was a path to failure and certainly not a sustainable long-term strategy. That being said, I was still absorbing knowledge, sometimes subconsciously, and it wasn’t just from Ryan. There were other brilliant traders on his discord, like Leppyrd, Levi, and Mythy, who were generously sharing their knowledge.

I stopped consuming more new content from ICT, realizing that less was more. I needed to master a basic model, not add even more confusion with new knowledge. However, in early October 2023, ICT did one of his weekend spaces where he briefly talked about a trading model he created for his son Cameron. I didn’t listen to the space itself, but someone on discord provided a summary of the model. At a high level, it involved a scalping strategy that took a 30s FVG formed after a 5/15 swing high was taken, aiming to get 10pt of profit with a 12 stop-loss. This seemed a bit odd to me because of the negative risk-reward ratio, but the model supposedly had a massively high win rate, and ICT had the receipts to prove it. His son even made it onto the TopStep leaderboard with 14 consecutive winning days.

At first, it was an intriguing curiosity, and I filed it under something to look into later. A little while later, Leppyrd, one of the experts in Ryan’s discord, shared his back-testing results on the model. He significantly simplified the approach, allowing 1m swings to be used, etc. Along with the back-testing, he also made a video to help explain the model, which from then on was dubbed the “Leppyrd model”. This piqued my curiosity, and I watched the video a few times, bombarding Leppyrd with questions on discord. There was something there.

Around this time, Ryan was rarely streaming PM sessions. He would usually stream the morning session, call out a few bangers, and the lunch (12–1:30 pm) / PM (2 pm–4 pm) session was unaided and often chaotic when it came to price action. One of the guys who I hadn’t noticed in discord before, Plyo, came to stream a few PM sessions and talked about order blocks. I had been interested in Order Blocks since my start with ICT. In fact, Hydra, another ICT alumni, with his strategy based around morning macros and order blocks, had made me genuinely curious about them. However, I confused myself between the different types of OBs (Breakers, Rejection, Reclaimed, etc.) and couldn’t get it to work.

Plyo’s straightforward explanation and strategy of using bearish order blocks at their extremes for entries resonated with me. It was a simple yet effective way to use them on an extremely low time-frame (30 seconds). This, coupled with Leppyrd’s ongoing advocacy of the Leppyrd model that operated on a similar time-frame, intrigued me.

I decided to test it out. I conducted a quick back-tests, but I have a personal aversion to back-testing. The ability to press a button and see the outcome, without experiencing the challenge of enduring real draw-down or counting candles while the price fluctuates around a few points away from the take-profit, felt inauthentic. So, I opted for forward testing the model, initially on a demo, then after a few days, using an eval account. As I was doing this, I observed the price action, trying to address the issue that had been bothering me from the start—the negative risk-to-reward ratio of the model. Some might call me arrogant, a trading novice trying to improve on a model developed by the master himself (ICT) and further refined by an expert trader (Leppyrd), but it was a challenge I was determined to take on.

This led to the creation of the “30s Model Guide”. I must admit, it took about two weeks of focusing almost exclusively on this model and three blown evaluations, but it worked. At first, it was tentative. I was often scared to enter trades, and for full disclosure, until this moment, I had never looked at a 30-second time-frame, let alone traded it. But it was working. I was battling my own scar tissue from the previous eight months of trying to trade ICT Concepts, but I was executing my own trades, based on my own bias and technical analysis. Yes, I was taking some losses, and I was closing winning trades for break-even or even taking a small loss because my interpretation of the price action suggested that the trade could fail, but I was doing it.

I started to track my trades, something I had tried before but could never stick to for more than a few days. It feels like an achievement, akin to an AA milestone. I have journaled for the 30s model for 28 30 continuous trading days. To hold myself accountable, I share all trades in a public Google doc, including wins, losses, and trades I skip for whatever reason. I also created an X account to showcase the logic behind each trade I actually take, serving as a sort of public journal.

Perhaps it was serendipity, the alignment of the stars, or the culmination of 1,000+ hours of screen time, hundreds of hours of streams, mentorship, refusal to admit defeat, or a combination of all these factors. But the confluence of ICT introducing the 30s model, Leppyrd simplifying it, and Plyo finally helping me grasp order blocks was the triumvirate that led to my breakthrough.

Interestingly, in his 2023 mentorship, ICT predicted that people who stick with it would start seeing results in November. Sometimes it feels like the guy could predict the future. I finally understood why screen time was so important, and why Ryan kept emphasizing it on stream. I won’t lie, there were times earlier in my journey when I wanted to throttle him every time he mentioned it.

Approximately eight months have passed since I embarked on my journey with ICT. ICT conducted his last stream (X Space) on November 11, 2023. If he remains true to his word, this could signal the end of new ICT content. However, he has undoubtedly left a trail for others to follow, not to mention a thriving community of traders who utilize, refine, and educate others on his concepts. These remarkable individuals generously share their hard-earned knowledge without expecting anything in return, teaching me invaluable lessons along the way. Inspired by their generosity, I aspire to “pay it forward” by sharing my journey and persistently refining the 30s Model Guide.

Special Thanks To:

As to where to go next, have a few goals in mind:

• Pass my current evals
  1. Nov 13, 2023 - 4 Apex and 1 TakeProfitTrader left, 3 Bulenox, 1 Topstep, 11 Apex done)
  2. Nov 14, 2023 - 1 TakeProfitTrader left, 3 Bulenox, 1 Topstep, 15 Apex done)
  3. Nov 15, 2023 - 3 Bulenox, 1 Topstep, 15 Apex done 1 TakeProfitTrader
  4. Dec 29, 2023 - 3 Bulenox, 2 Topstep, 17 Apex, 1 TakeProfitTrader, 2 MyFundedFutures
• Get a TopStep Payout
• Recover 2 old Apex Fundeds from deep draw-down - Nov 15, 2023—blew up not trading the model
• Master Inversion Model (6-month goal)
• Master DTFX Model (Giving myself 8-12 months)
• Get 1st Payout on Apex/Bulenox/TakeProfitTrader/MyFundedFutures
• Get my fundeds past trailing draw-down
• Accumulate sufficient payouts to trade my own funds (long-term goal, 2025?)
• Continue to refine 30 Model (this is a journey, no end...)