A few days ago at a gathering, I met a girl who trades contracts. A friend introduced me, saying I was doing pretty well in this circle.

She came over with her wine glass, exhaustion clear in her voice: “Two million, sis, and now there’s barely anything left in my account.”

I teased her on purpose: “What if you’d spent two hundred thousand earlier to learn my methods?”

“I didn’t even know you back then!” she laughed, scratching her head.

I didn’t point out the truth—that even if we’d met earlier, she probably wouldn’t have trusted me. Some losses you have to experience yourself to know how much they hurt.

She suddenly leaned in: “Seriously, does anyone actually make money in this game? I feel like I’m being targeted—whenever I buy, it drops; whenever I sell, it goes up. It’s uncanny!”

She made me laugh. “Of course there are people making money. But this feeling you have? Every newbie thinks the same.”

“Think about it,” I poured her a glass of water. “The market runs 24/7, and the price moves aren’t about you. If you make a million, the market won’t applaud; if you lose everything, it keeps moving as it always does. That’s the harshest reality—you’re fighting for your life here, but the market doesn’t care.”

She got anxious: “Then what do I do? How do I turn things around?”

“This game is hard because it’s too simple.” I paused. “It’s so simple that once you buy in, all you can do is wait. And waiting makes people anxious.”

“A lot of people are highly educated and great at calculations, but they still lose enough to quit. Why? Because they can’t handle uncertainty. They think learning more strategies and watching more indicators will let them control everything. But in reality, the only thing you can control in this market is how much you’re willing to lose.”

She was still confused: “But what do you actually do?”

I told her directly: “When you see a trend forming, set your stop loss and enter.”

“That’s it?” she stared wide-eyed.

“That’s it.” I shot back, “But how many times have you actually tried that?”

Most people can’t even manage the ‘waiting’ part. Take trend judgment—I could talk to you about it all afternoon, but understanding it isn’t the same as applying it. It’s like learning to drive: before you get on the road, coordinating the clutch and gas seems impossible; once you actually learn, it’s second nature.

Sometimes it’s pretty ironic. So many people climb mountains searching for answers, only to open the treasure chest and find a slip of paper inside: “The answer is where you started.”

The starting point and the finish line are right next to each other—it’s just that we love running in circles.