Meet Your Mentor

My Childhood

Hi, my name is Brad Goh or you might know me as The Trading Geek. I was born in Singapore and I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. In fact, I was born with the worst conditions in life. Growing up, we had nothing because my parents did not earn much.

My family and I lived in this cheap and small 2 bedroom apartment, which was quite run down and cramped. 

My mother was an uneducated farmer in China and she married my father so she could escaped to Singapore to build a better life.

My father worked every single odd jobs you can think of in order to put food on the table. Throughout his entire life, he cleaned the houses of rich people, he repaired watches at the local watch shop, he massaged people's dirty feet.  

Since my parents did not earned much money, I had no choice but to wear second hand clothes that were used by other people because we simply did not have the money to afford new clothes. As long as the clothes had no holes, it was good to go.

We were not allowed to order food from outside as well.  I remember that one time where my  grandma scolded my mom because she went to the local market to get a packet of chicken rice that cost $3.

Eating out was a luxury that we could not afford. So we always had simple food like plain vegetables, low quality fish, and porridges because these food sources were cheap. 

From young, I was taught to be frugal and save every single cent that we have. That's why I would often just drink a glass of Milo as breakfast before heading to school and I would skip lunchtime so I could save the allowance that my father has given to me.

Both of my parents stopped schooling at the age of 18 so they can work and provide for their own family. That is why my Asian parents did everything they could to send me to school because they believed in the conventional path - go to school, study hard, get good grades, then find a stable and high paying job. 

For most of my schooling years, I was on financial assistance and government benefits which meant that the government paid for my textbooks and my school uniforms.

I hated my job. 

Before I became a full time daytrader, I worked really hard at minimum wage jobs. 

It was tough and tiring. Giving out flyers under the hot sun, refilling drinks for unreasonable clients and getting scolded by managers who are making less than $3k per month. Every single day felt like a battle against bills that just would not quit.

The job that I hated the most was also the job that I worked the most because I had no other choice. That job was being a waiter or busboy, whatever you call it in your country.

I was working as a waiter at a bar for 6 months, making $8 per hour. My shift was always during the evening time, which meant I worked from 5pm to 11pm and makes about $48 a day. I would often reach home late at 1am to 2am, I was overworked and incredibly underpaid.

My attire was a plain black  T-shirt with long black pants like you can see in the image below. That day when I took this image was actually on 25th December 2020 - Christmas, which was my favourite holiday of the year but I decided to spend it working at the bar instead because they offered an incentive to earn $11 an hour on public holidays. 

I vividly remember there was this one busy Friday evening, where I had just finished my classes in polytechnic.

At that point of time, I was pursuing a diploma in Real Estate business while working a part time job.

I was hustling because I desperately wanted to get rich. I had to rush to the bar straight after class because the class ended late. When I reached the bar, I realized that it was bustling with excitement.

There was this good looking couple in their late 20s who were getting married so they wanted to host their wedding dinner at the outdoor grill of the bar. 

 I did my job as per usual, delivering plates and refilling glasses. It was insanely packed because the couple had invited a lot of their friends and family so I was just running around, serving the tables for a few hours until I started to feel a bit of raindrops falling onto my face. 

When it rains, it pours so the rain started to get heavier and heavier until eventually the manager asked everyone to go into the indoor part of the bar to get shelter. Everyone except the staff. 

We had to go back into the rain to shift all the drinks and the plates into the shelter for the customers. The staff took all the umbrellas and went out, but I didn’t because there was no more umbrella left. So I got completely drenched from the rain, my shirt and pants were soaking wet. 

 It was already 10pm and I did not have my dinner because I was rushing to work just now so I was famished.

I smelled like shit because of a mix of different liquids. The rainwater, my sweat and some alcohol spilled onto my shirt while I was moving the drinks. 

I was tired, hungry, thirsty and drenched. At that moment, I whispered to myself “F*ck this shit”

Then my shift finally ended at 11pm.

I remember I started crying and breaking down on the bus ride home at 12am because I was just so sick and tired of working so hard at a shitty job while my friends were busy partying and having fun. 

There is nothing more stressful than trying to make money in the real world at a young age (I was 18 at that point of time) 

That was my rock bottom, the lowest point of my life.  

I knew that this was definitely not the life I want for myself.

Barely getting by, saving money, living paycheck to paycheck and coming home late.
At that point, I thought that the only way to escape from this shitty job is to study hard and get a good job in the office. So that's what I did.

I almost fell for the conventional path too. 

I wanted to make so much money that I could retire my dad and he never has to work another day in his life so I started studying super hard in school.

I spent the majority of my teenage years failing all my classes because I was addicted to video games, watching 18+ content and instant gratification. I desperately wanted to escape from the real world so I indulged in all these pleasureable activities that spike my dopamine levels and make me feel good.  I would also go to club and drink until late at night where my friends and I will stay up on the bridge until 6am so we can take the first train home. I was a young dumb high school kid with no purpose. The main reason why I wanted to escape from my real life is because my real life was miserable and I hated it.

When I graduated from my high school, I bought a new laptop and did not install any games on there. I quitted all the bad habits that I had and started implementing habits of successful people like Elon Musk, Jack Ma, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. They were my role models and I wanted to be them so I started doing the same productive habits that they do like waking up at 5am, reading books, hitting the gym and meditating. 

I started studying incredibly hard in school and had a lot of fun on the side with my friends. I went from failing all my classes to becoming a straight As student who always get distinction. Because of my good grades and my mindset, I eventually landed an internship at one of the biggest real estate companies in Singapore.

It was one of those 9 to 5 jobs where you are stuck in your own depressing little cubicle, you get your own work laptop and you do whatever task that the big boss ask you to do.

My task was to compute the property tax for certain companies in the certain industrial buildings and shopping malls.

I hated every single minute of that job. Every single day I had to stare at Excel sheets on my work laptop and compute numbers on it. This job could easily be done by a robot because it did not require you to use any brain at all. Quite frankly, I learnt nothing from the internship.

My colleagues were all middle aged females who had kids that were the same age as me. I could not vibe well with any of them because we were in different phases in life. Therefore, I had to go for lunch alone most of the time.

The worst part was the commute.

Whenever I walked into the train to travel to work, I would always see the look on the faces of every single person in the train. They all looked miserable and frustrated because they all dreaded going to work.

You could clearly tell that none of them wanted to be there but they had no choice because they had been conditioned by the society that this was the only right path to success. I knew that this was not the life I wanted for myself…

It took me 2 hours to travel back and forth from my house to the office.

Even though the job was mundane, I had a purpose on the side during these 6 months internship.

I Started Taking Trading Seriously.

At that point of time, I didn’t know what I wanted in life yet, but I knew what I didn't want.

To be one of these slaves who have sold their souls to their jobs and making the boss that they hate richer.

I knew that trading was going to be my ticket to freedom, the key to escape the conventional path.

When I started my internship, I told myself that during these 6 months I will start taking trading more seriously.

My goal was to learn everything I can about trading during these 6 months. 

And I got so obssessed over that goal that I disconnected from the world and went full monk mode.

When my friends asked me to hang out, I would reject them because I simply did not had the time to do so because my schedule was packed. My life during those 6 months was just a combination of trading and working at my internship. I would put my phone on airplane mode all the time so I would not get distracted by text messages and social media notifications. 

I searched on YouTube, Google and TikTok on how to trade forex, I borrowed trading books from the local library, I downloaded audiobooks on my phone about trading. There were countless of videos from different traders all teaching different trading strategies. Some taught smart money concepts, others taught trading indicators and some trade using price action. I became a sponge as I try to soak up every single bit of information about trading that I could find.

But there was a point of time where I was overwhelmed by all these different information about trading and different trading strategies. 

I needed more guidance and in-depth information because I still not understand trading after watching all the different videos.

I felt like I needed something more, FREE information was not enough for me. 

Therefore, I decided to just watch the videos of this one YouTuber and learn from him directly. Eventually I decided to purchase his online course on forex trading. 

Whenever I had any blocks of free time during my 9 to 5 job, like during lunch time or tea break, I would study the trading course that I bought and took down notes on my personal notebook and my iPad. I would also try to apply the knowledge I have learnt from the course by marking some charts up with trendlines and key levels etc.

Even when I was on the train, I would read trading books on my iPad, analyze the charts and journal down mistakes I have committed and learnt from my losses.

When I got home at 6pm, no matter how tired and sleepy I was, I would continue study the trading course that I bought and read a bunch of trading books until 12am where I will finally go to sleep and wake up at 6am and repeat it all over - work the 9 to 5 job while learning how to daytrade 

And I did all that for 6 months straight. I was on a mission and nothing was going to stand in my way.

My motivation to study and master trading was that I simply do not want to live like those people.

I Opened My 1st Live Account.

I managed to complete the trading course I bought and learnt almost everything about trading technical anlaysis within the first 3 months of the internship.

I learnt how to read and analyze the charts, how to trade using price action, how to enter and exit trades properly, when to buy and when to sell. During those 3 months, I was also trading a demo account to practice my trading skills. 

On some days, I would win trades and on other days, I would lose trades. 
But I ended up making more money than I lose and this built confidence in my trading ability.

"Wow trading is actually easier than I thought." That's what I said to myself after experiencing a winning streak on a demo account.

I thought that since I was winning so much money on a demo account, I could do the same on a live account.

So I was ready to embark on the next part of my trading journey - live trading.

I was ready to start putting the hard earned money that I had earned from my internship into a live trading account (or so I thought)

I opened a live trading account with the broker, XM and deposited $500 into it and I chose the highest leverage possible, which was 1:500. 

I was motivated after watching a bunch of YouTubers and TikTokers flipped a small amount of money into thousands of dollars. I wanted to do it for myself so I set the goal to flip my small $500 account into $10,000.

At that point of time, I had no idea how to choose the proper lot size or any type of risk management yet so I just went ahead and picked a random large lot size like 1.00 and 3.00 lot. 
I got lucky for the first few days and won a few trades in a row and managed to flip that account into $5000. 

At that point of time, I was convinced that trading was the path to riches and I could get rich very fast from trading. I literally just made $5000 in a few days while it took me over 18 years of my life to even save $2000 in my bank account. 

Unfortunately, the beginner luck ran out after a week and I started losing trades after trades. When I lost, I lost big. Then I entered into a losing streak that I just can't seem to get out of no matter how hard I try.

The more trades I took, the more money I lost. I was pissed off at the market but most importantly, I was confused. What's going on?

My mindset went from "I'm the best trader in the world" to "It is impossible to make money consistently from trading"

Then eventually I got margin called and blew that first live account.  

Guess what I did next?

I did what any beginner traders would do.

Instead of reviewing the losses and analyzing what went wrong with all my trades, I deposited another $500 into a new live trading account. I was determined to grow that account to $10k and I would not quit until I do it.

Every single day when I wake up, I would immediately open up my laptop and start looking at currency pairs like EUR/USD, GBP/JPY and even GOLD. I would mark up my charts and look for trading opportunities. 

I was desperate to make money from trading because I wanted to prove to myself and my parents that I could do this for a living. So I started forcing trades. I entered even though there was no trading opportunities. I would revenge trade whenever I enter a losing streak because I wanted to make back the money I had lost. I would get greedy and enter for a buy position immediately whenever I see a big green candlestick with a lot of momentum. I would use the highest leverage and lot size possible so I can make money as fast as possible. I never placed a stop loss because I was always confident that the trade would go in my way.

I was trading with my emotions. I was not trading with a plan because I did not even had a trading plan back then. 

I was committing every single trading mistake you can think of and I did not wake up until I blown my 5th account.

I was sick of losing money.

After blowing multiple live accounts, I ran out of money to trade with.

I was only earning $650 per month from my 9 to 5 internship job at that point of time and I had already lost my income and savings to the markets.

Then my dad has transferred me $1250 so I could pay for my school fees. 
"What if I used the $1250 and try to flip it to $2500 then I would be able to take half of that and pay for my school fees and the other half to trade?" I thought and I went ahead and executed the plan.

I deposited around $1000 into my trading account once again. And I got extremely lucky with trading the high impact news.
I expected the Non-farm payroll news to be good for the US dollar, which meant the price of US dollar will go up while the price of GOLD will go down. So I shorted GOLD right before the news came out, hoping that it will go in my way.

Once again, Lady Luck shined on my side and price dropped tremendously by over 100 pips and I was up about $5000 and I closed the trade with a huge profit.

The account was now at around $7000 and I was near my goal of hitting my first $10,000 from trading!

So the next day, I decided to trade another high impact news and I did the exact same thing this time. 

I waited for the news to come out exactly at 8.30pm and watched how the market reacted to the news, whether it was bullish or bearish.

Price started collapsing dramatically and I got deja vu. It felt like the exact same scenario as last night. So I opened a few short positions on GOLD, using the biggest lot size and betting my whole account on it. 

I was jumping around thinking I was going to get rich from this trade.

Then price did a 180 turn.

Price reversed and shot up by over 150 pips and it would not stop going up.

I watched as the loss in my accounts get bigger and bigger. It was the most terrifying sight ever, I swear.

I could not believed my eyes. I saw all the trades closed by themselves on my MetaTrader 4. I got margin called. AGAIN. 

I was devastated and dissapointed in myself so I started raging and punching my pillow.

The worst part was not the loss itself, but the fact that I had to explain to my hardworking Dad on how I lost the money that was supposed to be my school fees. 

This was my 6th account... to be honest I had lost track of the total amount of live accounts I had blown. But I was certain of one cold hard truth.

I had lost over $10,000 in trading.  

I could not lose any more money any more. I was losing hope and I felt like quitting trading forever.

I knew I had to change the way I trade...

I was so damn sick of losing my hard earned money and blowing accounts after accounts. So I decided to take a break from trading and figured out what went wrong before deciding whether to continue trading. 

I sat in front of my desk with a cup of warm green tea, my notebook and my iPad. I reflected about my trading journey so far.

My trading strategy was working fine. I was good at analyzing the charts and predicting the direction of price but I still lost money.

How is that possible? What went wrong?

I took out my notebook and started journalling about the mistakes I have committed and the lessons I have learnt from my losses. Then I figured out why I kept losing money over and over again.

It all boiled down to 2 things:

1. Risk Management

2. Trading Mindset

For risk management, I was always using lot size that is way too big for my account, overleveraging and putting on too much positions at once.

For trading mindset, I was always trading emotionally instead of rationally. I was not disciplined enough to follow my trading plan.

Sometimes I get pissed off at the market for not going in my way and start revenge trading.

Im always greedy and trying to make more money from trading, resulting in overtrading.

I force trades every single day because I thought I could make money everyday.

This was my Eureka moment. I knew what I had to do next...

I had to change the way I trade.

My mindset shifted from “ I should become a profitable trader” to “ I MUST become a profitable trader”

I continued being an avid student of the markets and most importantly, myself.

I started watching trading psychology lectures by the great Mark Douglas, read books like Trading in The Zone, started meditating to be more mindful of my emotions. 
I created a new trading plan and review it every single day before I trade.

I started using a position size calculator so I can use the correct lot size when I'm trading.

I used a lower leverage (1:50) on my accounts.

I changed my focus from monetary gain to percentage gain.

I made every trade a smart risk to reward decision.

When I finally became a disciplined trader, I started breaking even on my trades.

I was incredibly happy because at least I was no longer losing money every single month.

I believed that it was only a matter of time until I became a profitable trader....

Then I Finally Became a Fastlane Trader & Achieved My Dream Life

After 2 years of losing, I finally became a Fastlane Trader, who have access to financial, location and time freedom. 

What did it cost me?

Everything. 

I lived like a monk for 2 years and maintained strict discipline when trading day in day out. I built my trading account brick by brick.

I'm trading 6 figures accounts now while I used to trade $100 accounts.

I have everything I want in my life right now because I did what everyone wouldn't. I put my head down and worked my ass off.

Financial Freedom is the best thing you can have for yourself and your family.

Now I walk into any fancy restaurants and order anything I want without looking at the price on the menu.

I buy anything that I want, be it a $22,500 Rolex Submariner or a $1970 bespoke suit.

I used to spend less than $100 per month when I was broke and nowadays my average expense per month is $30k. 

(I pay my employees a hefty amount, I only wear the finest clothes from Italy, I buy a shit ton of books and I give my parents allowance every single month.)

Life genuinely could not be better...

I can touch my heart and honestly tell you that sometimes I make more money in a day than most people make in a year. 

I took my mom shopping and told her that she can get anything she wants.

Do you know how good that feels? How proud she looked, knowing her son had finally made it?

Like I mentioned earlier, we used to wear second hand clothes as we simply did not have the money to afford new clothes. And now I can buy her whatever clothes she wants.

Last year, I brought my dad to his dream vacation twice and paid for the whole trip with my trading profits. I don’t worry about the bills anymore. I don’t look at the price tag of the food and drinks on the menu anymore. I don’t live paycheck to paycheck anymore. And it's all thanks to Mr Market.

The best part about being a full time trader is Time Freedom. 

Nowadays I can wake up without an alarm clock. I don’t have a boss telling me what time to report to work and what to wear. I have complete control over my schedule, that means I can decide when to trade and when to relax.

Most importantly, I don’t feel like time is flashing by and life is moving too fast because I am doing something that I love and enjoy and it just feels 10 times more meaningful and fulfilling and this kinda slows time down, if that makes sense…

Location Freedom allows me travel to wherever I want while making money on the go.

Trading allows me to work anywhere because all you need is either a laptop or a phone. This means that you have the freedom to work wherever you want, whether it's working at the beach or a cozy cabin in the mountains.

Just last year, I lived as a digital nomad in Thailand where I sat on a beautiful beach and trade while watching the sunset. And tomorrow, I am actually traveling to Bali to enjoy the fruits of my labour.

If a pandemic happens again and the world goes into a lockdown, I can bring my family and hop onto a private jet and escape to somewhere else with less restrictions. That’s the power of location freedom.

When you are a Fastlane Trader, you have access to these 3 types of freedom and that’s when you can take back control of your life and finally live the life of your dreams.