You know the rule.

You’ve written it into your Trading Plan.

You’ve probably broken it before, regretted it, written about it in your trading journal and promised yourself you won’t do it again.

Then the market opens.

Money is on the line.

And you do it again.

Why?

One of the most frustrating parts of trading is the gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it.

A trader can understand position sizing, have a tested system, know exactly where the stop belongs and recognise their own behavioural patterns – yet still abandon the plan when pressure arrives.

In this episode of Talking Trading, Louise Bedford sits down with Wall Street veteran and mental performance coach Evan Marks to explore what happens in that gap.

Evan has spent 25 years around trading and market psychology and now works with high performers through M1 Performance Group.

Together, Louise and Evan explore why awareness alone doesn’t necessarily change behaviour, why traders can mistake impulsivity for intuition, and how fear, ego, identity and previous experiences can influence decisions that feel completely rational in the moment.

They also tackle one of trading’s most familiar contradictions:

Why are we so quick to take a profit, yet suddenly so patient when we’re holding a losing trade?

This isn’t a conversation about finding a better indicator.

It’s about understanding the person executing the system.

Because traders usually don’t lack information.

The harder challenge can be getting your behaviour to match what you already know.

Questions we discuss

1. Why do we break rules we already know?
   A trader has a written Trading Plan. They know their rules. Then money is on the line and they break them. Why?
2. Do professionals struggle with the same thing?
   Do professional traders break their rules for fundamentally different reasons from retail traders, or is the psychology underneath remarkably similar?
3. Why do we cut profits and hold losses?
   Why do traders cut profitable trades too early, yet suddenly become incredibly patient with losing trades?
4. Why isn’t awareness enough?
   I’ve broken the same rule 15 times. I know I do it. I’ve written about it in my journal. I’ve promised myself I won’t do it again. Why isn’t awareness enough to change the behaviour?
5. What changes when real money is involved?
   What actually changes when money is on the line that can make a perfectly rational trader behave differently?
6. Are you trading this trade – or the last one?
   After several losses in a row, how much are we trading the next trade – and how much are we still reacting to the previous ones?
7. Can we really remove emotion from trading?
   Traders are constantly told to “take the emotion out of trading.” Is that actually possible – or are we aiming for the wrong thing?
8. How can a trader tell the difference between intuition and impulsivity?

About Evan Marks

Evan Marks is a Wall Street veteran, mental performance coach and Founder of M1 Performance Group, with 25 years of experience in trading and market psychology.

His work examines the behavioural and psychological patterns that can interfere with decision-making under pressure.

Evan focuses on areas including impulsivity versus intuition, unconscious behavioural patterns, confidence, performance under pressure and the cumulative effect of repeated behaviours.

His core philosophy is that high performers often already have the talent and information they need. The bigger challenge is the interference between what they know and how they behave when pressure is high.

Get in touch with Evan

Website: M1 Performance Group
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evanmarks-m1/

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