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This interview features Shan Hanif, the founder and CEO of Genflow, in a straight-talk conversation about building audience-led businesses and turning attention into revenue. While he’s known for scaling brands with top creators, the mindset and systems he shares map perfectly to trading: clear goals, repeatable processes, and ruthless focus on what actually moves the needle. If you’re a trader who cares about consistency and scalable results, his approach is worth your time.
In this piece, you’ll learn how to think like an operator: define your edge, build simple rules that compound, and use feedback loops to double down on what works. We’ll pull out the exact strategy mindsets traders can steal—how to choose the right “audience” (your market), design offers (your trade plans), and create a pipeline that turns ideas into execution without drama. Whether you swing FX or equities, you’ll see how to apply creator-economy playbooks to build a durable, profitable trading process.
Shan Hanif Playbook & Strategy: How He Actually Trades
Market Focus & Timeframes
Think in niches first, then scale. The goal is to specialize so your read on a specific market becomes unfairly good, and only then widen out. Keep the lens simple: one core session and one or two timeframes that drive every decision.
- Pick 1–2 instruments you’ll “own” (e.g., GBPUSD + S&P 500) for 90 days before adding anything else.
- Define a primary timeframe for bias (4H or Daily) and an execution timeframe (15M or 5M). No third chart during entries.
- Trade only two sessions you can be fully alert for; skip everything outside them.
- Write a one-line thesis before each session: “If X, I’m long toward Y; if not, I’m flat.”
Edge: Problem–Solution Mapping
Edges come from solving recurring market “problems” the same way every time. You’re not predicting the future; you’re recognizing patterns you’ve tested and priced.
- Document three repeatable play types you see weekly (e.g., trend continuation after NY open pullback; failed breakout reversal; range fade at prior day high/low).
- Define each play with: trigger, invalidation, initial target, and add/scale rules.
- If a setup doesn’t match a defined play 8/10, it’s a pass.
- Measure each play’s win rate, average win, and average loss monthly; keep only plays with positive expectancy.
Setup Criteria (The “Green Light”)
You need a crisp checklist so entries are binary: either it’s on or you wait. This removes hesitation and revenge trades.
- Structure: Higher-timeframe bias aligned (HH/HLs for longs; LH/LLs for shorts).
- Location: Key level is fresh and obvious (PDH/PDL, session high/low, weekly open, VWAP).
- Timing: Session timing window (first 90 minutes of London/NY) only.
- Trigger: One candle pattern allowed for confirmation (engulf, break-retest, wick-rejection).
- If any item is missing, skip the trade—no “close enough.”
Risk & Position Sizing
Survivability first. Make losses boring and wins meaningful by fixing risk and letting R multiples do the heavy lifting.
- Risk a fixed % per idea (e.g., 0.5%–1.0%); never stack more than 2 correlated positions.
- Stop placement: beyond invalidation, not just “x pips.” If invalidation isn’t clear, you don’t have a setup.
- Target structure: first take-profit at 1R to reduce risk, leave runner to 2–3R based on ADR/ATR.
- Weekly max loss: 3R. Hit it, and you stop trading until next week.
- News rule: no new positions 5 minutes before tier-1 releases; manage open trades to break-even or flatten.
Execution: Entering Without Second-Guessing
Execution is muscle memory. Decide in advance how you’ll click the button so you don’t negotiate with yourself.
- Use stop orders to enter on confirmation; avoid market orders unless the spread is stable.
- Pre-stage orders with predefined size, stop, and first TP before price arrives.
- One re-entry rule only: if the plan says “retest after sweep,” you may try once more at reduced risk (50%).
- If price tags your entry and instantly violates structure, scratch quickly—don’t wait for hope.
Trade Management Rules
Managing winners and losers consistently keeps your equity curve smooth. This is where most traders leak edge.
- Move to break-even only after structure confirms (e.g., HH after long), not at arbitrary pip counts.
- Trail behind swing structure or session VWAP; never trail candle-to-candle on the entry timeframe.
- If ADR is achieved, either scale out to 25% runner or close the book—don’t expect “bonus” range.
- If a setup lingers for two full candles without progress, reduce risk by half or exit.
Data & Feedback Loops
Treat each week like a mini product launch: measure, learn, iterate. The goal is to cut losers faster and scale winners cleaner.
- Journal three things per trade: setup name, reason for entry, reason for exit. Add two screenshots.
- Tag mistakes (late entry, FOMO, over-size, counter-bias). Tally mistakes cost monthly.
- Run a Monday review: kill the lowest-expectancy play for the week and increase size 10–20% on the highest-expectancy play.
- Maintain a “Do More/Do Less” list pinned on your screen and update it every Friday.
Weekly & Daily Routine
Consistency beats intensity. A tight routine compacts decision-making and saves willpower for execution.
- Sunday: mark weekly levels, define primary bias, write two scenarios (“trend day,” “mean-revert day”) for your instruments.
- Daily pre-market: 15 minutes to mark PDH/PDL, session ranges, and news; write the one-line thesis.
- Mid-week reset (Wed): if down >2R, cut size in half for the rest of the week.
- Friday rule: no new trades after the first clean win or after midday—protect the weekend P&L.
Psychology: Operator Mindset
Think like an operator: simple rules, repeatable systems, and zero drama. Your edge is the ability to do the boring thing longer than others.
- Ban “make it back” language; replace with “follow plan on next valid setup.”
- If you break a rule, you stop trading for the session—non-negotiable.
- Keep risk the same on a winning streak; only scale after a full month of positive expectancy.
- Use a physical checklist before every entry; if any box is unchecked, you cannot click.
Scaling & Diversification
Scale what’s proven, then add carefully adjacent plays or markets. This keeps growth controlled and drawdowns shallow.
- Increase size by 10% after four consecutive green weeks with max drawdown <5R; revert after any >3R red week.
- Add one new market only when your primary market contributes >70% of monthly profits.
- Split plays across time-independent sessions (e.g., London trend + NY reversal) to reduce correlation.
- Build an “A-book only” list for prop or copy accounts: include just your top two plays with the cleanest stats.
Size Risk First: Position Sizing That Survives Any Market Day
Shan Hanif builds companies by protecting downside first, and that same logic powers robust trading. Before thinking about entries, decide the exact percentage you’re willing to lose if you’re wrong and let that figure size the position—never the other way around. When volatility expands, shrink size; when volatility contracts, allow a touch more size while keeping the same risk per idea. The goal is boring losses and meaningful wins, not heroic bets that end careers.
Translate Shan Hanif’s operator mindset into a simple workflow: set a fixed risk per trade, anchor stops to invalidation, not round numbers, and let R-multiples manage expectations. If a setup isn’t clear enough to define invalidation precisely, it isn’t clear enough to fund. Cap total daily and weekly drawdown so one rough session can’t snowball into chaos. Master this, and your equity curve starts reflecting discipline, not drama.
Let Volatility Lead: Adjust Stops and Targets, Not Your Emotions
Shan Hanif’s ethos is simple: react to conditions, not impulses. When markets speed up, your plan shouldn’t be to “try harder”—it should be to widen stops to the true invalidation, reduce position size, and accept fewer but higher-quality trades. Use objective measures like ATR or ADR to set distance from entry and to map realistic targets; when range doubles, your stop and take-profit should scale with it. This keeps you from getting clipped during noisy expansions and from overtrading during quiet compressions.
Volatility also dictates cadence. In compressed phases, wait for a clear break-and-retest or a sweep that cleans liquidity before you engage; in expansion, favor momentum continuations over mean reverts. Shan Hanif’s operator mindset says to template these responses ahead of time so each session starts with precomputed stop/target bands and size tiers. That way, you’re not negotiating with fear or FOMO—you’re just following a volatility-adjusted blueprint.
Diversify Smart: Underlying, Strategy, and Trade Duration for Resilience
Shan Hanif wins by building multiple cash-flow streams that don’t die when one channel dries up, and traders can mirror that logic. Don’t spread thin across twenty charts; rotate across a few uncorrelated underlyings so one theme doesn’t dominate your P&L. Pair a trend-following play with a mean-reversion play so you’re not hostage to a single market mode. This way, when momentum stalls, your range tactics keep the equity curve moving.
Shan Hanif’s operator mindset also applies to time. Hold a core swing when the higher timeframe is clean, then layer a separate intraday playbook for days when the swing is consolidating. Keep each “bucket” independent—its own rules, sizing, and review—so you can scale the winners and cut the laggards without emotion. The aim isn’t more trades; it’s sturdier returns built from different engines that rarely fail at the same time.
Mechanics Over Predictions: Entry, Exit, and Management Rules You Repeat
Shan Hanif wins by building machines, not making guesses—and traders should too. Start every session with a simple playbook: what confirms entry, where invalidation lives, and how you’ll scale or scratch. Write it like a recipe so you can execute even when adrenaline spikes. If the market doesn’t give your exact ingredients, you don’t cook the trade—full stop.
Shan Hanif’s operator mindset turns uncertainty into checklists. Define one trigger per setup (engulf, break-retest, or wick rejection), one exit for being wrong (structure break), and one exit for being right (pre-mapped R multiple or session target). Manage winners the same way every time—move to break-even only after structure confirms, trail behind swing points or VWAP, and stop touching it between candles. Predictions feel smart, but mechanics pay rent.
Define Your Risk: Cap Losses, Avoid Open-Ended Blowups, Stay Consistent
Shan Hanif’s operator mindset starts with one non-negotiable: every trade must have a hard invalidation and a pre-agreed loss. Undefined risk is a business model for blowups, not for traders who plan to be here next month. Put the stop beyond structural failure, not at a neat number, and size down so that the exact stop equals a small, fixed percent of equity. If you can’t name the line that proves you wrong in one sentence, you’re not allowed to click.
Shan Hanif would treat risk as a product spec: maximum loss per day and week, per-setup loss caps, and a rule that bans averaging down on losers. Replace revenge trades with an automatic cooldown—two losing trades in a session trigger a time-out. Ban “move the stop just this once”; either the idea is alive or it’s closed, no limbo. Keep a ledger of rule breaks and their cost, and cut size by half for a week after any breach to hard-wire discipline.
In the end, Shan Hanif’s biggest lesson for traders is to operate like a builder, not a guesser: define the outcome you want, script the steps, and measure the results. He stresses thinking long-term and being intentional instead of chasing dopamine hits from short-term metrics—a mindset that maps directly to trading routines, risk plans, and weekly reviews.
He also shows how preparation creates edge: decide the “titles” and “thumbnails” before you hit record—traders can mirror this by writing session scenarios, invalidation lines, and exits before any entry. By pre-planning the moments that matter, you cut noise, avoid overtrading, and turn each session into a repeatable play instead of a fresh gamble. The craft here isn’t glamour; it’s scripting, rehearsal, and relentless iteration—exactly what consistent trading demands.