Table of Contents
Mandi Pour Rafsendjani sits down for a candid interview to unpack the real drivers of trading performance—mindset, habits, and accountability. She’s a trading performance coach known for helping traders remove the blind spots that cap their results, and here she talks through practical fixes you can apply right away. If you’re new to Mandi’s work, expect straight talk and concrete examples that translate to better decision-making at the screen.
In this piece, you’ll learn how to stop chasing “big fish” trades when your edge is built on consistent small gains, how to prepare like a pro before the session, and how to set boundaries so guilt and FOMO don’t hijack your plan. We’ll also dig into building goals that serve you (not just external status symbols), testing advice against your personality and timeframe, and the simple discipline that keeps you executing your strategy day after day. The aim is simple: leave with a trader’s playbook you can actually use on your next session.
Mandi Pour Rafsendjani Playbook & Strategy: How She Actually Trades
Core philosophy: define the job, not the outcome
Your results improve fastest when you treat trading as a craft with repeatable tasks, not a hunt for home runs. This section sets the foundation—what counts as your edge, what a “good trade” looks like, and exactly when you’re done for the day.
- Write your edge in one sentence: “I trade [instrument/timeframe] when [pattern/context] aligns with [confirmation], risking ≤1R to target ≥1.5R.”
- A trade is “good” if it followed your process, even if it lost. Log it as a win in the Process column.
- Cap daily decisions: maximum 5 A-setups; no B/C setups unless you’re in practice mode at micro-size.
- Define your session’s finish line before you start: e.g., “After 3 qualified attempts or +2R or −2R, I’m done.”
- No “make-back” behavior: you cannot increase size after a loss within the same session—ever.
Daily prep & mental warm-up
Most traders bleed before the open—through haste, noise, and lack of intent. Here you’ll set a short routine that stabilizes attention and primes execution before the first click.
- 10-minute context scan: mark higher-timeframe bias, key levels, session ranges, and scheduled news.
- 3-minute breath/box cycle (4-4-4-4) to settle arousal; finish by reading your 3 execution cues aloud.
- Write a one-line intention: “Today I will trade only A-setups, pass on chop, and stop at −2R.”
- Pre-mortem: list the top 2 ways you might sabotage today (e.g., FOMO on open; revenge after slip) and the counteraction you’ll take.
- Preparation gate: if you skip the routine, size defaults to micro (≤0.25R), or you don’t trade.
Execution at the hard right edge
Entries fail when the criteria are fuzzy. This section tightens triggers so your hand moves only when the market shows your exact tell.
- Convert patterns to checklists: Entry allowed only when 4/4 boxes are ticked (context, level, trigger, risk).
- Use a hard stop the moment you’re filled; never “mental stop.” Move it only to reduce risk.
- First scale happens at +1R only if the structure agrees; otherwise, hold full to target or exit on invalidation.
- If price hesitates immediately and the order flow contradicts your thesis, scratch at −0.2R to preserve R.
- No chasing: if your trigger candle closes without you, skip and wait for the next setup, not a worse price.
Risk, sizing & drawdown guardrails
Your capital is your oxygen. These rules cap damage and keep you in the game long enough for edge to express.
- Standard risk per trade: 0.5R–1R. New pattern = 0.25R until 20 trades show expectancy >0.
- Daily loss limit: 2R hard stop; platform-level lockout or walk-away timer when hit.
- Weekly drawdown circuit-breaker: at −5R on the week, shift to micro-size until two green days.
- Maximum open risk: never more than 1.5R across all concurrent positions.
- News guardrail: 3 minutes before/after high-impact events, flat unless the plan specifically models it.
Emotions, triggers & if–then playbook.
You can’t eliminate emotion, but you can route it. Use simple if–then scripts to neutralize your top triggers in real time.
- IF you feel urgency (FOMO spike), THEN take 3 breaths, read your entry checklist, and require price to retest the level—no retest, no trade.
- IF a loss exceeds expectation (slippage or breakout fail), THEN step away for 5 minutes and log what broke before continuing.
- IF you’re up +2R intraday, THEN cut size in half for any further attempts to protect the day.
- IF you notice “should have” rumination, THEN close charts for 2 minutes, eyes off screens, and reset posture before resuming.
- IF you break a rule, THEN the next trade is automatic micro-size regardless of conviction.
Journaling, metrics & review loop
Accountability turns experience into edge. Keep the journaling fast, visual, and focused on learnable moments.
- Journal every trade with 5 tags: setup, context, R multiple, rule-adherence (Y/N), and emotion label.
- Save a before/after screenshot; annotate entry, stop, target, and the invalidation you used.
- Weekly scorecard: rule-adherence rate (target ≥85%), average R, win rate, and time-of-day expectancy.
- Run a “two-arrow” review: what evidence said “go,” what evidence said “no,” and which had more weight?
- Promote setups only after 40 samples with positive expectancy; demote after 20 with negative expectancy.
Environment, boundaries & energy management
Your surroundings either leak or add discipline. Build a cockpit that reduces friction and removes decision garbage.
- Single-task workspace: charts only; messaging/feeds closed during trade windows.
- Set trading hours with alarms; outside those windows, you’re not a trader—you’re a student.
- Nutrition/hydration cue: drink water at the top of each hour; no heavy meals within 60 minutes of session.
- Physical anchor: feet flat, shoulders down before entries; stand for exits to reduce second-guessing.
- End-of-session shutdown: flatten, export screenshots, write one line of gratitude, leave the desk.
Recovery protocols after mistakes or tilt
When you wobble, the goal is to protect capital and reset your nervous system quickly.
- First breach (minor rule): switch to micro-size for the next trade and add a 10-minute timeout.
- Second breach (same session): stop trading; perform a 15-minute walk and write a 3-line incident report.
- Tilt flag: any urge to double size or “win it back” ends the day; mark the day RED in the calendar.
- Next session after the tilt starts with half-risk and one A-setup maximum.
- Repeat offenders get automation: broker daily loss lock and checklist pop-ups before order enable.
Scaling & progression plan
Growth is earned by repeatability, not bravado. Use these thresholds to increase size without breaking psychology.
- Size increases only after 3 consecutive green weeks AND ≥80% rule-adherence.
- When scaling, raise size by 25% increments; hold constant for 20 trades before the next bump.
- Introduce one new market or timeframe at a time, micro-sized, with a separate scorecard.
- Plateau protocol: if equity stalls for 40 trades, reduce complexity—fewer markets, one setup, half risk.
- Quarterly audit: remove any rule you haven’t used or can’t enforce; clarity beats clutter.
Pattern clarity: turning “vibes” into rules
Ambiguity kills edges. Convert your favorite pattern into unmissable criteria so signals look obvious, not arguable.
- Context must agree: a higher-timeframe trend or range state is identified before the session.
- Level quality: level must be tested ≥2 times or be a fresh break-retest; draw it and note why it matters.
- Trigger: enter only on a reversal/continuation candle with volume or orderflow confirmation you trust.
- Invalidation is structural (beyond last swing/zone), not arbitrary pips/ticks.
- Target maps to the next obvious liquidity or measured move; partial at +1R only if structure supports.
Communication with yourself (language that moves the hand)
What you say in your head shapes your execution. Use language that narrows focus and removes drama.
- Replace “I hope” with “If X, I do Y; if not, I pass.”
- Replace “Don’t lose” with “Protect 1R and wait for retest.”
- Replace “This is the one” with “This is one of many; size is fixed.”
- Read your three execution cues before the open and after each trade.
- End each day with one sentence: “The behavior I’m proud of today is ______.”
Weekend upgrade: deliberate practice blocks
Weekends decide weekday confidence. Short, structured practice beats marathon binge-learning.
- 60-minute replay: scroll bar-by-bar through last week’s sessions and “trade” them at micro risk.
- Build a 10-image pattern deck: annotate textbook vs. borderline examples; review before each session.
- Run what-if drills: move stops to structural points and measure how expectancy changes.
- Record one 5-minute Loom-style recap to explain your best/worst trade to your future self.
- Update the playbook: add one refined rule and remove one fuzzy clause every week.
Size risk first, then hunt R multiples you can repeat
Mandi Pour Rafsendjani’s starting point is simple: decide your risk before you even think about the trade. She frames every idea in R, so the mind focuses on process quality instead of dollars. One clean sentence defines the bet, entry, invalidation, and the R you’re aiming to harvest. When that’s fixed, you stop negotiating with the market mid-trade.
From there, she pushes consistency over hero shots: target repeatable 1–2R moves that show up daily, not rare 5R moonshots that warp behavior. If structure changes, you reduce risk or scratch early to save R for the next high-quality attempt. Position size flexes with volatility, but maximum account risk stays constant, which keeps drawdowns tamed. The goal, as Mandi puts it, is stacking identical, boring edges until the equity curve does the talking.
Trade volatility, not vibes: adjust size to market rhythm
Mandi Pour Rafsendjani’s rule is to let volatility pick the size, not your mood. When ranges expand, risk per trade stays fixed in R, but position size shrinks so the stop lives beyond real structure, not hope. In quiet sessions, she allows a slightly larger size because the stop is tighter, keeping the same account risk. The point is to normalize exposure so one wild candle doesn’t rewrite your month.
She uses simple measures—like today’s average range or ATR multiples—to set stops and translate them into lots, shares, or contracts. If volatility doubles, she halves the units; if it compresses, she scales units up within her max risk cap. No trades are allowed if the stop cannot sit outside noise—she’d rather pass than pay for randomness. This keeps the equity curve steady and your head clear enough to execute the next A-setup.
Diversify by setup, timeframe, and instrument to smooth equit.y
Mandi Pour Rafsendjani emphasizes that consistency comes from spreading your edge across independent buckets, not from swinging harder at one idea. She splits her playbook by setup type (breakout, pullback, reversal), assigns each a primary timeframe, and chooses instruments where that setup historically behaves well. If two buckets are highly correlated, she treats them as one and halves the combined risk to avoid double hits. The aim is simple: when one lane stalls, another keeps the equity curve moving.
She also caps exposure per instrument and per setup, so no single theme can dominate results. Intraday trends get smaller targets with higher frequency, while swing trades get fewer attempts with wider stops, keeping total open risk controlled. When regimes change, she rotates emphasis—dialing down mean-reversion during momentum phases, and vice versa—without abandoning the framework. Over time, this mix gives her more trades with cleaner math, steadier drawdowns, and far fewer emotional decision points.
Mechanics beat prediction: checklist entries, structural exits, zero guesswork.k
Mandi Pour Rafsendjani treats prediction like background noise and execution like the job. She builds a pre-trade checklist that must light up green—context, level, trigger, and risk—before a single click. If one box is red, she passes, no matter how “good” the idea feels. This strips out improvisation and turns entries into a repeatable muscle memory you can trust under pressure.
Exits are structural, not emotional: stop beyond invalidation, scale at defined targets, and flatten on rule-based failure of the thesis. Mandi forbids moving stops farther “to give it room,” but allows moving to breakeven only when the structure justifies it, not because of fear. If price hesitates and the story breaks, she scratches small and waits for the next checklist-perfect setup. The outcome is fewer meh trades, tighter variance, and a playbook that actually survives market mood swings.
Build process discipline with hard stops, session limits, and review loops.
Mandi Pour Rafsendjani’s discipline starts with non-negotiables: every trade gets a hard stop, and every day has a clear finish line. She defines a maximum daily loss in R and a cap on qualified attempts, so there’s no “one more” after the plan says stop. If she breaches a rule, the immediate penalty is reduced size or a full shutdown—no debates, no justifications. These boundaries protect capital and keep emotion from hijacking the next decision.
Her review loop turns experience into upgrades. After each session, she tags trades by setup quality, rule adherence, and emotional state, then compares outcomes to the checklist she intended to follow. Patterns that underperform get demoted or redefined; patterns that excel receive more focus next week. Over time, the combo of hard stops, session limits, and tight reviews creates exactly what Mandi wants: fewer avoidable errors, more repeatable execution, and an equity curve that reflects skill—not luck.
In the end, Mandi Pour Rafsendjani’s message is disarmingly simple: your edge isn’t a prediction—it’s a behavior you can repeat. Define risk in R before you click, anchor stops to structure, and let volatility dictate position size so one loud candle never hijacks your month. Spread the edge across setups, timeframes, and instruments to smooth the ride, and treat any highly correlated ideas as one bucket with shared risk. When the checklist isn’t green on context, level, trigger, and risk, you pass—no matter how tempting the chart looks.
Most traders don’t fail for lack of patterns; they fail from fuzzy rules and weak boundaries. Mandi’s fix is process: hard stops, session finish lines, and built-in penalties for rule breaches so discipline survives mood swings. Keep the journal lean and visual, tag every trade for rule-adherence and emotion, and let the numbers promote or demote setups instead of your feelings. Do that long enough and the “big lesson” becomes obvious: steady execution compounds faster than perfect calls, and a clean, boring playbook beats adrenaline every single time.
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