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This YouTube interview features trading performance coach and active trader Mandi Pour Rafsendjani digging into the psychology that powers day-to-day results. She trades indices like the DAX, dabbles in FX and gold, and coaches everyone from beginners to hedge-fund pros. Why she matters: Mandi’s superpower is translating messy, real-world emotions—worry, over-attachment, impulsiveness—into practical frameworks you can use on your next session.
In this piece, you’ll learn how to take full responsibility for your results (no more “the kids distracted me” excuses), neutralize worry before it hijacks your decision-making, and build freedom inside structure with simple routines you’ll actually follow. Mandi breaks down “intuition vs. intu-wishing,” shows how to catch revenge-trade spirals early, and explains why journaling feelings and self-talk during trades gives you an edge. Expect clear, beginner-friendly steps to tighten risk habits, keep your identity separate from outcomes, and turn lifelong learning into daily performance gains.
Mandi Pour Rafsendjani Playbook & Strategy: How He Actually Trades
What She Trades and When She Pulls the Trigger
Here’s the simple lens Mandi uses to decide whether a trade is even worth considering. You’ll see clear criteria for when conditions are “good enough,” so you stop overthinking and start filtering like a pro.
- Trade liquid index futures, major FX pairs, and gold during their active sessions only.
- Only act when the higher-timeframe bias (H4/D1) aligns with the intraday structure (M15–H1).
- Define an A-setup: clear trend or range, clean levels, and no major news in the next 30 minutes.
- Skip marginal B/C setups. If you hesitate twice, the answer is “no.”
- First decision is location: trade only at pre-marked levels (prior day high/low, session open, VWAP, weekly levels).
Risk Sizing that Survives Bad Days
Mandi treats risk like oxygen: you don’t notice it until it’s gone. Use these guardrails to make losses small, predictable, and survivable across any week.
- Risk a fixed at 0.25%–0.50% per A-setup; 0.10%–0.25% for B-setups; 0% for C-setups.
- Pre-define max daily loss = 1% and max weekly loss = 3%; hit either, and you stop trading.
- Set a stop where the trade thesis is objectively wrong, not where P&L “feels” okay.
- Reduce size by 50% after two consecutive losses; return to baseline only after one green day.
- Never widen stops. If volatility expands, widen the stop only if you cut size proportionally.
The Pre-Market Routine that Calms Your Brain
Preparation shrinks uncertainty. This is Mandi’s quick routine to enter the session with focus, not fear.
- 10 minutes: breathwork (box breathing 4-4-4-4) and one sentence of intent: “Trade only A-setups.”
- 15 minutes: mark levels (prior high/low, session open, VWAP, weekly levels) and one scenario per bias.
- 5 minutes: write a “If-Then” card (e.g., “If price rejects VWAP after news fades, then short to prior low”).
- Decide in advance which news events are “no-trade” windows (from T-10 to T+10 minutes).
- Close all unrelated apps; phone in another room; charts limited to execution and one HTF confirmation.
Entry, Management, and Exit—Rule by Rule
Execution is where emotions sneak in. These rules box them out so your plan survives first contact with the market.
- Enter only on a trigger: rejection wick, break-retest, or session VWAP reclaim—never on “feel.”
- Place orders immediately with OCO: stop loss + first target; no manual SL later.
- Partial at 1R (25–50% off), move stop to entry only after structure confirms (e.g., new swing).
- The average is only at pre-planned add levels and only if the initial risk stays constant or shrinks.
- Exit full if invalidation prints (opposite structure or HTF level reclaimed), even if down just −0.2R.
The Mindset Edge: Responsibility Over Excuses
Mandi is blunt: performance improves the day you own every decision. These rules kill the blame game before it kills your account.
- Ban external excuses in the journal (“kids/noise/market makers”); replace with controllables you missed.
- Use a “3-Why” drill after each mistake: Why did I do X? Why was that attractive? Why will I prevent it next time?
- Identity is separate from outcome: write “A losing trade ≠ , a losing trader” on your monitor.
- Build a “minimum viable win” (MVW): follow all rules for one session—regardless of P&L.
Neutralizing Worry and Revenge before They Start
Worry and anger are the twin saboteurs. This is how Mandi cuts their oxygen supply in real time.
- Label the state out loud: “Worry present” or “Anger present”; naming lowers intensity.
- When worry spikes, halve size or skip the next setup—small wins restore agency.
- After any impulsive trade, hard-stop the session for 20 minutes; breathe, walk, reset.
- If you think “I’ll make it back,” you’re done for the day—close platform, write the trigger, leave desk.
Intuition vs. “Intu-Wishing”
Mandi allows intuition—but only when it’s earned by data. Use these guardrails so “gut feel” doesn’t become guessing.
- Intuition is permitted only for patterns you’ve logged 50+ times with a positive expectancy.
- Any intuitive trade must still meet risk rules and level/trigger criteria—no exceptions.
- Tag intuitive trades in the journal; review weekly expectancy versus plan-based trades.
- If intuitive expectancy underperforms two weeks in a row, suspend intuition for one week.
The 3× Journal Loop that Drives Compounding
Journaling is her performance lab. Keep it fast, structured, and brutally honest to compound skill every week.
- Pre-market: one page—bias, key levels, If-Then scenarios, A-setup definition.
- During market: one line per trade—setup tag, R multiple planned, emotions felt at entry/management/exit.
- Post-market: five questions—Did I trade A-setups? Did I follow the risk? What emotion was loudest? What cue preceded it? What’s tomorrow’s counter-cue?
- Weekly: export stats by setup tag; cut the lowest-expectancy tag for the next week.
Drawdown Protocol: Stop the Bleed, Rebuild the Edge
Everyone draws down. Mandi’s protocol keeps you functional, not frantic, so momentum returns faster.
- Immediate shrink: cut size to 25–50% baseline for the next 10 trades.
- Narrow the playbook to your top two setups only; everything else is benched.
- Add a pre-trade checklist—must check all boxes before any order goes live.
- Introduce “permission to stop”: if two trades break rules in a day, the session ends.
Environment Design for Fewer Dumb Decisions
Willpower is overrated; environment wins. Set your workspace so good behavior is automatic.
- One screen for charts, one for journal—no social media, no news feeds during execution.
- Use a standing timer: posture change every 30–45 minutes to reset arousal.
- Pre-build order templates (fixed risk, OCO attached) to remove fiddling and procrastination.
- Keep a printed rules card in sight; read it before the first and after the last trade.
Continuous Improvement Metrics that Actually Matter
Mandi tracks the few numbers that move the needle. Copy these and ignore the rest.
- Rule-adherence rate (>85%) is priority #1; P&L follows process.
- A setup selection rate (>60%) and average R per A-setup (>0.6R) are core KPI’s.
- Time-in-trade median and heat (max adverse excursion) must trend down month-over-month.
- If metrics stall for two weeks, run a one-week “back to basics” cycle with a smaller size and fewer setups.
Communication and Self-Talk that Doesn’t Sabotage You
Words shape state, state shapes actions. Mandi’s phrasing keeps your nervous system steady while you execute.
- Replace “I need to win” with “I need to follow my rules.”
- Use present-tense cues: “Wait for my level,” “Trade the plan,” “Protect risk.”
- After each trade, say one sentence: “What did I do right that’s repeatable tomorrow?”
- Never recap with self-insults; critique behaviors, not identity.
Scaling Up Without Breaking What Works
Growth should feel boring, not thrilling. Scale size only when process quality proves you’re ready.
- Increase risk by one notch (e.g., 0.25% → 0.35%) only after 20 trades with >80% rule adherence and positive expectancy.
- Keep daily and weekly loss limits fixed while scaling; do not expand guardrails.
- When size jumps feel edgy (heart rate, fidgeting), step back one notch for five trades, then retry.
News and Volatility—How She Stays Out of Trouble
Events create opportunities and landmines. These rules capture the first and dodge the second.
- No new positions from T-10 to T+10 minutes around top-tier releases; manage open risk only.
- Trade post-news only if the first impulse retraces to a pre-marked level and confirms with your trigger.
- Double-check spreads/slippage before entries during high vol; reduce size if execution quality degrades.
- If the event flips your HTF bias, abandon earlier scenarios entirely and re-plan.
Size risk first, trade second: fixed fractions and hard daily caps
Mandi Pour Rafsendjani opens every session by locking risk before she even thinks about direction. She pre-commits to a fixed fraction per A-setup, so the outcome of one trade can’t hijack the rest of her day. That fraction never stretches to “make it back,” because elasticity in risk is how small dents become drawdowns. With the cap defined, she chooses levels and triggers, knowing the worst-case is already priced in.
She also sets a hard daily loss limit and a weekly circuit breaker, removing the option to negotiate with herself mid-tilt. If two losses happen quickly, she automatically halves the size for the next trade to cool the system without quitting learning. Stops live where the thesis is wrong, not where the P&L feels comfortable, and she refuses to widen them once placed. By sizing first and trading second, Mandi converts uncertainty into a manageable cost—turning emotional noise into a quiet, repeatable process.
Build freedom through structure: premarket routines, A-setups, no-trade news windows.
Mandi Pour Rafsendjani treats structure as the thing that unlocks creative decision-making, not something that cages it. Before the open, she runs a tight premarket: mark key levels, write one bias and two scenarios, and define what “A-setup” looks like today. By deciding these details early, she stops herself from reinventing the plan mid-candle. The structure frees her attention for execution, because the thinking was already done when emotions were quiet.
During the session, Mandi only trades A-setups that match her prewritten description, and she protects that standard with “no-trade” windows around major news. If a setup appears inside the blackout period, it’s logged but not touched—discipline now, data later. She keeps discretion inside the fence by allowing small tactical wiggles (entry refinement, partials), never strategic detours. The result is a calm, repeatable rhythm: plan first, filter ruthlessly, and let structure give you all the freedom you need.
Let volatility decide position size, stops, and profit targets every session.n
Mandi Pour Rafsendjani lets the market set the scale of her risk by measuring current volatility before placing any order. If the average true range expands, she widens the stop to the invalidation point and shrinks position size so the monetary risk stays constant. When ranges compress, she tightens stops and allows s slightly larger size, but only within her fixed risk fraction. This keeps her edge stable across quiet and wild sessions, because the distance to “wrong” and the dollars at risk move together.
She also maps targets to volatility so R multiples are realistic, not wishful. On fast days, she takes profit where the ATR suggests the move naturally breathes; on slow days, she accepts smaller wins and avoids overtrading for stretch goals. Mandi reviews slippage after high-volatility fills and will cut size if execution quality degrades. By letting volatility dictate size, stops, and targets, she trades what the market is offering today instead of forcing yesterday’s template onto new conditions.
Trade mechanics over prediction: level, trigger, confirm—then manage with OCO.
For Mandi Pour Rafsendjani, prediction is optional, but mechanics are mandatory. She starts with location: a pre-marked level with context on the higher timeframe, not a random mid-chart chase. The trigger is specific—a rejection wick, break-retest, or VWAP reclaim—and it must print at the level, not “near enough.” Confirmation follows: a shift in structure or order-flow cue that says the market agrees right now. If any link in level–trigger–confirm is missing, she passes without regret.
Once in, she lets the OCO bracket do the heavy lifting so emotions can’t rewrite the plan. Stops sit where the thesis is invalid, and she won’t widen them; if volatility demands room, she reduces size instead. First target comes off mechanically to bank R and steady the mind, while the remainder rides behind structure-based stops rather than hope. If the market flips key context—like reclaiming the broken level—she exits without debate and logs the lesson for next time.
Journal like a pro: emotions, expectancy, pruning setups to compound consistency
Mandi Pour Rafsendjani treats her journal like a performance lab, not a diary. Each trade entry logs setup tag, preplanned R, actual R, and the emotion present at entry, management, and exit. She writes one sentence on “what I did right that’s repeatable,” and one on the single behavior to fix tomorrow. By pairing numbers with emotions, Mandi spots patterns faster—like fear shaving winners or frustration stretching losers.
Every week, she calculates expectancy by setting up tags and pruning the bottom performer for the next cycle. If a tag survives, it must earn its keep with positive expectancy and high rule adherence; sentiment doesn’t get a vote. She then tightens checklists around the top setup, removes one discretionary wiggle, and reruns the same loop for another 20 trades. The result is steady compounding of process quality—fewer decisions, cleaner execution, and a playbook that gets lighter and sharper over time.
Mandi Pour Rafsendjani’s core message is simple and tough: results change the day you take full responsibility and build freedom inside structure. She hammers home that worry, excuses, and over-attachment to outcomes are the real account killers—not the market. The fix is unglamorous but powerful: predefine risk in hard numbers, write the plan before emotions wake up, and execute only at your levels with your trigger and confirmation. Pair that with strict “no-trade” windows around major events, and you’ve removed most of the chaos that invites revenge trading and FOMO. Intuition, she says, is earned through logged repetition; anything else is “intu-wishing.” Journal feelings alongside R-multiples to spot patterns that sabotage you—fear trimming winners, frustration stretching losers—and prune the setups that don’t pay their keep.
From there, Mandi turns trading into a stable operating system: let volatility size your positions and shape realistic targets, never widen stops, and cap your daily and weekly losses so a bad day can’t become a bad month. In drawdowns, cut size, narrow the playbook, and rebuild process quality before you think about bigger risk. Treat self-talk like a tool—“follow rules, not outcomes”—and end every session with one repeatable behavior you did right. Over time, the compounding happens in discipline, not drama: more A-setups, cleaner execution, quieter sessions, and a calmer mind that can actually see what the market is offering. That’s how Mandi Pour Rafsendjani trades—and how you can turn consistency from a wish into a habit.
