Table of Contents
In this Words of Rizdom podcast episode, Yousef Karmostaji sits down with Krishna Sharma to unpack how travel, perspective, and day-to-day habits shape a trader’s edge. Their conversation is refreshingly practical—who they are, why they’ve earned a voice, and how their experiences translate into simple routines any aspiring trader can copy.
You’ll learn how Yousef approaches emotional control under pressure, why Krishna ties performance to lifestyle design, and the concrete strategy moves that turn ideas into funded results. We’ll break down their risk sizing logic, the “small-to-scale” path, and the mindset flips that keep traders consistent—so you can plug these lessons straight into your next trading session.
Yousef Karmostaji Playbook & Strategy: How He Actually Trades
The Funding Blueprint (From Demo → Small Live → Challenge)
Here’s the simple path that removes most of the psychology traps. You prove your numbers in a risk-free environment, then you pressure-test your mindset with tiny real money, and only then do you step up. It’s boring on purpose—and that’s why it works.
- Pass multiple free trial or demo challenges first to prove you can hit the target without breaking rules.
- Treat each demo as if it’s real: fixed rules, fixed hours, and a written plan before every session.
- After consistent passes, open a small live account (whatever size you can forget about emotionally).
- Trade that live account with the same rules and tiny risk; the goal is psychology, not profit.
- When you’ve stayed disciplined for weeks (no rule breaks, no revenge trades), run one more free trial to recalibrate to larger notional numbers.
- Only then start a paid challenge—same plan, same risk, same tempo.
Risk Sizing That Buys You Runway
Yousef’s bias is to start small so you can stay alive long enough to let your edge show up. The goal is to protect decision quality and avoid blowing the account during a normal losing streak.
- Begin at 0.25% per trade (a quarter percent) to quadruple your trade runway versus 1% risk.
- Pre-define a “green buffer” (e.g., +2–3%) before scaling risk; never scale from drawdown.
- If daily drawdown hits your cap (e.g., −1% to −1.5%), stop, reset, and review.
- Use fixed fractional risk (percent of equity) so risk auto-sizes with the account.
- Cap total open risk (e.g., max 2–3 concurrent positions) to keep emotions manageable.
Psychology Under Live Conditions
Numbers on a screen are easy; real money makes hands shake. The small live account stage exists to normalize emotions while you keep your rules intact.
- Define what “rule break” means (e.g., chasing, moving stops, over-sizing) and track each one.
- If you break a rule, size steps down next session until you post three clean, rule-free days.
- Use a pre-trade checklist (setup, risk, invalidation, session limit) and read it out loud.
- End sessions at a planned time or after a max number of trades—no “one more” impulse trades.
- Journal only what matters: setup taken, reason, risk, emotions (before/after), and rule adherence.
Process Over Pace (Think in Years, Not Weeks)
Rushing creates fees and fatigue; patience compounds skill. You’re building a machine you can run for decades, not a one-off hot streak.
- Give the blueprint months, not days—schedule the stages on a calendar and stick to it.
- Define weekly goals as process metrics (rules kept, quality setups taken), not P&L.
- Limit market focus to the sessions/products you know best; fewer high-quality reps > scattershot.
- Protect sleep, nutrition, and training—performance falls apart when energy does.
Setup & Execution Discipline
Edge shows up when entries, risk, and exits are consistent. Keep your mechanics simple so you can execute even on low-energy days.
- Pre-define A-setups with pictures and criteria; if it’s not an A, pass or cut size to half.
- Place a stop at the invalidation, not at a round number; move only to reduce risk, never widen.
- One target to pay yourself, one to trail: scale partial at 1R–2R, let the remainder ride with a trailing stop.
- If you miss the entry, skip it—no chasing. The next clean setup is always cheaper than FOMO.
Drawdown Rules You’ll Actually Follow
Everyone draws down; not everyone survives it. Your protocol must be automatic so you don’t negotiate with yourself when tilted.
- At −3R day or −5R week (example thresholds), stop trading and review.
- For the next five trades, cut risk in half and only take A-setups.
- If rule breaks occurred, add a cooldown day—chart markups only, no live orders.
- Resume normal size only after a clean streak (e.g., five trades, zero rule breaks).
Scaling After You’ve Earned It
Scaling is a privilege you unlock with consistency, not a hack for bigger P&L. You raise size only when the data says your behavior stays stable.
- Require a rolling period of green with low variance (e.g., +5–8R over 20–30 trades) and zero major rule breaks.
- Increase risk in small steps (0.25% → 0.35% → 0.5%); hold each step for at least two weeks.
- Revert to size one step on any breach of the max daily loss or process discipline.
- Keep withdrawals systematic (e.g., take a fixed % at month-end) so you don’t chase to “hit a number.”
Session Structure That Keeps You Sharp
Your session has a start, a middle, and an end. Respecting those boundaries protects focus and reduces impulsive decisions.
- Pre-session (15–20 min): review plan, levels, and news; set alerts; visualize execution.
- Live session: take only planned setups; log emotions briefly after each trade.
- Post-session (10 min): screenshot best/worst trade, note any rule tension, and reset charts.
- Weekly: categorize every trade (A/B/C), delete C-setups from your playbook, and double down on A’s.
Professional Habits Outside the Chart
Longevity comes from the life you build around your trading—not just your chart time. Define the environment that makes discipline easier.
- Keep your circle tight: share plans and results with one or two accountability partners.
- Batch all non-trading tasks (messages, errands) outside your market window.
- Travel and new environments can sharpen perspective—use them to reset bias, not to force trades.
- Maintain a simple physical cue for “market mode” (desk setup, timer, or routine) to anchor focus.
Krishna Sharma Playbook & Strategy: How He Actually Trades
The Operating System: Routine → Focus → Results
Krishna’s edge starts before the charts. He builds a daily routine that makes good decisions automatic, so he doesn’t rely on motivation when markets get hard. This section shows how he sets up his day to trade with energy, focus, and emotional control.
- Wake, hydrate, and move your body for 10–20 minutes before charts (no phone scrolling).
- 15-minute pre-market scan: mark key HTF levels, session highs/lows, and news risks.
- Define a single market session to trade (e.g., London or New York) and ignore the rest.
- Use a two-list system: setups you trade today, B-setups you only watch (no exceptions).
- Set three alarms: session start, mid-session check-in, and hard stop time.
Risk Rules That Keep You in the Game
He treats risk like oxygen—silent and essential. The goal is to survive normal drawdowns and keep psychology clean enough to execute the playbook day after day.
- Risk 0.25%–0.5% per trade; cap total daily risk to 1%.
- Never widen stops; only reduce risk. If invalidation is hit, exit and log it.
- Max 3 trades/day; if you hit −1% on the day, shut down and review.
- Scale risk only from equity highs and only after 20–30 trades with <10% rule breaks.
- Withdraw a fixed % on green months to reduce equity attachment and tilt.
Market Structure & Bias (Top-Down in 5 Minutes)
Krishna keeps bias simple: use higher timeframes to define context, then execute on one primary timeframe. This prevents “analysis paralysis” and makes entries repeatable.
- HTF (H4/H1): mark trend, supply/demand, and external liquidity (prior highs/lows).
- LTF (M15/M5): wait for displacement through a level, then trade the first clean pullback.
- If HTF and LTF disagree, no trade—protect mental capital.
- One instrument focuses until consistent (e.g., GBPUSD or NAS100); add a second only after 2+ months of stability.
- Use session timing: prioritize setups in the first 90 minutes of your chosen session.
Entry & Execution (Mechanics You Can Repeat)
Execution is where emotions try to hijack the plan. Krishna reduces discretion with pre-defined triggers and fixed management rules, so he spends less willpower mid-trade.
- Entry triggers: break-of-structure + fair-value pullback or a clean VWAP/AVWAP retest—choose one primary trigger and master it.
- Place stop at technical invalidation, not at round numbers; minimum stop distance rule (e.g., ≥0.8× ATR-5).
- First scale at +1R to +1.5R to pay yourself; move stop to break-even only after structure confirms.
- Trail remainder behind swing structure or a single moving anchor (e.g., prior 5-min low/high).
- If you miss your entry, skip it—no chasing; tag it for replay practice after the session.
The “Day 15” Mindset: Reset Quickly, Build Momentum
Momentum beats intensity. Krishna uses short, repeatable streaks to rebuild confidence and data quality fast, especially after drawdowns or life disruptions.
- Commit to 15 consecutive market days of process purity: rules > P&L.
- During a Day-15 cycle, trade only A-setups and half-size after any rule break.
- Journal three lines per trade: setup name, reason to exit, emotion rating (1–5).
- Weekly meta-review: tally A/B/C setups, cut C’s from the playbook entirely.
- If you break the chain (miss a day or break risk rules), restart at Day 1—no shame, just reset.
News & Volatility Handling
The wrong kind of volatility ruins discipline. He avoids gambling on headlines and lets the market show its hand before stepping in.
- Flat 5 minutes before and after tier-1 releases on your instrument (e.g., CPI, NFP, FOMC).
- If spread/latency widens or price gaps through levels, stand down until normal conditions return.
- Use a volatility gate: if ATR-14 is >1.5× its 3-month median, cut position size by 30–50%.
- No counter-trend trades on news days unless the HTF structure clearly flips and confirms.
- If your first trade is news-induced slippage, end the session; protect headspace.
Scaling Up Without Breaking the System
Growth comes from consistency, not from doubling in size overnight. Krishna only scales when behavior and stats prove the system is stable.
- Require a rolling +6R to +10R over 30–40 trades with <5% rule breaks before any size bump.
- Increase risk in small steps (e.g., 0.25% → 0.35% → 0.5%); hold each step for 2–4 weeks.
- Add a second instrument only after two stable size steps on the first instrument.
- Revert one step on any breach of the max daily loss or more than two rule breaks in a week.
- Keep payout targets mechanical (e.g., withdraw 20–30% at month-end) to de-risk emotionally.
Session Template You Can Copy Tomorrow
A consistent session template removes guesswork and reduces fatigue. Here’s Krishna’s simple framework you can adopt immediately.
- Pre-session (15 min): mark levels, confirm bias, set alerts; write your A-setup criteria.
- Live (90–120 min): take only A-setups; max 3 trades; log emotion score after each.
- Post (10–15 min): screenshot best/worst trade, tag mistakes, and schedule one replay drill.
- Weekly (30–45 min): compile R-multiple stats, win rate by setup, and rule-break count; make one improvement for next week.
- Monthly (60 min): audit withdrawals, risk step eligibility, and instrument watchlist.
Lifestyle Levers That Multiply Your Edge
What happens off the chart decides what you do on it. Krishna treats lifestyle as a strategy—eat, sleep, and social inputs are filtered for performance.
- 7–8 hours of sleep minimum; no screens 45 minutes before bed.
- Two deep-work blocks outside market hours for learning and replay; phone in another room.
- “Monk mode” weeks before size increases: zero nightlife, tight diet, fixed routine.
- Keep an accountability partner: share the plan before the session and scorecard after.
- Travel strategically to reset bias—new environments, same rules, and session window.
Start Tiny, Live Longer: 0.25% Risk and Hard Daily Caps.
Yousef Karmostaji and Krishna Sharma both push a simple survival rule: start with 0.25% risk per trade so your edge has time to show up. That tiny slice buys emotional calm and a much longer runway when variance hits. Instead of chasing home runs, they protect decision quality by limiting damage before it compounds. The message is clear—your first job is to stay in the game.
They pair that micro-risk with hard daily caps that shut the platform before tilt creeps in. Think one percent max down on the day, then power off, review, and come back with a clean slate. They track rule adherence as closely as P&L, because breaking risk rules is the fastest way to blow consistency. Over time, Yousef Karmostaji and Krishna Sharma scale only when these guardrails hold under pressure.
Trade the Mechanics, Not Predictions: One Setup, One Trigger, Repeat
Yousef Karmostaji and Krishna Sharma cut through the noise by anchoring on execution, not forecasts. They choose a single A-setup with one trigger—then run that playbook relentlessly, trade after trade. No “feel” entries, no mid-trade improvisation, just the same criteria, the same stop placement, and the same scale-out logic. This turns trading into a process you can measure, improve, and trust under pressure.
Both Yousef Karmostaji and Krishna Sharma emphasize that consistency beats cleverness when money is on the line. If the setup isn’t present, they pass; if it is, they execute without tinkering. Over time, the uniform reps expose whether the edge is real or imagined—and make mistakes obvious enough to fix. Mechanics create stability, stability creates confidence, and confidence keeps you from sabotaging good trades with prediction theater.
Volatility-Gated Sizing: Cut Size When ATR Spikes, Protect Psychology
Yousef Karmostaji and Krishna Sharma keep size dynamic, not ego-driven. When volatility expands—measured by ATR or obvious range expansion—they automatically reduce position size to keep risk per trade stable in dollars and emotions steady. The point isn’t to fear volatility; it’s to keep your behavior unchanged when price speed changes. They’d rather capture a smaller slice of a wild move than donate a full-size loss to randomness.
Both Yousef Karmostaji and Krishna Sharma use simple rules to avoid paralysis: if ATR jumps above a preset threshold, cut size by a fixed percentage, and stick to A-setups only. Stops still sit at technical invalidation; the change is in exposure, not in process. This way, a choppy or explosive day doesn’t bully them into tilting or overtrading. When volatility normalizes, they scale back up methodically, proving discipline before raising risk.
Diversify by Strategy and Duration, Not Symbols: Reduce Correlated Pain
Yousef Karmostaji and Krishna Sharma point out that owning five correlated symbols is still one bet in disguise. They diversify by how they trade—pairing a mean-reversion setup with a momentum breakout—and by when they hold it, mixing intraday scalps with swing holds. This splits risk across behavior and time, so one market mood can’t wreck everything at once. The focus is on distinct edges, not a longer ticker list.
Both Yousef Karmostaji and Krishna Sharma stress simple guardrails to keep the mix honest: limit concurrent positions that express the same macro theme, and avoid stacking identical timeframes. If a momentum system is cold, they let a separate mean-reversion or news-avoidance system carry the load. They size each bucket independently and review results by strategy and duration, not by symbol, to spot real correlation. That’s how they smooth the equity curve without diluting conviction.
Rule-Break Protocols: Stop, Halve Size, Trade Only A-Setups
When discipline slips, Yousef Karmostaji and Krishna Sharma don’t negotiate—they halt trading for the day and protect the account. The next session begins at reduced risk, usually half-size, with a hard filter to take only pre-defined A-setups. That immediate downgrade breaks the spiral of tilt and forces cleaner decision-making. They log the specific rule broken, the trigger that led to it, and the emotion felt, so the fix is targeted—not vague.
Both Yousef Karmostaji and Krishna Sharma require a short “clean streak” before restoring normal size—think five trades with zero rule violations. If another rule break appears, the counter resets, and the size stays cut. They also cap daily trades to prevent chasing, and they ban “make-back” targets after a loss. The point is simple: protect process first, P&L second, because consistent rules compound faster than hero trades.
In the end, the playbook from this conversation boils down to boring-on-purpose discipline that actually scales. Yousef Karmostaji and Krishna Sharma hammer the same pillars from different angles: start microscopic (0.25% risk), cap losses daily, and let clean mechanics—not predictions—drive every decision. They use simple volatility gates to right-size exposure when markets speed up, and they diversify by behavior and timeframe instead of collecting tickers that all move together. When discipline slips, the response is automatic: stop trading, cut size, and trade only A-setups until a clean streak resets confidence.
What makes their approach stick is the operating rhythm around the charts. They structure sessions with a pre-plan, hard stop times, and short post reviews, then count rule adherence as a first-class metric alongside P&L. Scaling is earned through consistent data and zero shortcuts, with withdrawals used to keep emotions in check. Taken together, their message is clear: protect psychology, standardize execution, and let time do the heavy lifting—because longevity, not lucky bursts, is how real traders win.
