When many people enter the crypto market, they all have a misconception: if you’re diligent enough, smart enough, and bold enough to push yourself, you’ll definitely be able to make money. But anyone who has been through several bull and bear cycles knows that the market most loves teaching those who think they “can’t lose.” Today I want to share a fan submission: Zhao Lei (a pseudonym), 35 years old, used to be a professional athlete and won a provincial competition championship. When he was young, he believed in one principle: if you train every day and put in a little more than everyone else, you will surely win. Later, when he entered the trading market, he realized that there are no referees here, and no finish line. The biggest opponent has always, in fact, been himself.
Zhao Lei entered the professional team at 18. Those years were very simple: training for 8 hours a day, repeating the same movements, adjusting his condition, and waiting for the results of competitions. At his peak, everyone around him thought he would succeed forever. But athletes have a reality check: your physical condition won’t always stay young. After retiring at around 30, he experienced confusion for the first time. Before, he had goals every day—there were competitions, achievements, and rankings. But once he left the arena, he suddenly didn’t know what else he could prove.
After retiring, he began doing sports training and ran training camps based on his own experience. From bringing a few students, to gradually operating a team, over the course of several years he accumulated assets of about 2 million. It was also during this stage that he first came into contact with digital assets. At a gathering with friends, a young entrepreneur talked about blockchain and market cycles. He smiled and said, “In the past, competitions were about rankings; now investing is about cognition.” Although he didn’t understand it at first, people from an athlete’s background have a particular trait: they’re willing to train. While others were scrolling through videos after work, he studied the market at night—bit by bit, from basic finance to industry logic, playing catch-up.
Around 2020, the market welcomed opportunities. Instead of rushing in right away, he observed the cycle and gradually built his positions. With his understanding of trends, plus early market tailwinds, the 2 million he had grew at its fastest to 8 million. During that time, he felt for the first time that he had found a second track. Before, he fought with his body on the arena; now he was fighting with his cognition. He even felt that his more than ten years of training experience gave him an advantage over ordinary investors.
But the real turning point happened only after his assets grew rapidly.
After earning 8 million, Zhao Lei encountered many problems that old traders have seen before. He brought athletes’ “fighting spirit” into the market. He was used to thinking like in competitions: if he was behind, he chased; if he lost, he stepped up training; if it was just a little off, he worked harder. But trading isn’t like that.
The first time he experienced a major drawdown, he didn’t stop the loss in time. He thought, “My judgment won’t be wrong. If I adjust, it will come back.” After the losses expanded, he started averaging down again, hoping that with a bigger position he could turn it around. The market, however, didn’t give him the chance, and his assets of 8 million shrank all the way to 700,000.
He said that what hurt the most during that time wasn’t losing money—it was the psychological letdown. Before, he stood on the podium, and everyone recognized his effort. Later, facing only numbers on an account every day, it was the first time he doubted himself: “After leaving the arena, am I nothing?”
And it was precisely this downturn that made him rethink trading again.
Later, he did something—he put the methods of training athletes back into trading. He no longer searched for so-called “sure-win opportunities,” and instead rebuilt his rules. Before every trade, he wrote a plan: why he entered, where he went wrong to cut losses, and when to exit after becoming profitable. Every day he reviewed and reflected. He no longer asked, “Why do other people make money?” Instead, he asked, “Where in my system did things go wrong?”
He began to accept a fact: trading isn’t about winning your life with one big burst—it’s about surviving steadily over the long term.
In terms of position sizing, he no longer went all-in. When opportunities didn’t appear, he learned to wait. When he had consecutive losses, he didn’t rush to try to win it back—he first adjusted his mindset and condition. He said, “The most important ability for an athlete isn’t how many times they win—it’s whether they can return to the training ground after they lose.”
Over the years, he slowly rebuilt his assets from 700,000. Now he continues to run sports training, while also using trading as a second source of income. Compared with chasing a huge spike in the account before, he focuses more on cash flow and long-term growth.
In the end, Zhao Lei told me one sentence, and I think it fits many friends in today’s markets perfectly:
“When I was young, I thought that being a champion meant standing at the very top. Later I realized that a true champion is someone who, after falling, still has the ability to climb back up.”
The market will always have opportunities, but not everyone can seize them. What truly determines the outcome isn’t how much you’ve earned in the past—it’s whether you’ve built a method to stay calm in the face of volatility.
If you’re also feeling lost on your trading journey and don’t know how to build your own rhythm, you can come to our team and exchange ideas with us. We won’t tell stories about getting rich overnight. We only share methods and experiences left behind after surviving bull and bear markets. Take it slow—it’s fine. As long as the direction is right, the rest is up to time.
$ACE $USDC #VELVE #EDEN #伯克希尔增持达美和Alphabet #Anthropic二季度营收增长逾14倍 #乌克兰称敖德萨黑海港口实际关闭