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From Tradie to Trader:
Mitch’s Trading Journey with IDTA

Interview with IDTA Member and Pro Trader Mitch D

In this case study interview, we sit down with Mitch, a former tradie from Melbourne who transformed his life by becoming a successful day trader with the International Day Trading Academy.

Originally from Slovenia and barely speaking English when he moved to Australia 13 years ago, Mitch shares his powerful journey of resilience, personal growth, and financial empowerment.

Discover how he went from working in the timber flooring industry to trading the US markets live, now even moderating sessions in IDTA’s Live Trading Room. Mitch opens up about the early struggles of trading forex and crypto, battling inconsistency, emotional decisions, and the importance of finding the right trading education and community.

Through this interview you’ll learn:

  • What sparked Mitch’s interest in trading
  • The early challenges he faced with forex and crypto
  • How he found IDTA and the game-changing impact of live trading rooms
  • Why mindset, consistency, and emotional control matter more than the strategy itself
  • The role of Trading Business School (TBS) in his transformation
  • How moderating helped him stay disciplined and accountable

“It’s not just about trading strategies – it’s about learning who you are.”

This is a must-watch if you’re a beginner trader, thinking about switching careers, or seeking inspiration on your trading journey.

Transcript:

Dani: Hello, Mitch. How are you going?

Mitch: Yeah, I’m good. Thank you. How are you?

Dani: Very well, thank you. Thanks for joining me today. So let’s start with a little bit about you, who you are, where you’re from.

Mitch: So, yeah, my name is Mitch. I’m from Melbourne, originally from Slovenia. Moved to Australia 13 years ago.

That was the 26th of March, was 13 years ago. And how fun you’re asking that, because I was just talking to our LTR US Open team group on Friday night. And I said, like, one was that actually everything is achievable if you have your goal.

13 years ago, I moved to Australia, practically not being able to speak English. I understand basics. And I’m here today moderating the US market.

Dani: So yeah, what a journey. So your background, you’re a tradie, not a trader.

Mitch: So yeah, I run a small business working in a building industry, particularly in timber flooring.

Then my goal is getting out of being a trader to become a trader, just purely because I’m getting old, middle age, I will say not old, sorry. And yeah, I just want to change the career.

Dani: Main thing. Yeah. Amazing.

Well, you’re well on the way. So tell me what got you interested in trading?

Mitch: Good question. I think I was a, I was a sharing of apartment with a friend of mine. He was also Slovenia.

And he was a tennis coach. He was a coaching in Australia and open. And he has every now and then coaching session with the, the wolf of the wall street.

Dani: Yes. What is his name? I know you’re talking about that. His name is tip of my tongue.

Yeah. I know you’re talking about Wolf of Wall Street. Jordan, Jordan.

Mitch: So, and yeah, literally bought his book, he signed his book. So I have actually his signature on his book. And yeah, actually, I will start looking there, you know, when I was talking to friend of mine about like how dumb and then I watched a movie, read the book.

And I was like, Oh my God, that’s actually the way to like, you know, make a life the way you want. Don’t be let anybody else to control your life. So it’s, you have a bit of a, abilities to control the life by yourself in living what you will, how you want freedom to essentially what you want every day.

Yeah. And then I start practically, I put a 10 grand on account, open the 10 grand account and start trading life right away without practicing

Dani: Before you got to IDTA. Let’s just be clear.

Mitch: This is like 2015/16. When I started and I started with the forex, I put a bit of a money in a Bitcoin. So yeah, but basically was forex trading forex.

And then after reading a lot of books, watching a lot of YouTube’s movies, I mean, clips and stuff like that. And like after probably about a year after that, I start trading communities, gold and oil, particularly oil. And yeah, I still have my tank ran on, but I was like up and down and up and down.

So I got a profit one day or two days. And then next day I lost all my profits. I’ll get break even.

I’ve even lower than breaking.

Dani: You’re struggling with, you’re struggling with consistency. Yeah.

Okay. Were there any other like challenges and frustrations that you faced with that kind of trading?

Mitch: Of course, there was a lot of emotions involved in it. But the way how I traded, I wasn’t day trader, I was actually put a trade in and went to bed and whatever happened, happened.

I have my stop loss. And some days in the morning, I wake up, open the chat and I was like two grand in profits.

Dani: So amazing.

Mitch: And I didn’t know, okay, they might be like, enough, take a profit out. I was just running for a week. And sometimes I instead of taking profit, I get in the red numbers.

I was like, why didn’t I take this? I was so frustrated. Yeah. And I just, if during this period of time, I was like in a five years time, I should have made out of 10 grand, at least like 20 grand.

So I was now moving nowhere. So I was in a dark hole. So then I start looking for education.

So I need something, you know, to give me the right guidance to improve my trading. And that’s how I found you. I did.

Dani: Yeah. And you find us, was it an ad or how did you find us?

Mitch: Oh, good question. I think was just I was just searching and browsing on Google and they come, few ads comes up from Melbourne.

The one is literally just across the road. But they just didn’t convince me. I was just like, I was, I was so like, didn’t trust to say, just didn’t get trust.

I said, they’re just going to rip me off, take the money, you know, and do I really need to, would I really learn from them or not? Like, it’s just like, I was like, you know what, forget it. And then somehow come across with the IDTA. And the breaking point, was live trading room.

It’s literally take me like, there was like, turn on. So okay, that’s something what I really want to see. I want to see professional traders.

I want to see the the somebody who is technically in a life room and saying, talking, you know, take me through your trade, how you’re trading. I know that copying threat is the worst thing to do. You never copy the trade.

You can get idea, but then you develop your own strategy. And then you’re on your own system, your own methodology and everything, you know, just get it basically the how it good to trade, but never copy nobody’s.

Dani: You know, I’m always, I’m always reiterating, don’t just copy what we do, actually understand what we’re saying, how we’re reading the story, what we’re saying about the markets, and then develop how you see the markets, you know, and develop your own trading plan from what we’re saying. We’ll just copy our trades. And that’s fine.

But it’s really the education part of it that I think is the most valuable from the live trading rooms as well. Would you agree with that?

Mitch: Yeah, definitely. And you know, to put the all different, because we are all different.

So everybody has their own trading style, you know, and to have opportunity to make your own strategy or build your own strategy around all this knowledge you consume from the moderators, is just a massive fortune you can literally have. Because if you go on the YouTube, you have hundreds of different strategies, or one different strategy, one same strategy, and everybody will be explaining the different way. So that’s a bit confusing.

If there will be different strategies, a different way, that makes sense. But if it’s the same strategy, and everybody’s talking differently. So hang on a minute.

Dani: So okay, you’re taking the trades from this level because of that and that, but the other will trade from the other level, which is totally confusing. So it’s a good to have a kind of the same reading of the market, but developing your own strategy out of it. Yeah, love it.

So would it’s safe to say that you’re more consistent in your trading these days?

Mitch: Oh, definitely. So of course you have losses, it’s a part of trading. We’re always going to have losing trades as part of trading.

That’s it. Like there was my biggest motivation in the trading is quote of Dennis Richard. He was a big trader in the 80s.

He has 90% losing trades. And he was still able to make a $200 million in his career. Yes.

Yeah. So having the losing trade is just part of the trading. And I just have to admit that and just take it into account that it is.

And don’t take this too personal. It’s the losing trade. Okay.

After session, or maybe go to sleep, wake up in the morning or whatever you have time, open a computer and go back and review your trade. Yeah. Where went wrong? If was that your error, it was just the market didn’t agree with you.

Dani: I just did on the weekend last week. I did a review of last week and what was the edge if I had just traded the edge as it’s supposed to be traded, not having the human interference, you know, I do that every week, always really important to review and reflect, you know, to constantly improve and to ensure that that edge is still there. And yeah, I love that.

So your, your journey has been, obviously you started with IDTA learn strategies and, and now you’re one of our moderators in the US open. So that’s a massively amazing journey that you’ve, you’ve encountered. So tell us a bit about that.

Mitch: Oh, to be honest, I haven’t even imagined to become a moderator. First of all, as I explained before, like English language barrier. And to be honest, moderating is the something, what it gives you a discipline because he just not like, that’s what I find out here.

I mean, generally, I’m quite okay. Now I was like, so I would say on discipline, even like after I finished the TPS, sometimes I got this fear of losing or missing out or I got a revenge trading because I have a losing trade and kind of a thing, you know, in a life training room, you can’t actually do it. It is very good to improve your, your training because you have to consider that you’re not training for yourself.

Dani: You’re actually teaching others how to trade. So it’s definitely will help me to improve certain level of accountability there. Right.

Accountability is still open. Everyone else in that room. So it’s actually an amazing opportunity too.

Mitch: Yeah. And definitely the TBS, as I mentioned, also on a Friday open room, I say like trading business school for those that don’t know. That’s actually opened the total another level of education for myself.

Like what I got out of that is amazing. And as I said, like on a live trading room on a Friday, it’s not all about the, your strategy. You can, you can have a like amazing strategy if you can’t control your emotions.

Dani: Yeah. It’s a beautiful lens of trading and mindset, which is exactly what trading is. Right.

Exactly. Yeah. I can give the same strategy to a hundred traders and you get a hundred different results because it depends on the emotions and mindset, the projections, all of the things.

So that’s exactly what you learn. And it’s overcome over the time as well. So would you recommend IDTA to others?

Mitch: Oh, definitely.

I mean, what I get out of them from you guys, that’s amazing. I mean, what I achieved within what, two years with you, it’s beyond compared to be honest. Definitely highly recommend to everybody.

If you want to learn trading, if you want to learn about yourself, which is one of the most important, like the most important key to success is learn about yourself, who you are and what you want to be within a certain amount of time. Yeah. That’s, that’s my suggestion.

So yeah, join us, join IDTA, learn, learn, and again, learn because that will give you, that will bring you a confidence that will bring you achievement. So you will achieve what you want to achieve. And yeah, that’s just mild learning, isn’t it? There’s always more to learn in trading.

There might be about trading or about yourself.

Dani: I agree. Yeah.

Well, that’s the opinion we’re saying is like, we were born down, but we’re still dead down because we, you’re learning all the time you learn, you know, and still at the end of your time, you still don’t know nothing. Yeah. You still keep learning.

As soon as you, as soon as you say, I know everything you’re done, you stop growing, you stop learning. So, you know, the wisest people in the world still say there’s so much more to learn. Always.

Mitch: Yeah, always. That’s, that was actually also my point to switch your career was in a 20 plus year in my industry, in the timber flooring industry, I believe that I achieved what is actually achievable. It’s still, of course, there are new techniques, there’s still coming in, but I just lost this motivation and spark to, you know, get me through the day.

I was sometimes, I was always like when I wake up, so I got a new job of excitement, you know, new house, new home. And I was so proud of myself when I got a positive feedback for the clients, which was practically 95% of them. They were like really happy with everything what I have done to them.

It was like, Hey, we can appreciate more than, you know, what you’ve done for us. You help us out. You did a great job.

And that was for me, not only there was my own voice, but at the end of the day, for me was more rewarded when I hear from somebody that was happy, what I was done, what I was doing for them. And there was for me more valuable than the end of the day, having the money on my account.

Dani: Speaking of testimonials, I want to read this that I got today.

Yeah, a lady that hadn’t joined your room until Friday. And she said, I just wanted to give you a heads up. Mitch is a great moderator, navigating market, using fibs, tell the story, talk the whole session and he had amazing ability.

So there you go. There’s a testimonial for your trading, not just for your tradie business. So thank you for joining me today, Mitch.

Mitch: Always pleasure to be around to you guys. It’s such a fortune to have richly that kind of a community of a variety of so beautiful people around.

Dani: It’s a big part of the company, isn’t it? We’re not just about education.

We’ve got the support. We’ve got the community package. So thank you.

Mitch: Thank you so much. We’ll see you in the charts.

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