Will Johnson is a former professional Call of Duty player. He was listed in the 2013 Guinness World Records as the winningest player of all time. He has traded full-time for 13 years. He summarizes the lessons he considers most important for new traders below.

1. Early Success Often Reflects Luck

Trading is a game of probabilities, with an element of randomness. In a large group of new traders, such as 100,000 people, at least some will achieve early success. Many of them will be lucky rather than skilled.

Early gains can damage a new trader's long-term development. A trader who grows a small or large account quickly may attribute the results to skill. Those methods are often not repeatable or scalable.

Johnson turned $50,000 into$970,000 in about two months. He later concluded that the result came from being in the right place at the right time, combined with no understanding of the risk he was taking. He spent the next 18 months losing most of his money and nearly all of his confidence.

He also notes that taxes take 30% to 40% of trading profits.

Traders should be aware of the Dunning-Kruger effect, in which limited skill is paired with overestimated ability. This effect applies in many fields and is especially relevant to stock trading. Awareness from the start helps traders avoid spending years mistaking luck for skill.

2. Focus on One Specific Niche

Markets offer many choices. There are more than 5,000 listed stocks on the New York Stock Exchange, along with futures, cryptocurrencies, and forex. This range can overwhelm beginners.

Johnson recommends focusing on one asset class, one strategy, and one setup. A trader should learn the setup thoroughly, then scale it after achieving consistent profitability within that setup. Traders can expand their playbook gradually, adding setups over time.

Johnson cites the proverb: "Fear not the man that's practiced 10,000 kicks once. Fear the man that's practiced one kick 10,000 times."

Trying to trade long and short, options, futures, and crypto at once leads to information overload. This approach usually leads to frustration and abandonment.

3. Adopt a Probabilistic Mindset

Johnson has made more than 10,000 trades in his life, including about 6,000 in the last five years. His win rate is barely above 50%. He states that this performance is close to a coin flip in predicting whether a stock will rise or fall.

Profitability depends on trade structure rather than on being right more often. Traders should design trades so that the gain from a winning trade exceeds the loss from a losing trade. The key factors are trade management, risk management, and positive expectancy over a large number of trades.

Johnson advises viewers to be cautious about traders on social media and course sellers who post only winning trades.

4. Choose Strategies That Match Your Skills

Trading strategies should suit each trader's temperament and abilities. Johnson's intraday approach draws on his background in professional gaming. In Call of Duty, he made quick decisions under pressure and relied on instinct. He applies the same approach to intraday trading.

Over time, he has internalized concepts such as pattern recognition and trade management. When executing a trade, he relies on instinct and experience rather than reviewing each step. He states that in intraday trading, excessive deliberation can be fatal.

Traders who prefer slower decision-making may be better suited to longer time horizons, such as swing trading. Johnson cites Christian Quaogley as an example. According to Johnson, Quaogley had no background as a professional video game player and previously worked as a security guard. Quaogley later made a large fortune trading stocks. The source gives the amount as "$und00 million," which is unclear in the transcript and requires verification. Johnson attributes Quaogley's success to cutting losses quickly and letting winners run.

5. Trade With Momentum

Many traders try to buy stocks that have fallen sharply, expecting a rebound. Johnson states that this approach, often described as "buy low, sell high," works better in investing than in trading.

In trading, Johnson recommends identifying stocks that have recently doubled. Stocks often rise, consolidate, and rise again before the trend reverses. The same pattern applies to declining stocks, which fall, consolidate, and fall further.

Common market guidance applies here: the trend is your friend. Traders should structure trades so that gains from winners exceed losses from losers.

6. Trade Market Inefficiencies

Johnson considers identifying inefficiencies to be one of the most important tasks for a trader. Retail traders who draw lines on charts and trade based only on technical analysis, such as an opening range breakout strategy, are unlikely to succeed.

Inefficiencies that can create an edge include:

• Parabolic trends
• Capitulation trends
• Episodic pivots
• Breaking news
• Earnings announcements

In these situations, markets often reprice securities and assets quickly. Highly efficient markets, such as futures, forex, and the S&P 500, produce such opportunities less often.

7. Establish a Drawdown Protocol

Even profitable traders will experience losses. Traders need a defined protocol for trading during drawdowns.

Johnson reduced his trading frequency by about 80% during a drawdown. He eliminated:

• Low-conviction trades with near-even odds
• Experimental trades
• New setups still under testing and optimization

He returned to his core setups, which he has verified through his own performance data as having an edge. He also reduced position size and risk per trade. This approach allowed him to execute trades consistently without focusing on individual outcomes. After consistency returned, he increased position size gradually.

Johnson notes that many traders who reduce trade frequency and wait for core setups find that these setups are the approach they should have used from the beginning.

8. Systemize Every Trade

Each trade requires a defined framework. Traders should:

• Systemize entries and exits
• Name and document each setup
• Define a trade management plan
• Specify how they stop out of trades and take profits

Johnson states that traders should treat trading as a business, with a strategy, expenses, profits, and a defined operating framework.

Markets are broad, and a trader can approach them as a gambling activity, risking an entire account on any trade. Brokers have no interest in whether a trader follows a disciplined process. Consistent execution of the same setups allows traders to measure statistics, identify what works, and eliminate what does not.

Johnson has covered the trading process in more detail in an earlier video.

9. Track All Trading Data

Traders need journaling software to record their activity. Without tracking, traders cannot identify which elements of their approach to optimize or change.

Key metrics include:

• Win rate
• Average winning trade compared with average losing trade
• Performance by time of day, such as profitability between 9:30 and 11:00 a.m. compared with later in the day
• Performance by share price, such as stocks below $10 compared with stocks above$10

Traders who lack this data may fix the wrong problem or optimize the wrong variable.

10. Guard Against Black Swan Events

Unprecedented market events occur more often than expected. Traders are most vulnerable to these events when they trade outside their process and core competency.

Johnson's largest losses have occurred in such situations. In February 2018, he lost $85,000 in about two hours while buying SVXY and XIV after hours. On that day, the VIX rose more than 100%. This increase made the leveraged exchange-traded notes he was buying effectively worthless.

Johnson bought as prices fell. The position declined 60%, then 70%, then 85%, and then 90%. He believed the decline could not continue, so he increased his purchases. He lost $85,000 in total.

Johnson states that trading leveraged volatility products after hours was outside his process and core competency. He did not expect such a move to happen, and it did.