Most people want to talk about the 12 prop firm challenges I've passed. I'd rather talk about the 20+ I've failed. That's where the real lessons are. I started this journey in 2021, blowing up account after account, before realizing the entire game isn't about hitting home runs. It's about not striking out. My first six attempts were straight failures. But each one taught me a non-negotiable rule. Now, I trade forex majors and E-mini S&P futures (/ES) on funded accounts, and my entire approach is built on the lessons from those failures. If you're struggling, good. You're learning.

I still trade forex, but when it comes to prop firm challenges, futures have a distinct edge. Firms like TopStep or Apex are built specifically for futures traders, so their rules make sense. There’s no weird grey area with slippage or spread manipulation you sometimes see with offshore forex brokers. It’s a centralized market. A fill is a fill. The leverage is straightforward, and the products, like the /ES, have incredible liquidity. Plus, the trailing drawdown rules in futures firms are often simpler to track than the complex daily/overall balance-based rules in some forex firms. It's just cleaner.

I've also found it easier to apply ideas from other analysts. When Viktor Reyes posts a killer analysis on Gold (/GC) or Crude Oil (/CL), I can immediately apply that to a futures funded account without worrying about a C-list broker stopping me out. The transparency of a real exchange makes a world of difference when your capital is on the line.

This is everything. Forget your fancy indicators or your 90% win-rate strategy. If you can't manage risk inside the firm's specific ruleset, you will fail. It's a mathematical certainty. Here's what they don't tell you: the daily loss limit is designed to trigger emotional, irrational decisions. Your job is to never let it get close. I failed so many times before I built a system around this.

• My Daily Max Loss is 50% of the Firm's Limit: If the firm's daily loss limit is $2,000, my personal, hard-stop limit is $1,000. I shut down the platform for the day. No exceptions.
• Risk Per Trade is 0.5% of the Account: On a $100k account, that's a $500 max risk. This lets me take several small losses without even sniffing the daily drawdown.
• No Trading 15 Mins Before/After Major News: I don't care what the setup looks like. I'm not playing the NFP lottery with a challenge account.
• Consistency is Key: The goal is to make a little bit every day. A $400 winning day is a massive success. The profit target will take care of itself.

I call this my 'boring but funded' strategy. It’s not exciting, but it’s a solid prop firm challenge tip that focuses on high-probability setups. I use it on the /ES 15-minute chart. I'm looking for a simple trend continuation play after a pullback to the 21 EMA. If the trend is up (price is above the 21 EMA), I wait for price to pull back and touch the EMA. I then look for a bullish engulfing candle or a pin bar as my entry signal. My stop loss goes just below the low of that signal candle. My target is the previous swing high, or a 1.5:1 risk/reward ratio, whichever comes first. That's it. It's mechanical and removes emotion.

The psychology of trading with someone else's rules is the real challenge. You're not just trading the market; you're trading a rulebook. As Emma Blackwood often writes about, managing your own mental state under pressure is more than half the battle. This simple, mechanical strategy helps me do that.

Getting funded is one thing. Getting paid is another. I track every firm's payout speed and process in my spreadsheet. Some are amazing (TopStep pays out fast), others can take weeks and require endless paperwork. Remember, that 80% or 90% profit split is great, but it's often on profits made after their platform fees or data fees are deducted. And you have to account for taxes. My $180K in payouts isn't what hit my bank account. Be realistic. The goal isn't one giant payout; it's creating a consistent monthly income stream from multiple funded accounts. That's how you build a real career out of this.

I built my entire trading career on this model, but it's not for everyone. It requires a level of discipline that many traders, especially new ones, haven't developed yet. It forces you to be a risk manager first and a trader second. So, what's the one rule you've learned from a failed challenge that you'll never break again?