One Prop Trader a Day - Meet Thibaut Coppens: The 21-Year-Old Who Traded Hope for Discipline

A I go by Thibaut. Born and raised in Belgium, 21 years old. I’m focused on the index futures complex, primarily the NASDAQ 100 (NQ) with a heavy overlay on the S&P 500 (ES).

A First eval passed December ’24. A 50K with TakeProfitTrader. The moment that dashboard flipped from ‘Eval’ to ‘Live’ – even though it’s still a prop account – the psychology shifted overnight. Suddenly you’re not just clicking to pass a target, you’re protecting a balance you earned. It stopped being a video game score and started feeling like a real P&L. You trade NQ/ES differently when you realize they’re actually cutting a check off that execution.

A Signing that first contract hits different. It’s confirmation and confrontation at the exact same time. Confirmation that the system works, confrontation that now you have to be in flow with the market, not fighting it. That’s the moment you stop chasing and start searching for where your edge actually lives inside the NQ/ES tape. It’s less about ‘making it’ and more about ‘staying in it.’

A Thirty-five blown evals before my first funded. Different sizes, same lesson. What kept me in the chair wasn’t hope, it was fear and discipline combined. I was scared of looking back and knowing I quit right before the thing clicked. Plus, I’d already caught enough glimpses of what my execution looked like when I was locked in. You don’t forget that feeling. You just keep paying resets until the funded dashboard finally says ‘Live’ instead of ‘Failed.’

A The lowest point wasn’t failing evals. It was having it and watching it slip. I passed multiple accounts, had payouts coming through by April ’25, then Belgian taxes hit – I blew up my funded accounts, got caught off guard, and put myself in debt. That stretch makes you question everything – your edge, your discipline, your energy. I worried. A lot. But I never actually thought about stopping. Somewhere in the back of my head, I already knew what I was capable of. Walking away would’ve been the only real failure.

A Trading doesn’t just test your strategy. It tests your soul. If you’re not solid in the first place, it’ll crack you wide open. The market is just a mirror – every impulse, every doubt, every time you revenge trade NQ after ES rips without you. It’s all you. If you stay true to your system and true to yourself, the edge holds up maybe 80% of the time. But those other 20%? That’s where you find out how easy it is to get lost in the failure loop. My lowest state of mind wasn’t even at my lowest P&L. It was the space between trades where I didn’t recognize myself. That’s the part nobody warns you about.

A I open the charts at 16:00 Belgium time – market’s been open half an hour, which is perfect. First thing I do is mark out the London high and low, same for the Asia session. Those levels matter. Then I pull up the 4-hour chart to feel the overall flow – bullish or bearish? That sets the bias for the day. From there I drop to the 1-hour and draw my IFVGs, FVGs, and strong pivot points that have already proven themselves. Once price gets into range, I switch to the 5-min and 1-min for my personal standard deviations and my OTE – the optimal trade entry zone. That’s where I place a clean entry most of the time. After that I’m looking for a 1:5 risk, always reading how the market moves, never scared to take profit and leave. I don’t need to squeeze every tick out of NQ. I just need one good setup.

A I still work in the building industry – ultrasonic testing, quality control on pipelines for big industrial companies. Belgium hours: 07:00 to 14:00. My shift lines up clean with New York session. Market opens here at 15:30, so I’m clocking out, hitting the gym first. Good body, good mind. Good mind, more money. That’s not a slogan – it’s just how it stays calibrated. I get home around 16:00. Market’s been open half an hour by then, which is perfect because I don’t like trading the open. That first 30 minutes of NQ and ES is just noise and liquidity traps. I let it settle, let the structure reveal itself, then I sit down clear. I’m not in a rush to quit the job. While I’m building a solid fundamental base, I’m stacking every requested payout inside the built-in wallet on TPT. Letting it sit. The goal is to eventually move somewhere with friendlier taxes and a nicer view – but for now I’m just enjoying the lifestyle of being 21 with a plan.

A You can only understand what you let yourself understand. I don’t walk around explaining order flow and NQ/ES correlation to someone who just asked me ‘so you gamble on stocks?’ You feel it out quick. Most of the time it’s short – ‘I trade index futures.’ They nod. Conversation moves on. The people I actually let in have always been supportive. Even if they didn’t fully understand it, they saw the hours. They saw me blow 35 evals and come back the next morning at 07:00 to test pipelines, hit the gym, and sit down at 16:00 like nothing happened. They didn’t need to understand the strategy. They understood the discipline.

A Trading forced a discipline I didn’t know I needed. Now my days are structured, my mind is clearer, and my lifestyle is just… peaceful. Saturday and Sunday aren’t about recovering from the week – they’re just an extension of it with a different rhythm. I’ll play some golf, hit the gym, do stuff I actually enjoy with the people I love. Not because I need to escape, but because the foundation is already solid. Trading gave me that. Not the money – the structure. The understanding that if I can sit in front of NQ and ES for hours and not lose myself, then the rest of life becomes easier to navigate.

A I don’t really talk about motivation. Motivation is where it starts, sure. But what keeps me in the chair is discipline. Knowing that the time I put in now gets paid back later – freedom to move, freedom to live life on my terms, freedom to bless the people around me. I’m not doing this to fail the legacy of my family. I’m doing it to be a recognized soul – someone who actually helped.

A Do it right the first time. Paper trade. Build on the fruits of that labor – knowledge and screen time, no real losses. Learn from every mistake before it costs you more. Don’t be scared to let your dreams go big. Life is a simulation. Play it right, stay faithful to yourself, but enjoy.

A Scale up with the exact same setup and risk management. I’m already trading 200K in fundeds – the million is just more of the same with a cleaner structure. Connect them all together, keep it tight, and stay working the same plan. Nothing changes except the zeros. Discipline doesn’t scale with size – it either holds or it doesn’t.