One Prop Trader a Day - Paulo Reis: I Was Not Born Into Opportunity, I Was Born Into Survival
One Prop Trader a Day - Episode 101
Paulo Reis
My name is Paulo Reis. I am 27, originally from Portugal, living in France and working in Switzerland. I trade NASDAQ and Gold futures and run a trading community where I document my journey.
People see the trader I am today, but very few know where I came from. I wasn't born into opportunity. I was born into survival.
When I was a child, there were days when having enough food wasn't guaranteed. My father struggled with alcoholism, and my mother simply couldn't raise me and my two brothers under those circumstances. Eventually, we were taken away from our parents.
You'd think that was the hardest part of my life, but it wasn't. I was placed with a foster family, hoping things would finally be different. Unfortunately, alcohol became part of that home too. Once again, I grew up in an environment where stability was something I only imagined.
Very early in life I understood a lesson that many people don't learn until adulthood.
When my friends were enjoying their youth, I was working. Every achievement I have today was paid for by my own hands. I worked to get my driver's license. I worked to buy my first car. Then my second. Then my third. I worked to pay for my university degree in Product Design. Nobody handed me those opportunities. Every single one came from sacrifice.
That's why my relationship with money is different. Money isn't about status for me. It's about security. It's about never having to wonder if I'll be able to eat tomorrow. It's about making sure my daughter never experiences the uncertainty that shaped my childhood.
My name is Paulo, I'm 27 years old, I'm from Portugal but I currently live in France and work in Switzerland. I've been trading for eight years and my main focus today is futures, especially NASDAQ and Gold. Besides trading, I run a trading community where I document my journey and help other traders improve.
I became a funded trader for the first time around 2024. Getting funded wasn't the finish line, it was proof that my process actually worked. It forced me to think like a professional instead of chasing big wins. Once I started managing funded capital, consistency became much more important than making money fast.
Honestly, I didn't buy anything flashy with the money. It mostly went back into building my business and helping support my family. Becoming a father changed my priorities, so seeing trading contribute to my household felt like the biggest proof that this career was becoming real.
How many times did I fail before getting funded? More times than I can count. I blew evaluations, broke rules, overtraded, probably dozens of failures. What kept me going was knowing that every successful trader I looked up to had a similar story. The only real failure would have been quitting.
The most expensive lesson cost me over 200,000 euros. That wasn't just money, it was confidence, reputation and years of emotional pressure. It completely changed how I think about risk. Today I care far more about protecting capital than making it.
Did I ever consider quitting? Definitely. There was a period where everything seemed to go wrong. I questioned myself every day and wondered if I'd ever recover financially. I never truly wanted to quit trading, but I seriously considered giving up on trying to make it my career. Looking back, I'm glad I didn't.
Did trading ever affect me mentally or emotionally? Absolutely. Trading can amplify every weakness you have. I've dealt with stress, revenge trading, self-doubt and the pressure of feeling responsible for people's expectations. Nowadays I protect my psychology just as much as I protect my account.
I'm mainly an intraday futures trader. I focus on NASDAQ and Gold, trading around the New York session. I prefer clean price action, liquidity grabs, order flow and high-probability setups rather than taking lots of trades. Some days I only take one trade.
Before the session I mark important levels and build a plan. Once New York opens, I wait for confirmation instead of forcing trades. If I hit my target, I stop. If I lose according to my rules, I also stop. The rest of my day is reviewing trades, spending time with my family and working on my trading community.
My most recent losing trade is a good example of that. The setup looked valid, but I entered slightly early instead of waiting for full confirmation. The market did exactly what I originally expected, but only after stopping me out first. The lesson wasn't that the setup was bad. It was that patience is part of the edge.
The popular rule I completely ignore is the idea that you need to trade every day. I don't. Some of my best trading days are the ones where I decide not to trade at all.
Do the people around me understand what I do? Not really. Most people think trading is gambling until they actually see the work behind it. My close family understands it much better today because they've seen the years of effort behind the results.
Trading gave me something I value more than money, time. Being able to spend more time with my daughter while building my own business is probably the biggest reward trading has given me.
What separates me from someone who washed out at their third evaluation? I stopped trying to get rich. Now I focus on staying in the game. Consistency beats intensity every single time.
If I could give myself advice one year ago, it would be four short things. Slow down. Risk less. Focus on execution instead of profits. One good trade is better than ten average ones.
If prop firms disappeared tomorrow, would I still be trading? Yes. I'd trade my own capital while continuing to build businesses around trading, education, content creation and my community. Trading isn't just how I make money anymore. It's my profession.
And if someone handed me a $1,000,000 funded account today, I'd probably trade smaller than most people expect. I'd spend the first week learning the firm's execution, keeping my risk extremely low and proving consistency before increasing size. A million-dollar account isn't an opportunity to get rich overnight. It's an opportunity to build wealth over years.
People sometimes ask me why I don't quit trading after everything I've been through, the failed evaluations, the financial setbacks, the stress. The truth is that compared to my childhood, losing a trade isn't the hardest thing I've faced. I've already lived through situations that taught me resilience long before I ever opened a trading chart. Trading is difficult, but life prepared me for difficult. Every challenge I've overcome became another reason not to give up.
So if someone reading this feels like they're too late, too broke, or their circumstances are holding them back, I want them to understand something.
The things that happened to me could have become excuses. Instead, they became fuel. Today, I don't trade because I want a luxury lifestyle. I trade because I know what it's like to have nothing. And now I wake up every single day with one mission, to build a life where my family will never have to go through what I did.
Verified funded - the receipts
About the writer - Paulo Reis
Paulo Reis trades NASDAQ and Gold futures from France and runs a community where he documents his journey.
