I'm an index futures trader. I trade the NQ and ES, I do my own research, and I answer to my own process. That's the whole operation, and I like it that way.
I also run two companies, Hermes Chauffeurs and Vancouver Velocity. Running them taught me the same lesson the market keeps teaching: systems beat moods, and the boring, repeatable work is the work that actually pays.
So I built my days around the market. I'm at the desk before it opens, I read the premarket, and I write the plan down before I put anything at risk. Most mornings the right move is to wait, and I've made my peace with that.
I work out of Vancouver, trading the New York open from the West Coast. No signals group, no trading room, no one to blame when I'm wrong. Just the read, the plan, and the discipline to follow it.