In the early summer of 2015, I sat on the steps in front of the exchange, looking at the 100,000 capital that had just been Get Liquidated in my hands, feeling desolate. An elderly man dressed in a Zhongshan suit approached me, handed me a note that said, "Sideways, don't panic, look for a position to place an order." He pointed out my predicament: "Young man, your failure is not in the market, but in your inability to control your emotions."

The old man invited me to a teahouse in the old town. There, he shared his ten years of trading insights. Flipping through his trading records from 2013, I noticed a Bitcoin trade with the note "Don't chase after sudden spikes" next to it. The old man sighed, saying: "When I first entered the market, I also sold at 3800 points in the stock market and regretted it deeply. Later, I realized that in a sideways market, following the buy and sell strategy based on the upper and lower bands of the Bollinger Bands is much more reliable than blindly guessing the ups and downs."

During the most severe period of the bear market in 2018, I stayed in the internet cafe, watching the sideways movement of Ethereum. I posted the "Three No Principles" taught by the elder on the side of the screen: do not sell at high positions, do not buy at low positions, and do not operate in a sideways market. The traders around me were frequently cutting losses, while I followed the operational methods for a fluctuating market, trading flexibly between the upper and lower bands of the Bollinger Bands, making a profit of 230,000 within three months.

In 2021, when Bitcoin was trading sideways around 60,000, I visited that tea room again. The old man pointed at the range on the candlestick chart and told me: "A breakout after a high-level consolidation is often a strategy employed by the main forces." This reminded me of what he had previously said about "extreme thinking"—buying when the market is extremely pessimistic and selling when it is euphoric.

Year after year, I gradually realized that trading is not only about the application of technology but also about the cultivation of mindset. Staying calm, patiently waiting for opportunities, and controlling greed are all essential qualities of a successful trader. Whenever I see the market fluctuating sharply, I always think of that summer, the advice given to me by the old man, and the saying written on the note: "Sideways, don’t panic, look for levels to place orders."