How it all began
Part 2: The Reality Check
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4/1/20262 min read
The Reality Check
One day, my girlfriend and I decided it was time to start building passive income.
We had been watching countless videos on YouTube and TikTok, and like most beginners, we thought:
“The best way to learn is just to jump in.”
There’s so much free information online. YouTube was a great starting point—but without a solid foundation, a lot of the terminology just didn’t make sense.
That’s when we turned to Udemy.
I bought a course on candlestick patterns. It was helpful—it taught me how to recognize formations—but it didn’t show me how to actually apply them in real-time trading.
So after a few days of learning, we took the next step.
We opened a demo account.
But here’s the mistake—we used an unrealistic amount of money. Way more than we would ever deposit in real life.
At first, it felt easy.
Press buy.
Press sell.
Watch price go up or down.
Close in profit.
We made money on demo… and that gave us confidence.
Too much confidence.
We looked at each other and thought:
“We’re ready to go live.”
My girlfriend decided to go first.
She deposited $2,500 USD into a live account. (And as Canadians, that’s an even bigger amount.)
I hesitated—I wanted more time on demo.
She started trading gold (XAUUSD) using a micro lot size (0.01).
Her strategy?
If she saw a green candle moving up, she’d jump in—trying to catch the momentum.
But the market had other plans.
Almost immediately, trades would reverse.
Profits turned into losses within seconds.
She would panic… and close early.
At that point, we didn’t understand:
Stop loss
Risk management
How to properly read charts on TradingView
We were just reacting.
And if you’ve ever traded like that… you already know how this ends.
Within 10 days, the account was gone.
$2,500—wiped out.
She was frustrated. Confused. Determined.
She didn’t want to quit—but she knew we were missing something.
So she started searching.
Courses.
Mentors.
Trading groups.
Anything that could give her real guidance.
She spent hours scrolling through social media, trying to find someone legit to learn from.
One day, I came home from work, and she was excited.
She told me she had found a trading group she wanted to join.
She said she saw some local people in it.
It looked legit.
And she had already booked a call with one of their mentors.
The group was called Innova.
I had never heard of it.
And I’ve been around the online space long enough to be cautious.
So the first thing that came to my mind was:
“Is this actually legit… or just another scam?”