It is necessary to be confident in trading, but to become confident, there are things that need to be paid attention to and cannot be avoided. Your friend is right, don't rely on the signal that everyone gives. But more so, how do we want to study and analyze each indicator from the coin market chart that we will trade. because that is one of the basic things for every trader to have, the ability to analyze charts and markets, both TA and FA. This cannot be avoided or underestimated and that's why rely on signal. It won't take long to be successful because after all, if you want to achieve something higher, that means you have to be prepared with higher and harder efforts too, right?
Becoming a confident trader is not only by participating in trading contest, you should develop a trading strategy which you can be practicing on the demo account of any broker or exchange you are using. After you have master your strategy, you can then invest real capital and you need to only invest a little amount and start trading with it. After you have become more perfect and known how to manage your risk level, then you can step up your trading amount.
Exactly, joining trading competition is only one of the ways to test and develop the trading skills. For, this must be followed by professional traders that have been experiencing in trading. But if it is for new trader, it seems not conformed to the situation, because it is the competition. So, rather than joining trading competition early, it is better to prepare ourselves to understand and also being more advanced in trading, with certain strategy and analysis.