The Option Genius Podcast: Options Trading For Income and Growth
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Dollars, Gold and Bitcoin with John S. Pennington Jr - Part 1 of 2- 182
05/09/2024
Dollars, Gold and Bitcoin with John S. Pennington Jr - Part 1 of 2- 182
Allen Welcome passive traders. Welcome to another edition of the Option Genius Podcast. Today, I am here with someone that's going to blow your mind. I'll give you his name, you probably haven't heard from him. But what he says is going to make a big difference for you. So John S. Pennington Jr. in 2008, co founded a family of private investment funds that by 2021 had over $28 billion of assets under management and completed a successful IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. John then retired that same year but remains a significant stakeholder and is now partner Emeritus at the company. He has been married 38 years with three sons, five grandchildren, and he recently wrote a book which we're going to be talking about called Dollars, Gold, and Bitcoin. It's right here, I could not put it down, you can find it on Amazon and Audible. You guys need to get a copy of this book, because we are not going to be able to talk about everything in this book on this interview. John, thank you so much for being here. John Allen, so good to be here. Thanks for having me. Allen So now I have done. I have heard you speak in the past. And so a few podcasts, I don't should have looked at the episode, but it's one of the past episodes called billionaire lessons. I have talked a little bit and gone over some of the things that you presented on which were covered in your book as well. So it was one of our most popular episodes, really happy that you're here. I just want to get into it. So the book is titled dollars gold and Bitcoin. Now I've already you know, talked about your successful guy you're doing well. Why did you write this book? John When I retired, some people asked me to speak on stage. And I, you know, I didn't charge them. And I just went to these masterminds and I thought, What do I want to talk about? And, you know, I just I looked at what everyone else talks about. And I thought, well, I got to talk about something different. So I started talking about economics and the Federal Reserve and the strength of the dollar and how, you know, the dollar is just a fantastic product worldwide. And I actually, you know, followed the Federal Reserve and how they promoted the US dollar over the years, and how they nudged people to make their product more acceptable around the world. And I kind of used that formula. In my company, or me and my partner's company, as we grew, we kind of use the same type of tactics that the Federal Reserve and the US government has used over the years to promote their number one product, which is the US dollar. And so so it's kind of a, it's kind of reflection of my business history. But it's also a reflection of how I studied and watched the the greatest product ever become the greatest product ever. How did it get there, and then I just kind of wanted to learn from the best. So I just kind of use those tactics with me and my partners to kind of push our business kind of the same way. So that's why I kind of wrote it. Allen Cool. Now, you know, the first time I heard you speak, I've heard you speak twice. And the first time and second time, I'm listening to you, and you are taking these what seemed to be very random events around the world. Yes. It's like, Oh, this guy said this, made this comment. And then this person visited this country, and then nothing happened. And then that happened. And then you took all of these to me, they were just random, you know, like watching the news. You story after story. But you took them and you whoa, this intricate, detailed story that linked them all together. And I'm like, Whoa, how does this guy think like this? how do you how do you come up with this? , John I don't I don't know. I just I just I think as an entrepreneur my whole life, I started my, well, my career, but when I was a young man, I just was really slow reader. I wasn't a good, I wasn't a good student. And I knew that I could not survive in corporate America. I just knew it would eat me alive. It didn't I just wouldn't fit there. And so I knew I had to be my own boss. And that means I probably need to just start my own companies. And so I remember looking in the mirror and this is I think I was 17 or 18. And I said to myself, these words and and I I've repeated this in the mirror, every year, 10 times a year, whatever, I don't know how many for 30 something 40 years, but I said this to myself in the mirror of John, you're not afraid of being poor. And John, you're not afraid of being old, you're just afraid of being old and poor at the same time. And that is stuck with me to push myself in the areas of, I have to start my own business, I have to save money to take risk, right. And so I started 14 businesses in my lifetime ish. And three, I've made a lot of money on obviously, the one I did with the funds and still in it made a lot of money, I three I've lost money on and the rest of them in the middle, you know, I made some money on them, they were pretty good for a while. But you know, so over those periods of time, when you'd make good money on one, you have to save the money and live beneath your means. So that when the next opportunity comes up, you have a war chest to go and try again. Because if you try a business, and it doesn't work, you lose the time and money. And sometimes I might, I've had a couple of businesses in a row not work. So you spend 910 months getting a business launched, and then you wait six, seven months, it doesn't work, and you go on men 18 months later, and now you're kind of out of money if you didn't save, and then you have another idea come up, and then you try that idea. And that's going to take a year, year and a half to figure out and spend all the money. So you always I always live below my means way below my means so that I would always have a war chest to take risk until I really, really, really made it. And when I first started my first fund in 2004, and then my second fund in 2007. And my third fund in 2008. You know, I didn't really know if it was going to work, work, work work work until about 2013. And up until that time, I was driving a car with 200,000 miles on it, you know, so but once I got there, then I got a Mercedes, you know, a small number, say a used Mercedes kind of thing. And so, but I was always I always lived beneath my means because I just knew I had to be a entrepreneur. So what I'm getting at was my business antennas, my business antennas my whole life since I was 17. I had been up trying to read listen to receive things, right? And when I graduated college in 8898, with an economics degree which if you have an economics degree, there's not a lot of really, you're not trying to do much right unless you go on to get a masters or PhD trained. Well, what do you I'm saying, right? I didn't matter I had a degree in and I wanted to start my business. My first business that I started right at night, not my first business but but my first successful business right out of college is in 1989 Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, they took down the wall in Germany, there used to be a wall right down the middle of Berlin, a physical wall, and they took it down. And before that time, kids in Eastern Europe could not get American products. They can watch American TV or watch American movies, but they couldn't get made in USA products. And when that wall came down, there was a flood demand because the US was like this golden child. And everyone loved the US for about 99 About 95 They just love love, love anything made the USA was the best. And they wanted American huge Levi's. Or they want American Levi's jeans because Mr. Levi Strauss in San Francisco was the first guy to ever make denim jeans. And he did him with a button flying and the original was the button fly 501. Well, all over the all over the world. These were being sold for hundreds of dollars. They were a fashion gene but in the Western United States, we'd had them for 100 years they were worth jeans. We grew up with them in high school, right but so anyway, two of my partner's eventually moved to Southern Germany and I stayed in in Utah, and I collected us Levi fiber ones all over the United States, mainly the Western United States, cleaned them up, sewed them had seamstresses, scrubbing them, cleaning them up taking the stains off of them sewing, and it shipped to my partners in Germany, and they sell them to Prague and all over the western eastern states. So I could buy new fiber ones on sale for 1499 in Utah, and they would go for 100 $120 in profit. So I had my antennas up. And so when I found out early on in Ada or early on at nine that we had a friend over there in Europe saying that people were at you know, walking up to him on the street trying to buy his jeans on down for $100 100 US dollars. And we could buy them used at a thrift store over here for $6. What's the probability I can make a business so we I ran this business for nine years From 89 to about 1988 1998. We ran this was my first real big, huge business. And it was booming. I mean, we were doing a lot of jeans. I think our best year total sales was $8.5 million. US Levi's, I think that was 9094, maybe 95. Somewhere in there. But it was the fast business. And I had, you know, seems so what I'm trying to say is, you asked me the question, how do I think this way, right? If you have your business antenna up, always trying to receive some information, and someone tells you, hey, people in Austria are paying $100 For usually buy 501 jeans, and you live in a place where you can buy them for $10. You have to think of how do I make that into a business? What's the probability? Not the prediction? What's the probability I can make that into a business? And that was my first real run into business employees in Germany employees here. It was really a fantastic, great, like classic arbitrage. Yep. Just yeah, that's right. We were value adding we were cleaning them up, right. We were selling them. We were repairing them. But yeah, it was it was a kind of arbitrage. Take a product. That's a in Nevada, or California or Utah. Move it to a place where it's a fashion gene and charge what the going rate is. Yeah. Allen Cool. Awesome. All right. So let's get into the book. Now. I think that correct me if I'm wrong, but the big topic or the big overwhelming subject matter of the book is how the Fed operates and how they boxed in Bitcoin, John or the US dollar no sorry, or gold or US dollar or the Chinese yuan. The basic point of the book is, I use the example of trying to box Bitcoin in because it appears to be an a competitor to the US dollar. Right. Gold. One point is your was a part of the US dollar and competitive US dollar. And I go in the book, I dip into the Chinese yuan that has become trying to become a competitive US dollar and the Fed, Federal Reserve's number, the US government's number one product, it sells better than hotcakes, people say it's selling like hotcakes. Well, they should start saying it's selling like the US dollar. So Allen, if I gave you $1 a second, right, like 123456. And I never stopped, never slept Neverland the restroom, it would take me 31.7 years to give you $1 billion. In other words, if you wanted to count to 1 billion, you would still be on the Zoom call this podcast 31 years from now. Right? So I tell them that on stage a lot because a lot of people misrepresent the word 1 billion they misinterpret it. They'll say John, I was just outside. And I saw this huge flock of birds, there must have been a billion birds. And I was gonna know there wasn't, you know how I know. I did the math. You know why I did the math. When my fund hit $1 billion. We started with managing $1 billion. It was like, holy cow, how much is a billion I started calculating it. 31.7 years of seconds. So when we talk about big numbers, I always do that on stage. So people really getting getting their head, how big $1 billion is and how erroneous that a lot of people use the term billion over time. So let me just do a little history for you. Okay. So, in 1914-ish, the Federal Reserve was created because there was a stock market crash in 1907, not not 2007 1907, the stock market crash. So they created the Federal Reserve. And then in 1929, we know there was a huge stock market crash again. So 1929, the country's really, really, really hurting. And then in 1933, two things happen. The SEC was created so that we would never have a crash again, okay. And in May 1933, now get this in May 1933, the president, FDR, he signed an executive order that made it illegal for your grandfather and my grandfather to own gold. So you had to sell all of your gold to the Federal Reserve. Or if you had a gold note, because it used to be that dollars were backed by gold, you had to sell your gold note your gold coin or your gold bars to the Federal Reserve. And they would give you a paper dollar for it. And then they would take that gold and put it in Fort Knox, and that gold would backup the US dollar and help us get out of the recession or the depression. And so if your grandfather, my grandfather was caught with five gold coins in their pocket, they could go to jail. This is United States of America. Okay, but it was patriotic, I think I think if you go back it was kind of patriotic. Like, we're all doing this together. We're all in together. We all have To support our number one product, the US dollar. Okay, so, so in that that was 1933. Okay. And so how long did that last year? 41? Obviously, so 1971 ish. Oh, wow. I'll get there in just a second. Okay. Yeah. So in 1944, we knew we were going to win the war. Why? Well, we were making 96,000 planes a year, and Germany was making 38,000 planes a year. We were making, I don't know if the numbers were making 21,000 tanks, they were making 4000 tanks. We just knew by math, we were gonna win the war. So 1944 44 countries sent 1000 people to a little place called Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. And they went there to reset the dollar. So the dollar was reset by the Federal Reserve in 2019 14. Then it was reset again in 1933, by the gold confiscation, and then in 1944, it was reset again. So what happened was at 1944, everyone agreed all the countries Listen, the French franc is no longer going to be backed by gold. The French franc is going to be backed by the US dollar. And the US dollar is going to be backed by gold. Why? Because this is a crazy Alan, this is a craziest This is in 1944, the United States had 66% of all gold bullion in the world. We had it here. And there are a couple of reasons. In the first part of World War Two, we didn't get involved. We were just selling our tanks, our steel, we're selling steel to Russia, they're paying us in gold. We're selling whatever to France, they're paying a single in a world war, one synth kind of same thing happened, you know, so, and we had a gold confiscation in 1933. It was illegal for a US citizen to own gold, but it wasn't in 1944. Say 1946. Okay, my granddad had a $100 bill. He couldn't turn that in for gold. But if you were a US, if you were a French citizen, and you had a $100 bill, you could turn it in for gold. Okay, so we have like we always do, we abused this thing called the world reserve currency. Okay, we abused it. And by 1971, President de Gaulle of France knew we had been printing too many paper dollars, okay. Too many paper dollars. So he sent two ships across the Atlantic with all of their US dollars. Okay. So he sends the two ships over, and he demands here's my US dollars, give me my goal. And on. It was a Sunday night, August 15 1971, President Nixon came on live TV and announced to the world. He said basically, this, market manipulators around the world are trying to hurt our US dollar. And so he said temporarily, we're going to stop having the dollar backed by gold right now. Right? So he just told to tape your show. You're not getting your gold, right. And that was a temporary fiat currency. And that has lasted till today. So it's 5354 years old ish, right? Our dollars 5354 years old. Okay. So, and it was Allen supposed to be temporary? It was that it was supposed to be temporary? John That's what he said. He said, This is a temporary pause, Allen just like like income tax? John Yes, exactly. So, but in 1990, am I gonna get my dates wrong? I was gonna do a cheat sheet because I don't want to mess my dates up. The 1960. The world reserve currency, the dollar was about 45% of all world reserve currency. Okay. In 2001, it was about 70 plus percent, maybe 78% of all world reserve currency is US dollars. And 19. In 2023. Just last year, my last statistics were 58%. Okay, so in 2023, US dollar is 58% of all the world reserve currency. The euro is 20%. Okay, the Chinese yuan is 2.7% of world reserve currency. Right? So we have a huge huge Headstart and a dominance with with our number one product across the world. And so we we mean you and everyone listening to this in the United States that use US dollars, we have an advantage where we we can go anywhere in the world and just throw our US dollars around and people will love them. Yeah, that's not true for other countries, right? You have to live in other countries. You just can't walk around and use your your fiat currency and just pay for things. And so we have a huge advantage. And so my question in my book is, how did that happen? How did we are the beneficiaries how do we become the beneficiaries of having most of the world use US dollars and In one way, in 1944, the Bretton Woods Agreement. No, it doesn't doesn't say this, okay. But this is kind of what happened. After World War One. Everyone's Navy is gone. China's Navy's gone. Japan's Navy's gone. Germany's Navy's gone, Italy's need is gone, France Navy's gone, everyone rushes Navy's got everyone's Navy is gone, the US has their navy intact, and Britain had some Navy still intact. Okay. And so basically what happened was we basically said, listen, navies are one of the most expensive things for a country to have. And if you just kind of agree to buy and sell your oil in US dollars, you don't even need anymore, we the United States will protect your shipping lanes. And so a little country anywhere in the world, if they buy and sell in oil in US dollars, then you don't need a navy anymore. And that allows us little countries sell their goods all over the world and take take their citizens from poverty levels up to you know, middle class. And so this is a phenomenon that's happened since 1944. Now, in 1971, when President Nixon did this, that's when our dollar became what's called the petro dollar. And that's when it really kind of heated up. And, you know, Saudi Arabia. So let's, let's just go to 1974. Okay, you live in Germany, and you want to buy a container of oil for Germany? You can't, you know, wire your Deutsche Marks from Germany down to Saudi Arabia. No, no, no, no, you have to wire your Deutsche Marks, using the SWIFT system, which will get back into the SWIFT system to the New York Fed, the New York Fed will then change your Deutsche Mark into US dollars, then you can wire US dollars to Saudi Arabia, then Saudi Arabia will send you oil, this creates insatiable demand for US dollars, right. And so to have a the number one product on the planet, by definition, you have to have insatiable demand, right? That's by definition, you have to have huge demand, right? So and the reason I know this, because we will make off the assembly line, we'll make a trillion dollars of our product, we'll make a trillion of them. And you and I will work 80 hours a week to get them more. The other people will lie, cheat and steal to get them right. They'll risk their lives on, you know, some crab ship in north north Pacific, you know, trying to get crabs and almost die trying to get more of these dollars. And then they'll...
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These Unloved Stocks are Exploding in 2024 - 181
04/16/2024
These Unloved Stocks are Exploding in 2024 - 181
Hey there, if you're looking to invest in 2024, you've probably already heard of the AI boom and how those stocks have already taken off and gone into the stratosphere, you've already probably looked at the weight loss drugs like Eli Lilly and how that's already exploded and gone into the stratosphere. And you've probably even looked at, you know, the mega cap tech stocks and how they've already taken off and gone. So far so high? Well, there is one sector, it's an unloved sector, but it is on fire and it is going to do amazing in 2024. That's what I want to talk about today. So what is this sector? Well, it's not really a sector, it's more of a commodity, which commodity? Well, it's not the normal ones you normally think about. It's uranium. So if you look at uranium prices, uranium prices have doubled in the last year, and they're probably going to double even more, I don't know more than double, but they're gonna go up continuously, maybe even doubled this year that those are the expectations. Why? Because uranium is used in nuclear power plants. And more and more countries are getting away from coal power plants are shutting their coal ones down. And they're building nuclear plants. Only problem is there is a shortage of uranium. So uranium only comes in a few places. It doesn't come from everywhere, you can't mine it everywhere. It's only in a few countries and only in a few mines. And creating a new uranium mine takes millions of dollars and years of planning and research and development to actually get the uranium out of the ground. So right now there is a shortage of uranium. But the demand continues to explode. Pun intended, right. And so that is why your energy prices continue to go higher and higher and higher. Now, if you were companies starting to do a uranium mine, right now to take advantage of these higher prices is going to take you years before you get your money back. And before you even start mining. So the companies that are already there, they already have mines, they are making a killing. And they're making more and more money because their costs are staying relatively the same, but they're making more money when they sell their uranium because the prices continue to go up. Now you can go ahead and check to see a chart of uranium and see how it's going from the bottom left to the top right, and how it continues to grow. Now, if you look at some of the companies themselves, they're doing great as well. There are companies that do mining, they're also ETFs that can only focus on the uranium. Now normally, if you are looking at a miner versus the commodity, you will make more money on the miner than the commodity usually, because there's more Alpha there, there's it can grow faster. But the uranium utility or ETF are also going to be doing very well as well. You might even even get into the futures I haven't even checked to see if there are futures. But that might be an option to play as well. So why is uranium prices going up? Well, one of the reasons is because of the explosion in or not the explosion, but the demand for more nuclear power plants, right? For energy, because the world continues to need more and more energy and wind and solar are not getting the job done in terms of renewables, because of battery power problems. You can't store the energy, so they need a different source. Nuclear is one of the cleanest ones out there. I don't want to get into the politics of it, but it is very clean. And it's a very powerful source of energy. So we have a imbalance in supply and demand. Right. One of the largest mines of uranium is in the country of Kazakhstan. Now Kazakhstan puts a limit on how much uranium is allowed to be mined every year. And so, the main mind there, they announced a few months ago that they were only going to be able to produce about 90% of that limit, because of their own little internal problems. Recently, about a week or two ago, they announced that they're only going to be mining 80% of their prediction, and that chant that sent prices up even higher. And if you look at the price charts of some of these companies, you'll see, there was a big gap on that day. So these are companies and stocks that are not going to go up, you know, 500% in a year, like on the video, right, but they are slow and steady, and the train has not left the station, they've already gone up a lot, they've already more than doubled. But there's a lot more room to go. And that's why I think in 2024, uranium is going to be a very hot ticket. Now there are some ticker symbols that I want to give you. So you can take a look, put them up on your charts, see which ones you like, if you'd like them, great. If you don't, no worries, the first one is CCJ. Okay, this is probably the biggest company out there. It's a Canadian company. And it has mines all over the world. So this one, if you're looking for the biggest one, the more reliable one, I think this is the one that you can look at. Now, disclaimer, okay, I do not own any stock in any of these companies or ETFs. Neither does my hedge fund, okay. But we are trading CCJ, we're trading options on a we're selling naked puts on it as it goes up. So if we own it, we might own it. But I just want to give full disclaimer that yes, we are trading CCJ. Because this is a theme that I think is going to work for all of the whole year. And I'm sharing it with you to help you make some money off of it as well. And so, I think that CCJ is a good one another one is you are n m, okay, you are n m, the next one is DNN. The next one is LEU. The next one is UROY then you have an NXE, you have UEC you have UUUU this for us. And then the last one is URG. Now, do your own research. Look at these companies, see which ones you like if any, if you want, use your own judgment, talk to your financial advisor make an investment if you want. But I think this is a sector or a commodity that is going to do very well. As long as that supply demand balance stays out of balance. It could take two years, three years, four years for more uranium supply to come online. And as long as nothing happens to the demand of uranium, the price is going to continue to go up. So that's how it is. And even if these companies don't mind more, as long as price continues to increase of uranium, the stock price will go up as well. So it's not going to go as fast as you know, Eli Lilly did, but those stocks, the weight loss, the mega cap tech, and the AI boom, right? Those have run up so far so fast. It's kind of like I don't know if I want to get in here because they've gone up so far, there has to be a pullback, eventually there will be who knows when it's going to come. This train has left the station, but it's a slower moving trade, you could still make a lot of money. And it's investable, I believe, like now. So take that with a grain of salt trade with the odds in your favor. We'll see you around. Are you ready to get started with passive trading, and be a consistent and confident and profitable trader generating cash flow consistently from the stock market? Well, I have some great news for you. For a limited time we are offering my new book passive trading for free. All you got to do is go to passive trading.com/free book. And we will send you the book in the mail for free as long as you cover the postage and handling. So if you didn't cover that, we'll send you the book for free. We've already printed it, we got it for you. We're gonna send it out to you. It's free. All you got to do is just go to passive trading.com/free book and learn the basics of passive trading. Get the behind the scenes, get some examples, learn the strategies, and put this stuff to work in your life right now. Remember, go to passive trading.com/free book and get yours now while this offer is still available.
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Passive Trading Part 13 - 180
04/09/2024
Passive Trading Part 13 - 180
OptionGenius is turning 15 years old in February! As part of the celebration, we are releasing the audiobook of Passive Trading for free! If you would like to get the physical copy, head to https://passivetrading.com
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Passive Trading Part 12 - 179
04/05/2024
Passive Trading Part 12 - 179
OptionGenius is turning 15 years old in February! As part of the celebration, we are releasing the audiobook of Passive Trading for free! If you would like to get the physical copy, head to https://passivetrading.com
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Passive Trading Part 11 - 178
03/24/2024
Passive Trading Part 11 - 178
OptionGenius is turning 15 years old in February! As part of the celebration, we are releasing the audiobook of Passive Trading for free! If you would like to get the physical copy, head to https://passivetrading.com
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Passive Trading Part 10 - 177
03/21/2024
Passive Trading Part 10 - 177
OptionGenius is turning 15 years old in February! As part of the celebration, we are releasing the audiobook of Passive Trading for free! If you would like to get the physical copy, head to https://passivetrading.com
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Passive Trading Part 9 - 176
03/19/2024
Passive Trading Part 9 - 176
OptionGenius is turning 15 years old in February! As part of the celebration, we are releasing the audiobook of Passive Trading for free! If you would like to get the physical copy, head to https://passivetrading.com
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Passive Trading Part 8 - 175
03/14/2024
Passive Trading Part 8 - 175
OptionGenius is turning 15 years old in February! As part of the celebration, we are releasing the audiobook of Passive Trading for free! If you would like to get the physical copy, head to https://passivetrading.com
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Passive Trading Part 7 - 174
03/12/2024
Passive Trading Part 7 - 174
OptionGenius is turning 15 years old in February! As part of the celebration, we are releasing the audiobook of Passive Trading for free! If you would like to get the physical copy, head to https://passivetrading.com
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Passive Trading Part 6 - 173
03/08/2024
Passive Trading Part 6 - 173
OptionGenius is turning 15 years old in February! As part of the celebration, we are releasing the audiobook of Passive Trading for free! If you would like to get the physical copy, head to https://passivetrading.com
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Passive Trading Audio Book Part 5 - 172
03/06/2024
Passive Trading Audio Book Part 5 - 172
OptionGenius is turning 15 years old in February! As part of the celebration, we are releasing the audiobook of Passive Trading for free! If you would like to get the physical copy, head to: https://passivetrading.com
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Passive Trading Audiobook Part 4 - 171
02/22/2024
Passive Trading Audiobook Part 4 - 171
OptionGenius is turning 15 years old in February! As part of the celebration, we are releasing the audiobook of Passive Trading for free! If you would like to get the physical copy, head to https://passivetrading.com
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Passive Trading Audio Book Part 3 - 170
02/19/2024
Passive Trading Audio Book Part 3 - 170
OptionGenius is turning 15 years old in February! As part of the celebration, we are releasing the audiobook of Passive Trading for free! If you would like to get the physical copy, head to https://passivetrading.com
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Passive Trading Audiobook Part 2 - 169
02/14/2024
Passive Trading Audiobook Part 2 - 169
OptionGenius is turning 15 years old in February! As part of the celebration, we are releasing the audiobook of Passive Trading for free! If you would like to get the physical copy, head to https://passivetrading.com
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Passive Trading AudioBook Part 1 - 168
02/02/2024
Passive Trading AudioBook Part 1 - 168
OptionGenius is turning 15 years old in February! As a celebration, we are releasing the audiobook of Passive Trading for all to enjoy. If you would like to get the physical copy, please visit:
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2024 Threats To Your Wealth - 167
01/25/2024
2024 Threats To Your Wealth - 167
Hey there, passive traders, I got a really special treat for you today. Recently, we did a special presentation. And the feedback was amazing. And so we decided, hey, we need to share this. So this is why we're putting it out there. Okay, the two things that we talked about in this presentation, were number one, we talked about what are the things that are coming down the pike in 2024? What are the threats that we should be aware of now there are two different types of threats, there's first order threats, and then second order threats. First Order threats are the things that we all know about. We see him in the media with him in the news, all that stuff, those we cover some of them the ones that are really important, but we also go over the second order threats. Now, second order threats are things that are not covered in the media, they are the result of other things, those are the things that are really scary, and we really need to be worried about. And these are some of the things that I am most concerned about right now for myself and my family. And that's why I went through them. So you would be aware of them as well, you will see the signs of what's coming. And you could take action, but not everybody can take action. So that's why part two of this presentation was very important, because I go over that there is a actually elite group of people that are insulated enough that they do not have to worry about these threats as much as the rest of us. Okay, they are, I don't know, lucky, hardworking, whatever you want to call them. But they don't have to worry about them as much. Now some of the things they do, but they can insulate themselves, so that these second order threads do not affect them as much. And then I go into who these people are, and how they're insulated, and then how we can insulate ourselves from these second level threats. So that's the gist of this video and presentation. I hope you enjoy it. And I hope you take notes and implement what you're going to learn. Thing is that whenever we talk about trading, right, everybody says I want more money. That's number one, like I just want more money, I want to be free, I want to have more time that it up. But when you do, when you go deeper into it, it's more about the way you feel. And it's more about being happier, being more carefree, having less stress. Don't you agree. I mean, money is great. But you can't eat it. Right? You can buy stuff with it, you can make yourself feel better. But it's all about the emotions and the feelings and how we feel because you know, you can't take it with you. So what's the point of it, while we're here, we need to use it to make ourselves feel better. And so when it comes to these feelings when it comes to the way we want to be perceived, according to Tony Robbins, there are six basic human needs, that we all need to live a fulfilled life, right, and you can see the six there. But the first one, the very first one and the core, human need is certainty, without certainty, without being sure without being, you know, knowing what's happening, you will never feel safe, you will never feel protected, and you're never going to feel happy. It's not it just doesn't happen. Without that basic layer on the bottom. That certainty if you don't feel that, you know, if you're if you're always afraid of what's happening, or what's coming or you know, you're uncertain, it's very stressful for the body, stressful for the mind, and you never feel protected or happy. But when you think about the current state of the economy, what do you guys think? Do you think you feel certainty with the economy? Or do you feel a certain certainty about the economy? Most of us, at this point, are feeling uncertainty, and a lot of it. And 2024 is going to be dishing up a lot more than we had in 2023. A lot more than usual. Because Americans right now are living more in fear than ever in recent history. You see, like Robert says, right? He's uncertain, but not just about the economy. Right? And I don't want to dwell on this too much because the point of the workshop is going to be to help you create a plan to help you not be affected by all these, but we need to know what we're dealing with. So I want to ask you again, what is keeping you up at night? So a lot of you guys said that you are feeling uncertain. You are feeling that? You know, there's stuff there that's bothering you. What is it what is keeping you up at night? What fears are you dealing with right now? And I really would like to know the answer to these to see if we can address them. Right? What do you see coming down the horizon? Like stuff that's happening? You know, we're gonna go over some of them. But if there's something specific that you tend to be worried about, so Joel is saying lack of funds. That's a good one. I often hear people saying, you know, the health issues are a problem. Having enough money for retirement, somebody said that they wanted more money in retirement supplemental income, right, that's another one. So the first thing I want to do is show you how many of us have stuff in common. And then I'm gonna go over a few that you might not even be thinking about, I'm talking about the fears, right? So Jen saying making sure she has enough money in the future, even when the market goes down, or stalls, this is great, because those things might be happening, they might be coming, right? So here are the top fears in 2023. The top fears that Americans had this year, now, there's a bunch of stuff on there, you take something as simple as drinking water now, where I live, which is outside in the suburbs of Houston, right? We don't even think about drinking water. It's like a non thing. Like if our drinking water wasn't safe, there'd be like an uproar. Right. But the people in Flint, Michigan, you've heard that stories, they still don't have clean drinking water. Right? And I hear people asking, Well, you know, if they don't have drinking water, why did they just move on, or they just fix it? Well, I bet they would love to, but they're not able to probably because they can't afford it. And then you got other stuff on here. You know, cyber terrorism, biological warfare, government, corrupt officials, there's so much stuff out there, that these are neither just the top 10. And these are not even the ones that most of the ones that I had identified. So here's some more, you know, Social Security for those you guys who are worried about retirement or getting close to retirement, and those of us who are paying into Social Security, the administration itself this year, said that it's not going to be able to pay the full amount of benefits. After 2033, In 10 years, right? In 10 years, Social Security might be bankrupt or might not be able to resolve it. In a Gallup poll this year 57% of working adults said that they're not going to have enough money for retirement, that's more than half the people in this country are not going to have enough money for retirement. And then, you know, obviously, they're expecting Social Security to bail them out. But then we just saw Social Security might not even be there, when we're in might not be able to give all of it that it's supposed to. So we got some big issues coming. Now. They asked the AARP members, what are the things you're afraid of? And so these are them some of their answers. So number one was inflation. Right? And it's inflation is the number one reason that people are pushing back their retirement years. So they're supposed to retire this year, they're gonna retire next year, the year after two years from now. That's horrible. That's scary, right there to push back. Number two is fear of Social Security. being wildly it's not going to be there. Right. That's the the main source of income for three out of five retirees. So what is that I don't even know what the percentage is, like 60 Some percent, or 70% of the people that are retired retirees, most of their money comes from Social Security. And they've sat there, geez, look out, look out below, right. They're afraid of a volatile market, I believe Jen said the same thing, right? If you are on a fixed income, then any shock to the stock market is going to be a problem is going to be an issue. And this is whether you're younger, older, retired or not. Number four, this was a weird one that I had never thought about. But it's fear that the kids won't leave. So whatever the reason, and we're gonna get into a bunch of reasons, a lot of kids are going to be coming back home or they're already home, and they're not going to leave. That's another one. And then fear of the unknown. So we had different things happen this year, bank failures, layoffs, all that sort of thing. It's going to get worse. Right? So what else is coming? Well, the recession still hasn't come yet. According to statistics, com, there's a 56% chance that the recession will be coming next year, September, if you remember, right, all the guys on TV, all the pundits are like, Oh, the recession is here. It's actually needed and then never showed up. And then they were like, oh, yeah, and now there's no recession coming, what what happened, right, but the data definitely shows that things are slowing down, that things are not as rosy as they say on TV. And also, we're expecting massive layoffs, not just a little layoff because in 2023, the bright spot, the thing that everybody was pointing to was the tight labor market, meaning if you wanted to get a job, you could originally there were two jobs out there for every one person looking for a job. That's not the case anymore. And in 2024 92% of companies are expecting layoffs 92 It's like everyone, every single company is expecting to layoff people. That's nuts. right? So if you have a job right now, yeah, you need to be re-examining that. It's like how secure where what kind of situate If you deny it, then if you don't get laid off by the economy, there's a good chance that you might just be completely replaced by artificial intelligence. And these are just some of the jobs where people have already been replaced by AI. And you have designers, you have lawyers on this list, you have doctors, accountants, truck drivers. I mean, I don't know if you guys know this, but they have self driving semi trucks all over Florida, where there's nobody in the cab, there's nobody there. Like, and that's, that's coming across the country. All the images that you will see in this presentation, we're done by AI, I did not hire a graphic designer to go out and create these images. I went over to Bing typed in what I wanted, and it gave me the images for this. And you'll see some of them are freaking amazing. Is your job on this list? If it's not, unfortunately, it probably will be sued, if it's automated at all in any way. And so guess what else we have? And coming in 2024, we have a presidential election, and according to a lot of Republicans, the last ones to push it over? So who's gonna know who knows what's gonna happen in this one? Right? And whether you agree with that or not, I mean, in my case, I believe that we have one candidate who I have serious doubts about if he's even going to be alive at the election time, and the other one who might be in jail at election time. So it's definitely going to be a circus, something to watch. Unfortunately, it's going to impact us one way or the other, it's going to be a major impact. Now, what about interest rates? Aren't they coming down? No, not really. According to Jerome Powell, the head of the Fed, he says they still might go up again, and they're not going to come down and flail inflation is at 2%, which should happen sometime in 2026. So we still got another three years before rates come down. And if they don't come down, then again, shrinking the economy. But the rates themselves cannot go down. Because the US Treasury needs to continue selling large amounts of debt, to pay for the bills, the US is running, right? Currently, the US debt is over $33 trillion, $33 trillion, is what our debt is, and it just continues to grow. And those of you who are like Dave Ramsey fans, probably not gonna like this fact. But the government collects $5 trillion in revenue, that's how much it gets in taxes and all the other stops, but it spends six and a half trillion, so we're going negative every year, that's just didn't spend it. Forget about the debt, this is just a spinning back, we already have a lot of debt, we have to pay interest on it, this is several separate, so they won't be able to lower the rates, because they're gonna have to keep the rates high, because otherwise nobody's gonna borrow the money from the US. It's not now as you probably already know, this something that's going to hit us right in the wallet, right? We already know food prices have gone up. But not only do food prices have gone up, but companies are making the food smaller. So you see this package of Oreos, this used to be the original size. Now it's like this. I mean, you're probably getting how many left fewer cookies are you getting. And then over here, this with the ketchup packet, that's a Whopper Jr. A Whopper Jr used to be pretty big. Now it's smaller than your fist. I mean, it's incredible. And even if inflation goes down, even if inflation goes down, like the prices go back down, the size of the food and the size of the packaging will not go back to where it was. Because companies are higher are happy, right, their costs are less, but the prices will be high. So they are not going to change, we will still be ending up paying more just to get the same amount that we were getting before. And so the government will keep spending more money, it will keep borrowing more money and paying higher interest rate to borrow their money. More and more people are gonna get laid off, people are going to cut back on spending because they're getting laid off or they're afraid of getting laid off as much as they can. Which means that companies will sell less, and they will make more profit, which means stocks will go down. And everyone's gonna go crazy over the election. And that's, that's just I'm just getting started. Unfortunately, if that wasn't bad enough, I want to go into the things that I'm most scared about. I'm not even worried about these things. I'm looking at the things that I'm most scared about. And these are issues that are not so obvious. But they will definitely impact all of us out there. I mean, doesn't matter, right. And they're already are impacting us. So number one, we talked about the federal debt and the continuous spending. Well, what do you think happened? Are you What do you think is going to happen? When that continues? Where do you think the government is going to get the money to pay all of its bills? There's only one place it can get the money. And that's us. Yeah, more printing? No, no, Rob, it's coming from us. Because they already printed a lot. They can't print more. There's nobody else there's gonna be he's gonna borrow it. They're gonna get the money from us. You and me. You can bet your bottom dollar that your taxes are going up. I don't care which party is in charge. They will raise taxes, income tax, state tax, property tax, sales tax debt tax inheritance tax, they will raise tax on the companies. And the companies will then just what turn around and raise prices on everything. So we will be ending up paying that tax as well. So that is coming. Number two, war with China. I think this is pretty much a given. The question is when the why doesn't even matter could be Taiwan, it could be trade, it could be something who knows? It's going to happen. Because if you look at history, that's the way it works. Right? Now, if you know want to know the exact reason, then there's a book out by a guy named Ray Dalio, who explains it in detail. He is the founder of the world's largest hedge fund. So the guy's pretty smart. He's got a lot of assistants that did a lot of research. And they looked at all of the empires in the world going back hundreds of years, and what they have together, and what makes one go up, what goes down. And so that's it, you have the Empire of the US. And then you have the growing empire of China. And the only way for China to overcome and overtake the US and being the dominant is through war. That's the way it happens. So the war is coming. The threat is real. And so for the US to stay on top to be the top empire of the world, right? We cannot spend less money on our military, especially the Navy, and the Navy is the most expensive branch of the armed forces. So we can't spend less, especially when you add in the fact that over 50% of our youth cannot even serve in the army because they're too fat. This blows my mind. It gets really scary. Like, what happens if we go to war, and half the people can't even go to war? Because they're too fat? So does that mean there's going to be a shortage of soldiers? Yes, obviously, what do they do then? Are they going to have a draft? Possibly. And for people like me, and for many like you, if you have boys or brothers or whatnot that are going to be of draftable age, you know, anywhere from like 16 or 18, up to 30? In the next few years? It really makes me scared. It really makes you wonder I don't want my kids going to war in a situation. But if it's not, you know, for defense, I don't know. Right? To me, this is the biggest fear I have. But when you have money, there are choices. Okay, I hope that the war is avoided. But if human history is any indication, it's a matter of when not if. And then the last thing that I'm worried about is probably the largest. And that's climate change. So I don't care if you don't believe or, you know, you if you do believe in global warming, if it's man may not may, man, whatever, the world is getting warmer. And that's affecting everybody this year, on record hottest year ever, right. And there are three major changes happening right now because of warming. Number one is migration. So we already have an issue with illegal immigrants at the border, it's only going to get worse, because most of the migrants that are coming from those countries sit on the equator, right, where it's very hot, people will do whatever they have to do to survive. And that means a lot of them will move. So you can see how many people what percent of the population is already moving around the world. And it will affect us in the US as well. The coasts are already seeing flooding, and massive beach erosion, adding the wildfires adding the droughts, the water shortages, and all the major rivers like the Colorado and the Mississippi, and you have, you're gonna have massive migration, you're gonna have massive people moving from one part of the country to the other, just like all over the world. And then there's the second thing that I want to go into anybody know what this country is? Let me know in the chat. Anybody have any guess what this country is? I'll give you a hint. It's run by this guy. Okay. Kentucky, no It is Syria, Syria. This guy. Assad has been in power since the year 2000. So he's been in power a while. But then in 2011 11 years after he took over. There was a civil war erupted. And it's still going on. It's still not over. Right. So what was the tipping point? What caused 1000s and 1000s of peoples to take arms against the government to fight back and risked their lives? Do they just wake up one day and be like, oh, man, hey, it's a good day to die today. Let's go fight somebody, or was it something else? Right, probably. Here it is. There's something else was that the country suffered a massive five year drought from 2006 to 2011, which resulted in agricultural failure, mass poverty and joblessness. So, yeah, warming led to drought, which led to crop failing, which led to migration to the cities, which led to not enough food or jobs, which led to civil war. Anybody...
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12 Books A Year - Part 4 - 166
11/09/2023
12 Books A Year - Part 4 - 166
This is the final part of the series that shows you a better way to read if you want to accomplish more, and make more money. All right, welcome, you made it to Part 4 - the last part of our series. Now, if you missed part one, two or three, please go watch or listen to at least part one, because that explains everything. Otherwise, you're just going to hear me talk about books, and you're not going to understand what I'm talking about. But to give you a quick recap, I changed the way I read books, because I was finding out that I was just reading and reading just to read and just accomplish, but I was not using the information, I was not learning anything. And so it wasn't worth it. I was reading a lot spending a lot of time reading, but it wasn't worth it. Because it wasn't making any difference in my life. And I realized recently, so I've been teaching my my seven-year-old how to do multiplication tables, right? And so she asked me, Dad, I want to learn this stuff. How do I do it? I say, Well, you write them down. And then you say them over and over and over again, and you memorize them. That's the, that's the way I knew how to do it. I was taught that way. And that's, you know, that's what I taught her. And so she's been working on it. And you know, she's seven, and she got hers, she got the ones, you got the twos, you got the 5s 10s 11s. So now she's working on the threes and the fours. And she's doing really great. But again, he's just reading it over and over and over again. And so that's kind of what I'm doing with these books, I picked out 12 books that make a big difference in different aspects of my life that I want to work on. And so I identified those areas that I wanted to work on first. And then I found the books that really helped me and give me stuff to do and think about, and though I chose one book per month, so that month, I will read that book, maybe I read it two times or three times, and then I will implement. And I spend the whole rest of the month implementing everything in that book, if I can, if I'm done with the book, or if I don't want to do any more than I'll go on the next month to the next book. Or I'll just keep working on that book if I'm making a lot of progress. So that's how it works. In part two, and part three, I went through four books each. So the first eight books of the year, I talked about and I think, you know, if you are a reader, if you want to get better at your life at different areas of your life, then those two parts would definitely be something that you want to go back and cover and do. And if you're not a reader, I haven't talked about this before. But all of these books are available as audiobooks, right, you can listen to these books, you don't have to just read them, you can listen to them. And there was something I read that. And I don't know if this is true or not. But it said that if you listen to the book while you are reading it, you remember it more. Now, I haven't ever tried that I'm not no big into audiobooks. I like reading. I like having the book in my hand. I don't even like the the Kindle versions or the ebooks. And so I have a bunch, but I like the physical books. So all these 12 books, I have them physically, I tried to get all of them in hardcover, so they last and I enjoy reading them over and over again. Every time I read them, I'm learning new things, and I'm implementing again, and I'm like, Oh yeah, cuz I'm in a different spot in my life every time I read them. So really helps. Let's go ahead and jump into the books here. So this is a book. The first one is if things are going wrong, like if there's an issue, if there's a problem, if you're facing some kind of setbacks, and you don't know what to do, the book is called Everything is figureoutable. That's the word everything is figure out double. And that's basically the the idea behind the book. Now the author, Marie Forleo. She's a great author. The book is well written great stories funny, she has a business that geared more towards women. So her products, her the way she talks, everything is geared towards women, I thought it would be put off by that it wasn't that big a deal. But I really liked the way she wrote the book. And I liked it. Her other products I didn't really resonate with, but I really loved the book, I really loved the idea behind it. And so I really recommend this book for people for anybody, anybody that wants to, you know, have an easier time in life. Just need some encouragement, right? Everything is figureoutable. I mean, if you have that mindset, if you have that thing that thought in your mind that no matter what problem I have, no matter what issue I have, I'll be able to figure it out. Somebody will be able to figure out and I'll be able to get help, and it'll happen and it'll be fine. Everything's gonna be fine. Right? So if you have that idea in your mind, man, failure is not anything to be afraid of. Because if it doesn't work out, guess what, we'll just have to figure it out. Right? It's figureoutable, nothing is impossible and that sort of thing. So that was that was a great book. I really liked that one. The next one is a thinker book not really a doing book, but it's a thinking book. So everything is figureoutablee it has some stuff in there that you know if you have any challenges or whatever it we're helps you work through them. This one is called the the 8020 principle. All right, so this one is really good. In terms of it'll blow your mind. If you haven't read it, if you don't know, if you don't understand how it works, this one will blow your mind. And really, it's Pareto's Principle, it's, you know, 80% of your results come from 20% of your work. So it's about working smarter, not harder, right? In anything, even in nature, this formula somehow works. So if you're in business, 80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers, 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your products, and then it goes even further. So then you have the 20%, and then the top 20% of the 20%, bring in 80% of that, so you can go down and he gets really crazy. So if you look at it in terms of results, if you turn and look at it, science, health, all these issues, you know, 20% of the food you eat gives you 80% of the nutrients, all the other stuff is just junk that we're eating, right, so you want to cut out calories, cut out the junk, and you'll still get all the nutrients that you're eating right now. But you'll eat 80% less crazy. I mean, there's so many different concepts that you can implement it in and the the guy in the book, he goes through several different ones. Very smart guy, very intelligent, you know, he gives you different examples of how it works, how it how to use it. And it really gives you a different way to think that if you have a job to do, if you have work to do, if you have a business, if you have, if you're managing people, the 80-20 principle is amazing in how you can be more effective in less time with less work. And the subtitle of the book is the secret to achieving more with less. And that's, that's really what it does, you know it, you get to do more, you get to accomplish more, but it takes less time, less work, less energy. And that sounds pretty good to me. So that's why I read it, I get re-energized every time I read it. And then I apply it to different areas of my life, like, okay, how can I do this? Okay, how can I apply this to, you know, how much time I spend with my kids? Like, if I only have a certain amount of time with my kids every single day? Because I'm busy, they're busy, they're getting older? How do I make the most of that time? If I know that I'm with them for an hour, but only 20 minutes or 10 minutes of that is quality, then how do I improve that? Right? So that's just one example, but there's so many different ways that you can incorporate that into your life, read the book, it's really great. And it'll make things easier, faster, simpler in your life. All right, then we have this one is, I don't know how it's gonna go over. I don't know how it if it's gonna go over with you, but it's called the Untethered Soul. Okay, so this one, it's not about accomplishments. This is not about life, psychology, anything, this is about your soul. It's a spirituality book. And it's life changing. Realistically, it really, the book is about focusing on the hereafter, it's about focusing on your soul. It's about focusing on what happens to us, and how we deal with pain, how we deal with issues, how we deal with life in general. And it's a deep book. It's a very, very, very deep book. But if you have any type of trauma, grief, self esteem issues, anything of that nature, mentally, emotionally, that you are working on, that makes you unhappy, or just makes you feel like life is not all that, then this book will help you. And it really, it really makes you happier if you follow the instructions and follow the steps. So this man who wrote his book, he has a couple other books, I suggest you read those as well. The first one maybe before you read this one is called the surrender experiment. It's his life story, an amazing, amazing story. It you know, he started off as a basically a hippie that wanted to live in the woods. That's all he wanted to do. He wanted to live in the woods and he wanted to meditate. He had an experience when he was younger, when he was meditating. And that's all he wanted to do. Just have that experience over and over and over again. Right. But life had other plans. And so he surrendered to life. And he went with wherever it took him. He ended up starting a company that was became a billion dollar company. He was the CEO of a billion dollar company, when they had gone public, sell shares did all this stuff. It's still around today. And I mean, his whole story of how everything just worked out, you know, from having no money, really nothing and just wanting to meditate all day in the woods, to going building up companies multiple companies. Helping 1000s of people employing 1000s of people, building a massive company going public merging. You know, everybody in everybody in business, everybody on Wall Street knew this company. That's how big it was. Right? And it was all started by this guy who he just wanted to meditate. But life had other plans. Right? Life took him on that direction. And he didn't fight it, he. And so that's the, that's the story. He tells in that book, the surrender experiment. And then in this book, he actually explains why and one of the things he talks about, is that how we all have the voice in our head. Like, why don't we have peace? Right? When we're thinking, we're, there's always something, there's always a voice going on our brain, there's always something. There's always thinking, there's always talking, Oh, you didn't do that, right? Oh, this guy didn't like you, Oh, that guy cut me off. Oh, man, this is too hot. Oh, it's too cold. It's too this is too that. And none of that. Our brain is always going on and on and on and on. And in this book, he tells us and he explains that we are not that voice. You know. So he does talk about meditation, he does talk about how to deal with certain things like grief, and trauma, and all these things, how to look at life, how to look at the beauty of life. And so if you have any type of those type of issues, if you're looking for, this not a religious book, it has nothing to do with any kind of religion, right? Doesn't matter what religion you are, the book can help. And so that's why I bring it here. I mean, some people might have with it, but it was game changing. For a lot of people, millions of people have read this book, and many, many more billion people recommend it. So if you haven't read it, that's a really, really good one. But it is a deep book. And so I read that one in November, you know, it's towards the end of the year. You know, it's my birthday time. And so I'm thinking of, you know, just, it's a relaxing period, for me, you know, usually November and it's a celebratory period, because it November also has Thanksgiving. And Thanksgiving is my favorite, favorite holiday. Because we actually see on one day we stop, everybody stops and actually give thanks and being happy and grateful. Right. And so that and spirituality and the birthday, you know, when you're older, it's like, oh, you know, what's gonna happen with me, all that kind of stuff. It all just comes together. And so that is a perfect time for this particular book for me. And so yeah, I really, really recommend that one, a lot. Final book. Now, this is one that I was not sure if I was going to add, but this one is, for me, it's pretty cool. And I've read this book several times, it's called the future is faster than you think. Now, this book is going to be outdated, and probably already is outdated. As soon as it comes out. This book was probably outdated. And the thing behind this author, he's written a couple other books. He's written a book called Bold, is written a book called Abundance. And then this was the third book. And I think he's working on the next one. This particular guy, he is what they call a futurist. Right. So he focuses on the technologies that are coming down the pipe, he looks at all the different technologies that people have been working on. And then he sees how they work together in the Confluence and what could be possible. So in this book, here, he talks. And basically, it's how converging technologies are transforming business industries and our lives. And if you don't know what's coming down the pipe in the future, if you read this book, it will blow you away. Right? So most people, they look at what's wrong in the world. They look at all the negative. Oh, It's getting harder every year. Oh, the politics are this, oh, there's so much garbage in the world. Oh, people don't get along. Oh, there's so much. There's so much war, intention, and, and scarcity and all these different things. And this guy, he takes a different approach. He's like, you know, if you look at it, if you look at the numbers, life has never been better for people on this planet. We're living longer, we're healthier, we have more food than ever, we don't have to worry about food. We have cars and food and entertainment at our fingertips. And there's so many things that we can be grateful for so many things that are unimaginable just 10 years ago, 20 years ago, right, and the way that the future is coming, and he explains all the different technologies, you know, he talks about flying cars, when they're coming, how they're coming, how they're gonna get here, he talks about AI, he was talking this book came out years ago, way before ChatGPT and all the AI companies that are going crazy now, people have been working on AI for years, but it wasn't ready to be mainstream. Now. It's actually coming to be mainstream. So every other other predictions he made in this book are coming true right in front of our eyes. So it's incredible. So some of those predictions have come true already. The other ones are going to be coming true. So if you want to know what the future holds for humanity, this is one of the books that is really, really good. And I'd say it's already outdated, because there's a lot of thing that's already happened. And there's more things that are happening now that he hasn't covered in the book yet. So maybe in his next book to be even more things, but these guys are on the cutting edge of technology. And so one of the things is that we're going to be able to live Have a lot longer and he explains how so 120 150 years old is doable, maybe not. For you, I don't know how old you are maybe not for me, I might live to 120, my kids, they might get to 200. Because the technology is in the advancements in health and all this stuff is growing crazy fast, just all the stuff that happened during COVID-19 time, right? The technologies that they came out with the way they streamline the processes, how everything became faster, because they needed to be faster. Health-wise, they made huge jumps, what used to take five years or 10 years before in health was able to be done in five months or less. And so it's amazing, you know, like before, I never even my doctor never even considered doing a zoom call with me. And now that's the only way I talked to her I haven't talked to I haven't seen her in years as you're on Zoom, and that's it. Because I don't want to go to our office, I don't wanna sit there for an hour in the waiting room, then sit there in the cold room with the with the nurse that doesn't smile, and then you know, see my doctor for like 10 minutes, and then she's out the door, I don't want to I got work to do, I don't have two hours to wait, waste at the doctor. So this is something that maybe I never thought about that would happen. But he predicted it in the book. And it came true. So this one, there's really nothing for you to do in this book. There's no work. And so this is why I put it at the end of the year is just it's inspirational. It makes me like, Oh, holy cow, holy cow. This is the type of book that when I read it, I tell everybody about it like, Hey, did you know about this? Oh, do you hear about this and people like, I don't care, you know, because it's like, okay, but for me, the the future stuff, the technologies that are coming, they're, they're really cool. I love this kind of stuff. So, you know, when you're trading, it's really passive trading, right? The idea is that we want to make money and have our money make more money for us so that we don't have to work. And it's called, that's what it's called passive, we're not really doing too much work. And so what do you do with all that free time? Well, in the future is going to be a lot different than it is now. So the time that we have, right is going to be way more fun. And we're gonna have a lot more of it, because you're just living longer. So the advancements in health that are coming down the pike, organs, you know, pig organs and transplants, and this and that, and it's insane, the stuff that's coming, and they already have it. I mean, everything he talks about in the book is already here, right nuclear power and how they use it and how they're cleaning the how they're cleaning the ocean, and how they're turning salt water into fresh water, and all this stuff. These technologies are here, they're not maybe all of them are not ready for primetime. But with enough investment, they could be and they could change the world. So these type of technologies, these type of companies that are doing this kind of research and stuff, they need investment. And so if we want to really make a big difference in the world, we want to leave it at a better place than when we got here, taking the money that we're making from trading, and then giving back to the world. You know, helping solve some of the world's problems would be a wonderful way to use your money. And so people ask like, oh, yeah, you know, I got this question today, like, how much money do you need? Right? Like, you keep trading? How much? How much do you actually need? Do you actually want? Do you do it for fun? You do it for for greed, what do you do it for? And I'm like, there are so many things that I want to fund, there are so many things I want to bring to the world. And I don't have to be the one doing all the research and being the scientist and the technologists and all that stuff. But if I can help them by funding the company, or by making an investment, then that's going to help my kids, my grandkids, my great grandkids, and on and on and on, because I'm scared for them. I'm scared for future generations, because I see the news do I see things, you know, might not be getting better in all aspects. But then I read a book like this, and I have hope, I hope for the future, I have hope for technologies that are coming down the pike that will...
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12 Books A Year - Part 3 - 165
10/21/2023
12 Books A Year - Part 3 - 165
This is part 3 of the 4-part series. See which books I read every year and why I chose them. Plus learn why the way most people read is totally a waste of time. Welcome back. Alright, so this is part three of our four-part series on the books you can read to change your life. Okay, so if you haven't done Part One and Part Two, you probably want to do those first, at least part one. So you know, you get the gist, you have the background of what we're doing. Now I'm going to dive into the second set of books for I broke it down into four books, four books, four books, so part two, part three, and part four, I'm going to show you four books each, so it doesn't take forever. And now these are four books in the first three months, right? January, March, April, the first four books, I started pretty heavy, I like to it's, you know, the new year, you want to get going, you're setting your goals. And it's like, let's just do this, this time, these four months, you know, you're going into the summer season, things are busy, right? Things are hotter, you don't want to be thinking as much. And so these books, a couple of them are really about how to flick change of perspective, not so much work-related or to do work, you know, not to do stuff. But so let's just get into that. Alright, so the first book we have is called "The Slight Edge". Okay, it's the slight edge, turning simple disciplines into a massive success. Now, this is a short book, a very simple concept, one that I can explain to you in five seconds, maybe not. But it's very simple. And it's still worth reading, it's still, you know because you get the examples, you get the illustrations or whatnot. And it's a quick read the idea is the one about knowing where you're going and making small incremental steps to get there, right? So for example, you got on a plane that's going from Miami to New York, right? If it's on track, it'll get to New York, if it's off by even a couple of degrees, and it doesn't correct, then guess what it ends up way off-course, right, somewhere in like Iceland or something, it'll never get to New York. So that's the kind of simple here, it's like, you know when you want to do something, there are certain steps that we have to take, we have to take them over and over and over again. Now, it's very simple to not do those things to take those steps. But in the long run, it's very difficult when you don't do them because it's a problem for you. So if you have a goal, and you say, hey, look, I want to accomplish this, I want to go back to school and get my degree, right? There are certain things you have to do daily, you have to do your homework, right? Now, is it simple to just say no, I'm tired? I don't want to do my homework. Yeah, very simple. It's like I just worked all day, I don't want to go back. You know, like, I don't want to do this, it's very simple for you to miss a day, Miss two days, right? But if you keep missing and keep missing and keep missing, eventually, you're gonna flunk out, and the whole goal is gone. So the first couple times you do it, no big deal, no harm done, you know, you might get away with it. But if you keep building and building and building, then it just doesn't work out. So same with trading, right? If you don't follow the rules in your trades, there might be a trade that it doesn't matter to trade the works out, there might be another one that just doesn't matter. There might be another one that works out. But then eventually there'll come a time when you won't even remember what the rules are. And there'll be a time where you mess up and you don't do it and the thing goes bad and it just destroys you. So if you want to do something, the book says, right, you're taking simple disciplines, just simple, small things, you just have to do small steps, right? The journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step. And that's all the book is telling you. It's like you figure out what are those steps, and you just do them slowly, slowly, and you have the discipline, you have the desire and the book is that's all it's about. And he's telling you how to do that. So I mean, it's a very simple book that is very hard to live by. And so that's why you need the constant reminder, you have to read it again. And again. And again. When you do and you get you back on track, you will accomplish things like crazy, like it's powerful, very powerful book. Alright, so the next one, and now this one is called The Four Hour Workweek. There's probably I think there's a second edition out. So this book is outdated. And so I don't even know if it's worth it for everybody to read this. So this one might not work for you. You might want to take this one out and put in another one. I'll tell you what this one is about. Now, this book came out years ago, and I met the author, I hung out with him. We went to the Berkshire Hathaway meeting together, along with a group of other people. But, you know, the book had just come out and he had come with our group he had come with us. And so, you know, really smart guy. Tim Ferriss is the name. He's got a very popular podcast the guy is blown up. He's very famous now. But the book is The Four-Hour Workweek. And it's he came up with the idea years ago and he didn't come up with it. He wrote a book about it. The idea was already there. But he made outsourcing pretty popular in common knowledge. So outsourcing is right. It's taking a job from here and having somebody overseas do it. And so his whole thesis of the book is that you can create a business online, and you can have people in other countries doing the work for you. And basically, you don't have to do any work. kind of the gist of it. And so people are like, what, you know, I don't have to hire a secretary in my office, I could hire somebody in the Philippines that would work for like, $3 an hour and do just as good a job. Yeah, it's possible. Nowadays, you know, it's common, there's almost no company that only has all their employees in one location, right? People are virtual people all over the world, for example, our team, right, I am the only one in the office at Option Genius. We have an office, I'm the only one here. So it gets kind of lonely sometimes, you know, we have one of our traders, Matt, he lives in Alabama, right? We have my manager, who lives in North Carolina. We have another trader who lives in California, we have Harriet who does customer service, but she lives in the Philippines. Kevin, who helps me with my podcast, He also lives in the Philippines. And then we got Ray Mark, who does our video editing, He also lives in the Philippines. So most of our team either lives in us or lives in the Philippines. Right. So that's what the book is really about. It's like how to find people that will do a great job that is cheaper, because they're living somewhere that's cheaper than living overseas now, doesn't mean you have to give them cheap money, right. But that's how it works, right economics, that's how they work. So the book itself is outdated. Because nowadays, everybody knows about outsourcing, there are plenty of resources online to say, hey, I want to hire somebody overseas. And there are a million websites and companies that will help you find the perfect person to hire overseas or wherever for whatever task you want. And so there's nothing new in that book. But the reason I like to read it is because of the idea that he has in there that the business itself that you create, is for your benefit as the business owner. So his thinking is that you don't want to start a business and have the business own you, and control you right, he wants to start a business that can run on its own, by smart people who are given the authority to run the business. And then you get to go do whatever you want. You get to travel, you get to go to school, you get to do your hobbies, hang out with your family, you get to do whatever you want. And you're making money from this business, it could be a side business, it could be a bigger business. Most big businesses do require you know, if you want a full-time income or business, most likely you have to be involved. You can't just, you know, dictate and abdicate responsibility and let other people do the work. You can't do it unless you've already established and built the business. And so this is mostly for like side hustles and things like that. But people can make a pretty good living, right? Nowadays, with all the tools and the Zoom calls and everything, outsourcing and doing stuff online has become easier than ever. And so if you have kids, and they are not doing some kind of online business, or learning or marketing or whatever, I think that's a big mistake. So that's that one. I read it for myself to remind me, right of the reason why I started business, the reason why I got into trading, which is so that I don't have to I don't have to work for money, and that I could just go do what I want. Now, I enjoy making stuff like this, you know, content for you guys. And I enjoy trading so it's not a burden. But still, it gives me a reminder like, oh, yeah, you know, I wanted to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, that's one of my things. Oh, yeah, I want to do a bike race, that's 100 miles in a day, you know, I want to do that. And those two things, take a lot of training, you can't just wake up one day and do that. And so I'd have to prepare and I have to, you know, get ready and preparations, and all the equipment and somebody has to take me up to Kilimanjaro because I'm not going by myself, all kinds of crazy stuff. So you have to know in advance what you want. Right? And so that's that's why I liked that book. The third book that I want to talk about this, this part is called Millionaire Success Habits. I got this book for free, the author was giving them away for free. So you might even do a website search for this 1 million how-to get millionaire success habits for free. It might pop up and this book is it was written as a marketing piece for the author, you know, because he has a course and he's selling he's got so much other stuff that he's selling, but the book itself, he's got a lot of good content in here. He's got a lot of good exercises in here. And it's really about how you can change your thinking, change your mentality, change your psychology to become a millionaire, like, what are the habits of successful people? What are the habits of rich people? What do they do, that non-rich people don't do? And he goes through those, and he helps you figure out, you know, what are the things that you are not doing that you can do and how to change it. So this one does take a lot of work. So this one is a heavy book, and it does take a lot of time to implement. One of the examples that he talks about here is the why exercise. So whenever you create a goal, it has to be a very big goal, something challenging, something worth accomplishing. And any of those types of goals, they always have challenges, right? There's always something that will stand in your way, and you might want to quit, you might want to give up, you might say no, no, I can't do this. It's too hard. It's taking too long. And I don't know if he's worth it. You know, trading is like that. Trading is really like that. I mean, sometimes you'll do great. And then one day, the market will just slap you silly. And you're gonna be like, Man, is it worth this pain, I feel horrible. I feel so bad. I feel so stupid, I made a mistake. Bla bla bla, is it worth it? The only way you're going to continue is if you, really, really, really know your why. And I talk about this a lot to say what is your why what is the real reason that you're trading is just because you want to make some extra money, then you ain't gonna stick around very long? To be honest, you have to have something besides money, you have to have something that you desire, much more than money. So it can that desire can get you through the challenges and the pain that are going to come because trading is, you know, it's simple, I guess you could say it's easy, but it's not simple, or it's simple. But it's not easy. I'm not sure which one, you know, I can give you the rules, I can give you everything, but you got to follow it, you got to do it. And there will be losses along the way there will be hardships, there will be unknowns, a lot of unknowns in trading, right? We never know what's going to happen tomorrow and trading, nobody can predict it. We just have to go with the flow and that can be very hard and taxing on you emotionally mentally and physically. And so you have to know your why. And so in this book, he goes through the exercise of the seven why so you start off asking, and you do it with another person. And it's basically Hey, you know, tell me, why do you want to get good at trading? And then you come up with an answer. And the person says, oh, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, cool. Why do you want that? And he goes, like the second level deeper, right? And then you have to give a reason why you want that second thing. He goes, Oh, that's wonderful. That's great. That makes no sense. Okay, so tell me why do you want that second thing? See, okay, and you give another reason? And then okay, why do you want that? Third thing? Why do you want that? Fourth thing? Why do you want that fifth thing, that by the time you get level after level, after level, deeper, deeper, deeper, the real reason comes out, the real explanation of why you want to do something comes out? And that's when you might even cry because that desire or that frustration is so strongly built up in you that you don't even know is there. But if you do this exercise, it kind of unleashes that brings it to the surface, and allows you to know the deep, deep, deep desire that you have, and you might not be even conscious of it. So this is one of the examples in there. It's a great one, I urge you to do it, get that book, read it, go through it, implement it, really, really good book. And then I'm going to end this one with a book that is a reader and a thinker. Not really too much of a doer, maybe a little bit of a doer, it's Tuesdays with Morrie. Okay, now you probably already read this one came out a long time ago. It's the story of an old man and a young man and life's greatest lesson, basically how to live your life. So the author here is a true story. The author was a journalist, and he realized that his favorite college professor was dying. And so he would go every Tuesday and hang out with him. And he recorded the lessons that he learned from the man about how to live a great life, how to enjoy yourself how to be happy, and he wrote those in a book very, very, it's a short book, but it tugs at your heartstrings and makes you realize a lot of things about life. Because I mean, think about it like I did, you know we went through the slight edge then we went The Four Hour Workweek to teach us about work then we did the millionaire success habits we need a break right from reading and so that's why I put this one in there because even though this one will make you cry, he's a does for me, it makes you think about life. It makes you appreciate life, but there's no work involved in it unless you know you have some issues with somebody you know, your brother, your sister, or your parents that you gotta resolve. That might be a good thing you know, this book might help you do that. But in a sense, it's a story that you read and you learn and you appreciate what you have. You appreciate your life and you feel good about it. So that's it for these four books. I got one more part of the series coming up, which is gonna be part four So go ahead, check that one out as well, to finish it out, those are gonna be the last four books of the year. And again, you know, like I said, with the four-hour workweek, if it doesn't work for you, you don't you can put something else instead, right? If you're not, you don't care about outsourcing, you don't care about virtual assistants, anything like that, you know if you don't want to run a business, that book is not for you, that's fine. Take it out, put something else in, you know, that's the way it works. You fit this for what you want. Now, these four books, I think the slight edge is great for everybody. You know, the millionaire success habits. I mean, this is good for everybody, even if you don't want to be a millionaire. I mean, he talks about money, most of it. But even if you don't want to be a millionaire, you just want to be successful and happier. It's a great book, and then on Tuesdays with Morrie, everybody can read that Morrie's son has come out with another book called Wisdom of Morrie, which I have, on my shelf waiting to be read. I haven't read it yet. But like I said, I don't have time for it, because I need to focus on my 12 books and read them every year. And so I'm going to work on myself first, and I'm working on not having to finish that book. So it's sitting there, it's there. I know is there I'll get to it eventually. But for now, let's go and let's head to part number four of this series.
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12 Books A Year - "4 Books To Change Your Life" (Part 2/4) - 164
10/08/2023
12 Books A Year - "4 Books To Change Your Life" (Part 2/4) - 164
Alright, let's get on with this. All right, so this is part two of a four part series. Okay, so part one explained the basics explained why I'm doing this series and explained that you are reading wrong. No, I'm kidding, I don't know how you read, at least for me, the way I was reading was wrong. Now, the point of reading is to learn. But the way I was reading is that I was reading to be done. And I know psychologically, there is this thing in our brains that we have to go to completion, right? So it's like, you watch a movie, but you don't want to stop in the middle because you want to finish it. And you want to feel that you completed something, even though it's a bad movie. So most of us don't get up and leave or turn it off in the middle. Same with books. For me, it's like I wanted to finish the whole book, even if it was not good or boring, or I don't really know what was talking about, I would go through and read the whole book anyway, and then go to the next one, then go the next one. But I never really learned and I never really sunk in so that it wasn't effective in my life, I never really used it because I was just reading, reading, reading. And so the books that I'm going to share with you are totally different, I read them in a different way. And you can please go to part one of the series, and it'll tell you exactly how and why and the reasoning behind it, and how it works. But in this session, I want to talk about the first four books of the year that I read. Now, these are set in a specific order, because it's the first of the year, right first four months, and I really want to get on a good start. And so these particular books, the ones I'm going to show you are the ones that I read every single year. Now some of the books depending on what I want to learn what I want to accomplish that year, I might not read every single one of them every now and again, they're interchangeable, depending on the topics that you want to excel at. That's the cool thing about this program. So these four books, I would like there for me, they're like long term, you know, and they the issues that they address are long term issues. And so sometimes these four, sometimes take me longer than one month to implement. Some of them are not and some of them do. So it's really I tried to interspeed them. So one book will be a very highly implemented book. And then the next month, it might be just a thought-provoking book that I don't have to implement, and do and work on that much. And then next month, that again, it'll be another workbook. So all of these books, there are their, you know, best sellers, you can probably still get them. I like to get them in hardcover, because I know I'm gonna be reading them and keeping them for a long time. Even if they go on print. I want the hardcover. So I can keep doing this over and over again. So with that, let me get into book number one. So this number one is called the "One Thing". Okay, that's the name of the book, the one thing and again, you can see its hard cover, this basically tells you and ask you a simple question. It's like, what's your one thing? And the idea is very simple. It's, if we focus on too many things, we don't get enough things done. So the idea is to have really close concise goals. And then you work on just one thing to accomplish those goals. And so there's one question that they asked in here, that makes things much simpler. And they call it the, they call it the defining question, or the focusing question, sorry. And the question is, what's the one thing I can do such that by doing it, everything else will become easier or unnecessary? What's the one thing I can do that by doing it, everything else becomes easier or unnecessary? And you might be thinking, well, you know, my problems are really hard. My problems are intense, right? But there's always if you break it down into small steps, those small steps are like dominoes. And the small one knocks over the bigger one, then you can knock over a bigger one, then you cannot go for a bigger one until the goal that you want is accomplished. So there's an example of losing weight, right? I want to lose weight. Okay, what do I do? Well, I gotta hit the gym. Well, what's the best time to go to the gym first thing in the morning? Okay, well, I don't do that because I don't like getting up early. Or I get lazy in the morning. So I don't go to the gym in the morning. I don't work out in the morning. So if I can just get myself up early in the morning, then I'll do that. Well, what's the best way to do that? Oh, no, set my alarm. Okay, is that the one thing that I can do? No, the one thing I can do is workout, right? That's it? No, no, no, we gotta go smaller, smaller, smaller. So if the the goal is to lose weight, then one step removed from that is I need to work out, I don't know, five days a week, okay, then one step removed from that smaller than that is I need to get to the gym, right? Five times a week. And then once that smaller than that is a I need to wake up on time so I can get to the gym. And then once that, below that, and then that and then that. So what we realized is this was an example that you know, so it's not just getting to the gym, I'm you know, I'm gonna put my snooze button on and I'm gonna go back to sleep. So how do I get to the gym on time? Well, one thing I want to do is that you can swim you can sleep in your gym clothes, and then you just get up alarm rings, you get up and you go to the gym. Okay, that's fine. But I still don't get up. Right? I'm so groggy in the morning. Why? Well, in the example it was because the person would drink alcohol at night to help them go to sleep, or to unwind, and they would sleep late. So, obviously, you got to cut out your alcohol, and then you have to go to bed on time. Okay, so is that my one thing go to bed on time? No. Because you don't know what on time it so you have to set your schedule, and you have to be in bed before it's sleep time. So when do you want to sleep? Well, okay, if I want to go to sleep, if I want to be asleep at nine, or sorry, at 10. Right? Because I can get up early, then you should probably be in bed by like, 930? Well, at 930, you know, I'm still doing stuff. So I don't, I can't just like snap my fingers and go to bed. So I gotta start getting ready. Okay, so I need like half an hour to get ready, right? Pull my stuff away, put the kids to bed, blah, blah, blah, and then be in bed. So nine o'clock is when I have to start getting ready. So is that my one thing? No, the one thing would be even smaller, it would be to set an alarm for nine o'clock. So you set an alarm for nine o'clock, that, hey, it's time for me to start getting ready, I got half an hour to be in bed, so that I can fall asleep in half an hour so that I could wake up early in the morning. And not drink, obviously. And so I can get up early in the morning so that I can go to the gym so that I could work out so that I could lose weight. So that's how it breaks down. So that one thing you could do the one small thing that you could do right now, that makes everything easy is to set your alarm for nine o'clock at night and make a goal. And the goal is to lose weight, but you break it down. So that's one example. The book has a lot more examples, the book is really good, they wouldn't have sold millions of copies otherwise. And I read it every year because it keeps bringing me back to Hey, what's the one thing? What's the one thing we just did one thing right now, I had a problem that I've been working on for months, literally months and asked the question, and the answer just came with, oh, wow, if I did this one small change, it just makes everything so much simpler. And it makes all this extra work that I was thinking of doing completely unnecessary. Like I already have to do it anymore. Because of this one small change. And it was one thing that I didn't want to do. But when he asked a question, it's like the answer is like it's pointing the answer, like this is the thing you have to do this is going to make everything easier or unnecessary. So in my case, definitely gonna be easier, it's going to be faster, and it's going to be make a lot of things unnecessary. So that's how you that's the one question. That's just one thing in that book, right? So that's, that's the one thing that's a great book, I start off every January with that book. All right, February is this book, The Power of full engagement, making energy, not time is the key to high performance and personal renewal. Okay, so the power of full engagement. Now, this is something that is really, really good about energy, about health, about stamina, about exercise. And it's not just talking about health, it's not just talking about one type exercise, it's, it's about your mind as well sleep, fitness, Health, or nutrition, all that stuff, it combines all of it. That's why I put it in in February, so that it can retrain my brain and get me on the right path. If I fallen off, which I usually do, I'm not the most active person, alright, so it helps you figure out and it reinforces all the different reasons why you need to eat better, why you need to sleep well, why you need to, you know, exercise on a daily basis, and all that. And so, this one, if you're dealing with, you know, overweight or high cholesterol or whatever problems, which almost everybody nowadays has some type of health problem, right? If you're dealing with that, you can use this one, or you can use some other one, that similar vein, you know, and that really helps you to remember and get you back on track and back on focus for your health. Now, this is not particularly a health book, it's more about energy, and how to have more energy to have a more productive and more happy life. That's the point of it's not health and nutrition is part of it. But it's just it's more than that. It's more about energy, how you think how you act, how you work, all that sort of thing. So that's why I like this one. It's not just about oh, this is your diet, you know, it's not a cookbook or whatever. So that's when I really liked that one again. And now when I put in February, so this one is a you know, the February is a smaller month, and sometimes this one can be a little bit heavy and so sometimes it overlaps in February and March. So it takes February and March because it's really, really important, right? The concepts are really important and you want to if your health is no good, that doesn't matter how much money you have, doesn't matter how much time you have, you can't do anything, you're pretty much screwed. So that's why your health and your energy are really really important concepts. Next, we have one that I have spent a lot of time working on. And it's basically happiness. It's like how do you, you know, how do you be more happy? We, a lot of us are suffering, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, all kinds of crazy stuff and mental health is, is getting worse and worse, even though, you know, we have everything we need, we have everything we want. Basically, you snap your fingers, and you know, your food comes, groceries come to your door, people take you anywhere you want, anything you want is available. It's incredible. You know, Amazon used to be like, Oh my god, next two day delivery was amazing. Now, it's one day delivery. Now it's like same day delivery, you press a button and thing shows up before you get home. It's like, what I just ordered, they gotta get here. So why are we so sad? What's the problem? I don't know, I guess a difference for it's different for everybody. So for me, I spent a lot of time, you know, I went through some depression issues. We had people in our family that passed away unexpectedly, they were murdered. And so I did go through depression, take the pills and all that. And then I was like, No, I don't want to take pills, I want to do it myself. And so this book is The Happiness Project. It's a really cool book. And the reason it's good is because there are a lot of books on happiness. I mean, there's a lot of trainings, a lot of things that happiness, most of the things, they all say the same thing, right, they all use the same studies, they all say the same things. So what this woman did was, she took a year out of her life, and he probably, you know, I'm gonna write a book about it. But she looked at all the studies, and all of the different techniques that they tell you to do. And she actually did them. And she recorded, which ones made her happier, which ones worked, which ones didn't, which ones, you know, are like a waste of time, which ones are amazing. And she records them in her own voice, which it's pretty funny, you know. And so I like that one a lot, because she has all the research, but then she also has how she applied it. And so it's a bit of a story, you know, it's not all dry and scientific, even though she explains everything very nicely. So that one is the Happiness Project. That one is really good. I love that one. I read it ever again, these these four, these first four, I do read every single year, because to me, they're they're that important. And the happiness book, you know, even if you're not suffering from depression, or whatnot, it does tell you how to it gives you ideas, and he gives you a lot of tips and a lot of tricks. You don't have to use all of them, you can use some of them, you know, you don't have to do it like she did, where you have to try every single method. And I don't, you know, I might take one, maybe two out of the book every year and be like, You know what, I'm gonna try this. You know, one of the simple idea would be like, I've started doing this with my kids, you know, so every night when I'm putting into bed, I asked them, hey, tell me three things that went well today, you know, tell me three things that weren't good today. And so you end the day thinking about positives. Most of us think about, oh, man, this happened wrong, that happened wrong. I do this tomorrow to that tomorrow. But I'm so tired, but I'm so exhausted. But we don't think about all the stuff that went right. So this was one technique that you just think about three things every day, that went right. And it could be something really simple. You know, for me making this video is going to be one of those things for me, like, hey, you know, I've finished part two of the four part series, Yay, I'm gonna celebrate that, you know, might have had a trade that went well, today. Yay, I'm gonna celebrate that because we don't celebrate enough. And this is the reason that we also have an option genius. We have all the bells, you know, we ring bells, every time. Every time we have a positive trade, we ring a bell because we went on a lot of trades. And so it becomes common common to just when it's like, Oh, hey, made money today? What do you do that? No, you got to celebrate it, you got to make it exciting, right? Otherwise, it just gets boring. So we ring the bell every time we have a positive trade, and it's a bit of a celebration. Same thing with the three things that happened today, you're celebrating every single day, because these days don't come back. There was another another technique I talked about in a different episode, where you find out how many days supposedly, or average you have left in life, you know, based on how old you are now, and when you're going to die, which is probably around around 80 years old. So how many days you have left, you write that on the mirror with a dry erase marker. So when you're brushing your teeth in the morning, you got to change the number every day. So it's like, you know, like yesterday was 12,700. Today, it's 12,006 99. You know, you got to change the number every day. And you give yourself that mental remembrance that oh my god, I got one day left. Today's god, oh, man, the days gone. So at night, you know, when I see that number of washing my teeth, I'm like, man, what did I do today? Was it worth it? You know, and then you change your patterns. So it's not immediate, but it does gradually help and gradually remind yourself and gradually you spend more and more time doing the things that you enjoy. So then you at the end of the day, you're like yeah, you know, today was a good day. Today was a good day. Yeah, maybe I'll do more of that tomorrow. All right now, this book number four is for me, it was a very deep book. It's called a million miles. No, sorry. Yeah, it's called a million miles in a thousand years by Donald Miller, how I learned to live a better story, not a better life, but a better story. A million miles in 1000 years. Now, I was lucky that I found this book. I don't know how I found it. But why picked it up? But I did. And so for me, I've been told, and so have you to find your purpose, to find your passion to find the thing that really makes you alive, you know, and then if you can find that one thing and do that for a living, then you never have to work a day in your life. That's great. And I spent years trying to find my purpose, like, what is it? Do I want to help people? Do I want to make a lot of money? Do I want to build a building? Do I want to build a big company? Do I want to travel the world? What is the purpose? What is the point of my life? And I realized that there's a lot of things I want to do. Right, but there's no just one overarching purpose. Like, was I put on this earth to trade options? Was I put on this Earth to teach people how to trade options? Not necessarily, I don't think so. I mean, I enjoy it. But I want to do that for the rest of my life. I'm sorry, but this, this show is not gonna it's gonna end one day. So I don't know, like, What is my purpose? You know, what do I really want out of life? Like I have everything I want? What is it that makes me keep going? And maybe that's, maybe it was one of the reasons I get depressed. It's like, I already have what I want. Where's the challenge? You know, what's the next steps? But in this book, he talks about, it's basically a story of his life. And he's going through and he has this crisis. And what he realizes is that maybe we don't have to have a purpose in life. Maybe everybody doesn't have a purpose, or you do, maybe you don't know what it is. But instead of looking for a purpose, how about, we look at it in a different way? Right, we look at our lives in a different context. And we say that, you know, my life is my story. And I get to tell, and I get to write the story, however I want. So what is the story that I want to write? Well, I want to be a teacher, I want to be rich, I want to be a father, and it'd be XYZ a sailor, you know, I want to be a famous type fisherman. fisherman, I don't know what whatever. You know, I'll be famous at doing this one thing, those are all things that you can put as part of your story. And so there's one story in there, he was talking to a friend of his, and they had, the guy had a daughter, teenage daughter, and he couldn't get through her. And so the daughter was actually her, she, she got a boyfriend, the boyfriend was many years older than her. And they were doing drugs, and they were in a gang and, and all this bad stuff was, you know, and the guy listened to the author, about this realization about, you know, the story that we tell with our lives. And that guy realized that the story that the daughter was telling herself about herself, was not a good story. So he said, You know what I want her to be I want her to live a good story. So that she gets out of all this bad stuff. And she feels good about herself. And so he went home, and he said, Hey, you know what, we are going to build a school in Mexico. And they didn't know anything about building schools. They didn't have any extra money, they didn't have nothing. He just went to his wife and his daughter and said, We're going to build a school in Mexico. Because for some reason,...
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12 Books A Year - "How I Read" (Part 1/4) - 163
10/05/2023
12 Books A Year - "How I Read" (Part 1/4) - 163
Hey there, today I want to be talking about something that I call how I get better every year. Now, when I think about getting better, that could be in any aspect, it could be trading, it could be life, it could be in any part of your life. And what I want to talk about can be totally customized to you. So you can choose what you want to get better in. But it does take a little bit of work. Now, whenever I talk about this with people, or I share this with anybody I mean, they get a lot of benefits out of it, the people who have tried it have really told me that they loved it, they love doing it, and is very different from anything else I've ever seen. I've never seen anybody do it quite like this before. And now I believe that we don't stand still, you're either getting better, or you're getting worse, you're getting faster, or you're getting slower. You can't just be "Oh, I'm the same as I was last year", it doesn't work that way. You're either getting smarter, or you're getting left behind. Because everything, the whole world, everything moves way too fast. There's many, too many changes, there's too many people competing, there's too much noise, there's so much out there that you have to get better, and if you don't, you get left behind. Now, in many things, that's not a bad thing. But when you're in life, and you want to get ahead, then you want to keep getting better. And it's actually fun to do as well. Right? I get better by learning by education by reading. And so I'm going to be talking about how I read and it's not the way most people read. And it's definitely not the most regular books that you've heard of. It's a completely different way. I've never heard of anybody talk about it like this. And so I think it's going to be very helpful. And like I said, totally customizable to you based on whatever you want to accomplish. So that's the cool part about it. Now, I read a lot, the voracious reader. And so whenever I read, I'm always reading to get through the book, because I want to finish it because on my stack, you know how my desk I have a stack of other books that I'm ready and excited to read. Because I just love to read, there's certain topics that I like to read a lot. And so every new book that comes out, I'll get it and I'll read it and I like the paper books, you know, printed books, I don't like the ebooks that much. But I'll read those too. I have a bunch of those too that are still stacked up. But in my house, for example, my wife keeps getting upset because I keep getting more and more and more books and we don't have plates anymore. We don't have space to put these all these books. I got bookshelves on top of bookshelf, bookshelves and they're they're still full my nightstand on my table is like full of books. She even, my poor wife, she even got me a bookshelf for the bedroom. So that I could have that as well. But those are awful, too. And they're falling off and they're on the floor. And it's just piling up. So that's just the way I am. But what I realized is that I was reading and reading reading, but I wasn't learning. That's the sad part though. I was just reading to read. And so I had no knowledge, but I didn't have any implementation. And so I learned this because you know, my wife and I, we sometimes were in bed or night you're talking, she has a business. She has her own business, and I have a business so we're talking and she was explaining a particular problem that she had. So I was like, Oh, wow, that's, you know, and stuff. But you know, I'm reading this book, and it said, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she goes, oh, wow, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, I'm gonna try that. So then she goes, and she comes back like a week later. And she goes, Hey, you know, I tried that thing. And it worked really well. Thank you. You know, problem solved is wonderful. I'm like, Oh, that's great. You know, and then we move on. About six months later, we're in bed. And now I'm talking about a problem. And she goes to me, Oh, well, you know what you could do? You could do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, Oh, wow, that's such a great idea. Oh, my god, that's amazing that you're so smart. And she goes, Really? You don't remember? I'm like, remember what she does? That's the exact same thing you told me to do six months ago. And I'm like, really? And she's like, Yeah, so you read in a book, you told me to do it. I did it. And it worked. And now I'm telling you to do it. And I was like, oh, and so I realized that I'm reading all this stuff. I'm reading all these books upon books upon books. And I'm not learning is coming in one year is coming out the other. Not only that, but I'm spending a lot of time reading. And normally I will read four or five books at a time. At a time, I'll have four or five books that I'm reading, because, you know, whatever fancies my mood at the time is what I'll read, I'll pick it up. And I'll be in the middle of four or five books at a time. And I mean, if I get to do one book, I can do it and maybe within a couple of days. But when I want to learn about a particular topic, I like to go deep in a topic, but when you buy three or four books about the topic, you will realize that they're almost all the same. There's very little new stuff in the books that come out nowadays. You know, there's maybe one or two that are like the definitive book about it that cover everything. And then everybody else, all the books that come out afterwards are just reiterations of that book. Like, for example, one time, I wanted to learn about habits, I have maybe six or seven books on habits. And guess they all say the same things. They all use the same studies, they all talk about the same problems that people have, the same examples. It's a lot of it is almost like, if you take the title off, you wouldn't be able to tell which book is which, because they're almost they're all the same. And so I realize that I'm buying book after book after book on certain topics. And I'm just reading the same thing over and over and over again. So like, Yeah, this is not working either. This is just wasting time. I mean, repetition does help. But still, I'm not getting anything closer to my goal. And so I decided to do something different. And I decided that I'm going to make a list of all the things that I want to work on, on me. Now, I have two sets of lists, I have one for business, because I want to improve my business. And then I have another set for me personally, all the things that I want to improve on. And so what I did was made a list that added up, and I picked like maybe eight or 12 things. Okay. And then I went and I found the definitive book, on that particular topic. Now, some topics, I picked three or four books because we come at it from a different angle. And it's a very big topic, like productivity, productivity is a big one for me, discipline, getting stuff done, working on the stuff that's important, I getting sidetracked. That's important to me. And so I have three or four different books that I identified that are really good about that particular topic. And so what I've done is I call it the 12 books a year. So I have set aside and I've decided that I'm going to read one book, every month, about my personal to make me better make me as a better person be more successful in all the different areas of my life. So I'm going to read one book per month. Now, obviously, like I said before, only takes me two or three days to read one book. So I'm not going to read all of them together, I'm going to read one, it might take me two days, three days, four days to read this book, the rest of the month, I am going to implement what I learned in the book, I'm going to go back, I'm going to take notes, I'm going to apply it to different situations in my life, I'm going to make examples or exercises or take the exercises actually do them. Because a lot of books, they have exercises where the author tells you do this, this, this this, and I don't do those. Really, you know, I might think about it for like 30 seconds and then move on, because I'm rushing to finish the book. So I'm gonna go back. And I go through the entire book. And I go through all the exercises, and I actually do the work I actually do with ask you to do. And I go further and I spend time thinking about it. I spend time thinking about okay, what did this chapter say? How can I implement this in my life? How does this make any sense? Does it make sense for me, and I found that there are certain books that are just really, really good. And so I do them every year. So in January, I have one book, and then February I'll do another March is another and I'll work through the book. Now, if that particular topic or that particular issue is really, really important to me, and I'm not finished implementing the book, then I can just keep working on the book, I don't go to book number two, you know, I don't go to the next month's book, I keep working because I don't want to break my momentum. And so I will continue keep working on it. And I've seen myself, the gains are incredible. Some people tell me Oh, my God, how did you accomplish so much. I just, you know, buckled down. And I did this, some of the times my family tells me what's going on, you're different. You've changed. And I'll explain that you know how that works. But it's really extraordinary, how amazing this is. How this one simple concept.And it's cheaper, because you don't have to buy about a book, it's easier because all the information is right there, you just have to do the work. And doesn't it takes less time. Because you're only reading one book, and then you're implementing, and the success you get the results you get are mind-blowing. And so what I want to do is I want to share all the 12 books that I read every year most years, and I will share them with you. And now I don't have I don't want to do it all in one video because they're going to be too many. I want to go through each book and tell you why I like it. And so I'm going to break this up into a series. And so we have this video, which is number one, right? And then I'll take the first four books, that'll be part two, then part three and part four, and we'll break it down. Now the cool thing about this is that the books are interchangeable. So one year, I might not need that particular topic that that book talks about, and so I can swap it out for another book, or another topic. Right? That's the cool part. It's up To you, you can spend as much time on a topic or a little time on a topic. And if you don't want it, then you just take that book out, and you put it in something else in its place. Because of course, there's always stuff we can work on, there's always stuff we can get better at. And these books have so much content in them, that you do them. And you're probably not going to finish the whole book in a month, right? And so you might feel okay, I want to move on. But then when you come back to it, you come back to it 12 months later, and you are a completely completely different person. Now you have different problems. Now you have a different point of view, you have different understandings. And so when you read the book, again, a lot of stuff, you won't remember some of it, you will, but a lot you won't, but you did, you take deeper meaning out of it, you'll understand it from a different point of view. And so the problems that you have, you be like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna apply this, even though you've already read the book. And if you've done it several years in a row, you have probably read the book several times. Right. And so this is a, like I said, it's a great process, I want to go through it with you, it's really not that hard. But I want to in the in the following episode, versions or series, I want to talk about the different books that I use, and the different topics that are important to me. And they're really important to a lot of other people, you know, productivity, happiness, keeping the end in mind, which is like, you know, how do we approach life? How do we live life on a day to day basis, we don't get caught up in the day to day things, you know, energy, nutrition, health, that one is a big one, what else we got, we have, I don't have any money books in here, you know, like, oh, how to make more money, or how to do marketing, or those are all on my other list of business type books, right? Financial, Business, Trading, all of that stuff would be on a separate list. Now, I used to do both at the same time. So I used to have two books a month, one for my personal one for my business. But I realized that when you work on the personal, the business stuff, and the trading stuff, all that gets better automatically. And I spend a lot of time on that stuff anyway. And so that stuff gets better anyway. So I really need to focus more time on myself, because, I mean, there's only one me, right, I only get one me only get one life. So I want to make it as successful and as fulfilling as possible. And so I have books on there on happiness, books on getting things done. But really finding out what things really need to be done. There's a book on spirituality that I've read, or that have included, I'm going to share that one with you is really good. It's not about any one particular religion, but it's just basically on spirituality, that one's a good one. So I'm going to give you the list, we're gonna go through each one, I'll tell you what it does, why it's important. And these are books that I recommend to everybody. Like, as somebody who reads and has read 1000s and 1000s, and 1000s of books, literally, you know, I can tell you right off the bat if something is good or not. And there are many books that are really, really good, but they didn't make the cut, you know, so these are the ones that are, you know, hand-chosen by me to tackle certain topics, most of them are all, you know, mega mega bestsellers. So you probably have most of these already, if you like to buy books, if not, you've probably heard of most of them. Some of them you've probably never heard of, if you're not really familiar with that topic, but all of them are exceptional. And so I can't wait to get into this and share them with you. And hope you have a great year too, you know, and you can just get better, just get better and better better. Just follow the process. Again, it's nothing, it's easy. It's, you know, pick one topic that you want to work on, per month, find one book that teaches you how to work on that topic, and then just do the work for a month. And it's only a month it's not, it's not that long, you know, do it forever, right. And then at the end of the month, then you pick another book and you go in a different direction, you do something else. And if you want to do work more on it, because you're excited, you stay on that book, and you keep going, and then you cycle back. So the next year, you'll go back to the first book, you read it again, you'll be like, Oh man, I can implement this, this, this, this, this, and you learn more and you implement more. And sometimes you end up oh man, I forgot that I used to do this. And you stop implementing and then you forget and then you read the book and you're like, Oh, I got to do that again. Yeah, that was really important. Okay, okay, I'll do it again. So you start doing again, and you just, you just continue to stair step, get better and better, better, better. And it's not about, you know, making huge major goals or muj major improvements. You can make small improvements. And that's actually one of the books that we'll be talking about eye opening really topics. So yeah, this is part one. Go ahead and queue up part two. Go ahead, go through that one. And I'll go through the the first four books, and then we'll do the rest as we go along. But yeah, this is gonna be really helpful. Thanks. All right. Bye.
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How Kevin Banked Returns of 266% - 162
09/24/2023
How Kevin Banked Returns of 266% - 162
For more info on what is discussed in this epsiode, head to Allen: Boom, welcome to another edition of the Options Genius Podcast! Today, as promised, in the last episode, we have an interview, an interview with a fellow named Kevin. And Kevin is one of our beta testers in the Market Power Program, Kevin has done an amazing 266% ROI, since he's joined the program earlier in 2003. So that's not even a whole year worth the results. And that is after fees. So after he took out his commission's after he took out his fees, that's how much money he put in his pocket. Or basically, he left in the account. I don't know what he did with it. But yeah, that's what he kept. All right. That is amazing. I wanted to share this with you, I wanted to get this to you. Because these type of results are uncommon. I think that's an understatement. You know, when you have most people trying to make seven 8% A year from the stock market, even though you know, the market, banks, banks are paying what 4 or 5%. Right now, that's wonderful, that's great. Stock market should be paying more, but nobody out there is getting 266%. So shake cheese, but we are doing it with the market power program, I wanted to share this because I want you to be excited, I want you to be happy for Kevin, I want you to know this type of stuff is available, it's doable, if you have success with trading. So that's like the goal. I mean, the goal shouldn't be 266%. But the goal should be that you have enough money coming in to pay for all your expenses that you could do that from your trading. So you have basically your financial independence, right? And then after that you keep adding more and more money to the accounts or to your savings account or whatever, so that the financial worries that you have in your life melt away and you don't have any financial work. Because the thing is like, hey, oh, I got a speeding ticket. Okay? Well, if you can write a check, to make your problem go away, you don't have a problem. And that's what I really want. That's the type of life I want to have for you. Okay, so the type of problem where he's like, Okay, if I can just write a check and make this problem go away, I don't have a problem, I have a money issue. And the money issue, we want to make it go away through trading, market power is going to be one of those ways this program is coming. It's exciting. It's amazing. I can't speak enough about it. I mean, it's just unbelievable. I haven't I lost sleep. When we first came up with this seriously, I lost sleep for days and days and days. And I just can't believe it. And even now, it's still unbelievable. 54 trades in a row that I have made with this program. I think Kevin, the one that you're going to see in the interview, I think he had one trade that went bad, and he had to adjust it. And so it still worked out. And it's phenomenal. It's amazing. And he's not the only one, I'm not the only one, we have 35 other people that are trading this, in our beta testing program. They're all doing phenomenal. We have case studies, we have screenshots, we have interviews, we have, you know, the emails from them, thanking us and saying how amazing it is. So it's just a matter of time before we can open it up for others join. And unfortunately, you know, we can't let everybody in the whole world join. So whoever gets in to get in, that's wonderful. You only help certain limited amount of people, because we still need to protect it and keep it somewhat secret in the sense so that it doesn't get diluted and it doesn't stop working. So that's the situation here. I'm gonna go ahead and stop talking and let you watch or listen to the interview. And then when market power, makes his official debut and launches to the general list, I will let you know on the podcast. Or if you want to get to know earlier, then you can go to OptionGenius.com and email us or contact us and say hey, I want to be on the notification list. I want to know more about Market Power. I want to know when it comes out. I want to be one of the first How do I get to the top of the line, right? So let's do that. And let's go ahead and let's get into this interview. Matthew: Alright. So today we're joined by Kevin Donegen, and he's a member of our market power program. And I want to thank you today for sharing your experience. And you know how the course has been going for you and the program, and just really appreciate having you. Kevin: You're welcome. Glad to be here. Thanks, sir. Matthew: You're welcome. So, I always ask people, you know, the first question is, how did you find Option Genius? So a lot of people find it by podcast or other means. So how did you find out Option Genius? Kevin: It's been a few years now, because I joined other, you know, the training portion of Option Genius a couple years ago, I think it was late 21. So almost two years now, I guess, you know, it's a good question, how I found Option Genius. I guess. I was exploring Option Trading, you know, on my phones, or searches and option genius. And I looked at a few mean, option, genius came up and I gravitated towards it. I don't know, I think I was just searching for option learning, training and learning kind of stuff and found it and it's been good. So I think I found it just by searching. Matthew: Just by discovery. Kevin: Yeah, research Matthew: Great. So you've been a part of our original market program. Call you guys kind of like the Founding Fathers, you know, you, you went in there and tried everything? And is there anything when you decided to join the program? Were you like, hey, you know, I want to be a part of this program that stuck out to you. Kevin: Boy, when Allen, when you all had that first introductory conference call regarding the program, and shared the historical back testing data about what the program was based on? I mean, that that clinched it right there, that historical back tested data, of, you know, the premise, and the process of the program, and how it looked back tested was just the results are just remarkable. Matthew: Excellent. Did you have any personal expectations before you joined the program, you know, as far as like a percentage goal or just to kind of get consistent? Kevin: I had been trading options, covered calls and in spreads before a little bit, I dabbled in it. So I guess my initial expectation for the program was to pay back my, the cost of the program. First, that was my first goal. And I did it pretty quickly. And by starting out slow, you know, I, you know, I started out real slow just to get the feel for the program. And as I traded more, and you know, the indicator came up, and I made a trade in one and one again, and one again, my confidence, says, Yes, this is real. And then I just started slowly, my trade starts slowly ramped up, and I think I paid for it. And depending on how slow or fast you start, it can be a fast payback. If you start with larger trades, but I think I paid mine back in a few weeks, like 12 weeks or something. Matthew: Wow, that's great. That's like, yeah, it's really important, what you just said, you know, a lot of people, you know, you're excited, and you can see things working. And a lot of times, you know, the human psychology gets involved, and we go too fast, right? You know, so it's, it's really kind of really great that you kind of measure yourself and start slow. So it's really great. For sure. Is there any kind of particular part of the program that you really like? You know, is it some people can say, oh, it's adjustment, or it's, whatever. Is there anything you can pinpoint? Kevin: Yep, the two things come, pop up in my mind, that the online forum of the group and the chats and the sharing of information amongst the market power group, I really enjoy that to get other people's opinion and take on the program in the market and when to trade, not to trade. So I really like that it's an open forum. And it's, it's welcoming, and no one's afraid to say anything. So I really liked that. The second tool I like is the trading log, the market power trading log that you all put together. It's well organized. I've been using that to track all my trades. Matthew: Great. Yeah. I mean, again, you hit on a really great point. I mean, that we have a group of people, you know, some people are just new to options. And you have some people I said in another interview that are looks like they take it to quantum physics. So it's like, you get all this range of knowledge. And it's really kind of, we're all here for the right reason. So it's really kind of great. It's almost like a family, if you will. Kevin: Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. Matthew: How has the support been? I mean, you kind of mentioned a little bit from Option Genius, but more like the people around you. I mean, I think you just alluded to that, that you have a good support system that If you want. Kevin: Oh yeah, whether it be a group member or yourself or Trish or an even Allen, it's been great. The communication has been prompt and, and timely and always answered. So there's always someone to answer a question or what have you. So it's been really good. Matthew: That's great to hear. You know, we really want people to feel involved and not feel left out. I'm, you know, there's nothing worse than feeling like you're alone, you know? Yeah. Kevin: So I don't, I don't feel that way at all. Matthew: Awesome. Has your trading changed at all? Since you joined the program? Like, as far as I mean, can you talked a little about confidence, or, you know, some people? You know, a big main reason is confidence, I say, but how was it for you? Kevin: So, last year before the program, I had some success, just doing it myself, but then I got burned, and wiped away all my profits. So what I get out of the program is the discipline of the program. And, you know, when you have an indicator day, that's the day to trade no other. So, I'm more disciplined since joining the program. And I'm only trading when there's an indicator day, by and large. So the short answer is, I've gained a lot of discipline after joining the program. Matthew: That's great to hear. So we're all shoot for that to be consistent, you know, and there's nothing worse than trading and winning than winning, and then giving it all back. I think it's like the, you know, it's the worst thing that can happen, right? Kevin: Anybody that's probably been in options have had that experience at one time or another? Matthew: Sure. So it's almost required. Kevin: Boy, it's a tough learning, but that's okay. Matthew: All right. So, um, how have your results been so far? For you? Kevin: I'm looking at my trading log right now, because I figured you'd ask that. And I've kind of added some features to it myself. But if you're interested in those, we can talk about that. But I've made what about 47 trades? Not counting yesterday. So I work off the two platforms. So I'd make trades in both one as is a smaller account, one's a bigger account. So I may duplicate a given day on two different platforms. But anyway, you know, 47 trades, I think I lost only one. And that was because of me. It wasn't because of the program. And I only lost like 600 bucks. So no big deal. And then I adjusted and made it back. So but that was my fault. And I bought too early in the day, basically. And I put notes out there, which is good. My average number of contracts, I would say is 20. So but you know, I've been up as high as 40 and 10. And 30. Just depends how I'm feeling. You know, like, like, yesterday, I did only 20. I don't know, I I don't know why I just didn't want to do 40. You know, and so long and short. I've made over a minute, I also back out the cost of trades to get a net profit, right? So my net profit is 226%. Matthew: Yeah, that's great. You mean, you're trading at a good amount? You kind of just talked to how a little bit can made me kind of feel how I trade you know, there's some days that, you know, you don't you have like kind of a hunch, you know, you're like, I don't really feel, you know, can be personal. It could be like something like, I just don't feel like trading today. And that's perfectly fine. And what I do love, and I think you'll agree is that some days, you don't have to trade, you know, it's like, you don't have to take every signal. Right? You can, you can wait and there'll be another one coming down the pike, you know? Kevin: Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. And that's why that's where the discipline comes in. You know, because you just got to be patient because the signal will come. And when it comes, that's your time. Matthew: So yeah, yeah, you kind of take it as a case by case basis. You know, that's great, for sure. Alright, so kind of a fun question. So a lot of people, they have different goals for their profits. And it's nice to good problem to have, you know, you're in your profit, you're making money. Some people do fun things like take vacations, and some people just roll it into their account. So what are your plans? Kevin: So I guess, on articulate or unstated two goals for the program and the profits that I earned from market power. First is to build up my account so I can grow the dollars in My Account for doing this so that I could keep slowly ramping up as I get more and more comfortable. But then I also, the second one is to take some of the profits and have some fun. And like you alluded to, I think maybe before we started the call, but, you know, I went fishing in Colorado, and virtually almost paid for the whole trip, in a day, at least a good portion of VRBO expense. And then, earlier in the year, my wife and I went to Paris, and I was trading when I was over in Paris, and helps pay for that part of the trip. So, you know, Matthew: It's great. I mean, it almost makes your trip more enjoyable. You know, you're over there, you're like, hey, you know, this is cash flow in this right now, you know? Kevin: Exactly. So it's, it's a great feeling. So yeah, two things, take a little profits, have some fun with it, and then keep growing the account. Matthew: Excellent. Excellent. So what would you say to someone that you were there in the original group, and a lot of people have apprehensions about joining programs, you know, whether it's true, we're kind of at a point now, where we've had many, many winners, and if not any losers on the track record, actually no losses on the track record. So it's almost too good to be true. So people are naturally skeptical. What would you say to someone that, you know, there's going to be next group and a group after that, and people join in this program? So what would you say to someone that's kind of on the fence about joining this program? Kevin: Well, if they see any of these interviews from the current market power group, I gotta believe take it from the member, the current members and what they're saying, and their results, trust, the back tested data is real. And ever since we, we joined market power, the program to your point hasn't had a losing trade yet. So it works. I mean, the data speaks for itself, and they can if they're apprehensive, start slow, kind of like what I did and get comfortable with it. And you'll quickly, quickly get more confidence in the program. Matthew: Excellent. Well, wise words, I mean, you know, it's really important, you hit on some really important points that, you know, patients taking your time, and really kind of just trusting yourself. I mean, give it you know, giving something a try and, you know, the worst possible thing that can happen, you know, so that's great. So I really want to thank you for taking the time today. I really appreciate it and you know, sharing your experience, so really great having you on. Kevin: Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you, Matthew. All right. Thank you. Have a great day. You too.
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Market Power is Coming - 161
09/13/2023
Market Power is Coming - 161
For more info on what is discussed in this episodes, go to I have some exciting news. And as you might have seen from the title of this episode, the news is that market power is coming. It's almost here. In fact, we have it here, but we haven't rolled it out to everybody. So just today, I finished or I got out of my 54th market power trade for the year. Now, market power is a new trading program that we have come out with. And so since the beginning of the year, I have done 54 trades using this market power method. And out of those 54 trades, I've had zero losers. That's right. Every single trade has been a winner-- 54 winners in a row. It's something like 300%, or close to it in ROI. I mean, it's mind-boggling. The trade has been amazingly consistent, amazingly profitable. And it is one of the most exciting things I've ever worked on. I just, can't believe it. So if you don't know what market power is, back in February of 2023, back of this year, we put on a like a live seminar-type thing. And we introduced market power. So basically, market power is a trading plan, as well an an indicator as well as a way to adjust the plan. So you have an indicator that tells you when to trade. And then you have the plan that tells you what and how to trade. And then if the trade goes bad, which sometimes they do, but not this year. So far, we have an adjustment module, which tells you how to actually fix the trade. So that potentially you might not ever have a losing trade ever again. Now, I know big work, right big promise. But so far, it's been kicking butt. So back in February, we had this event, we introduced it to about 600 people who registered for that. We then explained the whole thing and showed the back-tested results. And it was actually something very new. We could not do this before this year. So last year, in June of 2022, the CBOE introduced options on SPX that would expire on Tuesday and Thursday. So that meant that you now have options that expire Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, all five days of the week. That is how we were able to create a way to adjust this trade. So we have this indicator, We’ve had it for a while we've been using it for our weekly trading system, which is also doing amazing. But there was an issue with the trading system that we couldn't share all the trades for a couple of reasons. Now, I don't want to get into everything on this episode, because that would defeat the purpose of the episode where I just want to share that this thing is coming and I want you to be aware of it. If you are looking for a way to be consistently profitable, If you like to sell options, or if you haven't sold options before and you're looking for a trade that is simple to understand and do. This might just be what you're looking for. Now, again, I already gave you the performance. We've had that event in February, we opened it up to have about 35 people in the program. We taught them exactly how it works. We showed them the indicator we showed them how to read it, how to use the trading plan, and they have been having amazing results as well. Just today I saw an interview with one of them. He's up 266%. Another one of our beta testers let me know today that he is on his way to India for his second trip of the year. The first time he went for two months. Now he's going again this year and both trips have been paid for by his market power money, which is basically the money he makes from his market power trades. So that's just 2 of the 35. And then we have testimony like case studies and we have videos and interviews of all the others. It's really phenomenal. Really exciting. So what we've been doing since then, is we've been fine tuning the program, we're getting those feedback from those guys about and girls, how to make it better, how to make it simpler how to make it more outstanding. And using their feedback, we've actually been able to improve our indicator. And the indicator is, you know, pillar number one, which is it tells you when to trade, if you don't have the indicator give you a signal you don't put the trade on. That's what gives us our edge. So we only trade when there is a signal from the indicator. And the more powerful and better the indicator, the more fine tuned it is the better human signals you get. Right? So we've been working on that. And we have improved the indicator significantly since we first introduced it. We also have the trading plan. And now thanks to the CBOE what they did last year with the new options, we also have an adjustment plan. So we know how to fix this trade. Now, we haven't had to do any adjustments this year. But we did go back and test previous years to see if we if it would work. And we found an adjustment method that basically got every single one of our losing trades back to break even. And so there aren't that many losing trades in a year. But if there are there, we have a way to make them and get back to break even. So like if, for example, if we had been trading this same program, the same method last year in 2022. And if you could adjust the whole year, we would have been perfect, we would have had to adjust on 10 trades out of 81. So there was there would have been 81 trades last year, 10 of them would have been adjusted and they would have broke even 71 would have made money, and it would have been the return would have been somewhere close to around 450%. So currently, I'm up to 300, right close to it. And I still have September, October, November, December. So I still have a quarter, four months left. So maybe I'll get up to 400 this year, who knows. It's amazing. It's just it's just mind boggling. So I just wanted to give you a heads up if you haven't heard about it, we are going to be introducing and showing and sharing more about it in the coming weeks and months. We are still in beta phase beta testing phase. So we're gonna let a few more people in, out of those 600 that registered for that live event, we're gonna let a few more of those people in, make sure everything is working great. We're still waiting for our programmers and our developers to give us the green light that we can invite more people in because right now the server load and the website and all that would not be able to handle so many people, because it's all real time data and data feeds and all this technobabble stuff that I really don't understand. But they say that the thing will crash if we have too many people. So we gotta wait until they build in redundancy servers and stuff like that. So once that is done, it'll be in a couple of months, we'll be able to let more people in. But then here's the thing, even when we are allowed to have as many people as we want, we still will not be allowing as many people as we want. Because we have to limit this and keep it basically under wraps. There's going to be a very hard stop in how many people we actually let into this program, because I am trading this for the fund my hedge fund. And I don't want to over saturate it. I don't want to have too many people doing this. Because SPX is huge, that's what we trade, but it's not unlimited. And so I would like to be able to do it for a long time. And if we have too many people doing it with too much money, it might get messed up. And so yeah, definitely we're are going to have strict limits on how many people come in. But so far the people that we've led in the stories we've hearing from them, how it's changed their lives, how it's how it's given them faith in humanity, to some degree, It's been mind blowing. So, you know, part of my mission of starting Option Genius is to help people become more financially independent and be able to live the lives that they want. And this program so far with the beta testers is definitely doing that, as we get more and more people in. I think it's going to continue to do that. So this will be I don't know, it might be like the best thing I've ever done. I have. I don't know, it's that exciting. It's that good. So I'm really excited. I just, you know, I had a 54th winning trade today and I said, You know what I need to I need to share this with our audience so that they're aware of it and if they're looking for something if you are looking for something to add to what you're doing or if you're very frustrated and upset and you know you want to make a change or you want to do something different in your trading, you might want to take a look and see how this works. The background is basically it is a SPX trade meaning we trade the SPX index. It's a one-day trade, meaning we get the trade in today, we get in today, and we're out tomorrow, it's a credit spread. It's a very simple trade to do. And we only trade on days when we have the indicator. Historically, there are about seven trades a month. So you know, you'll do seven trades, and you put the trade on when you get the signal. And then the next day, the trade is over, if the trade went bad, you can do an adjustment, then the trade might go on a little bit longer, maybe another day. But still, you only have one trade at a time. And it doesn't take very long to do each trade. I mean, once you know how it works, you should be able to do each trade within less than five minutes or maximum 10 minutes, if you're on your phone or your tablet or something and it's really small. But really, it shouldn't take much time at all. And the way we've set up our program, I mean, the program, the software, the technology is going to give you every single thing you need to be able to do it quickly, easily, smoothly. I'm really excited. It's like, all in one complete package. And yeah, so I'm really excited, hopefully, you'll get a chance to check it out. We will if you're not on our email list, go ahead and get on the email list. We'll be letting people know more about it. First, we're going to, like I said, we're going to deal with the people on the notification list, we're going to let them come in, try it out. And then once we get the go ahead from our programmers, that we can open it up to more people, then we will be talking to everybody on our list on our email list. Again, we have 40,000 people on our email list, just our company email list. And we're not gonna let anywhere close to 40,000 people into this program. So we might just sell out just to people on our email list. And we might hopefully you don't have to do any advertising or anything like that. But we'll see how it goes. And for now, you know, we're having amazing success, amazing results. I hope you can join us. And in the next episode of the podcast, we're actually going to have an interview with one of our beta testers. He's going to be talking about how he's doing, how the program works, you know what his experience was? So look out for that in the next episode. That's going to be really cool as well. And then if you guys like, then I can share more about the market power program on the podcast. Just let us know. And we'll do it that way. Cool. I wish you the best of luck in everything you're doing and trade with the odds in your favor.
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How To Stop Panicking While Trading with Carl Nord - 160
09/07/2023
How To Stop Panicking While Trading with Carl Nord - 160
Allen: Welcome passive traders to another edition of the Option Genius Podcast. Today I have a special guest with me, Mr. Carl Nord, We’re going to be talking about something pretty interesting that goes back to a few episodes ago, something I talked about, which was back on episode 140 of the podcast, I introduced something called the 66 Trade challenge, which is something that people can do if they are having trouble with discipline, it's one of the ways that we talked about of how to overcome the deer in the headlights syndrome, or the not knowing what to do syndrome or just not doing what you're supposed to do while you're trading. Allen: And we've all been there. And it's a it's a mental thing. You know, I talk about it a lot that trading is 90%, mental 10% skills. Most of us know what to do, we just don't do it for whatever reason. And we all have our individual hang-ups. So Carl here, he's in a couple of our programs. He listened to that episode, he took it to heart. And he reached out and said, You know, I'm doing the challenge. And I've been following him. And he's been giving me updates all along the way. And I said, You know what, this is awesome. We need to get Carl on the show. We need him to share his expertise, his wisdom about going through the system and going through the challenge, and basically, his results. So, Carl, welcome so much. Carl: Thanks, Allen. So glad to be here with you. Allen: Yeah, it's so it's a wonderful for you to share your time and experience experience with us. I'm really happy to have you here. And it's part of what we like to have in the Option Genius community where we help each other. So appreciate that. So Carl, let's let's get started. What was it about the challenge that made you decide to do it? Carl: Well, actually, it was a combination of two of the podcasts. I listened to the 66. Great Challenge first. And then I listened to the one right before it number 139. When you have tried everything, and you're still not profitably trading that one, which is a long, long podcast, and over and over in there, you were saying, You got to have a plan, you got to follow the rules step by step and, and this other thing, and I was thinking, you know, if I'm gonna get this down, the 66 trade challenge will make me do the things you were telling that the other fellow in the podcast just previous to it, it was a combination of the two. That made me do it. But mostly it was because also, like you said, I had no discipline. I panicked all the time. Yeah. Allen: Hey, cool. So I mean, yeah, I remember. I remember that one that was 139. I think that one was like a it was like a coaching call. Basically, someone had written in and said, You know, I've been trying this for years and years, and I haven't had any success and what helped me, what am I doing wrong? And so I got on them. And I asked him, I was like, Hey, would you be willing to have it recorded and shared? And he was like, yes. So we got on the call. And yeah, it was about an hour and a half long. Carl: He had either an English or Australian accent? Allen: Yes, yeah. And he's actually in our, the free Facebook group that we have. He's in there. And he responded, it's been about a year I think, since that episode, or I don't know how long it's been. It's been a while. And he responded on Facebook. Just recently, I think it was last week that he's been he's made a lot of strides. He's listened to that interview several times. And it really helped him. And he's made a lot of changes, and he's doing much better. So I'm glad. I'm glad that was helpful. So basically, you said that you were having a problem with discipline. How bad was that problem? Carl: Well, it was bad enough that I wasn't making money. You know, it just yeah, if the market went against me, I was just panicking all the time and either selling too soon, or, you know, exiting the trades too soon or too late or something, you know, just kind of got overwhelming for a little bit. And I was looking for an answer when that can't win when I listened to those two podcasts and put it together for me. Allen: Sweet and so what were the things or some of the things that you had tried before the challenge to overcome that problem? Carl: Well, I guess I just Well, I had taken the class so I was trying to apply what I learned there. But until I did the challenge, I couldn't get myself to stick with it the way I needed to. And even after the challenge I started with the challenge. There were some things that happen along the way for one thing I didn't want to do adjustments. And in that cost me I saw big time. The the last, next to the last trade that I did, I did an adjustment, I tried doing an adjustment on it. And after all was said and done, I came out with six bucks ahead. So you know, don't lose money. That's the big thing, don't lose money. And, and so now, I keep an eye out for for doing adjustments. But by that by the time I got done with the, towards the end of the second half the last 33 of the trades. I was starting to settle down pretty good. And profitability was going up. I was doing better in percentages and stuff like that. And on my returns and fewer, fewer losers. Certainly. No, no big big losers. Awesome. Allen: Cool. Yeah. So that kind of leads me to my next question. So before the challenge, what were your results? Carl: Well, my results were mixed mostly down. But I had a few winners here and there. But I wasn't, I wasn't applying all the rules. As I was just looking at a chart for a company, I'd pick something and look at the chart and see if it was starting to trend or if I thought it was going to and then I looked at looked for the look for the option. Look at the option list there and, and pick out something I wouldn't look at. You have a whole lot of particulars. And I don't know how much you want me to get into those. But I mean, it just things like dividends, I didn't worry about whether a stock had dividends or not. And that was important as far as the stability of the company. And then there's the some of the Greek stuff, the betas and that I hadn't been paying attention to that even though I know you had emphasized that. When when you were when I went through your course. Allen: Okay, so that's really interesting. So you have you had the passive trading formula course you had all the rules, you had all the plan, you had everything. But it sounds like you kind of picked and chose what you wanted to follow in what you left alone. And what strategies were you using before and during the challenge? Like what? What was the naked puts covered calls, credit spreads? Carl: No cover calls. I did call spreads on the call side and the foot side. Most of them were naked quotes actually. Okay. But as I went on, the spreads seemed to be working for me better. Puts on the spread side. And I did those four things naked calls. Allen: You did naked calls? Carl: Yeah. So Naked calls. Allen: Okay. Carl: Just a few. Not a lot. Actually. I think. No, yeah. Right. I there was not a lot and I only did two. I take that back there was a bunch of bunch of call spreads that I did. Okay. There was two naked calls that one was a loser one was a winner. Overall. That way was aware of the to the naked puts and then put spreads, put spreads, gave me a better percentage when not necessarily a better dollar and better percentage, which overtime would have been better, I think. Allen: Okay, and how long were you? How have you been trading options before you took the challenge? Carl: Ever since last October. Allen: Okay, so what is that? Almost a year? It's coming up on a year. Yeah. Okay. And so how long when did you start the challenge? Carl: I started the challenge it on January 25th. Allen: Okay, so October, November, December? Allen: So about four. So you were trading for about four months before you took the challenge. Okay, cool. All right. So now just to recap, you know, you've been trading for four months using different strategies. And you said that mostly your results before the challenge were that you were negative and you kind of didn't didn't really know what you were doing. So what were there Carl: I still wonder that. Allen: We all do so then What were the results? So what are your now that the challenge has been completed. And the whole point of the challenge was to have you and just a little bit of background for people who haven't heard that episode, the whole point of the challenge is to have everybody do 66 trades in a row of following the rules exactly as they're laid out. And the idea behind it is, if you do that, it should help if not trigger a habit-forming response. So we want to make following the rules a habit where it's just automatic, you don't have to think about it. And, you know, go back to psychology and whatever, they say that the average is about 66 times that you have to repeat something for it to be a habit. Now, it can vary depending on the emotional response in the whatever the person, but 66 is about, about average. So that was where we came up with it. And so if you've, the idea was if you take a trading plan, you do it 66 trades in a row with no deviation from the plan, then it will make it much easier to have that discipline as you continue. So now that the challenge is complete, Carl, what are your trading results after the challenge? Carl: I use ThinkOrSwim. And so when I go to put on a trade, first I check the chart on a company if I've got one picked out. And I check the chart on it to see if I can spot a trend or whatever, if I want really want to do the company, then I go to the to the trade to get the option chain. And Thinkorswim has, you can lower it and it gives me the beta the dividends while volume and the trades and all that stuff, you know what's going on with it. My eyes just start, I just started the left and go across the top and okay, it's got this, it's got this has got this, okay, it's got all that now, I go down. And that takes care of the underlying, I go down to the option chain, and I started looking for the price on the individual options and making sure that the delta is within the range that I want, first of all, and then and then go to the price itself. And if I'm doing a spread, I want to get not less than 30 cents on the spread. If I do a naked put if I liked the company well enough on you know, it's 30 cent minimum to you know, just 30 cents is a base. So any if it's above that great, wonderful. So, so I do that. Allen: Okay, so that's the process, but what are we how are we? How are your results now? Like? Because before you said you weren't winning on too many trades? How about now? Carl: Oh, yeah, no, no, yeah, the second half of that set of trades, I had out of 33, I had maybe four losers five losers as all, which was good for me. I mean, it was much better for me, it's without a doubt. In the beginning, I got hurt in some of my average is in the dollar amounts. Because I started using five contracts for trade, paper trading. And it wasn't after about five trades in I heard you telling somebody somewhere along the line to do it like we would really be doing and I could only afford one contract on a trade. So I reduced it. But in those five I had two losers that were really really big, dollar wise, that hurt me there. So, but all of that, as I went on, it became practice with following the rules and getting a little bit better at reading the charts. Just between the two it helped check the company once in a while to make to on the fundamentals to see if the company is standing in good with some of the analysts or in Wall Street or whatever. Allen: Okay, but let's say guess I'm trying to in my mind, I'm trying to create like a progression, right? So before challenge, during challenge, after challenge now before challenge, he said things were not too good. You were still pretty new. And so you were having more losses than winners. During the challenge. As you said in the beginning the first 30 trades or so, you were you were paper trading while you were trading a little bit larger size, then you actually have the capital for so eventually you cut that down. But because of those two losses, you're saying that you were negative, and then for the last half of the challenge, you said you did about 33 or 35 trades or something. And there were only about four or five that you lost on. Is that right? Right. Okay. And then when did you finish the challenge? What date? Carl: Do know? I didn't look at the data when it's finished. If I can get that for just a second. Allen: Yeah, I mean, I'm just looking for ballpark, you know, because he started in January. Carl: June 5th Allen: Oh so it took about four No, about five, five months to do the whole challenge. Now, from June to now, because right now, as we're recording this, it's August. So we got June, July, August, or June, July. Really? How have you been doing these two months? Carl: The trades that I've done have been winners, but I haven't done very many trades because of the oils. We're working with you. Okay. trading program. Yeah. Okay. Allen: So you're doing fewer trades, but you're switching what you're doing? Carl: Yeah, well, things kind of evolve over time, you know, as you do stuff, like, I can afford to put on one contract for the oils. But it gives me just enough to do one contract in equities if I picked a low enough value company. And for that, gotta follow the rules for that with Lauren companies, you got to you got to get it. It's hard to find a company that's really stable and can can give me what you need. But so I've been, I've just started doing that kind of evolving into that. And so far, I've got two trades of one. Yeah. And, and that, that side of it is going good for me the oils, I need to work on, Allen: Right. I mean, anytime you're learning, it's something that's going to take some time. But it seems like the challenge the I guess, what it seems like the biggest benefit for the challenge was that it forced you to actually use the rules. And it forced you to actually dig deeper into the material and be like, Okay, I paid for this. I'm in this program. I gotta make sure that I'm actually following the book. Is that Is that safe? Yeah. Okay. Carl: Yes. Okay. Cool. And it was what I needed. Because I, you know, like I said, at the beginning, I panicked a lot. If the market went against me, and I get out too soon or too late. Just the rules are there for a reason, they set you up so that you can get in and out at the right times. And if you're down, then, you know, how to adjust and, you know, what, what time do you want to pick to do the adjustment? And that kind of thing? It was important, you know? Allen: Yeah, I think something you said is what you just said is like, really, really important. Because, you know, in the progression, I'm like, Okay, you went from new trader to having a little bit of experience and losing trades, and now you're winning on most of the trades. And that's great, you know, the, the, you know, you're making more money than before, it's, it's showing potential, but I think what you said is that before, you used to panic now, because you've done so many trades, and I think this one challenge also forced you to do a lot of trades, you don't panic as much and that in itself by itself, even if even if, you know we don't even look at the money or the wind Ross ratio or anything like that. But the fact that you have more confidence in the system in the trading plan, and in yourself as a trader, I think that's huge, because that will go you know, well into the future. Allen: And I think for me, that was one of the one of the things that helped me switch in my mind from "Oh, hey, I'm a new beginner. I'm just messing around to Okay, now I actually know what I'm doing. Now. I'm confident now, if the market goes against me, I know how to bail myself out. And so that allowed me to sleep at night. Because you know, it's like oh my god i trades a triple what do I do? You know, in the beginning it's like oh my god, the trades are trouble. Oh, I hope I hope the stock goes up tomorrow. I hope the stock goes this tomorrow. I know you're praying and you're not sleeping at night, your chicken the name the overnight markets. But once you have that confidence that hey, you know what, even if it goes against me tomorrow, I know what I'm doing. And I know how to get out of it. I know how to if I have to take a loss I know I can take a loss or if I know if I want to adjust I know what to do and how to do it. That gives you a peace of mind. That is kind of like what puts you in the zone. You know I don't know if you play sports but you know for for basketball players or for foootball players, they just get into this mental state where they see everything, they can do everything and they don't mess up. And that's where the the greats really have a lot of that, you know. So I think what you just mentioned, is because of the because of the challenge, and because of you just doing it over and over and over again. I think that's a huge benefit that's going to carry and help you for the next, you know, years and years of your trading. Carl: Yeah, yeah, it trained my eyes to when I bring up the screen. It's just automatic. No, clicking across the different things, this fits this fits. Nope, that doesn't. Let's go on. Another thing that that it's done is where before I did the challenge, I was watching the watching the numbers all day long. Click-Click-Click. Now. Now, I know that if it doesn't make this percentage, or, you know, whatever, to get in or out where that gets triggered, there's no point in even looking at the computer. So now I'm stuck wondering what I'm going to do with the rest of my day. It's been, it's been good, because I know I don't have to worry about it anymore. It just, I just follow the rules. So two or three times a day I check where where I'm at. And that's it. Yeah. Allen: Yeah, we call it passive trading for a reason. So what I'm hearing is that I think, and this was a side benefit, like, I don't even think about this, but it seems like because of the challenge, you put on a lot more trades than you would have normally. Carl: Well, yeah, when I was paper trading, I could, you know, I had a limit thought I had. I mean, I knew, even if I had the money, I probably wouldn't do more than six trades. And if I had the money, I wouldn't learn I would limit myself to probably 10 contracts. Or if I had the money, and that was going to be my overall limit someday down the road. I did do the six trades. I did do that with the paper trading. And in order to speed up the process, I didn't want to do one at a time only all the time. And, and so I just kind of went through that. But.. Allen: Yeah, so. So it seems like you by doing the challenge and doing the trades and wanting to get through the challenge, you actually sped up your your learning process. Because it's because I mean, you've been trading for less than a year and you're talking in a way that I don't hear a lot of beginners talk, you know, you're you're speaking like a option traders that's been doing it for like several years now. So I think this was like one side benefit that I didn't even think about that we wouldn't be when we have somebody new to options would be like, okay, you know, here, here's the basics is what you got to do. And then do you got to do the challenge. You just have to do the trades. This is how many trades we want you to do over and over and over again. So that you put in the reps you put in the time you put in the you get that...
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What's Stopping You - 159
08/23/2023
What's Stopping You - 159
So what is it that is stopping you? What's stopping? That's what we're going to talk about today. Now look, I have a thought experiment for you today. Now thought experiments are what Einstein you'd see use, you know, Einstein used to think about all these different things about how this would work. And that would work, especially when you're dealing with abstract concepts that you can't write down, it's a good way to get the creative juices flowing, and to come up with answers, helping your subconscious being able to help you out as well. But it's really meant to get you to see things from a different perspective. Or as Obi Wan would say it a certain point of view. Right. So since you're consuming this content, right? I know that you're interested in trading. If not, I don't know why you're here. But maybe you're trading a little bit. Maybe you're trading a lot. Maybe you haven't started trading? I don't know. But chances are, that most of you are holding back. You're not all in either you're not all bought in that this actually works. Or you're scared? Or you're trading with a little bit, not too much. Because you don't want to lose it. Whatever the reason, I'm sure you do have your reasons, right? Not enough time. Not enough money. Oh, the market is too volatile. Oh, the markets not volatile enough. On and on and on. So let me ask you this question. Okay. In 10 years, 10 years from now, if you take no action, nothing changes, you just go about your day go about your life, the way you've been going. It's the same going on the same path. You don't take any action, you don't change anything in your life. What is your life look like? Think about it. I mean, pauses and think about it. Really? What does your life look like? Now? Obviously, you're 10 years older, right? So as your family, so is your house, so it's your dog. And things are worse than they are now. If you don't change anything, because that is life, things get better. Or they get worse. Nothing stays the same. Right? Your house is 10 years older, and to be falling apart. I need a new AC my I need a new roof. I need something else. If you're older, yeah, things are falling apart, right? You get an older squeak year larger, maybe it's my case. So if you took no action, things are worse. Are you happy with that situation? Or would you be happy with that situation? Take the take where your life is now. Fast forward 10 years, and it's a little bit worse. I don't know how much worse and you know, hopefully, you did the exercise. And you thought about it, like what things would be like 10 years from now, if you don't change anything? Are you happy with that situation? Probably not. So the question is, then, what are you going to do about it? Do you have any idea? Do you have any plan? Because really, you know, nobody is coming to get you. Nobody's going to save you. All right, you got to have to save yourself. So I hope you do. I hope you have come up with something. And I hope things are better for you. And I hope you know I'm trying to get you out of the malaise. Okay, now, let's do another thought experiment jelly. Yeah, I know we had one but you get one for free. Okay, so now look, instead of thinking about all the wonderful things that could happen if you started making money by passive trading, right, because you've heard me you've listened to the show you you've heard me all the great things that happened. You get the freedom you get the money, you can spend more you can have more time off. You don't have to work as much or work at all. All these wonderful things that can happen that have you ever been to people. Let's do it on the side. What is the worst thing that could happen? If you didn't start passive trading? What's the worst thing that could happen? If you never started, or you never grow, or you never go all in, ruminate on that a little bit, you know, think about it. Some people, they need a carrot, you know, they need a reward. It's like, oh, man, you know, if you get this passive training stuff down, man, you can make a few $1,000 extra a month, that might be enough to buy that new car you want or go on a vacation you on or buy the new house or boat or whatever. Now for some people, that's enough. Yeah, motivated, they go for it. Other people, they need the cat, right? And in this case, where the rat, the rat, you got the cheese, or the carrot, whatever, you know that you got the, you got the reward on one side. But then you got the cat. On the other side, the cat is behind you, and the cat is wanting to eat you and they wants to trick you wants to catch you and eat you. That is the worst case scenario. Right? And some of us, actually, according to statistics, I think most of us will do more to evade the cat or get away from the cat than we will to get the reward. So maybe that's what you need. Maybe you need to imagine the cat. What's the worst thing that could happen? What is the worst case scenario? So you don't trade? You don't devote the time? You don't give it the energy? What could happen? thing of it, I mean, I'm sure you've come up with something, right? And you mix this with the other one. It's like, okay, if I don't do anything, what's 10 years going to look like? Does that make your blood boil? Does that bother you? Does that freak you out? If not, then you didn't go dark enough. Okay, we want to go dark, we want you to come up with the worst, worst, worst, worst, worst case scenario. Now, hopefully that doesn't happen. Right? But if in your mind's eye, you think, Man, this could happen or this will happen unless I take action. Maybe that's enough to get you to take action. Right? They say that, hey, you know what? Somebody puts a gun to your head, you'll do whatever you have to do. Why does it take putting a gun to your head? Why can't you do it on your own? Well, some people are just not motivated that way. So they need the gun to their head. Okay, well, let's create the metaphorical gun and put it to your head. What's the worst thing that can happen? And think about it and say, Yeah, you know what this is going to happen? Maybe, I don't know, you could come up with something like, You know what, I think I'm going to have a heart attack. And my insurance is not going to cover it. And it's going to cost $200,000. That could be possible. It's happened to people. I mean, that's my father was just in the hospital for a back surgery, and it costs about $175,000. Luckily, he's insured. But if you didn't, that would have been catastrophic, right? If you didn't have the money, so what if you don't have the money that will help you move forward? It's just a different way to think about it. So these exercises, these thought experiments can be used for anything starting to trade and diet, starting exercise approaching someone of the opposite sex or the same sex, whatever it is a mate, anything, they are that powerful. So put them to good use. Alright, until next time, trade with the odds in your favor my friends.
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The Maximum Money Exercise Unlocking Your Trading Potential - 158
08/17/2023
The Maximum Money Exercise Unlocking Your Trading Potential - 158
The maximum money exercise. All right, this is gonna be fun, so chances are that you're not trading as well as you want. Chances are you're not making as much money as you want. And you might, or you might not know, the reason why. I don't know, maybe you need a better strategy. Maybe you're not disciplined enough, maybe. And then you can enter whatever excuse in the blank, right? Now, in reality, I bet that you have all the answers you need. I bet that you already know the basics of trading, you know how to do it. But something is holding you back. I mean, realistically, how hard is it to sell a covered call, right? I mean, that's the most basic trade, you can make money on it, you can be consistently profitable with that, how hard is it, right? And if you don't know what a covered call is, you buy 100 shares of stock that you like, okay, and you sell an out of the money call on out of the money call option to bring in some credit. That's it, that's all you got to do, then you wait till expiration, at expiration, If you get called away, meaning the stock is taken from you. That's great. That's wonderful. You buy more stock, you do it again. If on the other hand, the option expires, and you still have the stock, that's great. Go sell another one. Right? A fifth grader could do this. So what's stopping you? Right? Why do you trade well, for a few trades, and then give it all back? Why do you fail to follow your own trading rules? And I hear this over and over and over again, from students. Right? When you're in a trade that's going bad. You kind of know what you need to do. You kind of have an idea like, oh, man, I need to do something about this trade. I should do some this getting bad. But still you do nothing. And then you justify it, right? You rationalize, oh, yeah, you know, I needed to pay my dues. I needed to learn from that mistake. Really, you needed to learn you need you have to lose money to learn? Is there an easier way? You know, really? The answer is that it is subconscious. The reason we do well, and then we start messing up our subconscious. You've heard about it, right? It's self sabotage. we hurt ourselves. And it happens with money. And just about anything. Happens with businesses happens with relationships, it happens with trading, it happens with health, happens with all sorts of things. And we're going to work on that right now. So stay tuned. First of all, I have to give full credit to this to Mr. Allen Sultani. All right. He is one of my mentors. And actually, he teaches marketing and sales. But he spends most of his time teaching about human psychology. So this is our works, okay, and I'm going to quote him here, so that I get this right. All right, so "you'll only be able to make money close to what your subconscious mind allows you to make". And as you get closer and closer to that boundary, you'll start to notice, is a lot of resistance, shiny object syndrome, and all sorts of other thoughts that start to work against you. What was once easy now becomes difficult. What used to take a few minutes now takes days, and once and what once you thought you could do now becomes impossible. In the process, the mind will start to conjure up all sorts of stories, justifications and bullshit to keep you from hitting the boundary, which I call the maximum money boundary. And the first key to overcoming this boundary is knowing what your boundary is in the first place. And here's how you do it. So you close your eyes and you take a deep breath, say this statement in your mind. I make $5,000 a month, then you keep increasing this to make to "I make $10,000 a month", and you keep going in increments of either 5,000 or 10,000 or whatever is reasonable. Okay? If you're doing well, really well. Then you go up in increments of 25,000 to 50,000 and in some cases $100,000. Okay. As you're doing this process, pay attention to where your subconscious mind goes. Hell yeah. And it feels good. But when you say a number for example, I make $10,000 a month. Notice it starts to feel bad, and a voice will appear out of nowhere that goes something like "Yeah, right, or bullshit". And in a sense, makes you feel as if you're telling yourself a lie. This little voice, this lie itself is your outer boundary of what you can make. And that's generally where you're stuck. Now, from my experience, when I'm about 50%, near the boundary, remember, Alan is saying this, when I'm about 50%, near the boundary, things will start to go to shit, get harder, and I have to work through them. I used to use a whole lot of force and effort to make things easier to work through this boundary. But that wasn't very effective, as you're literally fighting against yourself. And as your subconscious knows a whole lot more than you, then that's one battle, you're never going to win. So instead, what you want to do is start doing identity change work. This requires a lot of how to, but in short, just saying to yourself, that I make whatever the goal and then do it with feeling. So if it gets harder to attend, I make 10,000 a month, and you do it with feeling. After doing that for about a week or two, regularly, come back and retest your boundary. And what you'll notice is that everything magically became a whole lot easier. Money started coming in, and things are now working for you". That makes sense. It really is that simple. And it's not just about the money, it's about the actions to like for me, I had a huge mental block about trading for other people. I couldn't do it for years I didn't want to then I don't want to I don't want to own on. The reason was I had a mental block. In the back of my mind. I was like, No, you can't do it. You can't do it. Then I bit the bullet. And I created the hedge fund. And I want to side note, I want to thank you to everybody who has reached out wanting to invest with me. I mean, I can't. It's super humbling. And it's unbelievable that there are so many of you that want to turn your hard earned money over to me. So I really appreciate that. And thank you. Okay, but now back to the back to the thick gear. So ask yourself this question, right? Where are you stuck? Find out, find out what level you're stuck at. And then go further, and then find out why you're stuck there. Right? Because if I were to tell you, hey, you know what you can make $50 a month trading? You'd probably be like, "Yeah, I can do that". You can make $500 a month trading? I'll probably lose a couple a year. But most of them are you guys. But yeah, we could do that. You can make $25,000 per month trading? You can right now. In the back of your mind, some of you a lot of you are like me in No, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't think so. Yeah, I don't know. I don't use the proof. I don't I did all the stuff starts happening. Right? So you need to figure out where your limit is. So you do that simple question. You know, just go up in increments. Maybe if you don't do to increments of 5000, you do increments of 2000 or 1000? You know, where do you stop? Where does it start feeling like a lie? Where does it start feeling weird? Like, oh, no, I don't know, when you're not confident in the number anymore. Okay? And remember it's not I am making 10,000, it's I can make 10,000. You have to have that confidence. And if you think you can, then you can. So you want to figure out where the boundary is. And then you want to figure out why it's there. So to do that, I have some other questions for you. So you can ask different questions like, if I was starting all over again, what would I do differently? Right. If I was starting from scratch, I didn't know anything. What would I do differently? Different paths, different strategies, blah, blah, blah, whatever. If I had all the money in the world, how would I approach this? If I know no boundaries, no lack of resources. I had all the money in the world out approached this. Who can help me with this? Or even just do it for me? We did an episode before on who not how, you know, there's a lot of things out there. You don't have to figure out if you just find somebody else that already knows them and can do them for you. There's just simpler, faster, easier, just let somebody else do it that enjoys doing it more than you. Another question is if I was teaching somebody to do this, what would I say to them? How would I teach them? What would I tell them? Now, the truth of the matter is most of us already know enough. We already know everything we need to know most of us. Well, we limit our ourselves. So I want you to use this exercise to expand your boundaries. All right? That's all it is. It's self-imposed, self-inflicted wounds, self-sabotage. It's crazy. I don't know where like, you've come, subconsciously, we all have it, nothing to be ashamed of. But until you go through it and break it, you're gonna stay at that same level, there's nothing I can teach you, nothing I can do for you, to make you pass through that level, unless you do it yourself. And you go, you know, you convince yourself that you can do it. And then eventually, when you get to the higher level, again, you're gonna get blocked again, then you get blocked again, you get blocked again, I was having this conversation with one of our traders today. It's just, it's amazing. The limitations we put on ourselves. And part of it is because we've never seen it. We've never seen somebody making a million dollars a day trading. So for us, we're like, oh, "Man, that's not possible million dollars a day trading?". Now, I'm just coming up with this. But I'm sure there are guys on Wall Street. There are hedge fund managers that are making that much money because their accounts are big enough. Right? For us. They were like, Oh, my God, I'm just so totally out of my comfort zone. I couldn't do that. Why not? Why not? You have the skills? If not, we'll teach him to you. And I got to ask myself that same question. Like why can't I make a million dollars a year, a day? I got the skills. I know I have the skills. I just don't have whatever. It's a blockage, right? So we had to work through it, though. That's it, very simple. Until next time, my friends, trade with the odds in your favor.
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Why Do We Trade? - 157
08/07/2023
Why Do We Trade? - 157
Why do we trade? Sounds like a simple question, right? Maybe even a stupid question. Duh Allen, we trade because of the money. We want the money. Now I'm gonna say bull. No, it's not because of the money, money's great and all that, but it's not money. It's something deeper. So after that, what comes after money? Well, okay, if it's not the money, then yeah, maybe it's, well, it's freedom, right, Allen? Because you keep talking about that, you know, the three freedoms-- time, freedom, financial freedom, choice, freedom. It's the freedom. That's why we trade we trade for the freedom. I'm going to say no to that, too. Those are side effects, benefits of trading, but they're not the real reason. So in this episode, I'm going to tell you exactly why we trade. So look, a student reached out to me recently about investing in the hedge fund, which is great, because, you know, it shows a lot of confidence that my students are wanting to trade with me and invest with me. So we started talking, and I asked him, you know, Hey, how's it going with your trade and what's going on? He was over the moon happy. I mean, super, super happy. This guy, he's making 3-4,000 per week. Right? per week. That's pretty good. But then he said something that, you know, he said things were a little bit different. And I'm like, "What do you mean? What do you mean, they're different?" He says life's different, it is better. I'm like, Okay, give me an example. He goes, Well, you know, I used to argue with my wife, about her spending, every time I would look at the checkbook, you know, I get mad because she's spending on this or that. But I don't do that anymore. We don't argue about spending anymore, because there's more money at the end of the month, in the account, even with her spending. That's awesome. Also, he said he enjoys buying his kids things, you know, things he wasn't able to do before. Now, this is a fellow who's going to retire in six months, he's got six months of work left, he's going to be retiring. And he told me, he's not going to be worried about surviving on just, you know, 4%, that you're supposed to be taken out of your, your IRA or retirement funds, right? The 4% rule, he's like, you know, 4% is, not that much. And if that was the case, I would still be very concerned and worried about running out of money. But now he's not. He's actually looking forward to retiring compared to when it was a stressor. Right. I was talking to a another student, also last week. And he is also in the beta group of the market power program that we have. And then after about two months in that program, he joined our oil program, the blank check trading program. And I was curious, so I reached out to him. And asked, "Hey, man, you've been with us for a long time, like you've been on our email list, you've been in the you're in the passive program, you've been in that one for a long time, you've heard about blank check, many, many times, probably a dozen times you've gotten emails about it, or I've talked about it, what made you jump into it right now, because you just joined this program, market power. And then two months later, you join into this other program. And I knew that money, you know, it was the price of the program was a bit of a concern for him in the beginning?" And this is what he said, This is a direct quote. So I'm going to read it here. He said, "Just started to figure everything out, it started to fall into place. After the market power group, I just felt more confident in my trading. And once I started seeing monthly returns, getting close to being able to stop working levels, I felt like I should go the last step and add the oil to the toolbox, and see if I can make enough to surpass my original goals. So I went for it. And I'm glad I did. It's really easy to understand, and I can't wait to start doing it live trading with it". Thank you for being so consistent with your teachings and methods. That feeling that you and your crew are there for us made it a much easier decision as well. So interesting. Right? Now, in both stories, there was no mention of a Lamborghini or a mansion or a private plane, you know, any extravagant spending. Now, there might be a couple of listeners out there that want that stuff. There's nothing wrong with having cool stuff. But I think most of us, yeah, we don't want that stuff. You know, we want other stuff stuff that's real. We want to have less stress, happier family, simple players. I think that's what life is really about, you know, and it's that's the real reason why we try not to get super rich, but to enjoy the simple things the little things. It's not because of you know, we're greedy or we want to take over the world but it's the small things that people don't even notice that make the world or life really better like going to a restaurant and ordering whatever you want on the menu without having to look at the price without worrying about the price. Oh, well how much is at stake? Go lobster only Oh, she wants lobster. Oh no, right? Choosing a vacation based on the location, the place you want to go to compared to the price, the cost. It's like, oh, we can't go to that island that's too expensive. Let's go to this small little beach over here instead. Now you don't need to do that anymore, right? Or even being able to take multiple vacations a year. So now I'm curious. Did I get it right? Is that why you trade? Let me know in the comments, or leave a review. I always love getting feedback and I would love to hear what it is why you trade. Until next time, trade with the odds in my favor my friends. JOIN OUR FREE PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP: Like our show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps. Thank you!
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Time Decay The Good and The Bad - 156
07/29/2023
Time Decay The Good and The Bad - 156
Time decay, The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly. So I love Theta, right? I love that Theta is my best friend. It's also known as time decay. And since I sell options, I know that every day that goes by, the options that I've sold are closer to expiring, my trades are closer to ending. And I am closer to keeping all the money that I've already collected for selling the options. So it's a good thing, when I'm selling options when I'm trading options, theta is a great thing. Time decay is wonderful, I love it fish the weekends, right? It's a market, it's not moving, but I'm still getting my theta decay. And it's funny, because in the fund, you know, I'm starting to pay attention to the theta number. So, theta is basically how much money are you going to make every day from time decay, and it's a number. So you can see based on how many positions you have, there's a numbers like, Okay, could be 50 bucks, you know, it could be 1000 bucks could be 500,000 bucks, you know, whatever it is, it's a number that you're like, oh, man, I'm gonna get that money tomorrow. Oh, yeah, this is nice. Obviously, it's not guaranteed. But if one day passes, and no price change, or no volatility changes, then that's the amount of data that you get. But it's good to have a gauge, right? But today, I want to be talking about a different time decay. And this one is not the happy type of time decay, all right, it's not theta, but it's the time decay that we all go through in life. So we all know it. We all know that death is coming for all of us. Yes, we're all going to die. But for whatever reason, we forget about it. We put it in the back of my mind, we put out a video No, I'm not thinking about it. I'm not gonna worry about that, you know, I'm gonna live to a million, I'm not dying, you know, I don't want to do that. And so we stress out about little things, we get upset about petty little things. cut me off. You know, in the big deal, it's not right, in the in the big scheme of things. And you forget that in like, 100 years, just about everything we do is gonna be meaningless anyway. Realistically, 100 years, we're gonna be gone, okay, nobody's gonna worry about it. Nobody's gonna be thinking about us. Nobody's gonna worry about that one guy that is off, it's meaningless. So I read this tweet on Twitter. So the other day, and this guy, he mentioned the Queen of England, right? So he said that there's this woman, right, the Queen of England. She was at one point, the most powerful person in the world, most powerful. She had control and dominion over millions and millions of people. She was one of the richest people in the world. And she had her face on multiple currencies in different countries. I mean, you gotta be a big deal to have your face on a currency. Right? And she had it. Like, for some reason, I don't know why Canada had her face on their country, on their currency. Even though they were an independent country. As like, if I was an independent country, the first thing I'm going to do is get those oppressors off my currency. I'm gonna have my old people on my currency, but whatever. You Canadians, you guys figure that part out. Have you? I haven't, right? It's like I knew who she was. And Usually the big deal are in England and during her life after she died, to me, it's like big deal. Didn't bother me at all. Right? So, you know, I mean, if we think we're a big deal, are we as big a deal as the Queen? You know, that people are going to idolize us and come to our funeral like 1000s and 1000s of people are going to come to your funeral. Yeah, I don't think so. Probably not unless you're really famous. Oh, we do have some really famous people listening to the podcast, though. Maybe we do have some of you. Right? I don't know but I happen to start an exercise recently. That got me thinking about death a lot. Actually. That's where this whole episode is coming from. Okay. So I heard the speaker and he said that he does this because he had a near death experience, and ever since then he's, you know, trying to find ways to keep constant reminders that hey, look, I need to, I need to really live in the present, right, I need to make every day count. There's only so many times you can read the book Tuesdays with Morrie. I mean, yeah, you read it, you get remember, oh, yeah, life is coming. We got to live life, but then you forget about it, because life happens and you forget about it. So this guy came up with an exercise that he said to do, and I've started doing it. So this and here's how I would work. So he goes, we need to find out how many days left, we have to live average, right? So for men, the average age in the United States that we live to is about 80 years old. For women, it's around 82. So you take 80 minus your current age, whatever that is, and you multiply by 365, to find out how many days you have left. Now, if you're listening this and if you're over 80, congratulations, you got, you know, bonus time. Congratulations, that's awesome. But you probably think about death a lot more than somebody my age. Sorry. Anyway, so look, that's the rough calculation. If you want a more precise calculation, there's this thing called death clock.com, death clock.com, you can put into your, if you're a smoker, what's your weight, what's your body fat percentage, all this, it'll give you more precise number. And then once you get this number, you take a dry erase marker, you know, one of the ones that writes on the whiteboards, then you can erase it, you take one of those, and you write your number on the bathroom mirror, so that you can see it every single morning, when you wake up and brushing. And he got that number right there staring at you in the face. And every day, when you wake up, you got to go over there. And you got to erase the last number and minus it by one, right, so that you have this physical remembrance, this reminder that man, I got one day left or less, right, I got one day less to accomplish the goals that I want to set to achieve the things I want to do. To say I love you to my family and friends and whatnot and, and just enjoy my life. Right? Because I Oh, yeah, I'll do that later. I'll do that later. How will you see those numbers ticking down every single day? It can be very shocking. For one set. Now. I've been doing it for two weeks now. And it has definitely shifted the way I behave. I took the kids into bed more. Tell them more stories. You know, my my daughter is six. She's not gonna be six forever. And I.. I'll admit it, I sometimes I hate going upstairs to tuck him into bed because it's going up the stairs. It's going upstairs all the way around the house. The Big House has taken a lot of walking, toys on the floor and whatnot, you step on something in the dark. Ah, yeah. But ever since I started doing this, I look forward to it. I want it to come in. You know, she's always asking me for stories. I, she doesn't want to read story. She wants me to make up stories. So I don't know what to say. Right? I run out of things to say. But now I'm doing it again. Because the time is gonna come where she's not gonna ask anymore. And that's gonna be a sad day. But I don't know when that's coming. But now I see the clock ticking down, the numbers ticking down. So I'm like, Yeah, though, you know, I'm running out of time to tell stories. And I also spend more time cuddling with my wife, you know, I spend more time with her. Because those are the things that are most important. My wife and my kids and the time I spend with them. Those are the things that are most important. Not, you know, I mean, I love you guys. And I hope that you listen to this podcast and you listen to all the episodes and you share them with your friends. So that the numbers of the watches and the views and they're in the downloads all increase like crazy. So I hope you do that shameless plug. Right? But it's not the most important thing in my life. I hope it helps you. That's why I'm doing it. I hope it really helps. And I wish you did let me know right, your feedback. But to me, what's realistically there? For me the most important is obviously my family. And so I say no, a lot less to them. Right? Hey, Dad, can we watch a movie? Or cartoon? Come on guys. They want to do it. I get to hold them. I get to cuddle with them. I get to spend time with them. Yeah, let's do it. "Hey dad, can we go play video games?" Sure. Yeah, let's do it. Right. And a side effect of this is that my wife takes me for granted a lot less too because that number is freaking her out as well. She doesn't put her number but she looks at my number going down and it freaks her out. So she is also nicer to me. If you know what I mean. Okay. And as I get older, right, I'm noticing the days, they just go by faster, which is great for my account balance, right my trading account because of the Theta decay, the options decaying, it goes by faster. But this little number reminder keeps me thinking about the present, and helping me make the most out of every day that I have left. Right? And I urge you to try it. And even though, you know, one thing we have to remember is that 80 is the average, right? 80 is the average for the man to live in the United States. It doesn't mean we're gonna get to 80. And I had a very sad reminder of that this week. Because this episode, I want to dedicate it to a friend and a student of ours, Mr. Eddie So. I found out this week that Edie passed away recently in his sleep at age 50. So he went early. I mean, Eddie had his own tech startup, he was living in Silicon Valley living the life he had it, all right, he had money. He had success. He had a great family. But when he found options and option genius, he really found his passion. I mean, it lit him up. So much so that eventually within about a year, I think he quit his job to trade full time. And he even got a vanity license plate for his Bentley, you know, the the license plates where you can pay extra and you get letters on the back to spell something out? Well, his license plate read "Option Trader", which was really, really cool. You know, unfortunately, Eddie wasn't an option trader for too long. But it was a pleasure to know Him. So rest in peace, my friend, I'm dedicating this episode to you. And he's actually I've actually interviewed him before, and so you can listen to his interviews, or I think there's one on the podcast and on the YouTube channel. So again, right, even though we're supposed to live to 80 and beyond with the new technologies and all that stuff coming out, I'm looking forward to doing that. But you never know. So live in the present. Be careful. Spend time with your loved ones as much as he can, you know, don't sweat the small stuff and all that stuff. So until next time my friends, trade with the odds in your favor. Goodbye.
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The Real Reason Your Wife Doesn't Want You Trading - 155
07/17/2023
The Real Reason Your Wife Doesn't Want You Trading - 155
The real reason your wife doesn't want you trading, that's what we're going to talk about today. So I have actually figured it out. And I will share with you the reasons, as well as what you can do about it so that your wife not only does not fight with you about your trading but actually encourages you to do so. Now, before I start this episode, this might be one that you want to listen to alongside your spouse because it just might help, right might start some dialogue between the two of you, and if this is something that you are having issues with. And, you know, although I said wives in the intro, and in the title, this is for all spouses, it works both ways. You know, normally, in what we've come across, as we've seen men trading and wives, having an issue with the trading, or you could be the other way you could be a wife trading, and the husband has an issue, or one spouse has an issue with the other spouse trading. So that's what we're going to talk about today. Hopefully, I don't want to offend anybody. But that's what we're gonna talk about today. And like I said, if you can get your spouse to watch or listen to this with you, it might actually help you, especially if you had a problem with this now. I keep hearing this over and over again, from traders, like, Allen, how do I convince my wife to let me trade or at least to stop nagging me about my trading? Right? And I'm with you guys, right? I mean, with most things, I have no clue what my wife means. Unless she very clearly lays it out for me, because even though she expects me to I still, after even all these years, I still cannot read her mind. So I was thinking about this question, and we were on a drive, we were going on vacation to Colorado. So we had a lot of time in the car. So I turned to my wife and I asked her this. I'm like, Hey, this is a problem a lot of guys have, how do we fix it? What do I tell them what to do? And as soon as I told her this, she looked at me, like dumbfounded. She looked at me. And this is what she said, she goes, Don't you remember what it was like when you first started trading? I had to walk around eggshells around you. I would come home one day after work. And you would be all depressed and moping around and sad. And I'd ask you will happen? Well, why he's so down what happened? And you would say, "Well, the market was down today", and you lost money. Whoo hoo hoo. So the next day, because I didn't want to recap of that, right? The next day, I would check the market before I got home. And I would expect you to be happy because the market was up that day. But ah, no, I get home. And what do I find? I find you my faithful husband moping around sad again. And it was totally confusing. That's what happened? The market is up today I checked, and the market is up. Why are you still sad? And you would tell me "Well, baby, I adjusted my trade. I was going to be smart about it. And I just did like a real trader. And now I want the market to go down. But because it went up again, I lost even more money". She said she couldn't even tell me anything. Like she couldn't help me. She couldn't get mad at me. Because I was already so sad about it all the time. How do you jump on somebody who's messing up and feeling bad, and you just like you gave losing more money? She said that it consumed me that I was horrible to be around and that she never knew what she would get when she got home from work. Especially after a long day of work. She said that she needed somebody to talk to to commensurate with, right? She had a long day she wanted to talk to me. She wanted to talk to her partner. But she couldn't. Because I was upset. I was stressed out. And she says that I'd be watching those stupid stock shows with the crazy bald guy that kept screaming all the time. Yes, that is true. I used to watch that show every night when I was losing money. And I think I stopped and I started making money. I don't know if that's related or not. But that's a different story. And then after all that, then she let me in on a little secret. She goes, look, it's really simple. One of the main things that a woman wants is security. She wants to know that her man will take care of things and that he has them under control so that we won't be homeless or even have the power turned off. Right. That's what a woman wants. That's basic. Every woman wants that. And when you're losing money left and right, she says I don't feel very secure. Does that make sense? I was like, Yeah, that makes a lot. And as you get going on she's like Secondly, a woman does not want her man to be taken advantage of she goes, how many silly courses and videos did you watch thinking you're going to find the secret as if they're going to sell you a secret, right? As if there are any secrets, you kept thinking that the next course. So the next guru had all the answers. So you would get your hopes up, you'd get all excited. And then your hopes would be dashed when it didn't work out, and you just lost more money. Because you were just too emotionally involved. And lastly, every woman wants her man to feel good about himself. And when you were learning how to trade, you just took it too, personally, if you lost money, she says, I would degrade myself. He says I was putting myself down after every trade every bad day, I would call myself stupid. And she said it was just too painful to watch, and that she didn't even know how to help me, and that it broke her heart. So I guess we're looking at as traders, from our point of view, you know, this is something I'm trying to accomplish this is something that is really hard. This is something I'm learning. And with every trade, I'm learning more, even though you know, I'm paying my dues, I'm paying the tuition. But when you flip it, and you look at it from their point of view, it makes a lot of sense. My wife says, Look, I didn't care that you were trading, as long as you are happy and not breaking any laws. She says I don't care how you're earning money. In fact, I want you to do well, I want you to do amazingly well. So yes, women want their independence. But they also want to have the ability to not work if they don't want to. She said we don't want to worry about money. So we want you full to be successful in trading. It's not that we don't want you to be successful in trading. But you're just not. So it's hurtful. So there you have it, right? The problem is not that your wife, at least for most of you. Not that your wife disagrees with trading. The problem is that you are not consistent in your trading. And then once I did get consistent, once I got a better handle on my emotions, my wife started having fewer and fewer issues with my trading. And now she's my number one supporter. So there are times I go home and I'm stressed and I'm down and she'll figure it out. You know what happened, something bad happened. I'm like, Yeah, I lost money on this trade. And she will make me feel better. She'll make my favorite food, she'll do whatever. But it's not every day. And you know, so that's why she can help me when it happens once in a while. She's not shell-shocked anymore. And she's not confused about what's going on anymore. Right? So how do we get your spouse on your side? Well, I got some tips for you. All right. So number one, don't keep them in the dark. This is simple, right? You share your results with them, you'll be open and honest with them don't hide things from that you share the wins. And the losses, this is important, you got to share both. Okay. Number two, you focus less on making money. Right? This is counterintuitive. Don't focus on making money. But focus on not losing money. And I tell this to everybody in the beginning, like in the beginning, when you take any of my courses, I want you not I don't care if you don't make money, I want you to be consistent. I want you to say yeah, this is my result, result result result, I don't want you going shooting for the moon, I want you to just not to lose money. Because once you become consistent, once you have wins after win after wins and you're positive month after month after month. We can just tweak it a little bit. And then you can have the big month. Okay. What scares your spouse are the wild swings in your account, the roller coaster, right where you're doing well, well, well. What your spouse wants to see is a consistent increase in the account no matter how small why? Because that is what normal people, non-trading people. That is what they're taught to expect, right? You put your money in a mutual fund was supposed to do it's supposed to go up every month, and little by little it's supposed to go up. If your mutual fund was going up or not like this, people will not be interested in that mutual fund. Right. They're expecting things to go up. Yes, slowly, slowly, slowly, but they're expecting it to go up and that's what your spouse is expecting of your trading account. Even though that's not usually what happens in the beginning, right? So make sure that you have consistent winners, or at least don't lose money, just don't lose, right? I know that's harder, it's hard. But you don't want to be shooting for the moon, you want consistent results, and that is what's going to help your spouse. Number three, if you are considering a course, or coaching, or something of that nature, let your spouse see all the sales material as well as let her watch the webinar, let her watch the video, let whatever even makes sense to her, get their buy-in, because you're spending money on this thing they're going to spend is coming out of their pocket do, right, get their buy-in, see if it makes sense to them. Number four, if your spouse is willing, learn together, do it together, and watch the courses together. Now, understand her thinking is different from your thinking. Okay, but it is possible to work together. Now, you might not want to do it in the same account, you have your account, she has her account, you're going to do different trades, you're gonna have a different mentality. But even if it's the same strategy that you're using, right, you guys can do it together, even though the trades would be different, even if the strategy is the same, because one is more conservative. One is more resin, blah, blah, blah, right? I don't I'm not saying that you guys should be doing every single trade together in the same account where both of you have to say yes, on the trade. I mean, that's something beyond this conversation. Okay? Number five, keep your trading emotions away from the rest of your life. Now, this is hard. But don't let your trading dominate your life. Okay. And that's why I love passive trading because it doesn't take all day long. It doesn't take most of the day, you know, you learn it, you put it on their strategies that just work. And they don't take all day so that you have a life so that your spouse sees you doing other things. So you can do things that make you happy, like your hobbies, right? You can have a job, you if your job, you're not worried about it, you're not stressed at your job all the time because of your trades. Okay, that's one of the beauties of passive trading and why I keep pushing people Oh, passive trading, passive trading, right? If there was something else out there, that was better, I'd be like, go go do that, go do that. Let's all do it together, right? But there isn't, I haven't found it. This stuff works. And it works in a way for you to not only make money, when a lot of trades, be happy but have a good life. Okay, now, controlling your emotions, right, not letting the market control all of your feelings. This is hard, and it takes time. But once you have more confidence in your trading, your spouse will feel that confidence you will emanate a different energy out of your body. Once you're having more confidence, your spouse will feel that and then they will not freak out as much. Okay? Nowadays, if the markets are up markets down, my wife cannot tell from my behavior. Unless it was a really bad day, a lot of trades went bad, or a big drain that I was looking at, or something I really wanted to happen. It didn't happen. But on normal days, she cannot tell in the past. She could because I would be losing money every day. So she'd rely on the markets crazy today or might get Margaret was crazy a lot like that. That's what I keep telling her I'm Mark is crazy markets, volatile markets up markets down. It's like every day was bad. But now I have my emotions and my feelings under control. So the market is up. Great. I know what to do. the market is down. That's great. I know what to do. I know how to adjust my trades, right? I know how to fix them. I know how to balance them. I know how to do asset allocation so that it's not going to blow up my whole account. Even though I trade for a living. It's okay. Right? You'll get to that point. And now when I go home, it doesn't know what the market did unless she looks it up. Because I'm happy or sad has nothing to do with the market. Usually. Usually, right? It's still stressful. It can be but usually, okay. And then I have a bonus tip number six in the beginning as you start making money, right? Use that money to buy things that your spouse would appreciate. This is kind of like I would say a bribe, but it's not really a bribe, right? Because you're already doing it. And it's working. So you're doing the trades. It's starting to work. You're starting to get results. The account is growing. So I don't care what it is flowers, maybe something simple like that. It could be a weekend getaway could be something nice something small. I'm talking about small things, not about buying a car, right? I'm talking about, okay, you made a couple 100 bucks, great. Use it, to do something to appreciate your spouse, something that they would like, so that she can see. Right? She can see oh, wow, something's happening here, right? And share in the benefits of your trading. Just don't keep all the money in your account thinking I needed to grow. I needed to grow. No, no, no. celebrate the wins with your spouse. Okay, now, when I learned this lesson is a big lesson. Believe me, it doesn't sound like much. But this is a big lesson to celebrate your wins. So when I first learned this, I decided you know what, every time I have a positive month, I'm going to take my wife out for lunch. And that's what we used to do. Every month. If I made money that month, I would take her out to lunch. So we would go out to lunch, but a bit, right. That was assigned to her that I was doing well. So I didn't have to tell her Oh, I was up 6%. I was up 15% I was up point oh, 1%. I didn't have to tell her the percentage. I just had to say, babe, we gotta go for our celebratory lunch, had a good month, let's go, we're gonna go eat. And it would make her happy. Because I did well, I was positive, right? And it helped me to celebrate my hard work. Because I got to do something that I enjoy, which is spending time with her one on one. She enjoys it, I enjoy it. She's seeing that, hey, something is happening here. Good results are happening here. Good things are happening. She didn't like ask all 100 questions like How much money do you make and how many trades you do and what prevented blah, blah, blah. After a while she stopped. She was like, okay, you know what I trust you. I'm seeing consistency, I'm seeing results, I'm seeing that you're having a better control over your emotions and your your discipline and and you know, the way you the way you talk and the way you feel and how angry you get you don't get as angry anymore. I'm seeing this. And I'm happy that you're better. Right. Now, I don't know why we stopped. I think we stopped having the lunch when we had kids need to start that again. Because it is it's a big deal to celebrate the wins. All right. So there you have it, you got the three main reasons your wife does not support your trading. And you have six steps to help her do so. Alright, I hope this was helpful. I hope if you're watching it together, you guys can talk about it. Maybe I missed something. Or maybe there's more to it that you guys can discuss and talk about. And that's the only way to have some open communication. And to get this because trading is an amazing, amazing way in if you're the spouse, I'm telling you right now, let your files let your husband trade. Let him do passive trading, okay, not the other stuff that day trading and the crypto and all that stuff you don't know about that stuff. All right, I can't speak to that. But I can speak to passive trading. And we can show your results that it's working, we can show you results from students that are working, we have a hedge fund where it's working. So we are doing it, we back up our talk with our walk. And if we can do it, if I can do it, your husband, your wife, your spouse can learn it too. And it's only a matter of time and effort. So if you support them in their trading, it takes one big whoosh off and our wishes but our wishes like the stress level right, it takes one more thing off of their mind where they don't have to worry about it. And that makes them better trader. Because they don't have to be afraid of you. That's one of the things I remember when I was trading is that I was always afraid of my wife finding out how I was doing. I would hide things from her. Even I don't know if I lie to her maybe I don't remember maybe once in a while, you know small little white lies about how I was doing. But I was doing it to protect her from having her be scared from having her get mad at me for losing more money. And then it hurt. Right It bothered me it. It took me longer to get better as a trader because of that. But once she became on my side once she once she decided and once she saw that I really wanted to make this happen. And I was serious. And I was committed. I was working hard at it. Then she came aboard and she got on my side and she started helping me she's like, What can I do to help you? And there's certain things that we have in our programs, where we teach people like here this is how you can use an accountability partner. This is how you can get your spouse or child or whatever, to help you become a better trader. And that's what she did with me. That's where I learned all that stuff. Right? So she started helping me every single day to become a better trader and together as a team. We did amazing and now you know it's come full circle and she's wants to trade. I taught her when we were on that trip right on the vacation I told you about we were in the car, when we got to our destination, we were there for a couple of weeks. And one of these you says, hey, you know, teach me how to do this, this trade that you're doing this new trade, I'm gonna go there cool. And we sat down, we figured out, I showed her how to do it. And she loves it. Right? So she understands it, and she's going to be doing it too. So we're actually going to be trading together we've done in the past, but didn't really, you know, she got busy and stuff. And now we're going to be doing it again. So it's exciting. It's fun, right? It's something that a family can do together, because they're I'm going to be we're gonna be teaching the kids how to do this stuff, too. Because we want their families or their futures to be secure. I don't want them to worry about it and be like, Oh, hey, I gotta go get this job that pays a lot of money. Because I got to take care of myself. No, I want you to be able to trade to take care of yourself. So that way you can go get whatever job makes you happy, even if it doesn't pay that much. So it all trickles down. Right. But again, that's a different topic. I hope this helps. I hope if you have any questions, please reach out. Happy to help you again. Until the next time, trade with the odds in your favor, my friends. Take care.
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How Use Your IRA To Invest In a Hedge Fund
07/08/2023
How Use Your IRA To Invest In a Hedge Fund
Allen: All right, everybody welcome passive traders to another edition of The Option Genius Podcast. Today I have with me Mr. Brad Janitz of Midland Trust. How you doin, Brad? Brad: I am doing great. Happy to be here. Allen: Thank you for spending some time with us. The reason I brought Brad on is because when we were starting the fund, we had investors were people that I was talking to, and they're saying, Hey, that sounds great. I want to do it. Can I do it with my IRA? And I do it with, you know, some other money I have in a retirement account? And to be honest, I didn't know the answer to. So I went back to my lawyers and other people that I've met in the hedge fund community, and I'm like, Hey, Ken, how do we do this? How do we set this up? And they're like, oh, you know what? Just talking to Brad. Okay, who's Brad, that talked to somebody? Oh, yeah. Just talk to Brad. And I'm gonna give you Brad's number. So I finally got Brad's number, I gave him a call. And he explained everything to me. So I said, Well, this is pretty cool. I think more people need to know about this. So I wanted to have Brad on the show, and have him explain how it works, basically, because what I realized is that you can use your IRA, for a lot more than just having it at your broker and buying and selling stocks and options. So that's what we want to talk about today with Brad, is that true, Brad? Brad: That is true. That is true, you know, so quick little summary of who I am, who Brad is, you know, the infamous Brad here. So, you know, I've been with Midland now for 13 years, this is my first job out of college. And really what we are, is an alternative investment custodian also called a self directed IRA company. And really, what that means is, we allow you to put your retirement money to work and things outside of the stock market. Okay. And I will say when I went through going through college and was trying to learn about financial products, this was not something that I knew about. And then all of a sudden, I joined Midland and learn this whole new world of alternative investing and specifically alternative within IRA accounts. And so, really where this whole ideology comes from, is that there is something in the world of our IRAs called an IRA custodian. And IRA custodian is an IRS-approved company, financial services company that's allowed to hold retirement assets, basically, open an account for an individual, deposit money, and to deploy money at the discretion of the individual, do some tax reporting requirements and effectively kind of provide the landscape of investments that the individual wants to get into. Nobody really knows that this whole IRA custodian thing even exists out there. Because we've all just went to brokerages throughout time and you know, Fidelity's, and Schwab's and all those institutions out there that we're all used to, and they are great institutions that allow you to set up retirement accounts, start investing, but they are known to allow you to invest in the public markets, mutual funds, Apple stock, ETF, that kind of thing. And, you know, and so, we all just kind of know the IRA custodian as also the brokerage because the big brokerages out there basically are allowed to play both sides of the equation, okay, leaving the IRA company and also the investment arm, which is the brokerage, okay. But then when you get into other types of investments out there, what I'll call alternative, but mainly private investments, so think real estate think, private investment funds, like a hedge fund, think startup companies like a bar restaurant or a new tech company, think precious metals, gold and silver, think cryptocurrency, all of those different avenues out there of investing, those aren't both the investment option and the IRA company. And so what happens is you have the investment side, and then if you want to invest IRA money into it, then you have to find somebody like Midland that operates as the IRA company side to allow you the opportunity to go into other investments. Okay? And where most people probably don't realize is, you know, it takes a little bit of wherewithal, you got to know about these opportunities in order to really take advantage of them. And so and so you have to find these opportunities, and it really kind of takes a somebody that's a little bit more wanting to and willing to take control of their own retirement account to go out and find these new opportunities. No one were to you know, take advantage of them into your into your IRA account. Right? Right. Allen: Okay. So because like in the past I've had, like we teach at option genius, we teach people how to trade stock options. And in the past, we've had several people approach us and say, I want to do this in my hedge fund, what can I do? And they're like, Well, depends on your broker. Some brokers will allow you to do something some brokers will allow you to do other things. It really depends. There's no one size fits all. But even in certain situations, there are some strategies that you can do, but you can't, other people cannot do. So it's like depending on the person. And we've always, always told people like, look, this is your money, this is your IRA, right? This is your retirement, if you want to be able to do something, you should be able to do it your IRA, you know, it's not the law that is saying that you cannot invest in this stock option, or you cannot do this strategy. It is that particular broker. And so if you don't like what they're doing, you find another broker, right? In this case, you're saying that, as a custodian, you guys allow people to do a lot more things than just like you said, public stocks, bonds, options, instead, including hedge funds, real estate, loaning money, all these other kinds of things. But you guys are the custodian, not the brokerage. So if I have my money with you, then I can't trade that money, correct? It just sits in the account until I'm ready to invest it somewhere? Brad: Yeah, that's correct. So that that's a great, that's a great point in question. So with somebody like us, we are not a brokerage. Okay. So we're not nobody sets up an account with us to trade equities or options or futures contracts or anything like that. Okay, we are, we are kind of an avenue to get in to another vehicle of some sort. Okay. And so let's take a hedge fund, for example. Okay. So hedge funds can have lots of different types of strategies, options, strategies, future strategies, crypto strategies, long only long short, equity, lots, lots of different types of strategies, okay. And you're allowed to use your IRA to invest in all the, all of those different types of strategies. Okay, so then it comes down to the IRA company, allowing you to do such thing, which really just comes down to the comfort level of the IRA company that you have in place, okay. And so if you have somebody like such as Midland where we specialize in helping individuals get their money into hedge funds at the discretion of the individual, you know, and really how that works is, you know, they're going to, let's say, you have an IRA and a more traditional brokerage, like a fidelity or Schwab, you're going to set up that same type of IRA account with us here at Midland, transfer over whatever amount of money that you feel comfortable with deploying, so you know, that's completely up to you, and that you as the investor and the, you know, the investment that you're getting into, and whatever you have to agree upon, okay, and will be responsible for transferring your money over from your existing retirement account, then that money comes over to Midland, but then again, you don't do any sort of trading through us. So you have to find some sort of vehicle that you want to go into. And then there's usually a document associated with such vehicle, like, if you're going into a hedge fund, there's going to be a subscription agreement involved. And then it's our job along with the investment manager to make sure that subscription agreement is, is kind of completed the way it should to read that your IRA is making an investment to this private instrument. Okay? And so basically, you're giving us the IRA custodian direction to facilitate an investment on your behalf, then your money would then be deployed into, you know, said hedge fund for you to effectively be in, you know, whatever strategy you see fit. That hedge fund managers job is then to trade the strategy make money, and then but it's all done within an IRA account just in a more privatized paper instrument, rather than, you know, trading on a on a more tech training platform on public exchanges. Allen: Okay. Now, one of the questions I get a lot is, and people don't, they're unfamiliar with it. Is that "Can I have more than one IRA account?" Brad: Yeah good question. So yeah, you can have as many different IRA accounts as you please. So there's just all the only thing that there is a maximum on is the amount of money that you're allowed to put into a set of retirement account, from your personal money into retirement accounts. Allen: Every year? So as the deposit? Brad: Yeah, yeah, each year, so its contribution limit, okay. So each year, you know, kind of a anywhere from 6500 bucks to 20,000 bucks, depending on your IRA type. But let's say you have a million dollars in a, you know, fidelity IRA account, you could transfer over 100,000 to an IRA and Midland 100,000 over to another IRA at Schwab, another Ira somewhere else. So you can have as many different IRA accounts as you want to deploy in a bunch of different ways, if that is what makes sense to you. So that's kind of the nifty thing of IRA accounts, it's very easy to move money in and out of them. And then you can deploy in lots of different ways, if that makes sense for you. Allen: Awesome, cool. Now, we've had recently we've had some issues with financial institutions going under. So I just wanted to ask, you know, about Midland and how secure you guys how many accounts you guys have, how long you've been doing this? And then the money that we have Have on deposit with you if it's not invested somewhere, is that secured? Brad: Yeah, no good question. I mean, that is a, that's on everybody's mind. I mean, it's honestly, what's funny is, you know, we never got this quote, I never, you know, my 13 years never got this question ever. And now over the past six months, it's, it's came to came roaring up. So, yeah, so so, you know, what's interesting about our business is that money comes in and leaves very quickly. So you know, so for example, we're never really holding on anyone's cash for an extended period of time. So, you know, when working with us, you know, again, we're going to transfer your money over from Fidelity, or wherever it's going to come over, and it's going to sit with us for usually about 24 to 48 hours before we, in turn, get that money allocated to whatever financial product that you're looking to get into. So I guess from from that perspective, you know, you get the peace of mind and knowing that really, you know, the money is really not sitting with us very long. So you don't really have to stress too much about that question. But with that said, we are regulated like any other banking institution, we are not a bank. So our money is held with third party banks, in which we mix and mingle depending on the health of those banks. It's like right now, a lot of our cash is positioned with a Capital One Bank, trying to kind of stay away from more of the community banks, given the nature of that, but we do choose FDIC insured banks, just to make sure that, you know, the protections are in place for the clients, you know, just in case anything does ever happen, that we need to be worried about. Allen: How many accounts do you guys have right now? Brad: Yeah, good question. So we have over 20,000 users. So that's 20,000 individuals that have set up IRA accounts with us to invest in something private, that's all organic clients, do we have bought, or sold any of our clientele, that's all people have chose to work with Midland to do something that makes up of about 5 billion in assets. And that makes up about 5000 different fund products that we have worked with over the course of our time. Right. So that could be hedge funds, private equity, venture capital, early stage ventures, real estate, all kinds of things. Allen: Right, cool! Okay so now the traditional brokerage, IRA custodian, they make their money on commissions and stuff like that. So how do you guys get paid? Brad: Yeah, good question. So we are, you know, we don't make money off the investment, we make money off services that we provide, which is the administrative work that goes into moving the money around and making sure that all the investments are properly documented. So really, what that is, is it's a flat 325 years, 325 bucks a year that we charge per IRA. And that's not really based on value. So $5,000, a million dollars, flat 325. So you do it's not baked in and the expense ratio, so it is a little bit more front and center, you know, so it's not hidden, a lot of other financial products. So it's front and center to you, you're gonna see it. And then we have some kind of ancillary fees. Take, we do charge $50 to establish an IRA account with us. And then anytime you buy an investment for the first time, it's a transaction fee of 1.5. Basically, what you're looking at is if you were to invest X amount of dollars into a hedge fund, now, you'd be $500 for the first year, and then 325 For each year thereafter. That's pretty much what you'd pay with anybody kind of similar to us. Right? Allen: I mean, that's not a big deal, right? You're making you're thinking about making like 100,000 or 200, or more investment, $500 is not that bad. Brad: Yeah, and stay stagnant, which is, you know, the good thing. So a lot of people, if you ever looked at your 401 K fees that you're charging, you know, a lot of people don't even know what they're charging, or what they're paying, which, you know, that's that's another kind of issue, but, but it always continues to grow. And so you start charging things, or paying things you don't really even understand you're paying and it keeps growing, and you don't even know why it's growing on you. So we'd like to be front and center with it. So everyone knows that they're paying us. And you know, and it stays flat. So it's not regardless of value. Right? Allen: Now, I'm kind of biased because I want people to invest in our hedge fund, right? So what is the process? I know we're signed up with us, anybody that comes to to invest with us is going to be working with Midland. That's who we're aligned with. So let's say I have somebody that says, hey, you know, I want to come in, I want to join, but I want to do it through my IRA. What is that process? How do I walk them through it? Brad: Yeah, so So anybody's Welcome to give us a call for staff to just like talk through their scenarios, we understand retirement accounts, or, you know, there's a lot of lingo out there that nobody really understands. And then also, you may have never removed a retirement account before. So you may just be a little squeamish on that whole process. So, first off, you're welcome to give us a call to just talk through your situation and we can walk you through the mechanics of what that looks like. But moral of the story what actually happens is that you will be establishing a Midland IRA account. So if you have a traditional IRA or Roth IRAs and other institution will be setting up that same type of IRA with us here at Midland, which is an online application process that you can go to our website to accomplish, and, you know, roughly five minutes, all right, and then when you go through that application process, you're going to initiate the movement of money from your existing retirement account. Okay, so you'll just input your existing account number and say, Hey, I have an account at Fidelity, here's my Fidelity account number of yourself, I'm transitioning, or here's how much I wish to transition from Fidelity over to Midland, okay. And then that gives us authorization to go and request those funds on your behalf. Okay, so then we'll pull those funds over, bring it over into Midland. And then at that point, your cash is sitting on with us. And that transfer process usually will run a course about three to five business days. And while that transfer process is running its course, then we will actually be trying to sort through the documentation associated with the hedge fund. And, you know, presenting that to the client for completion. You know, one thing that we've learned is that completing documents associated with private investments can be very cumbersome to somebody that's never done it before. Or even if you have done it before, it's very cumbersome. Allen: That's a lot of paper. Yeah. Brad: Yeah and so we just tried it, we tried to present it in a digital format, we actually take it upon ourselves to pre fill most of it for the client to where they just have to review the documentation in their inbox, and then just kind of click a couple buttons and say, yep, this looks good, this is what I want to do. And then once they execute that document, we push that document off to the fund manager for their review. And then once we get the money from Fidelity, we will call the client for one last verbal authorization and say, Hey, we're about to send your money off, to be invested this what you want to do, they give us the blessing. And then we send wire the money from us over to the investment of their choosing. And then they're often running from there. Allen: That's cool. I actually like that the personal touch we actually get on the phone. Yeah, I like that. Brad: Yeah. And you know, it's, you never can be too careful, especially with lots of money around here. So it's kind of another layer of like, identity protection, just to make sure we know who will work with. All right. Allen: And how long does that whole process take? Brad: Yeah, full process about seven days, kind of give or take a day or two. But that's, that's generally what to expect. And then after that, you will have online access with Midland, so you can follow the investments as they kind of run their course. And then if you ever need to get tax forms down the road, you can log into your Midland account, to facilitate. And then if you ever want to add additional funds or distribute funds for any reason, you can do that too. So anything that you would ordinarily be able to do with, again, a more traditional brokerage, you'll be able to do those same actions with the Midland account. Okay. All right. Allen: Okay. All right. Now, now, I know we've been talking about IRAs, I'm assuming that's Roth IRAs, and regular IRAs, are there any other type of accounts you guys work with? Brad: But I would just say, so the two other types would be employer plans be it SEP IRA, which self employed pension driven in a simple IRA, which is kind of similar to a 401k. It's, it's more of a more designed for, for small businesses, but again, they're more employer sponsored plans. The other types are kind of accounts, I would say, that we work with the most is just people that have old 401k is out there, that they would like to rollover into IRA accounts to do this. Okay. And so if you do have a 401k, out there, usually does need to be with the previous employer, okay, in order to be eligible to roll that money over. But if you do, you can roll up 401k directly into an IRA At Midland, again, you can do just a portion or a whole thing, it's up to you. You can roll that money over into a Midland account, and then use that Midland account, again, to...
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The 4 Pillars of Successful Trading - 153
06/20/2023
The 4 Pillars of Successful Trading - 153
Why don't most people who try trading succeed at it? You probably heard the numbers 90, 95, somewhere around there percent of people fail at trading, then they give up and they leave and they lose their money, right? So we have at least for me, what am I methods are one of my missions in life is to help people get over that problem. And we have to make it as simple as possible. But I have noticed that there are four pillars that everybody needs. Four things that you need to be successful. All right, so let's go ahead and get into it. The thing is that it doesn't have to be just about trading, you need these four pillars and just about anything in life. And so if you have ever succeeded at something, right? You have probably already attained these four pillars, or you've used them somehow, some way, and you already know what they are. But when it comes to trading, for some reason, we think it's totally different. Things is, if it gets unique. I don't especially, I don't know what it is, but we kind of forget what the pillars are. So let's go through them and talk about how they directly relate to trading. Now, there are four pillars, right, these are the four things that you need. Two of them are completely mandatory, meaning without these you will not succeed, there's no way ever, the other two are not mandatory, but they help a lot. And they speed up the process. And they make it a lot faster, they make it a lot easier, they make it a lot more fun, and they make it a lot more profitable. Okay, so what normally takes people years, without, if you only had the first two, it could take you years and years to be successful at trading, when you have all four, it could be in a lot less time. Now look, you cannot succeed without the pillars. But even with the pillars, it does not guarantee you will succeed because it's still trading. And there are still other things that are more related to you, versus the things that everybody can have, if that makes sense. Okay, there are some limitations that every single person has, there might be something that's stopping you personally from achieving success. But these are the four things that I can say that everybody needs to have in order to succeed. Now look, when you start trading, you start on the ground, right, you're on the ground floor, you don't know anything, you don't know what you don't know, that's one thing. And you want to get on top, you want to get on top of the markets, you want to get on top of your finances, you want to get just achieve, right? And so you need support. You need the four pillars 1234 pillars, again, with two of them, you can get by, right? You might have a gap in the middle, you have one on one side or on the other side, and the gap in the middle will be sagging, kind of, but it can still survive with only one you're gonna fall off. And there's no way you're gonna stand up with three you might get there with four you definitely most likely will. So what are they? Number one, this strategy? This is pillar number one, this is the strategy. This is where most traders start. This is what they want to know first, like what do I do what to do? This is knowing what to do. And so if you are a passive trader, that means you know, covered call one strategy naked put credit spread, strangles, straddles, iron condors, diagonals, ratios, back spread, there are so many of them, right? There are so many strategies out there. Most traders, they grab the first strategy they see, and they try to make it work. But that is the wrong way to do it. The problem is not all strategies work for all people. Now you can say you know what, I'm going to learn every single strategy. And I'm going to master all of them. And I'm gonna get really good at all of them. Could be, but they're not just these few strategies. There are lots of other strategies out there as day trading. There's real estate, there's crypto, there's swing trade, there are all kinds of different strategies, and there's no way you are going to be an expert at all of them. And no way should you want to be an expert on all of them. Because that's not how success happens. Success happens when you focus. All right? So for example, buy and hold is a strategy. And it works. If you have 40 to 50 years. It's true, right? The stock market and the indexes, especially the indexes, they are created in a way that over time they are going to go up. That's just the way they work. That's the way they're created. Because they keep taking out the bad stocks that are holding the index down and they replace them with stocks that are jumping, right? So over time, it's going to continue to increase but it's going to take you 40-50 years to actually make any decent amount of money on it and be able to retire probably. If not, if that doesn't work for you right, 40 to 50 years, then this is not a strategy that will work for you. If you want to wait, that's fine, do it, it's great. You know, success is almost guaranteed. If that's not a thing, 40-50 years, then you need to find a different strategy. So step one, is you have to find a strategy that works for you. Okay, it has to match your risk appetite. What do you mean by that? Well, some people are more conservative than others. Some people like to go in 100% on one trade, some people like to put in 1% on one trade, right, they just like I'm gonna dip my toe in. So the aggressiveness or the conservative of the strategy has to be tailored to you, depending on how you feel and how you are, if you are very risk adverse, you don't like gambling, then day trading, not going to work for you, right? If you are a gambler, or like a big time gambler, and you need excitement, excitement, excitement, passive trading, where you're doing trades that are very boring, you know, they work but they're very boring, might not be for you. Right, you might have to shift over to something, even though you might agree with the passive trading philosophy, you might have to shift to something a little bit more frequent. So you have to change the strategy. Account Balance also is a big deal. You know, how much money do you have to play with as your account grows, your strategy can grow or you can add to it, to change your strategy, hedge it, etc. Discipline, how disciplined you are? This is another one. Passive trading works for me because I'm not that disciplined. Right? And so it works for me, because even if I get the trade wrong, I can still win. Okay, experience. There are some strategies that are for people that have a lot of experience. Iron condor, probably not the first strategy I would recommend for somebody, right? It's like, hey, why don't you sell some spreads first, you know, sell, sell one spread, then you can do the condor. Once you understand the basics, that kind of thing, time devoted, how much time do you want to spend on your trading, you wanna sit there all day long? Well, then yeah, more active style is for you, you want to spend a few minutes a day like we do, then a little bit more passive, definitely more passive is going to work for you. What are your goals? How much are you trying to accomplish? Do you want to triple your money every year? Well, then you have to do one strategy. I don't know if there's any strategy out there like that, that can continuously do that every single year. But if you are, if that's your goal, then you have to be a lot more aggressive and that'll dictate what strategy you choose. If you're okay with 20%, you know, 10% 5% a year strategies, definitely totally different. And the time to result? How fast do you want your result? Right? Are you willing to wait several years, then your strategy can be different. If you want it right away, strategy is going to be definitely different. So these are the different things that have to mesh your strategy has to mesh with you because if it doesn't, then it's going to cause internal problems. It's going to cause psychological issues with you, and you're going to make mistakes, you're not going to follow the plan, you're not going to do it properly, you're not going to follow the strategy properly, and it's going to lead to losses. All of this stuff has to match. Step number two, you have to verify and be sure the strategy actually works. What? Really? It has to work? Yes, it has to work. And not all strategies work. No, not all strategies work. I'm sorry to tell you that. Right? You have to do some research. Like how many people are doing it? Are they having success? How long has it been around? If it's a strategy that just popped up two months ago? I ya know, sorry? No, no way. I want a strategy. If I want to do something, I want a strategy that has at least two years worth of real money results. And people have approached me and they said, You know, I want to trade for a hedge fund, I have a great strategy is working really awesome. I'm like, Okay, how long have you been doing it? And then they go quiet. Well, I back tested it. No, that's not that's not real money. That's not real trading. You know, and then there was another guy that I had been doing for six months, and I've had all these wins. I'm like, That's great. When you get to two years, give me a call. After you've been trading for two years plus with real money, then I'll talk to you about maybe investing my money with you, or letting you trade for our fund. Not until that. Okay? Is the strategy very simple? Or is it complicated? The more complicated it is, the more room for error, the more experience you're going to need, the more time it's going to take to make sure everything is I's dotted T's crossed. Right. Where did you hear about this strategy? Did you hear it about at some random post on some crazy website? Or was it actually like a legit trader, right? Who did you hear from? Who's the source of this strategy? Somebody that you know is actually making money from it? Right? Or, again, some random stranger on a Facebook post or something? Do they have any proof of this strategy? Does it work? These are all the things you have to look into and verify and make sure. Now the strategies that we've been teaching are passive trading. The only way we teach them is if we've done them ourselves with real money for a long period of time, right? There are lots of strategies and new strategies are introduced every day. I mean, they're the same, but they're little tweaks and they come up with different names and blah, blah, blah, well, if we haven't done them for ourselves with real money and tested them in different markets, we don't teach them. That's it. It is like, Hey, I'm not going to experiment with you, I'm going to experiment with my own money. And then I'll tell you what works. That's my job, right? That's why I'm here to tell you what works, what doesn't work, there are more than a million ways to trade, you only need one, you only need one strategy as long as it works. And it has to work for you. Right, this is where most traders mess up, they choose a strategy that is too difficult for them, or does not match their personality. And then they never master it. So they might have wins, but then they give up losses, and they have a big loss. They might do well for a little bit, but then the market changes. They don't understand why, what happened. But eventually they give up and they quit. So that's it. That's number one. pillar number two, is what I call the trading plan. This is the how to implement the what the strategy, right, this is how you do the trade. So let's say you decided, hey, I'm going to do covered calls. That's great. That's a strategy. You know, it works. You know, lots of people are doing it. I mean, here, you know, Warren Buffett says he's been doing it with billions of dollars. Okay, that's pretty good. I think that's, that's proof that it works. But we don't know how he does it. Right? That's the trading plan. How does he do the covered call? Does he sell at the money options? Does he sell out of the money options? Does he sell in the money options? Does he do weeklies, does he do 30 days expiration? Do they do a 180 days expiration? Does he look for 2% a month, 5% a month? I don't know, that's all part of the trading plan. That's what you have to find or come up with and test. So a good plan will incorporate all of these steps. This is how we identify what we're going to trade the underlying security. This is how we're going to know that it's a good time to place the trade, right? Like our setup, this is the actual trade that we're going to place the strategy. If it's a covered call, then which options are we going to trade on that strategy? What timeframe? What is our return our goal, all of this stuff, these are the steps one by one by one, you have to do this, okay, first you do this, then you do this, then you do this. That's all part of the plan. Now, also, as part of the plan is the timing. When do you get into the trade? When do you get out of the trade? What are you looking for? What do you're not looking for risk management? What happens if the trade goes bad? What happens if the market changes? You have to know in advance this should and has to be part of your plan? You cannot go into a trade without knowing what you're going to do if it goes bad. And it can't be well figured out? No, you got to know in advance. Otherwise, it's not a good plan. Your asset allocation? How much money do I put into every trade? That's a very big component of it. Right? It's part of being safe. And your goals? What is your ROI? You have to know how much money can I make on this trade? Is it good enough? Is it going to help me get to my goals? Does it have to be perfect? In order for me to get to my goal, then that's not a good enough ROI, right? Or is it too much? What are you aiming for? So there are millions of trading plans out there. Most of them suck. And if they did not suck, then there would be everybody was making money, right? a trading plan must be complete. And it must be time tested with real money. It should be working in up markets down markets, sideways markets, high volatility markets, low volatility markets, bear markets, bull markets, all of the above everything and anything. I want plans that have stood the test of time. Right? Maybe they don't work in a crazy scenario, like a great recession that we had in 2008 2009 maybe doesn't work then fine, put on the sideline for a little bit. But most of the time, 90% of the time I want this thing to work otherwise I can't rely on it. Because I can't guess if it's gonna work or not. I wanted to be able to work right? Most of the strategies that we trade they just work that's it. Because they are set up to work in all the different markets. Now most strategies are tailored for bull markets. That's most of them are like that. You know the even the covered call the naked put these are bullish strategies. So when the market is going up, they make money and everybody's a genius. Anybody can make money in a bull market. All right. And most plans work in bull markets, right. But they gave back all of it back when the market shifts. So if the market changes, this bull market, you know, plan is not going to work anymore. Now I look for plans that have worked for at least 10 years. I want to I want a 10 year plan. I know I told those guys two years, but I want at least a 10 year, if I'm going to be trading it consistently, I want a 10 year plan. And I want to know it with real money, no back testing. Okay, that's what I'm looking for. Now, when the market shifts, it happens at a time that most play market traders at home traders, they don't even realize they don't know. It's like, oh, the market shifted, market changed. Okay, what do I do now? What do they do, they keep doing the same strategy. So when there was a bull market, they were doing this strategy, and they were putting on trades, and it was working, he knows where he is where he's working. So now they're like, I don't know, they're addicted. They're in habitual, whatever it is. But then the market shifts, and they don't anything to do, they don't know what to do. So they keep doing the same thing. Even though it's not working, even though they lose money, or lose money again, and again and again. And they're like, oh, man, this trading thing doesn't work. Yeah, because you're using the wrong plan in the wrong market. Okay, so they just run out of money and quit. That's it. Sorry. Remember, a good plan works in a bull market, or a bear market. That's a good plan, you know, a great plan works in all markets. And if you have a great plan, then you only need one plan, because they're gonna work in all the markets. There might be some times from time to time that you're like, hey, you know what, yeah, this thing is getting a little bit crazy for me, I'm gonna take, I'm gonna step to the sidelines. You know, that's, that's how you also save a lot of money. That's all how you stay in the game. By not taking excess risk, the market gets too crazy, you get on the sidelines, that should be part of your plan to when to be trading, when not to be trading, that has to be part of your plan. Okay, so once you have a great plan, you match that with a strategy that you enjoy. And you can be successful, right? It's not that hard. But how long will it take to choose a strategy, find a plan and then test the plan with real money. It normally takes years and years and years. And that's why pillars three and four are essential. Okay? Because remember, you got to have one, and you got to have two, you got to have a strategy, you got to have a plan that works With that alone, you can go and be a good trader. But if you have pillars, three and four, it just almost cuts that time in into a fraction of what it would normally take, which is usually. Okay, so let's go to pillar three. Pillar three is the guide, or the coach, the guide is the is essential to your journey, your trading journey. If you look at any of your favorite movies, what happened in your movies? Well, they had a hero or heroine, and they had a problem. And then they had a guide, or a teacher. Right? It was a guide character, a mentor, whose role it was to help the hero or the heroine. Make sense? Right? Think about it. You can have Luke, you can have Frodo you can have Rambo, Neo Batman, Lightning McQueen. You know, even the cartoons, they need coaches. Right? They need mentors. Okay, so think back to when you were younger on a sports team? Or if you didn't play sports when you were younger. Think about any sports team for little kids. Okay? Did they ever just like, Hey, kids come together? Here's the ball, go figure it out. No, every team has a coach. Hopefully the coach knows what they're doing. They know the rules they've played before they played currently. And the better. The more excited the coaches. The more interested the more into it the coach is, the better the team does, right? Yet when it comes to trading. We all think we can do it on our own. Ah, yeah. All right. I'm just gonna open an account. Put some money in it. Press these buttons. I'm gonna be a billionaire. Yeah, I love the idea. I will hear that. Oh, easy, but it's not. Right. Now. Look, if you go to Wall Street, and you get a job, any firm any trading firm out there, right? Are they gonna like oh, hey, welcome first day. Yeah, yeah, okay, you're gonna have a lot of fun today. Here. Here's a bunch of money. Go figure it out. No, right. I got a good look for it. Make some money. Come back to us. Let me know how you do. No, they're not gonna do that. You know, they're gonna teach you. They're gonna assign you a mentor who is then responsible for you if you screw up it is on his head. Right? He's responsible, he's gonna make sure he's watching you like a hawk, make sure you don't lose the firm's money. And he's gonna teach you what to do and what not to do. And guess what, he's got a mentor. And then they got a mentor,...
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