[00:00:00] feels good to be back on here. It's been a long time since I've done one. I believe Had some family in town and took a couple of weeks off
[00:00:07] There was a really weird year for me, and I want to get into my year what happened to me and from lots of stuff Financial spiritual Physical a little bit Some people are in my phase of life with kids some people are starting out their newer
[00:00:24] Others are maybe older and have career somewhere else in our learning to trade so there's many different places to be And hopefully there's some good stuff in here that can help you Process whatever you're going through and the other thing too is I know a lot of people
[00:00:42] Sometimes it's nice to know okay, well, that's all great Brad, but how do you buy how do you sell? Where did you get in where did you get out and I think some of that kind of stuff is
[00:00:50] I mean some people reach out on their own and if you have similar trading styles I think you can really learn a lot from people and if you're observing someone physically or with a
[00:00:59] Digital mentorship or something there you could pick up some of those nuances about about that stuff, but It's as not as important as you think and it seems weird because I used to sit next to a guy in Chicago when I traded at a firm in Chicago and
[00:01:15] It was just He was one of the most successful traders I ever was around and it wildly successful year after year making Massive sums of money and I sat next to him and the biggest thing I learned
[00:01:29] Honestly was just the optimistic attitude of always looking for the good and things and it sounds so simplistic But really focusing on the positive not getting too down shaking it off
[00:01:39] Just that kind of a loof positive attitude was the number one characteristic I noticed and a tons of flexibility willing to be long
[00:01:48] Large size at the top of a market that was ready to fall and then using that information to realize that you need to be short and just shaking it off and flipping gears
[00:01:55] That might not be ever put in trading style so that doesn't really matter, but the point is of just Tons of flexibility short memory and very optimistic almost kind of like you know in a way that
[00:02:05] It doesn't seem right but it ultimately was a great way to be I think you can see that with a lot of people and a lot of careers and things But that so that's that but the bigger point about city next to him was
[00:02:16] Five folks used to always say to me well, I was just starting at the time We're just copy this guy. I mean you sit next to this guy. How can you lose then we we'd laugh because
[00:02:23] It's like copying someone who's singing or painting it just doesn't work it doesn't work because it's a This job this business I want to call it a job. It's just this calling if you're gonna be good at it. It's a calling There's so much spiritual growth personal growth
[00:02:37] The button pressing at every level of fierce scarcity abundance I mean foam-o You can you name it and it's just it's there. It's there and it inner text with your personal life Things that are going on around you and
[00:02:54] It's just I think it's what keeps a lot of us in it and that's definitely one of the things that keeps me in it I'm gonna Sit my coffee. That's the pause so
[00:03:03] What I want to get into today though is the reason I said all that is because This journey is really about you finding what you're gonna be good at what you can stick with What your pre-dispose to probably have more success at than something else
[00:03:18] Because I think if you really want to trade There's something there that you can do well with but there's a lot of things that are gonna lure you in and you're gonna work really hard And you're just not gonna do that well and
[00:03:28] It's gonna seem like work at times Some examples for me are I've tried So many things. I mean so I started off day trading futures. It's always what I wanted to do out of college
[00:03:40] Obvious reasons I just was attracted to it but more leverage you don't need as much money It's the index it was just it drew me in for a lot of those reasons and so that's what I started with and
[00:03:50] Over time I thought okay, well, I want to scale up. I've made my money now I want to use stocks and I want to hold growth stocks for six months or a year because I'm always buying technology products early
[00:04:01] I need to take advantage of you know these getting in these companies and riding these stocks Or I can triple or quadruple my money over a few years or more on these big growth stocks And I feel like I'm not using that to my advantage
[00:04:14] But I'm just trading futures but I need to start to move it out So I had some success doing that but I never really had a system. I was just kind of like Artistic I'm early. I like the chart
[00:04:22] There are needs seem good. I don't think society has caught on yet and then whatever the you know the monetary Looseness of policy was good and all that kind of stuff But as time went on I I didn't float in that and then I got into cryptocurrency
[00:04:37] 2016 2015 and then I figured I was early in that so I was trading that for a few years And I totally dropped it then I got back into it again, and I dropped it all the while the futures
[00:04:46] Just kind of been in the background is like the main steady thing I do because that skill set I spent so much time developing and then the other stuff will just kind of pop up when it pops up
[00:04:57] Excuse me, so like you know it would if stocks got really beaten down Things looked better maybe it was time to look at stocks for a while like early 2020 and then So I've always kind of played that sort of a game but
[00:05:08] That was more like picking the right thing at the right time and the futures is more of like Business income steady understanding like have a process that I have a system or
[00:05:18] Just like it's kind of intuitive for me, but it's more I look I trade numbers and events a lot I know which days I'm probably gonna have a better shot in which days I'm not and I've been through a lot of cycles
[00:05:27] Things like that. I know how I'm gonna buy I'm gonna sell That's kind of my thing But then there's a side of me that wants to always be growing so I got into all this other stuff and It really kicked off hard in
[00:05:40] Maybe 14 and then again in 2017 2018 where I dove into stocks hard joined a bunch of groups Really started working at it and I I would think I would I guess the best way to describe my results are mixed I had really good pockets and bad pockets and Overall
[00:05:58] It was just a mixed and there's a lot of stress and a lot of me trading too big Which was stupid because I had made money elsewhere and I thought I could just throw around big size in the stocks because I should be able to
[00:06:08] You know, it should be the same and we've talked to the length in the past about a lot of the stuff It's different and I've learned a lot in stocks
[00:06:15] So I feel like I I have picked up things but my point of it all this is that it never really stoked me at the deep level that the future did and My last podcast was titled
[00:06:27] I forget but it was something like the life that shows you. I think it was it in the point of that podcast is that Sometimes things just choose you in a way and you equally choose them
[00:06:36] But it's almost like it just happens and you have the energy in that feel for it Like a lot of people have with a sport maybe at a young age And there's a difference between doing something out of a desire from money only or a desire to
[00:06:49] Boost up the characters Standing in society or with oneself Or just enjoying playing the game and solving the puzzle and then those other things are bonuses and benefits and I found myself In 2022
[00:07:04] Coming off of a really good run early into the year and we all know that the great run set up the bad runs usually And that's something with the be psychologically super aware of just it just happens even if it's a lag it tends to happen
[00:07:16] And I came into 2022 well aware of the cycle of the you know the asset bubble and things like that And I'm gonna get out of the way. I'm gonna be okay and I had bought a bunch of stocks With using an advisor outside of my
[00:07:28] Trading and I timed that really well after the pandemic and so that was doing really well And I thought well this seems really weird It's gone up you know so much and and I just kind of left it in there and that well
[00:07:39] Whatever, I'll just leave it in for five ten years. It doesn't matter. I got a great entry and Okay, so that that's going on and then Futures is really good at the beginning of 2022 because it's busy, but I'm not trading futures because I thought well
[00:07:52] I'm gonna work on this stock stuff and take a break So I'm not really taking advantage of the volatility in the futures So I have some crypto and some stock positions on
[00:07:59] I ended up leaving going to trip from with my family for a month and kind of just got sloppy and then started really coming back And I get back a lot of money that I was up and then at the same time I had my
[00:08:09] Stuff that I bought Outside with another person personally after the pandemic the stocks and they'll start coming back And I thought this is not good But I kind of just froze because a lot of it was out of my hands and I thought well
[00:08:21] It's gonna be a bigger picture and I got my wires crossed and then I started to Watch that money evaporate that I made and then it started to lead to
[00:08:30] Bad decision making and bad trading because it's a little different situation I've ever had and I'm aware of what's going on But I'm just kind of mentally stuck So I started going back in trading
[00:08:41] In the middle of the year, maybe at the end of the first quarter or least second quarter and I'm just not Excuse me here I'm gonna mindset of
[00:08:51] This is gonna be good for me. I'm familiar with the futures right now. This is a good market. I'm gonna trade bigger So I'm trading bigger and I'm
[00:08:59] Right on a lot of my ideas, but I'm trading so big that I keep getting bumped out and watching it work So I'm getting more and more frustrated and then eventually I took a really big swing
[00:09:07] Waiter in the year a couple times and I had a podcast about that right just blew myself and really blew myself up bad Worst I've ever done in my career and I'm just kind of detailing to you how that happened
[00:09:18] I'm thinking process behind it. Of course, it's not shouldn't happen not acceptable I've been doing this for 20 years what the hell's going on all that's true But it was a swirling measure of all these things happening
[00:09:29] Some of them in my control some of them not ultimately they're all in my control But not read it my fingertips and it kind of all spiraled together and then I had two little kids at home
[00:09:39] So I'm you know having a busy life outside of it and I just got stressed out and had a lot of anxiousness around it And I just felt like I got really off my game mentally
[00:09:52] And then I had to take a couple like a month and a half or so off and out October after that loss and In the meantime all my stuff. I was holding my trading stuff. I got not up with the longer term stuff
[00:10:02] Just got worse and worse and worse And we all know what's going on with that and I felt like I just didn't manage that well And I just mentally wasn't in the spot
[00:10:11] So this has been like a tough thing for me of making the money trading and then figuring out how to manage it outside Longer term which is like wealth management that everyone deals with and that's totally different game than trading
[00:10:22] So now I'm learning to do that better and it's not really something that I I may have read Obviously aware of all the landscape and things but my point is is that when you're trying to do different timeframes like that Under one person it's kind of like
[00:10:37] Go play the game score 30 points then come back home look at the roster make some trades and then decide if you're gonna Move the team do a different city. You know what I mean? You're you're wearing the hats of the general The foot soldier and the lieutenant
[00:10:51] In the same person and that's what happens when you're doing all these timeframes It's really difficult and I started to just misfire on all of them because I was getting My wires crossed basically. It's just it's too hard emotionally for me and
[00:11:04] So that I had a pretty stressful Difficult year Because a lot of it was self induced because of that and I look at my results and they there's the first year that I hadn't had a losing year
[00:11:15] And I had a really bad year this year and it was a shocker for me and I look at I said well Do I not know how to trade anymore like well no? I just is the emotional positional Psychological wipe out I had just a swirling
[00:11:29] bunch of stuff that happened and my actual trading didn't even necessarily get tested that much because I was so Kind of caught up in this that didn't really put my hat on and do my job and My calling or whatever you want to call it and
[00:11:43] I've started off at the end of 2022 Late October going back to that and immediately started doing well and Clean up you know the it's gonna take me a while like cleanup the mess I made but
[00:11:56] Started clean up the mess a little bit and then when I looked at Kind of my state and what was going on? I was like okay, well This feels good to come back and do this and
[00:12:07] There is really never any problems. I think I just moved out in a little bit more of a rural area And I got socially isolated versus one I wasn't Chicago
[00:12:16] And I've now connected back up with with Brent a lot more and he and I have spent a lot of time together Trading and talking so we have similar styles and we're working on some new stuff some
[00:12:25] Kind of like a hybrid manual system type thing of 10 and see if we know it's in the market Which is new for us and we're also trading and then I'm still gonna do the stock stuff that I put so much effort into
[00:12:35] But I'm gonna do it smaller and I'm gonna do it on the side It's gonna be like a fourth of the size and the impact and I was making it four times the size for a while
[00:12:43] Which is crazy and that's not a very responsible way. It's always been a little bit of a fault of mine Is I go in hard sometimes with stuff and over all of my career. It's worked
[00:12:51] But when you're starting something new it's not this matters thing and that's a that's a lesson that got pounded home pretty good So now going to 2023. I feel really good. I feel like I was just Rate over the coals spiritually
[00:13:07] Physically psychologically emotionally all of it and really went down and probed the bottoms of feeling pretty low and It's just I think a lot of people went through it in their own way but for me it was just the my own circumstances and this was kind of
[00:13:22] This was buddying since 2016 and in a way and I'm gonna share two low points in my career and two of the things that Led to them so I was in a very low point in 2016 about nine months of feeling pretty depressed
[00:13:36] I would say like hard to get out of bed and it was because I decided like this future thing is great But I've been doing this so long. What else can I do like how can I grow and expand and scale bigger and
[00:13:46] Always looking ahead and then I started to get in in my head that Well, you know, what do you really providing to society by doing this all day? And I got that nonsense in my head listening to other people or whatever which is total nonsense because
[00:14:01] Having any job What do you do what you do with your life and what you do with your money is is different than Your work that you do. I mean you could be a doctor because your dad is a doctor and be a detriment to society
[00:14:11] To make a point like that it doesn't matter what you're doing it matters how you're living and It doesn't really matter anyway everyone's personal choice So that's just flawed thinking but the reason I bring that up is because it led me to very poor trading
[00:14:24] Because when you're conflicted like that you do not do well So that led me to some really poor results and I shook that off and then Going back into 2022 2021 the thinking was different but also conflicting it was like okay
[00:14:37] Well, you got this thing that you're good at but let's move to something else. Let's scale and grow again And let's get into these stocks and I got caught you know at the turn of the cycle like pushing hard And all these different things and That again was
[00:14:52] I feel like my ego or my character whatever we want to call it it was the it was the characters desire to Grow and expand and push and it was almost like pushing for the sake of pushing
[00:15:03] Versus that natural curiosity that playfulness the love for the game you know It mean there's a difference between that that kind of You get that inspired action and that kind of that forced action Building for the sake of building roads to nowhere or whatever maybe that's a bad
[00:15:24] Sentence about it, but you get what I'm saying and That doesn't end well and it didn't end well for me It's going against and it's always like a little pit my stomach when I was doing it and you got to pay attention to that emotional stuff about
[00:15:35] A pit in your stomach or any kind of fear or any time there's a twinge of fear or an easyness You're not doing the right thing are you're not gonna repeat that a hundred times and have success
[00:15:45] So I've really learned to listen to that emotional system because that's that's your that's your guide That lets you know where you're standing and you can't go against that Yeah, you're gonna be a little nervous when it's busy here whatever, but you know a little bit is okay
[00:15:57] But I think we know the difference between you could be like in a relationship with somebody and You know just feels right or it doesn't feel quite right even when it should and like those are signs and you're trading Offers you the same signs
[00:16:07] You're in the people you meet offer those signs and the strategies you're in or off of those signs There's like an excitement even when you're losing because you know
[00:16:14] This is gonna be good for you and you you want to work on it on the weekend and you're tirelessly after it And those are signs that you're on the right path and So that all that stuff
[00:16:25] Forcing for the sake of forcing I think it's what led me to the downfall and I'm on the the better path now and I'm kind of back into You know in a weird way. I'm back into what I was always doing
[00:16:36] But I'm doing it from a very different level I'm able to I'm working on something that's really gonna expand me and and push things to a lot bigger level And I've also had my entire kind of my alignment with myself and the other stuff
[00:16:48] I've done I'm still gonna do I'm just gonna be smaller so it kind of had a ending or a resolution that I didn't expect in a different way Which you know often happens So back to the beginning of this podcast. I was talking about
[00:17:02] People want to how do you buy how do you sell and then I'm talking about all this all this stuff personality Spirits little stuff your character growing all that stuff and so what does that relate? Well, I think once you lock in on
[00:17:15] What drives you and some people that have emailed me know that they know this is what I like This is what I'm good at and then you start fine tuning that and you get stronger and you connect with others who are good at it
[00:17:25] And you really take off and you grow as a group and I think you can really grow as a group And you can learn from people who enter an exit better than you but And you can be friendly with any of them right have relationships
[00:17:34] But if I'm talking to a growth stock trader and I'm looking to improve my future straighting We're probably not gonna have a lot of help for each other even though we have commonalities on the business
[00:17:44] It's there's a lot of nuances and micro things that are going to be very different So I think it's important for you to just keep putting out the intention to seek those kinds of things
[00:17:53] And those kind of people in your life that line up with what you're gonna do So that's kind of your job to figure out what your art is and then from there You connect and learn with others. So that's the biggest message I want to push forward
[00:18:04] I think that's timeless and it happens with every part of life and it's not just trading and Yeah, so I'm feeling good and excited as as excited as I've been a long time ready to get back in this year and Hopefully everybody else is too