Podcast appearances and mentions of allen i

This is part 2 of my interview with John S Pennington Jr.  Make sure to listen to Part 1 first. Allen   It seems like I mean, because all the stuff you're mentioning, you know, Ray Dalio in his books, he talks about it too, you know, like, how does one Empire take over from another one? And it's because of the the currency, it's because of you know, and he's been talking about it for a while that there's a collision course coming. And everybody's afraid of it. You know, I mean, I'm even afraid of it. Because if we go to war in 10 years from now, you know, I have two boys that are 13 and 11, they're probably going to be drafted because everybody in the United States is overweight, and they can't fight it. So there's got to be some, right? There's gonna be some serious problem with the Army not having enough people. So my kids are gonna be fighting in a war. I don't want them fighting in and like, everybody's freaking out about it. And like you said, you know, China, they brokered the deal. They're making friends in the Middle East. They're making friends in Africa. They're giving loans like you said, US gave loans to everybody. They gave loans in trillions of dollars, not even billions, but I think it was trillions of worth of loans to build infrastructure in Africa that is then maintained owned and run by Chinese. It's not run by the Africans, the Chinese are in charge of it, the Silk Road Project that they built those highways all the way from China all the way to the, you know, the Mediterranean. I mean, yeah, they've been doing it crazy. And so it seems like everything that you're saying it lines up. And it's like, now that we see John   last year in the last year and a half, while the last few months, India has stopped on some level, not all the way stopped buying Russian oil. They just read some reports this last month that they have, they have curbed their Russian oil purchases. Really. Okay. Now, I don't know exactly why. But I do know, there's tons of companies that have moved from China, to South Korea, Thailand, and India. And I believe India is now choosing Wait a minute, we want to be in good graces with the United States because that's where we're going to suck up all those jobs on China. They're going to come to India. Right. And I think India's Modi, President Modi over there is making a strategic move to go with you know, the US dollar and to do that he's got to appease the the United States by saying you know what, Russia, we even though your oil is cheaper, doesn't matter. We're gonna go with US dollar purchases for oil. That Allen   could be because China is also having territorial disputes now with India over certain areas. It's funny because we have a an oil Options program where we train, we do coaching on oil options, and we you could see it in the news play out when Russia was putting all their tanks on the border of Ukraine, you know, everybody knew it, they're coming in, they're going to invade and everybody was like, when is it gonna happen? When is it gonna happen? I told her, I'll tell all my traders it's like, you know, just wait. It's not going to happen until the Olympics are open. Olympics are over because the Olympics are in China is like they have the closing ceremonies, like four hours later, boom, there's an invasion. It's like, okay, now we can play it now. It's, you know, it's, yeah, he was insane. So now you said, now I'm trying to figure out like, okay, alright, how can I make money off of this? Right. So it's like you said that Russia and China are still buying gold. So is that? Is that an investment that's going to continue to ramp up because I think gold is at all time highs right now? John   Yeah, it's all time high. Silver is kind of trying to get up there. But Silver's having a tough time. So let's go to Okay, let's go to the summer of 2020. All right, summer 2020. The SEC, which is part of the team, you have the team, you know, US dollar, the SEC sues JP Morgan. What are they suing him for? They're suing him for manipulating the precious metals market for nine years. Silver gold, okay. And they lose, JPMorgan loses and they're fined almost a billion dollars a billion dollar fine for nine years and mutilation the SEC. Okay. The point is, JP Morgan figured out how to manipulate and control a market that's 30 times bigger than Bitcoin. Gold and silver and gold for nine years. And they finally SEC found out about it pseudonym wins, finds you billion dollars, but guess what, no one that I know of went to jail. Allen   I mean, it wasn't that big in the news, they get headlines, John   kind of kept quiet, right. So millions of people that buy and sell silver and gold were fleeced out of how know how many much money but no one goes to jail. But you just find they probably made 20 billion but they're only find a billion it was it was 930 million, but I rounded a billion because we talked about a billion seconds earlier. Right? Okay, so nine 30 million, but close to a billion dollars. All right. So my theory in my book that I explain is you have precious metals market that have been manipulated through using futures and all kinds of different manipulations. And a year from there, now you're in summer of 2021. Bitcoin is trading around $31,000. This is July. Okay. So August, September, October, November, four months later, Bitcoin hits all time high $69,000. My theory is that the Federal Reserve, US government viewed Bitcoin as a competitor possible to the US dollar. And so they took the playbook that they learned from JP Morgan, and I think they had JP Morgan personnel help them do it right. Clandestine to control try to control Bitcoin. And that's why it went from 31,000 to 16,000 in a four, three and a half month period of time. So November it hits $69,000. And so how are the way that you control Bitcoin? Well, one JP Morgan used a futures market. Okay, now what I'm about to tell you all these things that I'm gonna tell you happen in November 2021. Okay, one bitcoin hits all time high. Number two, the SEC approves a Bitcoin ETF not I first bought only four futures right and they denied grayscale the spot one Why would you approve one for futures and not one for spot doesn't make any sense. So that happened November also, also November and Allen   hold that for people who are listening to spot means the current price futures means prices in advance. So the actual the actual Bitcoin John   not a Hypothecation the actual non derivative, the actual Bitcoin, right? So the SEC says no you can't you can't operate, we're not gonna allow you to operate a ETF that actually buys Bitcoin, we're only going to allow this other company, an ETF that actually buys futures on contracts, right just contracts, which is the what the way JP Morgan was one of the ways they were able to manipulate the silver and gold market for nine years. Okay, that's the third thing that happened in November, the SEC extends their lawsuit against a ripple XRP coin. Why XRP from the nanosecond XRP was invented. Its one goal was what to do to circumvent the SWIFT system, which would decrease the demand for US dollars. So the SEC extends the EC the lawsuit for no apparent reason. And they just kind of lost it. They lost the SEC last last summer, and then they appealed. So they're this lawsuit still going on against XRP? Okay, a former thing that happened in this month, in November, Hillary Clinton came out and said, Bitcoin could damage the US dollars, reserve world currency. Now, again, back to probabilities and predictions, you can say she just went to a microphone and just talking. That's you can believe that, or what's the is that a probability high probability? Or is the probability that she had been privy to previous meetings months earlier, that the Federal Reserve was going to try to pinch Bitcoin control, they don't want to kill it, they just want to control it. And so she got in front of microphone, which she loves to do to tell all her memes. Hey, listen to me, I always know the truth. I always give you the truth. Guess what the Bitcoin could take over the US currency, which is our number one product and why so he's she's sending a coded message, maybe? Maybe not. But the probability, I think the probability is high that she had some information that the government was using a clandestine approach to try to control Bitcoin, Allen   because she was a congresswoman and she was sitting on committees and all that, yes, yes. John   One other way you can control a traded commodity or traded stock or whatever or bitcoin is if you can get 45 to 60 days of trading volume, meaning if if bitcoin trades 100 coins a day, you would need 4500 coins. If it trades 1000 coins a day, you would need 45,000 coins are 60,000 coins. This is what how you do it. So let's just say hypothetically, that from July 2021 to November 2021, the Federal Reserve had to obtain 45 days of trading bonds 66 days trading bond that means they have to buy bitcoin. They're buying Bitcoin buying Bitcoin buying Bitcoin buying Bitcoin buying Bitcoin, that means the price is going up, up, up, up up. Once they have 45 or six days of trading volume, they take their 45 Day Trading bond, and they stick it at six $9,000. And they put it there for sale, all this at a limit price 60,000 or so we start buying you buy I buy we're buying. And then we keep hitting 69 69,006 96 Night Out signal, there's a ceiling, there's a price ceiling, the ceiling, and we can see it and we go Wait, there's a big seller at 16,000 or so mean, you start selling. So we start selling everyone starts selling and it goes down to 68,000. Guess who's buying at 60,000 The Federal Reserve, they're replenishing their 60 day supply or 45 day supply of trading volume. So that mean you go Wait, there's a buyer at 68,000 and we start buying again. And it goes to 68,000. They don't let it go to 69 because that would be a bullish chart, right? They can have a they can have a higher high. They can have a lower high and they put their 45 day trading volume boom right there as 68,800 and they start selling and same thing happens. We sell and it goes down. That's one way you can control a market right now. So lately as we know, Bitcoin has hit a new all time high. Yeah. And so maybe maybe what happened was, this is there's another hypothesis. Maybe they realized they alone couldn't do it. Okay. So last summer, the SEC basically told 11 companies Listen, we're going to approve 11 companies all at the same time to try A Bitcoin spot and ETF spot so they approved 11 ETFs to trade Bitcoin spot. Now, what I think happened in October, Bitcoin was trading 31,000 27,000 31,000 31,000 27,000 27,000 If Gessner of the head of the SEC told them Hey, guess what we're going to do? In a few months we're going to let you guys start trading Bitcoin what you guys should do is buy a Bitcoin to control the market. So Bitcoin went from 27,000 to sweat 72,000 Something like that. Right? Yeah, today, but I'm saying I'm saying on January I think was January 11. Okay, all the Bitcoin went up 11 Bitcoin went alive, right? Okay. Now think about what just happened on January 11. There are record number of buying a Bitcoin record number. And in 11, or 12 days, it goes from, from where it's at down to $39,000. Why there's a record number of buyers, it should go up. But wait, if all the ETFs bought at 31,000, knee ETFs, bought at 32,000 35,000 42,000 If they were buying it, so that when the ETFs went live, they could sell it to you. That's why the price went down. There's no other there's no other explanation. Because if they had bought zero, when a record numbers came in to buy bitcoin, they would have to take your US dollars and go buy Bitcoin that would go up, the way it goes down. It went down like 18% in 11 days with record inflows, that means that I believe BlackRock and all the other 1011 ETFs are in on the game of manipulation of Bitcoin, right? And so this is back to my theory that no matter what it is, if it's the yuan, or if it's gold, if it's Bitcoin, and it and it has the potential of damaging the number one product of all time, the Federal Reserve, the US Navy, the president, the SEC, the IRS, even the CIA, that's their number one job. Now, a lot of times Congress forgets their number one job. Allen   I was gonna ask you about that, too. I was like Congress get the memo. Because yeah, John   they don't get it. But but but people criticize. Powell had the federal they criticized him all the time. I don't. I think he's doing a great job. Listen, if we went back in time, okay, we'll go back in time, Alan, we're going back to 30 years, okay. 30 years ago, I said, you're going to be the head of the Federal Reserve. Okay. And I'm going to be Congress, right? Your job is to protect and promote the US dollar. And all I do that Congress, I spend trillion, I spend a trillion, I spend a trillion, I spend a trillion, I spend a trillion. And I say to you, hey, figure out how to pay for it. Right? So you can criticize Powell all you want. But man, he's still we still are 58% of the world reserve currency. And the Congress doesn't stop spending. It's like a couple. You have a couple one spouse spends tons of money on credit cards, and they turn the other spouse pay for it. Right. And Powell must be just for it. If I was I'd be screwed top my lungs, would you guys stop spending? All you got to stop because I'm doing my best to keep this number one product afloat around the world. I'm doing my best. Right. And so I don't criticize Powell. I've actually under the circumstances, I think he's doing a fantastic job, even though people call him stupid. People don't like what he says. But I don't listen to what he says. I just listen when he does. And I and I realize he has a partner called the US Congress. Who is there just out of control spending? Yep. And he's done it. He's doing a great job by keeping our agreements accepted around the world. Yeah, Allen   I agree with you. I mean, you know, after COVID, and all that money that was spent on everything, you know, to maintain it to not even go into recession to have Yeah, inflation was a it could have been a lot worse than who it was. Without all that spending all that money that's just unaccounted for. So John   I think right now, the Congress is spending about $1 trillion every four or five months, six months. That's, that's, that's what's going on right now. That's just amazing. So back to your question. As you can tell, I have long answers. Gold, silver, Bitcoin real estate, okay. If you keep spending a trillion dollars every six months, additionally, items are going to go up in price. Gold, silver, Bitcoin, eventually, it's just going to bubble up you. It's kind of you almost can't stop it. Right. wheat, wheat soybeans, I mean, real estate farmland, if you just give a trillion dollars every six months, and how long can the us do this? I bet they can. You know, look, look the US Dollar might be the greatest Ponzi scheme ever invented a headline, it might it might be, but this is the thing. There is no mathematical way to taper a large Ponzi scheme, it can't be done. So therefore, the only way to play it all out is to play it all the way through. Okay, just to play it out, right? Let's don't get mad at me. I didn't create this. I was born into this system. Right? I am pro US dollar. Why? Because I'm in the Ponzi scheme, because all of our money is in US dollars. I don't want to wake up tomorrow morning and have the US dollar at zero because I will be broke. My parents will be living in my basement. My kids who live in my basement way my my house would be for sale because I'd be broke because everything I have almost is in US dollars. Right? Bait US dollar based, right? I have some bitcoin I have some gold. I have some real estate, right. But it's US dollar base. You too. We're we're in the Ponzi scheme. Okay. So therefore I think with the US think about the US Navy, think about the powers think about everything they could they could for what proliferate this for another 20 3050 years. They are very powerful. The Federal Reserve is the most powerful entity, along with the US Navy, along with the IRS along with the SEC along with the President. They are incredible team. And look, look, you know, China, only having 2.7% 2.7% of the world reserve currency, and we have 58% and the Euros 20%. And they got it they got a big mountain to climb, right, and they can climb it, but it's gonna take a long time. But the problem is this. Again, China is now printing more money than we're printing. Because they're in a they're in a 1929 depression right now. It's bad over there. Unemployment is youth unemployment, ages 18 to 30. is so bad China stopped reporting it. That's how bad it is. They don't report it anymore. Yeah, the estimates they have, if you are a college aged kid in China, college, graduated kid in China, and you're in a big city. This is 18 to 30 years old, okay? You graduate in college, and you have a job. Your average salary is $700 to $950 a month. Wow. That's the average salary right now in a big city. In China. They're in a 1929 depression. So they're not going to fix this in one to six months. It's going to be years to fix this in China. And the US is, I believe, putting pencils on them trying to even control them because they're sending a message to Saudi Arabia. Anyway, so this is people go man, John, you really got a lot of information, like you just said, you have all this information. And you put together like a puzzle, right? And it's conspiracy theory. And I go, it might be I might be totally wrong. But it just keeps fitting together. The more I put more puzzle pieces together, they keep fitting. Yeah. So Allen   I have another question. And this is about a different commodity. Now, we talked a little bit of we talked about how the Fed control the prices of Bitcoin, how the Fed is controlled, trying to try and try to trying to or and how it's handling other issues. What do you think? Do you or do you think that they're doing something similar to oil prices? Because it's not oil? Yeah. It's not directly tied to the dollar, but it is tied to the economy. And yeah, John   yeah. So I remember when President Biden took office is first thing he did was he turned off the Keystone pipeline to Canada. And I was like, why? Allen   environmental reasons, right? Why John   would you do that? And I put the US dollar in, wait a minute, we have to buy some oil from Saudi Arabia. So we, as a gesture to Saudi Arabia, to keep oil prices up, we turn off the Keystone pipeline to reduce oil here in North America, so that Saudi Arabia can have a better something like that. And they you know, there is some type of manipulation a little bit around the world, but oil is huge, right? Everyone's got a little bit oil and some kinds of we have a lot of oil for some reason. Saudi Arabia has a lot. Russia has a lot. And so but I would say to you that oil is a commodity base is every once in a while manipulated, but you know, turning off spigots reduces supply, which increases so but what's happened is for the oil trader, your old traders the next 510 years, maybe five years, everyone has gone green, and they're making solar panels and windmills in Germany, right. And they've been the last, you know, since that big huge problem that we had in that tidal wave in Japan. With that nuclear reactor over there, that nuclear power plant, everyone went away from nuclear. So we went through this last winter I believe there were power outages or power Our reductions in Germany, Canada, there are places that just had was worried about their power being right. And so what happens is, so many people have swung over to the green agenda, which is a good thing. They've left the agenda in buying Chevron and Exxon Mobil, and they've left they've left, and so at Chevron, Exxon Mobil have stopped or reduced their exploration because they don't have as much money. Right? Okay. And therefore, that's going to keep oil prices higher. So what the green initiative has done is encouraged oil prices to be higher, because they've reduced the amount of money that can explore and extract more oil. So they've reduced it, therefore there's less of it, therefore, oil will be higher in the future. And I know, Saudis have turned down their spigot lately, you know, for the oil. And so I know that's happening. But oil is a long term play, mostly for me. It's a long term play, but I just kind of try to find the trend. And it seems like, to me the trend is up in general, because of what I just explained. Makes Allen   sense. Yeah. I mean, I tell people that you know, back in the day, the rich man used to have an engine, like a car with an engine and everybody else was on horses, right? Yeah. And then it became commonplace. And then it became the rich man had the electric vehicle, because he had to be rich to have a and then now it's gonna flip and it's gonna be like, Okay, now the rich guy has the combustible engine, and everybody else is driving the electric vehicles. And the really John   rich man has a horse. He hasn't a stable. You guys once a month. You know what I mean? Exactly. Back to the horse. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Allen   Cool. All right. So I do want to wrap it up with going into the future now, because we you know, you mentioned conspiracy theory. And now this one is, I see it coming. But the US digital dollar. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So let's do I want to hear on stage. John   You've heard me on stage on stage, I show a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was a bodybuilder. And I show when he's an actor, and I show him as a governor. Arnold Schwarzenegger reinvented himself three times. The US dollar has to reinvent itself. It was gold in 1933. It was the Bretton Woods, you know, we will back the the French franc in 1944. In 1971, it turned into the Fiat dollar of the petro dollar. And now it's going to go into the digital age. And it's coming, I just don't know how long it's going to take for them to manufacture a crisis, that we will accept the US digital dollar, they have to have a crisis versus except for right now. No one wants to accept it. Because once you accept it, everyone knows what you spent your money on. Right? Because right Allen   now, I mean, you have credit cards, and you have wire transfers. And so like, what's the point? Why do we need that right? Well, John   but I can pay cash for something, and you don't know what I bought. Right? Right. And so but but once the digital dollar hits, and it's mandatory, everything, you know, there won't be there won't be I can imagine there won't be a tax return anymore. If you buy something at Walmart, the nanosecond, you buy it, a few pennies will go to Washington DC, every single day. And if you're buying Chinese goods, there's 17 pennies that go to Washington DC. If you're buying US goods, there's four pennies go into wash DC every time you buy something. So if you if you transfer money from your phone to your kids, so they can buy lunch at school today, every time you transfer money, there's two pennies going to go. So there's no tax returns. Everyone knows or not everyone, the federal government would know everything you spend your money on, where you spend your money. And they might say Well, that would reduce drug trafficking, that will reduce illegal activities that reduce a lot of things because everything is tracked, there is no gold, there is no silver, there is no Bitcoin, we have to outlaw it. And it might be and I hypothecate In my book, let's go to May 2033. That's the 100th anniversary of the gold confiscation that people said no, that can never happen America Well, in 1933. In May, they confiscated all our gold. And in May 19 In May 2033, it might come to the point where for the good of the country, the country is in so big of debt. If we could just collect all of our taxes from our citizens, we could pay our bills, but we can't because too many people are using gold. Too many people are using Bitcoin too many people are using cash and we can't track that and and that's how people cheat on their taxes. But if we switched to the US digital dollar, no one can cheat on their taxes. When they buy a boat we know it when they pay for lunch, we know it right and we collect our taxes, therefore as to be patriotic. Everyone must have if you own a business you no longer accept cash You know, alongside Bitcoin, you know, because we have to sugar up the US economy, and it's patriotic. And this is this hypothetical, but may 9, may 2033, just 100 year anniversary, it could happen if they can create, and I'm saying create a crisis in the American mind, where we're gonna go bankrupt United States unless we switch the US digital dollar. And that's the savior now. So something like that that's a hypothetical. You might it might be, it might be a cyber attack. You know, I don't know if you remember this, this, I think 2012 Maybe you remember a little country called Cyprus. Allen   I know of a John   little country called Cyprus, right. on a Monday morning, everyone woke up went to their bank. And the rich people who had I don't know the number, but it was over 100,000 are over 500,000 in their bank, half of their money was gone. The country confiscated half of the savings accounts of our all the rich people, because the country tried to go to the EU over the weekend, because they were bankrupt. and the EU turned them down. They said, Look, we'll give us a loan. They said no. So the EU turned them down. So the only thing that country could do was over the weekend, confiscate half of the money in all the bank and this is digital, this digital dollars, your digital, you can do this. They confiscated half of the money. And they said basically to the people, aren't you glad we did that? Because we wouldn't have done that. Your your your country, you'd have been worth zero. All your money would have been the zero we confiscated half of it, to pay for the government to keep us alive and open so that you could have half your money. This happened in Cyprus. Wow. So, you know, we when you say when you use the word, US government cannot. That's the wrong word. No, there's no Federal Reserve cannot that no, you should use shouldn't, wouldn't. But couldn't isn't a right word. Because in a digital age, everything is possible. They can change laws they can it's when people are desperate. And Money makes people desperate. Or lack of money makes people desperate. Things just happen that you thought could never happen. And I'm sure those people in Cyprus thought it could never happen. But on a Monday morning, it happened. Oh, yeah. She's, Allen   I mean, like you mentioned in the book, you talked about the Commerce Clause, right? And yeah, and I remember after 911, the government passed the Patriot Act, you know, it's a great, great name for a bill or a Patriot Act. Yeah. What does it mean? It means basically, if you look at it, they can take anybody off the street, pick you up, throw you in a hole, you have no representation. No, you can't talk to anybody for as long as they want as long as you are under suspicion. And it doesn't matter if you're a citizen or not. And it's like, okay, what happened to our liberties? What happened to the Constitution? Oh, it's not there anymore. Sorry. You know, so yeah, you're right. They can do basically anything. John   The word the word cannot, should not be in your sentence with the US government shouldn't wouldn't Yes, but cannot or couldn't. Don't don't say those words together with the US government. As Allen   you remember, when Modi took over in India, they had supposedly they had problems with, you know, the mafia and illegal gambling and illegal monies and all that. So he made everybody turn in their higher dollar notes. Yes, exactly. It's like everybody to come into cash and other notes and the people that bring it in, we'll baskets and stuff. So it John   he actually it was pretty thought out because he said the poor people need a $1 $5 bill or $10. Bill, the rich people, you don't need hundreds and $500 bills, you can all you do that electronically. You want to transfer large amounts of money, it's electronic. You want to transfer for tips, or you want to pay your guy to shine your shoes or mow your lawn. You still have small bills, because look, it's really hard to transfer $1,000,000,001 bills, because it would take up a whole truckload right? So, so that was Modi's compromise to keep the poor having money in their pocket, and to hinder the rich, or the drug dealers or whoever, for moving large amounts of money. It all has to be electronically because electronically, we can track it. Allen   Yeah, so I mean, that could be something that they do here. You know, let's take away the $100. Bill. We used to have $1,000 bills, right, I think yeah, back in the day. Yeah. A John   long time ago. Yeah. Yeah. Allen   So okay, so you're saying that in nine years is 2023 or 33 2033. And you also say in your book that every 10 years, there is some kind of financial catastrophe or collapse or John   if you think about it since 1971, okay, we won the fiat currency system. Okay. Okay, and this is roughly nine or 10 years, okay? The economy goes, boom, right? And there's opportunity. So 1971 Give me a few years for the fiat currency to get going. Okay, the petro dollar. In 1988, there was a stock market crash. And soon after that, the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union crushed. And I took advantage of that I started selling us Levi's, the Eastern Bloc country, okay. 1999 comes around the.com bubble, right. And I missed it. There was a huge opportunity in internet. I knew it was going on, I just couldn't figure out how to make money at it. And it went, boom, and I missed that opportunity. Okay, 99 2000. Then in 2008, nine ish, there was a great recession. And I took great advantage of I started a huge fund that eventually was managing a family of funds, the lost family funds, 2008, that eventually, in 2021, was managing $28 billion assets under management. And today manages like 47 billion. Okay. And then 2020, there was the pandemic, right. And then we launched other funds called, they were called opportunities on funds that had huge tax advantages that we launched funds in that. So about every 10 years or so, since the fiat currency of 1971, the petro dollar, every 10 years, you know, it goes, the economy just goes boom, and boom means there's opportunity. And so a lot of the funds that started in real estate funds that started 289, and 10 made a ton of money, you can still make a lot of money, real estate, but we made a ton of money, because the economy was just blanketed low and we could buy things so cheap in 2009 and 10. It was it was crazy. So Allen   I don't know. I mean, we might be close to that timeline, you know, but 10 years and 33. It's somewhere in there. Well, John   are 2029, you know, 29? Right in there, right in there. 20 930-228-2930. Right there. That's about 10 more years. That's the tenure since the last one ish, right? Yeah. Allen   Do you have anything on your antenna that you're noticing now that would go boom? John   Well, again, it might be the US digital dollar that goes into it might be an opportunity there. Because, you know, maybe this is this, this is way out there. But maybe Congress is spending and spending and spending and spending and spending for a lot of reasons. But one reason is to cause a crisis. Well, so that we could be forced to go to the digital dollar. Oh, my right. Yeah, that's just a crazy i That's i That's not my blood, because that's just a crazy theory. But because I can't think I cannot figure out why. What's the purpose of this? Like, I can't figure out why President Biden lets all these illegals coming off our southern border. Yeah, I don't I don't get I know there's a reason. But I don't really understand the reason I'm trying to figure it out. And I haven't figured that one out yet. And yet, I can't figure out why the US Congress can't just stop spending some money. It might just be there's no conspiracy, they just spin spin spin. But it might just there might be another underlying reason. They're trying to force it because they look to get us to go the US digital dollar, there has to be a cyber attack, there has to be some big crisis, something like in Cyprus, that would cause us to go, okay. I'm okay with that. Like right now, we have five and a quarter percentage rates, you know why we're okay with that, because we had 9% inflation. But if we had 1%, inflation, we would never accept a five and a quarter percentage rate. So there has to be some type of crisis to get people to do things they don't want to do. And we no one wants to go to the Digital's digital dollar. But you would in a situation, there's scenarios that you would you would switch Yeah. Allen   And at this point, there's no alternative. And the Fed, like you said, is making it that way. And that's their job to make sure there's no alternative. Oh my Well, John, I really appreciate your time we've gone over thank you so much for it. And again really fun, everybody it's dollars gold and Bitcoin available at Amazon, get your copy. And we've touched everything in here. There's more in here that that is also John   on audible.com If you'd like my voice, you can listen to me for six hours and because I recorded the whole thing and all the time so if you don't read books, you listen to books, you can continue to listen to Mike scratchy voice for six more hours. Allen   Thank you so much. I appreciate you and everything that you've shared with us. John   Thank you very much for having me.

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 will make another trillion and you Emil work 80 hours a week. Other people lie, cheat and steal. It's an insatiable demand for this product. And how did it get that way? And so to have insatiable demand, there's, I've outlined four ways in my book, one way is you tax your citizens in US dollars. So this year, I have to get us dollars to pay my taxes, I can't pay in cows, I can't pay in gold, I can't pay in Bitcoin. So that creates insatiable demand. Secondly, most countries around the world have to get us dollars to buy oil, because Saudi Arabia is the kingpin. Okay? That's it. That's the second way. A third way that you can attack a great is you create a worldwide Swift, bank to bank transfer system worldwide, where you transfer money back and forth. And it's a huge system, it's guaranteed, you know, bank to bank, and it's $1 based system. So if you want to transfer big large money from bank to bank worldwide, you have to have US dollars. And the fourth way to create insatiable demand is you can flood the world with low interest rate US dollar loans, that everyone has to pay you back for 30 years. So for 30 If you take one of these loans, for 30 years, you're gonna have to find us dollars to pay this loan back. Does that make sense? Now I'm going to stop there for questions. I got a few more things to say on that. But But do you want to any questions there Allen   that yeah, no, I'm totally with you. I mean, the SWIFT system is it's like basically, you know, you're forcing everybody to use your product, because you don't have a choice. I'm giving you money, and you have to use my system. And that's why, you know, when when they put all the sanctions on Russia a couple years ago, it was you know, supposedly, okay, we're gonna take you off the SWIFT system. Yeah. That was a mistake, big mistake. But it's like, oh, that was supposed to be the end of Russia as we know it.  John   But yeah, so I'm gonna get back to that in a minute. But that was definitely a mistake of the United States of America, because that hurt the glorification of their number one product, the US dollar, so let's go back to loans. Okay. Okay. All right. So the date is December 2018. Okay. The Federal Reserve says the economy is doing fantastic. Unemployment rate is low. You know, we're going to do next year in 2019. We're going to increase interest rates three times. Okay, great. Then less than 45 days later in December 2019, this is 45 days, they say, Oops, we made a mistake. We're not going to raise interest rates three times next year. We're going to lower interest rates three times next year. And I went, what just happened? I have an economics degree, right? Something huge just happened. I didn't know what it was. But I knew something big just happened. So I'm reading I got my antennas up trying to read everything I can. So March, a few months later, I read this report that says in Europe, there are $3 trillion $3 trillion of sovereign bonds, trading at negative interest rates. I have an economics degree. I've never read a book. I've never read a paragraph. I don't even know what a negative interest rate is. It's a bond that if you buy it, you're guaranteed mathematically to lose money. Why does that? Why would that even exist? Not in a couple billion, but 3 trillion? Why? That doesn't make any sense. Okay. And then a few months later in July, this is the summer 219, I read a new report. It's no, it's no, it's no longer 3 trillion, it's 14 trillion. What? There's $14 trillion. Okay, so then I think, okay, now I kind of know why the Federal Reserve lowered their interest rates almost to zero really fast. Because they're like, Listen, if you're going to borrow money around the world, you can borrow in Germany at zero. Or you can borrow US dollars at just a little above zero. So we're going to lower interest rates to compete, because we're trying to create insatiable demand for our number and product. And for the next three or four years, if you're just borrowing borrowing German and Spain dollars, right? That means you're not borrowing US dollars, right? And that's, that's not creating  in the future. So what did the Federal Reserve they lower interest rates, but that doesn't just do it, you have to actually go into the market. So think about what I'm about to say here. They lowered interest rates, plus the Federal Reserve went out, and they purchased bonds, $120 billion per month for over 30 months. Because when you buy bonds, buy bonds, buy bonds, buy bonds, buy bonds, the price of bonds goes up. And that means the yields go down. Right. So if every month I'm purchasing 100 billion $120 billion for the bonds, I'm keeping interest rates low, plus the Federal Reserve as interest rates low. So they keep it low for years and years and years, a few years. So that when you borrow money, you're least not borrowing someone else's money, you're borrowing our number one product, and that creates insatiable demand for their number one product. Does that make sense? Any questions? Yep. Yep. So my antennas again, back to your original question my antennas, how do I like this? My antennas are always looking for things that don't make sense. And then I try to read, how does it make sense? And when I keep putting the US dollar in the middle of things that don't make sense? It kind of makes sense. So I tell people, my book, I said, my book look, guys, ladies, I don't know if I'm right. I just I don't really run my life trying to predict the future because I don't think anyone can predict the future, right? I run my life on probabilities. And so I'm just saying the probability of me being right about the US dollar and being the number one product, Federal Reserve, and either US government and the Navy and whatever, I have a high probability of being correct, but I'm not I'm don't think I'm right. I might have a 20% probability I'm wrong. 80% that I'm right. If you don't agree with me that i Okay, fine. I agree. I might be 20% wrong, but just probability, right. So that's, that's where the essence of the book comes from. Allen   Right. Okay. Now, since you brought up the Fed, that was one of my other questions. It was in the book, you mentioned that, you know, the Fed is been out there talking a lot lately about oh, we want you know, our inflation rate to be 2%. We want unemployment to be a certain number, blah, blah, blah. But you're you've basically said that, that's what they're saying. But what they're doing is something opposite, and they actually wanted it to be much higher.  John   Yeah, so this is what happened a few years ago after the financial crisis. 2008 9, 10,  11 Okay. The world realize that the world is a lot more fragile than you think it is. So Germany, not in Germany, sorry, Russia and China started buying gold. And every year they bought more gold and we're going to 1013 they bought more gold 2014 They kept buying gold. And I was watching this going okay. You know it listen, if I if I ran China, I was president of China. I would not like the fact that I have to get us dollars to buy Oil, that. And so I'm not blaming China, I'm not blaming Russia, I'm just saying, I'm on this side of the negotiating table there on that side, I'm just explaining their side. So they might have got together and said, Listen, in the future, we think the US dollar is going to have some cracks in it. And if it ever has a big crack, we can introduce the Russian ruble and the Chinese yuan as alternative currencies. And therefore, then we can start buying oil in our own currency that they're planning in the future. I see US presidents are kind of like temporary employees. They're 40 years, Putin has been president for what 27-28 years, they'll probably be president for another 20 years. We don't know. Xi Jinping is usually I've said his name, right. He changed the Constitution, and allows him the option to be president for Life for life. Yeah, yeah. So these guys are long term strategist, our president has to get reelected. He's a temporary employee, so they have an advantage over us. Okay. So anyway, so then a few years back, China and Russia, say, you know, we should do let's start $1 called the BRICS dollar, we'll call it Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. And these countries will come together and have their own dollar called the BRICS dollar that is going to be backed by commodities. So if you have a barrel of oil, you get so many bricks dollars, if you have a bushel of wheat, you get so many bricks, if you have gold, you get so many bricks dollars, and they've been trying to launch this for years. Okay, so, so obviously, the Fed seeing this, and that's a competitor to the US dollar, and it's going to be a competitor to US dollar. So the Fed is strategically trying to move around to to make sure that doesn't happen. And that might explain why, you know, Putin, one of the reasons Putin took over Ukraine, Ukraine has a lot of oil and a lot of wheat. And he's like, the BRICS dollars going to be real in a couple of years. If I have all this, we know I get more brickstone That might be one of the reasons, okay. So. So the Fed trying to in this last year and a half just or two years, raising interest rates, the Fed to protect their number one product, and this is this theory. And again, I know your some of your listeners are gonna say, John, you're just you're being way too conspiracy. But when there's a lot of money on the table, a lot of crazy things happen because people coordinate a lot of things. Anyway, I think it's coordinate because the US dollar is the waterline in the table. So a few years back, China started to try to buy oil from Saudi Arabia using the yuan, because China is a big oil importer. Okay. And so far, I think we so far, I don't think Saudi Arabia has done it yet. But and not just to convince Saudi Arabia not to do it. The Fed i Okay, let's, let's just hypothecate the Fed wants to hurt China wants to lower their acceptance of the yuan around the world, and you want only accepted by 2.7% of world currency. So it's not that big a threat yet, but it could be in the future. Okay. So China does it to themselves. They have a big huge that in the last two years, they have a big, huge real estate collapse. They have a big huge employment collapse. Hundreds of companies have moved out of China to Germany have hundreds of companies from Germany, Japan and the United States have moved out of China. They've gone to India, they've gone to Thailand, they've gone to South Korea, all countries that purchase their oil in US dollars. China has been trying to purchase oil, not using US dollars. So we got to hurt that we have to hurt that country, because Okay, so how can I hurt that country? Well, one, China has said they're going to de dollarized the world. China said we're going to start selling our US Treasuries. Okay. Okay. So what we can do so let's just say, the Federal Reserve to make sure every time China sells US Treasuries, they lose a lot of money, because they bought US Treasuries back when bond prices were low. So let's just say if the Fed wanted to get interest rates to five and a half 6%. Okay, I thought it was gonna go six and a half, but it went to five and a quarter, five and a half. Okay. They can't tell you and me, Alan, hey, you a US citizens. We're just gonna raise interest rates to 2% because inflation is 2%. And we'd go Yeah, that's okay. That's okay. But if inflation is 2%, they could never convince us that they can raise to five and a half percent. That'd be egregious, right? But wait, if inflation is 9%, then you and I would accept 5% interest rates. Right, right. We don't like it, but we realize everyone has. Okay, so how do I get it? How do I get inflation to 9% when it's been almost zero for years and years and years and years and years? You print a lot of money. You see inflation come along, and it goes from zero to 2%. And you tell everyone with your mouth, on a microphone, it's transitory. It's just transfer Everyone calm down. Then a few months later, it goes to 3% inflation. Now, we're not going to move rates, we're going to keep rates low, at a quarter percent, we're not going to raise them because transitory it goes to 4%. And they let it run, it goes to five, it goes to six. And then they say, Well, maybe it's not transitory, maybe we need to raise interest rates, then it goes to seven, they started raising interest rates, and it goes to nine, and they're able to raise interest rates to five and a quarter percent, the fastest rate in history. And they lit they stopped, they stopped them there. Why? Because if they every time, they have interest rates sitting at five and five and a quarter percent, every time China goes to sell their US Treasuries, they get killed financially, it kills them. So my conspiracy theory is, hey, if the number one job of the Federal Reserve is to protect and promote the US dollar, they have ancillary jobs, low unemployment, high GDP, I get it, but their number one job, their baseline job is to predict or promote the US dollar, then, if they have a competitor to the US dollar, China coming around, we need to crush China's dollar. And right now, China prints more money than we do. Because they're huge depression right now, because of all the things that happened to him. And so they're selling all this, you know, US Treasuries, because they have to, because they don't want to because they're losing money on it. Why? Because they're trying to keep their economy afloat. Now, the Fed is sending a message to Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, aren't you so glad? That a few years back, you didn't start selling your oil in yuan? Because you would have billions of you want in your bank right now? And the yuan is tanking. Right. So people say now, five or six years ago, if you told me, I agreed China was going to take over the world, China was going to be a superpower with us now. I don't believe that anymore. Clearly. Okay. China has had 40 years of the fastest economy growth ever, right? No society has ever grown faster than China has last 40 years. And they're only 2.7% of the world reserve currency. So are you telling me if they have the same growth for next 40 years? They would be 7%? No, I'm saying. Allen   I have to interrupt this message. Because I am super excited. I haven't been this excited about something in trading since I first discovered trading options. Okay, it is that important. Now, look, this is a new strategy that I've discovered recently, that is just out there, kicking butt and taking names. I can't give you all the details here. But if you go to market power method.com and get all the information again, that's market power. method.com. Trust me, you want to know what this is. Now back to the show. John   And so when someone says we're going to replace the US dollar, I give them this example. And I love people in Arizona. I love Arizona, but I'm just gonna give this example. Okay, it's not it's just a hypothetical. Let's just say you and me agree that all the water in Arizona is bad. Okay, we both agree. What do you want to do? Well, we want to, we want to, we want to replace it with Gatorade, okay, so we searched the whole world for all the Gatorade in the world, and we bring it back. And it's not even a drop. We can't even, we can't even begin. So if you want to replace the US dollar, you have to replace it with something, you just can't not have it anymore. You have to replace the water with something. And there's not enough of anything that none of you want in the world, none of euros. There's nothing in the world big enough to replace the US dollar for years and decades to come. So the US dollar in the dominance is going to be around for a long time. Now the BRICS dollar, they're going to chip away at it right. So China, you know, is a net importer of oil, and they're a net importer of food. The United States is a net exporter of oil and an exporter of food. We have a geographic advantage over most countries on the planet. We can have a bad precedent, bad precedent, bad precedent, bad precedent, bad precedent. And we still kind of survived because we have things that other people don't have. The Mississippi Valley is two thirds of the country. Although arbitrary rivers, you can it's a slow moving river, you can put grain on that barge and floated anywhere. A lot of countries don't have that. And we produce a lot of oil and a lot of everything. And we just have a kind of an advantage over most countries. So China has got to, you know, build pipelines as quick as possible to Russia. They have to solve their oil problem, because without solving their oil problem, supply they You can't attack Taiwan. Because our aircraft carriers, our Navy could cut off most of their oil within 120 days. It all comes mostly over the water until China gets that pipeline. Right. And they know it. They know that they are. They're not ready. They have an Achilles heel. So let me give you a crazy thing that happened in in the news just last year. I'm reading the report watching the news. China brokered a peace deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Why? Doesn't even make any sense. But if you put the US dollar in there, it makes sense. So China is trying to de dollarized the world. They go to Iran, they say Iran, listen, who do you hate more? United States or Saudi Arabia? Oh, we hate the United States. Okay, fine. Okay, listen, if you want to really, really hurt United States, we have to de dollarized the world. Okay, how we're gonna do that? Well, one way is you can stop attacking Saudi Arabia, because the United States has an aircraft carrier off the side of Saudi Arabia to protect Saudi Arabia against you. And Saudi Arabia needs the aircraft carrier, and the F 30. Fives on their bases and 5000 troops in Saudi Arabia, they need all that. That's why they can't sell oil from Saudi Arabia to China and the yuan, because they have to keep being in good graces with the United States. Because Saudi needs that military protection. But Iran if you stop attacking Saudi Arabia, maybe this year, next year, Saudi Arabia goes You don't want we don't need military protection anymore. So we're going to start selling our oil to shock to China in the yuan. And then the the domino effect, the US dollar comes crumbling down over years, and the United States power around the world gets demolished. So again, back to my probabilities. The Alan, I don't know if I'm wrong. It just seems when I put the US dollar in crazy situations. It makes total sense. Now, a few months later, President Biden realized he was losing the battle in the the, you know, the whatever battle you want to call it in the Middle East. What does he do? He takes his number one product, the US dollar, and he sends I think about $6 billion to Iran in humanitarian aid. That's his number. I'm proud to say I ran I ran And we're still your friends. If you're gonna trade around the world, here's some US dollars to trade in. Right, Allen   right. Yeah, that came out of nowhere. It was like, what, what's going on? John   Why, why? Why? Why do you do that? Because a few months earlier, there was a peace agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Why? Because they want to de dollarized. They want to convince Saudi Arabia. They don't need us, Doc, but but the Fed is now still sending. There's two messages, right. And so about a year ago, year and a half ago, President Biden flew to Saudi Arabia. The thing about this, President states flies to see the prince. The prince didn't come to see him. He went to see the prince. Now we don't know what he said. Allen   And everybody made fun of him. Everybody, ever they funded media was all I got. I John   gotta give President Biden kudos. Right? Because I think I know what he was doing. I think he was over there convincing the Saudi prince not to sell oil in anything but US dollars. He creates because Allen   they had made an announcement. Before that happened. They had made an announcement that we're going to we're going to switch and we're going to do both or something that I remember something's right. Yeah. John   So if you ever take a negotiation class, okay. There is there's a lot of different ways to negotiate. But one of the ways one of the tricks in negotiation is you ask a question to your opponent, and then you let them try to answer it. So we I don't know what I don't know what President Biden said. But he could have said this. Okay. Mr. Saudi prince, if you start selling your oil to China in the yuan, all right. How am I as the US President going to convince the US Congress to pay for aircraft carriers off your coast 5000 troops on your soil, sell you f 30 fives, and then also give you satellite information from our secret satellites? How are we going to pay for all that? If you start selling your oil in you want then what you do in negotiation? You zip your lip, you shut up, you say no more and you sit back. And you you allow your opponent to try to very uncomfortably answer your question. And they sit there and go. Well, you can no you could you Oh, you know what? You know what, Mr. President, you can't convince Congress to pay for all that. Exactly. So therefore don't sell your oil to China in year one. And then a few years later, guess what? The Yuan is crashing because they're spending so much money. because we got interest rates up to five, because we want to win because we got the inflation to nine. So we five and now the Chinese economy look China did to themselves, we just poured gas on. Okay, one more example. That is. So we know of two people that sold a lot of oil not using US dollars. And that was Moammar Qaddafi of Libya, and Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Both of these gentlemen, I don't know how else to say it a few years after they did this large sales of oil without using US dollars. Both of these gentlemen were killed. They left the planet. And I'm not saying the US killed them. What I am saying is the US backed away from them, and let other people get them all the way, you know, take them out, right. So the last person that we know of that is doing oil and gas, not using is Putin. Putin said less Jaffa the war, he says, you know, after we took him off the SWIFT system, which we shouldn't have done, we should have left them on SWIFT system to keep them using US dollars. We took them on SWIFT system, we weaponize the US dollar. And that allowed China and Brazil go wait a minute. If the government the United States can seize my US Dollars anytime they want, then the US dollar really isn't a store of value. It's that yeah, that woke the world up a little bit. And we shouldn't have done it. Right, because our number one product is now damaged a little bit. Okay. But anyway, so Putin says, hey, you know, we're going to do so Putin goes into Ukraine and button think about the rhetoric. Biden says, We think Putin, you're a bad guy you gotta get out of Ukraine. Then Putin says, we're no longer selling our oil and gas, we're only going to take rubles and gold. Then Biden changed his rhetoric. Biden said, we now need a regime change in Russia. That's way different than saying we need you out of Ukraine. When you say I need a regime change, I think about Moammar Qaddafi, and Saddam Hussein. Right. That's a big difference. Okay. So what happened was a few months after that, after Putin says we're not selling, we're not selling oil and gas. With us dollars anymore. There's there's a pipeline, there's two pipelines that go under this was this was hilarious, isn't it? Yeah. There are two pipelines. They go from Russia under the Baltic Sea to Germany, and they sell Germany natural gas. Well, a few months after this happened that Putin said, I'm not going to take us dollars anymore. Someone with a submarine blew up. Nord Stream one and Nord Stream to Allen   someone we don't know who know, they claim responsibility, John   no responsibility. And I'm sure I'm sure that you know, President Biden, when he talks to the Saudi prince goes, Hey, Saudi prince, we're so glad you're still you know, selling all of your oil in US dollars. No one by the way. Did you hear about Nord Stream? One Nord Stream two? Yeah, crazy, right? We live in a crazy, crazy world. It's just I'm sure he reminds everyone this right? That you don't mess with the number one product the United States, you just don't mess with it. Right? So this is all these are all chapters in my book, at least the first half of the book, you know, a lot of economics that I'm trying to about. I'm just trying to get people to think on a different level. And a different thing that kids these days like to play these video games all weekend long, they'll go on three day weekend, you know, never go to sleep. Well, this what I've explained to you is the biggest game ever invented. Yep, there is no bigger game. And when I'm explaining to it's the biggest risk game, the biggest global game. It's the biggest game ever. And I'm studying it and watching it. And it is fascinating to me. And I don't even know if I'm right. But man when I keep doing probabilities, and it just seems I'm right.  

https://www.joyful.co/   |  Linkedin Today we're welcoming Allen Hardin, co-founder and partner at Joyful agency out of Portland and one who works with clients nationally and internationally to bring joy and make work more joyful. Joyful is a culture agency that designs and activates company culture for Fortune 500 companies and high-growth startups. ---------------------------- Welcome to this next episode of the artisan podcast. My name is Katty Douraghy. I'm the president of Artisan Creative and your host for the artisan podcast. Today we're welcoming Allen Hardin, the co-founder and partner at Joyful agency out of Portland and one who works with clients nationally and internationally to bring joy and make work more joyful. Joyful is a culture agency. They design and activate company culture for Fortune 500 companies and high-growth startups. In this profound shift that we've had lately in the world of work, the rise of stress and burnout across leaders and employees and finding this need for best-in-class companies to re-recruit their talent and welcome them to a better future. Joyful saw this opportunity to focus their unique skill sets on this vital lever of growth, which is culture. And that is what has brought us here to this conversation to talk about company culture employee retention, and bringing more joy to work. So with that, please welcome Allen and so happy to have you. Let's welcome Allen Hardin to the podcast.  Allen and I are both part of an organization called EO, The Entrepreneurs Organization, and I was fortunate enough to visit his offices a few weeks back I just loved what I saw there. I saw all the joy that was there with everything that they have created for clients and that's what has brought us to this conversation. Katty I was really curious about the genesis of Joyful and your background, Alan, and have an opportunity for us to just really connect and chat. Allen: Thank you so much for having me. Katty. I really appreciate the opportunity.   Katty: I think with everything that's happened through COVID, with everybody being remote and now people being hybrid and some people not even knowing yet what their company culture and or their org is going to be like. Whether they're gonna bring everybody back or not or stay hybrid thing, it's just a really important topic to talk about, you know? Build and maintain culture through this. Craziness. This new work place that we're in. Allen:  So there's a number of milestone moments that have happened over the last few years that everybody reset or refocused on it, but it's continuing to change as well. So that's the important thing to recognize is that you're never quite done working on your company culture. It's something that always needs a little bit of attention. Katty: Absolutely. Tell me a little bit about you and kind of how you started in the space and what kind of was the impetus to start Joyful? Allen: Yeah, absolutely. My background really stems from live event production. So in the early years of our company, that's what we really focused on. We originally started in 2015. And we're producing big events for ourselves, public events, ticketed events in the Portland area, but also producing big events for clients. And one of our colleagues has said in the past that any live event any live experience is inherently a cultural experience. And I think that that is what really helped us focus and refocus on the path that we're on now. Focusing on company culture.   Live events in that world require a number of different mindsets if you will. And I like to say that you have to be one part visionary, right, really seeing the big picture and being optimistic of what could be and creating this emotive thing that really makes people feel something at an event or an experience that they have. But you also have to be very pragmatic, but you have to be able to execute those things on the ground and deliver on that promise because people will know, in real-time, whether you're telling a story or whether you're actually able to deliver on that on that vision that you cast. And so that's how I frame the work of live events and it's that same perspective that we apply to company culture. So you would need to have that optimism and vision for what your company can be like, what it's actually like to work there or experience. But we need to be able to make it happen to, actually be able to activate on those needs. So my background really comes from live event production. And I think I blend that a little bit with, you know, how I want to spend my time and, you know, casting a little bit on, you know, just the purpose of Joyful if you will. Our belief really is that life is short, and one of the biggest places people spend time in their life is work. So… it shouldn't suck. It's if it's so much of your life, how can we help people enjoy what they do a little bit more, and be more engaged? It's got a very, very clear tie to productivity and efficiency and just a lot of long-term value metrics for organizations. So that's my story. I grew up we grew up on the West Coast and a lot of time outdoors spent a lot of time in various activities, but my professional career has been around live event production and a few other things. Katty: Thank you for that. And you're right, the two prongs that you talked about are those having a vision as well as being able to execute. I can see that all the way is going to manifest itself in a company's employer brand… like how are you like what's the vision you're putting out there to attract new talent to your doorstep, and how do you execute on that and how do you make sure that there's a through line and everything that you're doing to message that out accurately. So when you guys start collaborating with clients and you know, just really this emphasis on, you're here to make work more joyful. Do you sit through a discovery session? And is that do you bring joy primarily through live events? Or how do you get involved in expanding company culture? Allen: All over the map in terms of what those tactics are, if you will. So on one end of the spectrum is the big picture thinking, that strategy session, the discovery strategy, you're really uncovering the current state and figuring out what the future state is and basically, creating a map of how to get there, right? So we focus a lot on the strategy of how to accomplish what our goals are, and what that client's goals are. But we also focus on those tactics or activations as we call them. So, we found that, you know, in the marketplace, there's a lot of groups on either end of that spectrum, right? There's some that do culture strategy or organizational psychologists or, you know, folks that have come up through HR, learning and development, things like that, and they'll work with you to help make that map, but then they hand the map to the company and say okay, this is what you have to do. And a lot of those, those, our clients find themselves in a spot where like, it's great, I know where I'm going. I don't have the capacity or the experience or the tools or whatever it is to actually bring this to life now. The other end of that spectrum is, you know, a more standard creative agency, right, where if you give them a very specific brief from saying, hey, I'm looking for this video product or this event or this experience or whatever it is, they can execute on that.  But again, a lot of our clients didn't have that vision or that articulation to give that kind of correct brief to that group. So, we tie those two things together. I invite clients to join us anywhere in that spectrum, right? So sometimes people just need a tactic and they need some help producing something. And we have the capability to do that in-house. But our most successful work, I would say is the work that starts on that strategy side of things. So, I typically say the best tactics are built from great strategy. The tactics are what people see and they get attention and people get excited about that. Oh, we should do that at our organization.  Those were built based on a strategy for a specific client for a specific reason. So it's, it's good to reset and refocus on why are we doing something What's the objective with this and what's the best way to go about it? And, then build the tactics from there. So that kind of extends from our origin story a little bit too, where events were more of the tactic, right, but the why and the how was really what we were skilled at. And so, we really transitioned during that COVID era, from just focusing on events to zooming out again and saying, what's the real purpose of this? What are we trying to achieve for these events for our clients, and it was to bring that authentic cultural experience for them. So anytime you can zoom out and start with strategy, that's when we see the highest success, if you will, for work that we do. Katty: The COVID era was a shift in what you were doing a Joyful or did it just amplify what you were already doing, and you just put more emphasis on it. Allen: A little bit of both. So, we were heavily focused on live events, and that that period, you know, live events basically went away. Our company story was one that we had a large amount of work planned for 2020.  And we were building the plans and the tactics to execute on that level of work, and it all went away. It so it just in the beginning of March, I think it was you know, basically all of that work went zero. Then we had to refocus, now the clients that we were working with the same situation that we were in, they used to rely on these live events to motivate employees, to celebrate employees, to enjoy time together. They used to rely on in-person in the office or, or, you know, kind of camaraderie building and trust building and all of those other collaboration aspects as well. So you were relying on these things that have existed for so long and all of a sudden that goes away. You have to rethink how you're going to do that, so, that was a big refocus for us where we were really doing a lot of that same tactic of live event experience. But the skills were the same to refocus on instead of saying how can we impact this small group, this one day this one time, to how do we impact instead, the whole company, all year, from anywhere, right? So your audience grows quite a bit.  And so, in that year through that COVID kind of switch, if you will, we had a big swing from having a lot of work planned, to go into 0, to back to our biggest year again, because a lot of businesses were in the same spot that they needed to focus on company culture now more than ever to make sure that they were resilient enough to withstand those factors. Katty: Absolutely, gosh, my mind goes to seems like a long time ago now…but my mind goes to certainly March 2020 when the whole world just got upended. That must have been a pretty as frightening business owner, a really frightening time to just be there. Allen: Yeah. I mean, you just kind of go along the same lines as some of our other perspectives, but as a culture company, that helps our clients with their company culture., it can't suck to work here. Right? So it's got to be a good place to work. So during that time, we're not only focused on our people, that's kind of number one is taking care of our folks, making sure our team is healthy and has what they need to survive and thrive and do everything on that human level. But then also from the perspective of business, we had to change our product offerings, change our messaging, change the way we talked about what we do to meet the new needs of that time. So, both have to look internally at our team, but also externally at what our product is and how we support our clients at that time. It was a crazy time for sure. Yeah, for sure. Katty: A little bit of a segue to kind of what we're talking about, but as you're talking about just what you needed to do, the word that pops into my mind is ….resilience. And I know that we work with candidates all the time who may have lost their jobs, or their interview didn't happen, or their work is shifting, whether it be because of AI or because of whatever it may be.    Where did you go to for strength for yourself? Where did resilience come from for you? Allen: Oh, all over the place. I mean, I talk about resilience a lot, especially with company culture, right? I make the case that that's really what we do, is if you have that strong company culture, your team is inherently more resilient and that helps in good times and bad. So, it's a mitigator of two things, right? So if you're growing very fast, the team is going to need to be resilient to take on that changing world.  Right? Or if you're in a really tough time, whether that's a macroeconomic thing or just a specific thing, you need to be really resilient to be able to handle that too. So I think company culture is what helps people with high-growth situations or really tough situations. For me personally, I mean, in that timeframe, I'll start giving the Entrepreneurs Organization a plug, where, you know, being a part of that organization was incredibly helpful because I could connect with fellow entrepreneurs that were going through some more things all over different industries or different sized businesses or different locations, all you know, a lot of the details are a little bit different, but the same macro situation where we're trying to figure it out and survive, you know. So just being in a room full of people that you know, you're all in it together, and we're all rooting for each other and trying to support each other was a huge, huge part of my resilience at that moment. I owe a lot to the EO group, especially during that time.  I had just joined I think maybe the year before, so what a fortunate circumstance to have recently joined that group and then, you know, be thrust right into such a situation where it became so beneficial. Katty Is that just the importance of community I think it's so impactful right? And absolutely, we feel we're the only ones going through something, and yeah, the to support that. So impactful. Allen: Absolutely. Yeah, that perspective is going to give you do feel that way sometimes, but when you get back in that room of other folks you know, like-minded folks, you realize, you know, a lot of other people are dealing with a lot of stuff too. And you know, we're not we're not in it on our own. Katty: So going back to the other point you were talking about and before I had this little segue question for you, this shift of shifting from singular events, that was the big crescendo of kind of building culture, to this mindset shift I would imagine for not only for Joyful but for the clients who are used to these big, singular events of company culture is really this constant thing. It's not a big wave that crashes through but it's a stream that continually is running. How were you able to shift that mindset? For a hiring manager listening in, for example, or somebody who's trying to build their company culture, where would be the starting point for them? Allen: Yeah, I think the starting point is today, right? The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, and the second best time is today. That would be my advice to hiring managers in a similar situation where it's, it's every day we refer to culture as a ground game. It's every interaction. It's every exchange that employees have on a day-to-day basis. It's not these big shiny moments that happen quarterly, or whatever cadence you choose. But it's really what they experience every day when they go to work and are they able to feel productive and motivated and safe and all of those things that go around with a good experience. You know, what we typically do is focus a lot on a roadmap or a framework and we map out your year. I like to use the analogy of a beach ball.So you think of a beach ball at a fun concert, right, so somebody has a beach ball and puts it up into the air to concert, think of that as your company culture, right? That can stay up in the air as long as everybody in that crowd is contributing to bouncing it up a little bit higher, right, and it keeps going, but as soon as somebody takes their eye off the ball or they're not paying attention or get out too far out in front of them, or too far to the side or something like that, that's when it can really fall. Culture just like the gravity will kind of find its way back down unless people are actively contributing to it on a daily basis. So you're never done working on that. Right? So, it's a combination of the everyday moments, your peers, your managers and your leaders, to those big events from time to time, better, maybe the bigger hit that pushed the ball up a little bit higher in the air.  It's a combination of all those things. So I don't think you can focus just on one or just on the other. But being able to visualize and kind of a roadmap if you will, and look at 12 months, okay, what are these quarterly things that are inspiring moments for our team? Okay, what are these things have happened monthly, where they're kind of dry right now, but maybe we have an opportunity to make them a little more engaging or give our employees a little bit more something that they're looking for during those times. Okay, well, well then what about our one-on-ones? And then what about when he walked through the door? Right? What about how we send emails or how we have meetings all the way to the most minute things?  So being able to have that perspective of kind of 30,000 feet, the big you know, Vision stuff, but all the way down to on the ground is each day like you know, what, what is the technical hurdle that I run into every day that is just really frustrating to me, that just should be way easier? You know, those ways of working.  It's all of that, right? So you can't think it's just the one big thing and the big shiny thing. You can't think it's just the small tactical stuff, but it's, I would say it's a sum of all of those things that really contribute to their culture. Katty How does that tie back to a company's core values? Allen: I think it all starts there. I think we really try to frame our work on the purpose of the organization. So, we start with the purpose of the organization and what are your core values, beliefs, and behaviors. If you start your work there and work on your employee experience, we feel that's the strongest way to do it.  You know a lot of the work we do has to do with communicating and letting values, and purpose, live every day. Right? Because for so many organizations, you develop something maybe you share. Maybe you put it on a poster, but what are the ways that those come to life every day? You know, employee recognition or in the way that you hold your meetings or in the way that you organize your events or whatever that is, that's where those should shine. More, as a throughline as you said earlier, you know, they should be there every day. So we start there. You know, we've looked like a creative agency or organization looks like a creative agency. We just choose to focus our efforts on company culture, and employee experience. So we do a lot of communications, we do a lot of marketing about an organization's purpose and values for internal purposes.   Not to sell something to a customer, but to share that message internally with the employees so that everybody is kind of re-recruited to that same purpose on a regular basis. We produce a lot of videos, we do a lot of newsletters, communications, all that type of stuff to really reframe the conversation about that.   To put it simply Katty, it's constant, and essential to focus on that. Katty:  And this is all internal communication that you're producing. You're producing that for the organization and its employees.   Allen: Exactly. So, it's, instead of, you know, us making ads for promotions, for a company to sell to a customer. We're using those same skills to share messages from a company to its employees.    Katty: And I and I would imagine, I think I mentioned to you that I've spoken about this before, believe that company culture comes through even before that candidate is hired, how that candidate is interacted with all the way from the date, the time they apply to that job or what how that job description is written, like all of those have to be connected, right, that that message has to come through on those too Allen: Absolutely. I mean it starts very early on and then it continues even with your most seasoned employees, right, because the way I like that you mentioned that, the way the job description is written, where they find that post, you know, what their first interview is like, and are they made to feel as part of the team or as an outsider, and, you know, you can't, in my opinion, you can't run onboarding or an interview or an application process one way and then give them a different experience on day one. Right? And that's kind of a shift that, you know, are you being authentic in that interview to what it's actually like to work there. And, it goes two ways, right? So, we often can make this interview look good and shiny and say, hey, it is amazing to work here and it's awesome. And then they get to work the first day and nobody says hi to them or no, you know, it's a different experience that way. So it goes both sides. You know, you might have a really hard interview and then it's amazing to work there. Have a great interview and it's not amazing to work there. Having alignment and intentionality through that whole timing is critical. And I mentioned seasoned employees too, we talk about re-recruiting your employees every day, right, to reset really what the company stands for and is about and what the values and behaviors are for that organization. You can't just stop after their onboarding, right, and pretend that they've been there 10 years. You need to be intentional with it on an ongoing basis regardless of whether that employee has been there for one day or 10 years or anywhere in between. Katty: I like that mindset of re-recruiting your employees every day. It's really important not to make assumptions that we just need to look at external or new employees and forget about people who are already here. I think we saw that during COVID with a great resignation. Allen: Absolutely lots of people's priorities shifted. Yeah. And they realized hey, you know, how I'm spending every day is not how I want to be spending every day. And it's their decision to make as to what they want their day-to-day to look like. And so it's important not to forget that you have great people already, and they may need some attention just as much as you focus on your onboarding program. So I think that's another kind of differentiator of how we focus on the work. We're not focused just on one part of that lifecycle, not just the onboarding experience or just your holiday party or something like that, right but it's everything in between for the whole organization. Katty:  How would you emphasize culture building and just employee experience and employee engagement through this hybrid space that we're in now? There are some people in the office others never come in, and kind of how you build culture in these two diverse groups of people that are maybe geographically separated from each other. Allen: Yeah, the simplest way I would say it is intentionality, the more complex way is that it's different for every organization, right? I'll speak about our organization, right? So we're a midsize company here in Portland, and we have a physical office. But our policy is to work from wherever you're most productive.  So, we don't have a requirement, of how many days to be in, or which days to be in or anything like that, but we've tried to build our location such that people will feel like they can come here and be productive and be a little bit social. So a lot of the folks on our team can do more work in their day if they stay at home. They can be more productive with their tasks and their workload when they're not bumping into colleagues and having side conversations and things like that. They can just stay focused and get their work done.  However, I'm a strong believer that trust, collaboration, respect, and a lot of those things are really built the more in-person time you spend with each other. So, we tried to build our situation such that people want to come in, and people enjoy coming in and spending time with each other. But it's not coming in and realizing hey, I would have gotten more work done at home. The space is such that you can be productive and you can connect with your colleagues simultaneously, and we let people self-select. Now will that work for every organization, will that work for us forever, no. It's gonna be different all over the board, but I think being intentional with why you're asking people to do something, is really important.   And a lot of folks will make a decision because that's the way they used to do it, right? Or we used to do it this way. And I think that's another perspective that deserves to be looked at again, too, right? Because things are constantly evolving and, you know, the way people work will ebb and flow forever, so we need to adapt. So there's lots of details in there from technology to collaboration. That's what we're doing for our for our organization. For now, it's working, but I don't pretend that that's the answer forever. Katty: We've been remote for 12 years now,  long before I think it was the thing to do. And the minute the systems we were using went cloud base we were like, Oh, we don't need to have this physical office here anymore.  And I have to say,  in the beginning, there was we had to work a lot harder for engagement, right? We had to work harder to make sure we were communicating more, to do everything more. And I still find that that has to be done. Like some of those assumptions or conversations that are water cooler conversations or the spontaneity of just going to lunch together. That just doesn't really happen anymore. Everything has to be, as you were saying, intentional, planned, that needs to be you know, a path towards It's continuing with that. So that's been an interesting thing. And when COVID happened, everybody's asking, so how do you… how did you do it? It was something I hadn't even thought about.   Right. Yeah. We didn't necessarily have an SOP around that. We had to step into this and share with others how we had done it. If there are companies whose culture you really admire, what are some of the common denominators? First of all, who are they? And what are some common denominators that you see that are just telltale signs that they got it right. Allen: That's a great question. I think there are a lot of points in time, and answers I would give, and I think that, again, culture is dynamic, right? And it's constantly evolving within an organization. And so there are peaks and valleys for the company. Personally, I would say, that organizations that value the whole employee, where people can really bring their best selves to work, and be productive and operate at a high level, really execute great work product, and have time, make time for their personal pursuits. Often it feels like organizations are one or the other, where you're either in this high-performing situation that that's all you do, right, you're really in a grind on that you're delivering great work, but it's all-consuming, or it's a little more casual, and you have time for everything, but you know, it's not operating that same kind of performance level. So the organizations or the kind of situations that come to mind are ones that balance both. So my personal view on it, you know, is where people can bring their, their whole selves. But I think the broader answer I would say is that it's different for every person. We don't really believe that there is good culture and bad culture, we more believe that every culture is a little bit different. Let's be authentic and genuine with what ours is, and then let's promote that and communicate that and let people self-select in or out, to that. So we more subscribe to that kind of wrong fit- right fit, if you will.  A colleague has authored a book by that title where let's just be transparent about what our culture is, and there are people that want to fit that, and let's recruit them. Rather than, let's pretend that our culture is something different than it is people in the door. And then they later realize that it's not the right fit. The book is called Wrong Fit, Right Fit. By Dr. Andre Martin, that's a plug of a colleague, if you will, but it's a shared belief with our organization, for sure. Katty: It reminds me of many years ago, many, many years ago, actually through EO I got a chance to hear at the time the President of Trader Joe's.  One of the things he said that always stuck with me was he would walk up and down or grocery aisle and see if there were people were smiling, and if they were engaging with customers, and he just really, really wanted people, people. And if somebody was just really focused on putting the items on the shelf the right way, and just not engaging with what was happening, what was happening there in the store, he would go up to them and say, you know what, you're doing such a beautiful job here with the aisle. But that's not what we need. There's probably another company out there looking for you to be that perfect person who's stocking the shelves perfectly. That's not who we are, we'd rather have that be messy, but you are engaging with whoever's walking in.  That has stayed with me in terms of culture. Allen: I mean, that makes me think of values and behaviors. Right. So when you I don't know their values offhand, but it feels like they have, you know, a defined behavior that associates with a certain value, right, where it's being personable and engaging over being so focused on the little details of stocking the shelves because of that customer isn't excited to be there. It doesn't matter if the shelves are organized well, alright. I think that's a great example. I'm not familiar with all their details, but I think that's a great example. Katty: So where can people find you? If they're looking to engage with you're just learning about Joyful a little bit more. Allen: Yeah, I would push folks to either our website or LinkedIn, our website is Joyful.co Or you can find us on LinkedIn company name is Joyful. That's the best way to find us. So we'll be around that a number of HR / culture focused conferences here too. So you'll see us out and about, if you're part of that community, we'll see you there. But yeah, please find us online and, and reach out we'd love to connect with you.   Katty: I just want to clarify that even though you're Portland-based, the clients that you service are nationally and internationally located.   Allen: Our office is in Portland, our team works all over. And, yeah, our client base right now some are based in Portland, but most if not all, have international presence. So we work with teams all over the world on that type of work.   Katty: And as a final statement, if there's one takeaway that you want people to have some this conversation, what would that be.   Allen:   Life is short, let's make work more joyful.  

Hi EMTs! The thing is, I am very drunk on my cousin Vicky's husband's fantastic eggnog so I can't really do a write-up, but Allen & I hope you have a wonderful holiday season with this year's Christmas episode, the 2022 film "Violent Night."  That being said, we know the holidays can be hard for folks, and we want you to know that you are not alone. You are NEVER alone. We are here for you, the EMTs are here for you at https://discord.com/invite/DutFjx3cBD, and if you need a friend, reach out at werewolfambulance@gmail.com. If it's an emergency, please call the Suicide Prevention line by dialing 988. 

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 facilitate into whatever investment you want to do. Allen: Okay, wait, yeah, for no, for the self employed, you know, the SEPs, and simples they allow you to put a lot more money in. So those are.. Brad: Yeah no those are, those are great accounts. So so the two more popular ones would be so the SEP IRA self employed pension, which is a little bit of a, an easier, cost effective version, okay. And then you have what's also called a solo 401 K. It's basically a 401k for somebody that's self employed but does not have employees, okay? Because once you have one employee, a 401k, just totally changes from the complexity and testing and all these other rules that you have to worry about. And so 401k is specifically for individuals that want to put away a lot of money. And good thing about 401k They have Roth components to them, so you can actually put away a lot of money up to $60,000 in Roth money. It's very powerful tool. And then also, if you ever want a loan against that, you can take a loan up to $50,000 sort of just kind of allows you some flexibility if you want to put away money but yeah, it's a SEP IRAs is very simple. There's very similar just doesn't have the doesn't have the loaning tool, and then a couple other little things. smaller nuances to it, but both of them together, if you want to, if you if you're a small business owner, and you really want to save some money on taxes, or just put a lot of money into retirement, you know, it's an easy way to get 60 grand and an order and to a retirement account. So cool. Allen: Cool. Cool. So that's all questions I had, is there anything that I did not ask? Brad: I think you nailed everything. I mean, I think just, I guess one little less kind of common is that no shoe being in the in the hedge fund space, it's, it's really growing in popularity, especially now, after you know, everyone put money into kind of the, the cheap, ETFs forever, and they just went up and then everything just kind of fell off a cliff, I feel like alternative investments, you know, are now growing and growing really fast in popularity. So good space for you to be in. And you know, if anyone has any questions or curiosities about this stuff, I'm an open book, feel free to reach out to me and we can have a chat. Allen: Awesome, sweet. Yeah, I mean, like you said, I do see that people are becoming more aware of this kind of stuff. And I think it's part of, you know, people like you doing interviews and getting the word out there. We still have people all the time telling us Oh, I don't know what to do, you know, my IRA, I can't, like, ya know, you're you're not that limited as you think you are. This just takes it to a whole nother level. So this is, you know, the self directed IRA. And I think it's something that everybody should be looking into, at least, you know, so you can do a lot more with it than just, you know, buy your ETF like, Brad: Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, yeah, people like me, that, you know, provide the IRA product, but also people like you that are coming up with new and interesting products for people to invest in. So I do think at the tag team, you know, we provide the avenue, but there needs to be solutions out there for people and if, you know, if, if individuals like you are being entrepreneurial and creative, just provides more people opportunities to access the marketplace. So, so I think it's a dual effort. And, you know, hopefully people find it interesting. Allen: So, Brad, how do people get a hold of you? Brad: Yeah, so I'm the only brand that works in Midland trust. So you can just go to Midland trust.com and kind of track me down that way by giving us a call. And I'll just kind of leave it at that. If you want to shoot me an email. It's B as in Brad, Janet's je n AI tz At Midland. trust.com. Otherwise, yeah, just go to our website, you know, track me down and the only Brad, alright? Allen: Awesome. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for being here. Brad: All right. Thanks, Allen, for sharing. Thank you.   JOIN OUR FREE PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP: https://freeoptionsgroup.com Like our show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps. Thank you!

Patrick continues his conversation with Emily from the end of the last hour. Eva – I go to church every Sunday, but we never hear a priest talk about abortion. Ed - I want comment on a quote from a German priest during WWII and how it relates with what is going on with the Dodgers. Heather - I live in the LA Arch diocese and our priest talked about the Dodgers situation and we are doing prayers of reparation for the Dodgers error. Allen - I am writing a thesis on Catholic social teaching and education and wanting your take on the criteria of Catholic Social teaching? Barron - I am considering the Catholic Church. What is your take on in-depth teaching in the Catholic Church? There seems to be more teaching in my protestant church. Patrick recommends “Evangelical Is Not Enough: Worship of God in Liturgy & Sacrament” by Thomas Howard

Allen Welcome passive traders to another episode. Today, I have a big announcement. And I have a first for the podcast, which is really interesting. I'm going to tell you the first before we get into the announcement. The first is that for the first time we are having a husband and wife, team, actually, we're going to find out if they're a team or not. But they're both traders. And they're both doing well. And they've been doing it for a while. So I wanted to get their opinion on how trading works in a family how trading works in a relationship, how to not get on each other's toes. So I have today, Mr. And Mrs. Matt and Margaret Ambrosi. Welcome, guys, thank you for doing this. Matt Thanks. Thanks. Thanks for having us. Allen Now, the big announcement, we probably should have done it better and differently. But Matt is now full time as an option genius coach. So we are very happy to have Matt on board. And he's already made a big difference in several people's lives. He's getting more, more happy comments, or, you know, people coming together to have a wonderful he's doing he's getting more than I am. So I think I got the right person for the job. And if you if you see Matt, or you hear the voice, and it's kind of familiar, we did do an interview with Matt back in episode 110. So 110, and that he actually gave us a story of how he got started what he was doing. And at that point, his job, his role, or his, his goal of trading was mainly to replace his current income through trading options. So I think he's, he's come a long way since then, as a trader, and just emotionally and as a person. So, guys, welcome. And Matt, thank you again, for coming on board the team, it's been really awesome to work with you and to see you take the reins, and you know, it's only made the company stronger and better, and our customers are loving it. So they're really excited. Matt I really appreciate that Alan, you know, I couldn't be more excited. I mean, I have a real passion for this. And it's a real dream to, to do a job and and really fulfill that passion. So thank you. Allen Yep, yeah, I mean, you know, one of my mentors had told me he's like, you know, in your programs, you should have a lot more interaction with the, with the students. And I'm like, I don't have time for that. He goes, well, then you need to get a coach, we need to get some other coaches on board. And I'm like, Okay, where do I find these people? They're like, don't you have students? I'm like, yeah. You know, but they're all trying to retire. Like, they'll try to quit their jobs. He goes, No, I bet you there's some that are really good at teaching. They're really love people. And they would be happy to do this on a full time basis, or even like a part time basis, and just help other people. And I was like, huh, and I thought about that about and Matt was like almost one of the first people I thought of and I'm like, Hey, let me give him a call. And I'm sure he came out of the blue for you. And you were shocked. Matt So I mean, I really enjoy, I really enjoy helping people at the core of my being. And, you know, I just love seeing the light go off in people's minds when they see a trade and they see it work out and they see that everything's a possibility, just like it was for me. So I'm really excited to be part of it. Cool. And then Margaret a this question is for you. So he comes, he comes to you and says, Hey, you know, I've been working at Costco for I don't know, what, 1415 years or something. Yeah. And he's like, he's like, I just got this other job offer. I'm gonna What do you think? Yeah. Margaret There's a whole story. There's a whole nother story. When he got that call, because I mean, we were definitely both shocked. But I think what you just said reminded me of what a good coach Matt was before he even worked at Option Genius. Because when we we started at let's say, when we got married seven years ago, we we were both on the same page about being financially free. And what what does that look like? Matt was definitely more of a researcher in terms of he would read a book, he would, he would give it to me. And so I think we were on, we've been on board on the same page, what to do. And then when we found you, and started learning your methods, we both latched on to it. So when you caught him, I think I was just excited because I knew it was something he really wanted to do. I had already seen him in a coaching role with me and his mom and his sister of trying to like the backend stuff, right? The things that are the charts, the systems, getting your platform set up. Those are things that are challenging and takes a lot of time. And so I was like, I think I was super excited. I knew he could do it. I knew it'd be great at it. And so I just thank you for giving him the opportunity because it's really been wonderful for him to do this thing that he loves anyway. I mean, he was already before he worked for you, in the mornings before he would go to work. Its full time job was studying and learning. And so, yeah, it just was really exciting. Thank you for that. I guess we had the trust, right. The trust was already there. So. Allen Okay. Yeah, now he's doing wonderful. And, you know, he's gonna be trading at the hedge fund as well when that happened. So that's going to be exciting. So a whole new level. So awesome. Cool. All right. So let's get into you guys. All right, so the trading couple and it's not just I know for Matt, you know, he's not just a trading couple. He's got the whole trading family going on there. He told me that he and his wife and his mom and his sister all get together and have trade night. What is that? Matt So it just kind of started, you know, my, my parents live in South Carolina, we're in Georgia, and my sister is up in Massachusetts. And it was a good way. They were always interested in what I was doing. And they always wanted to learn what I was doing. So it just became natural that I would say, hey, let's just have a call. And we'll talk about it. And then I showed them how to, you know, do the platform, and you know, they had all their feelings about whether they're going to do it correctly. And all the all the fears, just like I had when I started, and I was like, Okay, well, we just started going through it. And we started meeting kind of regularly on Fridays. And it was usually Friday, like, nine 930 in the morning. And we'd meet for about an hour and we talk about it. And then it just kind of progressed and was like okay, let's do this next Friday, okay, let's do the next Friday, let's do the next Friday, next Friday, and then just became we'd call it trade top Fridays. And you know, and then started being like, if we miss one, you know, let's say my sister couldn't make it. She'd be upset, like, Oh, I gotta I gotta make it or my mother missed it, she would be upset. So we, we were there every day, you know, and then Margaret would come in here and there and it just kind of evolved. So it was really a really great experience. And then it kept us really connected. I mean, in ways that I wouldn't think you know.. Margaret And you get to learn other parts of your family members and their personalities that you didn't know before. Allen Mm hmm. I can imagine. Yeah. I mean, people's personality comes out when they're like, frustrated, or when they're Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You were saying that a little bit earlier that your mom kind of surprised you, you know, going all aggressive on you. Matt She still does. I mean, there's like, I'm just like, you know, she'll tell us like, Oh, she did something. And then she'll like, say to my sister, oh, I got out of this trade. She's like you did? What? How do you get out of that trade? You didn't tell me about it? And it's like, yeah, they're like, they go back and forth. But it's all in solid, good. You know? Margaret Yeah, once she has the parameters, then she, she'll get a little bit more risky that she said, a differentiated, she told us it's like she's at a different age where she feels like she can take a little different risk than we can. Yeah. So it makes it makes a difference. Matt That's interesting. It also goes back and forth. I mean, my sister, she put on a trade, she was getting into a new trade that we're doing. And then my mother was like, kind of hesitant about getting into it. And my sister just went ahead and did it. And then my mother's like, Oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, like hours later, she she's like, I'm like, what happened? She's like, Oh, I put a trade on. Like, because my sister went ahead and did it. So they kind of play off each other. So Allen that's cool. Because normally, it's the opposite. You know, it's like, the older you get, the more conservative is like, oh, no, I don't want to lose that or lose. The younger people take more risk, but over here are flipped. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. But that I love it, how you're using something to bond, you know. And it's so rare nowadays, especially everybody's spread out across the country. It's like, oh, yeah, we get together on Thanksgiving. Yeah. Okay. Great. You guys get together every week. That's I love it. That's, that's wonderful. Yeah. I think more families need to find something in common like that. And like trading? Yeah. I mean, because the way we do it, everybody can find their own little niche, you know, yeah. Everybody can be conservative or aggressive or whatever. And yeah, I love it. Cool. So, um, how did you guys get into trading? Matt Oh, well, I mean, it was always long term for me. So I was learning about long term investing through reading and then while we actually, Margaret yeah, since you were 29, he started investing. And then we went to one seminar together. And there was a man who was sitting next to us, and he said, uh, you could self manage your portfolio. And we looked at each other and we're like, never worry, That's too scary. It's too risky. We gotta leave that to the professionals. There's reason that people get paid money to do that. And he made it seem like it was no big deal at all. And I think he was he, yeah, that was a pivotal point. And then after that, We went to a couple other seminars together. And then I think the the really the one that we learned about options was three years ago. And at that one, we I had never even heard the term option. I didn't know what an option was. We went to go find out about long term investing and how to value stocks in order to know if it's a good purchase or not. And then at that seminar, we just sat back and because they showed us how to do an option, and and then after that we met found you and he because he was looking for people who did a similar strategy. And then it after we Yeah, so that's how we got into it. Matt Right. And they, they basically started this seminar off with an option. And we're like, Oh, I thought we were coming here to long term invest. And I didn't, you know, we didn't know anything, how options work. We're trying to figure out how it did right there. And then this guy's like, Oh, I just made $7,000. And you're like, show me how you're just like, whatever you just did, like you have my attention. How did you do that? And I was like, on a, I was possessed to figure it out. I mean, Margaret, she's smarter than I am. In some ways, yes, definitely. She was like, this is a funnel, like, marketing, marketing funnel and Margaret figure it all out. And thanks for just calm down. Matt It's just she sat back, I'll relax. And I was like, I'm trying to figure it out. And but we progressed. And, you know, it really opened the whole a whole new world, really. And then, you know, we met you. Margaret And it's just a progression to back up to because that's where we started trading with our family with his mom and sister. So after we learned that strategy, and we were all trading together, that's where the, the trade top Fridays came from. So that was kind of a cool thing that came from that. Allen Okay, so from the beginning, you guys were like, Okay, we're doing this together. It's not like, you know, because Margaret, you have your own company. And if anybody wants to know, she does great videography, and photos for real estate agents, and you guys are located where? Margaret Just north of Atlanta. Allen Just north of Atlanta. So if any realtors are out there. Margaret And I'm glad you mentioned that, because honestly, the reason I want to trade is because I am getting older. I've been a creative for 20 years, and the old body isn't getting any younger. So at some point, I will not be able to schlep video gear and photography gear around, and I want to have some home, what gives me the security and knowing that I can bring in my paycheck that I'm accustomed to it on my own. But we definitely talk about our strategies together. Allen Right, exactly. So, okay, so But you said like, okay, so he's working full time you have your business, but you guys still decided, hey, we're gonna go this road together, we're gonna learn together, we're gonna go the seminars together, we're gonna talk about it. And then do you guys trade in the same account together? Or is it separate? How does that work? Matt We kind of did in the beginning. And then we realized that it was best to have separate accounts, we do everything we talk about everything together. It's just I think that's really smart. Everyone's different. But I think for us, it works that we have separate accounts, because it kind of gives you the flexibility for the trading the fit your personality, and everyone's personalitie's different, you know, even though we're married, we're different personalities. So that reflects in that account, I think. Margaret And the cool part is, we both fund each other's accounts. So when there's money that we have to put into the account to get it started, we weren't going at an equal pace, if that makes sense. Matt Right. So like, for example, I would get a bonus from Costco, I'd split that bonus, put it into our account separately, she would get a bonus, she would put that money into our accounts, and then we're trading the strategies under those two accounts. Allen Okay, so do you have any joint money like a joint account? Margaret Not for not in a brokerage account? No. I mean, we're, we're each other's beneficiaries. But yeah, right. And I think part of that, too, Alan comes from me at I was not married for 36 years, and I am very customed to taking care of myself and producing my own income, and having my own money, you know, just to be quite frank about it. I want to make sure that I can take care of myself if anything ever happened to Matt, but we definitely we know what each other's logins are. We know what the money's in there. So that part's very open. It's not like they don't share the information. But I think that's a good point about having a different trading style because I am a little more aggressive than Matt is, and we learned that we didn't know that going in, but I will jump into things a little quicker than he does and he wants to be Yeah, wants to have all the information. Matt Those are things we learned about it To think that I was not as conservative as I am. But I realized that I'm a very conservative trader. I like to know everything about everything before I jump in, and sometimes that can hinder you, Margaret, she's like, let's get to it. Let's figure it out. And she jumps in. And I'm really admire that part of her. I really do. Margaret And as long as it works out, Matt she's I say she's measured, you know, she doesn't just jump into things. She's measured about it. Allen Yeah. But like, Margaret, what you said about the, you know, having, I guess, I don't know, for for a lot of women, it's a it's a fear. But it's also about a sense of security. And a lot of our customers are, you know, are the customers that come to us, and they come in, they're like, you know, my spouse doesn't want me trading, or when my spouse would rather have me working, because that paycheck comes in regular. I remember when I first started, even, even though I was, in the beginning, I was horrible. I lost a lot of my wife's money. But after I got good at it, she still was not comfortable with the trading, because she would be like, Okay, I don't know, if you're going to make money every month, you know? Because that's just the way it is. And so she's like, Can you do something pleased to have something regular come in? And that's probably the biggest motivation behind the company option genius. Was that, hey, even if I have a little bit, you know, obviously, I'm supposed to be a small little one person company. And is like, even if I have a little bit like, like a, you know, like, five $6,000 coming in a month. Okay, cool. She'll know that, you know, because she still wanted to work. So she knows something's coming in. But that's, that's just, I think it's ingrained in a lot of spouses that are not generating an income on their own that, hey, I need some consistency. So that's been a big for a lot of people. That's a big, you know, switch. Like to go from Yeah, my wife my husband makes or my wife makes x dollars per month to Yeah, I don't know, if he's gonna make any money. Margaret Yeah, I can see how that would be difficult. Because I mean, we're still both bringing in incomes and trading at the same time. Yeah. Matt Yeah, it's a big shift, a mindset shift. But I think the thing about trading is that, you know, when you're working a static job, you have that income, like you said, it's coming in monthly, you can rely on it. But the real benefit of trading, I think, is that you don't see used to see money as you exchange your paycheck for time. And in trading. You can just, you can just make money, and you don't have to sit there for that time. No, it's, you look as money is finite, in your mind, okay? When you look at trading, you work with trading, it's like, it just opens up to you. Margaret It's more of an energy like it goes out comes and goes out. Exactly. Yeah. Matt So I'm trying to say, Allen interesting. That's a good way to look at it. Yeah. So then have this written down? Okay, I'm gonna ask it or I don't know if which one of you is a better trader? Margaret So how do you define better? Allen I guess, who makes the most money? Matt I will say that I wrote this in a lot of books. And I believe that to be true as a women's are much better emotionally, as traders, I believe that I really do because guys are gonna over are like our macho, we just gotta just get in there and do it. And, you know, but in general, I think women are much, much better emotional trading style. Margaret I will just say last year, Matt made more money than I did. But this year, I've made more money than Matt did. So there you go.. Matt But I'm built for the long. Nothing short term with me. We actually nickname each other Margaret's short term, and I'm on long term, Margaret Yeah, I like short term, you know, I'm an entrepreneur. So I like to see things happen in a timely fashion. I live and breathe it, you know. And so I had do struggle with the long term stuff. One day, I would be curious to see what it would like be like to do long term put that. We'll see about that, you know, I like I like the shorter term gains. Matt But yeah, I mean, that's all part of your personality. So we I think we play off each other very well, you know? Yeah. Allen Yeah. It seems like you guys have a good balance. So then, like, if there's a disagreement, then how do you guys handle that? Or is it just, you know, you do whatever you want your account? I'll do whatever I want to my account. Margaret Yeah, well, we talk about what strike prices we're going to be at, and where, you know, kind of idea of what we both want to do. And then we may be a couple points different from each other. Matt Yeah, but we stay within the rules. And I think you know, the great thing about the strategies that you teach and that we've learned is that there's some flexibility in that, okay, as you get better as a trader, it's just not the rules, right? You know, it's just not like, Oh, get out here. And that's it, there's a little bit of flexibility, I think as you get better as a trader, you get more experienced behind you, you're able to kind of fudge the lines a little bit, if you will, not in a bad way, but be like, okay, you know, I know this, I have a little more experience, I can become a better trader. So it's like, that's the whole flexibility part. Margaret Right. And I think, too, just just thinking about how sometimes Matt will stay in a trade longer than me, and I'll get out quicker. Here's a good example. So this month, in our oil trading, I have tripled up, I've gotten in and gotten out three times, and he stayed in the whole time. You know, and I know, during the classes, there's a couple of other people in our class, when we're on the queue that do the same thing. And then some people will sit and so I think it just depends, and I don't know that it would work as well. For us, if we had one account, I just love having our separate accounts, where we get to talk about what we're gonna do and then have the freedom to.. Matt I think the key is that we talk about it. Yeah, I mean, if you don't talk about things between each other, it's just not gonna work. Yeah. So you're like, Okay, you're gonna go that at least I know about it, right. And then you can see how it works out, right. And then at least you know, what, what's going on, you know, it's different, if you just have a count, and you're just doing your own thing, and you're not talking about it. Margaret The, the emotions part is very real. And I don't think you can really understand that until you start to become a trader, and you see where the trade is. And you get to know yourself better, where in the beginning, we were a lot quicker to get out of a trade if it went a certain way. And now we've learned a little bit more of the rhythms, we know each other's rhythms. And so we don't we don't freak out either way, quite as much. Matt: But you got to look at it. Like in totality. I mean, nothing's the end of the world. Right? And with trading, you may lose money, and you probably will, okay, everybody's lost money. And experience is not cheap. Right? With that happening. It's, it's okay, you know, if nothing is, you treat money as, okay, you can be lost, and it can be one. And the whole idea of trading is getting consistent as a whole thing. And it's like, as you get better and better as a trader, I really believe in my core, you try everyone's trying to build that consistency. Okay, and you have to match your personality to that consistency Margaret: Do you also mean make money? Because that's my goal. Matt: Yes, consistently, or us to make money. But you need to be consistent to do that. Allen: So yeah. Well, like I say, In the beginning, it's not about making money. In the beginning, it's just about not losing money. So knowing what you do properly. And like, even if you don't make any money, that's okay. But you don't lose it month after month after month. Okay, I know, it's annoying, but that's a good thing. And then, you know, we could just do a little tweak here and there, and then then the the profits start taking off. So I totally agree with that. And see, because a lot of people that sell options, they'll tell you, Oh, yeah, you know, I have great months, and then I have a big loss. And then I have good months and have nobody wants to be on that roller coaster. Because eventually you're like, man, what am I doing? Matt: I mean, do you want to go make money in the beginning of the year, at the end of the year, you've lost money or just break even? It's, that's frustrating, you know? So the whole goal is to, you know, especially what you said in the beginning, it's very true. Yeah. Allen: So now you guys said that communication was key. So do you have any rules around that? Do you have like, do you like get together and say, okay, besides the trade trade talk, you know, when you have that, do you actually sit down and be like, alright, half an hour debrief, what do we do this week? How are we going to improve? Or is it just, Matt: I think I know what you're gonna go to. I think, I think, for us, and this is just for us, but a big part. And a lot of people think it's a dirty word. But a budget, we always had a budget always kept us in line, you know, and it's like, whenever we've kind of rapidly spending, you know, and aren't talking about trading, we're just talking about life and your budget, it always get us back on the road, so to speak. So that was a big piece of our communication. So it's just knowing that we're kind of on the road. So I think that flows into your trading and it flows into your communication. So I think that's a really big piece. Margaret: Yeah. And I would say like specific rules about communicating around trading, we've never said anything. It's just kind of happened organically. And we will, you know, there's there certain parameters that you teach in your class and we get in at a certain time and when we do that, we will talk to each other that day, and then we check it both together, generally in the morning, and we'll just kind of go Oh, or Yeah, and commit Write together or celebrate together. And then that I think, I guess that's the organic piece. We just check in with each other in the morning. Matt: Be like, Fine, quick text during the day, you know? Yeah. Margaret: Yeah. Because Matt is watching it for his day job. And he'll text me if something, you know, hey, keep your as open. This is happening or, but yeah, so I guess that's it like we wake up in the morning. We look at it, we chat about it, and then throughout the day, he'll text me. Or maybe if I'm doing something, I'll text him and say, Hey, have you seen? And he always says yes. But yeah, that's it. Okay, Allen: Cool. So what happens when one of you wins and the other loses? Matt: That's a good question. Well, yeah, I've lost before I've lost my I lost. I lost before. And oh, yeah. Oh. Yeah Margaret: Jog my memory. Okay. So I'm going to just tell myself here in the beginning, before we found your class, and I'm not just saying this, because this is true. So it's just true. We cannot say how much of course we lost $5,000. So $5,000 is, is a lot of work for me. And I, I am the one who had funded it that month, to the account, and Matt lost it. And we we realized then, that that was really tough. That was tough on me, it was tougher on me than it was him. And actually, our trade talk Fridays, were really good, because they had also lost the money. And I had lost a little bit, but not as much. We were all just really disheartened and frustrated. And I think I think I was a little mean was a little mean, Matt: Slightly slightly. Are you sure you can do this? Well, yeah, feel the weight of that. Right. Yeah. I mean, if you're not, your wife's out there, she's, she's busting her butt to bring in money, and then you just lose it. It's a lot of you feel the way that, you know, you gotta really dig deep and be like, okay, emotionally and you know, everything about to have the confidence to keep going, right? And you got to search and really believe in yourself that you can, you know, like I said, it's not the end of the world, but you have to get through there gonna be times like that. That happened. Margaret: It made me quit trading for a couple months. Yeah, I got really nervous. And then I said, okay, and then actually, that's is that that's about the time we found oil, wasn't it? Like we found oil sometime after that? It seemed to be a little exactly what you're talking about earlier, it wasn't as much of a roller coaster. And that has changed it for me. Allen: Okay, so was there anything else besides finding that strategy that was able to get you through it? Because like, I mean, emotionally, that's a it's a big hit. Right? And did anything change between the way you guys communicated the way you guys traded? Matt: No, I think Margaret took a little hiatus. I'm the type that I never, I never give up on thanks, I will just take it to the death, you know. I'm like, I just keep going no matter what, just get out of my way. No matter how many hits I take, I just keep going. And I leave it all on the table. So I just I knew I was going to keep going. But again, the key and I don't be, Margaret: but you. You did try it a little more conservatively? Didn't you? Matt: Sure. Yeah. I mean, you learn your lessons, you get burned out a little bit, you start to kind of, you know, you remember and you're like, Okay, I don't want to have those same feelings. But let me cautiously kind of figure it, learn from your mistakes, if you will, you know, and treat a little bit more conservative pay a little more attention. What can I learn from that experience? And I think that changes everything. Of course, you know, the strategies that we do, are a lot better, like I'm able to manage our trades so much better. I think that's important. Margaret: I think that's key. And I think that's key for me, knowing interesting that we have better management strategy now makes me feel a lot more secure, and a lot less emotional, and more. What's the word? I'm looking for sure. That Matt and I can both do the trades and not lose that $1,000 chunks anymore. Matt: More confident? Yeah. And I think I've read this before, and I really believe it is that you are your first really job is to become your risk assessor. And then you're a trader. Yeah. So it's like it's really important that you this all we do is assess risk all the time. So I think it's really important to, to focus on that. And once you get better at assessing risk and managing, just become a better trader, but you just kind of have to go through those things. I mean, when I first started trading, they're like, Okay, your first loss is your best loss. And I was like, what does that mean? They don't want to lose you. And like, they said it all the time, like, Oh, your first last year about like, Who is this person? Like, why did he say that to me? I don't want to lose. But it is true. Like, it teaches you things that you just, you think, you know, you like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna get out of that trade, I know what I'm doing. And then you get burned. Everyone's got to touch the stove, apparently, at some point, you know, it's like, Oh, don't touch the stove. It's hot. But of course, we gotta go touch it. But that's just life. I mean, and it's how you react to those situations, I think. And you don't you don't tell yourself that you're not? How are you going to respond to that? Is very important. You know, in all aspects of life as a trader anything. Allen: I mean, a lot of people, you could say that, but it's not as easy when you're going through it. You know, the first time Oh, first time you do it, it's like, ah, people behave in all crazy different ways. Matt: Yeah. Yeah, it's just, you're gonna have to, I guess this, the best way is to do the best you can to bring people through that experience. All right, you can tell them that it's it probably will happen. But how you react to that situation? It's good to kind of tell your future. Margaret: We're model citizens is that? Allen: Well, I mean, they say that, you know, most divorces are caused because of money issues and problems. Yeah. You know, and a lot of people do not see eye to eye on money. And they don't talk about it before they get married. They don't talk about their goals, visions, whatever, or even how to balance it, you know, like, oh, yeah, one is a budget person. One is a non budget, I'm going to spend whatever I can, but it's like, a lot of people have these issues. And it's, it's great to see that you guys are same page, you know, same goal, same like, okay, hey, you guys talked about it ahead of time. Yeah, like, this is our vision. This is the goal. How do we get there, we'll change you know, like, we'll go on a different path. And we'll try and we'll try this. And like, you guys first started with the passive trading course. Right? It puts in the calls and, and then you say, Okay, let's graduate to something else. So then you guys added the oil program. And then you guys have been doing that. So you just added to something. Now you guys have even you know, got you got your own Airbnb now. So congratulations on that. Margaret: Thank you. Allen: So you're diversifying? So yeah, you're trying different things. And nobody says that you can't right. So you should you should work and in us every strategy available to get to whatever your your dream is. So in that sense, you guys have done a bunch of different things. How do you handle it when you disagree? Margaret: Like disagree on? Allen: On the path, disagree on maybe a tray disagree on let's say, you guys did the Airbnb? Maybe Matt would be like, yeah, no, I don't want to do that. And I want to put more money into trading account. Because we already know we're doing well here. Matt: I hate to disappoint. But I don't think we disagree on too much. If we do, it's like, you know, we do. I'm not saying it's easy enough. I mean, marriage is not easy. But we have their situations, I think it's important to you just you take a pause. You kind of realize how you're dealing with it personally, how you're, what you're thinking, what you're you're feeling, and then you come back to that person and you talk about it. Margaret: I think to just thinking about our investments so far, we do things that we are confident in our knowledge base around so I've had a real estate license for five years. And I shoot real estate and I understand real estate. So when I said Hey, Matt, let's buy this, Airbnb. He was like, Okay, sounds like a good investment. You've done the numbers. I trust you. Matt: Yeah, I do. I trust that she's, I've seen it, she's she's in that field, she does the work. She's always trying to figure it out. And I, their word really is trust. I trust her that she's going to do the best she can with it. Margaret: And I think it's about Yeah, I think it's likewise to you, because I trust that he's, he's read. If you could say our library of books, it's literally every book I've ever heard of on finance and investing. And multiple copies probably down. And so I think, I think it all comes back down to we, we because we both feel like we have studied different things. You know, and now Matt learns more about real estate and I, I give him all the credit because I always was interested in retirement and investing but I didn't know where to get started. And so because he had a knowledge base, he kind of brought me up a little bit faster than if I had then what I was able to do on my own right. So that's powerful. And then because I already trusted him so much and then we got to go to all the seminars together. It just build that built that foundation and so now we really don't disagree on Matt: I think part of also is like, I never wanted to push that on Margaret. Yeah, like my interest, right? I have interest in finance. I never wanted to push that it's an interest of mine. Real estates and interests of her. She doesn't push that on me. I don't push that on her. So it was, it becomes organic when you are you, you're interested in yourself, right? You're like, okay, you know, Matt's doing something. I'm interested in that I want to see a little bit more, but it comes from her. It doesn't come from me telling her Oh, you got to check this out. You should check this out. Yeah, that's important. But ultimately, it's gonna be her decision. Right? Yeah, Margaret: You start to for me, I started doing the numbers. Whoa, you can make this on a trade in two minutes. And I make this on how many? How many hours? Does it take me? Yeah, that's a no brainer. Allen: Cool. Okay, so now, so a lot of our customers they've been through. And unfortunately, like, they've gone on a path similar to yours. But I would say that you guys, you know, if you've, if you only started trading, like three years ago, you guys have taken a shorter route than a lot of our customers. Really? Yeah. So they've been trading for multiple years, still trying to figure out like, Hey, how can I make this work? How can I become consistent, profitable, I've tried, you know, XYZ strategy, and this and this, and this, and they've bought cores, and they've been videos and seminars, and, and they still are looking for that something, to get them over the hump, to get them to be like, Oh, finally, I'm actually making some money. Finally, like you said, they're confident that they can, you know, the month is going to start, I have a strategy that works. I'm confident I'll probably make money this month. But they're still not there yet. And because of that, because of them, you know, trying and investing in course, investing in Seminar investing in another doohickey. You know, they have all the things you can buy, like, Oh, hey, you know, that you can buy this indicator, and the indicator will tell you exactly when to buy and when to sell is only $3,000. You know, they're like, Okay, I'm gonna get that, you know, they get it and then they don't doesn't work. And then the wife or the other or the husband, either way, the spouse is like, I can't believe you're wasting all this time, all this energy, all this money on this trading stuff when he doesn't frickin work. You know, you've been trying for years, and it's just not working. It's all a big scam. Right? And that's the big girl. Yeah, it's a big scam that nobody can do this. So what advice or tips or anything? Would you suggest for a trader in that position where their spouse is maybe not very receptive to them continuing to trade? Where the spouse is like, you know, can you just give this up? You know, just spend time with me? Just, you know, Matt: Yeah. I'm gonna let you go first. And I'll go after. Margaret: Okay? Because we, we were not in that specific scenario, I just keep going back to it has to be the trust. So how are you going to build trust with your partner, not when they don't know what you're going through? And then I would say you would have to have some sort of mentor, and to be honest, that is you that that is you for us. Right? So we I remember, when I got the calculator that you sent out of this is where if you this is what you need in order to make the monthly income that you want on the percentage of money, and this is how much money you need in your account. And you've done it, like you've gone before us, we know it can be possible. So we're trusting that what you say is true. And we've seen it and especially now that that works for you. So I think finding somebody that you can put that trust into and having if your partner is not going to be in that with you, at least show them who that is that you're learning from or what they've done. And if if it's if it's not Alan Sama, then make sure that they've got a good record of what they've done. So that, that your partner can have trust in that you're learning from somebody that is credible. You know, the first thing we learned from had learned down the road from somebody who had learned from Warren Buffett, and so, you know, I don't really care about names of people, that doesn't impress me, but when you actually know something that impresses me, and that gives me the assurance to bet on myself. And that's what I would say, would be my advice. Matt: Yeah, I mean, I always went into investing, especially as I, you know, started to learn about options. I was like, I don't want to hear about oh, you can make all this money. You can do all this and everything's going great. I wanted to go and be like, show me how to do it. Right. And then once you show me how to do it, I believe you. And that's just who I am. And I think most people maybe are like that they want proof and they but more importantly they want to be be able to do it themselves, some people don't. But if you're into this and you want to learn, and you have to go into mindset be like, show me how to do it. And then you get the confidence that you can do it yourself, and then you can be able to teach other people. Allen: Okay, nice. Next question I have here is that you guys have been doing this for a little bit together? Are there anything thinking back that you would do differently? So basically, the question is, like, you know, are there any tips that you would give to a couple starting out? Or lesson or something that you felt? You know what, we didn't do that? Right? Maybe we should have done it differently? Margaret: I would. I know that $10,000 was a lot for us, when we bought into your class. It was 100% worth it. And I wish that we would have done that first. Matt: Yes, I think in this world, you know, you don't want to believe it, but you really pay for what you get. You know, it's a hard truth. Lots of people want to be like, oh, I want this for, you know, low money, or I want this, but you got to really look at is it? What's the worth of it? Right? Is it going to be? Margaret: And are you willing to do the work? Matt: Are you willing to do the work? That's a lot of people like, I think the advice I give people is like the least tell yourself before you think something is not worthy, or it doesn't go up to your expectations, at least go through and do the work of what has been laid before you. Okay, so you have all these lessons, and you have all everything, but you have to can you really tell yourself that you put on all the work, when you haven't gone through the class, when you haven't gone through all the, you know, really dug deep to get everything out of it, then you can say whether you want to continue or not, whether it was a failure, whether it was not at least do that. And I think it's important for people that start out, set aside a small amount of money, right? And maybe agree that, okay, if you lose this small amount of money, it's a good idea. Fine, it didn't work out. But at least you agreed on that. And then give it a shot. Yeah. Right. And then maybe if it didn't work out, and you want to go further, we examined it at that point. That way, you know, it's not like a, I lost everything. And it's the end of the world type scenario. At least I gave it a try. You know, I followed my dreams to figure out this on my own. And if you at least put in the effort, you can tell yourself, Margaret: I would like to give your wife major kudos. Since you said you lost a lot of money in the beginning. That's a good woman to keep if she kept supporting you to go forward. Allen: Yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm very blessed. I am amazingly blessed. So I just give you a short version of the story. I had just been laid off. And so the question was, and we had just been married recently. And so the idea was, Okay, do I go and get another job? Or do I try something else? And, you know, I had been dabbling with trading. But I was like, maybe I could do this full time. So she's like, Okay, if you think you can do it, go for it. And, of course, I did not have any money. She had money from that she had saved up from working for several years before we got married. So she's like, you know, I have all this in savings. You know, try it. And so then she got a second job to support us. So because I wasn't making anything, so she got the second job. And she's working. She was a nurse. So she was working like three days a week at the at the hospitals, 12 hour shifts. And then on the other day, she would be, they have this thing called home health, where the nurse actually shows up to your house. So she would be driving around town, going from place to place to place, you know, giving injections and IVs and medicines and all that stuff. So very draining, especially with all the traffic and everything. And yeah, and I proceeded to try everything like day trading and futures and forex and commodity options and everything is like nothing was working. And I was down over 40 grand. When I finally actually, I think what turned it around was that she found out because I was hiding it from her. Like I wasn't telling ya that she came on to check the mail. She checked the statement. She's like, where's all the money? Oh, like, oh, yeah, about that. So it was either Yeah, you know, it's like, okay, either go to go get a job right away. Turn this around. Or, you know, if you don't do one of those things, we're probably getting split, right. So I was planning like, I was getting my resume ordered together. And then I found selling options. Like I discovered that Hey, there, there was a trade I did that was actually it worked. And I'm like, Well, what is this? Let me follow up more and then I got into it and I showed her how to do it. She was like, Okay, you have something here. So you'd like you said I did Didn't I put like all the money aside? You know, I stopped playing with all the money. And I took a small amount. And I'm like, Okay, let me see if I could just do something with this, instead of the big amount. And that gave her pause, like, okay, fine, you know, he's not gonna lose all the money. And if I lost that money, then yeah, go get another job. And that's it, end of story. But luckily, I showed her she understood it, it started working. And then you know, then the rest is history from there. Margaret: I can imagine there's some pretty real feelings going on around that. That's Allen: Very stressful. Yeah, very, very stressful. Because she wanted to know what I was doing. But she didn't have any background in finance. You know, her family never talked about investing or anything. So she didn't really know anything about it. Slowly, slowly, I started telling her. And then the funny part is, she would come home, like, and she'd be like, Oh, hey, she got interested, right? And she would come home and she goes, Hey, I checked the news and the markets up today. And I'm like, Yeah, but I'm, you know, I'm in. I'm in calls today. Oh, there she goes, Oh, no, oh, that's too bad. You know? And then two days later, she'd be like, Oh, look, I checked in the markets down today. I'm like, No. I mean, Puts today. She would like she did, she wouldn't know if I'm gonna be happy or sad. But she was nuts. But yeah, so and then after a while, then it got good. And like I said, you know, she wanted that stability. She didn't want that up and down. She's like, I need something stable income, so I can quit the second job, take okay. And then she was able to quit the first job. And then so it worked out. But yeah, it was a long, hard road. And I did not have the mentor that you mentioned, you know, so that was one of the probably the biggest things that if I could have found somebody that could have just pulled my hand be like, here, this works, just follow this plan. Margaret: You know, that's why we got to shortcut it. Yeah. Allen: But.. Matt: I think that is a hard thing. Because you're always trying to search for, you know, they're always there numerous or many mentors out in the world, it's like, is trying to find who's true, right? That's it's very difficult. And you you have a guard up, everyone's got their guard up. And they're always kind of like, is this person trying to take me or, you know, I don't feel right about this person, I maybe feel right about this person. I mean, just look at FTX. I mean, that guy that was like darling, and crypto. And then they find out he's, he's, you know, a Bernie Madoff. So it's like, it happens over and over again. So that's kind of how I got into trading. I was like, show me how to do it, and see if it worked, right. And you're not only a mentor, but you show people how to do it. And then you can build trust in yourself, rather than, you know, of course, a mentor is wonderful. And it will shortcut that process. But you can learn about this stuff. And then you, you make yourself your own mentor in a way, you know, it's like you just kind of be like, Okay, I have the confidence now. And then you can go on. Allen: Yeah, I think it all comes down to confidence too. Because like, if I look at it, you know, we have several students that in any strategy that you pick one strategy, and then there's somebody there that's been like, Oh, hey, I did you know this much percent? And I'm like, wow, that's better than me. And there's another strategy. Oh, I did this much. And I'm like that better than me. And I know that, like, what everybody's doing better than me what's going on? You know, but I think that's part of it is the confidence. There's like, and this will tell you something about me, like, you know, I came up with the rules, right? So I came up with the test and testing it and failing, and I forgot what they call it. But it's like, you know, you, you try something and then you fail, and you try and you're failing, you chaired it. So in my mind, you know, all these rules are made by me. Right? So I was like, I don't know how much I can, you know, like, really? I'm gonna trust myself. I don't know. It's scary. But then somebody else comes and goes, Oh, Allen, you know, he's the man. He knows what he's doing. I'm just gonna go 100%. And they do. They do better than me. And I'm like, I don't get it. Matt: redo my rules. Allen: I just need to, I just, like, forget it. I just give you guys my money's like here. Matt: But I mean, in all seriousness, as well, I mean, people, they come in these programs, and everyone has so much to add. I mean, that's how you get better. I mean, there's people that are just like, oh, yeah, I did this way. And you're like, Oh, I didn't think about that. And it's like, if you're open to that, and you receive that, then it makes everything better for everybody. And I've seen that over and over again, where somebody will just say, Oh, I found this way to do this easier. It's like it's constant learning. All of us are constantly learning constantly getting better constantly trying to achieve and go go better. And that's a wonderful thing. Allen: Yep. Yeah, we had an hour. Just recently, we in our passive trading group, somebody had put like, Hey, I don't know how to do this. And I'm pretty sure it's in it's in the core somewhere. But then another student was like, oh, here, let me make you a video. And he just made a video. Yeah, this is how I did it. It's like, Oh, wow. And they asked another Oh, how about this, he made another video. It's just, you know, everybody's helping each other because we all have the same goal. And it's like, Let's just all work together. And, you know, we're all on the same path. Matt: Yeah, it's like, it's always true, you surround yourself with the right people, and good things will happen. I mean, it's just just got to be able to do that, Allen: you know, it's like, amazing, we had some really cool students, helpful, you know, just to go out of the way for each other. It's really, really nice. So then, okay, so my last question for you guys. And I don't know, maybe you guys like, maybe this is a problem that we've seen people have, but I don't know if you guys are gonna be able to answer it. But how can a trader have their spouse support them in their trading? So like, you know, if, you know, one of you is the trader, or you want to do something, how can you get your spouse to have that confidence in you? That you can do it? Does that make sense? Yeah. Because like, I know, with my wife, in the beginning, she didn't have any confidence. And then later on, you know, the numbers kind of spoke for themselves. But one of the things I did was when the back testing software came out that we that we use a lot, I showed it to her. And she was like, Oh, cool. I want to learn this, too. So we would sit there, and I gave her the rules. I think we were talking about credit spreads at the time. It's like, okay, so this is kind of how we find a trade. And I didn't have like, first set out rules yet. It was just, you know, ideas. I try, sometimes they do this way, that way. And so then I had her and I told her what it was. And we would look at a chart and be like, okay, hey, what do you what's the trade? And so she would pick her trade? And then, you know, we would we would go through it. And then I had already done it my way, you know, and it would always come out where she was actually more profitable than me. Same trade, same stock, same timeframe, if we had done it her way, we would have made more money. That's the thing about the confidence. He knows, like, when you see your wife who doesn't know anything, she just numbers, you know, she doesn't matter. It's like, I don't know, maybe I'm not cut out for this. But then, but then later on, there was a time where I got into like, a, like a rut, you know, so I wasn't I wasn't following the rules, the discipline became a problem. Because our trading doesn't take a lot of time. And so when you're just, you know, stuck, you don't have anything else to do, you kind of start over trading, and you're messing around with stuff. And so I had her, and she came, she's the one that came up with this. She's like, you know what, every single trade, you're going to write it down. And you're going to tell me, and I'm going to come upstairs at one o'clock every day, I'm going to ask you questions about every single trade, you know, and I forget exactly what they were. But it's in one of our products. It's like, you know, what's the goal? What's the plan? You're going to adjust it or you're going to get out when you're going to do it? Where's it now? And why haven't you done what you're supposed to do? You know, and so because of that, because I knew she was going to come? Right? I would have everything ready before she came in. So if I had to get out of a trade because it was down or I needed to do an adjustment, it will already be done by the time she got in. And so that degree of holding me accountable. It really I mean the results just went skyrocketing higher. That's really smart. So that was.. Margaret: something that you said yesterday on our call on our oil call really has stuck with me about every day that you wake up you have a decision to stay in that trade or get out so that's the day that you're making a decision. And it's not Yeah, so that it just hit me this morning because we had the the market was down a little bit this morning. And we talked about it like what what are we going to do so I like that idea of having an accountable Matt: Well, it's important because you're you yourself are going to be emotionally different each day for whatever reason, just as you as an individual that but now you have your wife or someone who was account recording accountable is going to come in and keep you straight. I think what every what everybody needs Allen: Yep. Either either spouse or buddy or accountability partner or something like that, that you can trade with. Trading buddy, I like that. Cool. Okay. Is there anything else that you guys wanted to share with our audience? Margaret: Hmm, you can do it. You can absolutely do it. I think if I could have told myself which I had zero knowledge background in how what what was a brokerage? Let's just start with the simple step. I did not even know the difference between brokerages I did not understand what a brokerage account was. So if I could Tell Margaret, even just five years ago, what I will be doing today, I would not have believed it. And that once you start looking at your money, you know, everybody always says nobody cares about your money more than you do. I think our age group needs this knowledge. Because with the advent of you having to figure out your own retirement and not having pensions, it is extremely important for us to know that and we didn't have any knowledge that is out there. You know, we didn't we weren't 20 and Tiktok. And Instagram rails were out there where you could learn some of this stuff. You know, we're where we're younger people already know so much more than I knew when I'm in my 20s. I think there's a group of us that needs the hope that comes from knowing that you can manage your own money, and you can make money and you can help your retirement, it doesn't matter if you're in your 40s. Matt: No matter really what age you are, I mean, my mother's 80, right. And if she was, you know, I used to stay at Costco all the time. And I said this many times where they're, they're older people that give out samples or they're in the job. And there, you can see that they're in pain. They're standing all day long, and they're like 70, and 80 years old. And if they just knew if they knew how to do a simple strategy, or trade or just learn it, in which they totally can, yeah, or be shown that and, you know, they can believe in it, that would change their life. And they change their comfort, not later on and be right now. Yeah. Which is so powerful. So it's really it goes to, that's what I love about trading, it can help all age groups. Yeah. Right. And you're right. No one cares about your money more than you do. And I look at like, life's risky. Everything's at risk. So you owe it to yourself. You think trading is risky. Give it a shot. Everything's risky. Yeah. Right. So you got to overcome your fears. See how things work? Believe in yourself. And just go for it. Yeah, because we're only on here one turn, you know, Margaret: Why not? Give it a shot? Allen: Well said Well said, you guys, I really thank you for this. This has been a pleasure. And I really appreciate your time and spending some time and sharing intimate details about your lives and your relationship with us. It's it's been a blessing. Thank you so much. Margaret: Thank you for asking us. Yeah.

Mark: Well, look, it's really it's a, it's a long journey. I've read your book, I've read many books, I've been in this game for a long time. It's very difficult to sum it up in literally minutes, I suppose. But after reading a book just recently, and listening to all your podcasts a lot lately, I've delved into a lot of it and taken many, many things out of each person's story, which I can resonate wholeheartedly with. But I probably got into Options back in 2006. And I've probably come and gone with it a lot. I've started and stopped, due to various reasons, obviously, life, I've got kids and family and work commitments and stuff like that. But it's always been, I suppose, a hobby. But trying to make that jump or trying to get into it. Full time is obviously difficult for lack of funds or lack of time and effort. I don't know, there's always seems to be something that comes up that stops me from progressing. Having said that, I'm a pretty committed person. I'm pretty disciplined. I've been doing it now for a long time. But like, if you look through him on the table here, I've got trading stuff sitting everywhere, notes. Mark: I've crunched the wheel so many times I've done the shiny diamond thing. I've gone from one program to another. I've spent numerous amounts of funds on various programs and different services such as yourself. I don't know this Option Genius has been around in my life, I suppose, on and off. So I don't know like I've all I'm a big advocate for what you say and what you do. I've wholeheartedly believe that I've been selling options for a long time I've done credit spreads, I've done strangles I've done butterflies, I've done covered calls, I've done a lot of those strategies, or centered around selling options. And I've been doing it for a long time. But for some reason, I just can't seem to break through the ceiling, I just cannot seem to be there to go from this hobby, like training interest that I seem to be involved with, to getting to that next level. I suppose I when I found out that we're going to do this call. Set last night I sat down I tried to write out things that would be good to discuss or to ask you. And I've got like all this paper sitting you have all these notes that I've made, as you would have seen in my email, it was quite lengthy. I think one of the assistants said all that email is probably the longest one I've ever received, that I really okay then.  Allen: Like, you know, because we get, we get lots of emails every day and some people, right? Some people write two paragraphs, but when somebody goes in deep, and they really share their, you know, their soul pretty much. It's like, Hey, I've been doing this and this and this, and this, and I don't know what's going on, then, like we you can feel it when somebody is really, really wanting to make it work. And so those most of those get passed on to me. And when I read it, I was like, alright, you know, we need to we need to talk about this. Because if you've been doing this for years, then like, I have not doing my job. I've let you down in some way that because you know, you shouldn't still be feeling that way. I know. But it's not uncommon. You know, we come across many, many people that come to us and say, hey, you know, I've been doing this for a long time. But you know, it never clicked for me. But you will.. Mark: Yeah, I can see that. So many people that you talk to, you know, have the same they're trying and trying to trying to find the right system, the right setup the right, whatever it is just can't seem like I feel to break through that ceiling. Like you're stuck underneath the water. You're swimming hard. You're learning this, you're watching that you're reading this you're researching. You're looking at the charts to pair with analysis, paralysis, all that stuff. And I've made lots of trades. I've done lots of trading. I've been I've been I won't say successful because clearly we wouldn't be on this call otherwise, but I've made money, but I've also lost money. I've got scars, I've got all that stuff I've had I've had losses, but still here I am battling looking at all that stuff that you talked about in the book in that book really resonated with me there's a lot of stuff in there that I thought I can do this. I know I can do it. Why am I doing it? Why it's just what why does it elude me so much? Is it just a pipe dream and more and more just a duck on the water swimming and just never gonna get there? I don't know. Allen: So you know, when we when we got the email, when they forwarded to me, they asked me like, hey, what do you think the problem is here? Does he not know enough? And my answer to them was No, I think he knows too much. He knows too much. That's part of the problem. I'm just guessing here and I wanted to try to get to the root of it. But you know a lot of the times when so there's there's different things that you need. Everybody needs different things to in order to succeed in anything. Obviously, you know, you need to know what to do you need to how to do it. You know, you have to practice you have to put in the time. You need somebody Do that can actually has doing it like coach that's teaching you, you need a team or a teammate or somebody to do it with. These are all different things that that can help. But a lot of times we come across people that have been, you know, bouncing around from program to program, like you said, they know all the different strategies, they know everything, they know how it works. Some people come and they know it better than I do. You know, so they're, they're telling me that, oh, the Vega this is this and the Gamma and the theta and the row and all this other, you know, they're touching on the Greeks, and they're managing by the Greeks, and they're doing all these complicated stuff. But they're like, it's still not working, why is it not working? So I think, if it can work for somebody else, it can work for you. And I firmly believe that in just about anything, except maybe sports, you know, should somebody else could dunk the ball, maybe I can't dunk the ball. But in trading, a lot of it is I think, 80 to 90% of it is menta. Mark: I've totally, totally, totally. Allen: So there might be something that is holding you back, or, you know, maybe like I don't know, so let's get into it. So now you've mentioned a couple of times that you haven't gotten to the next level. So tell me what is the next level? What is the goal that you're trying to get to? Mark: Well, I think the goal is the same for everybody's, you know, everyone's trying to make income, like, right, I have a I mean, I'm in I'm a cop. So I work in a profession that I see myself coming to a fork in the road. I've been doing this job now for over 14 years, for 10 years. And before that I was in a private industry, we had a family business. So I understand all the dynamics of running a business, how it operates. We had a family business for over 30 years. And long story short, we got out of that for various reasons. And then I got into the government sector, which is a totally different psyche altogether, which took me some time to try and come to terms with. Having said that, I've forever in my wife, and I've come from a family that has been heavily invested in property, shares, businesses, and stuff like that. So I've always had this belief that I can do something with my life that will be able to produce constant income money have investments, like I've had investment properties, and I've done the share thing now on the option things for a long time. And I'm not destitute, I'm not desperate, I have a house, I have three beautiful children and family sort of stuff. But I want to go to the next level I want to be able to provide, I want to be able to teach my kids trading, I want to be able to show them how to invest all the money stuff, like all that sort of thing. I feel as if I'm promoting this stuff, yet, I haven't really truly succeeded myself. I haven't got to the level where they can say okay, Mark, look at you've got all this great stuff, and that show me how to do it. And when they do ask me, I'm sort of thinking so I will not really, I can talk about it. I've read about it, and I'm doing it, but I really haven't got what you think I have. Having said that. Getting back to the trading side of it. I think I want to have this as a business, I can see the potential in it as you can do from home. It's all in front of you in the net. I don't have to go out I don't have to be injured tree. I understand that. I do know a lot about it. I understand all those things you just mentioned with the Greeks and what not right? And I probably do, I probably do know too much. And I do want to keep it simple. I do say to myself, when I'm doing it, just keep it simple. Why do you need to have this indicator? Why do we need to be having that? I totally agree with what you've promoted and talked about for so long. And I think I was probably watching on Option Genius probably before you even started doing podcasts. But over the years, I've come and gone. I've been involved with and I've been with other things. And I've on and off as we mentioned before, right? All right. Does that help answer the question? Allen: No. So what what what do you mean by the next level? Is it an income? Is it is it a certain amount of money in the account is a certain amount of money every month? Where it is it that you say okay, now I've arrived now I have achieved my goal? What what is that number so that you would be able to be like, Yes, I feel happy though. Mark: Okay, so I've sort of thought about that. And I've put a number down to 10k. Now that's a pie in the sky dream. That's a pie in the sky dream. I know. And that's a long way off being achieved. I would just like to be able to see some consistency, all that stuff that you promote consistent, being profitable, and I can do that. But then as you know, you get one or two trades that wipe you out, wipe it back to zero and then it got to start again. Right? So just not we're just not getting that constant. Right? What do they call it.. Allen: Okay, so 10k is the goal. Now, it's not a it's not a it's not a pipe dream. It's so 10k is the goal. If you got 10k every month, you'd be happy. You'd be like okay, I've made it you know I'm accomplishing And that this stuff is actually working. Finally, this stuff is actually working if you were making 10k a month. So tell me, what is it that you think is keeping you from doing that? Mark: Well, clearly a lack of funds at this stage. But I have had numerous accounts where they've had a substantial amount of money in there, but I've just brought it right back down to just doing one lots, until I can see the consistency and seeing that, the, that my trading works, it's consistent, well, then we can scale up. So I'd rather than that, so I'm happy to do just one month a month, which means I'm not gonna make 10 grand in the near future, right, those types of trades, but we can scale that up at a later date. Allen: But what do you so if you were to say, hey, Alan, give me this one thing, and I know I can make tons of money. What is that one thing? Mark: Well, I suppose it's like a business plan, isn't it, like a franchise to follow a step by step thing, do this, do this, do this, do that put it on, obviously, there's a little bit of, there's gonna have to be a little bit of a thought process and feel for the market. But I suppose I need a plan. Like I know how to put the trade on, I know how to do a credit spin on it, for example, but I suppose I need a set of rules or business plan or like something to follow. So that way, I can just follow the recipe for a particular day, not particular strategy, but it's very hard to identify it or pinpoint it down to one thing. Like I've written all these notes in the book and pages and pages of all these things that you're discussing the iPad and whatnot, and try to answer those questions myself. Like, what am I looking for? What's stopping me I've written here a recipe, a plan, a template to follow rules to follow or to abide by tools, treat it like a franchise, for instance. So that way, I'm not deviating to another thing. So I have it on my wall and write down Am I following those particular plans? Does that is that sort of answer the question?  Allen: So do you not have any trading plans right now? I mean, you said you were in different programs and everything so did you do you have any that you've been using as a guideline as a framework? Mark: The cover I've written things down in the past but I suppose sticking to it, or having it visible is difficult. I suppose someone to write one with me or for me to say right this is a trading plan. This is what you need to have in it to follow I suppose I haven't really been given a choice like if it says write a trading plan, write down this stuff, write it down, but I suppose I just want to try it like this is what's going on my head just put the trades on just put the trades on work with the probabilities. Yeah, it should work out. Allen: Okay, and are you conservative or aggressive? Mark: I believe I'm conservative in the sense where at the moment like with the one loss, so like, if I was aggressive, I'd be going right I'm pretty positive this trades gonna work of two or five, or 10 lot but at the moment, it's like let's just hold back and do one more being conservative. I think I can be aggressive if I need to be but on how Allen: And how much percentage return are you looking to make? Mark: I knew you're gonna ask me that question. And I don't actually have a percentage. I've just I suppose a bad way of saying it but I just keep putting the trades on and hope that the probabilities work out so I don't have a particular percentage amount that I've got Okay. When you ask that question Allen: obviously so obviously you know, just putting the trades on hoping they work out that's not working. So we're gonna have we're have to refine this What strategy do you think most appeals to you? Mark: Well, obviously I've been working on the credit spread that's probably the one thing that I've done the most of the credit spreads like I've done in many others, but that's the one that I've probably done the most so in the last few years. Allen: Okay, and are you keeping track record of all the trades that you've been doing? Mark: No, I don't. I have written them down in the past. I do try to follow that put it in a journal, but over time, it just becomes cumbersome I suppose like it's writing it all down. I don't I don't stick to it. It's probably the kind of problem there. Allen: So what you said is you want to franchise, and in the franchise are going to tell you the first thing is to document everything you're doing. Because we cannot tell what's going wrong if we don't know what you already did. So having a firm plan that says okay, I'm gonna put this trade on and writing down why, why am I putting this trade on? Because it's moving higher because it's got news coming out because it's high. It's, you know, very volatile right now or the IV is off or whatever their reasoning is, you put the rig, you put it there, you write the trade, you record what happened, why or why did not work out. And then after you do a whole bunch of these, you can go back and look at it and say, okay, every time I do a trade that's at, you know, 35 Delta, it works wonderfully. But every time I do any other Delta, it doesn't work. So I'm just going to do that 35 delta. So if you want to find your own trading plan, then this is how you do it. Now, this is a long way to do it, it's going to take a long time, because you're going to have to test different things and try different things and see what's working, what's not working. But it would be one way for you to create your own plan based on what you find you're more comfortable in, because some people they come in and they tell me, hey, you know what I want to do Credit spreads, and I want to do 2025 Delta spreads, some people don't want to do five Delta spreads, you know, so everybody's comfortable with different things. And then based on the amount of credit they get, then we can figure out okay, how do we how do we manage the trade, some people should be not managing the trade at all, they should just be getting in and getting out at a certain amount. Some people, they can go ahead and say, hey, my trade is going bad, I'm going to, you know, adjust it or do something else with it. So depending on what we're thinking, when we get in will dictate what we do when we're in the trade. Mark: So now that I know what I do for trades, there are particular entry signals that I looked for, like I don't just go and find a stock and then look up a chain and then play delta and put it on. I do have, like, for example, I think there's market volume, I use volume. So obviously, when volume is increasing, I'll have them put on a put trade, obviously, when the stocks turning or progressing. And obviously over the three averages, like you say, things like that. So there are particular indicators, and not too many I do try and keep it fairly simple, I believe, before I put anything on, so I do try and put the weight in my favor. And the advocate of that, of course, by using those some small indicators to try and get it on sideways or progressing in the in the direction that we think it's going. So I do look at that I'm not a big person, I'm gonna use a 35, Delta, or 45, or whatever. Right? Okay, I understand the Delta side of things. But it's more about volume, I suppose at this stage and what. Allen: Okay, so that that's good to know. Right? So I mean, what I would do is, I probably have a sheet, kind of like a checklist, you know, so get it out of your head, and onto an actual piece of paper, where every single trade you have to mark it off, you know, the volume is high, yes, you know, movement is this way or whatever, whatever your your things are, you check it off. One, two, three.. Mark: I actually have done that I can attest that I have done that I've written down, like when the bar gets lower than the level of bar, it's time to get in or when a turn when it points up. It's getting. So I have written most things down in the past. Yes. Allen: So that'll be your trade law right there. That's if you do if you have the discipline to do that, before you put in the trade, you'll you'll know at the end, okay. You know, just go back to that journal and be like, Okay, what worked and what didn't work? What are the patterns. And that's kind of the stuff that I was doing originally, when I was first starting to figure this stuff out, is look at every single one. And now I have my my checklist, where if there are two or three things that I cannot mark off, I don't put the trade on, because I know that hey, there's not enough, you know, these things are really important. I want them, I don't want to put a trade on without everything checked off. Allen: Now, that doesn't mean that I'm not going to lose, like you still lose on the trade with everything checked off. But like you said, you know, we're putting the odds in our favor. As many times if you have a checklist, like you said you did. That's your journal right there. And so before you put on the trade, you just mark it off, you know, check, check, check, check, oh, I can't check this one. Then later on, after the trades are done, you do 2030 trades, at least, then you can go back and look at and say okay, I lost on these three trades. What is the pattern I lost on these five trades? What is the pattern? And you might find a pattern, you don't have to but you might find something that say okay, these indicators, you know, they're not working or they are working. The other thing is, I mean, it's, it's really simple, right? You find the strategy that you want. And you said, Hey, I found the strategy. Second step is to find the trading plan, that you think you think will work and then is just test it and trade it and do it over and over over again. But the important part is that you have to stick to the plan. Do you think you stick to the plan, or is it? Is it a discipline? Mark: Tell me, tell me, what got you out? I've read your book or listen to your story. What part got you through that ceiling? Obviously, we're doing the same thing as we all do for such a long period of time. But there must have been something that clicked or something that you did or something did you get into? Was it a program for you? Was it someone that you got? Hold on What, what got you to that next level that we all tried to get to? Allen: It took time, it took discipline, there were a few things that really helped me. One was really sticking to the rules that I had set up. And really, it's about, you know, when it comes down to it, it's about putting the trades on with the odds in your favor as many ways as you can. And I learned about that later on, you know, having different different levels. But what I started to do, and the ones that I really started doing well on, and in the beginning, were iron condors. For some reason, that strategy really, really clicked with me. And I was like, Oh, my God, I gotta work. No, no, it doesn't work right now. But he's like, you know, that strategy really worked. And it was like, Oh, I can adjust it. So I might never lose money in the trades. It's just really awesome. But I still was having trouble following the rules. Because, you know, you have to work that. So there were there were a few ways. Number one is my wife got involved. Allen: So every day, she would, like I would have a list of all of my trades, and I would have all the rules, like when I needed to do what, so every day at a certain time, she would come upstairs because I was working from home and she wasn't she wasn't working. So she would come upstairs. And she would ask me, Okay, let's go through every single trade one by one by one. And so she'd be she'd have her notes. And she's, okay, this trade on Russell. Where is it now? And they go, Okay, this, it's up this much money, or it's down this much money? Okay. When are you going to adjust? Well, when this happens? And they said, where is it now? Say, Oh, it's right here. So do you have to adjust it? No, not yet. Okay, cool. Next one. All right. I did this. Okay. Why did you do this trade? And when are you going to adjust it? Should you have adjusted it? Yeah, I should have adjusted already. Why didn't you adjust it? Ah, I don't know. She's like, Oh, what the hell are you doing?  Mark: All that is basically you got your wife involved? Allen: I mean, not just involved, but she was holding me accountable. So I had to answer because she doesn't need to know anything about trading. But she just needs to look at my rules and ask me the questions like, hey, what's the trade doing? Is it up or down? Why have you not? What are you going to do about it? And if there is something to do about it, what are you going to do? So it's just asking yourself those questions every single day. And it helped. I used to do that on my own. But I would always ignore the answers. Because I didn't have anybody to answer to. It's like, oh, I'm a trader, I'm the boss, I make my I'll make the decisions. But when she came in, I knew I had to answer to her. And if I don't have a good reason, then I'm putting her money on the line as well. Right? I'm putting her future on the line as well. So we would have a discussion about that. So I knew in advance, I knew, Okay, she's coming at one o'clock, I need to make sure I got everything right. I'm doing everything right. Otherwise, we're gonna have an argument. And so I needed her. Like, in the beginning, I wasn't, I was I lost a lot of money. And so the only reason that I didn't have to go out and get a job was because she was patient with me. But it was part of it was like, she's going to be the boss, right? Until I turn it around. And until I break the ceiling, she's the boss. She's going to tell me what I can do what I cannot do based on how I'm doing. And so I call that my one o'clock, you know, fire drill. It's like every day at one o'clock, I still do it. I go through every single trade and I look at it and say okay, is this trade up or down? It's up. Okay, good. Allen: What happens if it goes down a little bit? Am I still going to be okay? Yes. Okay, move on to the next one. And so I don't have time to do that on 100 trades. So that's why I limit the number of trades I have. But every day I go in and I look at it and I monitor it I know where each trade stands. So that before it starts to get into trouble, I know and I can look at it and be like okay, this one I need to monitor this one I need to adjust early or this one I need to maybe just exit it because it's not acting right. It's not acting properly. So It kind of gives me you know, so having that while you go in every day and look at each trade, and everybody does that. But in order to you ask yourself the right questions, and then you have to do what you need to do. So just monitoring the trades, and just checking on them is not enough. You have to know, okay, this is my plan, and I have to do this, then you have to stick to it. And then if you have an accountability partner, or if you have a wife or a child, or whatever, if somebody comes in and asks you, hey, you were supposed to do this, well, why didn't you do it? And then you have to answer to them. So when you have somebody else there, that automatically, I mean, that instantly made me better, like instantly, the first day, second day she came in, you know, I just I just started following the rules, because I knew I had to, I had to give her an answer. So that was one of the things that did it. Allen: The other thing was that I realized that this is a long term game. And so you've read the passive Trading Book. So I wrote that book, because I saw that if you're only selling options, eventually, you don't like the options can go against you. So what I mean by that is, in the financial crisis, when we had the financial crisis in 2008, there was everything was just going up and down. And so if I had options on if I trades on those trades lost, and then I could never get that money back. That's when I realized that, okay, you know, if I want to play the long game, if I want to be in this forever, I cannot let something else knock me out. I cannot let a COVID 19 pandemic knock me out, I can't let the financial crisis I can't let you know, the President making some decision and sending the stocks down, knocked me out. And so I started building up the foundation of stocks, and using those to generate capital on those. And the idea is, hey, I want to own the stocks as my foundation. But I want to use options as basically like a rocket ship, you know, so I wanted to boost the returns. So I'm gonna have conservative stuff in the in the main portfolio, you know, where I have the stocks, and I'm making money. Mark: I totally agree with all right. Yeah. Allen: So, you know, that was now Mark: I totally agree with all that, definitely. Allen: So you can't start off that way. Because it takes a lot of money to own that stocks. So in the beginning, you do have to get good at picking one strategy, getting good at it, just following it and being disciplined, and saying, Hey, I'm going to do this, and I'm going to follow it along. Now, again, long term, picture wise, every month, you're not going to make money, every trade is not going to make money. So you have to have that in your in your mindset that, hey, sometimes it's gonna work, and sometimes it's not. So there's lots of lots of little little things that you can improve on it. But the biggest thing that I'm seeing is that you have to follow the plan. Mark: So Allen, do you think that I would benefit? Like I know you're selling plenty of courses, promote what you promote in the book. And I totally agree with all that, I get it on one side. But if I was to do another course, such as yours, I my fear is, and we're just going down that same rabbit holes, as I've done before, hence why I'm confused as to why I can't seem to break that ceiling. If I was to go into a course such as yours, this one that you're the passive trading and whatnot, I worry that I really fear that a year I am going into it again, I'm doing another course. But I understand the strategy. I think now I need more of a coach, maybe I need maybe that one on one, maybe maybe that's what I need. Or maybe there are things that I'm not happy to admit to that I do that I need to be changed. I need to be molded stead of going down this direction on to be heading over in this little bit direction over here with my trading. I understand the why thing. That's a great thing in my voice. She's a great supporter of me. I am trying to I'm trying to get out of work. She works. I'm trying to get her out, keep trying and trying and time is your course gonna sit me on that path to freedom. Allen: So it's like, you know, I mean, I'll give you an example. Like when people go to college, right? They everybody's told go to college, go to college, some people they go to college, and they just they just party the whole time and they don't get anything out of it. Some people go and they study, study, study, study, study, and they get a good job. Some people go and they make lots of contacts, you know, they they meet, they make lots of friends. They meet lots of teachers so that when they get out, they know a lot of people and they have a good network and then that helps them so it's really up to each person individually. Now I would love to say that yes, every single person that takes my course makes them million dollars. But that's not the reality. You know, people come in, life happens, they take it seriously, they don't take it seriously. And, you know, that's, that's one part I cannot control. So I cannot tell you that, yeah, you know what, it's going to work for you just because it's, I'm amazing. And I'm a wonderful person, and it's just gonna work. 90% of it is on you, I can give you everything I know, I can do it with you. But again, the markets have to cooperate. Number one, and then number two, it has to click for you, you have to do it, and you have to practice it. And you have to stick to the plan. A lot of times when people come into my programs, and they tell me Oh, hey, you know, I'm doing XYZ, I'm like, but that's not what I have in the plan. Allen: That's not what I have in the program. They're like, yeah, no, but I'm changing. I'm like, okay, but have you done it my way? No, not yet. But then why did you join my program, you could do your own way. Without my program, you don't need to pay for my program, right? If you're going to pay for something. And if you believe that, hey, yeah, this guy knows what he's talking about this thing works, I think it works. If you're going to pay for it, then just follow that step by step by step and don't change it. Unless it works.  Allen: When it starts working, then only then would you say, Okay, now I'm going to, you know, change it up, because I think I can, I can be a little bit more aggressive, or, hey, I want to be a little bit more conservative, or I want to change it up a little bit. But you don't do that until it's always working. So the problem is that people that have been doing this for a long time, they know all the strategies, they've listened to many other coaches, you know, they come in, and they're like, Well, you know, I don't like that one thing, I'm going to change, I don't like that thing, I'm going to change. And so they start doing it their own way and they don't listen. And so you can't take stuff from this course and this course and this course and mash it into a Frankenstein, and then tell me "Oh, it didn't work?" Well, because I don't know why that guy told you to do that. And I don't know why that other guy told you to do that. Or the only thing I know is if you do it this way, you'll get the similar results that what I'm doing. Now, if you add and change it, then I can't help. So, you know, like you're saying that we have, I think there's like four pillars that I tell people that people need. So if you want to learn how to do something, you need these four pillars. Number one is you need the right strategy, which you've already said is, hey, that's the credit spread, right? Number two, you need the trading plan that works. So number three, is you need other people to do it with because you're doing it all alone, like you said, you know, you might need a wife, if you don't have a wife or partner like that, then you can have a community or other students that are doing it the same way. Allen: And then number four, you need a coach that can actually show you what he's doing, because he's still doing it. And he's actually doing it right now, instead of somebody that said, oh, yeah, I was a market maker 30 years ago, and I don't trade anymore. So I think those are the four things and depends on which everybody needs. So the coaching part is the one that takes the most time. And that's why those coaching programs are the most expensive. Allen: In my passive trading course. You know, we give you the trading plan. It's like okay, here, this is the plan, these are the rules, you follow it and, you know, good luck. But there's no one on one coaching. There's no group, you know, where we are, where we're doing and looking at the trades. And so when we have that passive trading course, it's a cheaper course. And so people would join it, and they would go through the modules. And some people would have a lot of success, some people wouldn't. So I said, What, what's the problem? Why are they not? Why is it not working? And I realized that it would help if they could just spend a lot more time with me. And so we created that credit spread mastery course, where every week, we get on the call, and we're just looking for trades, we're managing trades, we're adjusting trades, doing it together. So the point of that is, here's the rules. Here's the trading plan. Now let's do it together, over and over and over and over and over and over. And so once you have that habit of doing it the same way over and over and over the other, the other ideas, the other habits kind of die off. So I've seen that that program does deliver results. So we back it up and we say hey, look, if you're in our program, and the program doesn't work, like you don't if you're not profitable in our program, then we keep you in the program. We keep working with you. We keep you in the class until you become profitable. And so even if the markets not cooperating That's fine, we'll learn how to manage it together. And then we'll stay longer in the program, if you'd have to be.. Mark:  So with your target trading alum, obviously, it does take a type of market. And obviously, that's why through the last six months with Covid whatnot, it would be easy Earth to do that type of training, because obviously, it just went straight up didn't keep they're still on put, credit spreads the load of was money for Jim, in a market such as what we're in now, which is up and down, up and down. It's far more difficult, isn't it? Allen: Currently it is more difficult, doesn't mean it's impossible. So we do have to dial back our, we have to dial back our expectations. So last year, the year before, you know, making 10% a month, 7-8% a month, not a big deal, it was pretty simple. You know, put the trades on most of them work out in anybody, and everybody was making money. Like any you know, you could buy anything, and it was going up any everyone is making money. This is a market where you have to be really good at selection, trade selection, and management. So you have to know when things are turning around, and when to get out before they get really bad. Allen: So the trade management, sticking to your stop loss is very important right now. And those are things that most people get afraid of, you know, so it's like, okay, I put the trade on, it should work. And then oh, no, the stocks turning around, what do I do what I do, and they don't do anything. So if your thing is part of, if you're doing as part of a group or in a program, then be like, hey, we need to get out, we need to get out, get out, get out. Some people let people know, Mark: There's that mental component, that's the biggest part. And as I've gone along this journey, if all these years, I've realized more so in the latest year, it's not about the strategy. It's not about all that stuff. That mental side of it, it's 80-20, Mark Douglas, the book, the trading zone, I listened to that over and over and over again, and various other podcasts and whatever other things, but trying to pull the trigger when you're in a loss is it wasn't so hard, we put this trade on, it was gonna work a met the probabilities, it was all looking good, it was under the over the top of the averages. I had volume, blah, blah. But all of a sudden, now I'm underwater again. And here we go again, and then I've got to pull a trigger to get out to take that loss. Mark: And I have taken some big losses in the past, I've had to pull the trigger, just recently with the weekly trading system. And when that I mean, there's Solomon says, I've been there for a couple of weeks, again, I've been on and off over the over many years. And all of a sudden, now I'm having to pull the trigger again to get out because we lose money. Like it's hard. It's another scar, isn't it another scar, not a scar, it's another get back down there. You know, I don't want to see you do any good. It's difficult, you know, and that's that mental side of it is arguments or trading? Allen: Yep. The emotions, you know, the emotions have to be kept in check. So there's different ways that you could do that, you know, one, one of the ways is people say that you divorce or divorce yourself from the outcome. So whether you win or lose, doesn't matter make a Mark: ..difference? Exactly what I totally agree with that. And that skill is very difficult. Allen: Yeah, your job is to just follow the plan and stick to the plan. And if you can do that, eventually, over the long run, it'll work out, you know, maybe you have losing trades, that's fine. But over the long run, it should work out. So too much of it, like you said, you know, like, oh my god, I'm, I'm going to be negative again, oh, my God, I'm gonna have to pull the trigger. And oh, my God, you know, when you have that kind of reaction, that compounds and it just makes it all, it makes it much harder to get out of the trade when there is a loss. The other there's one lady, she told me something that really worked for her. She goes, You know what, this is not my money. This is God's money. And what what are you talking about as God's money? She goes, Well, I use this money. And I use the gains from the money to do good. Because they use it for charity work. So she's like, I don't need the money to live. Because I have enough income I have enough. You know, I have I have money coming in that I live off of. But this is my trading money. And so I take the money that I make, and I give it away to charity, and I do good things with it. So it's really God's money, and I cannot lose God's money. There's no way I can lose money. And so if I'm if I'm going negative, that the trade is losing, I get out right away because I don't want God mad at me because it's not my money. So that's another way you could look at it. That you know, again, it's it's taking yourself out of the outcome, you know, and it's not like okay, it's not under my control. So you've got the wife coming in and asking you what you're doing and why it's working or why it's not working and being accountable. You have you know, not looking at the outcome just getting better as a trader, just hey, I need to do my skills, whether it wins or not, that's not up to me. That's up to the market, I can't control that. But I can follow my plan. That's up to me. The other thing is, you know, not looking at it in emotional point of view, like, Hey, this is not my, maybe this is my kid's mind. Maybe this is, you know, God's money, however you want to look at it, but it's not yours. So if you lose it, it's bad. Like, that's the worst thing to happen. You know. So there's, there's three different ways that you can mentally overcome the different obstacles. But again, I think one thing that we haven't talked about yet is to simplify, right? So you've done all the different strategies, and I'm sure, you know, some of it is creeping in. And, you know, it's like, oh, you know, I got to do this, or I'm going to, I'm going to wait for this indicator, or I'm going to wait for these Bollinger Bands, or the Fibonacci, or the technicals, or any of that stuff, the more you simplify it, the easier it becomes to actually follow through with it. And so I think, you know, just one strategy, not chasing after the shiny object, you know, it's like, Hey, make a decision. If it's spread, spreads, and that's the only thing you focus on, and you get rid of everything else, you stopped listening to everything else, you unsubscribe from all the emails, you know, whatever, whatever service that you choose, like, Hey, I'm going to, I'm going to follow this plan, I'm going to, you know, if you've taken a course, maybe you've already taken a course, you have a course that you've tak`en and be like, Okay, I like this course, I'm going to follow this course, we'll get rid of everything else. Just go through it. Master that and don't do anything else until you know what that is, until you get the results that you're supposed to get it. In the beginning, when I started screwing up, like I would learn something, and then I would do good for a little bit and then I would mess up. And then I would do good, then I would mess up. So I was like, What the hell do I do? Well, I would always go back to the basics. I would imagine that I don't know anything. And I would go back to step one. Okay. What is a call? What is the put? What am I doing here? What is the strategy? How am I supposed to put it on? What are the rules and I gotta follow them step by step by step, not like, oh, you know, I'm gonna, I think this stock is gonna go down or or, you know, there's a Fibonacci retracement level, and there's some support here. So I don't have to adjust. No, forget all that stuff. I don't know any of that stuff. All I know, is the strategy and my trading plan. And that's it. And so that was, you know, you go back to the basics. And that will change your mentality of it, like, Okay, how do I manage the trade? How do I deal with this? Allen: Again, if there's other things involved, like stress, you know, if you're under a lot of stress, you're going to make the wrong decisions. If it has to work. If I have to make money this month, from my trades, you're going to make the wrong decisions. It's not going to work out in the long term. So there was a there was something another trick that one of our one of our students taught me. And now everybody can't do this. Most people can't do this. But what he does, is that he takes whatever money he makes trading this year. He will live off that next year. So when he's trading next year, he doesn't have to live off that money. Because he already has the money set aside from the last year. If that makes sense. Mark: You need a big bankroll sounds like a real estate agent. Allen: Yeah, you need Yeah, he was. Yeah, he was. He was a politician. But, um, he has obviously, other people's money then. So I mean, he did have, you know, he had, he had a large account to do that. But eventually, that would be the best thing to do. You know, you have you already know your expenses are covered. Right? Now, you're only focusing on the plan and focusing on on just winning and just trading properly. It's not it takes the emotion out of so whatever you can do, whatever trick you can use to get that emotion out of it, that will make you a better trader. One, one more thing that that that that I've seen is happening to me is, the more you do it, the more of a habit it becomes. So if you do, you know, 50 trades, that's a lot better than five trades, but 500 trades is a lot better than 50 trips, if you do them properly with the right practice. So eventually, you get to the point where Oh, it's just another trade. It's not a big deal. It's just another trade. There's another one coming. So if I get if I hit my stop loss, yeah, it hurts. I hate it. But it's Just another trait, you know, I'm going to move on, move on to the next one, move on to the next one, because every month is a different ballgame. So you start over, you get to start over again and again and again. And so that is another trick that you would help in the long run. But again, you know, you have to, in before all of that happens, you have to have the confidence that this actually works. Mark: So what do I truly do believe in? Allen: Yes, you say that you say that. But then you also say that, you know, I can't do it. It's not working. It's not working. But you, you you've heard it that it works, you want to believe that it works. But I don't think you have that conviction yet that it works. And so the only way to get that conviction is to get it done for yourself. Right? And so it might be that you take a maybe you take a step back, and you go even simpler. And you say you don't want not the credit spreads, how about I do something like maybe a naked put, right, in a naked put, I'm going to make money if the stock doesn't go down. And it'll expire. And then I'll sell another one. And I'll sell another one. And I'm going to sell it far out of the money. So that I just when I just make that 20 bucks, or that $30 or whatever it is that small amount I'm just going to make month after month after month trade after trade I'm going to make and if the stock drops, okay, no fine, I can buy the stock, no big deal, I'll buy the stock. And then I'll sell covered calls on that stock. And so the covered call will expire, and I'll make something the covered call was expired, the next month will expire, and I'll make something so you build up that confidence that you know what, there is a way to do this. That's another option, you know, if you want to go that route, so you really got to figure out like, okay, you know, it's a, it's a personal thing, I wish I could just tell you that, hey, this is the one thing you need to do. But for everybody, it's different. And unless I spent a lot more time with you, unless I see all of your trades, unless I see you know, your emotion, how you handle the emotions, I won't be able to tell you. So that's kind of like in our in our program, what we do is we tell we give everybody a spreadsheet, and we say, hey, look, you have to fill out the spreadsheet, you have to put every single trade on the spreadsheet. And then they shared with me so that I can go in and I can look at them. You know, I could look at the tray. And I'll go in I'll see like, why did he do this trade? This doesn't make any sense to me. And I'm calling this Hey, John, why did you do this tray? Allen: And he goes, well, no, that's not gonna work. And he goes, okay, okay, fine, I'll do it. All right, done. You know, and if they're doing all the trades, right, then it's probably working. And most of the time, it's not working, like if they're not making money, then we can identify, Okay, what are what is not going right? You know, there was one of our current students, he was doing several trades, and he was still negative. So I looked at his spreadsheet, and I'm like, Okay, what's going on? What do I see, and his trade entries were great. You know, he was picking the right stocks, he was doing it properly. But whenever he lost, he would lose a lot more than he should have. He just wasn't getting out early on time. And so that was the biggest thing is like, you're not getting out. This is it, you know, your losses are too big. Doesn't matter how many trades, you win, your losses are still too big, you're still going to be negative. And so we worked on that. And then over time, he got better at getting out earlier and earlier and earlier. But he had, you know, he had somebody to look at that and to point it out, and to hold him to it. So that eventually he did it over and over and over again. And then by the end of the class, he was positive. He was like, Yeah, I fixed it. Again, that's all you need to do. That was he needed that one thing, everything else is simple. The training plan I could give you, you know, you could go do it on your own. But the discipline part of it, that's sometimes where we need help from somebody else. And so whether you know, it might be a wife might be somebody else, it might be a trading partner, somebody you work with, it might be a coach. So I think that might be one thing that you could implement. Mark: So just quickly, what what's the key points in a trading plan make like entry criteria, stop losses or that sort of stuff. Is there anything else that I can many points or rules should be in a trading plan? Like what I try and put a trading plan together, that is doable and simple to follow. To look at rather a complicated bloody list of all this crap, what would be a good trading plan? Allen: So, you want it to be simple and easy to implement. But you don't want it to be too simple, where it's just broad, like anything can happen. So, you know, I've seen people that have a trading plan that says, I'm going to do an iron condor on this stock 45 days to expiration, I'm going to sell a 10 Delta calls and sending out the puts. And that's it. That's my whole plan, and I'm just gonna sit and let it expire. That's a trading plan. It's very simple, right? You know, what you're going to do you know, what you're going to how you're going to do it, you know, what you're going to trade it on. And you know, when. And so now that pretty good plan doesn't work. So whoever's listening don't don't do that one. We've back tested that, and it didn't work. But there are, there are times there are several months where it does work, just because it has, you know, 80% probability, but over time, it doesn't. So that's the basics, you got to know what you want to trade, you need to know the strategy, you got to know what you want to trade. And then you have to know what constitutes a good setup. So when it comes to credit spreads, you mentioned credit spreads. So I like to do that, depending on the size of the of the trade, if it's a you know, maybe a $5000 $10,000 trade, then I'll go into I can go into a stock, or I'll go into an index ETFs are good, too. But they're their strikes are a little bit smaller. So you got to do a lot more contracts. But if I can go into a stock that has, you know, five point spreads, and I do 10 of them. That's a $5,000 trade. That'll work. Allen: So you can, what do you want to trade? And then what's the proper setup? So for me, again, I like to keep it simple. So if I see a stock that's trending, as moving up, or moving down, then I'm happy to trade it. Because I'm, I'm more of a trend follower, you know, so there's people that think, okay, if the stock is gonna go up, it's going up, it's going to keep going up until something big changes, there are other people that think the opposite. They're like, Oh, if it's going up, they just kind of come back down, because it's gonna do reversion to the mean. And sometimes that works. And sometimes it doesn't. So I don't really buy that I just like, hey, if it's going up, then it's telling me that it wants to go higher. So that's basically what I'm looking for. In a setup, I'm looking for the stock to tell me what it wants to do. So if I see a stock that's jumping up and down, no, I don't know what it's doing. I don't know what it's telling me, I can't understand the language, I'm not going to trade it. If it's going up, then I'm going to play it bullish. If it's going down, I'm going to play bearish. And sometimes, you know, it turns around and you get banked, but most of the time it's going to work out. So that's the kind of setup I'm looking for. And then over the years, you know, we've added other things to look at, you know, how do you make sure that all of your trades are not in the same sector? Right now, you know, right now, oil has been doing well. So all of the oil companies were doing great. But then they all turned around and went down all together. So if you have 10 trades on in different oil companies, that's not that's not diversification. That's the same trade. And so if they turn around, I'm going to turn on together. So that would be one way of putting the odds in your favor by having you know, only a small portion of your account in one sector. So you have to separate that. How do you diversify by time? You know, so not putting all your trades on on the same day. That's another way to do it. So you diversify by time. So there's so many different ways that you can do it, some of them might make sense to you some might not. And then, you know, we have other students that come in and say, Well, I do it, you know, I look for this also in my trade, like, Okay, if that's what you want to add to it, then add it. Don't subtract things that I've given you. But if you want to add to it, one student said that he likes to look at the weekly chart, I usually look at the daily chart, see how the stock is doing. He likes to look at the weekly chart as well. Allen: So I'm like, Okay, fine, you can add to it, you know, if it doesn't hit your criteria on the weekly chart, then just means you'll have less trades that qualify, but it's not gonna it's not going to put you into a trade that's going to hurt. So when you're basically you just have to figure out what you think is going to work. And then you have to test it. So back testing, and paper trading are really really, really helpful. Especially back tests, Mark: I find paper trading useless. To be honest. You lose interest very quickly. It's very easy to lose in that type of trading. Yeah, go ahead. I've done a little bit of paper trading and I've just found that I find okay, it's gone the wrong way. But I got it wrong. You just let it go. Because it doesn't mean anything. It has no significance, does it? Start with money trading? Yeah. You've got a connection heavenly with the with the live trading, because actually, it's not your money tied to it. Allen: It's not your money. It doesn't matter what the style of the trade does, you're only focusing on becoming a better trader, the goal is not to make more money, the goal is to become a better trader. Right? It's kind of like playing poker. It's like when you when people go to play poker, right? They'll professionals, they'll tell you that if they play their hand perfectly, and they lose, they're okay with it. Right? If they play, if they mess up, and they still win, they're still mad at themselves. Because I didn't play it right. I didn't play my cards, right? Even though I won, I don't care, because long run, it's going to hurt them. If they keep playing incorrectly in the long term, it's going to hurt them. So that's the goal to become the better trader. And the end results, the profits will take care of themselves. So paper trading is practice. That's all it is. Right? If you didn't need to take that on board. It's slow practice. Back testing, I prefer back testing way better than paper trading. Because you can go really quick. You know, if you if you come up with a plan, like okay, these are my criteria, I got these seven criteria on my trading plan. I'm going to enter when I see this, this and this. I'm going to exit when this happens. I'm going to adjust it this way If this happens, okay, I got that right and down, and that you can even just come up with your you can just guess No, I think this one's good. This one's good. That's my plan. Okay. You pick. You pick a stock, spy. Great, perfect. You go back to yours in time. January 1, put the trade on. How does it do? Oh, it made money. Awesome. Cool. February, how do you do made money? Great. March. Oh, we lost a lot of money. Doing it, huh? Okay. APR, how do you do? And then just do it month by month, I want back testing one month or one trade, you know, might take you five or 10 minutes. And so you can get years worth of practice in just a few days by back testing. And you'll find that Mark: It's something that I've never done is back testing. Is there a particular software that's adequate for that sort of stuff? I've never really looked down that line. I've heard about it. I've listened to it, but I've never actually really done it myself. Is there anyone ticular that would be worthy. Allen: The one that I use, the one that I use is called the option net explore. option that explore? Yeah, and I think I think they're based out of Great Britain. And so basically, it's, it's an options selling platform, you know, so it looks like your broker's platform, you put the trade on, and you go through it day by day by day. And it doesn't do it all for you, you actually have to look at it every single day. And if you want to make changes, you can make changes to it. That's what I like about it. There are other software's that you just put in the strategy, you press a button and it'll tell you "Oh, you made money or you lost money". That's not the point. We want to get better as a trader. Right. And so this one is like, Okay, I put the trade on, click a button. Oh, stock is down today. Do I need to do anything? No. Okay, next stage. Oh, stock is back up again. I don't have to do anything. Next stage. Oh, stock is down again. Oh, no, I'm at an adjustment point. Okay, what adjustment am I going to make? I'm going to do this adjust. Okay, cool. Let's see, did it work out? Go there forward today forward a day forward a day. Oh, expiration day stop. It worked. So it's, it's just, you know, there's no money, right? It's just about becoming a better trader. It's just about getting the practice doing it over and over and over again. So that I think would definitely help you as well. Mark: Okay, so one of the things obviously, we talked about discipline and the mental game, what's probably the best thing to follow, or to train your mental strength, like, as you said, like a paper trade or a live trade, you should be able to make that same decision, then in there without any emotional war. What's the best way to get to that level of trading where you whether you win or lose, it's just business as usual? Allen: Yeah, I've done to you have to divorce yourself from the outcome, whatever, whatever that takes for you. For me, in the beginning, it was getting my wife because I knew how I would have to answer to her. Mark: And scary Allen: I didn't have it. Exactly. It has to be scary. Because if you do it properly, she cannot get managed. Right? It's like, Hey, I followed the rules, babe. I did everything I was supposed to do. It still didn't work out and she'll be like, Okay, fine. That's no problem. But if you do not follow the rules, that's when she gets manage. And that's when it gets scary. So yes, you have to make it scary for you not to follow your rules, because a lot of us a lot of US traders, like, if we lose money, yeah, we don't we get mad about it, we're like, oh, man, I lost money, we feel bad about ourselves. But it doesn't hurt enough. You know, it's kind of like these people that say, Hey, I want to lose some weight. You know, so they make a goal, I'm gonna lose some weight, I'm gonna lose some weight, they tell everybody, and they do it for a few days, and then they give up. But then there's this website, that what, what this website, basically what it does is, you have to pick a, maybe a political party, or a person or some organization that you hate, you actually hate them. And you have to put up a lot of money and say, Okay, if I don't stick to my goal, this organization is going to get $5,000 or $10,000. So that makes you because it's now becomes a different level. It's not about just the money, or about doing the thing. It's like, okay, you know, let's say, for example, I don't want to give my money to anybody like the Save the whale Foundation, right? I don't want to, I don't want to give my money to the whales, I hate whales, I want them all to die. I don't want anybody to save the whales. So if I don't lose 10 pounds, they're gonna charge my credit card $5,000 and give it to the whales, and I hate whales. So I want to do whatever I have to do to lose that money to lose that weight. You know, because I don't want that well to be saved. You have to want something more than what you have. So there's, that's another psychological trick. No, in trading? We sometimes we get used to it, you know, it's like, oh, last? Oh, well, you know, we get used to it. And it just, we gotta it's just the mental part of it. Mark: Definitely, definitely, it's a huge part of it. Something I didn't I didn't realize, until much later down the track of trading, how big a part of mental side of it really is. Allen: I mean, if you find trying to avoid is difficult. Yeah. So if you find yourself having a problem with discipline, make it simpler, cut it down, make it as simple as possible. Find the trade that you know will like you know, the naked call or the naked put the covered call, these are very simple trades, they're really hard to mess it up. Right? On the naked put, if you get assigned the stock, hey, that's great. I just bought the stock much cheaper than it was before. And I'm going to own it. So you want to you want to do it on companies that you're going to own you want to own for a long period of time. That's the only way it really works. You can't you can't be selling naked puts on stocks that are just, you know, going crazy. That's the wrong way to do it. So you know, if you can simplify it, if you can find some way to have somebody else monitor you, and hold you to your fire, you know, hold your feet to the fire like, hey, you need to follow this, why aren't you doing this? Or, hey, it's not my money. Right? I'm doing it for somebody else. This is my kids inheritance, right? I cannot mess it up. So I have to follow the rules. One guy, when I was in, just after high school, I became an agent, a real estate agent. And as an agent, as a brand new agent, they tell you that you have to do a lot of things that you don't want to do. You have to talk to hundreds of people all the time, you have to cold call, people say Oh, Hi, are you doing? Do you want to sell your house? Oh, hi, do you wanna say, Well, you know, they have to keep doing things that you don't want to do. So it was like, okay, in the guy, the guy is like, hey, most of you guys are not going to do it. But if you want to be really, really, really motivated, what you need to do is go out and buy a fancy sports car. Sounds like what you're talking about, what do you do a fancy sports car? Because yeah, you need to go out and buy an expensive sports car so that you have that payment that you have to make at the end of the month. And so that is going to make you work your butt off because you have to make the payment. And as I go I mean, I understand what he was saying. I was like, No, I'm not doing that. But then eventually I didn't make it as a realtor. Maybe if I did do that, maybe I just didn't do the work that he told you to do. I just didn't do it. It wasn't the reward wasn't worth it for me. Mark: It was up to risk, I suppose. Yeah, Allen: I mean, you know, so with your training, you got to figure it out. Is it really worth it? Is the goal that hey, I want to quit my job. Is it I want my wife to quit her job. I want the kids to have this vacation or whatever it is. You have to burning. Yes, just eat you up every single day. You have to really really, really want it Mark: Explain to me how and it's burning me. Allen: Then the discipline has to stick. Because if you want it, but you're not disciplined, and your losses are too big, then it's it's not there yet. So I think, you know, if you don't have a trading plan, I'll just give you the training. You know, I mean, it's not that hard. It's not it's, it's the training plan helps. But it's up here. And it's the practice just doing it over and over and over again and having confidence in the plan. Because then if you have confidence, you'll stick to it. If you don't have confidence, you're going to change it, you're going to you're going to add things to it, you're not going to follow it, you're going to forget about it. Like with the paper trading, that's exactly what that is, you know, so it's not real. So, oh, well, I'm gonna ignore it. I'm gonna forget about I'm gonna do that.  Allen: That really resonated with me Allen's that that point, like, go back to the paper trading, treat it like it's somebody else's money, and then make it work. Don't look at it as just as being as a fake account, that doesn't matter. Allen: I mean, I wouldn't Yeah, I would prefer you do back testing, it'll be much faster. Mark: To look at that I'll get, I'll get onto that particular site that you've made. Yeah, Allen: That'll give you years of experience in just a few days. And so, to me,

Allen: All right, everybody, welcome passive traders. I have one of my good friends with me today, Denny is going to be here. He's going to be talking about trading life in general, and everything that he's learned along the way. Denny, you know, we've, you've been in our programs for a little bit now we've seen your success. And I'm, we're friends on Facebook. So I see you with your posts from Hawaii, sitting on a beach house and all that and we're on the coaching calls, you're always you know, you're always making me jealous. You're always like, "well, I'm going to Hawaii next week, or I'm going on vacation. I'm going golfing". I'm like, Come on, man. So I'm glad that we finally got to talk, you know, thank you for thank you for taking the time to be out here and talk with us. And I can't wait to learn from you. Denny: Okay. Well, the way I you know, the way I originally got hooked up with you is I saw one of your marketing deals on the internet. And I thought, you know, well, you know, let's give this a look. And so I talked with Cory and and I said to her, hey, look, you know, I've got I said, I'd like an honest answer that if I come in and buy the program and everything, and I've got $10,000. Is it possible for me to make $2,000 a month on the $10,000? And she said, Well, we've got people doing it. She was very honest. You know, and then so so I got in on the oil deal. One. I think it's blank check trading is that was the oil is. And boy, I learned a whole lot. The first year, I was just sailing along making money hand over fist. And that was when oil was not very volatile. And it was just making, you know, moving sideways, which is perfect for if you want to trade oil futures, you know, it's perfect. Allen: Yeah. Yeah. All markets are our friend.  Denny: And, and then all of a sudden, oil shot up. And I think it was November two years ago might have been three. Now I know I've been doing it quite a while. All of a sudden, I went in. And I looked and the market had dropped. And I and I was in a position where I was going to end up getting a margin call. So I liquidated my position was $4,700 that day, and I'll be damned the next day, boom, it pops right back up. And that was the day after Thanksgiving. And then on the next call, you talked about the Friday after Thanksgiving is not a very high volume deal. And so one big guy in there can make the market he can make it drop, you can make it rise, and I fell prey to that because I didn't know but you know, you can learn from your mistakes. And I made made plenty of them. But now I make money every month. Allen: That 4700, did that wipe you out? Denny: Out? No, no, I had 10 Okay. Okay, so I started all back over. And it took me it took me damn near a year to get it to get it back. And in the meantime, you had your program on stocks. Okay, so I signed up for that. And I fooled around with the stocks for a while and I went back to oil because to me, it's a little more passive where I can put a trade on and I will look at it once a week you know, and I feel comfortable with it. But then what happened is we got get them the next chapter Benny Alan COVID here. And my advertising agency that I own I do direct mail advertising for automotive industry. And I don't know if you've been reading but the car dealers don't have any new cars. Allen: Yeah, they don't need advertising. Denny: So, I my business the first year of COVID was down 2,000,400 and some $1,000 Right now, the second year is about 2.8 million and now we're into the third year of the car shortage and so far this year I'm down $1,976,000 From where my normal years would be so I went from a mid six figure income guaranteed down I collected my Social Security check with my wife, okay. And so I go okay, let's start fooling around with your knowledge with oil and with stock options and get yourself a little income so I took $25,000 out of our savings account and put it into my tasty works account and I make on an average trading two ETFs and oil and I just started doing spreads on weekly options in oil and that I've been doing okay on it but you got to watch that a little quicker because you'll, you can get caught up in a margin call on everything pretty quick on that. But since I have no other job, okay, I can watch it. You know, I just make sure that that when I go to the golf course on my daily trip I've got my phone with me. And I can hop in on the tasty works phone app and protect myself if I need to. But what I learned most from you was paid.. Allen: So how are you doing there? So you're like, Okay, so you Alright, so I'm following the story. Right? So you were you were learning like, you've been in our program, I think two years. So three, three, okay, three. So you learn how to do the oil you were doing great. And then you had one bad day where it crashed and you basically went back to zero and you had to start over? Right so that at least you didn't lose it you had you know you get back your gains then you know COVID hit so you had to basically all hands on deck for the business trying to figure that out. Now you're at the point where like, okay, you know what, I got this stuff that I know how to do let me see if I can make some money on the side. So you've been trading oil you've been doing you said you doing 2 ETFs. So what are you doing on? Yeah, what type I do? I do SPX and (inaudible). So what strategy are you doing on those? Okay, well, Denny: Let's go back to my educational background. Okay. Okay. I have a master's degree in Environmental Engineering. My master's thesis was the statistical modeling of dam failures due to excess runoff. Okay, so I'm a numbers guy, a numbers game, I understand standard deviations, regression lines, Bayesian coordinates, you know, all of this fancy mathematics that all of these indicators that when they write them, you know, I know how they get there. So I started looking at the stuff and I started looking for patterns, because standard deviation and stuff like that is nothing other than patterns, okay, that create a probability statement of the same thing occurring, okay. So, I started looking and I found the correlation between the VIX that, you know, on the CMOE, right, the VIX, right? And what happens with it? And so, I take the VIX and say it was it traded at 2588 and open this morning at 2588. I can't I can't remember exactly what it is. I go in, and I divide the VIX by 16. Now, why do I divide by 16? Allen: I have no idea. Denny: There are 256 trading days in the market. Right? The square root of 256 is 16. Okay. So I take the 68 divided by 16. And that gives me a percentage that's 87% accurate as to the upward or downward movement of SPX or rut on a daily basis. From what it opens that not what it closed that yesterday. But when the opening bell dings like, this morning, yesterday, right? Close to 1806. Okay. But this morning, when the bell rang, it was 1843 just for a short period of time until the CPI stuff caught up in the rear end dropped out of it. Okay, right. But so what I do is I go in and take what it opens at, and take the percentage and what it opens at, say it's one point it was 1.61 today, so you take 1.61% of the opening bell, and you subtract that from what it opened that and you add it to what it opened that and you gives you a high and a low rate. Okay? Allen: Say that again, do make doing so. Okay. The VIX divided by 16. Okay, then what do you do that? Denny: Okay, you multiply that the 1.61% Okay? Times when it opened that, okay, and that comes out to roughly what, close to 30 bucks. I don't have my calculator here. Okay. So you would take, you would take it and if it opened at 1843, you take the 30 off of that, that would be 1813. And then you take the 1843 and add the 32, which would be 1873. So that means that you've got an 87 point something percent chance that the right is going to close somewhere between the 1813 and 1873. Okay, okay, so now, we wait until the Between 1030 and 11 o'clock central time, okay. And the reason that I wait until then, is if you look, the market goes in and opens it bounces up and down. And if it's on the way up between 1030 and 11 o'clock you have what what usually happens and happens most days is a mid morning reversal of some sort where people are in taking profits or, or getting rid of losses. So okay. And at that point, it gives you a direction of the momentum of the market for the rest of the day. And the rest of the day barring no news or anything, it pretty much goes sideways or slightly up or slightly down. And I go in and sell a put put spread or a call spread at the bottom or the top that was ranges away from the way the momentum of the markets going. And I do that on a daily basis. Allen: So if you think is going down you sell calls if you think it's going up you sell puts at the end of that range. So is that like you said 87% So what is that like as like one and a half standard deviation?  Denny: One and a half standard deviations?  Allen: Okay. All right. But but why do you do the VIX because what does the VIX have to do with the rut? The VIX is based on the VIX, SPX the VIX Denny: Gives you the volatility, the market as a whole. Allen: Right. But it has to do with the volatility of the SPX, the RUT has its own.. Denny: Okay, okay. But the RUT is based on 2000 stocks, okay. And vix takes into account the volatility of what's happening in the 2000 stocks, the Dow Jones and the standards and poors. The way they calculate the bets, Allen: Okay, because I thought the VIX was just only on the SPX the 500. The large ones. Denny: Yeah, yeah. Well, but it is, but they just weren't right. There's yeah, there's a there's a correlation between what's happening in SPX and what happens in RUT. Okay. Allen: Yeah, they're, yeah, okay. Right. They are correlated. So it just it just happened correlated workout, right?  Denny: And it's just and it's just like if you want to see what's going on with gonna happen for disaster time, with the SPX. Go in and look at what's going on with QQQ. If QQQ is dropping, you better watch yourself on the SPX, with about, I forget what percentage of the SPX is Fang stocks now? Right? Yeah. Okay. Allen: So how long? How long have you been doing this? Denny: I've been doing for about four months. Allen: Four months. Okay. And you back tested it? Denny: Yeah. Oh, yeah. I spent a couple, couple $100 and got some good back testing software and back tested it. And if you go through the thing and wins about 80 some percent of the time, okay. Allen: And how much are you trying to make on each trade? Denny: Okay, I'm trying to make 4% Three and a half to 4% on a trade, okay. Allen: And these are weekly trades or daily trades daily. So you want the SPX, Denny: The SPX, the SPX has a closing every day. Okay, Allen: So these are at the close. Yes. Okay. Denny: And the rut has Monday, Wednesday and Friday. So I only trade the rut on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Allen: Cool. So now your results been so far? Denny: That I'm doubling my money every month. Allen: Wow. 100% every month? Denny:  When Putin cut the pipeline off, okay. And the market and the rear end fell out of the market that day. I was at my computer when it started happening. And I closed everything out. If if I hadn't closed it out, I probably would have lost about three or 4000 that day, but I don't you know, what I do, Allen is I take a future value calculator, okay. And if this month, I want to make $10,000. I plug in $10,000. And I put three and a half percent of $10,000 times 21 or 22 trading days. And I print it out. And it tells me how much I need to make each day in order for that to occur. And then I keep a spreadsheet that I'm plus or minus off of the predicted number that I was supposed to be asked. And I adjust my trading from there now like right now for this month. So far. I'm up 900 bucks as a closing day. So I'm actually today is the 13th. Yeah, and I'm actually to where the tweet where I should be on the 20th of them. month. Okay, so if I think the markets going to be a little volatile or, or there might be some bad news coming, I can lay off, okay, and skip a day and see what's happening. Okay. That's where what you taught me is the patience. Is that it? You don't have to do it every day. Allen: Right? Right. So okay, so you're saying that you're doubling to 25? Every every month or no, Denny: Not doubling how much I want to make God, I got 25 in there, but you're trying to make you want to make if I want to make 10 This month, I put 10 up. And with the whole idea that I'm could lose all 10,000 of it. Allen: Okay so you're only using 10. Denny: Yeah, but I'm only using 10. If I lose, I lose the 10 then, you know, I'm a big boy. You know, we try again next month. Allen: So like, today's the 13th, you're only up 900. So you still got a ways to go before you get to the goal. Denny: No, no, I'm up 900 over how much I should be up. Allen: So you've already made the 10. And you made another 900? Denny: No, no, no, no. Oh, hold on a second. Okay. Okay, I started out, okay, with 10,000 in the account, okay. And I go to a future value calculator and I plug in, say three and a half percent. Okay. And I plug in 21 days, okay. Yeah. Well, that'll, at the end of the month, if I do that I shouldn't have around $21,000. Okay. And what the future value calculator says is that on day two, I should have 10,300 and some dollars on it. Okay, and then day three, I should have close to 10 Seven. Okay. So I go down what the day is what it says where I should be to achieve the deal. And I'm up 900 Okay, over that. Allen: I say okay, okay. Okay, so you're on pace. You're better you're better than doing on pace to double Denny: Yeah, right. I'm, yeah, I do what's called a phase and betting deal. Okay. Yeah. And so.. Allen: So that's what you're doing on the SPX on the RUT, and you're also doing oil. So how do you put in oil? Denny: I don't know oil, I buy maybe two to three contracts okay of the weeklies now, okay, and do a credit spread on them and try to make, you know, 4 or 500 bucks on the credit spreads and let them expire worthless. Okay. And, and then and the only and I'm only trying that because I know how to make money doing the monthlies and, and getting in at 45 days and, and monitoring it. So I'm a natural born tanker. Okay. Right. And, and, and it can cost me money at times. Okay. But, you know, I guess I'm fortunate that I'm not looking where my next meal is coming from. Allen: Right. Cool. So like today, you know, we have SPX is down 4.3% Today, big moves, they move down. So I'm assuming based on what you said, when you got in on SPX had already started moving down, so you sold calls today? Denny: Yeah, I sold calls I sold about 4090 and 4095. Allen: Okay, and then basically, you didn't have any trouble today? Denny: No and yesterday, yesterday went up. Okay. But when I went when I entered it, it was going sideways. And it was more advantageous on the calls yesterday. So I sold 4185 and 4190 yesterday, okay. And, you know, they they expired worthless okay. Allen: And is there any time you do both puts and calls? Denny: Yes. Yep. It looks like it's going absolutely sideways. Like I say, enter my trade between 1030 and 11. And I usually go to the golf course about one o'clock. But before I go to the golf course, I pull my account up and I look at it and the pit looks like it's going sideways. Then I create an iron condor and I go in and sell puts. Allen: And then what about a stoploss you have any? Denny: Yeah, I put stop losses in on everything. Allen: What percent? Like how do you know when to get out? Denny: I put 40% Okay. Allen: So 40% loss. Denny: Yeah. Allen: Okay. Cool. And so you're pretty happy with that? Denny: Yeah, you know, until it burns me I guess I will you know, I'm waiting. I'm waiting for it. I'm you know, I've done this long enough now that I know that nothing is failsafe. Allen: No, but you're doing this in a time that it is pretty volatile. You know? I mean vix today was at 27. But yeah, even so the VIX is kind of low for what's going on and all the stuff that's happening with the Fed. And, you know, we're still in a bear market. So we're still getting these wild bull market, not not a bull market rally, but a, like a whipsaw rally to go up, and then we, we hit back down on a dime. And so it still it has been very up in Downy and so well, having a you know, the strategy that you're just like, hey, I'm not gonna, I'm just gonna play day by day and not worry about at night. I think that makes a lot of sense. Denny: Yeah. You know, and, you know, I am a very, very avid reader. Okay, so I read Barron's, I read the bestsellers, Business Daily, and stuff like that, not because I think that they are going to enlighten me on anything. But what I have read is, there's a lot of guys in there that tell us about the history of the market. Okay. And for every bear market, you know, usually lasts nine to 18 months. And there's usually four to five mini rallies in there that everyone is calling the bottom of the bear market, and then it drops again, you know, and so, if we understand that, you don't get too overly enthused with the rising SPX or a Dow. Allen: Yeah, yeah. It's, I mean, that comes with experience or like you said, you know, learning and education. Cool. So what do you see going forward? Like, what's, what's next for you? Denny: Man? You know, I just enjoy doing this stuff. You know, I mean, you know, I'm in the twilight twilight of my life. You know, I'm 76 years old. Man. I'm a real young 76. I mean, I'm very mobile. I play, play golf every day. Right now, while we're speaking. I'm in Duncanville, Texas at my grandson's tennis match. He just, he just won his doubles match. And so about a half hour he'll start playing singles. So we'll watch that but.. Allen: Yeah it's a little how, I tell you that. Denny: Yeah, 95 right now here but you know, my normal week is yesterday was Monday I was in junior high volleyball and Flower Mound, which is 30 miles away from where we live. But today I'm at varsity tennis in Duncanville. That's not bad. That's close to where I live. Tomorrow. I got off then Thursday. I got junior varsity tennis. That's a home meet. And then Friday night, I've got got varsity football and Flower Mound. Okay. That's almost every day of the week. I'm doing something with the grandkids. Allen: You're going golfing every day and you're still trading every day? Denny: Yeah, and I'm trading every day. No, and you know, thanks to you. You've shown me ways that I don't have to sit there and stare at a computer. To make money. Allen: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, that's not the I really like what you're doing. I like your style. You know, it's like, okay, you know, put a trade on, let it work, and then go enjoy my life. Denny: Yeah. Doesn't work. So what, you know, there's another day. Allen: Yeah, but the return is good enough that, you know, you get compensated, even if there are losses, the you're, you're playing with bigger numbers. So it's like, hey, if I can make 100%, then yeah, I can lose 20, 30, 40%. That's okay. Yes. Because I can still make much more than that, you know, in the stock market. They're like, Oh, wait, you know, you shouldn't lose more than five or 10% of your account? Well, you're only making 10% a year. So obviously, you don't want to lose more than that. But if the numbers are bigger than you can take bigger, bigger, bigger bumps, so.. Denny: And I'll tell you, I'll tell you what I use I still I still use your option trading Google Spreadsheet. Allen: For the credit spreads, yeah. Denny: Yeah, I use it every day. Allen: Yep, makes it simple, right? Just calculate Yeah. Denny: The only thing is I went in and change changed the 25% to 40%. Allen: But I like it because it's like simple, you know, and I'm sure people listening to this. They're gonna be like, Okay, what do I do again? So it's like, just gonna recap. You know, you wake up in the morning, you see where the SPX and the RUT are opening, right? Yeah, take a look at the VIX. You divided by 16 and then you add that.. Denny: That's your that's your percentage movement in the ETL. Okay, that's Allen: A percentage move of the SPS. Okay. So you multiply that percentage by the open. By the Open, and then that you find your range. Denny: That will give you the that'll give you the movement, which, so say it's 1843 and say, say your your divide by say, say it's say VIX is 32. Okay, okay. Okay, you divide by 16. That's two to 2%. Okay, so say.. Allen: Okay that's percentage. Okay, yeah. Denny: 2%. So say right, opened at 1800. Today, you take 2%, that's $36. So then you take 36 off of 1800. Okay. And, you know, that puts you down to 1764. And then you add 36 to the 1800. And that gives you 1836 yeah. Allen: We have a 87% probability of this range working out for the day, it's not for the month, whatever it is for the day. And that works out to be about 1.5 standard deviations. So we've got the range, that's about one and a half standard deviations, that's 87% probability about that. And for you, it's been working pretty good. And you set it at a 40% stop loss. Oh, and then the other thing is that you get into the trade about an hour and a half an hour, hour and a half after the market opens. And so.. Denny: And the reason of the hour, hour and a half is it took me a while to realize this, the market tends to at times gap up or gap down. Okay. And then about an hour to an hour and a half later, it kind of self corrects itself. Allen: Sometimes that Yeah, yeah. But they say, you know, the opening bell is usually amateur hour. And so yeah, I mean, I could have told you that I don't trade the first hour of the day, you know, markets open markets open about 8:30 here Central time, so I don't trade before 10 o'clock, which is exactly an hour and a half. So I do that.. Denny: Yeah, that's when I'm looking at the momentum indicators and everything.  Allen: And then you let your trades expire? Denny: Yes. Allen: Okay. So you got that going on. And then.. Denny: Well the good thing about it is trades good, you can't get out of it anyway, because you've made all your money by about two o'clock and go in and try to close the trades. It says that say you get the message just some of the bid ask or zero. Allen: So, okay, so you got that going on. And you got the oil, weeklies gone. So that keeps you busy. That keeps you diversified. You're making decent amount. You're happy. That's awesome. I love it. That's that's what this is all about, you know, Denny: Keeps going to Hawaii. Yeah. You know, Allen: Yeah life is good, right? You're hanging out with grandkids you got you still have the house in Hawaii, you go on vacations, everyone, wherever you feel like it. So I like it.. Denny: In two weeks. I'll be in New York City. Allen: That's great. Cool.  Denny: Going to see Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden. Allen: Very nice. So did you do any kind of trading before you came across us? Denny: Yes. And I lost my rear end. Allen: Oh, no, that's not good. Yeah. Denny: I was way too aggressive. Okay, and not patient. And that's when I was gonna get out of the equity market completely. When I saw your oil deal, okay. And, you know, and I figured I had a better chance at oil, because it's something that we all need. And it's something that's not going out of style. Even if we go to all electric cars. What people don't understand is that two thirds of the pharmaceuticals and all of the plastic comes tomorrow. And that's none that's going away. Nope. There's going to be a demand. Allen: Yeah. In fact, you know, even with everything with the more solar and the more wind power they bring on, the world is still using more oil now than we have, like 10 years ago, the demand continues to increase, just goes up and up and up every year. So yeah, it's not going anywhere, anytime soon. So we're going to continue to trade even if demand starts going down. It's such a big market that we'll be trading oil for, you know, for the next 20-30 years.  Denny: Yeah Allen: That's, I mean, it's a different so basically, the you are trading equities but then when you found out and you learn about how we sell options, that kind of really flipped the switch?  Denny: Yeah that intrigued me. Okay. First of all well, my background before I got into the advertising thing was I owned a car dealership. Okay, I owned a Ford dealership. If you know anything about car, guys, we're super aggressive and we love leverage. And when I saw options, and I saw the leverage available, I said, this is my ticket. Allen: So then, why are we still at 25,000? Why don't we go more? Denny: You know, I've got a, I've got a wife. Okay, that funny story, okay? All donations came in and bought me out. I guess it's 28 years ago now. And I got a very sizable check. And the day I got that check, my wife reached over and she grabbed that check. And she said, seed money only comes once in a lifetime. And this is going for our old age and for fun. I go, Okay. Well, one of the ways that I've stayed married 52 years, is that I always get the last word. "Yes, dear". So, she, in the money, she basically watches it, okay. And, and she thinks that, you know, a lot of what I'm doing, although I'm making money and stuff like that, on on a basis is a little bit too risky for her, her deal. And so that, you know, that's what she has given me to play with. Okay. Consequently, I have pointed out to her recently, that because of that money, she's not had to buy any groceries out of her retirement account. For her Social Security check. I played for all the plane tickets wherever we go. This trip to New York. I've got $1,000 in Hamilton tickets invested. And she didn't have to pay for any of that. So don't you think it's about time that we started looking at adding more to that, you know, so that I think by the end of the year, she might, you know, lead me forward a little bit more. Allen: Do you have other investments and stuff elsewhere? Yeah, yeah, money's coming in. So it's not like you need this to live off of   Denny: No, no, no, no. Man, like, it's like I said that when my COVID that stopped an annual mid six figure income. I mean, on a normal week, before COVID. I was, well, on a normal month, I was doing 800,000 to 1 million pieces of direct mail a month. But that so you know, it's a good sized business, okay. With annual revenues, anywhere from two and a half to three $3 million. And, and I'm a one man show. I have no employees in that business. You know.   Allen: So it's still running, you still run that business? Yeah.   Denny: Yeah. In fact, I just got a job today. I mean, you know, they're, they're doing  infrequent, you know, I mean, you know, I might have made 30,000 bucks for the whole year doing that, you know, which, you know, that used to be a week sometimes, you know,   Allen: You know, so let me ask you this. Are we going to see below MSRP prices anytime soon?   Denny: No, no, no.   Allen: How about MSRC? Like, I'm seeing prices that are like way above like, double MSRP. Yeah, I'm not paying.   Denny: As soon as the chip shortage is alleviated, and they start to get inventory sometime in the next 18 to 24 months. They'll have inventory again. Oh, wow. But I don't know if you've seen what's happened to the used car market?   Allen: No, it's taken off like crazy.    Denny: Yeah, I mean, you know, my wife has macular degeneration now. And so, leasing a car is unless you have a business purpose. leasing a car is a bad investment. Okay. My wife had macular degeneration, we didn't know if she was going to, they were going to be able to get it stopped and whether she was going to be able to continue to drive. So the car that I'm sitting in right now is her car. Okay. And we leased it, and it had a $21,000 residual on it at the end of the lease period. And we were, you know, we were gonna turn it in. And then I pulled up what the value on it was, the retail value on this car was 31,000. So I went down to the Ford dealership, and broken but check for the car. And they can't want me to lease another one. I know. Thank you, you know, and so and that's happened all throughout the industry. And it's consequently forced the US car prices way up. And so what's going to happen two fold things going to happen. Matt, real quick, I know that you know, either way saw your day on this, but this is interesting. Once the inventory, get levels get up, all these car dealers that have these massive use car inventories are going to have so much water in their inventory. And water is excess pricing to what the current market book value on the vehicles is. In other words, if you can't sell it for what you own it for, you're gonna lose money. Right? And, and a lot of these big-- you live in Houston, I live in Dallas, a lot of these big dealerships that have two and 300 guards in the ground, are going to have a million and a half to $2 million in water in their inventory. And they're going to have to get rid of them. Okay. And so the rear end will fall out of the used car market. And you know, so right now consumers are getting screwed on automobiles. But the dealer has his day of reckoning coming due.   Allen: Yeah, but if you need a car now, you're screwed.   Denny: You need a car now you're in trouble. A buddy of mine went looked at a Subaru Outback with 19,000 miles on it, that it was a year and a half old. And they wanted $35,000 for it.  Allen: Yeah, yeah, don't get in a wreck. I mean, my car I've been thinking about my wife is like, can you just get a new car, please? I'm like, No, I like it. You know, I'm trying to get it up to 200,000. You know, miles on it. Yeah, trying to get there. I mean, it's fine. It works. You know? It's comfortable. It looks fine. From the outside. Everything is comfortable. It works. You know, it's nice Toyota keeps running. But she's like, can you get some bigger? I'm like, Alright, so we looked around, and I'm like, Man, I don't want to pay this stuff. You know, it's not even. It's not like we can't afford the payment or anything. It's just from where it used to be to where it is. Now. There's no difference. The car is the same. You just charged me a whole lot more for no reason. Just because yeah, there's a you can. So yeah, yeah, no, I don't want to play that. Denny: Yeah, their day of reckoning is coming.  Allen: We'll be alright. Well, do you have any advice for our listeners, people that are learning and trying to figure out like you found your way, right, you found your niche in trading, and it took you I don't know how many years you were trading for two years. But how many years? Were you looking before? Before that? Denny: Oh five years, I probably probably five years before I found you. Okay. And two years, two years of.. Allen: Learning and testing Denny: Not doing what you told me to do. And getting and getting burned, to realize, to realize that the things that you teach patients, you know, just the little thing and Think or Swim your standard deviation deal, you know, saying, Oh, you've got a red line there. That's not good. You know, just those little things, you know. So the biggest advice, the best advice I could give to an individual, be patient. Don't try to hit homeruns. You know, the age old adage, pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered, is so true. It's like one of my rules on the SPX. You know, a $5 spread. Okay, a $5 spreads on the SPX is 500 bucks. Okay. So if I'm trying to make 4% to 5% a day, that means I'm looking to get 20 cents. On my credit spread. That's it 20 cents. Okay. And if you look at what the delta is on that, it's usually 12 to 13, which puts me in a real advantageous position. You know, so don't get greedy. Just let time be. let time be your friend. Allen: Right? Yep. And that actually might be a shortcut for you. So you don't even have to worry about the VIX. You just go in to get the 12 Delta.  Denny: I'm in the process of doing about a year study on this, okay. Because I back tested it using the Delta. Okay. And some wild market swings, it comes out that it doesn't work out. Right. Okay. Yeah. Allen: But the thing is, it's hard to back test it because you're saying that you go in after looking at it visually and being like, Okay, I want to be on this side or I want to be on that side. You can't do that. Unless you do it manually yourself with a like a software that I like the one I use where you got to go in day by day by day. If you're one of those programs where you just put in the numbers and you Just let it run, it doesn't work. Denny: You've got to plug them in yourself. Yeah. And it's time consuming. Especially if you're doing dailies. Yeah. Because you got you got 256 for every year. Allen: Yeah. And I mean, like, you know, when we when we back test a new strategy, it's like I want to I want you know, a good 10 years of data, you know, I want to see the the ups and the downs and the flats and the recessions and the bulls market and everything. I want to know that it's going to work long term, not just for a couple because I've been burned on that too. You know, I, I back tested different strategies like the butterfly on McDonald's and a butterfly on a Walmart and they worked great for five years. For five years, they made money. I went in there with guns blazing. You know, I took like every money out of money I had at the time at $25,000 on one trade, just want Dre put it all and boom, blew up. And I'm like, what happened? Oh, my God, man. It was a fluke. I'm gonna do it again. Next month, next month, boom, blew up again. You know.. Denny: Those butterflies and iron condors look great. You sit there and you look at the leverage you've got on that you go, Whoa, you know, but you know, you got to think, why isn't everyone doing it? There's a reason. Allen: So, there's lots of little tweaks behind it. Yeah, yeah. This has been fun. Denny, I'm gonna let you go. I appreciate you. And if there's anything you need, please reach out to us. We're always here for you. And thank you for sharing your wisdom. Denny: Okay, well, you know, I mean, I just want to tell you and your listeners that your program has definitely taught me a lot and made me a lot successful. Faster than I ever would have been. Allen: That's awesome. That's good to hear. Make my day. I love it. I love it. JOIN OUR FREE PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP: https://optiongenius.com/alliance  Like our show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps. Thank you!

About AllenAllen is a cloud architect at Tyler Technologies. He helps modernize government software by creating secure, highly scalable, and fault-tolerant serverless applications.Allen publishes content regularly about serverless concepts and design on his blog - Ready, Set Cloud!Links Referenced: Ready, Set, Cloud blog: https://readysetcloud.io Tyler Technologies: https://www.tylertech.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/allenheltondev Linked: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allenheltondev/ TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at AWS AppConfig. Engineers love to solve, and occasionally create, problems. But not when it's an on-call fire-drill at 4 in the morning. Software problems should drive innovation and collaboration, NOT stress, and sleeplessness, and threats of violence. That's why so many developers are realizing the value of AWS AppConfig Feature Flags. Feature Flags let developers push code to production, but hide that that feature from customers so that the developers can release their feature when it's ready. This practice allows for safe, fast, and convenient software development. You can seamlessly incorporate AppConfig Feature Flags into your AWS or cloud environment and ship your Features with excitement, not trepidation and fear. To get started, go to snark.cloud/appconfig. That's snark.cloud/appconfig.Corey: I come bearing ill tidings. Developers are responsible for more than ever these days. Not just the code that they write, but also the containers and the cloud infrastructure that their apps run on. Because serverless means it's still somebody's problem. And a big part of that responsibility is app security from code to cloud. And that's where our friend Snyk comes in. Snyk is a frictionless security platform that meets developers where they are - Finding and fixing vulnerabilities right from the CLI, IDEs, Repos, and Pipelines. Snyk integrates seamlessly with AWS offerings like code pipeline, EKS, ECR, and more! As well as things you're actually likely to be using. Deploy on AWS, secure with Snyk. Learn more at Snyk.co/scream That's S-N-Y-K.co/screamCorey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. Every once in a while I wind up stumbling into corners of the internet that I previously had not traveled. Somewhat recently, I wound up having that delightful experience again by discovering readysetcloud.io, which has a whole series of, I guess some people might call it thought leadership, I'm going to call it instead how I view it, which is just amazing opinion pieces on the context of serverless, mixed with APIs, mixed with some prognostications about the future.Allen Helton by day is a cloud architect at Tyler Technologies, but that's not how I encountered you. First off, Allen, thank you for joining me.Allen: Thank you, Corey. Happy to be here.Corey: I was originally pointed towards your work by folks in the AWS Community Builder program, of which we both participate from time to time, and it's one of those, “Oh, wow, this is amazing. I really wish I'd discovered some of this sooner.” And every time I look through your back catalog, and I click on a new post, I see things that are either I've really agree with this or I can't stand this opinion, I want to fight about it, but more often than not, it's one of those recurring moments that I love: “Damn, I wish I had written something like this.” So first, you're absolutely killing it on the content front.Allen: Thank you, Corey, I appreciate that. The content that I make is really about the stuff that I'm doing at work. It's stuff that I'm passionate about, stuff that I'd spend a decent amount of time on, and really the most important thing about it for me, is it's stuff that I'm learning and forming opinions on and wants to share with others.Corey: I have to say, when I saw that you were—oh, your Tyler Technologies, which sounds for all the world like, oh, it's a relatively small consultancy run by some guy presumably named Tyler, and you know, it's a petite team of maybe 20, 30 people on the outside. Yeah, then I realized, wait a minute, that's not entirely true. For example, for starters, you're publicly traded. And okay, that does change things a little bit. First off, who are you people? Secondly, what do you do? And third, why have I never heard of you folks, until now?Allen: Tyler is the largest company that focuses completely on the public sector. We have divisions and products for pretty much everything that you can imagine that's in the public sector. We have software for schools, software for tax and appraisal, we have software for police officers, for courts, everything you can think of that runs the government can and a lot of times is run on Tyler software. We've been around for decades building our expertise in the domain, and the reason you probably haven't heard about us is because you might not have ever been in trouble with the law before. If you [laugh] if you have been—Corey: No, no, I learned very early on in the course of my life—which will come as a surprise to absolutely no one who spent more than 30 seconds with me—that I have remarkably little filter and if ten kids were the ones doing something wrong, I'm the one that gets caught. So, I spent a lot of time in the principal's office, so this taught me to keep my nose clean. I'm one of those squeaky-clean types, just because I was always terrified of getting punished because I knew I would get caught. I'm not saying this is the right way to go through life necessarily, but it did have the side benefit of, no, I don't really engage with law enforcement going throughout the course of my life.Allen: That's good. That's good. But one exposure that a lot of people get to Tyler is if you look at the bottom of your next traffic ticket, it'll probably say Tyler Technologies on the bottom there.Corey: Oh, so you're really popular in certain circles, I'd imagine?Allen: Super popular. Yes, yes. And of course, you get all the benefits of writing that code that says ‘if defendant equals Allen Helton then return.'Corey: I like that. You get to have the exception cases built in that no one's ever going to wind up looking into.Allen: That's right. Yes.Corey: The idea of what you're doing makes an awful lot of sense. There's a tremendous need for a wide variety of technical assistance in the public sector. What surprises me, although I guess it probably shouldn't, is how much of your content is aimed at serverless technologies and API design, which to my way of thinking, isn't really something that public sector has done a lot with. Clearly I'm wrong.Allen: Historically, you're not wrong. There's an old saying that government tends to run about ten years behind on technology. Not just technology, but all over the board and runs about ten years behind. And until recently, that's really been true. There was a case last year, a situation last year where one of the state governments—I don't remember which one it was—but they were having a crisis because they couldn't find any COBOL developers to come in and maintain their software that runs the state.And it's COBOL; you're not going to find a whole lot of people that have that skill. A lot of those people are retiring out. And what's happening is that we're getting new people sitting in positions of power and government that want innovation. They know about the cloud and they want to be able to integrate with systems quickly and easily, have little to no onboarding time. You know, there are people in power that have grown up with technology and understand that, well, with everything else, I can be up and running in five or ten minutes. I cannot do this with the software I'm consuming now.Corey: My opinion on it is admittedly conflicted because on the one hand, yeah, I don't think that governments should be running on COBOL software that runs on mainframes that haven't been supported in 25 years. Conversely, I also don't necessarily want them being run like a seed series startup, where, “Well, I wrote this code last night, and it's awesome, so off I go to production with it.” Because I can decide not to do business anymore with Twitter for Pets, and I could go on to something else, like PetFlicks, or whatever it is I choose to use. I can't easily opt out of my government. The decisions that they make stick and that is going to have a meaningful impact on my life and everyone else's life who is subject to their jurisdiction. So, I guess I don't really know where I believe the proper, I guess, pace of technological adoption should be for governments. Curious to get your thoughts on this.Allen: Well, you certainly don't want anything that's bleeding edge. That's one of the things that we kind of draw fine lines around. Because when we're dealing with government software, we're dealing with, usually, critically sensitive information. It's not medical records, but it's your criminal record, and it's things like your social security number, it's things that you can't have leaking out under any circumstances. So, the things that we're building on are things that have proven out to be secure and have best practices around security, uptime, reliability, and in a lot of cases as well, and maintainability. You know, if there are issues, then let's try to get those turned around as quickly as we can because we don't want to have any sort of downtime from the software side versus the software vendor side.Corey: I want to pivot a little bit to some of the content you've put out because an awful lot of it seems to be, I think I'll call it variations on a theme. For example, I just read some recent titles, and to illustrate my point, “Going API First: Your First 30 Days,” “Solutions Architect Tips how to Design Applications for Growth,” “3 Things to Know Before Building A Multi-Tenant Serverless App.” And the common thread that I see running through all of these things are these are things that you tend to have extraordinarily strong and vocal opinions about only after dismissing all of them the first time and slapping something together, and then sort of being forced to live with the consequences of the choices that you've made, in some cases you didn't realize you were making at the time. Are you one of those folks that has the wisdom to see what's coming down the road, or did you do what the rest of us do and basically learn all this stuff by getting it hilariously wrong and having to careen into rebound situations as a result?Allen: [laugh]. I love that question. I would like to say now, I feel like I have the vision to see something like that coming. Historically, no, not at all. Let me talk a little bit about how I got to where I am because that will shed a lot of context on that question.A few years ago, I was put into a position at Tyler that said, “Hey, go figure out this cloud thing.” Let's figure out what we need to do to move into the cloud safely, securely, quickly, all that rigmarole. And so, I did. I got to hand-select team of engineers from people that I worked with at Tyler over the past few years, and we were basically given free rein to learn. We were an R&D team, a hundred percent R&D, for about a year's worth of time, where we were learning about cloud concepts and theory and building little proof of concepts.CI/CD, serverless, APIs, multi-tenancy, a whole bunch of different stuff. NoSQL was another one of the things that we had to learn. And after that year of R&D, we were told, “Okay, now go do something with that. Go build this application.” And we did, building on our theory our cursory theory knowledge. And we get pretty close to go live, and then the business says, “What do you do in this scenario? What do you do in that scenario? What do you do here?”Corey: “I update my resume and go work somewhere else. Where's the hard part here?”Allen: [laugh].Corey: Turns out, that's not a convincing answer.Allen: Right. So, we moved quickly. And then I wouldn't say we backpedaled, but we hardened for a long time before the—prior to the go-live, with the lessons that we've learned with the eyes of Tyler, the mature enterprise company, saying, “These are the things that you have to make sure that you take into consideration in an actual production application.” One of the things that I always pushed—I was a manager for a few years of all these cloud teams—I always push do it; do it right; do it better. Right?It's kind of like crawl, walk, run. And if you follow my writing from the beginning, just looking at the titles and reading them, kind of like what you were doing, Corey, you'll see that very much. You'll see how I talk about CI/CD, you'll see me how I talk about authorization, you'll see me how I talk about multi-tenancy. And I kind of go in waves where maybe a year passes and you see my content revisit some of the topics that I've done in the past. And they're like, “No, no, no, don't do what I said before. It's not right.”Corey: The problem when I'm writing all of these things that I do, for example, my entire newsletter publication pipeline is built on a giant morass of Lambda functions and API Gateways. It's microservices-driven—kind of—and each microservice is built, almost always, with a different framework. Lately, all the new stuff is CDK. I started off with the serverless framework. There are a few other things here and there.And it's like going architecting, back in time as I have to make updates to these things from time to time. And it's the problem with having done all that myself is that I already know the answer to, “What fool designed this?” It's, well, you're basically watching me learn what I was, doing bit by bit. I'm starting to believe that the right answer on some level, is to build an inherent shelf-life into some of these things. Great, in five years, you're going to come back and re-architect it now that you know how this stuff actually works rather than patching together 15 blog posts by different authors, not all of whom are talking about the same thing and hoping for the best.Allen: Yep. That's one of the things that I really like about serverless, I view that as a giant pro of doing Serverless is that when we revisit with the lessons learned, we don't have to refactor everything at once like if it was just a big, you know, MVC controller out there in the sky. We can refactor one Lambda function at a time if now we're using a new version of the AWS SDK, or we've learned about a new best practice that needs to go in place. It's a, “While you're in there, tidy up, please,” kind of deal.Corey: I know that the DynamoDB fanatics will absolutely murder me over this one, but one of the reasons that I have multiple Dynamo tables that contain, effectively, variations on the exact same data, is because I want to have the dependency between the two different microservices be the API, not, “Oh, and under the hood, it's expecting this exact same data structure all the time.” But it just felt like that was the wrong direction to go in. That is the justification I use for myself why I run multiple DynamoDB tables that [laugh] have the same content. Where do you fall on the idea of data store separation?Allen: I'm a big single table design person myself, I really like the idea of being able to store everything in the same table and being able to create queries that can return me multiple different types of entity with one lookup. Now, that being said, one of the issues that we ran into, or one of the ambiguous areas when we were getting started with serverless was, what does single table design mean when you're talking about microservices? We were wondering does single table mean one DynamoDB table for an entire application that's composed of 15 microservices? Or is it one table per microservice? And that was ultimately what we ended up going with is a table per microservice. Even if multiple microservices are pushed into the same AWS account, we're still building that logical construct of a microservice and one table that houses similar entities in the same domain.Corey: So, something I wish that every service team at AWS would do as a part of their design is draw the architecture of an application that you're planning to build. Great, now assume that every single resource on that architecture diagram lives in its own distinct AWS account because somewhere in some customer, there's going to be an account boundary at every interconnection point along the way. And so, many services don't do that where it's, “Oh, that thing and the other thing has to be in the same account.” So, people have to write their own integration shims, and it makes doing the right thing of putting different services into distinct bounded AWS accounts for security or compliance reasons way harder than I feel like it needs to be.Allen: [laugh]. Totally agree with you on that one. That's one of the things that I feel like I'm still learning about is the account-level isolation. I'm still kind of early on, personally, with my opinions in how we're structuring things right now, but I'm very much of a like opinion that deploying multiple things into the same account is going to make it too easy to do something that you shouldn't. And I just try not to inherently trust people, in the sense that, “Oh, this is easy. I'm just going to cross that boundary real quick.”Corey: For me, it's also come down to security risk exposure. Like my lasttweetinaws.com Twitter shitposting thread client lives in a distinct AWS account that is separate from the AWS account that has all of our client billing data that lives within it. The idea being that if you find a way to compromise my public-facing Twitter client, great, the blast radius should be constrained to, “Yay, now you can, I don't know, spin up some cryptocurrency mining in my AWS account and I get to look like a fool when I beg AWS for forgiveness.”But that should be the end of it. It shouldn't be a security incident because I should not have the credit card numbers living right next to the funny internet web thing. That sort of flies in the face of the original guidance that AWS gave at launch. And right around 2008-era, best practices were one customer, one AWS account. And then by 2012, they had changed their perspective, but once you've made a decision to build multiple services in a single account, unwinding and unpacking that becomes an incredibly burdensome thing. It's about the equivalent of doing a cloud migration, in some ways.Allen: We went through that. We started off building one application with the intent that it was going to be a siloed application, a one-off, essentially. And about a year into it, it's one of those moments of, “Oh, no. What we're building is not actually a one-off. It's a piece to a much larger puzzle.”And we had a whole bunch of—unfortunately—tightly coupled things that were in there that we're assuming that resources were going to be in the same AWS account. So, we ended up—how long—I think we took probably two months, which in the grand scheme of things isn't that long, but two months, kind of unwinding the pieces and decoupling what was possible at the time into multiple AWS accounts, kind of, segmented by domain, essentially. But that's hard. AWS puts it, you know, it's those one-way door decisions. I think this one was a two-way door, but it locked and you could kind of jimmy the lock on the way back out.Corey: And you could buzz someone from the lobby to let you back in. Yeah, the biggest problem is not necessarily the one-way door decisions. It's the one-way door decisions that you don't realize you're passing through at the time that you do them. Which, of course, brings us to a topic near and dear to your heart—and I only recently started have opinions on this myself—and that is the proper design of APIs, which I'm sure will incense absolutely no one who's listening to this. Like, my opinions on APIs start with well, probably REST is the right answer in this day and age. I had people, like, “Well, I don't know, GraphQL is pretty awesome.” Like, “Oh, I'm thinking SOAP,” and people look at me like I'm a monster from the Black Lagoon of centuries past in XML-land. So, my particular brand of strangeness side, what do you see that people are doing in the world of API design that is the, I guess, most common or easy to make mistakes that you really wish they would stop doing?Allen: If I could boil it down to one word, fundamentalism. Let me unpack that for you.Corey: Oh, please, absolutely want to get a definition on that one.Allen: [laugh]. I approach API design from a developer experience point of view: how easy is it for both internal and external integrators to consume and satisfy the business processes that they want to accomplish? And a lot of times, REST guidelines, you know, it's all about entity basis, you know, drill into the appropriate entities and name your endpoints with nouns, not verbs. I'm actually very much onto that one.But something that you could easily do, let's say you have a business process that given a fundamentally correct RESTful API design takes ten API calls to satisfy. You could, in theory, boil that down to maybe three well-designed endpoints that aren't, quote-unquote, “RESTful,” that make that developer experience significantly easier. And if you were a fundamentalist, that option is not even on the table, but thinking about it pragmatically from a developer experience point of view, that might be the better call. So, that's one of the things that, I know feels like a hot take. Every time I say it, I get a little bit of flack for it, but don't be a fundamentalist when it comes to your API designs. Do something that makes it easier while staying in the guidelines to do what you want.Corey: For me the problem that I've kept smacking into with API design, and it honestly—let me be very clear on this—my first real exposure to API design rather than API consumer—which of course, I complain about constantly, especially in the context of the AWS inconsistent APIs between services—was when I'm building something out, and I'm reading the documentation for API Gateway, and oh, this is how you wind up having this stage linked to this thing, and here's the endpoint. And okay, great, so I would just populate—build out a structure or a schema that has the positional parameters I want to use as variables in my function. And that's awesome. And then I realized, “Oh, I might want to call this a different way. Aw, crap.” And sometimes it's easy; you just add a different endpoint. Other times, I have to significantly rethink things. And I can't shake the feeling that this is an entire discipline that exists that I just haven't had a whole lot of exposure to previously.Allen: Yeah, I believe that. One of the things that you could tie a metaphor to for what I'm saying and kind of what you're saying, is AWS SAM, the Serverless Application Model, all it does is basically macros CloudFormation resources. It's just a transform from a template into CloudFormation. CDK does same thing. But what the developers of SAM have done is they've recognized these business processes that people do regularly, and they've made these incredibly easy ways to satisfy those business processes and tie them all together, right?If I want to have a Lambda function that is backed behind a endpoint, an API endpoint, I just have to add four or five lines of YAML or JSON that says, “This is the event trigger, here's the route, here's the API.” And then it goes and does four, five, six different things. Now, there's some engineers that don't like that because sometimes that feels like magic. Sometimes a little bit magic is okay.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Sysdig. Sysdig secures your cloud from source to run. They believe, as do I, that DevOps and security are inextricably linked. If you wanna learn more about how they view this, check out their blog, it's definitely worth the read. To learn more about how they are absolutely getting it right from where I sit, visit Sysdig.com and tell them that I sent you. That's S Y S D I G.com. And my thanks to them for their continued support of this ridiculous nonsense.Corey: I feel like one of the benefits I've had with the vast majority of APIs that I've built is that because this is all relatively small-scale stuff for what amounts to basically shitposting for the sake of entertainment, I'm really the only consumer of an awful lot of these things. So, I get frustrated when I have to backtrack and make changes and teach other microservices to talk to this thing that has now changed. And it's frustrating, but I have the capacity to do that. It's just work for a period of time. I feel like that equation completely shifts when you have published this and it is now out in the world, and it's not just users, but in many cases paying customers where you can't really make those changes without significant notice, and every time you do you're creating work for those customers, so you have to be a lot more judicious about it.Allen: Oh, yeah. There is a whole lot of governance and practice that goes into production-level APIs that people integrate with. You know, they say once you push something out the door into production that you're going to support it forever. I don't disagree with that. That seems like something that a lot of people don't understand.And that's one of the reasons why I push API-first development so hard in all the content that I write is because you need to be intentional about what you're letting out the door. You need to go in and work, not just with the developers, but your product people and your analysts to say, what does this absolutely need to do, and what does it need to do in the future? And you take those things, and you work with analysts who want specifics, you work with the engineers to actually build it out. And you're very intentional about what goes out the door that first time because once it goes out with a mistake, you're either going to version it immediately or you're going to make some people very unhappy when you make a breaking change to something that they immediately started consuming.Corey: It absolutely feels like that's one of those things that AWS gets astonishingly right. I mean, I had the privilege of interviewing, at the time, Jeff Barr and then Ariel Kelman, who was their head of marketing, to basically debunk a bunch of old myths. And one thing that they started talking about extensively was the idea that an API is fundamentally a promise to your customers. And when you make a promise, you'd better damn well intend on keeping it. It's why API deprecations from AWS are effectively unique whenever something happens.It's the, this is a singular moment in time when they turn off a service or degrade old functionality in favor of new. They can add to it, they can launch a V2 of something and then start to wean people off by calling the old one classic or whatnot, but if I built something on AWS in 2008 and I wound up sleeping until today, and go and try and do the exact same thing and deploy it now, it will almost certainly work exactly as it did back then. Sure, reliability is going to be a lot better and there's a crap ton of features and whatnot that I'm not taking advantage of, but that fundamental ability to do that is awesome. Conversely, it feels like Google Cloud likes to change around a lot of their API stories almost constantly. And it's unplanned work that frustrates the heck out of me when I'm trying to build something stable and lasting on top of it.Allen: I think it goes to show the maturity of these companies as API companies versus just vendors. It's one of the things that I think AWS does [laugh]—Corey: You see the similar dichotomy with Microsoft and Apple. Microsoft's new versions of Windows generally still have functionalities in them to support stuff that was written in the '90s for a few use cases, whereas Apple's like, “Oh, your computer's more than 18-months old? Have you tried throwing it away and buying a new one? And oh, it's a new version of Mac OS, so yeah, maybe the last one would get security updates for a year and then get with the times.” And I can't shake the feeling that the correct answer is in some way, both of those, depending upon who your customer is and what it is you're trying to achieve.If Microsoft adopted the Apple approach, their customers would mutiny, and rightfully so; the expectation has been set for decades that isn't what happens. Conversely, if Apple decided now we're going to support this version of Mac OS in perpetuity, I don't think a lot of their application developers wouldn't quite know what to make of that.Allen: Yeah. I think it also comes from a standpoint of you better make it worth their while if you're going to move their cheese. I'm not a Mac user myself, but from what I hear for Mac users—and this could be rose-colored glasses—but is that their stuff works phenomenally well. You know, when a new thing comes out—Corey: Until it doesn't, absolutely. It's—whenever I say things like that on this show, I get letters. And it's, “Oh, yeah, really? They'll come up with something that is a colossal pain in the ass on Mac.” Like, yeah, “Try building a system-wide mute key.”It's yeah, that's just a hotkey away on windows and here in Mac land. It's, “But it makes such beautiful sounds. Why would you want them to be quiet?” And it's, yeah, it becomes this back-and-forth dichotomy there. And you can even explain it to iPhones as well and the Android ecosystem where it's, oh, you're going to support the last couple of versions of iOS.Well, as a developer, I don't want to do that. And Apple's position is, “Okay, great.” Almost half of the mobile users on the planet will be upgrading because they're in the ecosystem. Do you want us to be able to sell things those people are not? And they're at a point of scale where they get to dictate those terms.On some level, there are benefits to it and others, it is intensely frustrating. I don't know what the right answer is on the level of permanence on that level of platform. I only have slightly better ideas around the position of APIs. I will say that when AWS deprecates something, they reach out individually to affected customers, on some level, and invariably, when they say, “This is going to be deprecated as of August 31,” or whenever it is, yeah, it is going to slip at least twice in almost every case, just because they're not going to turn off a service that is revenue-bearing or critical-load-bearing for customers without massive amounts of notice and outreach, and in some cases according to rumor, having engineers reach out to help restructure things so it's not as big of a burden on customers. That's a level of customer focus that I don't think most other companies are capable of matching.Allen: I think that comes with the size and the history of Amazon. And one of the things that they're doing right now, we've used Amazon Cloud Cams for years, in my house. We use them as baby monitors. And they—Corey: Yea, I saw this I did something very similar with Nest. They didn't have the Cloud Cam at the right time that I was looking at it. And they just announced that they're going to be deprecating. They're withdrawing them for sale. They're not going to support them anymore. Which, oh at Amazon—we're not offering this anymore. But you tell the story; what are they offering existing customers?Allen: Yeah, so slightly upset about it because I like my Cloud Cams and I don't want to have to take them off the wall or wherever they are to replace them with something else. But what they're doing is, you know, they gave me—or they gave all the customers about eight months head start. I think they're going to be taking them offline around Thanksgiving this year, just mid-November. And what they said is as compensation for you, we're going to send you a Blink Cam—a Blink Mini—for every Cloud Cam that you have in use, and then we are going to gift you a year subscription to the Pro for Blink.Corey: That's very reasonable for things that were bought years ago. Meanwhile, I feel like not to be unkind or uncharitable here, but I use Nest Cams. And that's a Google product. I half expected if they ever get deprecated, I'll find out because Google just turns it off in the middle of the night—Allen: [laugh].Corey: —and I wake up and have to read a blog post somewhere that they put an update on Nest Cams, the same way they killed Google Reader once upon a time. That's slightly unfair, but the fact that joke even lands does say a lot about Google's reputation in this space.Allen: For sure.Corey: One last topic I want to talk with you about before we call it a show is that at the time of this recording, you recently had a blog post titled, “What does the Future Hold for Serverless?” Summarize that for me. Where do you see this serverless movement—if you'll forgive the term—going?Allen: So, I'm going to start at the end. I'm going to work back a little bit on what needs to happen for us to get there. I have a feeling that in the future—I'm going to be vague about how far in the future this is—that we'll finally have a satisfied promise of all you're going to write in the future is business logic. And what does that mean? I think what can end up happening, given the right focus, the right companies, the right feedback, at the right time, is we can write code as developers and have that get pushed up into the cloud.And a phrase that I know Jeremy Daly likes to say ‘infrastructure from code,' where it provisions resources in the cloud for you based on your use case. I've developed an application and it gets pushed up in the cloud at the time of deploying it, optimized resource allocation. Over time, what will happen—with my future vision—is when you get production traffic going through, maybe it's spiky, maybe it's consistently at a scale that outperforms the resources that it originally provisioned. We can have monitoring tools that analyze that and pick that out, find the anomalies, find the standard patterns, and adjust that infrastructure that it deployed for you automatically, where it's based on your production traffic for what it created, optimizes it for you. Which is something that you can't do on an initial deployment right now. You can put what looks best on paper, but once you actually get traffic through your application, you realize that, you know, what was on paper might not be correct.Corey: You ever noticed that whiteboard diagrams never show the reality, and they're always aspirational, and they miss certain parts? And I used to think that this was the symptom I had from working at small, scrappy companies because you know what, those big tech companies, everything they build is amazing and awesome. I know it because I've seen their conference talks. But I've been a consultant long enough now, and for a number of those companies, to realize that nope, everyone's infrastructure is basically a trash fire at any given point in time. And it works almost in spite of itself, rather than because of it.There is no golden path where everything is shiny, new and beautiful. And that, honestly, I got to say, it was really [laugh] depressing when I first discovered it. Like, oh, God, even these really smart people who are so intelligent they have to have extra brain packs bolted to their chests don't have the magic answer to all of this. The rest of us are just screwed, then. But we find ways to make it work.Allen: Yep. There's a quote, I wish I remembered who said it, but it was a military quote where, “No battle plan survives impact with the enemy—first contact with the enemy.” It's kind of that way with infrastructure diagrams. We can draw it out however we want and then you turn it on in production. It's like, “Oh, no. That's not right.”Corey: I want to mix the metaphors there and say, yeah, no architecture survives your first fight with a customer. Like, “Great, I don't think that's quite what they're trying to say.” It's like, “What, you don't attack your customers? Pfft, what's your customer service line look like?” Yeah, it's… I think you're onto something.I think that inherently everything beyond the V1 design of almost anything is an emergent property where this is what we learned about it by running it and putting traffic through it and finding these problems, and here's how it wound up evolving to account for that.Allen: I agree. I don't have anything to add on that.Corey: [laugh]. Fair enough. I really want to thank you for taking so much time out of your day to talk about how you view these things. If people want to learn more, where is the best place to find you?Allen: Twitter is probably the best place to find me: @AllenHeltonDev. I have that username on all the major social platforms, so if you want to find me on LinkedIn, same thing: AllenHeltonDev. My blog is always open as well, if you have any feedback you'd like to give there: readysetcloud.io.Corey: And we will, of course, put links to that in the show notes. Thanks again for spending so much time talking to me. I really appreciate it.Allen: Yeah, this was fun. This was a lot of fun. I love talking shop.Corey: It shows. And it's nice to talk about things I don't spend enough time thinking about. Allen Helton, cloud architect at Tyler Technologies. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with an angry comment that I will reject because it was not written in valid XML.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

Allen: All right, passive traders, we have a treat in store for you today. Many of you know about the option continuum, which is basically, you know, our levels of breakdown of where you are as an options trader, you start with level one, you don't know anything. And then you get to level 10, maybe if you want to, which is option professional. And basically a professional means that you are so good at trading options, that you are now trading and managing other people's money and you're getting paid for it. Many of you have reached out to us in the past and said, Hey, I want more information on that. And we haven't really put it out there because I am not doing it myself. Right now, as a professional, I don't I'm not measuring anybody else's money. And so, you know, I'm not the best person to talk to about that. But we keep getting people and be like, hey, you know, I want to learn, I want to learn. So one of our members, Paul Ashcraft, has volunteered to join us today. And I want to thank you, Paul, for coming and helping out. A few a couple of months ago, I think in one of our groups, I think it was a passive group, where I had put in there like, Hey, I'm thinking about starting a hedge fund. So I'm thinking about going professional, right? And he reached out and said, hey, you know, I'm already doing it if you want to, if you want to talk and I can answer your question. So we had an amazing conversation, I learned a lot. And I was like, You know what, this would be really helpful for everybody else. So I asked Paul, hey, could you do it again? And we can record it this time? It was like, Yeah, sure, no foul. And so he's here, Paul, thank you. Thank you for being on thank you for taking the time to do this. Paul: Thank you very much. Pleasure. Allen: And you're Paul is a member of our of a lot of our programs. So passive trading formula, the blank check, and now the credit spread mastery as well. So you know, it's good to see that, hey, if you're a money manager, then you're continuously getting learning and learning new things to help out your students, or your clients, I guess. So. Well, tell me, why did you get into management? What was it that drawed you through that? Paul: Well, I sort of got tricked into it. I had a, I'm a CPA by trade, and I had a client who was becoming an NFL player agent. And he trusted me and wanted me to help him manage his people's NFL players money. So I started the licensing process at that time. And so that sort of tricked me into it. So that sort of fell apart. And then he wasn't getting more leads for what he was doing. So I basically continued since then, so Allen: Okay, so were you already trading on your own? Or before that? Or did you learn as you want to? Paul: Yeah, I've been trading, you know, for quite a while. Off and on. So yeah, I've had some experience of trading. Allen: Okay. So you are comfortable, you could do it? Paul: I knew I needed to learn, I do need to learn some more. But yeah, I feel like I could I knew enough about the world to do that. Allen: Okay. And so you are known as what is a RIA, a registered independent advisor? Paul: Right. That's correct. Allen: So that's one of the ways of managing money. What exactly is an RIA? Paul: It's basically a firm that is licensed by the FINRA basically, and you are licensed to where you can manage other people's money. Allen: And all RIAs, are fiduciaries, right? Paul: That's correct. Yeah.  Allen: Right. Because a lot of people don't know the difference between a fiduciary and a non fiduciary. And so a fiduciary, if you don't know you are legally bound to do what's in the best interest of the client. A lot of these other companies that people think about when they're talking about money management, or Wealth Advisors, retirement advisors, all these words that they use, they have no license, or maybe they do have a license, but they're not a fiduciary. So they're not required to do what's best for the client. And so they can sell you a product that they get the highest commission on, even if it's not really a good thing, a good fit for you. So that's why..  Paul: Yeah one of the ways I deal with that fiduciary criteria is basically whatever I do for other people, I do for myself. Allen: Okay. Okay, interesting. So, what does it take to open an RIA? Paul: Well, if you want to legal structure and need, like, I have an LLC got a creative for that. And I have had to pass a serious 65 test, which you'd like an SEC test, and get to come up some kind of agreement you have with your clients that's approved by FINRA to sign them on as clients. Those are the basics you have to do. Allen: Okay, and like how long did it take you to go through all that? Remember? Paul: I'm gonna say, basically of six to nine months. Allen: Okay, and how long have you been? How long have you been an RIA? Paul: Since 2014, so roughly eight years. Allen: Awesome. Yep. Cool. And for those of you, you know, I'm going to repeat it later on, but Paul's business website is Businessadvisors.Pro. So if you ever or if you need a good adviser, you know, please reach out to Paul. And I'll repeat at the end, and we'll put it in the show notes. I just wanted to get that out there. Paul: And that's mainly my CPA website, just so you know. Allen: Very cool. BusinessAdvisors.Pro, there you go.  Paul: And then sort has been done about creating my Wealth Advisors website, because you're so under scrutiny when you were you advertise things, so I just sort of steered away from that a little bit. Allen: Interesting. Okay. So I guess there's certain things you can say and certain things you cannot say. Paul: Basically, anything you put out there to the public, you have to like, monitor it for five years, and they can question you about it anytime. So I just figured one way to get around that is just not to do it. Allen: Okay. So then that leads me to my next question, like, how do you find clients if you're not advertising? Paul: Well, you know, I have CPA clients, probably like half the clients, I have my Wealth Advisors from CPA side. Other thing is like, from friends, and referrals from other people who use me. Allen: Okay. So it takes time to build all that up?  Paul: Yes, yes. And I'm currently working on more. More advertising. Allen: Okay. All right. So the advertising is possible. It's not it's not like it's restricted. But you have to be careful of what you do and how you do it. Paul: Yes, yes, yeah. Allen: Now, what are your clients looking for? Because, you know, if somebody comes to you and says, Hey, you know, I'm looking to make more money, obviously, but they have so many, so many choices. They can do it themselves, it could go to like, like Fidelity and have them do it. They could go to they're really rich, they can have their own private like, you know, Bank of America, has their own private wealth, people. So when they come to you, what do they tell you? Like? What are they looking for in terms of an advisor? Paul: Well, I mean, I had someone recently come to me, and, you know, we're signing them up, or things that I'd say we, if we look, if we're here a year later, what do you want to what your criteria are saying, I did a good job. And he wanted a 10% return, which has been difficult in this market. But that's, that's one thing. Another thing? I you know, most advisors out there, these basically are, they're buying hold people, I mean, and they bid six things in a bucket, and don't look at it too often. So I, I basically say that I'm actively working in their account, and I'm not sure I'm going to just put it there and not be looking at it. Allen: So obviously, you probably tell them about your options experience and the different types of strategies you use. Paul: Yeah, a lot of times just the casual person warnings on the manager money that, that if I tried to tell them all that it would go way over their head. Because, you know, it took me like two years talking about options to actually start doing it myself, you know, so I'm trying to be a little bit of conscientious about what they can and cannot handle information wise. I'll be glad to talk about it, they want to, but I'm not gonna write too much about it. Allen: And I bet that would that would set you apart, right? You know, it's like, hey, you know, we can do plain vanilla stuff. Or we can do if you're a little bit more aggressive than we can do this, and this and this. And then if it goes over there, that's fine. But as long as they're like, whoa, this guy knows. Paul: Yeah, definitely. That's certainly part because like, my CPA, well, I deal with investment advisors. And like, no one, no one that I know of is actually managing costs. I mean, like, you know, every week or things like that, Allen: yeah, yeah, they just don't I mean, part of it is they have, depending on where they are some of these guys that I know, they have broker dealers, and the broker basically tells them what they can do and what they can't do. And trading is like, No, you're not doing it. They just they can't, they're not allowed. And so, you know, we get we get clients that are financial advisors, they come in, they're like, oh, yeah, I'm a financial advisor, like, oh, they shouldn't, you know, all this stuff. And they're like, oh, I don't do any of this for my son. I don't know, they don't even teach us this stuff. In financial advisors. Cool. So it's like, once I call again, I'm like, Oh, my God. Paul: Yeah, most of them are just like, call themselves people. And it is this, they don't necessarily know that much about investing. It's more about they have relationships with people, and they train their people to be accustomed to five to 7% returns. So so don't want you to do that as that's, you know, not a hallmark. Allen: Yeah, yeah. Like, you know, when I go to if I go to a dinner party, or whatever, and, you know, always comes up. So what do you do? It's like, well, I teach people how to do this. And the first they're like, really, is that, you know, what do you what do you mean? And then we tell them a little bit about it, and they go, Yeah, you know, we try to aim, you know, for 5% a month, and they're like, what a month. Really? Oh, wow, I gotta learn about that. And then, you know, you explain a little bit and then they're, like, bored and then they go talk to somebody else. Because, you know, it's cool. They want, they want it. They just want to do the work. So that's cool. Now as an advisor, how do you How do you charge? Like, what do you charge? How do you do it? Paul: So I have what's called a serious 65 license. So I'm able to charge a percentage of what assets are under management. Okay, so the basic generic, charged with as generally 1% of assets under management. Okay, that if I'm doing more as a some different strategies, things like that, I'm probably going to up the field more because it's, it is active trading. Allen: It takes more time. Yeah, yeah. Because I remember way back when I had a guy at America ice, and he was my advisor. And yeah, he would charge a minimum of 1% on assets every year. Every time you put money, you gave him money, they would take 5% off the top. And then every every mutual fund and every index fund or whatever that they put you in. And most of them were, you know, Ameriprise products. Each of those things would have a separate fee every year. So I mean, I got dealing left and right. I didn't know what I was doing. At the time, I was thinking I am going to you know, I'm smart. I got an advisor. But yeah, he was the one getting rich. And so.. Paul: They made that money, whether they go down or go up it. Allen: Yeah, I mean, they take the money right up front, 5% off the top. As soon as you make a deposit, it's like, man, you haven't done anything. Even if I turn around and ask for the money back, I just love fibers. Do you have like a lot of Is There a lot of overhead for being a advisor? You need a large staff? Paul: Right now, it's just me. And so I'm already have all my setup for my CPA business. So there's not really that much more to do.  Allen: And you can run it from the same location. Yes, yes. Okay. So then who does the like the backend stuff, you know, statements, and compliance audits, all that stuff. Paul: So we use Interactive Brokers as the broker dealer. So they basically, so all my clients have their own account set up with them, and it sort of goes underneath my master account. So so they take care about the then get a statement from there anytime they want to find out what their balances. And if they need to take up money, they can contact them and get the money taken out. So they saw him. So we're doing a lot of the back office stuff. Allen: Awesome. So you really don't have to do anything. And they they opened the account themselves, the client opens the account themselves, they deposit the money themselves, they can take it out whenever they want, they can go and log in, see all the trades, see whatever is there. So you really don't have a lot of customer service issues. And so you don't have to send send out statements, because Interactive Brokers will do that. Right. Paul: And one of my strategies is if someone is, I call it high maintenance, then I probably can't handle that, you know, they probably need to find someone else because, you know, I got enough things to do is it is. Allen: Awesome, cool. And then. So you don't handle any of the money either. Because they just go straight to interactive. So you're like a hands off, okay, I'll do the trades, but I'm not touching your money. So you don't have to worry about me taking your money and running away and flying to Bermuda or something.  Paul: Yeah, just like the Bernie Madoff deal where he was. He they call it having custody of the funds, and he had custody. And so they, they talked about that when you're going through your testing and things like that, about having custody and not having custody and things like that. So yeah, it's a big red flag. Allen: Yeah. Because I mean, like, I've been looking into starting my own hedge fund, you know, using the the passive trading strategies and such. And I looked at RIA first and then I looked at, you know, hedge fund as another way, and I think from what I've been able to find so far is that if you start a hedge fund, and you don't charge any management fees, you don't need the license, you can set it up in a way where you know, you get you only take a percentage of the profit. So if there's a gain, you can get a percent, but you don't get that yearly management fee. If you want the yearly management fee, then you do have to separate a separate Ria, to do the management of the fund. Okay, I didn't know that. Yeah, so I thought that was pretty cool. So we've been looking at that as well, different things. So now, what percentage of your management is active? versus, you know, index funds, mutual funds, etc? Paul: I'd say about half. Allen: Okay, and all of the clients are okay with that, or do you do client by client? Paul: I pretty much put everybody under the same model. Yeah. So Allen: And so with interactive, how does that work, you have to go into each account to put a trade on or you just put one trade on and it just trickles.. Paul: There's a master account and I can set up different  classification. So I could I could buy 1000 shares of IBM and have it spread it putting all the accounts did that.  So they have to watch out for is some of the accounts can trade certain things, some can't, like RIAs cannot do you know, futures and naked options and things like that as far as, at least on the credit side. Allen: Okay. All right. So can does that get confusing? If you want if you want like, Okay, I want like a say IBM, I want my IBM stock to be 5% of all of my everybody's portfolio. Paul: Yeah, that would be a different the different equation. So basically, like I did a trade today where I figured, you know, want to take a $10,000 risk. So divided by what that option was going for. And I bought that many contracts to take on that kind of risk. So not necessarily rebalancing everyone is usually trade by trade. So putting on a certain set of circumstances, set a step stop loss and things like that. Allen: Okay, cool. So you can do it as easy or as simple as you want. Or you can make it as complicated as you want. Yeah, up to you. Yeah. Nice. So what types of what types of trades do you do? Paul: Well, some of what you teach. So I do some swing trading. And of course, you know, credit spreads and things like that. And some, you know, some some of the dividend paying stocks and covered calls and things like that. Allen: And do you do any any oil futures options? Paul: Well, I'm not. I'm just at the point to get licensed for that. Allen: It's a separate license? Paul: That's as a separate license. Yes. So you have to you have to get licensed through the, Chicago Board of Trade, the NFA and National Futures Association. Allen: Okay. Okay. And then will you be able to do it the same as everything else through Interactive Brokers? Paul: Yes, I think so. Sometimes you don't know to actually do it. So I think it's pretty similar. Allen: Sweet. Okay. Now, as a as an RIA, do you also advise your clients on other alternative investments, you know, real estate, crypto anything else? Or is it just stocks, bonds, options? Paul: I'm always getting to ask questions, you know, because I'm in, you know, really, I'm gonna CPA world or the IRA world, I'm getting asked questions. So I will advise on that if I think I have a good opinion. You know, I'm not roll up on that rolled up on crypto Allen: Right, right. Are you still bound by the same fiduciary type rules on that or?  Paul: You could come under some scrutiny. You know, you'd like an offsetting handed comment, and then someone does something crazy. And so you got to be a little careful. Allen: Yeah. All right. And okay, so him now with the interactive account, or the broker dealer, is the software any different? Like, versus if you open a regular account by yourself? Is there anything you have to learn a new platform? Or is it basically the same thing?  Paul: It's pretty much the same platform, you just have to understand how to do the trading, like I was telling you about, like, allocating between all the accounts, but the platform itself is basically the same. Okay. Cool. Yeah. Allen: What do you see as the future of money management, because like, you know, they got these robo advisors now, and they got like Robin Hood, trying to get everybody to trade on their own. And so what do you see down the pike? You know, do you see like, your clients are like, yeah, rather just have you do it? Or are robots or whatever? Paul: Yeah, I can see, you know, some of the robot picking up. But on average, most people out there don't know, hardly anything about the investing world. My average client, so I think it's going to be still a good field you know, way up currently doing it. Allen: Okay, and who is like your average client? Paul: They're probably like 50 years old, that did 60. And probably, you know, got assets anywhere from, you know, 50 to 50,000 to over a million dollars, you know? Allen: And do you have any limits on who can invest with you? And how much? Paul: No, I mean, like, I'm not, I'm just gonna take on any account right now. It would need to be over a certain dollar amount for me to I just always have to keep that in mind about, you know, do I want to take on a five or $10,000 account? Because it's gonna be extra work. Taking that versus the capital issue at-- You don't have to be you don't have to comply with the day trading rules. You know, because because if you if you accidentally in and out three, three trades in a week, then your account gets shut down. You know, so you have to deal with that. So yeah, so I'm trying to gradually move up from like a minimum of 25,000 to 50,000, 200,000. Allen: Okay. And then you also have a certain criteria like a certain person that you want right? Certain somebody they can handle the options and that Intertek can handle that because I mean, it does swing a little bit. So if they have a 5,000 to $10,000 account, they freak out if they lose $1,000, obviously, that's not the right person for you anyway. Paul: Right. But on that same note, I had a client the other day that, you know, they have, you know, an excess a half million dollars with me. And they want to know how they could put in more money since this market was down so they could capture, capture that now mark? I love that kind of client. expecting them to call you and tell you, why is my account down? Actually, that question is dead. They're saying, How can we put more money in?  Allen: Yeah, that's a smart, that's a Smart Client. So that's, that's got to be your email, you know, going out, like, Hey, he's trying to give me more now. double down on your investments. Okay. Now, How has being a money manager improved your own trading? Or hasn't? Paul: Well, I mean, it's made me to seek out new avenues of investing. You know, because I'm looking out for my clients. By the same token, when I do that, I find things that I can use to, you know, like, I don't know, if I would have found the old future options without that, you know, seeking out new new investment strategies, you know, so I could do a better job for my clients. Allen: Okay. Now, we've had a lot of volatility lately. And you've, you've alluded to it already. When stocks down about 20% or so right now, how do you deal with the investor concerns or expectations? Paul: I'm continually learning that. The more, the more proactive you can be with that, I find that it's better. Like, if you have a bad day or a bad trade that, you know, that affects it so much, and then maybe call and talk to them about it versus waiting for them to call you later, and they get their quarterly statements. And they call you know? Allen: Right. So do you find that a large portion of your job is just talking to people and just calming them down? Or explaining certain things to them? Or educating them? Paul: In the beginning? Yes. If someone's with you for a while, and they haven't gotten, understood your ways, and why you do what you do. And it would be generally in the first year of a client relationship, you indeed do that more, but there is sort of they get to know you, you you get to know them and sort of like a training curve there. Allen: And now, most of your clients, are they either they know you or they were referred to you. Right. So there's always there's already that trust built in from the beginning. Most of them yes, yeah. So if you, you know, advertising, somebody comes in cold, they're like, oh, yeah, I like what you're doing here. You know, here's $100,000, there's gonna be a lot more back. Paul: Yeah. Allen: Okay. So how are you handling? How are you handling the volatility? Like when somebody calls up and says, Oh, my count is down. How do you? What do you do there? Paul: Well, number one, what I did when I saw when I saw the market starting to tank, I basically, was going more into cash. So like, I the client won't know why we aren't investing. I said, Well, I'm waiting for the market to give me indication has, it's found the bottom or, you know, it is headed back up. So I don't want to, I'm not a bottom picker. But I don't want to like, write it further down. You know. So that's one way of dealing with it. And they seem to appreciate that quite a bit and understand that. So I don't think that's something you get out of a typical advisor. Allen: So yeah, but what if somebody calls you and says, Oh, my God, you know, I'm down 10%? What am I going to do? I can't handle this. How do you handle that? Have you ever had that happen? Paul: Yeah. I tried to change up their strategies a little bit to get them a little more solid, or maybe not trade as much in their account. Just being a little more cautious. Allen: Okay, so Okay, so you can actually choose, like, let's say, we talked about that IBM thing. So if you're like, Hey, I'm buying IBM, you could choose and say, okay, don't put it in this account in this account, just because in all these other ones,. Yeah. All right. So you can actually tailor it because like, if somebody goes, Yeah, I just want to be long stocks, or I just want tech stocks. And I just want you know, credit spreads. So they you can, you can do that. Yeah, okay. Yep. So, do you have any shortcuts that you can share? You know, for somebody that's thinking, hey, you know, this sounds like cool, I'm gonna I'm gonna get into this. RIA business, anything that you probably didn't know, ahead of time that you would have liked to have known? Paul: This is sort of like a unknown territory. Because, I mean, when I was doing it, I couldn't get anybody to actually figure it out what like a serious 65 license would do. And I was sort of going into blindly a little bit. So I mean, I think the number one thing is maybe you know, then contact me. Shortcuts is, you know, I don't know like I had to find a place to take the take the course for that. And then I hired a guy to tutor me some. And, you know, there's, there's these firms out there wanting you to sign up with them for them to do oh, you know, like your paperwork and so forth. And I just sort of like fumbled my way through it and plagiarized another agreement online affected us. And so another thing is to know if you're in this world, you will get audited. Personally. Well, the your investment firm, right, yeah. Yeah. Like I'm in the CPA world, and I probably will never get out a different CPA world. But the investment side, I will get audited probably time and time again. So far, it's only been once one step Florida, but yeah, Allen: okay. Yeah. I mean, that's a good thing. I guess, you know, that, that the advisors and like you said, you know, the Bernie Madoff, he keeps him at bay as much as he can a little bit. So some of that, I guess, from a consumer standpoint, and that's a good thing to hear. Paul: Yeah, but a lot of a lot of us, they don't necessarily understand the world as much as you do. And it's more like them checking a box somewhere in a city. They ask this question, or I did that, but they don't really find that don't really necessarily know exactly what they're doing, you know, Allen: Yeah. So but do you mean tax audited or audited by like the audit by Paul: the state by the financial regulatory people for the state you're in Allen: The state regulatory? Okay, so every state has their own regulatory stuff that you have so far. Paul: Yeah. So just just sort of background here. Usually, as you're managing under $100 million, you're managed by the state. But then once you hit $100 million in the SEC is basically is going to your watchdog, it's gonna look over your shoulder. Allen: Okay. All right. Cool. And you're in Florida, right? Correct. But you can take clients from anywhere? Paul: I can. But different states have different rules, most of them allow you to take five to 15 clients, and not really be registered with them. But then once you hit over that threshold, they want you to fully registered with them. But there are a few states that require you if you get one client, they want you to be registered. And Louisiana was one of those states. Allen: So I guess, depending on how much capital the guy is gonna give you whether it's worth it to register there.. Paul: Exactly, exactly, yeah. Okay. All right. Allen: So would you knowing what you know, now, are you happy that you went this route? Paul: Ask me again, in a few years. Allen: Well, you've been doing already for like, eight years. So kind of got some kind of track record here. Paul: Yeah, it's been, you know, it's been definitely a learning curve, you know, from the regulatory side. And then from the investment side, too, so? Yes, I'm glad I did it. But it' had its rough moments. Allen: Well, give me an example. Paul: Well if you if you lose on a trade, you know, it can affect your account and other people's account. So that's probably the biggest things that has happened to me, you know? And then you got to figure out how am I gonna tell this person this?  Allen: Yeah. So how did you how did you deal with that? Paul: I prayed a lot. Basically, if I knew the fact that someone so much, I would, I call them and talk to him about it. But in a certain situation, like, because it was spread over so many accounts, it didn't really affect anyone that much. It wasn't that big of a deal. Like, you know, if I'm managing $5 million of money, and I lose 20,000, you know, the most Someone's probably gonna lose is maybe 2 or 3000. So the overall number is a big number. But you know, we spread between all the counts, it's not that big of a number. Allen: Interesting. Okay. Yeah, I mean, that's that thing, right? There is like, the biggest thing that's kept me out of it for all these years, you know, people have been asking me from the beginning, okay, can you take my money? I'm like, nope, nope, because I don't know how I'm gonna handle the stress. I don't know if, um, we will sleep, I can lose my own money, you know, market down 20% Okay, whatever, it'll go back up, I got time, you know, but somebody else if I lose your money, and I don't know, I don't know how I'm gonna handle it. And so that's the one thing that that's really caused me to be hesitant up till now. And I agree what you said about not having that much information out there. You know, I mean, there are companies out there that will like if you want to be in RIA you type in how to be an RIA and there's a company that hey, you if you give us like 30 grand, you know, we'll do all the paperwork and we'll file everything for you. So you Okay, but what do I actually get? You know, they're like well you do the paperwork. Well what about after that? How do I get clients how do I do this how to do that they will help you at all and these two guys they had approached, they had talked that a because I'm you know Option Genius is in what's called the financial publishing space that world, so we have our own little conventions and all the Guru's come and hang out and talk marketing and stuff. And so there was there was these two guys who were speakers, and they were telling all of the financial publishers that hey, you guys need to get into the into the management business, because you guys already have all these clients? They already trust you? You know, and they probably have a lot of money because people coming to me, you know, they say, Hey, I want to learn how to trade options. Okay, cool, you know, and how large is your account? They're like, Oh, 50,000. Okay, cool. And they trading options with 50,000. But they also have like, maybe a million dollar IRA, that they're not touching, or their wife has $500,000 that is with some other financial advisor that she doesn't want her husband to touch with options. So it's like, yeah, everybody that comes in has a lot more money. So if you started an IRA or an advisor, then you know, they'll give you that money as well. And you can make all this money. And I was like, Okay, that's interesting. But, you know, what are the legalities and all that and they wanted, I don't know, obtain $1,000 plus a percentage of the company to actually teach me all this stuff. And I'm finding a there's a lot of secrecy, as you can say, you know, and Wall Street, I think puts it like that on purpose. Because they don't want everybody to know what they're doing and what they that they don't know what they're doing. Pretty much. So cool. Paul: I don't know, that's intentional, but it just got I think there's so few people who are looking to do it. And like, it's not a widespread throughout the population thing. So you don't find as much about it, you know. Allen: Maybe okay, yeah, I'll take that. Yeah. Because like, you know, even like, what is the difference between an RIA and a hedge fund? You know, I've been beating my head, like, which one? Which way? Do we go? Which way? Do we go? If we go this way? Or this? Or what are the pros? What are the cons, and there's like, no one person that can that can tell me, if you want to go to a hedge fund, they got a little hedge fund world, and, you know, you got to you got to pay the dues to get in. If you want the RA world, then it's more common, but it's, it's for the guys, you know, for people who are like, Yeah, you know, I just want to put everybody's money in an index fund, you know, so it's like, what you're doing is totally different, like, I have not met any advisors that are actually, you know, trading that actively for people. So I mean, compared to the other guy, Joe Schmo that charges 1% a year, or 2% a year, just to put their money in an index fund compared to what you're doing, you know, your value is just so much more. But it does seem like it's very similar to a hedge fund where, you know, a hedge fund is a little bit different, where all the money is pooled into one spot. And then, you know, the, the trader controls it, you're doing kind of similar, where you can look at it and be like, Okay, I got, you know, $10 million under management, how am I going to split that up into different trades? And it just happens to be in different people's accounts? So have you ever thought about increasing your rates because like a hedge fund, they can charge a percentage of the gains? An RIA can't? Can they do that? Paul: They can do that on their certains particulars criteria? I think like you have to have an investor who's has at least $2 million in investable assets. They have at least $1 million invested with you. And then you can have certain arrangements where you say, Well, if I make whatever percentage I'll make about what the s&p does, you'll split it with me, or something like that, you know? Okay, so again, it's very, it's has a lot of criteria to it can't be done, though. Okay. Yeah. Because I wouldn't say the hedge fund world is based on what you're telling me is, cuz you're basically commingling all the funds. Right? So you got to do like a statement for each person or something. Yeah. And so I think the advantage is, you can just commingle it all and then do whatever you need to do. And then at the end of the day, you somehow allocated? Allen: Right, so the thing with the hedge fund is that all the investors have to be accredited. Okay, so accredited, as you know, probably, you know, you basically you have a million dollar net worth not putting your house, or you're making upwards of 300,000 a year. So, you know, basically, so at least Paul: They have to tell you, they're accredited. Right? Allen: I think we would actually want them to be proof, you know, give me proof otherwise, we're not letting you in. Paul: That was actually in so my testing I just did is like, yeah, you want this criteria? But are you actually gonna go go check it? No. So Allen: Interesting. Okay. Because I mean, you know, the government says that the hedge funds, you know, if you're an accredited investor, you should be smarter than the average bear. And so, if you lose money, it's not that big a deal. Like you are smart enough to get into it. You know, somebody with $5,000 or $10,000. That's my life savings. No, sorry, you can't invest in this. Even though the hedge fund might be like doing 1,000,000% a year, you can't invest because you're not accredited. Ras can take basically everybody, so that was one of the things okay, somebody comes in with 50,000 as an RIA, you might just take it because it's not that much paperwork. It's not extra for you. But for a hedge fund. Yeah, no, I can't do it. Because I gotta, I gotta pay the auditing company. I gotta pay the statement company. I got to pay the customer. You know, whoever's doing customer service and answering the phone and doing all that, and salespeople and all that. So 50,000 is not going to cut it, you know, the limit is a lot higher. For sure. Okay. Yeah. So yeah, that, in that sense, totally different world. But very similar from what I'm seeing is that, you know, you're doing probably what we're gonna be doing, you know, similar. Paul: So you probably can't take qualified money like IRAs and things like that. Allen: I think they can. Yeah, yeah, I think they can, as long as a person is accredited. And so there's different regulations, 5063 C, or six, C, five, or six D, they'll those tell you, you know, if you can take accredited and non accredited, and then can you advertise or not, I'm still learning all this, it's all different, because like, if you start a Real Estate Fund, different from if you're doing a hedge fund, versus a private equity fund, so some of the rules apply to everything. Some of the rules are just separate. So I'm still learning all that. But I know that the Interactive Brokers, people, they've done webinars in the past with attorneys. So if anybody wants to start a hedge fund, you can still use the Interactive Brokers platform. And they have they actually have a separate portal, I think, for hedge funds. Yeah, I've seen that. You've seen that too? Where you can actually see what other people are doing. And what are the trades that they're making? Paul: I didn't know about that. I just knew that they had some kind of hedge fund portion of what they're doing. I didn't know exactly what it meant. Allen: Yeah. So So what they said was that, you know, the attorney was like, you know, it'll take several, you know, maybe $30,000, to set up your hedge fund, you can probably do it with a smaller amount, if you want to start an incubator fund, which is like, you know, if you have your own money, and you put in and say $300,000, and you trade it as if it's a fund, and you don't maybe that that paperwork might be like 7000, and you set that up, you treat it as a fun, you build up your track record, and be like, Oh, hey, look, you know, I was trading for six months, I got this, that or not, and then you can start advertising it, and you convert it to a full fund. And then you can say, well, look at my track record, this is what I did. And then people can come in for the full fund. So that was one of the things that they were they were talking about. But so yeah, we were we were looking at an interactive, but the one thing that interacted with their software is a little bit more clunky or less user friendly than some of the most user friendly software. Yeah, it was my personal accounts. Now. So when, do you still trade on on your own on the side? Or is all of your money in the big? Paul: I have some money still in the in the huge fund? And then, you know, I have some I have an account on the side, right? Allen: So that separate account, did that change it all after you got licensed? Because they always, you know, when you open an account, they always ask you, are you licensed? And then they're I don't know why they do that. Is there to change anything on? You're not gonna recall? Paul: Yeah. So, there's, there's occasions where you can link up an account with the master fund, and you can D link the account. So I think at one time I had, it's actually my 401k account for my accounting firm attached to the IRA account, but then I detached it. One of the main reasons was for futures. Okay, because I knew I wasn't qualified to do futures for the whole fun. But I could on a mountain account. Allen: Ah, okay. So you have to keep it separate to do the futures options. Yeah. Until you get licensed by them. And is that like a lengthy process as well? The futures options? License? Yeah. Paul: I took a series three exam back a month or so ago. So I'd studied for two or three months, and again, got a tutor. Yeah. Okay. Allen: All right. How many clients do you have right now? Paul: I'd say about 20-25. Allen: Okay. All right. Cool. And so, from a financial standpoint, has it been worth it? Paul: Yeah, it's been really good. I might, my intention when I know that, you know, once I got into it, my intention was over the years, you know, retirement age, is at my incomes shift for my CPA business or to my investment business. So I could do that, say two hours a day and retirement versus, you know, doing tax seasons and all that. CPA visits. Allen: Okay. Is that still the plan? Yes. Still plan. Awesome. Cool. So yeah, I mean, handling managing millions of dollars of assets in two hours a day. That sounds pretty good to me. Paul: That might be a pipe dream. But that's what I had in mind.  Allen: I think you could do it your own way. You're on your way. Cool. Awesome. So is there anything that I haven't asked you that you think like, oh, yeah, people need to know this. Paul: I could probably sit here and think about a few things. Not on every call. No, no, no, no. I mean, one thing you have to like for instance, a you have to have a like an email account that you Gotta add to retain all your emails for at least like five years. That's one thing to keep in mind. And like I have to send a like a balance sheet and income statement to the state of Florida every year and get someone to notarize it. You have to upload information to the FINRA site at least once a year. And that's where you pay your like on license Louisiana along Florida and things like that. So I pay my fees for those licensing booth vendors website. Allen: And that you had told me that the fee that you charge for management that comes out Interactive Brokers basically pays you every quarter, your fixed asset if I had to build it, right, yeah. Paul: Okay. So, so they do it automatically. But when I got audited, the state wanted me to actually create invoices. So the answer your question is, I'm not sure what the real requirement is. So far, I guess I met that criteria then. So I'm not actually grading him. What's the reporter right now? Okay. Allen: Yeah, I mean, because like, I mentioned, those two consultants that I had talked to, they had told me that I would have to bill everybody invoice, everybody, every quarter. And those people would have to pay me directly. So it wouldn't be taken out of their account, it would be sent directly to me that they would have to write a check every quarter. And I'm like, that's a pain in the butt. You know, that's pretty cumbersome. Yeah, if a customer has to pay, you know, a big check every quarter for management fees. And then especially if you have a down year, he's like, What am I paying for it? I don't pay for this anymore. And you don't get paid. So I was like, Okay, that's a big red flag. But I'm glad that that's not true. Cool. Okay. Paul: One thing I have figured out there is, like, there's an account I was going to take from someone from one advisors to me, and they had all their fees, like totally hidden with all these mutual funds and things like that. And so like, you know, that account, I was gonna charge 3.3%. But we weren't able to ever get to the bottom of what the other advisor was charging. So, even though they have a lot of disclosures and things like that, I think we could have pressed the issue if we really wanted to. But, um, but you know, I ended up losing that account. Allen: So did that customer realize that, that he's being charged all these things? Paul: No, no, no clue. No, I mean, whenever I sort of parted ways, and I said, you guys at least need to figure out what they're charging you. You'd be surprised at the amount of inept that's out there and people who are actually hiring advisors, like, yeah, most people do not keep like their annual statements. They couldn't tell me how much they made last year. You know, because really, when I'm taking on an account, I want to know, what their track record has been sort of what I would need to beat to make them happy. You know, a lot of them are not that attuned to that. Allen: That's crazy. Yeah. I mean, people, they work their entire lives to save up money and invest it so they can retire. But then they don't pay any attention to the money. Oh, boy.. Paul: I think it's because they don't know that much about it. So they wouldn't know what to do if it was not what they wanted, you know? Allen: Yeah. I mean, you gotta you gotta take a little bit of time to at least read the statements and figure out where's the money going? And it could be better disclosed, you know, the statements could be easier to read that that's definitely sure. That's, yeah. But it is what it is for now. Paul: Like, I have this account right now, I'm probably going pick up another six to nine or 1000. And I asked them to get their annual statements ready. Because I wanted to see what they have been. have been doing, you know, so, you know, so they didn't know if there'll be they'll find those. So let me guess. It's like, it's weird. Allen: Okay, they just like asked her her advisor. Paul: Oh, that might be red flag fight flight to them. And they are looking so yeah. Wow. Okay. All right. seem bizarre. Allen: So if somebody was thinking about starting their own advisory firm, what would you say? They would need in terms of like, what are the minimums, okay, you should have been in the market for, you know, five years, you know, or you got to know XYZ, is there anything that you would say that, you know, if you don't, if you can't even do this, and this is not for you? Paul: Well, they're planning on doing what I'm doing, they probably need at least three to five years, you know, their own market experience. But, you know, that being said, like, I just met with someone the other day, and I could put all my funds through their strategies, and just sit and coast. You know, really, they charge an extra 1% or whatever, so I'll back off of my fee a little bit. You know, so you can you can play the game different ways. Wow. So you could do like I can see a new person and starting that and just have these other you know, because they have what's called sub managers or something like that. I don't know the exact term. Basically, you're hiring other money managers to manage the money you have for your clients. Right, like sub advisors, maybe is what it's called. Okay. So I'm not saying it will totally preclude them that they didn't have three to five years. But, you know, hopefully they're drawing on someone's experience to help hold their handle that Allen: Right. And do you know how much it costs to get it up and running? Paul: I would say three to five grand. Wow, that's not much. I mean, the hardware, these firms are brought in to charge you five times that? Allen: Yeah. Okay. So well, the sub accounts. Yeah, actually, I do remember those consultants talking to me about that. Paul: They they call it sub advisors? Allen: Yeah, I think that's what it is. And it's like, yeah, you know, if you don't want to do it yourself, you can put your money, you can put your your clients money into different buckets, and then they just do it for you, and they charge and then you split the fees or whatever, or something like that. So, and then each broker, each broker dealer has different ones. So like Fidelity or Schwab will have different sub accounts versus what you could put your stuff in. But interesting, I just Just curious the ones that you had talked to what what strategies were they were using, Paul: They're using free cash flow to is their criteria for who they're investing in. So they have like international, they call a cash cow c-o-w. So they've international domestic, and things like that. So they have a different definition of free cash flow. So they're they're fearing that's the best value, their way of determining value out there, like sort of like a value fund, but their own definition of what value is. Allen: Okay, so they're investing in stocks. Paul: Yes, international and domestic.   Allen: And they handle the ins and outs. And so you could put a portion of your client's money in there, you put it all in there. So it's like, it's like an ETF. So basically, you can say I want 20% of my money to go on this domestic one 20% International. And I might, I'm in talks with them. So I might end up doing some more money that way. But so they're coming up with different sample portfolios that I can use their funds for. Allen: Okay, interesting. And so that must be a much larger company. Paul: Yeah, I'm not sure how big they are. But they're, you know, big enough to where they had like a representative here in central Florida and some of their back office helping them out. Awesome. I'm not sure their size yet. Allen: Yeah. So I mean, this rabbit hole is pretty big. You can dive in there and spend a lot of time figuring all this stuff out. Paul: Yeah, yeah. So I can see a way I could sit and close more. But you're only doing it two hours a day anyway. Allen: Cool. All right. Paul: Well, maybe we're gonna get into my retirement years, a certain amount of years. I'll just put it there and just coast. The zero hours a day. Yep. Allen: Yeah, my, my neighbor in the office next door, he's a financial adviser. He's been doing it for, I think, 25 years now. So he's built up, you know, a sizable clientele. And so now he's at the point where he wants to retire. But he doesn't know what to do with the firm. He's like, you know, he makes probably a good 500,000 a year income from it. And he's like, I want one of my kids to take over. But the kids are not really willing, and not interested. He's like, I don't know what to do. So he's still there.  So there's been periods of times or, you know, like, I sit on the CPA world deal with other investment advisors, where it's been a quite a lucrative market to get bought your practice bought out by bigger, let's say Merrill Lynch or something like that, you know, they pay some pretty big bucks to buy those books of business. Yeah, yeah. Because I mean, one of the things that the consultants told me is that once you get you get a client, that turnover, meaning the fact that they're going to leave you is not very high, they're gonna stay with you for years and years. So you can count on that money coming in, you know, that fee money coming in for a long period of time, unless you unless you totally screw it up, and then they're gonna leave. Paul: If you play the play smart. You know, if you're dealing with someone 50 years old, right now, you know, another 10 or 20 years, you're gonna pick up their kids and things like that when they need investment advice and stuff. It's, it'd be a self perpetuating thing. Allen: Yeah, yeah. And I do like the fact that there's always going to be somebody there willing to buy you, your company. You know, because a lot of times in smaller companies if you're the only person or if you got one or two employees, nobody really wants to buy the company even if it's successful. Nobody wants to buy it because they would without you there they're basically buying a job for themselves, right? It's not running on its own you're the one doing all the work in this case. Yeah, you're the one doing all the work but they don't need you. They can just, you know, have their own advisors take over. So you still get a pretty decent multiple when you sell so that's really cool too. Right? Paul: Also, I met a.. in my travels on this world. I've met the company and actually finance you if you want to buy on someone else's practice in the financial visor word world. Allen: Hmm.. So have you looked into that? Paul: I had a conversation or two with them, but I haven't really pursued it further. Yeah. Because I didn't know if I wanted to buy a larger practice. Right? Yeah. Because generally, that is a seven year payout to do that. So, you know, seven years, you'd be free and clear. Allen: That'll be interesting. Yeah. So a lot of ways to skin this cat. So you would I mean, I'm assuming that if anybody asked you, Hey, should I do this? Probably the answer is yes. Paul: Yeah, I mean, just mean, talk to people who have done it, and sort of figure out if it's a good fit for you, you know? Yeah. It's definitely can be pretty lucrative. Allen: Right? And I like the fact that it's like, for you at least it's more localized, you know, so you're not competing with somebody in California or Canada, or whatever. It's like, yeah, you guys get your clients over there. I'll have my clients over here. You know, they love me, they trust me. We hang out maybe. And sometimes. So it's not like a competitive situation. So, right. Awesome. Are you in any? Are there any, like, associations or memberships for advisors?  Paul: No, I'm not. Allen: No, but obviously, they probably have them? Paul: Yeah, I'm just not familiar. Very familiar with that. I have another advisor to hang out with suddenly sort of share some ideas. That's, that's all I have right now. Allen: And they're also private. Like on their own? Paul: Now, one of the reasons I didn't cover this in the beginning, like when I started looking into this whole thing, I didn't want to get clients and then share my fees with other people. That's why I didn't latch on to a bigger firm and start building my clients from there. So that's why I started my own Ra. So they will be my clients. And I get all the fees for them. And no one else had had rights to him. So that's, that's one of the reasons I did the way I did it. Allen: Okay. Okay. So what would be the benefits of going with a larger firm just to name recognition? Paul: Well, they have, one of the biggest things is called compliance. So like, right now, I'm my own compliance officer for my firm, okay, and larger firm like that they have whole departments that take care of compliance, for you to make sure you don't get in trouble, the regulators and so forth. So, like this other advisor, I had, he joined another firm, just so you could have that compliance piece to it. But in his firm, he can't trade options. Right? Allen: Because they're very limited. Yeah, exactly.  Paul: It's taught me to join his is up, like can't trade options. Allen: Because compliance says no. Paul: It was on the client's officer. Allen: Right. So that's why when you said you were thinking about advertising, it's the risk is on you because you're the compliance officer. So you got to know exactly what can be done and what can't be done. Right. Right. Interesting, cool. Is there anything else because  I'm out of questions. Paul: One of the things, one of the things I tell you, I looked into going with other companies, other inactive brokers when I started, okay, and like Charles Schwab wanted you to have $7 million you're managing before you could go with them. Allen: Whoa, okay. And they're the biggest right right now, I think. Paul: I think so. Yeah. Yeah. So that's one reasons with Interactive Brokers, because they didn't have the minimums like that. I didn't really check too much rather than other people. Allen: So and how's your customer service at Interactive Brokers, because they for personal accounts, they don't have a good reputation. Paul: Yeah, they have a separate line, you can call as a professional advisor. So it's, I get pretty quick attention. Usually, you know, it's not it's not perfect, but you know, it's decent. Yeah, but you're happy. Yeah, I'm not saying that. I'm sure other companies have better customer service but you know, for right now, they, you know, I might need to call him a few times, but I get what I needed if I need need to.. Allen: And how are their margins and Commissions? Paul: Commission's are pretty low. I don't have the exact numbers I just know less than like $1 per 100 shares. Allen: And who comes out of the customers account? Obviously. Paul: Each person like when you do a trade display something all the counselee they pick up their own fees. Allen: Cool. All right. Well, thank you Paul. You know, Paul's website is again BusinessAdvisors.Pro. Paul said that he could reach out you know, you guys can reach out to him if you have any questions. And Paul is also in our other memberships are other programs as well past trading formula blank check and credit spread. So if you guys are members of those, you can reach out to him there. You'll find him in the group. And he's been very gracious with his time. So I do want to thank you and And he's very active in the group and you know you've been helping a lot of newer people as well they're so appreciate you there. Interesting place, interesting world and as I dive in I'm probably going to reach out to you more. Paul: Sounds great, I appreciate it.  Allen: Thank you thank you so much and we'll talk to you soon JOIN OUR FREE PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP: https://optiongenius.com/alliance  Like our show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps. Thank you!

Highlights from This Week in Rust - Issue 444. This week features a juicy post-mortem, open source, open hardware, and lots of news from around the Rust ecosystem. Contributing to Rustacean Station Rustacean Station is a community project; get in touch with us if you'd like to suggest an idea for an episode or offer your services as a host or audio editor! Twitter: @rustaceanfm Discord: Rustacean Station Github: @rustacean-station Email: hello@rustacean-station.org Timestamps & referenced resources [@00:00] Welcome [@00:10] - Introduction [@00:50] - Agenda [@01:23] - Quote of the week This is the difference in approaches of the two languages. In C++ if the code is vulnerable, the blame is on the programmer. In Rust if the code is vulnerable, Rust considers it a failure of the language, and takes responsibility to stop even “bad” programmers from writing vulnerable code. I can't stress enough how awesome it is that I can be a careless fool, and still write perfectly robust highly multi-threaded code that never crashes. [@03:09] Allen: Rust is both good and bad at marketing [@03:30] - Crate of the week [@04:15] - Tim and Sean discuss parsing in episode 2022-05-26 at 47:10 [@05:10] Official Notices [@05:22] - Announcing Rust 1.61.0 Custom exit codes from main [Note from Tim: I say “termination crate”, but should have said “Termination trait”.] More capabilities for const fn “Basic” handling of fn pointers Add trait bounds to a const fn dyn trait and impl Trait support Stdio handles can be locked directly Several stabilized APIs [@08:07] Highlights [@08:27] - Developer survey: JavaScript and Python reign, but Rust is rising [@09:09] - Sean: “Rust adoption has nearly quadrupled in the last two years, going from 600k developers in Q1 2022 to 2.2m in Q1 2022.” [@13:00] - Redust by Will Nelson [@13:50] Allen: I think the comments are actually more interesting. They are starting to point to something really—I don't know whether it's good or bad for the community—where, you know, people start rolling their own crates instead of, say, doing stuff upstream. It kind of goes back to what Tim was complaining about before [Easy Mode for Rust, discussed on This Week in Rust - Issue 441]—well, lightly pointing out to people out there—that okay, now which crate should I use? [@16:20] Tim: Open source is really complicated. You need to talk to people. That's … challenging. [Laughs] [@16:40] Josh Triplett on Building with Rust, discussing the orphan rule [@16:50] Sean: Rust is not very good at sharing between crates. [@19:07] - Rust: A Critical Retrospective by bunnie Links The Hardware Hacker, bunnie's autobiography [video] “Shenzhen: An Alternative to the American way of Innovation” [@28:56] A Programmer's Brain, by Felienne Hermans, about working memory in programmers. [@19:58] - Hacking the Xbox book [@20:04] - [video] Linux.conf.au 2013 keynote discussing Chumby and creating a hardware startup [@20:20] - betrusted.io, a secure communications system that runs the Xous microkernel operating system [@21:07] - Tim: Security-critical applications have issues when they … rely on Rust. There's one quote I want to pull out of the post, which is: “I'm not sure if there is even a good solution to this problem, but, if you are super-paranoid and your goal is to be able to build trustable firmware, be wary of Rust's expansive software supply chain attack surface!” [@26:09] - Sean: bunnie I think that you are absolutely, totally, qualified. [@30:17] - Allen: I did see a macro that he put in there. … I forget extact. It was very crazy and I was like, “Come on, no one's every going to write something crazy like this” and then I took a look at the RFC that Sean's gonna do and in the comments there was a crazy one like that and I was like, “oh wow, this guy's point's valid”. [@30:49] - Hyrum's Law, named after Hyrum Wright. With a sufficient number of users of an API, it does not matter what you promise in the contract: all observable behaviors of your system will be depended on by somebody. [@31:50] Fixing memory leaks by Lily Mara [@34:01] - tracing crate, created as part of the tokio project [@32:33] - “Is it possible to cause a memory leak in Rust?” - Stack Overflow [@33:06] - std::ops::Drop trait documentation std::mem::forget and Box::leak for intentionally leaking memory Out-of memory (OOM) killer internals page from the Linux memory management wiki [@37:54] tracing::instrument::Instrument trait, which fixes this issue [@41:29] Building a Cloud Database from Scratch: Why We Moved from C++ to Rust by Yingjun Wu GAT (generic associated traits) Allen: [C++ vs Rust] is like apples vs apple pie. [@45:50] - [video] Deref and Drop traits by Dan Chiarlone “Smart pointers”, chapter 15 of The Rust Programming Language. std::ops::Deref trait documentation [@46:40] - Optimizing the size of your Rust binaries by Sylvain Kerkour cargo-bloat, for determining the size impact of code and dependencies twiggy, a similar tool for WASM targets [@48:10] - RFC: Add more support for fallible allocations in Vec by Daniel Paoliello and contributors Sean: This RFC is intended as a stop-gap, to unblock on-going work like—I imagine—adding Rust to the Linux kernel while better long-term solutions are explored. “Example: Implementing Vec” chapter of the Rustnomicon, describes how Vec's memory allocation works in detail Never type reference documentation [@54:40] Tim: I want to bring out a comment that was made to me in private, because I've been toying with the idea of becoming a rustc contributor, particularly on the standard library side, and Ashley Mannix sent me a really lovely note, which was: “Rust is also chronically friendly so nobody gets chewed out for making mistakes. They happen. They get caught. They get patched. You learn something new. It's ok.”. [@55:51] - How we use Rust, SQLx and Rocket for Oso Cloud by Steve Olsen Other items [@57:20] Meetups [@57:31] Major release announcements DataFusion 8.0 IntelliJ Rust plugin 2022.1 [@57:40] Join us in the #this-week-in-rust channel of the Rustacean Station Discord server Credits Intro Theme: Aerocity Audio Editing: Aleksandar Nikolic Hosting Infrastructure: Jon Gjengset Show Notes: Tim McNamara Hosts: Tim McNamara, Sean Chen, and Allen Wyma.

Today I wanted to talk to you about the trader's journey. At least he that's what I call it. I like to learn about marketing. I don't know, it's just one of my things. I just I enjoy marketing. And I think it's because it's a lot about psychology. And so even in trading, you have to understand Psychology because, you know, people are what make markets and so when people are reacting or behaving a certain way, if you understand it, then you can profit from it. Right? So in marketing, one of the things that I've been learning about recently is something called the hero's journey. Now, the hero's journey is a common.. now it's common way to tell stories. So whether it's a movie or a book, most likely the most, you know, the most famous movies, the most famous books, the ones that you really enjoy, they follow this trajectory, this story arc, which is called the hero's journey. Now, basically, what it means is that there's obviously a hero, right, and there has to be a hero in every story, cannot be vague, it has to be very clear who the hero of the story is. Secondly, the hero has to want something, right, it just can't be about a guy just going about his daily life, because that would be boring. And we can all do that ourselves. So the hero has to want something. And then the problem occurs that there is a problem or a blockage, that is stopping the hero from getting that thing, right? So there is something that he needs to go or do or overcome, or there's people in the way, and then there is usually a guide. So a person or a tool or something that helps the hero. Now this is kind of like the Obi wan to Luke, or the Dumbledore to Harry Potter, right? There's, there's somebody that's guiding them along the way. And then at the end, the climax happens when the hero achieves his goal, or sometimes doesn't, right. And a lot of times in the more deeper stories, the thing that the hero has to overcome is external, which means that he has to actually do accomplish something or beat somebody or win something. And then there's also an internal problem that he has to overcome. So from the beginning of the story, to the end of the story, the hero has changed has grown as a person, because he had to overcome something internally, in order for him to get to the end and achieve his external goal. Okay, so now in the traders journey, obviously, we have you, you are the hero, you are the star of the show, not me, it's you. I know we do the podcast, and I talk about my own exploits or whatever. But in reality, it's all about you, the trader, the hero of our story, and there has to be something you want. Right? So what is it that you want? Now in order for us to have a successful hero's journey for you, you have to know very clearly and specifically what it is you want? Is it that, hey, I would like to make X dollars per month, for whatever reason, or I want to make enough money from trading that I can quit my job and retire early. Or is it hey, I want to buy a new Lamborghini. And I need, I don't know how much they are. But you know, maybe like $2000 or $3,000 a month to pay for this Lamborghini, or I want to pay it in cash, or I want to be a billionaire. Or a multimillionaire, I don't know, I want to start my own foundation, my own charity, and I want to be worth millions of dollars so that it lasts for hundreds of years, whatever that is, whatever that thing that you want. If you don't know it, and you're not clear about it, then we're gonna have a lot of trouble on our journey. Okay, so step number one for you to have a very successful hero's journey is to know what you want specifically Okay, so now, after that comes the guide, like, "Hey, Hi, I'm Allen, I'll be your guide on this traders journey. I'm not the hero you are, I'm just going to help you guide you along the way". Because normally times the "guide" has some special information, some special skills, maybe he's done the journey before, right? He knows the pitfalls. He knows the traps. He knows where to write the right turn left, turn all that stuff. So in case I'm going to be your guide, and I appreciate you listening to this podcast and letting me help you along on your journey, then what is it that's stopping you from your destination? That's what we have to figure out as well. And it's not as simple as oh, Allen I need more money. No. I mean, I could give you a million dollars tomorrow, but you wouldn't know what to do with it. Right? So the issue is that we need to figure out a path or a way to get to your goal that is systematic, and can be replicated, right? So that it can be done over and over and over again, it's not just a one time fluke, we don't want to just give you a lottery ticket. No, here's $10 million. And it's going to be gone in winter, right? It's something that we build over time. And we get because the internal issue also comes out, right? If you're just given money, you don't change, it's too easy. But if you grow the money, if you learn a skill, if you do it, and you go through different market cycles, and you have building up that confidence in yourself, and your trading, and the confidence that other people will have in you, around you the way they see you, the way you feel, the way you grow. All of that is part of the traders journey. And that's having all that is the only way to be and have a successful traders journey. Does that make sense? So you can't just be given the money, you just can't be given the thing. It has to be hard fought, it has to be a trial a struggle, and only then will it be worth it at the end to get it. Makes sense? So I was thinking about fuel on the podcast, I did a interview with one of our students, Todd. Okay. Now Todd's journey, his issue was that he wanted to make enough money to pay his monthly expenses. Very simple, very easy, you know, right. That's, that's a big why pretty much right? I want to I need to do this. And so for him, his number was 5000. I was like, hey, I need to make $5,000 a month. That's my goal. That's my why, that's my.. that thing, the end of the journey. It wasn't the end for him, because then he continued later. But that was for the first part of the story. That was his thing. Now, what was keeping him back? Well, he had never done before. And he wanted to do it via trading. But he had never done that before. He had dabbled in it, had some success and failure. But he'd never done it before. So he didn't have the confidence for one, and then comes the guide. Now luckily for Tom, he had already been in our circle, he was already a student, he was in our Oil Options program. And so he had the guide, the Mentor-- me, he had the education, he had the components, everything was there, he had the strategy that was proven, that was like, hey, follow this except some steps up. So he was well advanced in his storyline. If you are not that advanced, if you don't have the guy, then I would be willing to work with you, I'd love to do it. And if you don't have the methodology, you know, that's what we do. That's what I'm an option genius. That's all we do, we have different ways to get there. And we can, if you reach out to us, we can we can help you out. So Todd, had one more thing, which I left out, he had an account. And his account had about $40,000 in it. So he had everything that he needed to go from zero to gold in a short amount of time. And he did it in about three months. So within three months of trading and learning and all that, he went from not making any money in trading to paying off all of his bills every month. And then later on, he kept growing and growing, he added more money to account and, you know, he kept going from there. So it was a very successful trading journey. And that's why it made for a good interview, you know, a good podcast because he had all of the elements that make a good story. Now comes down to you. This is your story. That's why you're listening to this. That's why you're watching this, right? We want to know the hero, the heroe's you. Number 3? It's not "I don't have any money". It might be "Hey, I don't have the discipline to do this". It might be Hey, I don't have the the options approval to do this. It might be I don't have the knowledge to do this. All of those can be overcomed. Right? If the discipline is a problem, it's a question of your why of the thing that you want. You got to make that really really, really clear. Now Todd, in our story, he had been laid off. So you didn't really have a choice. You had to make your work or go get another job. Right. So that's it's a pretty big why. Now I would not tell you to go quit your job in order to do this. But there are ways to do it while you're also working. Um We have another student Mary that I interviewed recently, she is also making as much money from trading as she is from her full time job. Right. But she did it in a way that she could do both at the same time, she could trade as well as do her job at the same time. And her trading doesn't take that long. So yes, that's why I love active trading. That's why I love selling options, because it doesn't take a lot of time, doesn't take a lot of time to learn it, it does take time to really get good at it. And you do have to change internally, you have to become different, you have to become more discipline, you have to become more confident. And you have to in some cases, you have to become more humble. Look at that, right. So for some people, they gotta be more confident. Other people, they have to be more humble. And some people it's crazy, they have to do both at the same time. They're overconfident in some things, and not confident enough in other things. And they also have to know themselves. So that's another story. So all of these issues are things that we cover on the podcast, we cover in our Facebook group that's free for everybody. It's called the The Alliance, you can go to our website and get more information about that. So there's multiple ways to get to where you want to be. Step one is to know figure out what it is. And then step two is to get step by step by step. How do I get there? Okay, now, I don't have time on this episode to go through everything about how to do that. But obviously, if it was, hey, I want to make, you know, an extra $1,000 a month? Well, number one, what's the plan? The plan is we're going to do it through trading. Okay, we got that established, so I can be your mentor, what strategy, right? We've done it we've we've covered this before on the podcast, pick a strategy, pick a trading plan, work the trading plan, focus on it, figure out the numbers, like okay, if I want to make $1,000 a month, and my trading plan allows me to make 1% on my money, well, then on a monthly basis, well then if I want to make 1000, then I need $100,000 in my account. Well, maybe I don't have $100,000. Okay, so step one is going to be how do we get to the 100,000? Right? Maybe we don't go and say, Okay, we're not going to hit our goal right away, we're gonna start smaller. So maybe we only have 20,000. Okay, start with 20, make 200 200 every month to under 200, let it grow and grow and compound and come out, and eventually we'll get to our goal. So, you know, the time aspect, in a story in a movie, you know, it's done within a couple hours. But your life is not a two hour movie, right? You got years and years and years, and we've covered this in other podcasts, we're probably have a lot more years to live than we actually think we're going to be living average lifespan now was about eight years old. But with all the science technologies coming, you know, the improvements that are happening, we're probably gonna live 120-150. So these are skills, this is a story that's going to continue. So it's worth it. It is worth your time, it's worth your effort. It's worth everything for you to start your trading journey. Now. Instead of putting it off, because every day you put it off, every month, you put it off every year you put it off, that time is not coming back. Right, whatever the thing is you want. You can have it and I'm telling you, yes, you can have it. If you do those two things, number one, overcome the obstacles that are external. And then number two, overcome the obstacles that are internal. And part of that internal obstacle is to get started to start doing it to start working it to set aside one hour a day, two hours a day, whatever you can set aside to spend studying, trading, researching, listening to this podcast, watching our videos, joining our courses, going through those programs, being in our Facebook group, so that you are talking to you're building a community, you're building your knowledge, you're building your resources, and you're getting in touch with the guide. Right? You have questions, reach out to us, ask us we will guide you along the way, because we've already done it. Right. I'm probably for most of you, I probably already accomplished what you want to accomplish. And so I'm happy to share that with you. But you got to reach out. Okay, so that is the traders journey. I hope that this has been helpful. I hope that you allow me to be your guide. And I hope that you take the journey. And I mean, it's a crazy fun, wild ride. It is hard, it is a struggle. It does take time. Not everybody can get there in three months like Todd did. That was fantastic. But again, he had everything that he needed. He had the education, he had the strategy and he had the account. Okay? If you have those four, four things, you have those four things. And yes, you can get there in three months as well. Right? If you don't, then we'll need to work on those and then it'll take you a little bit longer but you can still get there. So that is it. For this one. Make sure that you trade with the odds in your favor that will definitely help you on your journey and keep hope alive. Take care, everybody.   SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PODCAST FREE 9 LESSON COURSE: https://optiongenius.com/  WATCH THIS FREE TRAINING: https://passivetrading.com  JOIN OUR PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP: https://optiongenius.com/alliance  Like our show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps. Thank you!

Ex-Financial Planner and 20+Year Trader, Kevin, talks about how to manage your trading and lessons he has learned along the way. Allen:  Today I'm going to be talking with Kevin, who is now a good friend. I've known him for a few months now. And me came into the option genius world a little while back. And he has been a trader for a while. He's done lots of different things worked in the public sector worked in the private sector, very smart man, very intelligent. He keeps me on my toes with the questions that he has. So it's always wonderful. It's always helpful to the, to the other students, because, you know, they get the high level thinking of the questions that he asked, they get the answers to, as well. So thank you for that, Kevin, and welcome to the show. Allen: It's been a pleasure to have you yeah, like I said, you know, you keep me all you kept me on my toes the whole time. So it's like, this is really good, you know, because.. Kevin: You're actually not the first person who has told me that. So that's part of what I do. Allen: Yeah, I think every class needs one person like that. Do you know, and then as a teacher, it kind of, it makes you feel like, hey, you know, somebody is listening. And, you know, you keep pushing the envelope. So it's like, okay, if I don't know something, I gotta go figure it out. Like, yeah, I know, I do that one thing. But why do I do that? I don't know. Let me go and see if you're gonna make it. Because sometimes we've been doing it for so long. It's like, you know, it's just second nature. I just do it and do and do it. And then you're, you know, you and a couple others are like, Hey, Allen go back, "why did you do that?" I'm like, I don't know. I just does the way I've always done it. Let me figure out why we did it that. Kevin: It becomes instinctive and second nature. And sometimes, we forget why we do some of the things that we do. So it's always good to have somebody you know, especially when you're teaching to ask those types of questions, so that you can help other people understand because you've been added, obviously, a very, a lot longer than I have, and other students. Allen: Mm hmm. But you've been trading for a while. So tell me, how did you get started in trading, investing all that stuff? Kevin: Well, I've owned businesses pretty much my whole entire life. And I started, I actually got into investing when I was very, very young. And so it all started with putting out a financial plan that I wanted to be financially independent. And this was right when I got out of college, I want to be financially independent within 20 years. And so I hired a financial advisor to help put together a financial plan and help put together a life plan for me. And so that's really where the journey of investing began. I've always been a saver, so I've always saved money. So that wasn't that difficult for me. And I've always lived within my means and, and so I was able to put away money the old fashioned way, invest it right and had a lot of great people along the way. And, and that's how I kind of got started. And when it came to options, I actually first got exposed through options at a Tony Robbins seminar that I went to event, I'm a big Tony Robbins fan and have gone to nearly all of his seminars and got introduced to options. And so that was back in 1998. And so I was on the buyer side and bought options and had some success. I also, that year lost millions of dollars as well to trading options. It wasn't through anything that I did in the trading process of it is what I, the decision that I made when I held that to call options. So I held 10 contracts for AOL and 10 contracts for Amazon at $15 each. But both were in the money. And both were getting ready to expire. And I wanted to invest in one of them. And I thought AOL had the best opportunity of being in the internet world and creating the internet. And I thought that's the direction we were going and I didn't think that a bookseller, an online bookseller was going to be as successful. Well, not having cashed in and acquired 1000 shares of Amazon, which would have been worth the millions of dollars today, I missed out on that opportunity. And so that was the only the only thing trade that I've ever made that I regret, but I did make some money on it. I think I ended up making like four grand on it. So it was trading near $20. And I had a $15 option, and overall ended up making like 20,000 Plus on AOL. But of course, that pales in comparison when I could have made it Amazon. So anyways, that was my first experience of buying options. So I had some minor success. And when I became a certified financial planner, which I've been for over the last 22 years has been my main business. Then we used options to help hedge my clients' portfolios when they had very large positions. So nearly all my time in the trading business I've always been on the buying side of it and not the selling side. Allen: Interesting, interesting. I have a couple of follow up questions. The first off is most of the financial planners I've talked to, they have no clue about options, they don't want to touch options. They're like, Oh, this is too risky, I don't get paid commissions, you know, for doing options, I don't want to get into it. My, my broker dealer doesn't want us to do it, what makes you get into them? Kevin: Again, when, when I first started, it was the speculation aspect of it. And so I, on a personal side have used it for speculating. And then when I learned and I and I understood options, and who because as you and I both know, options sometimes have a bad connotation, but a lot of people think, Oh, they're too risky. And they're not something that I would necessarily toy with. A lot of times, it's just because you don't understand how options work or their misuse. So options can be used in two ways they can be used as a speculative tool, or they can also be used to hedge a portfolio and use it as insurance. And so I learned both sides of that, and found how important it was, especially as people come out of their careers, and they have very large positions and perhaps, or company stock, maybe they don't want to totally divest of it. But they're concerned that if you know their company, they hold so many shares that if they were to go down in price, they lose a lot of money, and so on in those types of situations, we would buy, or buy puts in the event that the stock were to go down, then we would be able to hedge their portfolio and protect and then they would have protection on the downside. A lot of times I think Allen, people just they're afraid of things that they don't understand. And options- most people are not exposed to unless you really go out on your own. You do a lot of reading and research or get involved in the financial world. Most people don't have that type of exposure to options. Allen: Yep, that's true. That's one of the hurdles that we have to overcome to get people to Hey, can you you know, look up? This is really good. The second question was, so you said when you were younger, out of high school out of college, I don't remember which one, but you said you had somebody help you make a financial plan? And it seems like the plan probably did very well. Would you mind sharing what the plan was or the basics of it? Kevin: Yeah. So putting together a comprehensive plan, as I as a certified financial planner, what I tell people is, it's not just about the money, it's about life. It's about putting together your life dreams and understanding and having a concept of drawing a roadmap where you want to go and make it akin like if you were to take out a boat, a sailboat, and with a sails and with a compass, you can get to your destination and stay on course, understanding that some storms may come along the way. But if you don't have a compass, and if you don't have a sails on your sailboat, you could be drifting out there forever. And so a lot of people really what I found that differentiates people from success or not is, is do they have a plan in place that helps them get to where they want to go. And so as a certified financial planner, that's what I've done most of my career I help people understand and get into in develop and define what their life dreams are, and then put together a comprehensive plan that addresses not only financially what it's going to take to get there, but also how do you address the risks that are involved? For instance, if you were to lose your job, if you were to become disabled, and you couldn't work if you required some type of long term care if if you are the breadwinner, and all of a sudden, you die, Allen, how is it that your family is going to continue to carry on? How are you how will you fund those financial goals? send your kids to college that put bread and butter on the table for your family? So we help address comprehensively all those issues. And also as well as to make sure that we minimize the amount that Uncle Sam puts in his pocket. So we address taxes, how do you invest smartly, so that you don't, you're not overpaying taxes at a later stage in life. So we put all those things together, and then make sure that you have the paperwork and the different things that are in place where for instance, you were to suddenly pass away, what are the directives that you need to have in place? What do you want to have happen? If you lose your you become health challenged? What do you do? Who's going to make health care decisions and other financial decisions on your behalf? So it's taking six areas of life planning put it all together in one comprehensive plan? And, and that's what I've done in my life and that's what I've helped people to do over my career. Allen: Interesting. Okay. Yeah, there's a lot of good stuff. You just mentioned that people need to think about some of the stuff that we don't want to think about, you know, I mean, who wants to think about dying and, you know, getting life insurance to take care of college when I'm not there and all that stuff, but it's all part and parcel of life. So you have to you have to come to terms with it. Kevin: Well then one of the larger risk, especially with younger people, and they don't always think about because younger people think that they're Superman and Superwoman. And if you are all of a sudden get into an accident all of a sudden you had a medical issue that caused you where you couldn't you could no longer work well how are you again going to continue to supply for your family how will you reach your life dreams, and so, a lot of times people don't think about those different pitfalls that can happen in life. And, and so those are the things that you need to plan for. It's not just about making money, it's about also protecting you and your family. And you know, because we can't control always what happens in life, but we can control how we're going to respond. And we can plan for many of those pitfalls. Allen: Exactly. I mean, I remember, years ago, before I got into trading, I started I tried my hand at being a real estate investor. So you know, in those "We Buy Houses" type guys, so I'd run ads and, you know, try to go see people at their homes that were in trying to sell their homes. And most of the time, I realized that people who are in a in a mess, you know, where they're, they haven't made their house payments in a while. It's not something that people want to do, you know, they're not a lot of deadbeats are like, Yeah, I'm gonna try to stiff the insurance cover the mortgage company. No, they, they literally want to stay in their house, they literally can't not pay the mortgage. And I'd go to these people's houses and you know, they wouldn't have electricity, the bills would be piled up. And they're like, you know, I don't know what to do. And I'm like, How'd you get in this situation? It's like, well, everything was fine until I got hurt. And that was the same story I heard over and over and over again, it's like, yeah, everything was great. You know, we are we were living paycheck to paycheck or whatever. We had some everything was good until we got hurt. And then all of our savings were all depleted, because I couldn't work and we had all these medical bills and all this stuff. And now, now I can't go back to work. My family's trying to make ends meet. But the bills are just too much. And so they ended up in foreclosure. And I found that was the number one reason all foreclosures in this country is just, you know, people getting hurt and medical bills and all that it's not because they don't want to pay it again. Kevin: It's the the unexpected, and I think many people that have experienced the Coronavirus. This is a perfect real life time that we're that we've been going through where all of a sudden this pandemic strikes and businesses shut down. People can't go to work. So the question is, hey, you know, aside from getting some assistance from the federal government, which has been helpful, the people that have really been able to make it, they have cash on the side. And that's another thing as a certified financial planner, we talk about, we don't know, and we cannot predict everything that is going to happen in life. And we wouldn't be having this conversation two years ago, how I mean, what would be the probability that we would be able to predict that in a few months, we're going to be going through a pandemic, that's going to shut down nearly our whole entire economy, and where people are going to get sick, over 725,000 people are dying. I mean, you would think that we were writing, we would be writing a script for a Hollywood movie, but we've all lived through it now. So it's important, so much important, even before you start putting money in the types of things that we're going to be talking about in investing that you have an adequate cash reserve of six, I recommend six months to a year of your fixed income. But to aside for the events of an emergency, or maybe it's just for an opportunity that comes along, maybe maybe it's an investment in a property that you want to make or car or something else that comes along or a great trip, you want to take your your family on, you need to make sure that you have money in the bank that's liquid, that's not subject to market volatility that you can tap into, to help you get through those difficult times. And sometimes I think some of the people in I distinctly remember, especially back going into 2007 and 2008. Before though, you know, we have the housing bubble and everything that blew up financially, everybody, you know, real estate was so hot. And so everybody wanted to put a larger portion of their money in investments in real estate. And as I tell people, if something happens, you have an emergency or something, or you need money, so you are not going to be able to chisel out a brick from your house or your investment property, take it to the bank and pay the bills or pay whatever, you know, you need to have liquidity in your portfolio. And that's the first thing that people should start saving for is to make sure that they have adequate cash for, for again, for emergencies or opportunities. Allen: I agree with you. I agree with you. I mean, it's hard for some people to get six months to a year. But eventually I think you definitely have to get there. Now you mentioned the pandemic. And I don't know if it was because we were lucky or what it was. But as a options trader, the way we trade I mean, I've had amazing in the pandemic, it's like it was the most amazing time, because made so much easy money. I mean, it was like I couldn't I, if I wanted to draw it up, you know, like, how could I make it any better? I really couldn't. It was just for people who were already trading and who already knew what to do. It was the most perfect setup. And then there were other people that got involved a little bit later that really understood learned it and they were able to, you know, they'd have to be there from the beginning. They were able to to write it up as well. And so it was I've seen that I've seen people that have been devastated by the pandemic because of different reasons. They weren't ready. They weren't stable. And then there are other issues as well. But for the people that were able to take advantage of it. I mean, this was this was amazing opportunity. And who knows, if we're ever going to get another one like that, again, maybe we will. I mean, you know, eventually markets will come down, they'll crash. And then there's another opportunity and you get back up. But I do remember, there was one guy that I don't know, forgot who he was some billionaire on the TV, and he was like, This is the greatest buying opportunity of your lifetime. And I was like, really? I mean, you know, I lived through that financial crisis, that was a pretty good opportunity to I don't know, this one's gonna be better. It might be I haven't looked at the numbers. But yeah, it's been, it's been an incredibly amazing opportunity for us. So.. Kevin: Well you with your knowledge and other people that have a lot more experience, if you've dealt you, you've gone through the different cycles in this type of a trading market. So you have a greater for you even ever, I mean, I've been through different trading cycles, but not through the through options trading. So in the in the spreads, and how markets treat those and where your successes are. So that's the one thing that as we get into this is part of the learning process and experiencing is adapting to different to different markets that you that you get into. I mean, it was a perfect time for me when I started doing this. I mean, I got into this because I was in the middle of a career transition. I had, like I mentioned, I own businesses my whole entire life, and just got finished with a 10 years of doing the public service with inside my local government for our community. And, and that was an awesome experience. So the question was, what do I do now? Do I go back and open up another business? Or do I go back and perhaps get a job in the public or private sector, I really had an interest in getting a leadership role, and a nonprofit organization, because that's one realm that I hadn't worked in yet. So I was looking for a full time job and in fact, actually up until just about a month and a half ago. But then when I started looking at and discovering the potential as going back and utilizing some of my experience in the investment world, as well, as, you know, my prior option experience, this was a great timing for me to to enter into this type of field that gives you incredible flexibility and unbelievable earning potential. Allen: Mm hmm. Yep. So you've been in finance for 20-30 years? What got you started selling options, because you were buying options earlier? What happened to make you switch? Kevin: Well, I was going back to what I had known. And so this was in January, when I was deciding. So as I mentioned, as looking for a full time job, and then at the same point in time, was doing a lot of reading research on what type of business I could potentially do. And just started seeing a lot of ads about options. And I said, "Oh Yeah, I remember I used to trade those". And I did okay you know, had good times and things. So I started actually I said, I'm going to get a look and see if I can find the best Options Trading coach that I can find and get the best service potential so that I can get back into this. And I figured if I had a pro that I could trade with, or they could show me a system that could produce potential consistent income. And I said that that might be something to consider. So I found one and he had worked for out over 25 years in the CBOE and was really energetic. I read that a lot of research about him look like he was very successful. So I signed up for the service. And you know, he touted that they had over 74% success rate ratio, which I said, that's not too bad. And so he started getting back in where we would have every single day we would meet online, and he had scanners and things that were set up. And then he would call out which when a certain thing hit the scanner, he would call out what to go, who to invest on. So you're online, and you're investing with him. And I did that and for a little while you're having success, but then also, you were having one's trades it didn't work out. And so by the the bottom line is, is to make a long story short, within a couple of months, I started looking, I said, you know, I'm having some success, but it's not really enough success. By the time you look at the trades that were winners in the trades that were losers, you weren't cutting coming out that far ahead where you feel like you could make a really decent income doing this. Kevin: And so then I started researching more. And I started, I came across the concept of selling options and your service was one of the first things in Option Genius that I started reading about. I said, Well, this is interesting, because you're touting over 80% of the options, which is you know, what should I found to be true expire worthless. So I said perhaps I'm just on the wrong side of the equation. And so I subscribed to your service and there's a couple other services that I found that sent credit spread recommendations and started doing more research around this and I said this is really really interesting. So I did not start off with your service right away. I started getting your emails continue to read I got your books and and read what you had written. And I started entering the trades that have been recommendations I was getting from other services and again, you know, in the beginning, you obviously all you're seeing is the premium coming into your account. And so when you're looking at, hey, you know, instead of paying for stuff, I'm getting money inside my account. I said this is a pretty good deal. But that was true until you got into the expiration time frame, when some of the contracts that you were in, weren't going so well. And so those particular services while they told you what, when to enter, they didn't tell you when to exit. And so I'm thinking I said, you know, some of these positions aren't doing so well. And and so again, I did that for a couple of months. And I said, Well, you know, this is again, another mixed bag. And I said, let me try to before I give up on this, let me try one more time, let me reach out and let me get engaged with Option Genius and see what they can do. Because I wanted a way that I liked what this potential what the selling options could do. But I wanted to see if I could increase my probabilities of success, which you touted through your service. And so that's when I signed up for option genius and your services, and then eventually rolled into the Credit Mastery program, which I just, it's just been absolutely amazing the amount of difference that has made and the success of my trading. Allen: Awesome. Yeah, because I remember, when you joined, you had told me that, hey, you know, I'm part of this service and this service, and I'm getting this trade and that trade, what do you think about this trade? And I'm like, Man, I don't know if they're, if they're giving you a trade, I don't know what I don't know what they're thinking, I don't know what their plan is, or anything, I can't give you any advice on that. I can show you what I'm doing. And then if it works great. So I remember that I had to kind of, you know, like you were heading in different directions and had to kind of like grab, you kind of like by the shoulders and kind of pull you over and be like, can we focus please over here? It was very interesting. It was fun. Kevin: I would have services that you would get three to four trade recommendations a day. And I guess maybe where I got confused, where recommendations, the ideas and I say, Well, this is pretty awesome. I said they're given and I'm, I guess I had the expectation that these were actual recommendations that they're saying that you should do. And so I always did a little bit of homework around that. And I would look at the charts. And a lot of these were smaller companies. And I guess, really, I wasn't really looking at the technical aspects and the things that you teach in your course, I was looking at number one, that the amount of premium that I was generating that was going into my account, I'm just like, wow, I can make, you know, 16%, 17%, 20% on this deal, and there's been some will come across like 25%, I didn't think about the risk aspect of it. And so then I would pull it the company do a little bit of research and said, Oh, man, that stock has been hammered that, you know, that's really it's been trading down. I said, it's got to go back up. Well, some of these trades, you'll get into, they didn't go back up. In fact, they continued to go down, trades would get in trouble. And I'm thinking maybe this thing will just continue to go back up. And so I started living on hoping some of these trades, I said, this thing has to go up at some point in time. Well, some of these trades didn't. And so I lost, I max loss on some of these trades. Some of these other ones, I lost 50 and 60%. And that's when I started think I said, Man, either one, I'm doing really something wrong or two, I said, What I'm entering the trades I'm entering, then perhaps maybe I shouldn't be in. And now those are the types of things that I learned when I started going through your program. The other service, I had no rules, there were no rules, there's nothing that really taught you the art and what you should be doing when you're trading spreads, you're just giving you what those recommendations are, or ideas as I've learned to call them before. And now and and we didn't have the rule set up. So now with through your program, there are definitive rules. I know now when I can look at a chart if whether something is a good idea or not, if I wanted to sell puts on something, and they're not trading, above all the three moving averages that you talked about, I immediately discard it. So I'm able to really now take ideas, even where they're from other services, your services or my own research, and immediately at least be able to spot things that I need to look at further. And so your service has really provided an amazing education to me and again, is is really increased the probability of having a successful trade. Allen: That's awesome. That's great to hear. Because you also have to look at it from the business point of it of, you know, when you're running a service, you're just giving trades and you're trying to collect that monthly, you know, the monthly subscription fee, you know, or maybe yearly or whatever it is, but you have to keep people engaged enough to be able to keep getting them to pay you over and over again. It's a tough business and you're not going to share all the secrets and all the things if they even know any secrets, because a lot of these guys I know them, they run the you know, they're marketers and we run into each other we met you know, we talk at different marketing conventions, and they're more interested in you know, how can I get more subscribers or how can I make more money per subscriber, then how can I do better trades because they know that You know, they can use probabilities and they can talk a good game. And so for a while the trades will do good. But eventually they're gonna blow up, eventually, it's gonna go down. And so the only thing they have to do is shut down the service. And then a few months later, they come in, open up another one in a different name, different website, and they start all over again. So it's you know, they just go from one to another, like when we started years ago, I can probably I remember at that time, I made a list of all the other competitors, you know, everybody who had a service who was given trades, and out of like the 50 of them that were at there at that time, there's probably two of them left, you know, and now there's like, hundreds of them, because everybody figured out "Oh, yeah, if you just say, high probability people jump in, and all you have to do is sell a high a low delta option". And it might work out most of the time. It's like, yeah, it's a little bit more to it than that. And that's why I wanted to get into it, where if you're a person who wants a membership, and subscriber and trades, you know, that's one type of person. But if you want to go further and be like, Okay, I want to actually do this for myself, I want to be in control, then you need more of a coaching, you need more of like, these are the rules, this is how we follow it and step by step by step. So that's why that's the program that you are in, I'm glad that you were in, and I'm glad that you've, you know, it worked for you. Kevin: Well, and again, it's not even being able to recognize good trades, or one, it's one part of the advantage of the program. But equally important is the risk management aspect of it. And also knowing when you need to exit a trade. And that's what I also had found and had been frustrating before, some of the positions that I had, I thought, once you got into the credit spread, you know, you ran into the end of expiration. And so some of these positions in the beginning would go in, they would do extraordinarily well. And they would, the price would continue to go up in the stock, and then all of a sudden, something would happen. And I would lose, you know, the stock would come tumbling down, and then my game would end up turning into a loss. And so being able to manage the risk and knowing when to get in and when to get out is equally important. And I also was- the mindset when I started, I said why would I ever want to exit a position when I would have two or three weeks left? And the option is so far out of the money that you know, the probability it's going to fall is very minimum. And why would I want to spend extra money on commissions and give up a couple $100 When I could just stay in it and it would expire worthless, and I would collect the whole premium? Well, again, you'll learn from experience that markets can really whack you and your positions can go down. And it is a real gut punch that you talk about. When you are on a when you're in a winning trade. And you have made your 10% Target to all of a sudden have that reverse and have actually that winning trade turn into a losing trade. And so being able to get out when you make your 10% as you prescribe. And then also making sure that you are exiting in a position that's not working when you're hitting the 25 to 30% that is really what's made the larger difference, where I've been able to increase my success ratio when I started with you, which was roughly about 82%, I was now up over now with your service about 88%. But the larger differences is that my losing trades, the amount that I'm losing is much smaller than when I was trading before. So therefore my profits have increased, because I'm getting rid of the bad trades and securing my profit and the trades that are doing well. Allen: Yeah, I mean, it does take time to learn those and you know, it's great if we give give it to you and be here this and this but it's easier said and listened to then actually done. So you know, the the fact that we have to we have to drill it in over and over and over again. It takes time and like you said sometimes you're gonna it's gonna reverse on you and you're gonna feel it. And that will be a big lesson in itself. So now, okay, so when did you get started with I think it was March, April. I think you guys started with us? Kevin: I signed up in April, your class started mid, mid May. Allen: May. Okay. All right. So how have you been doing in terms of returns? Kevin: I'm averaging about last month was a really tough month. But on average, it's been about 7 to 8% with all my costs and my losses considered together. Allen: So that's really good seven - eight months consistently and about how much time do you spend on it? Kevin: I am actually doing this full time. So up to last month of about a month and a half or so ago. Like I said, I was part of my time was also looking forward, you know, still looking for work. And then I, at the end of your program, I concluded that I believe that I could do this full time. And so full time for me now is I'm a four to six hours a day. And part of it is because I'm just I really love doing this. And so I'm always looking for for different types of investment opportunities, and so I'm always reading and researching on the positions that I'm that I'm holding, my computer stays up throughout the day. So I'm always looking for that time frame of where I might be able to, to get into another position, or to do research and things that I need to know about market conditions. So it's become a love and passion for me. Allen: And you've also told me that you also have a lot of positions on at one time, right? Kevin: I do. And so my average amount positions that I'll have, I mean, the most I've ever had on one time are 40 positions. And that's actually before I came here, as well, that's because I was taking all of the ideas and implementing. And so now, now anywhere between 20 to 30 positions I might have on but one of the things that I found and that you had taught, and when I learned about the importance of of cashing out your winning positions, when you hit your 10% profit, is that that frees up your capital to be able to invest in another opportunity. And so that's sometimes I'm able to put on even additional positions, because I have more freed up capital, because I've taken money I've cashed in and taking money off the table. And so yeah, anywhere 20 to 30 positions a month, but I've never I've never maxed out as far as the amount of margin and, and the cash that I have on my account. I'm always very mindful that I because I don't know what's going to happen, especially with these with the way the markets are trading today. I don't know what's going to happen when all of a sudden we have a larger downturn. And so I'm very mindful about the amount of margin and positions that I hold considering the current market conditions. Allen: And how much are you trading this - in terms of.. Kevin: At first it started, it was 2500. And then I moved up with to 5000, and then at 10,000. And now this is one of the things that I'm really starting to evaluate where I wanted to be position-wise, my goal is monthly income of about $10,000 a month. So I have roughly about $425,000, of what we call buying power. And that includes cash and stock positions that total of about $650,000. So I'm conservatively and I feel like I am on the track. And I'm able to conservatively generate from that about $10,000 per month and what I found and if people are wondering, well, how much do I need to start with? What I have found by the time you include your your expenses, and by the time you include your your losing positions, you have to start out with a number that you want to generate per month. So if you were to take that number and divide that by 0.5, that's where I think, the amount of money you should have in capital to start. So say for instance, you want it to generate $1,000 per month, depending upon if you're talking about cash and stocks, or just cash only if it's cash only, divide the $1,000 by 0.5, and that'll give you where you need to start. Allen: So that's 20. Kevin: Yeah, that's about 20,000. If it's if you have a mixture of stock and cash divided by a 0.25 so somewhere between 20 to $40,000. And people ask, what's the difference? Well, if part of what you're trading on are securities, that's only in their marginable securities, that's you're only going to get 50% trading power and most of those positions, it does vary. So and that's another thing that you need to if you're going to be, if you don't have all cash to trade with and I'm using TD Ameritrade Thinkorswim and you're using securities and I transfer it in security. So my account, I started out of 50,000 and then ended up bringing in some of my other securities. So I could use that as leverage. Well, some of the securities I brought over, were not marginable in that account. And so it didn't give me any buying power. So one of the things you need to talk with with your broker is how the securities you're bringing over if you're going to be using stocks to to make sure that they're marginable. And so that's what I have found so far has been a pretty good conservative range as far as what to start with. I need to first start with you have to know what you want to generate income per month. Allen: Right I mean, that could be your end goal. It doesn't I don't know if you have to start off with that much because I you told me okay, you're trying to make 10 Gray a month. That means that you need 400 on your, you know, at 0.25, right? So, for somebody who was just getting started today, and they're like, Yeah, you know, eventually I want to get there. You know, they don't need to they don't need the whole amount right now. And then that's including so you're saying 0.25 because.. Kevin: 0.025 Allen: 0.025 because the return on the stocks is going to be a little bit lower than the return on the options, right? Kevin: You're well, if you put security stocks in your account, you don't get the full buying power. Okay, as I mentioned, my buying power is roughly about 425,000 and that's with a total combined mixture of cash in securities at about 650,000 into an account. So some of them are cash secured, and some of them are against marginable securities in your account. So that's why I say if you for instance, one of the generate that income, you don't have any cash, and it's all stocks and all securities that you're writing off of, you need to lose the 0.025, because by the time you look at your expensive your expenses and your reduced buying power, that's probably about where you're going to be at as far as the ability, the amount of money you're able to conservatively generate on a monthly basis. Allen: Okay, so how does the return calculate into that? Kevin: I look at, if we look at that, that you start with 10%, that that's the goal that you're making on each investment. But I have found by the time you end up calculating expenses for trading, and also countering your losses, conservatively, it's roughly about 0.5 so you cut.. Allen: So 5%? Okay. Kevin: 5%. That's again, being conservative. And so again, you reduce that further, if you don't have cash. Allen: Oh, because you're using margin so you have to, okay.. Kevin: Pay 50. So to look at margin is 50%. So cut that five and half and point point oh, two, five as a ballpark. Allen: Okay, so are you only doing spreads with that 400? Or are you doing other strategies as well? Kevin: I'm primarily 98% are credit spreads that I'm doing, and I still am with my other service, I still daily I am on those calls. And I will, I will look at some of them, I look at it. And yeah, you know, this is a good opportunity. And that provides a little bit more of excitement into the day to because you're you're dealing in markets that are very, very fast moving, and that you have to be able to get the recommended trades in immediately. Because when you're buying the call you what we're doing is we're following institutional money. So these are people that you know, huge institutions that are making big bets, and mostly on the call side on certain stocks. So we use the concept of follow the money. So if there's a lot of big money that's going into particular, they're buying calls on something, we are making a larger assumption that they know something that perhaps we don't, and you and I both know that there's insider information that's exchanged, and that there are institutional and very large investors that may hold information that you and I may not have access to. So when we see those types of trades come across the scanners, that's when we decide to take a position the same exact position that they're taking. So we have, we have an entry amount, and we have an amount to exit on. And if you don't get in that that entry amount, then you don't take the trade. Allen: Okay so that's what takes most of the time during the day? Kevin: No that's usually done for about an hour and a half Allen: hour and a half. Okay.. Kevin: Then I go back into my personal research in the longer term for the credit spreads. And so and then, so I'm doing that, and I have lists, I mean, the I mean, one of the great advantages of your program is that you gave us a list of about 180 stocks. So I have that list I built upon that list from my own research. And I keep a running list of stocks that I am watching, primarily, because one of the rules that we that you discuss, and that I subscribe to that you don't enter in a position where there are earnings coming. So I if there's a chart that I like, and a stock that I like, and there's earnings coming up, and I can't get something before that, that goes on the list. And then at that the the day after they report their earnings, and I'm looking at and see what's happening in the stock and starting to make a decision if I want to get into something now, or if I want to watch and monitor it a little bit further. So by the time if you do this for a while, if you're doing that, your list get can get quite extensive. So I have different dates when I'm visiting different parts of my lists. Allen: Interesting. So now Okay, so you. So you're okay, so I thought that your trading journey was gonna be a little bit longer. But you started really, in January of 2021. And in about four months time, you became consistently profitable four or five months? Kevin: Yeah, I think it was helpful that I obviously understood options coming into this. So I have that part of the learning curve. When I got into this, I gave myself six months up to a year to decide how things were going to go. And like I said, at the same point in time, I was still actively seeking employment, as you know.. Allen: But now you've given up on that? Kevin: Oh, well. I really have because I this is, you know, of all the years that I've owned businesses this you have provided probably the simplest and turnkey business that anybody could ever have. This business, all I need -- I have no employees to deal with. I have all the flexibility in the world. When I want to go on vacation, we schedule more vacations. I take my laptop computer with me spend maybe a couple hours in the morning, less than when I usually have just the monitor the things that I've got and look and see if there's anything that I need to, to get into or out of, and that's it. You take this business wherever you go, I can't think of anywhere else where you have control over your income, what you make the hours that you work, I'm not worried about the Coronavirus, I'm not worried about anything other than communicating with, you know, doing my research and then having fun communicating with the market makers and, and we give a little fun because I'm not like you I can be patient. And so I'll put in bids for things and see and see what happens. And we've had fun that way as well. So and I really love it. I mean, it really has created a world of freedom, both financially and also with my family. And so I just haven't found another business, if I can do it continue to maintain that and not having to worry about all the other employment hassles. And worry about a boss having to worry about employees having to worry about meeting payroll, all I'm worried about is is my trading and and making sure that my family is financially secure. That's a lot less stress that's on me. Kevin: And that's one of the things that that I've done. And then I'm developing now is the success for my trading that I'm doing. I'm creating my paycheck for next year. And so I'm not, I'm at a point now where I am not going into my trading account, to put bread and butter in a table to pay the bills, I am exceeding what I needed. And I'm creating my paycheck for next year. So at the end of this year, I will look at all the profits that I have. And that I've made and then create my paycheck for next year, I'll put that money and a an a very ultra short bond fund or a secured fund where I'm earning a a three to 5% in interest, and then pay myself into my checking account and my paycheck every single month. So then going into next year, I'm prepared. And I'm not worried I'm not making a trade because I have to make a living. And that's what I think the one of the important messages are is that if you're going to do this full time, it's helpful if you are already financially secured or you have a spouse, or you have savings that can help you transition into becoming a full time trader. If you are at the point where you feel like you need to make a trade to pay the bills, then that's when I think you could make trades that might not be so suitable, or that might go bad because you're entering into to a trade just to generate a premium. And just to generate generate that income. But if you're in a position where you know, every single month that the bills are going to be paid because that paychecks coming into your account, you're not as concerned about putting on the volume of trades, you're concerned about putting on the right trades, and then you're working towards building the paycheck for next year. Allen: Yeah, this was something this was like really big that you you share with me. And I was like, oh my god, yeah, you gotta you gotta share this, what do you call it, sorry? Kevin: I call it the pay forward plan. And that's what we need because you're you're setting yourself up and you're getting a paycheck every single month, and you just have that and at the same point in time, that money is also earning interest. And so you're getting dividend income off of that, but you don't have that pressure that how am I going to pay my bills that you have to do at the end of the year? Look at the profits, make sure that you but you've accounted for the taxes that have to be paid on on those profits, assuming that this is coming from a taxable account, and then take out those taxes and then that's paid on your upcoming tax bill. And then you're getting a paycheck every single month. Allen: Yep so I want to I want to recap this for people just to because one of the things one of the hardest things is when you go from you know, just regular trading and having another income to going okay, I want to do this full time. One of the biggest problems and the biggest mental headaches and and hurdles people have is, hey, you know, my expenses for the month are like, you know, six, seven grand, I need my trading this month to make six, seven grand so I can pay my bills, and like you said, it's the wrong way to think about it. So what you said was, you know, you have an income another source, but you take whatever your profits you're making now and then you put it into a interest bearing account for next year. So you know, how much money is in the account so you know that okay, all my bills are gonna be paid for so that you don't have that stress of having to perform and having your trades to have to work out next year going through it month by month by month, right? Kevin: Yeah, and what I'm doing right now is I'm keeping all and this was at first I was going to take in monthly the monthly profits and take put that in my checking account and as I went along, and knowing and looking at the uncertainty the markets, I decided to keep everything into in my trading account that I was making until the end end of the year. So that way, you know, when you're at the end of the year, you know, everything has been settled, your contracts are settled, you know how much money you have made, and what you can then allocate. That is also an advantage to keep it in your trading account for the year, because as you're building up money, that's obviously giving you more purchasing power as well, too. And so, as you have successful trades and losing trades, then they'll go ahead and wash out each other. But what you do is your record, I'm doing the reconciliation at the end of the year. And so at the end of this year, at the end of December, December 31st, I will look at what I have made, and then make a determination of how much I'm going to take out of my trading account, and put into this other investment and do create my monthly income for next year. Allen: That's awesome. Yeah, it just takes once you have once you know your bills are covered, or at least part of they're covered, you know, because I know a lot of people a lot of traders are like, you know, I have to make this trade work. And that's when you have to do something, that's when you lose control, you're not in control anymore, the market is gonna dominate and emotionally you're out of it, and you're gonna lose, it's just, it just, it could happen. Kevin: Not only that, you end up taking substantial risks. And, you know, if you feel like you have to make six or 7000. That's why it's important that you have a realistic understanding going into this, of what you can generate off of your account. Because if you're expecting to generate six or 7000, and you might have 50,000 in your account, well, I'm thinking that that you might be very disappointed, or you could take risks that you should not be taking risks as you're trying to generate premium to create that six or 7000. So that's what I said, the first thing you come into this with is having an idea of what you want to make. Now again, as you mentioned, it could not this, maybe it's not the amount that you're going to make today, you can build up to it, that's fine. But first, make sure that you have the amount that you need coming in in a month that can generate the bread and butter that you put on the table to support yourself and your family and so then you can build up from that. And that's why if you use that formula, that you know, $1,000 You know, if you want 1000 A month, divide that by 0.05 or 0.25, and that'll give you the amount that you can realistically, you realistically should have in your account to generate that type of income. Because realistic expectations, I think are important cuz I think people could look at this. And many times, I've received solicitations that look like you can bet the sky's the limit on what you can make selling options. Well, maybe that might be the case, but the risk that you're taking, could easily wipe you out. And if you don't follow the rules, and if you aren't conservative, and you don't do the things to make sure that you are having a highly probable success on your trade and you're breaking all the rules just to try to generate premium, you could end up broke really quick. Allen: Right. So you're saying basically another way to say it is that two and a half to 5% returns per month is a good target to aim for in a conservative manner doing options trading? Kevin: It should be used to determine about how much you need to have in your account and generate a certain amount of monthly income. Right. As people always I hear that question I know in the class, you know, people just start and say, well, Allen, how much do I need to get started? Well, again, it really has to start with us have some type of income goal to begin with. And so I have found it to be a pretty realistic tool as far as what you should have in your account to generate a certain amount of monthly income. Allen: Yeah, that's another way to look at it. You know, to me, if somebody asked me that question, I don't look at it in the fact that, okay, you need an income goal right away. I would say that, okay, so this is like a skill, like bike riding, where I want you just to get on the bike and be able to pedal and we can take off the training wheels. So I don't care if you're going 100 miles an hour or whatever. That's the goal, eventually you'll get there. But right now I just want you to be able to pedal. Kevin: I would agree with that. I just think some people think, Oh, if I've got 10 grand in my account, can I go ahead and make three to $4,000 a month? And I'm saying no. You know, you might be taking that 10 grand may disappear really quickly. And the type of risk you're gonna be taken if you want to generate that type of thing. Allen: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, we've had people email me like, well, you know, you say you can make 10% But that's too little. I want to make more I wanna make 20%. Can you help me? I'm like, nope. Maybe I can help you do it once. Maybe. Kevin: That's what I think the answer is yes, you can help them generate 30 to 40%. But the question is, is will they be able to keep that in their bank account or their bank account quickly evaporate? Allen: Exactly. Yeah Kevin: I think the the question is, is can you help them make 30 or 40%? Yes. Can you help them keep 30 or 40% in your bank account? Probably not. Allen: No, no. Doing it over and over again, consistency is the thing right? You got to be consistent. So okay, so when you started with us with the Credit Spread Mastery program, what were some of the or what was the one major thing that was your biggest challenge in implementing, and actually getting it done? Kevin: I think implementing and pushing the button. And that continues to be the challenge, as I say, as I look at the scaling, getting comfortable making that first investment, because when you haven't done it, and, and I had a little bit of comfort, because I had successes with some of the other services that we talked about earlier. But again, having the comfort level of being in the confidence to be able to say, to enter into a trade. And that's what I tell people I said, I said, I think that the hardest thing to overcome is that confidence level and that's where you just have that's why it's important that either you start out paper trading so you can start seeing some of the success and then starting small to build up that into that. That was the hardest thing for me. And then also is is changing my philosophy. You know when you when you talk about the rules when we're selling puts it has to be above the all three moving averages I'm looking at I shouldn't be entering something when a stock is at its lowest price, not its highest price. So it took me a little bit of time to wrap my thinking around that. And to understand that we're looking at the momentum because I'm a bargains are when I'm when I have my long positions of stock, I'm looking for stocks to hit bottom, I'm looking for good stocks to greatly reduced in price not to invest in something that's at the top of the game, I call it I call it the American way of investing. Americans seem to like to invest at the top and then sell at the bottom. So I always tease clients that that was the American way of investing, we want to do the opposite, we want to get in at the lowest point and then sell at the highest point. Well, that's it's kind of like a contrarian theory here for me, but.. Allen: Yeah that works. But for different strategy. You know, if I were if I was like, Okay, I want to do naked put, then I do exactly what you said, you know, it's like, hey, when it's going down, it's a good strong company. And that's what we advise in our, in our other program, the passive trading formula, it's like, what we want to do is we want to find good, strong companies that we don't mind owning for, like 100 years. And when we sell puts, that means that you know, the stock has come down a little bit, we can get them cheap, we can get a discount on it, and we get paid for waiting. So for that strategy, yeah, it works great. Credit spreads? I want to know what the stock is going to do. Right? I want it to tell me very clearly that, hey, I'm going up going down going sideways, and then based on that news, then I will go ahead and play with it. If I don't know what it's gonna do, I don't want to take the risk. And sometimes, you know, people, you can get as complicated as you want with it with the technical analysis, Support-Resistance. And if you can add that stuff to it, then that's great. If it helps, but it doesn't always help. So take it for what you know, it's like it's like a grain of sand. Like, sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. And then we add all the other elements to increase the probabilities. And like you said, you know, if it's working out for you. I think you said you're doing 7% a month, which is, which is phenomenal. You know, if you can keep doing that you keep compounding it. Like you said, the count is just growing and growing, you're gonna be at in so you're not but you said you wanted your goal was 10,000 a month? You're not there yet? Kevin: I'm actually, I'm averaging more. So my best month so far. was just a couple months ago, I did 14 on that month, and I don't know how November's I mean, November has been really awesome so far. But I'm not making any predictions, I might be able to top 20 maybe this month, possibly. But the last time I thought I was going to do that for October, I just like in the middle of the month, I was invested so heavily on the and that was another thing that I point to bring up later on, as you get into this is is trying really trying to diversify. And that's not always easy, because you're looking at trading opportunities. And sometimes at different points in the market. Like for instance, a lot of the when I experienced the downturn for for my October contracts is because I had about 60 65% of my positions were in technology companies that all of a sudden, they decided that they were concerned about the 10 year yield on the treasury bonds, and everybody wanted to start exiting tech companies, well, all my positions really started getting into trouble, because there's a mass exodus. So that diversification, I think is also important and to try to get to that, and that's what I'm still trying to also work on is having, like, I've always preached about not having all your eggs in one basket. And so my, my long stock portfolios are pretty well balanced and diversified. I'm trying to get that way. And it's not always easy to do that. Because you come across an opportunity to say, well, this is really good, you know, the charts looking good. You like the the the prospects for the company. It's a good company that you're trading with. And so you go in and before you know it, you're overloaded on one sector. Allen: Yeah. Remember, this is one of the things that we had, we talked about a few times, you know, when I was going through your spreadsheet, looking at your trades, I'm like, Oh, they're these overloaded, he's overloaded. There's too many of them. And then like, you know, you got the lesson. So hopefully it sticks. Kevin: Like I said, and it's just it's really sometimes it's very difficult to tell And that's why I again, I tried to look for different segments that I can go into. And it's not always easy. But part of the thing I was going to share is that the importance that if your goal is 1000, once you start, you get yourself going, the you shouldn't just stop at trying to get 1000, you should try to get, if you can get into decent trades to earn more money, that should be part of your goal. I mean, it should be part of your natural goal. But I bring that up, because sometimes you are going to have down months. And so at the end, what you want to make sure that you have is if your goal is 1000, that your average is 1000, maybe some months, you're going to end up you should have 1500 or 2000 other months, maybe it's going to be 500. Or maybe you're going to lose 1000. So the whole point I'm trying to make is when you get to the point of what your of your comfort level in implementing the strategies is that you try to overshoot a little bit to compensate when you're going to have down months. And so October, I had a down month, and you know, so but the the idea is at the end of the year is to have that as an average, Allen: Right yep, yep. I mean, that's why, you know, on in our program, every trade we go is we shoot for 10% don't always get it, you know, we're gonna have months or trades where we make less money trades when we lose, but if you average it out, it comes about to be like, you know, five or 6%. And you're doing even better than that. So you're doing better than what averages but yeah, even 5% a month is 60 a year, compounded monthly, not compounded yearly, but compounded monthly, if you want to, that can be extraordinary life changing very, very quickly so.. Kevin: And at the end of the year, you're going to make the decision what your paycheck is going to be next year, I mean, with the program that I've the system that I'm coming up with. And that's that's kind of the cool thing about it. And when you think about it, if you take out your basic expenses and what you need, but are able to build up extra cash, and then the other opportunities that you could use, whether it's getting to financial independence, being able to retire earlier, you know, using that, that's just an extraordinary thing. And so that's part of my goal is again to generate additional cash flow so that you can even build a larger nest egg. And it for a while it took me because I kept on thinking what am I going to as a financial advisor, I have X amount of dollars that I like in cash. But then when you have excess cash, I always say that, you know, you're losing money because of inflation. But when you're using the excess cash to build your strategies into and to do what you're doing here. And if you're making 5% a month or seven, or whatever it is, and it's 84% of the year, where else can you take your extra cash, and make it make 60-80% I mean it just so that's when the light bulb came on, I said, Well, if I generate an extra, I'm going to keep that extra in my trading account that I don't need, and use that in the year going forward. So I can continue to build and have and have more opportunities I can, I can put on more trades and invest. And I said that is the way that you can actually see this really, really take off and propel you to financial independence or financial success of some degree. When you're able to generate and then sitting in cash at any point in time. You you decide that you're going to do something else with it if that money's there. Allen: Yeah. So when you are going through the program, what was like the biggest surprise that you had something that you didn't even expect? Kevin: How easy and simple this would be? You know, like I said, I had an understanding of options going into it. So that complexity of options wasn't there. When I first started, it took me when I started in 98 It took me a little while I bet it was at least a good six to eight months to really wrap my brain around the calls and puts where and how they function, different types of markets. That was probably the larger learning curve. When I first started options. I didn't have that going into this. I understood how they work. So the basic foundation was there, but I didn't realize again how easy and turnkey your system would be and getting you know because let's face it, we all get solicited, you know when the all sorts of different opportunities. Everybody is proposing "Hey, get rich doing this get rich doing that". And you come to almost have a very high degree of skepticism with many of the offers that you get. So there's most of them end up just going into my delete box because you know, you look at in the face and they say hey, make a million bucks. I'm thinking yeah, right. Okay. But yours, you pretty much You said everything on the line that hey, you can lose money. I'm going to help you do it consistently. I'm going to help you do conservatively. And everything you know that you have said this has been true so far. And like I said, with all the businesses I've run in my lifetime, I've never had a business that I felt like that was so simple that would provide me so much flexibility didn't have any headaches to deal with employees that the boss or anything else. And then all I needed is my laptop, laptop and internet or some type of connection into the electronic trading floor and I'm in business and I can do it wherever whenever I want and I set the amount of money that If I want to make it's up to me to take the most degree, obviously, the markets are going to have some say about it. But you know, you, you are truly Your Own Boss in this type of scenario. Mm hmm. Allen: So what do you think the future holds for you now? Kevin: I'm going to do this as long as I can, as long as I have my mental faculties together, and the market doesn't fully blow up. I guess that's one of the things that it keeps me up. It doesn't really keep me up, but it's always in the back of your mind, will I be fully invested or I'll be heavily invested in this market doing these types of strategies, when another March 20th comes in the whole entire market falls out, you know, then that's the one. That's why I try to be very mindful of that. And every day that you wake up you wondering, is this the day when the markets decided that the party's over,

Welcome Passive Traders to another special edition of the Option Genius Podcast. Today I have something a little bit different for you. I was interviewed on another show called "2 Bulls in A China Shop" by a company called Financial Ineptitude. That's actually their name,Financial Ineptitud. Basically, it's two guys. You know, there are really cool guys named Kyle and Dan, and they've been talking about trading for a little bit. They've been trying to learn how to trade and so they made this podcast to basically help them get their thoughts out, and to record all of their lessons. Their website is really cool. Their podcast is two bulls in a china shop and I'm going to include the interview that they had here as an episode because I thought it was really good. It was a lot of fun. And hopefully you guys will get something out of it and learn from it as well. So again, that's "2 Bulls in A China Shop" by Kyle and Dan. Enjoy the episode. We're so glad you've joined us today, folks, today is a very special day, we've got a fantastic guest with us. We're gonna be joined here by Allen Sama, Head Trader and owner of Option Genius. He is an Amazon bestseller author of the book Passive Trading: How to Generate Consistent Monthly Income from the Stock Market in Just Minutes a Day. And we're going to let you know more about that. But first, Allen, how are you doing today? Allen: I'm doing very well. Thank you very much. Kyle: Thanks for coming on. I know we had to work a little bit to get this. This recordin going. Allen: Yeah, better make it good. Allen: I'll do my best. Kyle: The more you work for it the sweeter to be right? Yeah, Dan: Yeah. No pain, no gain, Allen: The more you value it, right. Dan: Oh, right. So so tell us a little bit about your journey to becoming the Option Genius.  Allen: So I was born as a trust fund baby and I started with $20 million. Kyle: End of story. Allen: Exactly, then I made a course. And then I made a course and I started selling it. Dan: Make more money selling. Allen: Yeah. So I have a similar story to you guys. You know, I got laid off from basically the only job I ever had. And it was really about, hey, do I go back to finding another job than job market? Or do I try my hand at trading, which I had been starting to learn while I was working because I was working remotely. So it was a great job learned a lot. But it just came to an end. The business went under in the financial crisis. And so, you know, we were actually teaching mortgage brokers how to be mortgage brokers, mortgage brokers, they owe it away. So it's like they didn't need me anymore. And so I said, Alright, cool. Let me you know, try my hand at trading. And I took some of my wife's money, and I lost most of it roughly, for like 40- 43,000. Plus, very quickly. Dan: Oh you're kidding. Allen: And, you know, like you guys said, you know, you learn very quickly, what doesn't work and most of it doesn't work. Yeah, at least for me. Dan: I get to strangled to work one day. Allen: Yeah. And so really, the, the best thing for me was that, you know, she had, she had faith in me, and she, she's like, you know, you need to make this work. And so I went back, and that kind of really put a fire under my ass. And then I looked at all my records, because I keep paper records of all my trades, write down everything. And so I found that, you know, I was doing day trading, and I was doing this and I was doing that buying and selling and value and I was trying everything, you know, there was one time where I was long, the inverse ETFs you know, SDS and SSO. So SSO is the two 2X S&P Going up, and SDS is 2X going down. So I was long on both of them. I was like, I can't lose. Right? Yeah, it's like the only trade that I can't lose on but guess what I did, I ended up losing money on that trade. Dan: You're telling my story, Allen. You're telling my story. Kyle: This all sounds so familiar. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel that it sounds like you.. Allen: Because the only thing that worked for me was selling options. And I had done at least one trade where, you know, I put it on, didn't really know what I was doing. But I followed it. And I put it on and I forgot about it. And then it it was in my paper records, but it wasn't in my account. And I'm like, where to go. My broker scamming me, you know, that should be here, you know, I put the trade on, where's my trick, and I kept researching, and then I realized that that trade had expired, worthless, and it just had gone away. So it doesn't show up on the screen anymore. And there's no exit record. And so I was like, Well, this is cool. You know, this is something that I didn't pay any attention to. And I made, you know, a good decent amount on it. And I didn't like it was easy. So I'm like, What is this thing? So I learned more and I dug deep into it. And we went into covered calls and naked puts and spreads and iron condors and, and all these different ones. And eventually I found that, um, you know, these type of trades are a lot more forgiving. So if you're not the most savvy, technical analysis like me, and if you're always buying at the wrong time and selling at the wrong time, getting all emotional like me, then this really was something that was much easier to do and, you know, you probably hear it If you talk about it, but it's like you put the odds in your favor. So it's a little bit, I think it's more conservative. But it's a lot more passive in the sense where I don't have to be in front of the screen all the time, I'll put a trade on, and then just check it and make sure it's okay. And that Theta decay just works in my favor. So the time decay, meaning the options go down in value, you know, every day as they should. And then eventually they expire. And when they expire, then the trade is over. Kyle: So what kind of time frame are usually looking at when you're selling your contracts? Allen: Well, I'm in different strategies now. But usually, I'm going around 45 days to about 25 days. Kyle: You basically just rolling monthly, the monthly. Allen: Yep. So I'll stay in two months. And then if I get out, then I'll be like, okay, good down. Let me look at next month, sometimes I get out early, and I'll take, you know, take a week or two off, I'm not doing anything. And then, but most of the time, yeah, it's you know, you're getting out of one and then you're getting into the next one. Kyle: Are you just doing these cover calls? Are you doing spreads? Or what are you doing to cap your, your, your losses, because we selling options? Contracts can be really dangerous.. Allen: Mm hmm. So we do a little bit of all of them. You know, I've been doing it now for 15 years. So I started with the iron condor, because that that, Oh, my God, this is awesome. You know, you can make money on both sides, and the stock doesn't move too much. And it's a trade that can't lose. Obviously, I found out that yeah, you can lose. But I mean, it's probably the most complicated trade you can start with. And that's the one I did and then I got, you know, I got good at it. And then I did look at covered calls, we did that for a while still do them now in my. So let me break it down, in my retirement accounts, I do covered calls, naked puts, and some spreads. And the spreads are really there to just goose the returns. Because in those I'm looking for about 10% a month, the covered calls naked puts, I'm looking for one to 3% in the retirement accounts. And then in my trading account, I do spreads iron condors. And then I also do a little bit of futures options. So those are a bit more, they got a lot more oomph to them, because there's more leverage involved. And so they're faster. They're very, they're much faster trade. So I'm in and out, usually around two weeks, about 14 trading days. Kyle: Before we get too deep into here, maybe we should kind of talk, can you explain, let's start with an iron condor. And maybe just real quick recap of what a spread is. Allen: Sure. So a spread and the way I trade them is I want to be selling the spread. And so it is something that where you take an option that is far out of the money, you sell that one, and then you buy another one a little bit further out of the money to hedge yourself. So it's a risk defined trade, meaning you know, exactly "Okay, I'm gonna put in, you know, $500 into this trade, or 1000, or 5000", or whatever you put, that's the most you can lose. And then you get a credit for doing it, meaning you get paid when you put the trade on. That credit is the most you can make. So now on the spreads that I do. So for example, let's say we have a stock that just going up and up and up and up. Right now, I like to play the trend, I like to play momentum. And so if it's going up and up and up, I'm going to sell calls. So I'll sell a call spread, I'll get paid for that. As long as the stock doesn't go below my calls, my trade makes money. And on those types of trades, I'm looking for about 10%, like I said, on a monthly basis. My iron condor would be doing that trade with puts and calls on the same stock at the same time. So you want, in that situation, you kind of want something that's going sideways, you want a stock or an index or something that's, you know, it's not moving too much. It's kind of lazy moving sideways, and so you sell some puts below it, and some calls above it. And so that way, you get paid for both you get paid for the calls, and you get paid for the puts. But you don't have to, you're not risking both sides, because you can only lose on one side. You know, so you have the same amount of risk as if you just did a one sided spread, but you get double the credit so you make twice as much money. Kyle: Right. Oh, I was found that the more complicated things get the worse I do at them. We'll have some links in the episode description explaining those a little bit better to anybody.  Dan: Yeah, I'll need to follow those. Yeah. Kyle: So you're looking to generate about 10%. 10% A month or return on your investment then? Allen: Yep, that's it. Yep, that's it go. I mean, you don't always get there, right? You're going to have months where you make less, there's going to be months when you lose money. So if I aim for 10, you know, I can think hey, you know, if I get five for the month, I'm happy. You know, that's 60% a year. That's that's pretty good. Yeah. So I cannot complain. There have been there have been years when I've done over 100% And then there'll be two years when I've lost money. So, but overall for the past 15 years. It's been working really, really well for me, so you know. Kyle: Yeah, it sounds like you're Your path kind of took the same path that mine actually took, like, that was what led me to quit my job is thinking like, I could sell contracts because you know, 80% of them or whatever, expire worthless, rather be on the side that has the math with it. And I'll just, I'll just basically trade the wheel and sell puts, you know, until I get the stock and then calls against it until they get taken away. Success has been mixed so far, but still not working. So. Oh, really? Well, we could talk about that. Well, it sounds like I need to read your book is what it really sounds like. Allen: Yeah, I mean, you know, right now, we're in a bull market. And so the puts that we've been doing the selling the puts, I mean, it's been, it's been working phenomenally, um, covered calls are doing well, as well, because we go pretty far out of the money. So like, you know, it's not always 80%, sometimes I'll go 85, 90 95%, depending on what I want to do. So in my retirement accounts, I don't want to lose my stock. And so I'll sell pretty far out of the money. So I'm not making as much on those. But I don't want to lose my stock. And I'm just looking for a little bit, you know, I'm looking for, you know, 1%, one and a half percent, maybe a month, and I'm happy with that. And so the naked eye, you know, it's also stock selection. And I think that's one of the issues that a lot of people get mistaken. People say that, "Oh, when you're selling options, you should be looking at the ones that are the most volatile names, because they have the most premium, and you get paid the most". To me, I think that's like a suicide mission. And, and I just want to be the, I just want to save ones that are boring, that are you know, everybody ignores them. You know, I like the small, the large, very large companies, they pay dividends, they don't move very much. Those are the ones I just want to cash flow, you know, I just want to be selling naked puts on them, they're not gonna drop 10%. If they do, it's like, it's like the, oh, my God, this thing dropped 10%. You know, that's good news. So I want to sell those, and I want to keep them and collect the dividends and then just get my cost basis down as far as I can get. Dan: Do you have a favorite company then that you find yourself going back to more than others? Allen: I like stuff like McDonald's, Walmart, Starbucks, you know, big names. Everybody's known them there around the world, they have dividends so you know, that they're if they're paying the dividend, they're still profitable. They're making money. You know, Apple is kind of joining that list, although Apple is still a little bit more volatile than the others. But yeah, stuff like that, you know, basic big name, dao components, most of them, one of them that I really liked, that hasn't has been doing really well over the past few years is Intuitive Surgical. It's is ISRG so it doesn't pay dividends. And it's not good. It doesn't have a lot of option volume, but for credit for covered calls, and naked puts it's good enough. And that stock has been doing really, really well for me for the last few years. So that's a particular name. Kyle: So yeah, some of these are pretty expensive, though. I mean, yeah, you gotta be real careful, you don't get stuck with a couple 100 shares, if you don't have the account to cover that. Allen: Yeah. So in that case, you know, what we can also do is you can always roll them. So if I get into a position where I'm sold a naked put and it goes into the money like I've done this with right now, my kid loves Roblox. I don't know if you have kids, but my kids are always on that game. And I was when it came out. I was like, Oh, this is cool, you know. So I sold some naked puts on it. And now they're in the money, and they've been in the money for like three months. So what I do is I just roll them to the next month. So about maybe a week or so before expiration, I will buy back the put the naked put and then sell it again for the next month, collect a little bit more premium, and then the trade just continues. Kyle: Hmm, that's interesting. Yeah. Wow, I didn't even think about doing that. That's awesome. Okay, so roll it over. I'm making notes for myself.  Allen: Now, these are on stocks that you actually think are eventually going to go back up, you know, if it's still going down, down, down, then you're like, No, you need to bail out and be like, yeah. But if it's a decent company with decent, you know, fundamentals, and you know, they're making money and all that stuff, then yeah, Kyle: I've always gravitated towards the cheaper stocks when trying to sell contracts, just because at least if I'm selling, and they could put on something that's only valued at like, $15, then I know I can't lose more than $15 a share. Allen: Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, like, my thinking is that I want to be in a company that I know is not going to zero, so I don't have to worry about it. Kyle: I mean, Ford for a while is trading around 15. It's at 18. Now, but yeah, I know for some solid companies that are in that range, right? There's a lot of other ones that aren't though. Allen: Like if it was a $200 stock, and now it's at 15 There's another issue going on there. Dan: Hertz is coming back. Good PR story. Damn it. Kyle: I'm gonna go back to losing $40,000 of your wife's money. So what were you doing that got you like we tried to day trade options were you.. Allen: I was doing a little bit everything I was day trading stocks, I was buying options. I was buying and selling like I was doing some value investing for a little bit. I'll be watching Kramer every night and looking at what's Kramer telling me to do. Okay, I'm gonna do this and that I would watch fast money every day and look for any anything that sold this is going up okay, hey, copper is going up. Let me buy some you know, SPX. Let me buy some of this. So trying to play the trend is trying to play all that stuff. I looked at futures, you know, trading futures a little bit, but that's,  that takes a lot of money. Kyle: There's no it actually takes less than you think. Really? $4,000 you can fund and account. Allen: Yeah, but then I mean, like you got Japanese. Japanese yen that takes that's a lot of money for a contracts. Dan: Okay, Yen is in micros now. Allen: Yeah, at that time, they didn't. They didn't I don't think they had those. Kyle: Probably. Yeah, I think minis were kind of new thing. Yeah. Allen: But yes, I was trying a little bit everything, whatever I could, whatever book I could find whatever video I could find. Just trying a little bit everything in nothing, nothing really worked for me. Kyle: So what was it that actually got you out of that? That, I guess Funk You can call it. Allen: So until for several months, my wife did not know that I was losing all the money. You know, she'd come home. And she actually, I mean bless her heart, she took a second job. So she's working two jobs while I'm at home trading. And, and we didn't have any kids at the time. So that was good. But you know, she she'd come home tired, and she wouldn't really want to talk about it. Because sometimes I'd be happy sometimes I'd be sad. She really couldn't tell what was going on. And then one day, she checked the mail and the account statement had come in the mail. And she's like, where's all the money?    Dan: Oh, no.    Allen: And I was like, Yeah, we need to talk about that. And then I feel, you know, I could tell that, you know, the marriage was on the ropes because we were newly married, and she had saved up for years working to save up this money. And so it was really a matter of, you know, I promise you that I will give me three months. That's what it boiled down to. So give me three months, I promise you, I will at least get back to breakeven or like, you know, not lose money every month, and then I'll start making it back. And if I don't, I'll get a job. So that was it. That was my ultimatum, I had three months to turn it around, or go back to, you know, the 9 to 5 grind.   Kyle: So I gotta ask you, one of the things that took us a while to learn was basically the number one job of being a trader is risk management. So what point during that journey did that finally kick it in your head? Risk is the most important thing. So you don't end up blowing up an account like that. Allen: It didn't really hit me for a long time, even after I started getting a little bit consistent. Really? Yeah. Kyle: That's interesting. Allen: You know, I kept going gung ho blazes forward until maybe like a year, year and a half. of really, you know, trading full time. The one thing the benefits of the selling options is that they're not that many losses, you know, you don't lose on too many trades, because it's set up to to help you win. And so that kind of helped me, but I would, I would have these huge losses, like if I'm making 10% on a trade, the idea was not to lose more than 25 to 30%. But I would be losing, you know, 40% 50% 60%. And I just couldn't get out of that hole. And I'll tell you, I'll tell you the secret. What turned it around. It was my wife, yeah. So she's like, cuz I was talking to her at this point. I'm like, Hey, this is working. This is not working. I'm doing this. I'm doing that. She goes, You know, it seems like you have everything you need. You're just not sticking to your own trading plan. Right? Yeah. Cuz I get emotional. You know, I think he's gonna turn around. I think he's gonna do this. But then, you know, CNBC said this, and then fox said this, and so she's like, oh, let's do this. She goes, I'm gonna come and check on you every day at a certain time and we're gonna go through each trade. And I'm gonna ask you questions, and then you have to answer. I'm like, Okay, let's do it. So she would come up, you know, she'd come upstairs to the office. And she'd be like, Alright, show me your trade. Alright, what's the goal? How much are you trying to make? Alright, where's it now? What's the trading plan? What happens if it goes down? You know, when are you going to adjust it? Or when are you going to get out? And then if I haven't gotten out yet, or if I haven't adjusted, then I have to answer why. Why? Yeah. And if I don't have a good answer, get out now. Allen: That's, that's really awesome, actually. So you just delegated your risk manager hat to your wife. Allen: Pretty much. And then, you know, there were times where I didn't want to have her breathing down my neck anymore. And so that's when I got better at it myself. And then, you know, after a while, she was like, Hey, I think you got it. You don't need me anymore.   Kyle: I know you say that you think that you're blessed to be to be able to do a dream job of earning money in the stock market and working in your PJs, but I think you I think you hit the lottery twice. It sounds like you really married a great woman. Allen: Oh, yes, I did. I did. And she hates me. He's telling this story about how I lost her money, she hates. She's like, you sound like such an idiot like a dumbass.  Allen: Yep. I think we all go through it. We all do it. Dan: Nobody just started out and just like, oh, every trade I've made. It's been great. What's your problem? Kyle: No, most people will blow up an account too. And that's why the things that we've been learning is, Dan and I are both trying to learn futures. So we're going through some courses with the trade pro Academy. I think we're I think Dan just flipped the live today, in week four now. But one of the main things with that is like, Okay, we fund the minimum amount we need in that account in case something goes wrong. You know, the most we can lose is whatever's in that account. Yeah, we're not going to fund it with you know, the life savings and then give ourselves you know a hundred thousand dollars  a full wrap with,   Allen: Yeah but the cool thing is, you know, you guys have each other to bounce ideas off to talk to, you know, a lot of people try to do it on their own. And they're just like, I did you know, I was lonely. I was doing, I couldn't figure out what was wrong. It didn't have anybody to talk to. Because I mean, you tried to talk to your neighbor, or your friends or your family like, oh, yeah, hey, I sold a, you know, a call spread. And they're like, "What? What the hell are you talking about?" I couldn't talk to anybody, so it's awesome that you guys have somebody. Kyle: Well, actually, I think the podcast for us is actually but what's taking the role of the wife explaining the moves? I mean, at the end of every episode, we do a good, bad and ugly segment where we talk about something that worked something that didn't work and something that was really bad. Allen: Yeah that's accountability. Right there. You got to tell the world. Kyle: So now, yeah, when you're getting ready to do something stupid, you're like, how do I really want to talk about this on Saturday? Okay, I'm looking at their your, your, your sheet here that you said this. And one of the things that I see on here that's really interesting is that you made a small investment for your four year old. Yep. What's the deal with that? Allen: Alright, so the biggest thing that I've been learning by talking to people and everything is that people are not people don't have enough saved for retirement. You know, that's like the one biggest thing and people come to us, and they're like, Hey, I, you know, I'm in my 50s, I just got laid off, you know, what am I gonna do? I don't know what to do. I got to figure out how to trade. I'm like, well, you're under a lot of pressure. I don't know if this is the right time, right. And so I didn't want my kids stuff to go through that. So currently, my wife has another business. Mm hmm. And so what we did was, we have three kids, we got a 10 year old nine year old and now she's five. So the little one is five. At that time, she was four, when we started this actually know when she was born is when we started this. So we took the kids, and we found a way for them to earn some money. And basically, we did it as we were their models. So they model and we take pictures of them for advertising, for our website, the brochures for my wife's business. And so the kids get paid for it. And that money then goes into their Roth IRA. Okay, so that they have no, there's no taxes, there's no income taxes on that money that they that they make, right? Because they're minors, and there's a certain limit, so I'm not an accountant. So don't, you know, none of us are, I don't think but when we started, you know, the rule was you can make up to 12,000 As a child, and it would not be taxed. And then you know, who knows what if that's going to change anytime soon, but we could pay them take that money, put 6000 into the Roth IRA. Now, you know, She's five years old. So we've been doing that for a few years. And currently, she has about $50,000 in her account. Now, you, you can look at, you know, you can do the math on any investment calculator. She's five years old, she's gonna retire in 60 years. So you take that 50,000 invested in let's say, an index fund, and you make 8% a year. Right? Compounded for 60 years. How much is she going to have at the end of that? 60 years? It's going to be well over $2 million. Right? That's if I don't put any more money into it. Yep. If she never touches it, she doesn't put anything else. You know, she's gonna have a $2 million retirements on when she when she's done. And, and that's without me doing any of my options stuff or, you know, doing anything.  Dan: There I say better than a college account fund. Allen: Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I mean, part of it is, you know, the money, she's gonna when she takes it out, she, when she retires, she won't have to pay any taxes on it. So we made the money, we didn't pay any taxes on it, she's gonna grow the money and not have to pay any taxes on and then she takes it out and there's so there's like no tax at all. It's like the only loophole I've seen like this.   Kyle: We might need to bleep some of that out just in case. That's interesting. We saw a story not too long ago about a senator proposing a bill to like, and I don't think there's any traction on the actual bill. But what was interesting was the math behind it. He said that I think it was about $2,200 for every newborn, put into an account for him, like that will basically make them retire as millionaires.  Allen: Yeah. I mean, if you start early enough, and you put it away, and you don't touch it, it just compounds and it works. And hopefully, it'll be at the same, you know, average at least 7 - 8% a year that the stock markets been doing historically. So you know, of course, things change in the future. We don't know. But I'm trying to just set these kids up in a way that can help them succeed, you know, and if you if you think about it, like if she doesn't have to worry about saving for retirement, then whatever she makes, she could like, enjoy it. She could give back to our community. She can you know, spend it do it everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Dan: Take care of you hopefully.. Kyle: That's smart. Allen: Yeah, that's the plan. Yes, that's my retirement. Kyle: Tell us a little bit about your company Option Genius. What do you guys do over there? Allen: So it started off as so when you sell options, you know, it's kind of boring. It's very, like I said, it's passive. It takes just a few minutes to put on a few trades, and then just watch him watch and watch. And so when I started doing it, I got bored. And so I would go and I would bother my wife. Hey, what you doing? What do you do? Oh, you're cooking that again? Oh, no. She's like, can you just get out of my hair? And I'm like, Well, no, cuz I don't have anything else to do. She goes, Why don't you like, teach other people how to do what you're doing? Oh, that's a good idea. So I started a website. And the idea was, you know, I'm gonna have one website, and I'll just do my trades, and I'll share them with other people. It'll be a membership site, they'll pay me for it. If they want to do the trades, great. If they want to learn, that's great, whatever. And, you know, hands off kind of thing that started doing really well it started growing and people start asking questions. How do you do this? How do you do? What about this strategy? What about this strategy, and it just grew from one website to many of them three. Now we have three different memberships, we got like three different courses and coaching programs, we got a couple of books out there to spread the word. And eventually, I got to the point where you know what, the emails that we would get from people would be so heartbreaking, that it's like, there's this better way that I think are found, and people don't know about it. Let me, let me expose let me share the message. And so that's really behind what Option Genius is. I mean, you know, not to brag, but you know, I'm trading a seven figure account. And so if I can make, you know, two or 3% on that in a month, I'm living a really, really nice lifestyle. You know, I don't, I don't have a private plane, I don't have a Lambo. I don't need any of that stuff. So we're really doing well. And so this is like, if it works great. If we can help other people great. If not, I can walk away. I don't need it. But we've we've been doing it for a while. And we've really, it's heart warming. When somebody comes in, oh, man, I just did my first trade. And I made 10% Oh, man. And we have we have our own podcast. And I've started to interview our students. And so they come on board. And they're like, you know, I had a small account, but we got one guy. He, we gave him a scholarship. Like every year, we have a scholarship to one of our courses. So he actually won the scholarship. And he's like, you know, I have a small account. It's like $4,000. And he's a teacher. And he does now what you were talking about the wheel. So he learned that from us, and he's doing it. And he's like, hey, you know, I made 30% this year from my wheel. So that goes awesome. Yeah. There's other guys. They're making, like 7, 8% 10%. We had one guy who came in, he lost his job. And then he's like, Hey, I'm in your program. What do I do? I'm like, do the follow up program. You paid for it. He started doing it, you know? And seven months later, he's like, Yeah, dude, I'm making 10 grand a month. I'm like, That's freaking awesome. And he goes, You know what he told me? He goes, I'm going back to work. I'm like, what? He goes, because it doesn't take any time. And I want to go back to work. Whatever floats your boat. Kyle: Learn a different skill. I mean, I guess that's what you want to do. I guess. It's funny though. The more people that we talk to, especially the ones that are really successful, that seems like they all want to give back somehow to the community. Allen: Mm hmm. Kyle: That seems to be a common theme and I don't really think see that in a lot of other industries. Allen: No. I mean, there's only so much money you can make, and it doesn't really make you that much happier anymore. But when you can like to have, you know, the Maslow's hierarchy with a triangle going up to be like self actualized you gotta have significance you got to give back. Mm, Dan: Yeah that's awesome. Oh, boy. Awesome. Okay. Allen: But I mean, you guys are doing that, you know, the podcast, and you guys are helping  Dan: We hope Kyle: Mostly they're learning what not to do. Allen: There's value in that as well. Kyle: Yeah, I think that was our tagline once "Let us lose the money for you". Dan: Oh, yeah, yeah, I've proven myself capable of that time and time again. Mm Kyle: hmm. All right, what else we got on here? And Dan got any other questions here? Dan: Yeah, so when you're starting out some people I mean, I know you mentioned you get somebody started as low as four grand Do you do you give people like a target, like try and get this much money together to start the ball rolling, or you just.. Allen: Um, you know, we say, we say, if you're going to do what we call passive trading, they can start with anything. But if you're going to go into something like just spreads or like futures options, and we say, start with about 10,000. But even then, you want to start off with paper trading, especially if you've never traded options before, because you need to, you need to know what buttons to push and you know, you don't want to hit the wrong button. Instead of the sale, you hit the buy. And it goes backwards. And you got to know what you're doing on the platform, the software, the broker software, before you start putting real money at risk. Dan: Yeah. Kyle: Is there a specific broker that you prefer? Allen: I have most of my money at Thinkorswim and tasty, but it doesn't really matter. Kyle: We've been getting more into Thinkorswim too. Yeah like their their bracket order than other options bracket. It took us a year to figure out the Active Trader even know it existed. But man that made a huge difference. Huge. Oh, you can just drag your stops. Dan: But that's more day trading options. Well, yeah. Well, we talked a little bit real quick, do you ever use the the ThinkOrSwim probabilities when you're looking at selling your options? Allen: Um, so we have a couple of different ways. I use the the desktop Thinkorswim Yeah. And so like, uh, you know, if you're looking at an option, right, you look at the option chain, and it tells you what the delta is, you can pretty quickly find out what is the probability of that option. So if it's delta 20, that means okay, this still this option has an 80% chance of probability of expiring worthless. If it's delta 10. It's got a 90% probability of expiring worthless. So that's kind of like rule of thumb, really quick table math, you know, where you could be like, Okay, I want to do this, or I'll look at the Analyze tab. You know, if it's a more complicated trade, then I'll look at the Analyze tab, and I'll use the numbers that they give me there. Dan: Okay. Okay. I remember that for a little bit with straddles and strangles. But I didn't have much success. Kyle: I think I heard that before with the Delta, but I never I pay attention to it more, because that's tell you how much the underlying will move, right? Like for every dollar that the  underlying moves, then you should see a 30 cent change if it's a 30 Delta, or 20 cent if it's 20. Allen: Yep. But I mean, I don't know how accurate that is, because it always changes all the time. So.. Kyle: Yes, that's true. Allen: It's like I thought it was gonna move 30 cents. Well, your Vega did this and the gamma did that. So. Okay, great. Thanks. Kyle: Plus, now the delta is different. Yeah. We started talking a little bit about crypto. Dan, should we move into move into that? Dan: I would love to talk about it, especially coming from somebody who educated their way into Options success. Do you have anything going with crypto? Allen: So I have been taking advantage of a couple times. We could talk about that. So I'm learning about currently a friend of mine introduced me to I guess they're called alt coins. You know, so I do have some of the big ones, you know, the Bitcoin, the Etherium whatnot. And those I've just holding on to so and then I just started because I have a lot of it. I have it at Coinbase. And so I've put up my Etherium for it was called staking or stocking. Kyle: Staking Allen: Oh, yes. Staking. Yeah, so they hold it on, they hold it for you and they pay you four and a half percent a year. So I'm like, Okay, I'm not gonna sell anyway, I might as well make some most of it. And I think, you know, it's been going up and up. So hopefully by the time I actually want to take it out, it's appreciated. And I will It'll made that four and a half percent, which is pretty good. And so I'm doing that. And then I'm starting to get into these alt coins and trying to figure out which ones are actually going to make it big. And which ones are scams and about, I guess 99% of them are scams. And like so my friends been showing me like, hey, you know, you can tell how much money was used to create this coin, and then are they allowed, are you allowed to sell coins? Or you're not allowed to sell coins? Or you know, what are the different little red flags that go hey, this coin is a scam this coin is a scam this coin maybe not be a scam. You know? And so you know, you put your money in and then if it goes up a little bit, you take your money out, and then you'll play with the house money and then you let it right kind of thing. Kyle: Yeah. So which coins have you found that piqued your interest then? Allen: So the one that I'm getting into right now, I haven't got like I'm pretty new at this. So I'm still learning and looking around. The one that I have found that has a good chance of success right now is called Floki. Kyle: Floki. Like the Norse god. Allen: Uh huh. Yeah Kyle: The trickster god. Allen: Yeah. Floki dot INU Floki.INU. And so his symbol is a dog with the viking helmet.  Okay. So it's it's one of the meme coins, but they're doing a ton of advertising. They're coming out with some actual use for the coin soon. You know, so that one has already gone up in value a lot. And there's probably a lot more to go in my opinion. So that's one that I'm going into. Kyle: What's one that you're that you found some red flags on them? Allen: There's been a bunch. The names I don't know off the top my head but there was one. Oh, it's like world peace earth or something like that. You know, there's like, so there's so many of them. There's like, they call them weird names. Whatever's trending at the moment like just endgame coin and Avengers coin. Dan: Oh, I just read a story that the squid game coin is apparently the creators fleeced everybody. What? Kyle: What, what's your thoughts on hamster coins? Jack Dorsey's favorite. He thinks that's gonna overtake Etherium. Allen: Oh, really? I haven't heard of that one. Dan: Nobody has. Kyle: Nobody has, I know. Dan: Don't listen to Jack Dorsey. That's all I have to say. Allen: I mean, you know, it's so it's, it's like the Wild West is full of gambling. And you know, the guy that teached me about it. He's like, Yeah, you know, we probably have maybe another year or two years before this all this stuff gets regulated. And all these alt coins are just gone.  Kyle: It's kind of started already to Yeah, Mm hmm. I think didn't I see something about the SEC getting authority over was stable coins, stable coins just issued today. Allen: Oh, that's today. Okay. Dan: Biden said if you don't do it, we'll issue an executive order to make it happen? So it's on the way? Yeah, it's happening. They're there. They're the beginnings of regulation. Or I should say not like, we won't get there for a bit.  Allen: So because I mean, we think that, you know, the people behind these coins are like, really sophisticated and smart developers, and they spent all this time and effort, you know, creating a coin. It costs like $1 to make a coin. Kyle: Yeah. Dan and I were actually looking at making our own. Yeah, the two bowls going. Allen: You know, so it's like, yeah, it doesn't take a lot. And it's pretty simple. And people, they're, like, new coins come out every like five minutes. There's a new board. And so it's like, geez, yeah, you're Kyle: Constantly fighting that delusion.  Allen: Mm hmm. So it's interesting. It's something that is, you know, I'm playing with it. But it's money that I can afford to lose. And the bread and butter is still, you know, stock market options trading. Kyle: That's why I was gonna ask you what I mean, because now that you have a real risk manager side to you, like, what's your, how do you limit your risk then onto that? I'm assuming you do it based on like, a small percentage of your portfolio or like this is probably just play around money, right, especially when you're learning? Allen: Yeah. Yeah. So um, you know, I bought 30 grand of Ethereum. And that's is what I'm about to put at risk and all this stuff. So, but some of these coins like they're brand new, right? So they're little, and they can go up 500, 800, 10000% and then they will back down. Yeah. You can have a really big move. And some of the people that I know, they've this year, this past year, and this is why I got into it, because they took like really small amounts, and they've made you know, they have a million dollars or $5 million, or $3 million worth of cryptocurrencies. And I was like, why aren't you selling, you know, yeah. And then they go off and they're like, Well, you know, it's gonna go up more and you know, I gotta pay taxes. I don't want to pay 50 2% taxes or more moved to Puerto Rico and so they have all their reasons for.. Dan: Transfer for a more stable one. Allen: Mm hmm. Kyle: Dan just had this same conversation with a couple of his friends. Dan: Yeah, yeah, mate. Yeah. Kyle: 50% on the latest dip on Bitcoin and then refuses to sell any Kyle: It's 10% Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's like like you're saying like, take your money out. Let let it be house money. Yeah, exactly. Not getting risk on anything come on.  Kyle: And then you got money to reload because it drops again. Yes, I want to have some ammo laying around the to jump into something when the opportunity strikes Allen: Yep. Now I think you guys are you guys are traders you know you guys are watching the markets, you guys are there in the front of the screen, I'm not that much into it, you know, I'll keep my screen open but I'm not checking all the time. And so for me that's a little bit harder. And so, you know, I for my bitcoin and Etherium or whatever I'm not, I'm not selling, you know, even if it dips or goes up, I'm not selling I know I'm gonna hold it for another maybe 10-15 years. So hopefully it keeps going up, but we'll see how it goes. But for now the idea was, hey, just buy it, hold it. And if it keeps going up maybe you add a little bit here and there. So I've been doing that.  Dan: No,but yeah, that's your plan. It's a long term plan. You're not trying to strike it rich the people that are buying into these things trying to strike it rich and then refusing to ever sell. Allen: Oh, that's silly. Yeah Dan: Yes. Like you gotta get paid some point Allen: There was one guy on the had an article where he became a Dodge coin millionaire and he's like, I'm not selling like.. Dan: Oh, no, not a millionaire anymore. Allen: What's the point? Dan: You never were a millionaire, coz you never sold. Kyle: Exactly. Have you come across anything? I guess staking is kind of similar to derivatives. But like, If there comes a time where you can sell calls on your Bitcoin you can do something like that.  Allen: So yeah, so they just came out with, is it bati? I forget the name of it.  Dang it. The the first ETF Bitcoin ETF just came out. Dan: That's Yes, that's right. Um, that was a futures based one too, though, isn't it? Allen: Bitl. There we go. So, that's tradable. And that that has options. So, you know, right now it's at $39. I don't know if that's cheap enough for your wheel. But.. Dan: I think what cuz that's if that's based around a futures contract, it's going to be constantly losing money too overtime, right? Allen: Probably. Dan: Won't you get like double decay if you. So decay of the futures contract. And every time, Allen: Yeah every time they roll it forward a month they lose, right? Because I have all the fees and stuff to pay. So that is something.. Dan: That might be a really good one to sell Options. Allen: Yep. So I mean, I, you know, I've sold some calls on it, because I was like, Okay, if bitcoin goes up, and they're saying, you know, bitcoins gonna be 100,000 by the end of the year, I was like, Okay, I'll sell some calls on it. And or no, sorry, I'll buy some calls. I bought some calls. This is one of the few ones where I'm actually buying calls. Now that trade is still negative. But you know, it's a bet, you know, it's a bet. If it goes up, great. Dan: Yeah, just manage that risk. Allen: Mm hmm. Dan: So let's wrap things up with I want to ask you some questions about just some of the most common mistakes that you see from your students, or just the biggest struggles that they have and how they had to overcome those. Okay, yeah. So if you're going to give us like, just the top couple pitches, see? Allen: Okay, so first off, I would say is that they try to do too much too soon. And so one of the things that I always stress is, Hey, pick one strategy that fits who you are. And just focus on that one strategy, get really good at it, hammer it, do back testing, or get some back testing software, pay for it if you have to, and just do trade after trade after trade after trade until you understand it, until it's like, you know, second nature to you and you're consistently profitable. Only at that time, should you then venture off and say okay, let me add another strategy. Right. So that's the that's the first thing that I tell everybody a second thing is not all strategies are for every person. Mm hmm. Like for me if you told me Hey, you know, I'm gonna put a gun to your head and you have to be be profitable at futures trading, or be like well, you know, goodbye Allen: You know, tell my wife I love here. you know, telling her that life insurance is very well Allen: So it's not for me, you know, my temperament my style, the way I I am the risk temper the the risk appetite that I have is different than everybody else. And so you got to figure out what strategy and there's 1000 strategies and there's every every strategy out there you can make money there are people out there making money with futures day trading and, and Options on futures and, you know, pairs trading and whatever you can think of people are doing it, some of them making money, most are not, but if you find the thing that fits you and you're like, you know what, this this really, really makes sense to me, I really get this, then that's the one that you should focus on. Most people are just like, Oh, hey, you know, I found my friend is doing this or I can make a lot of money doing this or I saw an advertisement, I saw an email, and then they run into it, and then they get blown out of the water. Dan: We actually just had a discussion on that not too long ago, Dan, about, you know, when you try to copy somebody else's strategy, it's not your own, you don't have time and effort that you've got put into learning it, you're not passionate about it. So what you're saying makes a whole lot of sense. Like, yeah, you need to find the thing that speaks to you.  Allen: Mm hmm. And I guess, if I give you one more, it'll be that time goes by a lot faster than we realize, hmm. And so if there are people out there that have already paved the way, and you know, for a fact that they're doing well, then just do what they're doing, you know, or at least learn from them. Yeah, learn from, you know, if you can hire them, hire them, and just see what they're doing, learn, watch their strategies, and just do what they're doing. And hopefully it should work, right. And then you can tweak it once you do what they're doing. And once you're getting good results, then you can start tweaking it and be like, okay, you know, I'm gonna make it a little bit more conservative, a little more aggressive, a little bit this little bit that, but follow the plan first, you know, make it work, and then you add your own twist to it. We have so many people that come in, they're like, you know, I've been following you or I've been listening to you for two years. Okay, how many trades have you done? Well, not really. You know, I've been trying to do it on my own and watching free YouTube videos, like, Okay, well, you only get so far watching free Youtube videos, because you don't number one, you don't know how legit they're right? That's one thing. Anybody can like I say that, you know, any idiot can make a YouTube video. Allen: It used to be hard to write a book, you know, you have to go to a publisher get published and have references and all that stuff nowadays. Man, you put up a PDF on Amazon, it takes like a weekend. So don't be like, Oh, I'm an author. Okay, great. You know, everybody's an author. No. So it's really you got to be really careful of what you listen to. Kyle: Speaking of which, where can they find your book? PassiveTrading.com. Yeah, that's PassiveTrading.com. It's a free book, you know, just pay for the shipping, and we'll ship you out a printed copy of it. Dan: So PassiveTrading.com, we'll link in the description for that. Yeah. Is there anything else that you want to share with the listeners before we sign off here? Allen: No. I mean, it's been a lot of fun. You know, you guys, you guys are awesome. And I love it that you guys are honest. And you share the wins and the losses. Most of the time, you only see oh, I made 1,000,000% Oh, I made 20%. You don't see the losses, you don't see the the nitty gritty behind the scenes stuff. And you guys are showing that. So that's I love that part.  Dan: Well it's the same thing with gamblers too, right? You talk to a guy who goes to the casino and says, Oh, I won $300 last night. Oh, how much did you lose the night before? Yeah. Allen: Um, but yeah, I mean, if people are interested in Options, it's a great, it's a great way to add some passive money, you know? And if that's, if that fits, you know, it doesn't fit for everybody. Like some people, they come in and, and they're like, Yeah, I'm trying to do this, but I'm, I'm doing this and do that. I'm like, Dude, you're too aggressive. You know, if you want to be trading every day or every other day, then this is not for you. You know, find something you can do this part time, and then do with the rest of your time. Play something that fits your style more, but that's really important. You know, find your style, and then it'll just it just a whole lot easier. It's just which is way easier. Dan: What else can they, so we find your OptionGenius.com. You've also got your podcast. Allen: Yep. It's called the Option Genius Podcast. Kyle: Oh, hey. Allen: Yeah, we got really creative with our very own brains. Dan: All right, perfect. Yeah, we'll make sure we link all that stuff. Right. So if anybody wants to find out more they can check it out the description. Kyle: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us Allen, this has been a great conversation all of your your knowledge and experience has been a good time to listen to. We really appreciate you coming by the shop and talking with us today. Dan: Yeah, the hardships too, because I feel like you learn more from those sometimes.  Allen: Mm, yeah. They hit on the head. You know, sometimes you got to do it over and over again. Eventually, they eventually they sink in. Kyle: Alright, well there you have it, folks. We'll have all of that fun stuff in the episode description all those links for you. Any parting word, Allen? Allen: Just you know, I I tell everybody you know, trade with the odds in your favor.  Dan: The odds be ever in your favor. Kyle: It's like in the movie? Kyle: All right. Well, I guess it's time to kick everybody out. You don't got to go home but you can't stay here. Until next time. Happy trades. Allen: Bye, guys.   LOVE ALLEN SAMA - OPTION GENIUS AND WANT TO LEARN MORE TRADING TIPS  AND TRICKS? HERE ARE SOME NEXT STEPS... SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PODCAST FREE 9 LESSON COURSE: https://optiongenius.com/  WATCH THIS FREE TRAINING: https://passivetrading.com  JOIN OUR PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP: https://optiongenius.com/alliance  Like our show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps.

Allen: Welcome passive traders. Welcome to another edition of the podcast today I have with me my good friend Alex. Alex is one of our graduates of our credit spread Mastery program and I brought him on to talk about what it was like in the program, what his results have been, and what he sees for the future. Alex, how're you doing today? Alex: I'm doing great. Allen: Awesome. Awesome, cool. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, you know, how you got into options, what you do full time, all that kind of good stuff? Alex: Sure, I worked in the corporate world for about 15 years and always invest in real estate. And in 2015, I left the corporate world to focus 100% on real estate. But as far as option trading, you know, in real estate, there are lulls in activity, you know, whether you're caught up in in building and planning, or, as we were discussing earlier, there's a global pandemic. So the Option Trading provided the prospect of additional streams of income. So I had a good friend that actually a family member has been trading options for decades. And he kind of figured out all the stuff you figured out, and they told me about it. And they basically said, Hey, there's this guy, the Option Genius. Of all the crazy programs and snake oil salesmen out there, you know, they said, This guy's he knows what he's doing. His strategies are legitimate. So that's how I kind of got turned on to your stuff. Allen: Awesome. Sounds good. So basically, it was I mean, you're in California, you know, I know you're doing well for yourself. It was basically I need, I'm gonna diversify income, and I'm gonna just try to learn this new skill, or was it more to it? Alex: No, that's exactly it. I mean, we have multiple streams of income. And we're always looking for additional streams. And this, again, based on the family friend that introduced us to you and your program, and this style of trading, we just seem like a very viable additional stream of income. Allen: So you're not looking to quit what you're doing and just go full time trading. This is something in addition to what you're already doing? Alex: Yes. Yeah. But not not yet. You know, I started out I did your program. I started out slowly, I started with the paper trades. And then.. Allen: Well, that's because you had never traded options before. That was your first time doing anything. Right? Alex: Exactly, exactly. I never traded options. I mocked around in the past with securities, but you know, probably lost a bunch of money doing it. So you know, this is really my first introduction to Option Trading. Allen: And how did it go? Alex: I think it's gone great. I've learned a ton. So like I said, I started out with paper trading. And then probably the end of March, I started with my real trades, I can tell you I did since the end of March, I've placed 46 trades, I currently have three active trades for those three trades. So far, so good. They're set to expire at the end of next week, of the trades I've placed, I had 37 out of 43 were successful. So that's like an 86% success rate, the longest run I had was about 14 successful trades. And you know, so interestingly enough, I started out at the end of March, and then by the beginning of June, I was up by 1100 bucks. So again, these are small trades, like 50 bucks or so and potential earnings and, and so on for potential profit. And then all of a sudden, by the end of June, I was actually at $35. So, so what happened was I placed a few trades, and you know, a bunch of them were the potential profit was somewhere around $50. And then there are other trades that maybe are based on the spread or the actual stock or the option. You know, they were worth 100 bucks, potential profit, or max profit. And some of those just didn't go my way. So that I don't know, if the term the trades weren't exactly balanced. So those six trades took me you know, that didn't go well took me from 1100 bucks down to $35. A couple I made mistakes that, you know, like, one was Amazon, I lost about 250 bucks on that. And that was because I placed a trade too soon after earnings, which and I can hear you in my heads. Oh, the credit spread mastery sessions and we're, you know, we're too close to earnings or not before earnings, but after earnings, you know, and the stock got a little bit of a bump, yeah, after earnings and started heading south. But you know, and then a few others like United rentals or Norfolk Southern, they're just larger trades, and they just didn't go well, or they didn't go my way. So.. Allen: So that was basically you were trying to scale it up a little bit or it was just it just happened that they were.. Alex: It's just at that time. I wasn't aware of it. You know, it's interesting, looking back how much I've learned and how much more aware I am of what's happening in the trades, and I have a better sense of what's a good trade, I have a better sense of what's actually trending well. And since I started I got back on the horse in early July. Since then I'm nine for nine In all my all my trades are somewhere around 100 bucks max profit I made sure that I had, they're all balanced. So if I take a hit, you know, for all the wins that one hit won't wipe me out. Allen: So is that 10%? The 100 bucks? Alex: Yes, yes. Yeah, right. I get out of 10% on every trade. So.. Allen: Okay, so basically, you learned your lesson, you figured out like, okay, hey, this needs to be balanced, they'll need to be the same amount. It'll make it easier for me. And then, since then you've recovered. And now.. Alex: Yeah, at this point, I'm at year to date, I'm at 1040. Allen: Good. Alex: I'm up 1040 so.. Allen: How much are you playing with? Alex: I have 15 grand in the account. Okay. Just, you know, again, just, they're not huge transactions. But again, they're all about max profit, or somewhere around $100. And I'd like to start scaling up. Allen: Yeah, yeah. So I mean, it's a wonderful place to start, you need to go from zero to not knowing anything about options to where you are now, where you're like, Hey, I'm consistently being profitable on these traits. And I think now from (inaudible), I believe you do have that confidence that, hey, you know, what this stuff works? If I follow it, if I do it, and I just, you know, put in put in the effort, it's gonna like you, you it's like an ATM machine that or like a slot machine, you know, putting the money you get the money back, you get more back, right? Alex: No, for sure. For sure. And I you know, it's during the the class, I used to ask a lot of questions. And you would say, just you got to go for it. You got to you got to place the trades. And it's, you know, volume. And I can see that it's the more you do it, the more you develop that sixth sense that you always talk about and you put yourself in a better position to see success. Allen: Yeah, I mean, what I remember is that you were you were trying to overthink it, you know? Yeah, it's like, okay, I'm looking at this trade. And there's just one little thing that is like, not perfect. Do I do it? I'm like yes. Allen: Yeah, like six months from now, they're saying that they're not going to have you know, they're gonna have this problem. Like, no, yeah. Let's put it on and see how it goes. Because, and I love the fact that you are starting out small. I mean, obviously, you can go much bigger if you wanted to. But you're like, hey, you know what I'm going to, you know, play with this, I'm going to learn it. I'm not going to risk a lot. Because a lot of people they come in and they, you know, they start off with big numbers right away. Some people come to us like I had one guy. Just yesterday, before he emailed me, he goes, "You know, I have $9,000 but I can't do this. It's like, why? Because I only have $9,000?" You can't, but you could learn it. Right? I mean You could learn you don't have to use the 9000 to you don't even need 9000 to learn. You can do paper trade, like you did. And you start off and you do it, do it, do it. You gain confidence. And then you put a little bit in each one. And then it just grows and grows and grows. Are you at the point now where you feel that you're going to start putting a little bit more money into each one? Alex: Yeah, like I said, I coming into June, I was doing really well. And then I though there are several trades that that almost basically wiped me out and wiped me out. We're talking less than 1000 bucks. But it didn't Allen: It didn't hurt you. Because I mean, that was your profits that you gave back. You didn't go actually go negative. So.. Alex: No so yeah, so now I'm a little more focused. And I upped each trade, like I said, max profit of somewhere around 100 bucks. And so far, so good nine for nine and, you know, slowly ramp it up. So my, you know, my goal for the year is to end up profitable so that, you know, I see some of your, many of your students have seen incredible success. And some of the some of the people in the very class that I was in and make 1000s of dollars or exponentially grow their, their accounts. I'm happy just to be profitable this year. I'm okay to you know, being slow and steady, you know, are taking that approach. Allen: Looking at the long run, the long term picture. Alex: Yeah, I'm a real estate investor. So, you know, we we, um, you can make a killing in real estate, but we were we're primarily buy and hold. You know, we've, I mentioned we started building houses a couple years ago, but by and large, our strategy has been buy and hold. So.. Allen: And it's worked well for you. Alex: Yeah and we're talking about option trading. We're not talking about buying and holding but my point is, it's about you know, the, the broader horizon or the, you know, thinking about the long haul. Allen: Yeah. And I love it that you understand your temperament. You understand your personality, you know, because sometimes somebody in your shoes where they're like, You know what I want, I want to take it long term, or I feel more comfortable when it moves slowly. And then they start doing something that goes against that and they started like day trading or buying options and trying to make 1,000% overnight, and internally, they can't handle it, you know, emotionally, it's like they don't understand why they're not doing well is because, you know, their temperament or their personality doesn't jive with that way of doing it. So I love that you found a balance, and you're not worried about everybody else, you know, it's like, oh, yeah, hey, you know, this guy made 50% this year. Okay, great. I made 100 bucks, I'm okay, I, you know, I got my confidence, I got my practice, I did it over and over again. And I proved it that, hey, this can this can work for me. And so you have from now until the end of your days to keep doing it, and compounding it and compounding and you know, the effort, you know, like, when you start compounding the money, it just gets larger and larger and larger. So what, you know, $100 right now might not sound like a lot to some people, but that $100 is going to grow and grow. And five years from now, it's going to be 1000 to trade and then 10,000 to trades and 20,000. So, cool. Awesome. So I mean, was there anything that anything that was holding you back? Was there anything that didn't click for you right away,or? Alex: I used to sell software, and I was working in Silicon Valley during the internet boom, you know, the whole dotcom thing. So I dabbled in, in a number of tech stocks and so on. Beyond that, I had zero experience. And as far as options, forget it, I dated a girl that went on to trade options commercially. That's about that was the that's about the extent of my experience with options. So I knew absolutely nothing. And just like the logistics of placing trades, and so on. And so many of the things, we talked about your strategies until you actually do it. For me, personally, I had to do it a bunch of times to really internalize it. You know, like I said, simply, you know, what does it mean, for a stock to be trending nicely, you know, or positively, I have a better sense of what that is, at this point. So yeah, it's interesting, I think this is so much like real estate. In real estate, you always say, trade with the odds in your favor. And, you know, that's what the Option Genius is all about. That's what we do in real estate. I mean, you, you do due diligence, you know, and there's there's definitely luck involved. But if you do due diligence, you're investing with the odds in your favor. You know it's, you know, that's how you ensure success, and slowly, slowly build it up. So but anyway, to answer to go back to your question, I, you know, this is you have to figure out how to actually place the trades which can be a challenge in itself, and really internalizing what all these strategies are and how to actually implement them successfully. It just took a little time, but I don't really feel like there were any major barriers are, or challenges, you know. Allen: So it was just because it was all brand new, just.. Alex: Yeah, yeah. And then mentally, you know, I, I'm doing what works for me, you know, mentally building up the size of my trades, or scaling up, I'm scaling up at my pace based on what works for me, like we were just saying, Allen: Yeah, and I mean, the scaling part of it, it's all, it's gonna be all emotional. Because once you have the skill of finding the trade, putting it on monitoring and and managing it, then it's just a matter of zeros, whether you do one contract or 10 contract or 100 contracts, right? Almost all of it is identical. So the hardest part is being profitable, like you said, and then after that, you can just add to it, and then you just managing your emotions and be like, Okay, I'm taking too much risk. I know, I'm feeling stressed out, I'm going to cut it down, or, you know, or, Hey, I feel good about this. Alright, let's, let's, let's go a little bit, let's put the pedal down a little bit. But I also like the other thing, that in options, there are like 1001 different strategies that people could do, you know, everything from under the sun. But you came in and you join the credit card mastery course where we only do one strategy. And that's the one you learned. That's the one you're still trading you haven't, you know, been like, Okay, I like this. This is good. Now, let me go learn something else. Now, let me go learn another one. Let me go let it go. I know you just stuck to that one. And you're at that point where like, Okay, I'm gonna get good at this one. And then we'll see what happens later on. Alex: No, exactly. I mean, by staying focused, I have a better chance of success. And by staying focus, I am learning so much that I know when I start to expand my strategies, or incorporate other strategies, everything I'm learning now by focusing on this one strategy will benefit me. I know towards the end of the course, we got into some of them some other strategies and some more complex strategies. And I just I said, That's not for me. I can't I don't want to hear it right now. You know, I mean, ideally, I'd like to start acquiring using your strategies and acquiring stocks holding on benefiting from the dividends and so on. I just right now, I'm still focused on the credit spreads. Allen: Great. That's awesome. I mean, you know what you want you going after that.Nobody can fault you for that. So give me a couple of takeaways from your trading journey so far, what have you learned? Alex: Yeah, I think it's, you can trade with the odds in your favor, you can put yourself in a position to realize consistent returns, I think you know, that the credit spreads are one thing, but you know, like, you're saying, that should be a small percentage of your portfolio, I see, I just see a lot of potential, you know, again, I mentioned I sold software for a number of years, I was I was a lot of these tech stocks that were blowing up, I was, you know, interacting with these companies directly. And I never really paid much attention to stocks, I just, I was always a did my job. And then I was, I was investing in real estate on the side. So it's just really opened my eyes to the potential of the stock market and investing and, you know, I, I really look forward to building up a portfolio where I have a stream of dividends coming in, and you know, leveraging your strategies to secure those stocks. Allen: Yep. Yeah. And it's gonna be kind of like, buy and hold, you know, it's gonna be like, Yeah, we're gonna own it, and we're gonna collect income every month. We're just gonna rent those suckers out to like income every month. So what was it that surprised you the most about options? Alex: I don't say how easy it is. But that that, that you can actually implement a specific strategy and get consistent results. And I hope I don't sound like a commercial for Option Genius. But that's yeah, that's like I've always thought, you know, even with all the financial regulations in place, you still don't know what's happening within a company, what decisions they're making, what shenanigans are going on. And it's just, it's not so much about the company, it's about what the stock is doing. I mean, outside factors can impact the performance of the stock, but it's what the actual stock is doing in the market versus the performance of the company is that Is that fair to say? Allen: Yeah, I mean, like when we're talking about when we're looking at our layup spreads, you know, it's a one month trade. So, if something is there, that's going to impact the company a year from now, two years from now, it doesn't make any difference to us. We're only worried about, you know, from the start of the trade to the end of the trade. And then we're not worried about the fundamentals or all that other stuff that that happens. If the trade looks good, we'll get in. If not, we don't we skip, and we don't have to do the same trade on the same stock every month. Right? We can we can vary it and move it around. But that said, we do like, there are certain times where we want to go into the same stock over and over again, because they do have a good fundamental picture. They are growing, they're, they're hiring more people, they're getting more customers, or building revenue or more stores or whatever, you know, and the stock will then continue to trend in our in one direction, which makes it easier for us to figure out okay, how do we want to play this? Alex: So actually, I got into Costco three times since June. They've been going up and up and up, you know? So, yeah. Allen: And the end, the cool thing is that, you know, you take a look at Costco, it's like, oh, this chart is doing really well, the stock is going up. Okay, well, if you had bought the stock at the bottom, or whatever it was, and you had hold it to the top, how much would you have made, compared to if you had done spreads on it, you know, from that same time period over and over and over again, wish would have been better? Well, the spread would have, you know, totally kicked it that the stock might have gone up like 20, 30%, and we've been up like 40, 50%. So you're looking at the same thing, and you're looking okay, do I want to buy it? Or do I want to just sell spreads on it? And the spreads if it's continuing to trend in one direction, the spread will always do better than that. So but is that one of your, you have any other favorites besides Costco that you've been playing? Alex: Not really. I mean, I don't think I've been doing it long enough. I guess SPX is another one I invested in several times since I started trading at the end of March. And I've been I have yet to, that is yet to fail me, so.. Allen: Right. So class started in January, you started with real money in March. Right now it's what is it? Start of September. So March, April, May, June, July, August, September. So seven months? You've been doing it for seven months? Cool. So do you feel that you're confident right now that you understand it? You got to you've if you needed to if you had to you could scale it up right now? Alex: Yeah, I think I think I could. I'm infinitely more confident than I was in January. The revelation that all the trades have to be balanced and so on. June was a turning point. I would say, okay, like I said, I started out up 1100 bucks and then all of a sudden at the end of the month I was at 35 bucks. I'm I'm trying to think what the word is.. Allen: It's like a wake up call? Alex: It's like a milestone or.. Allen: A turning point. Alex: Yeah, a turning point. I am at another level at this point. Allen: Okay. All right. So how long do you think it would take somebody else to to go from zero to okay, now I can actually do this, on average, like, how long do you think it should take somebody? Alex: I would say reasonably, two to three months, being part of your class was super helpful when you have the opportunity to work with someone that, you know, with your level of expertise and knowledge. That was huge. That was tremendous. I mean, every week jumping on the call, and going through watching everything you're doing, and hearing your thoughts about specific trades, and so on. That was that was tremendous. So that helps a lot. So I, you know, for me, it was two to three months where I was, you know, able to figure it out and start trading. Allen: And how much time did you put into the learning aspect and the doing it and focusing and watching the calls and all that stuff? Alex: Yeah. So I made an investment in your programs I wanted to get, I wanted to make the most of it. So we had the class every week, and then I, several times a week, I'd go back and listen to the, you know what, listen to the videos, I say, listen to the videos, I'd pull them up as I was, you know, exercising or whatever. And then I'd stop and make notes either on my phone or in my notebook, you know, but I had, I have notes of every class and, you know, go back and make sure I really understood everything go through with a fine toothcomb and truthfully, I haven't looked at the videos in a few months. But every time I'd go back and review the videos, it was like, oh, you know, it always find half a dozen new gems, you know? So, but so yeah, I would, I would spend several hours a week, in addition to the actual official session we had every afternoon, you know, every year. Allen: So but between between the the class time and the study time and the trading that you did, so, you know, like somebody listening to this, they're like, Yeah, you know what, I want to start this, but how much time should I put into it? How much time should it take me every week that they would devote to this? Alex: Yeah, I mean it's if starting off 5 to 10 hours a week, Allen: 5 to 10 a week, okay. Alex: I would say, you know, just thinking, you know, including the class and going back and transcribing the videos. And then doing my own trades, you know, I did 40. I've done 46 real trades today, but I did 37 paper trades. Some of them were purely recommendations from that you provided with us. So you provide it to the class and others were ones that I found on my own. In several instances, I identified a trade and then a few days later that you selected the same stock for the class. So that was, that was encouraging. But uhm. Allen: Okay. I mean, yeah, cuz sometimes people are like, you know, I work a job. I don't know if I could do this, but five to 10 hours a week, I think anybody, if they're serious about learning a new skill, learning about changing, you know, something that could change their life, potentially, I don't think five to 10 hours a week, is that big of a commitment or sacrifice to do something like this.. Alex: Yeah, no. And, you know, the things don't happen by magic. You know, I always like the the saying, the harder you work, the luckier you get. We create our luck, you know, and now I am nowhere near the expert that you and many people like you are, but you know, probably a couple days a week, I sit down and go through my list looking for trades. And then you know, maybe I have to sit if something's not going right, I have to make an adjustment. But now it's probably an hour, two hours, max per week. And that's, you know, that's being in not even two hours a week. You know, my trades. So.. Allen: Sweet. Yeah, I mean, so took a little bit in the beginning. But then once you got the hang of it, then obviously, it's gonna continue down. And now it's just, hey, it's already ingrained. I know what to do. I don't have to go watch the video and say, oh, what would Allen do in this situation? What am I supposed to do here? What does this mean? Now that you've done it so many times? It's just like second nature, where you're like, Okay, boom, boom, boom, steps up steps already in your head. Alex: Right, exactly. Allen: That was the reason that we did the class and the way we did it, where it's like, every week, we get on the call, and we just go through it step by step by step over and over and over again. So you guys can see it and ask questions along the way. And then you guys go, and you do it on your own. And then when you're like, oh, wait a minute, I got stuck. And then you come back and you say, Hey, I got stuck here. And I know you were the I mean, to be honest, you asked more questions than anybody else. And I loved it. And I was like, Man, this guy is into it. This guy's exciting guy. Yeah, he's doing great, you know, because you kept asking and asking and asking. And it really, really helped. Not only you, but also it helped me because I'm like, Okay, this is where they didn't understand. You know, like, if you came, you ask a question. I'm like, Man, I covered that. Okay, but he didn't get it. So let me go and go more detail. You know, let me make another video to address that specific. So he made the class better. So I wanted to thank you for that as well. Alex: I appreciate it. Yeah, I'm not afraid to ask dumb questions, that's for sure. But no, I mean, we'd kind of kind of compiled a list of all the things that we need to look for in a trade and what makes a good trade. And initially, I would go through my list line item by line item. And at this point, I just didn't, you know, I just, it's, I get it in my head, and I just go through, like you said, boom, boom, boom, and then I'm off to the next thing. So, in full disclosure, I probably spend more time than I need to watching like, a couple times a day, I'll pull up my phone and look at Thinkorswim to see how things are doing. And maybe down the road, I won't do that so much, but I still am curious and think about it during the day. Allen: So well, as you scale, it'll be more and more important to do that, you know, and like, I know, you have the funds that you could put into it. So when you do when you're not so busy and doing the other stuff. And you're like, Okay, let me let me make this a bigger part of the portfolio. At that point. You're gonna Yeah, I mean, but it doesn't even take that long. You know, it's like, Oh, hey, I'm going to the bathroom. Let me check my trades. Oh, okay, cool. Done, you know, but it's, to me, at least it's fun. You know, it's like, it's like, points, like, you're playing a video game. And it's just joins, and they're going up and down. And like, oh, no, I got it. So, to me, it's an interesting part of.. Alex: Yeah, no I really enjoy the process sitting down, I pull up my list, and I just, I go through it, I look at the charts. And, you know, I document, you know, something looks interesting, I write it down, I might do some analysis on it. And then once I go through the list, I come back and, and place my trade. So I really enjoy the process. Awesome. And then like I said, this is just like real estate, we, in real estate, you invest with the odds in your favor. And with the credit spreads and all the other options, strategies, you're investing with the odds, and you're trading with the options in your favor, you know, so just it just makes sense to me. Allen: Cool. So what do you what do you think the future is gonna hold for you now? Alex: I'm, like I said, I'm very interested in the passive trading formula program you have, I just, I want to be I want to, if I do it, I want to be present and focused on it. We're just like I said, we got a lot, we have a lot going on at the moment. But I want to expand my portfolio, I want to expand beyond credit spreads, I want to start using these strategies to buy and hold hold stocks for a longer period of time. And, you know, who knows, like when I'm not when I'm out, you know, as a landlord, fixing a, you know, I'm sitting under a sink, fixing a leaky pipe or chasing a tradesman to do something, you know, to fix something that they messed up on a build. I think about how nice would be to just sit behind my computer and have 100% of my income come from options. Yeah. Allen: You think that's ever gonna happen? Maybe we're gonna make that switch? Alex: Maybe I mentioned that family friend that has that was his has been doing this for decades. I mean, this, this is what he does, you know, he's got a significant stream of income from trading options. I think I told you about him. And I think his he loves Tesla. I guess that's what he focuses on a lot right now or the past so many years. So yeah. But he you know, he has a more than healthy stream of income, some purely from doing that. Allen: Right. Now, do you guys sit down and compare notes or get together? Alex: So I keep saying it's a family friend, this is a really good a couple of you know, it's one of my wife's childhood friends. It's her grandfather. So I talked like, he's the guy I don't, I've met him several times. But a lot of my what I'm sharing comes through the his granddaughter. So I'm actually trying to set up some time to sit down and talk to him specifically about this. Allen: She's the oil program yeah? Alex: He's in the oil program, and then she does she trades options on her or she sells options on her own based on what her grandfather taught her. Allen: That's awesome. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, you can see it right. It goes from generation to generation. And if you can pass that trade along, it's like, Man, my kids, my grandkids, they're not gonna have to work. They'll know what to do. And it's like using your mind instead of your skills and your body to actually go out and manual labor to do something. So it's really exciting. And I think you got lucky in that sense, where, you know, she, she introduced you to this world, but then you took it to the next level, and you're like, Hey, I'm going to learn this and you put in the time, the effort, and now you're seeing that it works. I still want to see you scale it a lot more. Alex: I'm sorry, I can't report huge earnings. But that's.. Allen: No no no, that's fine. It's not it's not about that. It's it's you know, the fact that you're doing it that's that's a that's a good thing, you know, and you're getting there you're doing it but I want to see you get a better for the time that you put in I want to see you get a better income back. You know what I mean? Because I know you could do it. I have I have 100% faith in you. I know you're doing it. I know you know how to do it. But instead of making just 100 bucks I want you to make like 1000 bucks per trade. So it's like, hey, yeah, you know, a little bit more skin in the game. I feel a lot more fun too. Alex: Yeah, you know, I'll tell you so I said in June I that's when I realized like, hey, all these trades have to be the same amount and I need to I need to scale up from 50 bucks a trade and Honestly, going from 50 to 100, was it took a little bit of a leap of faith. But already, you know, just several weeks later, I'm like, what was the big deal? You know? So.. Allen: It's all mental. It's all emotional, you know? And eventually, you know, you'll do it from 100, you go to 200 to 250. How many trades at one time do you put on? Alex: I was doing as many as 10. Allen: Okay Alex: Like the most was was 12. I know you in the class, we talked about just keeping it a manageable level. Now, since since June, it's been Max four trades. Allen: Okay. Okay. So I mean, if you're doing for them, maybe we could do a little bit more on each one. And see how that goes. Alex: Yeah, I mean, we, you know, what, I'm part of the appeal of the passive trading program is to be able to, you know, pick people's brains and get feedback from the group and ask you some of those specific questions. Hmm, maybe I should get on it not. Yeah, that now's the time. Maybe now's the time to just do it, you know? Allen: Yeah. I mean, if you I mean, but you you said, you know, you don't have all that time right now, because you got all the other projects going on. But like you said that it only takes maybe five hours a week to study. So if you got five hours a week, then yeah, you know, go get that one, it's gonna be now that you've understood, probably 80% of it, the rest of it is going to be pretty simple. You know, because now you know, what an option is, you know, what a call is, you know, what a putt is, you know, what a moving average is, you know, all the indicators and, and all the other stuff that we talked about almost 80% of it, you know, now it's like, okay, which stocks do I buy? And how do I do a covered call? How do I do a naked put rows, things you'll be able to pick up very quickly, because you've already got the foundation for it. So it's not going to take a lot of time. Most of the time, we tell people, Hey, do passive first so you understand the basics, like the covered call is the easiest trade, you know, puts are really easy. And then we get into spreads, you went to spreads first, which is fine. Most a lot of people do that. Because the stocks and the covered calls and naked puts they require a little bit more capital. So if you're going into spreads first, that's fine. The other ones will be a little bit simpler to actually understand and implement once you do Alex: Right. And I realize I'm leaving money on the table by not well beyond not doing bigger trades, you know, not doing the naked puts in the covered calls and so on. There's a lot of there's a lot more money out there. Allen: It's all up to you know, when you feel comfortable, and the time is right. You know, you'll you'll feel it inside you. But hey, you know what, now it's time for me to do this. So it's something that people regret. And they kicked themselves. Oh, man, I should have started 20 years ago. Yeah, but you didn't. So don't worry about it. Don't beat yourself up, forgive yourself, you know, let's just move on. Let's just do whatever works for us right now. Let's just be happy with it and move forward. So.. Alex: I'm doing it. I'm doing it. So.. Allen: Oh you're doing great. You're doing wonderful. And so is there anything else that you wanted to share with our audience? Any final tidbits or advice? Alex: Nothing really, I think we've talked about a lot I will tell you one funny story. I've heard you. You've talked about Disneyland a bunch. So we actually we picked up some passes in in May, or June, we went to we went to we went to Disney they had reduced capacity. So they you know, allegedly it was only 25% of their their allowable or max capacity. So we we had the run of the place, It was still pretty crowded. But man, we we got to go on every ride and never waited more than 15 minutes for anything that's outside. It was amazing. But here I am at the happiest place in the world. And my stocks are going sideways, you know, so I'm on the rides and my kids and we'll walk around the park and I keep looking at my phone and I'm watching Amazon go down. And you know, it's funny, you get emotionally involved in the trades. And in reality, it's 200 bucks, it's no big deal. But finally, by the end of day two, you know, I was out of Amazon and a couple other stocks and just I was able to relax. But it was I thought of you because I know you've been to Disney. You've talked about Disney World a bunch and.. Allen: yeah, I mean, if you're going on vacation, or you know, I've had some people they're like, Hey, I'm going into surgery or I'm doing this or do that. It's like hey, if you're gonna be out of it for a while, take the trade off. It's not worth ruining your vacation. Alex: It didn't ruin it, but it just funny that you know that. Like I said, I was at the happiest place in the world. And I had this I was battling with my with my trades, you know? Allen: Well, that's because you're still learning and so it's still a new thing for you. So I get it. It's exciting, you know. Alex: But you know, as far as parting thoughts, it was a tremendous program. I'm so glad I did it. You know when my family friend introduced us to the whole thing. I was just absolutely intrigued. I read your book, I read That book by the Wharton professor of being that the way to really beat the market is by acquiring stocks with dividends. And I wish I did know about this sooner. It's a very viable means of addition, it's proven to be a very viable means of additional income. And I'm really excited to expand what I'm doing and increase the results. Allen: I mean, you know, because of COVID, we did have a market shock, right, we had a bear market because of COVID. And then the government stepped in and they started printing money like crazy. And so since then stocks have been on a roll. So it's been a great time. So you did miss out on that part of it. But I do believe that, you know, once they stopped printing, and once they start raising the rates, things will stabilize a little bit. And then once the economy comes back, or you know, COVID gets a little bit more under control, and the supply chain issues get fixed and things get back to normal. I think the market and the stocks will be a great place to be as well, you know, so you're still a young guy. And so for the next 20 3040 years, there's a lot of appreciation, there's a lot of gains that you're going to have. Because you now have this skill. Right? And so it's nothing to feel bad about that. Oh, yeah, I wish I wish it started. Yeah. But now's as good a time as any to get started. Alex: I agree. Allen: I like I like what you said, but so thank you, Alex, thank you for everything. You know, it was a pleasure having you in the program and can't wait to see you in the passive program. Alex: Yeah, yeah. Thank you. It was fantastic. Really appreciate all the all the knowledge that you shared. Allen: Awesome. Thank you so much. LOVE ALLEN SAMA - OPTION GENIUS AND WANT TO LEARN MORE TRADING TIPS  AND TRICKS? HERE ARE SOME NEXT STEPS... SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PODCAST FREE 9 LESSON COURSE: https://optiongenius.com/  WATCH THIS FREE TRAINING: https://passivetrading.com  JOIN OUR PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP: https://optiongenius.com/alliance  Like our show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps.  

Eddie shares his trading journey and how to transitioned from a Startup CEO to full time trader. Allen: Hey passive traders, how you doing? This is Allen back with another episode today I have one of my good friends with me, Mr. Eddie So. He is an amazing Options Trader and he is 100% bought in, he loves what he's doing. And he's going to share with us some of what he is doing some of his results and his lessons that he's learned along the way. How are you doing any? Eddie: Doing pretty good. How are you, Allen? Allen: Good, good. Welcome to the show. Thank you for doing this. Eddie: Sure. Happy to. Allen: So Eddie, tell me tell me what do you do? Eddie, what do you do? Who is Eddie? Eddie: Yeah, so I started my career. pretty young. I think I've held a job since I was 15. And then I got into, I guess, my career job, if you call it when I was about 19, I was actually in financial services, I worked for Citi group for almost 10 years, I started as a bank teller and worked my way up. And you know, it was at one point a manager managing branches. And then just before I left, I actually I was on my way to becoming a stock broker, basically, I was getting my licenses, and actually had my series 663, I was going through and getting my series 7. And I live in the San Francisco Bay area, right in the heart of the Silicon Valley. And at that time, was right before the dotcom boom, and or bust, I should say, booming. And, and I was, you know, I noticed all these young guys around me, you know, making really good money in tech. So I decided at that point to make a career change after 10 years, and I got into tech. And so for the last 20 some odd you over 20 years, I've been in the tech industry here in the valley, I you know, always in some sort of sales capacity, whether it's business development, or partnership sales. And when I sort of got out of the working world, yeah, I had worked up to the executive ranks. And I was running in sales teams and partnership sales teams, for various tech companies. So I've worked for companies, small and large, you know, small startups all the way up to really large, you know, 100 billion dollar companies. Allen: Awesome Eddie: And then I left tech and I started my own startup that has been something I had wanted to do. And unfortunately, I started right at in 2020; and right before COVID hit. So we took a little bit of a hit, I knew we wouldn't be able to weather the storm. But I knew I had to wait, right? And so we're still in stealth mode. But one of the things that I realized is going through options, and this whole Option Genius thing. And trading just sort of came back around. Because I was actually a little bored during the pandemic and I was looking at, you know, what else can I do? And you know, maybe I could get some income I used to trade and and that's how I stumbled across Option Genius. And then I came to the realization of, well, why am I putting all this money into my startup, I could be putting all this money into investing. And so I made the decision earlier this year, having gone through your program for probably like six to nine months, I had seen enough and done enough and experienced enough to make a decision that you know what, as of January 1, 2022, so next year, I am going to basically live off of trading, meaning I won't be doing my startup anymore, because I think a lot of money into a timing wasn't the greatest and I'm thinking my returns are a lot better with trading. And I don't work, you know, even you know, it's a fraction of what I've done in terms of work versus a startup. So.. Allen: That's a pretty big move right there..you know? Eddie: Yeah, you know, I've been pretty fortunate in my career. I've worked hard, I've been pretty fortunate as well I've been part of some IPOs in Valley here and so it's you know, it helped me be able to sort of save up the startup right to fund the startup because in you know we were all have few partners and we're self funded where we were not at the stage where we're you know, looking for funding so it's actually early enough for me to get out still, and still have a decent amount to invest to make a living off of Allen: So are you going to get that money back that you put in or is that lost? Eddie: Yeah, so I'm you know, I'm going to continue as an investor but more on the silent sort of investor side versus you know, being an operations so I'll get that money back eventually. I may even invest more into it but I just will be sort of a silent investor non operational versus what I am today which I pretty much general you know, GM right now. Allen: So Okay, so let me see if I can recap that. So you were doing you've been doing well. Obviously, you're in you know, San Francisco, very expensive to live there probably one of the most expensive cities in the world to live. So obviously, your expenses are pretty high and your income has to be pretty high to match. You decide, hey, you know what, I'm going to start my own company. So you start that, doesn't go as as expected. And so while you are trying to get that off the ground, decide, hey, you know what, let me try something else, too and I learned this whole Option thing. And then you said, Okay, I'm doing better at the options, then at my job thing, so I'm gonna just switch. Eddie: Exactly, and it takes so much less time, right? I mean, if anybody's started a company, like yourself, right, you know, you're working, you know, 24/7. And so for, you know, for a larger return, and a lower amount of work and time of working, you know, it's a no brainer. Allen: Right, so how long have you been doing options, the way you've been doing it now? Eddie: Well, the way I've been doing it now with Option Genius, it's probably about a year or so like, you know, when I was like a city, city group, I did some trading and you know, but that was sort of small time, I was mostly buying options, and I wasn't very successful at it. And then now, you know, during the pandemic, as I was looking around, and searching, researching, I started swing trading a little bit. There was a service through Investor's Business Daily IBD, that they had a swing trading program, that they, you know, they basically just tell you when to get in and get out. And I did that I wasn't very successful, and you had to sit in front of the computer all day, as soon as you got one of the alerts, you got to run back and put in the trade or get out. And so that didn't work out too well. And I did just didn't really like the model. And I stumbled across Option Genius, I think you guys came up in one of my social media feeds, I don't, I can't remember his facebook or something, or through the web, it was online somewhere. And I looked at all your courses. And I thought, wow, this is, you know, this is exactly what I want to learn, right? Because I knew about Option just from my financial background, but I never really got deep into it to the point where I was really confident and having, you know, consistent success. And that's when I dove in. And, you know, I started with the oil program, as you know.. Allen: Right.. Eddie: And had some successes there, which then got me very interested in as credit spreads or layup spreads, yeah, lay up spreads. And then, so then I joined and subscribed to Simon says, and then I got, you know, I thought, Wait, I want to learn how to do this myself. And so I joined your credit, credit credit mastery course. And then after that, I read your passive trading book. And I wanted to get into passive trading, because then again, that means less work ahead, and I joined the passive trading group. And then most recently, you know, everything has been great. I just keep on wanting to learn more. And I most recently, I just completed your iron condor course, right? And in my mind, I want to have different strategies to execute depending on what the market does, right? Directional trades are great when you have a great bull market running like we have. But I also want to be able to trade successfully if the market is just going sideways or down and just have the sort of Arsenal to be able to handle whatever the market does your courses do that right? you enable people like myself, your students to be able to have that sort of all around education or knowledge. Allen: Yep. Yep. I mean, we try to have something for every single market you know, and, and you kind of did it the opposite way. We kind of tell people "hey, you start with passive you know, build up something there, learn the basics, and then you can move up to credit spread mastery, and then iron condors and then get into oil last" because it's probably the most advanced he just you went the opposite way. And he started with the toughest one first, and then you, you end down but you know, either way it works as long as it makes sense. Right? So.. Eddie: Yeah, it made sense to me. And maybe because I had my financial background, but yeah, you're you're absolutely ready for somebody. Yeah, that was probably the thing for me. I wouldn't call it a regret but I wish I had to do over I will probably have started with passive trading and work my way up in that sort of curriculum the way that you just described I think starting with oil was a was definitely a little backwards. Allen: Yeah, I think maybe though, that might have helped you to get it off the ground faster. Eddie: True Allen: You know, because with the passive trading, there's different strategies involved. And so it's like, oh, do I do this one, let me learn about this one. They learn we learn about this and they learn we learn about this one. Sometimes people get confused or they get you know, it just takes too long for them to get through it. Where oil options is just one strategy you know, just say, hey.. Eddie: True. You're right. Allen: This is it. This is what we're doing this way we're doing it Boom, boom, boom, it works. Here's money. Oh, yeah, a success, right? Eddie: Yeah, you're right. Because thinking back that's what sort of got me into it and more excited as I was having quick successes with what I was learning in oil, which is what got me interested to the next one, and so forth. So yeah, you're probably right. Allen: I think we might have to restructure.. Eddie: The curriculum Allen: Yeah. So you've been doing this for about a year now? And how have you been doing, how are your results? Eddie: Pretty good, I'm at for the year, the date right around 60 a little higher than 62 or 63% year to date. So somewhere around there, and you know I follow the rules, right? And I shoot for 10% every month. The interesting thing though, is that when I looked back at my trades, what I learned is that every time I lost, it was because I didn't follow something in the rules. And so had I followed the rules. I think I would probably be somewhere in the 70s.. Allen: Okay. All right. Eddie: So lesson learned for me yeah is is you know, you just got to follow the rules don't let the emotions or anything get to you you know you have to be very disciplined in how you invest and if you you know those rules came from years of your knowledge and experience right? And doing this so you know, you just gotta follow and don't let anything else get in the way and you'll be fine. Allen: That's probably the hardest part, following the rules.. and it used to be me, I don't follow them 100% of the time either and then we get burned.. Eddie: Right! I sometimes think oh, you know, I think one of my mistakes earlier on I was I was actually I believe too much in the market or I was too much of an I was too optimistic if you will, I would be down on some and I wouldn't get out at 25% right which is what the rules say. And so you know then I watched it and I just watch it kept watching it and it just went down down down also and I'm in the money so you know luckily I was saved a few times where you know came back up and I took you know less of a loss but in general again you know, it's I should have just followed the rules and everything would have been fine. Allen: Yep, I mean well said. I mean it's easier it's easier said than done right? I mean you've been there and it's like okay emotionally I want to do it but it's gonna come back it's gonna come back and then that I think that discipline part is is the thing that comes in last after years and years of like, you know, getting your butt kicked over and over again, I think that finally we finally get smart enough to be like okay, fine I'm gonna get out you know and then eventually you get to the point where like right now it's all fresh it's all interesting and it's all new so the money aspect and you know getting that return and be like oh man, you know I want to get up to 100% this year. Oh, you know if that's your goal, it's really motivating eventually after a while you get to the point where you know what I'm just gonna try not to lose money - that becomes a whole new ballgame it's like yeah, I'm gonna put it on and most of the time it's just gonna work but the month that it you know the month that he gets in trouble I just don't want to lose money. You know? And then if that's if that works then overall at the end of the year I'm going to have fine, so it's not like we don't want the roller coasters we just want steady steady steady a little bit dip okay and then steady steady dip and if they so, but you'll get there I mean, eventually it just yeah, I think it's a natural progression mental aspect as well you know, it's not eventually you'll get to the point where they okay another winning month, go home, you know, it's not that exciting anymore. But yeah, so I mean 60 some percent for the year would you say 63? Eddie: 63 Allen: 63% for the year to date and I mean, we've only been you know, eight months so that's freaking incredible. You know, very kudos to you, man. That's awesome.  Eddie: No thank you. Appreciate it. Allen: So I did want you to show me or show everybody your license plate. That was really cool. what you just did. Eddie: Oh, yeah. I don't know if this was a podcast or.. Allen: We're recording. We're gonna show the video too, we put up on YouTube but.. Eddie: Yeah, so I just got this license plate. This is Yeah, I wanted to surprise Allen during this during this video. It just sort of shows how committed I am. You know, I love it. I live this stuff every day now. And it's exciting. I think it's exciting and fun. Right? And I wish I actually would have found out about this sooner and had done this when I was you know, a little younger even. You know, never too late. Allen: No. I mean for those of you guys who are listening on the podcast, Eddie has a license plate OP TRADER oh no sorry OG TRADER no was it OP, no OP TRADER, yes, Options Trader.. Eddie: ..for option trader. Allen: I like it. I like it. And I love the colors too. Looks really nice. So is that gonna go on your Lamborghini? Eddie: No, another car. It's already on there. One day, I can do that. Yeah. So no like that. Hopefully that tells you I'm all in. Allen: Okay, so now you said you're all in and you're going to make the switch permanently or full time to trading in a few months from now. So what size account will you be playing with at that time? Eddie: Yeah. So I think in order to be totally comfortable, being able to make a living, and also keep in mind that, you know, I'm not always going to get the 10% every month, it's going to be about a million dollars. And so the look at, you know, even Of course, 10% is great a month, right? On a million bucks. Yeah, you can definitely, you know, live off that. But even if.. Allen: Yeah I think you can you live off that. 100,000 a year. Eddie: Right? And I'm thinking, Jesus, you know, I could be doing this or putting money in the startup, right, which that will come but it's gonna take a little bit more time. This is more immediate. Allen: Okay, so now how are you going to break that up? Because you've done you're doing oil options, you're doing layups, and then you're also doing stock? So how are you spreading that out? Eddie: Yeah, so actually, before I even get to, to that, let me just mention I was gonna say this earlier is, I spoke with my accountant and he actually said, Hey, Eddie, you know, I advise you to actually form a business, create an LLC, and trade in your LLC, because you'll have certain tax benefits, you can write off the Commission's and the and the fees, and you can write all the courses you're taking, of course, I'm not giving, you know, accounting or tax advise here, this is just what my, my accountant told me. So everybody's listening, maybe you ask your own attorneys. But so what I've actually done was just earlier this week, I formed a new company in California - an LLC, just to trade and I'm in the process of opening an account with TD Ameritrade. So I can move from my personal account to this business account, you know, to trade, and there's some liability stuff to there that permit protection from you get sued. You know, they don't go after your personal assets. But I just thought I'd throw it in there. Because you know, it's important if you're going to do this full time, I think. Allen: Yeah, for sure, for sure. And then especially, like you said, the liability thing, you know, when you get into the bigger numbers, you get into a car accident, or your wife gets into a car accident, or somebody slips and falls in front of your house, they can go after all of your personal assets. That includes your trading account. So you know, if that's what you're using to pay all the bills, you want that set off aside in a separate place where nobody can touch it, and if it's a totally separate thing, so I really like the fact that you you've gone ahead and done that. It's very important. Eddie: Yeah, no, I thought it was too and I have some real estate too. And I keep that separate from that. And it just makes sense all around. Allen: Hmm, yep, yep. Okay. Eddie: And then so in terms of sort of how I split it up, right now, I'm doing about 75 to 80% credit spreads. Allen: Okay. Eddie: In my mind, I think that's a little high. That's why I took your iron condor course, because I felt like, you know, I, you know, in a good bull market, the credit spreads, directional trades, you know, we'll be successful. But what if we go into a sideways market? What am I going to do then. And so that's where the iron condors would come into play. And I also moved my IRA from JP Morgan to TD Ameritrade without paying somebody, you know, a good amount of money to manage it. I was part of their private client program. And they were doing everything and I'll paint a bunch of fees, I got my statement, I looked at a bunch of fees. And I'm like, you know, I could do better than this. So I got rid of them. And I just transferred it over to my TD Ameritrade account, so I can manage it myself. And what I plan on doing there is selling covered calls, and maybe cash secured puts and, yes, I have a you know, more well diversified portfolio than, you know, just doing mostly credit spreads. Allen: That's awesome. Yeah, so I was I was gonna say that, you know, if you're doing that much, and it's if that's the whole size, but obviously you have your trading account, and then you have your retirement funds. So in the retirement funds, we want something a little bit more stable, maybe, you know, something that's gonna instead of like our options, who you know, they last a month or two things expire, the stocks if you're owning or ETFs. Like if you get an index ETF or something, you can just hold on to that for the next, you know, 10, 15, 20 years, however you need to and keep cash flowing that so that's what we talked about in the passive program. And then in the credit spread mastery, that's the one that you're talking about with the the credit spreads and the layups. So, I guess, you know, I guess depending on what your goals are, you know how much you need every month. You might even, you probably don't need the whole million depending If you, you know, if you get aggressive and you use all of it or most of it, then obviously you're probably gonna have a lot left over. But you know, thinking about Hey, making 5, 6, 7 percent a month, that's still gonna grow pretty much. So I think we get to the point where, okay, you know, like you were talking about the discipline issue where "Hey, I'm gonna let it go", well now it's like, "okay, I don't need a whole 10% You know, I'm fine with like four. So if I'm up a nice amount, you know, do I wait until the end of the week? Or do I wait till expiration? Do I wait till I'm up 10% on this trade spread?" Maybe I don't, you know, I'm up 7% "Hey, I'm taking my money, and I'm going to the beach". I'm up, I'm done. I'm done for the month, I don't need to worry about it. So I think that gives you when you have more money than you need, because a lot of people do that they do the opposite, especially when they're like, Oh, yeah, I want to I want to get into trading. I'll do it full time. But I need to make $10,000 a month. Okay, great. How much money do you have to trade with? Oh, I have 50,000. It's no, it's not gonna work. You know, there, even if you have 100,000, if you have to make that 10% every month, that stress level on you, it just rises exponentially much higher that pressure, and then you start making mistakes. Allen: So I mean, you know, I don't know how much you need every month to survive. I'm assuming it's not going to be 100,000. But, you know, if it's like, "Hey, I have more money than I need. So I don't have to hit that 10% goal". If you can hit it, that's great. That's awesome. Maybe that's enough for two months, you know, and if you like "Hey, you know, for some of these months that we've talked about in the past, you know, some months are really rocky in the stock market, September being one of them, October being one of them. So if you have, you know, if you're doing really well and you're up 60, 70 80%, like you are now, September, October, maybe you're like, you know what, I think I'm gonna take a break, I'm gonna go on vacation these two months, and I'm not even going to risk it. Right? It's like, what's the, what's the thing, I could lose 30%? or I can make 10%? Do I want to try it? You know, and then maybe just don't and obviously, you'll see that when you actually do it over time. And you'll see what are your tendencies and what months are good for you and not and, but I really like the way that you're thinking about it, you know, it's like, hey, in a bull market, I'm going to be doing these spreads. Sideways market, I'm gonna switch over to condors a little bit more, you know, in the down market, you can go back to spreads, but the spreads, they'll work even in a sideways market. It's just, if it's very volatile, then that's the one that we don't want to play in, because we don't know exactly which way it's going. So if it's going sideways, we can still play a layup or a credit spread, but it's not as.. It won't be as comfortable as we normally are. Eddie: Right. Allen: So then how much of it how much of the account will be in Oil Options? Eddie: Probably around 15. Okay, times 20 that's a good amount on depending on the month, but again, you know, I want to diversify even more, if I can right? You know, I may even you know, later on when things get are sort of more streamlined for me, and I've reached my goal. I need to look into other commodities too, right? Besides oil. Yeah, well, you have that again, a further level of diversification besides equities and just oil. Allen: Right now how much time are you spending on your trading? Eddie: Not too much I spend a little bit of time when I'm putting the trades on so I do my research, I look at the charts just like you taught us you know, I'll take a look at news to see if there's anything affecting it Look at you know, all the different things on the checklist and the rules you gave us that takes I don't know maybe an hour when I do that, but after that and I usually do monthlies right and after I put it in and the rest of the month I'm in the morning you're just sort of looking at it, right? Maybe I'll look at it once in the morning once usually around noon before the market closes in Pacific time my time to just make sure nothing you know happened and then that's about it. And you know, then I'll work in most of the time if I'm up in a certain amount really fast for one particular stock or trade, I'll just get out and take the game and then go back in if there's enough time for the month so then you're sort of double dipping and so I'll watch for that and then you know and then apply that accordingly. I don't even adjust that much to be honest with you because I you know I thought about you know what Simon Says does write on his layup spreads and you know, the fact that you've done back testing and you know sometimes even if you don't adjust you end up doing better than trying to adjust and save the trade. I've gotten to a point where I just get out you know if it if it's you know, it's gone to a certain amount I'll get out and I you know, maybe I'll get back into that stock maybe the next month. But most of the time I've been getting into something else, and not worrying about that one, that lost one. Allen: If you can get to that level emotionally, it just takes all the stress away. You know, yeah, you'll you'll know at the beginning of the month, you'll be like, you know what I'm putting on these. And I'm gonna ask you this question, you know, how many trades do you put on every month at the, you know, at one time how many trades you have, but like, let's say you have 10 trades on you're like, you know what, I'm gonna probably gonna lose on two or three of these, the other ones, they're gonna make money. So when I get one, like, Oh, that was a loser. Okay, I'm taking it off. Let me go find something else. And that just takes all the stress away, instead of Oh, my God, this one has to come back. Whoa, yeah. And then you're watching it every day, and you're worried about it, and you're checking the news, watching, you know, your business channels and all that. And it just, it's not how it's supposed to work out. And the cool thing about the Simon says, trades, I mean, we have nine years of real money, you know, it's not even back tests. It's like real money trades, that are that are the results. And it's like, okay, okay, I think that, you know, it's been through up markets down markets, bear bull, all of them is like, Okay, I think this is a little bit stable. Now, I think this actually worked. So I feel pretty confident being like, Hey, you know what? This stuff works, you know, to go out and say it, before the first few years, I was kind of hesitant, you know, it'd be like, yeah, hey, this is our track record. You know, you make up your mind, you think about it, you look at it, and if you want to do it, you do it. But now after nine years, I can I think I'm pretty confident in saying, "Yeah, you know, this stuff works". So if you wanted to do it just do it, right, so, so let me ask you, how many trades do you have on total? Eddie: Well, this month, I'm being cautious, like you said, you know, you sort of warned the class and I so I'm in less, but typically, I'm in about 10 to 12 a month. Allen: Okay Eddie: Usually what I do is I have, instead of a 10% goal, which I use as a sort of an overall metric, I typically have a goal for $1 amount goal for each trade I put my place in, so I'll know and I'll put the same amount of money, the exact same amount of money in every trade, right? So not gonna do little here. And then more on this one, everything's the same. So across the board, so I know exactly. "Okay, What's a 10%? gain, for example? And what's 25% gain? What's that dollar amount, I can get in or whatever. And so, I know from the odds that, you know, you need to be doing about 10, trades, you know, 10, 12 trades in order to, for me to hit that dollar goal every month. And so, you know, so that's typically about 10 to 12. And I think, you know, you're telling us too, you sort of taught us, hey, in terms of the number of trades, you know, get don't get to a point where it's, you know, difficult to track, right, and I think, you know, be beyond 10 or 12, would probably be hard for me, I'll lose sort of lose sight. I don't follow the news. I'll miss stuff and so that seems to be the sweet spot. Again, according to the rules of where I try to stay about 10 or 12 a month. Allen: Right. Okay. Sounds good. So now, while you've been doing this, what was the biggest challenge that you faced in terms of implementing or learning? Or what was the hardest thing that you had to overcome? Eddie: You know, I think for me, if it's a little bit different, I actually jumped in pretty quickly. I didn't do very many paper trades. I think my you know, regret as I think, in the beginning, I was sort of too optimistic. And I would do a trade and I'd be, it'd be down, I'd be like, Oh, no, I'll go back up. And also, the next day is really down, right. And so if I had to do over again, I would probably do a lot more paper trading, to the point where I would do it for probably three months. And until I have that sort of consistent return, then I would maybe switch over again, this is what you teach in the class, and I didn't listen. And so you know, I mentioned before, the time that I lose is when I don't follow the rules. And this is one of the first rules you taught us. I didn't follow it. And in the beginning this last year, right? In 2020, when I first started, you know, I had a couple of couple of losses there that hurt. And, you know, but I've definitely learned from it. Allen: Right? Yeah. So if I remember, if I remember the first couple months, you took some you took a big loss. And then after that, then he was on fire, and you were just doing 10%, 10%, 10% every month. Yeah. Eddie: Yeah. After I learned the lesson of following the rules, I decided I told myself, you know what, I'm not going to let any you know, emotion, good or bad, optimistic or pessimistic? I'm just gonna follow the rules. And so I did that. And so I was doing pretty good. I was hitting, I think there's three months in a row where I hit 10% like running, you know, one month, month after month, and so I ended up doing pretty good. Allen: So do you think that's, that's what it was that what clicked for you? Is like, Hey, I'm just gonna, I'm just trying it on my own. I'm trying to, you know, adapt on my own, but if I just, I had there's a road there, I just need to follow the road. Eddie: Exactly I came to this point where, you know, I took a big loss. And I thought to myself, shoot, should I be doing this? And I thought about a thought about a loss and, you know, lost sleep over a couple of nights. And I thought, you know what, you know, these rules were developed, you know, on purpose. And it's based on years and years of trading experience, right from you and the team. And so why am I not following these rules. And so I had to have sort of that heart to heart with myself to say, Eddie, stop being too optimistic or stop, you know, doing things that are, you know, that go against you. Just follow it, do it for a few months, and see what happens. And that's what I did. And that's when I had those three consecutive months of percent. And then I'm like, now I'm looking back, you know, so wanted to, you know, sort of smack smack myself in the back in the head, you'll want to just do that in the first place. Right? So, but it was a lesson learned. And that's, you know, one of the things going into this year that I told myself, is that, you know, I must, you know, just follow the rules. And you know, I think we've done pretty well there. Allen: Cool. So now the spread trades, how do you find them? Eddie: Yeah, so I'll go through the charts exactly, as you explained it in the training, look at the trends pretty much step by step, what you look at, you know, what you shared with us, what really helped me is that the credit mastery course that I took- that was different than your other courses, because your other courses were mostly videos, and maybe some homework here and there, which is good because it you know, reinforces the knowledge that the credit mastery course was good in that we did it for three months straight, every week for a couple hours, the same trade, you know, same looking for the trade staying, you know, how to look for the trade, how to, you know, evaluate one trade against another, and, and, you know, then placing the trade, choosing the trade and then actually placing the trade. And that helps so much, because after that three months, and we're just doing it over and over again, where now I can you know, I know all the math and everything of what I need to do, I don't have to look at a cheat sheet, I'll just figure out on calculator real quick, what's the, you know, what's the max loss? What's the max, you know, Max, gain -  a note, you know, I have all that ready to go. So I could be a little bit faster. And so, you know, getting back to your, I guess your your question about how I go through the Choose the trade, really just I followed your steps. Allen: Do you have any favorites? Eddie: Yeah, so I've, um, I just haven't been in the tech industry for a while, I tend to like the tech sector. I mean, it's been obviously it's been doing well. So, you know, your your typical Google Apple, Cisco for a while, you know, those types of companies again, you know, what he taught us? You know, I don't do any smaller companies, right. I, you know, I want big, strong companies that, you know, won't, you know, won't lose a significant price overnight. Allen: Right. Eddie: So the big strong guys that usually in the tech sector, right now, as I mentioned before, I'm in Google for this period, and then PayPal, but I also try, obviously, you know, I try to diversify, too, right? I don't want everything in tech. Right? I don't want everything in credit spreads to begin with, that I don't want everything in tech, I try to mix it up a little bit. And you know, how I usually go with the trend of what's in the news, too, right? You know, okay, it's reopening stocks, okay, which kind of, you know, is a Travelocity or, you know, airline stock, and you know, and then if it's a, you know, it could be a growth, it could be a growth period, and I will look for growth period stocks, and pretty much look at the look at what's going on. Allen: Awesome. Cool. Okay. Now, you said that you've made the decision to go ahead and go full time. What was the trigger? Like, how did you feel comfortable to the point where, hey, you know, I'm ready to do this. How did you know that? Because a lot of people, they have that same goal. But for whatever reason, they're afraid to quit the job or they're afraid to go in full time or put all their money into this. What was it for you that mentally had you prepare? Because obviously, you have a family? So you know, you probably talked to them about it, and they had their input as well. And they have to be comfortable? Because if the wife says no, then it's kind of like a no. How did you get to that point? Eddie: You know, when I saw consistent results, where month after month, I was not just in the positive but sort of healthy, right? I mean, not everyone was 10%, obviously, right? I and I mentioned my 63% year to date, but I saw it, as soon as I saw that consistency. I knew that you know, I You know, there's definitely something there and I didn't obviously overnight, think about, you know, just quitting the job, whatever. And doing this full time, it was sort of an evolution, right? Where the first light bulb went off well, you know, there's consistent results here. And and I can do it month after month, and then is you when you get consistent you start having these ideas of all what, you know, what's next, what else can I do, right? And you know, what's the, you know, it opens up your opportunities, I guess, and you start thinking about what, you know, everything else, and it got to a point there also to putting money and investing money in my startup, you know, I saw I didn't see the return right away, I know what's gonna come, there's no doubt about that, I believe in my partners, etc. But the results weren't coming month after month, right that you had, it's a long term investment, you sink a lot of money into it, and just don't see the results have passed. And so because of that consistency, and my ability to sort of do it myself, right, and produce those results. That's what got me thinking, hmm, why should I continue to put money in the startup when I can be putting it, you know, into trading and be able to, hopefully, right, earn a pretty good living right?  Allen: Where you're getting paid by working at the startup. Eddie: We were in stealth mode for a little over a year, I wasn't getting paid regularly. But my partners and I had all been in tech before and you know, we had some IPO, money set aside and savings again, we were self funding this thing, right? That I wasn't paying myself regularly. So that was another thing is that and that's actually one of the reasons why I look to see during the pandemic, I was a little bored. Because you can only do so much when you start a company when you're in the pandemic. So that's one of the reasons I started looking out there to see what else was there and, you know, looking at options, etc, reminded me of my financial services days, and that's when I decided to take the plunge. Allen: Awesome. Okay, so yeah, and I mean, I know you're, you're a smart guy, so you probably do also have a backup plan. Right? I would assume that if you needed to, you could go back to working at the startup. Eddie: Oh, yeah, no question, right? I mean, I've got Yeah, absolutely. That was part of the consideration is that if all else fails, if the market tanks or whatever, I can always go out and get back into tech, I can, you know, go back into my startup, right in a more active role. So yeah, there's definitely you know, Plan B, Plan C, but you know, having a taste of this sort of lifestyle of the trading lifestyle I mean, once you have that experience for a couple of months you know.. Allen: It's hard to go back. Eddie: It's hard to go back. And so now you know, I'm at the point where and maybe this is mean with just daydreaming but you know, I always wanted to give back more than I am now, right? I mean, I volunteer at my church every Sunday and you know, I donate and etc. but I knew I could be doing more and so I thought you know what, after if I can really make this thing work I'm gonna have a lot more time and probably financially be able to contribute more than I am now. And so that's another way you know now that I'm sort of getting closer to that July 1 deadline I set for myself you know, I'm already picturing 6 months 12 months down the line of this thing successful. What am I going to do after that? And so I would love to volunteer more I would love to contribute more financially to different causes. And look how I can do more from that perspective. Allen: That's awesome i love it i love it i love the fact that you're giving back you know i mean that's the primary goals of me starting Option Genius was like hey, you know let me help people make more money so that they can then use that to go and make the world better cuz I can't do that myself so you know like I try but it's not I'm just one person but if we have a whole army of people that feel the same way and that they don't have that stress of you know, I gotta go get my money today, I gotta go get my paychec,k I gotta go cash this and there's not enough left at the end of the month where I can actually go out and help somebody else. I think if we have a whole army of people who are doing it this way it'll help definitely spread the good word and.. Eddie: Absolutely Allen: ..be better so what do you think the future holds for you now? Eddie: Well, I'm gonna continue working on the goal. Hopefully I'll report back you know maybe first second quarter next year and share with you know how I'm doing I mean we talk every week on our calls anyways but you know we could do a follow up then but  Allen: Yep would love to do that. Eddie: No, I you know, i'm well on my way now. I'm pretty prepared waiting for some last minute things like forming the business entity and waiting for that to come through and you know, just sort of logistical things like that before I actually start you know, going off in 100% so no I want to thank you and your team you know, I, gosh you know, I think about if I hadn't stumbled across right, you know all the great stuff that you guys are sharing and teaching you know I wouldn't have this you know, I wouldn't be here and I wouldn't be you know, have this opportunity by and I'd probably still be not that as a bad thing by be you know, still working a startup but the, again the return wouldn't come for you know, a number of years versus you know, almost a near instantaneous with trading the way you've taught us. So I thank you and you have a great staff on your team very responsive. You know, sometimes when I freak out and I have a question, you know, I'll send it over and Cory or yourself will, you know, send an answer right back so it makes me feel, you know, feel good that I have that sort of support, plus the you know, Facebook group, the weekly calls that we do All of that is you know it's very helpful because you can't do it alone. You have to, especially in something like this where you're, what you're taking on. If you do it yourself, it could take you ages but if you have a group, you have a leader that can share with you what they had done so you can learn from it and do it too and then you have that support network like I go back and forth on on chat with with Nelson in our group, you know, you make friends right and then you you know, you have that support network you know, and you encourage each other to to do better. Allen: Yep, I mean, you know, slowly slowly we're getting there where we're building up this whole system and I think you know, I mean it's been a pleasure to work with he's been a pleasure to to help you and to hang out with you and talk to you and I mean, you've done it you've done everything you know, when you've taken everything and you've you've used it you've learned it you've internalized it and then you've actually implemented it. There's a lot of people that get to that point but they don't implement or they get stuck somewhere along the way and it's you know, but you had a you had a dream you had a reason a goal and you were like okay, I'm gonna take this it makes sense to me I'm gonna try it and then it worked. And then you just kept going with it. So kudos to you and congratulations on all your support and it's been a it's been a wonderful No, it's been a wonderful experience to have you with us. Eddie: Thank you. Thank you But one thing I will mention though, Alan is that I think the key for you know, anybody that's thinking about doing this is just do it. Right? You can start small, right? You don't have to start you know, do paper trade you just start with a few grand and just do it and learn it and anybody can do it right? You don't have to have a big account you know, just getting started is much better than than doing nothing nothing at all. So that's what I would you know, say to encourage other people that are thinking about doing this is you really have nothing to lose you know by by doing this I mean, the tuition fees that I pay were made up probably within my first couple of things, right? So you know, there's absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain. Allen: Yep. Thank you so much. Appreciate that. One last piece. I don't know I mean, this doesn't have anything to do trading and this is for those of you guys who are listening. I'm not an accountant or an expert on this. But you said you were opening your company in California. Did you look at opening it in a different state? Eddie: Yeah, I actually.. It's a good question. I looked at Delaware Allen: Okay Eddie: And I actually opened my startup filed in Delaware because there are some laws there that again speak with your own attorney but that are more favorable to business owners over there. I didn't feel like I needed it here with with just a trading you know, because I'm not I won't have clients or anything with my trading account it's just me doing my my own trading that I didn't meet really need the Delaware protections Allen: Okay, but in a tax point of view, because I know, California does have state corporate tax, right? Eddie: They do in terms of there's a couple of things that my account was explaining to me like mark to market and things that we'll be able to do. I can't remember the specific but I can't tell you that the good outweighed the bad. Allen: Okay, as long as you looked at it, that's fine. You know, because I've heard a lot and you know, whenever we're opening a corporation in Texas, I don't have a problem because there's no corporate tax. But that's what people say that hey, there's no personal income tax here, or there's none in Florida. But even for opening a corporation. I've heard lately that hey, you know, Texas is okay, Florida is okay. Delaware is really great if you're going to go public because there are banks, you know, like banking, those guys, they have a lot of protections there. Nevada is a really good one for other things. So okay, but as long as you have a cover, that's cool. I just wanted to ask Eddie: Yeah, cool, cool.  Allen: Cool. Cool. Cool. Any final takeaways or bits of advice you got I mean, you shared a lot but if anything else that's.. Eddie: No, I think I'll report back in you know, next year but again, a big thank you I mean, I you know, this journey has been awesome. I mean, of course, I mentioned that, you know, in the beginning you know, it took some hits, and you know, I would say you know anybody thinking about doing this, do it - don't get discouraged, you're gonna have ups and downs, that's just you sort of built in, but there's definitely a lot more ups than downs. So, you know, doing stuff like this is a lot better than doing nothing at all. And so I would encourage everybody to, you know, jump right into it and learn. Allen: Awesome. Eddie: And again, a big thank you to you and your team as well. Allen: You're welcome. You're very welcome. But thank you so much for being here and helping us out. Of course, Eddie: Anytime

Allen: All right, everybody. Welcome to another edition of the Option Genius Podcast today I have with me, Matthew D'Ambrosi .He's one of our passive traders. And he's gonna be telling us how he got started and how he's doing pretty well right now. How are you doing, Matthew? Matt: I'm doing well. Thanks for having me on. Allen: Cool. Cool. So how'd you get started with Option Genius?  Matt: Well, I have to actually go back, it's been quite a journey, I have to say, you know, it's more like a 15 year journey for me. Allen: Wow. You know, I was given a book by my sister at age 30. And I was a young guy, and I was just more not interested in reading books just kind of floating through life, didn't really have much direction. And the book was called "Automatic Millionaire" by David Bach. Allen: Okay. Matt: In that book, I wasn't really interested in reading it, but she handed it to me. So I said, at least go through it. And I started thumbing through and I came upon a compound interest chart. And it showed, you know, you're 19 years old, and you put $2,000 into an IRA, or Roth IRA, and you did that, and you continue to do that, it would be well over a million by the time you're 65. So I was caught immediately by that. And that's kind of where my journey began. So I took that information, and started reading more books. And I came across Dave Ramsey. He's kind of like a financial soldier, if you will, you know, to get out of debt. Yeah, kind of get your stuff together. And I started, I always thought about making money and you know, retiring early, it was always a thought of mine, it was a gold mine, it was definitely what I wanted to do. And I always felt like 65 is when I would do it just like everybody else. And I continue to read more, I read numerous articles and books. And about two years ago, I went to a workshop, and I was learning how to invest. And they introduced me to options and selling options. And I was told that everyone else was told, you know, it was risky. Don't touch it. There's a whole another world to me. Allen: Have you done any stocks or options before that? Matt: No, absolutely not. Allen: No stocks either? Matt: Not really, you know, I was more into mutual funds, I had gave my money to an advisor, I just believe that people had your best interest. And they're great advisors out there. I'm not saying they're not. But it really started me to take a hard look about how money is handled. And you're much better off if you take the plunge and believe in yourself and start looking into deeper and see that they can really work out for you if you're willing to take or have the interest really to go and look at that. So I started paper trading. And then I was wondering who else does this so I started searching. And then I came across your name, and I have to hand it to your master marketer. I've never had anyone hit my inbox like you. So I started listening to all your podcast, taking little by little, you know, all the information that you give out there and started little by little paper trading. And then I started making money slowly, you know, doing one contract, then adding two. And then now I'm pretty much on my goal to replace my income. And that's my ultimate goal so... Allen: Awesome. Matt: Just a regular guy, you know, I just kind of happy to be here. I'm really happy to be here today. Because I want to get the message out that you know, you're teaching just normal people like me, who have no experience at this. And it's really a wonderful thing if you're willing to get a hold of your fears and take a stab at it. Allen: Right. So you started about two years ago, you said? Matt: Yeah, about two years ago yeah. Allen: Oh two years ago. Okay. And you're still working? Matt: I am, yep. Allen: Okay, what do you do during the day? Matt: So I'm a forklift driver and it's tough work. It's very laborsome. And trading has allowed me to look at money in a different way. I just don't look at money as scarce as it was. So it's a whole different mindset. Allen: Yeah. So how do you find time during the day to trade? Matt: Generally I don't go until about 2:30 in the afternoon, and I go on to 2:30 at work so I spend the mornings pretty much studying and paper trading and learning and then even after work at 11 o'clock, sometimes I'll be up till 1am or so learning as well and paper trading and trying to think about things and whatnot so.. Allen: So you're all in? Matt: All in, absolutely. They say burn the ships and I burnt them. Allen: So what was your first trade? Matt: First trade I did was credit spread. I did far away from the money for about just one contract and I made like 18 bucks. It wasn't much but you know, you're, you talked about the options continuum. That was in that stage where I was very nervous and you know, you have these feelings and you feel like you're gonna lose all your money. And that's not true, if you study and really take what you have to teach, and I took it very slow and got into it. So after that, after you do, there's something about to do first live trade, it kind of clicks with you like, okay, that wasn't so bad, you know, not the think of the worst that can happen. So, yeah, I did it. And it's been a, you know, I'm gaining confidence each and every week. And, yeah, we just continue to evolve on that continuum. Allen: Cool. So if I can recap. So basically, you want to get into investing because you didn't like where it was going. And you didn't want to wait around till 65 to, you know, have a nest egg and retire and have somebody else in charge of your money. So you started looking at it for yourself, and you've been putting in time you've been studying, researching trading, paper trading? What else is it that you want to achieve, besides just the money aspect? Like what what is it about the trading that is, you know, speaks to you on a deeper level? Matt: Yeah, I think the main part and it's different for everybody, for me, it's actually you know, as you get older, you realize you don't know how much time you have on this earth. And, you know, you start looking at things like, Hey, you know, the time is right now. And if I can find a way to free up some time, I'm going to seize it, because I never want to look back and say, "Hey, you know, I got to 65" I'd be glad if I do. But to spend time with friends and family, I got, you know, parents are almost in their 80s, I would love to just free up just a little bit of time and already am and I'm already you know, I already feel successful. And that, you know, I found something that I can do and free some time up and actually see them. Allen: Okay. So when you say you feel successful, what does that mean in numbers? Matt: Numbers to me, it's like just even $500. And it's different for everybody. There's no doubt. I mean, $500 extra dollars a month is successful to me. It gives you just a little bit of breathing room. I'm a simple person, I don't need a lot. I drive a 2200 accord. I mean, it looks like it's gonna fall off the road. I'm not a man to really, you know, I love great things. I would love to get in a nice, wonderful car, but it's not the main driver for me. The main drivers just to spend quality time family and friends. Absolutely. Allen: Nice. Nice. Okay. So would you mind sharing how large your trading account is now? Matt: Yeah, I started with in the brokerage account, I started about 2 Grand, and I'm already up to about 16 right now. Allen: Wow, in two years? Yeah, that's phenomenal. Matt: Yeah, I mean, I'm also adding to it too, but.. Allen: Okay. Matt: It's amazing to see the compound interest grow. And I haven't been really calculating it like dollar for dollar. But I'm just more really tuned into just being successful and working through the trades. And not really focusing so much on, you know, $1 amount just being, "Hey, let me get this tray. Let me monitor it. Let me look at it. Let me learn from it". If I have any problems, if I look at it as a learning experience, I have to continue to go I want to be in it forever. You know, I want to continue to I want to be that guy standing, you know, 10 years, 15 years from now and still doing this. Allen: Okay, so you don't want to be a forklift driver anymore? Matt: No, I say, you know, I'm sure there are a lot of people who listen to podcast saying I hate my job. I do not I actually enjoy driving a forklift. I just don't want to drive 40 hours a week. Allen: Okay. Okay, so what type of strategies are you using? Matt: So right now I'm doing a lot of bull put spreads, I've ventured into bear call spreads. I'm also doing covered calls. I haven't done any naked puts yet. So I'm really kind of looking at some companies and, uh, you know, I want to know more about the companies and look at stable companies like you teach us and start doing options off of them. So, it's an ongoing process and what amazes me that you don't need to do a lot of different strategies to be successful. Allen: Right, right. Right. Okay. What's your if you had to only pick one, which was your favorite? Matt: At the moment, it'd be a bull put spread, but I have a feeling that's gonna change. Allen: Yeah depending on the market. Matt: Also venturing into into oil, like you're teaching in your program. Allen: Cool. Yeah. Welcome to that program. Yeah, it's definitely it's definitely the next level of stuff. You know, it moves faster, and it's more leverage. So the numbers are bigger. Matt: Yeah. Allen: Cool. So have you tried anything else that didn't work? Matt: You know, I've done about 60 trades so far. I've lost one. And I got out early, it would have worked out. And it was my first time losing money, but I look at as a big lesson. You know, there's a lot of feelings. I listened to one of your podcasts where you talked about how you lost and the feelings that surround that. Right. I think you have to kind of reevaluate and find the lesson in it. And the lesson I found in that trade was that I was trading too heavy. I was a little bit. I was actually doing too many contracts. I was a little bit too uncomfortable. Matt: So that it was is a really good learning experience to say, Hey, you know, I'm not really comfortable risking that much money. Let me just pare it back a little bit. And think about what I want to do here, so.. okay, that, you know, the experience of actually getting out of a trade out of our live trade because you know, your bloods pumping, and you're like, Okay, you know, am I hitting the right buttons? And I get now it's a little different than paper? Of course. Allen: For sure. Yeah. But did you say you did 60 trades and you only lost on one? Matt: Yes so far... Allen: And these are all real money? Matt: Real Money, yes. Allen: Wow. And what's your strategy? How are you doing that? Would you find that trading plan? That's amazing. Matt: You know, it's a lot of listening. I've read so many books, listen to podcasts, listening to education, I kind of go, I'm a very conservative person. So I trade very conservatively. So about 90% out or more, I try to get at least 23 cents, 22 cents, and then just move my contracts up as I feel comfortable taking that risk. Allen: Okay so if I heard you correctly, you are trading at about a 10 delta spread? Matt: Yeah, usually. Allen: And then you're trying to make about 5% on each trade? Matt: Yeah, but between four and 5% Allen: Between four or five? And how long do you stay in the trade? Matt: You know, it's almost embarrassing, but that's the level of how you get better. I really have my you know, you talk about your AHA moments, and one of them was mine. I didn't know you could get out of the trade. So I was always thinking you had to be there until expiration, but that's not obviously not true. So that was a big one. For me, I have to honestly say that, you know, when you're learning this, you just don't think of you don't know everything. Right? And I was like, oh, my goodness, you can actually get out of these trades. So I learned to get out. So you know, that's a benefit in my world, once you know how to get out, it takes a little bit of fear out. Allen: So when do you get in? How many days to expiration to get in? Matt: Generally, I'm between 28 and 35 days or so. Allen: Okay, and what how many trades at one time do you have on? Matt: I really try to do only as many as I can comfortably watch. I try to do maybe one a week. So about four trades at most that are going on? Allen: Okay, so four trades at one time. Okay. And so how much would you say you're making on a monthly basis? dollar terms? Matt: Well across two accounts. So I trade in my brokerage account, I trade under my IRA, I rockler. Right? I'm averaging about 1000 a week now? Allen: 1000 a week. Okay. That's amazing. So within two years, you're up to 4000 a month. And you're saying your account value is roughly around 16? Matt: Roughly 16. And then, you know, in the Roth IRA, it's considerably higher, but that's not money I really want to put a heavy risk of short term trading, but I do trade there. Allen: Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right. No, that's, that's crazy. And you're saying that you're almost to the point where it's getting close to where it's gonna replace your income or equal your income from..  Matt: Yeah I mean, I have no qualms about it. I my goal is to get make $5600 a month. And I know my number and but it's all about, you know, I guess one of the big reasons for me coming on is that you just have to trust the process. And you have to actually become in love with the process not be so result driven. I mean, it's important, you know, we all want results. But if you can find a love for the process, I think you're that much better?  Allen: For sure. Definitely. Yeah. Because, you know, like you said, You've been putting in the time you wake up and you work on it. And then after work, you know, tired long day, but you still sometimes you still get it and to look at it being you wouldn't do it if you weren't like happy and excited. It's really something to find something. I feel like this is a point in my life where I really found something I love to do. And I really do. I really love this. And, you know, it's, I just want other people that are just regular people like me, and people come all the time and say, you know, you can do this and do that. But I am I tell you to my core, I'm just a regular person, I drive a forklift. And if anyone can do it, you can do it. And thank God, there are people like you have to teach this stuff. Because I would have killed 20 years ago to have someone guide me through just hitting me across the head of the board and be like, Hey, you know, listen. But that's not how life works. Allen: Right, no, yeah. You know, when you're ready, the teacher appears kind of thing. You know? Matt: It really is true. Allen: Yeah. Yeah. So the biggest thing that surprised you when you were doing this stuff, besides that you could get out before expiration? Matt: Oh, yeah, that was a big one. I think it's coupled with what other people say but also with what I think is that you can trade on something that you don't own. I think that's a big thing for people. Because we're just conditioned to be like, you know, if I can trade something, I have to own it. And that was a big like, wow, for me, for trading. You know, also the covered call as well. Allen: Okay. And so what was your biggest challenge? Matt: The biggest challenge for me was overcoming your fears. I mean, it's, it's definitely a big fear. And I don't take it lightly. Because, you know, we all worry about losing our money, we worked so hard for it. I mean, I work 40 hours a week just to make the bills and do everything that we want to do, we want a better standard of living. And it's very scary  you know, you can think about losing all that money and a flash, and that's really fearful. And I think that's the biggest obstacle, but be to be able to papertrade it and learn from people like yourself that have gone through it. And like, they say, taken the arrows is all much better. I mean, you know, it's like, I talk to people, it's like, you're in a forest, and you don't know which way to go. And it's like, you have someone like yourself or someone else that has gone through this. And we're like, Hey, here's the path. You know, over here is a ditch over here, you know, there's a lion, go down this path, and you start to understand otherwise, you're just flailing around, and you'll be lost in that forest forever. So, you know, it's just one big journey, to be honest with you. Allen: Yep. Yep, yep. Yep. So is that the biggest thing that helped you overcome the fear? Got me a lot of people have that fear. You know, it's like, oh, my God, if I do this, what's going to happen? What if I press the wrong button? What if they take this away? What if you know, something, I do something wrong, my wife's gonna kill me, you know, how did you besides the paper trading was that the biggest thing that helped you overcome the fear? Matt: I think also, the actual structure of a credit spread, you know, knowing that when I have a set amount of money, that it's risk, I can only lose like, $500 in a trade or 480. That really helped me, okay, I was like, Okay, if you're uncomfortable, overall, losing $480 in this trade completely fails. And that's all I'm gonna lose. And I wrapped my head around that, then I can get past that barrier. And I can trade more and learn how to trade. I think initially, you just have in your mind that you're gonna lose all your money, which is not true. If you, of course, you I mean, you have to study and you have to pay attention. None of this is easy or simple. But you got to put in the time, I'm not saying you don't. But if you really want to, and you're, you have conviction, and you have desire, there's no reason why you can't do this stuff. Allen: So what do you think the future holds for you now? Matt: Well, I hope all good things. I mean, I go on with the, I hope I go in with the attitude. I'm really happy and excited to be part of the the oil, that's a whole another, the oil blank check trading program. It's a whole another world for me. And, you know, I kind of feel like, it's traded like options, but it's very different. And then I have to get in there. And it's like, you know, I'm back at the beginning a little bit. So I got to get him up to speed and learn that it's a whole another world. So you go through those feelings again, in a different way. So I'm kind of in the beginning, but I'm very hopeful for the future. And I just want to continue to be consistent and profitable. And that's all you can ask for. Allen: Yep. Yep. So would you recommend Option Genius to other people? Matt: Absolutely. I mean, I sing your praises almost all the time. I one of the big reasons is that how accessible you are. And you know, whenever I had a question, you guys are on top of it. I mean, I couldn't ask for any quicker response. And if you have a problem, you feel like someone's right beside you. And I really appreciate that. So yeah, I've absolutely, I would tell anyone to go to you and learn from you learn from you on the program.  Allen: Yeah, we try. I mean, we're not perfect. And we don't work weekends. But some people, some people are like, Oh, I bought this thing on Saturday. Why haven't I got it yet? I have questions. I'm like, Oh, we don't work weekends, you know. See that's part of the job here. You know, I talked about it on the podcast, and the books and everything. It's like freedom. You know, that's the ultimate, the ultimate goal is freedom. And however you define it, yeah, the time to do what you want the money to do what you want, and you just, you know, if you want to go here, do this, or whatever, buy whatever you want. Like, I'm so happy and excited that you're feeling a taste of that, you know, it's like, "Okay, if I'm going to work, I'm going to make X dollars, but I can always be laid off". I can always get hurt. I can always, you know, get sick. I mean, so many people right now are getting sick and they can't work and they're all scared because they don't know what they're going to do. And you know, the fact that you're you found something that you can stay at home, press a few buttons, and you understand it and you're like, Okay, intellectually, I can make this work. And you put in the time in the effort. I've seen that. So kudos to you for that. Because I've seen a lot of people. They're like, Oh, yeah, no, no, this is supposed to be magic. I'm supposed to hit the Escape key and I'm supposed to get money coming out of my computer. Well, it doesn't work that way. You know, you have to put in time, effort, thought process. You have to do it over and over and over again, which you've done for the last two years. You've been putting your dues in I mean, obviously you're not done yet. Right? You still got a long way to go. Matt: Oh, yeah, absolutely my goal is never to be complacent. You know, never think I've no at all, because I do not. There's people out there that are very smart, intelligent, people that are learning, I always look at life, you can learn somebody, something from everyone, just like all the people, all the books that I've read, if you can get one good thing out of them, you can learn something from them, you're all the better. You know, I just learned to not look at one thing as the way there could be multiple ways. But you know, you have to take the good and almost make it your own as well. You know it, but it's on you. And you as you get older, you realize that it is on you to make this decisions. I don't want to bury my head in the sand and just hope you know, I wake up at 65 and I'm retired. So it's a process. And luckily, I fell in love with it. Allen: That's great. That's great. So let's say you get your goal and you're making 5600 a month from your trading. You still going to work? Matt: I think initially I mean, you know, it's a wonderful question to answer. I think initially, I would go with part time, because I like I do like my job. I do enjoy driving a forklift. But um, it would allow me to do some other things that I would want to do in life. I mean, I like gardening, I like painting, maybe learn Spanish, I always want to learn Spanish, you know, and I could put my efforts towards that. It's just, it opens a whole another world for you. And I mean, it really does. And it gives you a chance to maybe go into some things that you never dreamed that you would be. For instance, after this, I'm going on a boat, I would never dream that I would learn, I always didn't want to drive a boat, I was afraid to drive a boat, I was afraid I was gonna to crash into a dock. But I'm a member of a book club now. And I'm going to go out my wife after this podcast and get on a boat. And I'm learning how to drive and docket and it's like I believe trading is broad and open that world for me. Because I'm no longer fearful making mistakes. And I'm going to learn from them. And, you know, if I crashed into into a dock, so be it. I'll learn from it. And I'll get better. So that's the way I approach life now. And I think trading is a big part of that. Allen: Oh, that's wonderful. So the fact that you've been you've had some success in the trading has given you confidence in other areas of your life. Matt: Absolutely. That's something I can ever believe. Yeah, absolutely. Allen: That's so beautiful. Okay, so let's say one of your fellow employees at Costco, you're at Costco, right? Yes, yeah. So if one of your fellow employees at Costco comes up to you and says, Matt, man, I got to do something. You know, you told me you talked about trading a little bit, how do I how do I get started? What do I do? How do I make sure that I don't lose money? Matt: Well, go to Option Genius. But I would more so I would tell them that, you know, it's a process and you have to put in the work. There's no shortcuts. And you know, people say that all the time. And you have to really believe that in your heart, and you have to put in the work. And thank goodness paper trades out there. And you can make mistakes and learn from them. And just keep trying. And then when you're ready, do it. Somy advice is to absolutely take it slow. You know, everyone's different. You could paper trade three months, six months, but don't be hanging up for a year paper trading. I mean, you want to get out there and try. So but do it with a little bit of money that you're finally losing, and then just go on from there and reevaluate your process. So that's the advice that I would give them. And, of course, I want to help everyone out there, you know, because I have co workers that are in the same, I know the grind they go through each day. They're hard working people, they're looking for the same thing I am that they're trying to look, you know, to better their life or help people that are left to right of them, and get through and improve it. And, you know, this is out there for them. So I've just tell it, take it slow, be patient. I mean, it's very difficult to be patient, especially this day and age. But if you can harness that patience, you can achieve what you want to achieve. Allen: Well said, Well said. Yeah, I mean, you know, the cool thing is that we've I guess since you started, I think you've been sending us emails every once in a while. Matt: Probably a little crazy. Yes. Allen: Yeah no it's okay. It's not crazy? I mean, you know, I bombard people with email, we generally like to sometimes people, some people get three emails a day from us, it's like crazy. We need to work on that. Matt: I'm one of those people. And I'm like, wow, I'm like, man this is something else. Allen: There's too much going on. Yeah. So we need to work on a little bit there. But you know, so it's been fun to watch your progress over the past. You know, it's like, I try to if there's a trading email or whatnot, I try to read those. And if I don't answer them, at least I try to read and see what's going on. And I've seen your emails come through, and it's like, you know, this guy, he's getting it, you know? And whenever you ask a question, it's like, there there are some people that they're nice about it. And then there are some people who are like they expect the moon and the stars and everything in an email like, "Hey, I'm on your list. I want you to tell me every one of your secrets". Like how am I supposed to do that in an email? Matt: Yeah that's impossible. Allen: We share that for you. Like we could have a course about that. It would be like a 20 million-hour course. I could share everything and bring an email. I'm not writing all that stuff. But the fact that you took it slow and methodical and whenever you, you did the work. And then when you had a question, it was specific to that particular thing. So you could tell when I'm reading, I can tell, okay, this guy is actually trying to learn, he's actually trying to trade. And this has given me a question based on his actual experience. So I mean, that's in, you know, for those of you who are listening and be like, Oh, well, I asked a question, I didn't get an answer. Or, you know, he didn't give me a complete answer or whatever. It also depends on, you know, how you approach the question how the question is asked, and if it's gonna make sense or not, because we do get inundated with trading questions, and how do I do this? And how do I do that? And without proper background, we can't even give individual moves. Legally, we can't give individual advice. But even trading questions, it's like, okay, if I don't have the proper background into what you were thinking, when you were looking at a trade, then I can't give you a, you know, what I would do even because if I'm looking at a chart, and I think it's going to go down, and you think it's gonna go up, whatever I tell you, it's gonna be the opposite. And you'll be like, that doesn't make any sense. So I love the way that you have approached this. And you've been, you know, slowly, methodically, you pick something you realized from the beginning, you knew what you want it, you knew your why you understand, you know, compound interest, you understand how that works? And it's not going to happen overnight. How long do you think it took you until you started becoming like, consistently profitable? Matt: I would say about three or four months where I felt consistent, you know, first, you know, you could say, Oh, you know, it could be you just not, you're not sure until you really feel like, okay, I can repeat this month after month. And third kind of understanding, you know, not only the positives of a trade, but also the negatives, and you start kind of wrapping your head around it and start feeling comfortable, but not complacent, then you start, you feel like you're on the right road, so that that feelings and the results probably about three to four months for me specifically where I felt confident about the trade. Allen: Okay, and you trade the same stocks over and over again? Or do you choose different ones every time? Matt: I'm looking, you know, basically the same. You know, I tell the story, way back, I bought Airbnb, you know, an IPO, which stands for is probably overpriced. And I consider it as a mistake. But my wife and I did a covered call together, and we literally push the button together. And we're like, we made like, 500 some dollars off of that. And I was just like, we were just like, baffled, like, wait a minute that actually work. Like we just got paid for that. And we're just like, How can that be? So, you know, I read books on covered calls and things like that. And, you know, there's there's downfalls of covered calls as well, the dark side as you speak. And it's important to, to learn all the different strategies. But the point is, you don't need to know a ton of strategies to be successful, I think it's important for the viewer to focus on one and get really comfortable before you move on to other things. And I feel that's kind of where I am with oil now I'm comfortable with a trade and now unwilling to go into another world, and kind of explain that or, you know, explore that, and I'll take that slow as well. And, you know, it just starts being well, and overall process and you bring it together. And it's all about learning and what a beautiful thing. Allen: Yep. Yep. Very beautiful. So, and there might be some skeptics listening to this. And they'll be like, Well, you know, the last two years, we've had a really good bull market. So are you prepared for choppy market volatile market? down market? bear market? How would you adjust to that situation? Allen: You know, I think it's, I look back, I'm actually reading your book right now, how to hedge, you know, all the hedging strategies, and what I always call my replay in my mind, what will I do if there's a big crash, and I don't think you can ever, you know, fully prepare yourself, but there's a lot of things that you can do. I think the most important part of that is knowing a valuable company, it's knowing what kind of strategy you're going to use, you can never do bull put spreads continually, because you're going to get hit at some point. Right. So again, learn how to do a bear call spread and do some different things to hedge your position. So it you know, that's education by itself, but there's definitely some big things. You know, you got to look at each thing of, you know, a comfort level and then continuing education. I definitely am. I'll continue to get better at that as well. Allen: Yeah, yeah. Because I mean, there's no way to tell which way the market is going, you know. Matt: Sure. Allen: I mean, we've been lucky that we've had a nice fed induced (inaudible) rally recently, the last couple years. But again, we don't know how long that's going to last and what's going to happen after that. But as somebody who has been doing this for, you know, a little bit longer than you have. Matt: Much longer. Allen: It's good to be able to, like you said, you know, understand the different strategies as well. And you said you've done you know, two or three of them and you've, you've practiced them over and over again. So that when things do change, that you can also see that coming and then you can change with it. So You know, I was talking to someone earlier today, and we were talking about and he was, he was asking about iron condors. And he's like, yeah, you know, I've tried honor condors didn't work at all. So how do you make them work? I said, Well, you know, every strategy doesn't work for every person. Some people might like one strategy, and they're really good at it. And somebody else, their brother might try it. And their brother might be horrible at it. You know, it's different risk tolerances, and different personalities will tell what strategy you should work on. And so.. Matt: Yeah, that's really fascinating. Like you said earlier, you know, we talked about how you can get the same trade as somebody, it just turns out different. And I think it's, it's fascinating in psychology, and it's also how, you know, you think of a trade and everyone's into individual to that trade. So it's pretty interesting. Allen: And you said, you had studied psychology, right? in school? Matt: Yeah, I have a degree in psychology from the University of Alabama. And, you know, I just, I never knew what I wanted to do in college. And it's interesting, I find myself using it. Now. I it's the psychology of the markets. And I think about how why people sell and why people buy and, you know, a lot of it's fear based, sometimes people that are very smart, do stupid things. You know, you just think that it's not that way, but it is very true. So it's, it's a whole, I never thought I'd be using psychology, but I do. I'm fascinated why people think the way they do. Allen: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting. It's very interesting. Yeah. I mean, I've been a big fan of psychology, just trying to understand myself, you know, and most of the time, like, you know, when we try to figure out, okay, hey, this stock went down today, what happened? A lot of times, we can't figure it out. I don't know, there's so many. There's so many background factors. But I think the study of psychology really helps in the big picture thinking, you know, you might not be able to figure out exactly why a stock moved up and down, depending on if there's some news about it. But the overall market like, hey, if this happens, then this is how people react. And then this is how they think. And then this is what happens in the stock market. So it's definitely a learning experience. And something that comes with years of experience, as you get used to it, say, Okay, I saw this happened. So I, I expected this to happen because of that. So it's really interesting. Allen: I really appreciate your time, Matthew, and just wanted to give you one more, you know, like hey, is there anything else that last words that you want to share with our audience?  Matt: Just I encourage people that are, you know, maybe thinking just like how I am, you know, they're out there working everyday life, and they just don't think that this is possible, and I just wanted to really encourage them to, you know, take a shot at it. And really, you know, if you're really interested in it, and put your 100% into it. And, you know, you could really surprise you on the other end, what life has to offer to you if you really get into it. And trading is a wonderful way to do that. So I'd really encourage people of all walks of life to try to better their situation, I think it's a great, great avenue to do so. Allen: Right. And you got started again, how? Just by reading a book? Matt: Yeah, I was just really looking at a compound interest chart. I was just, I just looked at it. And I was like, man, I could just kind of see the overall plan. I was like, I didn't know, you know, you know, everyone wants to be rich, and they want to have enough money. And it was a different feeling. At that time, I was young, and you know, mostly when you're young, or just want to get things and accumulate things and, you know, burn the world down. And that's not the case, as you get older, usually, you know, you, you find out what's really important. And to me, it's time with family and friends. And once I saw that chart, I could see the kind of overall kind of structure if you will, what I want to do. And then now as I got into it, I started filling in the blanks and seeing what way to get there. And trading is really kind of sped that process up. And I'm very excited about it. Allen: So do you see yourself like, okay, hey, you know, and this year, or this keeps up and you know, this age, I'm going to be a millionaire or 100 millionaire or something like that-  that doesn't appeal to you, right? Or does it sometimes? Matt: You know, like, I have a goal of turning you know, our money and making a million dollars. And that's, I wrote it down and seven years, I'd like to do that. If I don't get there, I'm not going to be upset about it. Like I said, you have to be happy about the process and excited about the process. And long as you're generally heading the right way. You can't help but be happy. I mean, if there's little setbacks, but if your general trajectory is moving forward, that's all you can ask for. And we're excited about that. So, you know, the number is less of a issue to me, as I get into it, you know, it's a great thing. And it's a great byproduct of what we're doing. But I think you just got to really look inward and be contentment and what really makes you happy in life, whatever it is you'd like to do. So, you know, money is just a tool to get there. And I I really feel that at this age, you know, it took me 20 years to figure that out. But yeah, it's exciting. Allen: Yeah, I totally agree with you and I'm excited for you, man. It's Just like, you know, you just get started now it's just, it's just up from here, you know, it's just the sky's the limit, and you know, a million dollars one day, you're gonna be like, Oh, that was nothing, you know? Let's go for 3, let's go for 5. Matt: You know, if not, I always say, Hey, you know, I can be happy I took a shot at So, you know, yeah, I left everything on the table. And that's what you have to do. And I couldn't be happier about that. Allen: But you've gotten it done. You know, it's not, it's not like, You got lucky, you've been doing it for consistently, you know, over and over and over again. And yeah, we've had a good market. And that helps. But you know, every market can be a good market, if you know what you're doing. So the fact that.. Matt: I'm very worried about that, because I started investing in 2009. Okay, so I've never seen a crash. And I know that and I'm aware that and I also look at, hey, what are my feelings going to be? And I try to read books about it, and listen to people and talk about their experiences, because I want to know what to do in that situation. So I could, that's a continuation thing for me. I mean, I know I have not been in a crash. That's all been up for me. And but I do know that I have to be wary of that. And I have to have a plan for that. And that's what I'm doing right now. So, you know, I don't want to get complacent and that I'm winning and winning and winning, because losses could be around the corner. And I just gotta know how to mitigate that process. Allen: So and see, I mean, just that comment right there. That's like, you know, this guy knows what he this guy's got a head good head on his shoulders. You know, he's not he's not overconfident. And he's not like, Oh, yeah, this is gonna happen for the rest of my life. I'm just gonna make money every month. No, I mean, I've been looking at it from all different angles, and you've been practicing and trading and different things. And you said, Oh, yeah, I've been doing put spreads. But I'm also doing call spreads, you know, because eventually, I'm going to need them. So it's like, yeah, there you go. That's it. I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, you do it the right way. You're doing it really the right way. And you started small and you're, you know, slowly, slowly, you're increasing. But you're still sticking to, you know, something that's manageable. You're not Oh, like you said that one trade I had. I mean, oh my god, out of 60 trades you've only lost one that's like, incredible. I never heard anybody do that. That's like, Well, can I give you my money? I want to go sail around the world here. You just take it in, take care of it for me. Matt: You can't have it back on if I lose it? Yeah. Allen: No, I think you'll be okay because you're getting prepared for it. You know, you're not blindsided. It's like, yeah, this is part of it. I've seen it. You know, you've maybe you haven't seen it yourself. But you've heard of it. But you're not. What are you like, 45 years at? Matt: I'm 45 Allen: Yeah, so you've been alive when there has been crashes? And oh, yeah. and stuff, you know, the.com bubble, everybody still remembers that? No, tell you about that. And, and stuff like that. So it's not like it's something completely out of the blue for you. If somebody was like 15 years old, or 20 years old - they're like, Oh, yeah, you know, I've never seen America crash. It's never gonna crash. But yeah, it's there. And you are, you're rounding out what I, you know, like, it's like, it's not just, you focused on something you learned about it, you practiced it, and you're like, Okay, this is working. Now I need to add to it, I need to add another skill, I need to add another skill. And you're, and you're still adding, that's the coolest thing that you're still growing, you're still learning. And you're still humble enough about it, so that you're like, you know, hey, I'm still working. And I work hard, and I have a good job, and I like it. But I would like to have more. And then eventually, I'm gonna work part time. That's really cool. Yeah. Matt: I actually parallel investing with running a marathon. You know  running marathons is a very difficult process, and it takes a lot of work. And there's a lot of dips along the way, and at times you feel like quitting, and there's a point of elation, and you have an angle. And I kind of feel like that kind of parallels my trading style. So I know that there's going to be, you know, mile 15 is going to be horrible. And mile 18 could be even worse. And then you get the mile 24 and you're like, elated. It's almost at the end. And that's kind of how investing is, you know, you have great times and you have terrible times. And you have to, you know, when you're training, you're accounting for all these processes along the way. You know, what shoes do I wear? How do I do this? If it rains? How do I count for this? I don't feel good. How do I account for that? What did I eat? all that stuff is very similar to how trading is in trading really, you learn a lot about yourself, just like you do in marathon running. I mean, you learn about what you're really made of, and the risk that you take and who you are as a person. So I think there's a lot of parallels there. Allen: Wow, yeah, I've never run a marathon but it sounds horrible. Matt: Yeah, I mean, people are like, they're either they do it or they want it done. I've got the bug. I was crazy. I decided doing but um, I don't do them anymore. I maybe maybe have one or two. I mean, I will see but uh, you know, I want to keep my knees going into my 50s. Allen: Cool. All right, Matthew. I really appreciate it. This was great. I mean, it's wonderful to see you know, somebody go from knowing nothing to making you know, four grand a month trading part time. And, you know, it's like, Hey, I can do this. If you can do for you can eventually do more, and it'll replace your income and make all your dreams come true. So kudos to you for getting in the path, taking the risk, and trying it out, learning, spending the time, and I hope that people listen to this and they're encouraged by it, they're inspired by you, I mean  when I heard your story, I was like, "we gotta get Matthew on the show". You know, forklift driver to early retiree. Matt: Yeah I hope so. I appreciate you guys and I can't thank you enough, you and your team, that there's actually people out there that teach this stuff and actually care about people, because there's a lot of people that don't have it all and I really appreciate that. Allen: Thank you Matt: Yeah I'm sure your viewers appreciate it as well. Allen: Yeah thank you for hanging out with us. Matt: Alright, thank you. LOVE ALLEN SAMA - OPTION GENIUS AND WANT TO LEARN MORE TRADING TIPS  AND TRICKS? HERE ARE SOME NEXT STEPS... SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PODCAST FREE 9 LESSON COURSE: https://optiongenius.com/  WATCH THIS FREE TRAINING: https://passivetrading.com  JOIN OUR PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP: https://optiongenius.com/alliance  Like our show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps.

Allen: Passive Traders, welcome to another edition of the Option Genius Podcast. In this episode I have the pleasure of introducing you to a fellow passive trader, Mr. Charles Betz. He is a passive trader and he is gonna talk about how he got started with a small dollar account and how he is using the Wheel Options Strategy to generate some very significant returns. I think you're gonna enjoy this one. Stay tuned. Allen: Cool. So tell me, tell me about Chuck, tell me about Mr. Betts, you know, what do you do? Who are you? How'd you get into trading? Chuck: I'm a high school teacher, I teach math and physics. It's a second career. My first career was in the restaurant industry. And you know, things just didn't really work out for me there. So then a teacher for then going into my 10th year of teaching. And the whole reason I got into trading was when I looked at the retirement system, the pension, everything that teachers can earn, it's like one of the few professions that still has a pension, I looked at how old I was going to be when I was going to be able to collect a decent income. And I thought, wow, I'm not sure I want to work to be that old one. I'm still working and retire at that age, like, how much am I going to have left? Who knows? So I started looking into other things that could maybe do to dial that number back. And I met with a buddy of mine, I have a real estate license, that's one of the things I got into while I was transitioning careers. He's he owned a, he ran his own little brokerage for a little while, and I was thinking about maybe, you know, selling some homes or listing some homes in the summer or on the side while I was teaching to make extra money. And he told me about options. He's like, you got to check this out. This crazy thing, like, and I'd heard of them, I'd looked into different types of trading, trading currencies and, and trading stocks. You know, that's one of the things I teach in one of my math classes was investing, you know, stocks and what are they and all that stuff. Just the basics, though. And I had never heard of options. So that's how I found out about options was through my buddy knows about two years ago. Allen: So okay, only about two years. All right. Chuck: Yeah. Allen: Cool. So instead of telling you to "Yeah, come on board and you know, love you sell houses for me", he just, he put you in a whole different direction? Allen: Well, he did offer to, you know, give you some leads, I could follow up on his real estate leads. But having done real estate full time in the past, I know how much time and effort and energy it takes to be successful in that industry. Yeah. And as a teacher, you know, I already had a few years under my belt, and I, I love this job. I love what I do. But I just don't want to do it forever. I couldn't see doing real estate and then teaching. At the same time, it just I don't know where I would find the time to do both. So I thought I'd look into options or something to do with the financial markets, because that's something that can be done without as much time to invest into it, you know? Allen: Yeah. What state are you in? Chuck: I'm in California, in Southern California. I live in the city of La Mesa is just outside of San Diego. Allen: Okay. And so they're unionized teachers there? Chuck: I was teaching at a school that had a union I was part of the Union have since left that school for.. Now, I teach from home. I was another thing I reason is because I had more time, I didn't have to go drive and be in a school building all day. I work with homeschool kids Allen: Oh, interesting. Chuck: It's homeschool them. And, you know, they get to that point in their schooling where they're like, I can't help you with that math, or I don't know how to teach you Physics. So that's where I come in. But we aren't part of a union. But we do still pay into the State Retirement where we get our funds from public schools. And from you know, the same way public schools do we are a public charter school. We're just not part of a union. So, that's the only difference. Allen: Okay, so I think you might have touched on this, but besides the money aspect, what drew you to trading? Chuck: I just wanted to not have to work until I'm in my late 60s. And I knew that if I could somehow increase our income, and put that into retirement savings. You know, we're we're starting to fund our Roth IRAs, and we're starting to give money to our 403B's. And we're, we also, you know, my wife's a teacher, too. So, you know, we're starting to we pay into the 403B is like a 401k. But.. Allen: ..for teachers Chuck: For teachers, right. And I was thinking, well, gosh, you know, it'd be really cool if we could just build up our investments faster. That way, we wouldn't have to rely on you know, that number they're gonna give you when you reach that age, it's all this calculator and this crazy math, and they tell you, well, if you teach this many years, and you're this age, we'll give you this much money. And I was like, that's all great, but I don't want to be 68 when I retire, how can I dial that back? So yes, it was about the money, but it was more about how can I start coming back from 68 and make it more like 65 or maybe 62? Or maybe even younger than that, you know, so yeah, that was really the goal was to not have to work until the 68 and how does your wife feel about that? She is on board like this whole thing is just been a huge eye opener. You know, I've kind of been a sucker in my life for all of these crazy money making schemes and it's something I learned from my mom growing up she got into all these crazy money making schemes and and you know, I've met a lot of really bad decisions and so it took a while for me to realize that no, this is legit like this is real. This works this this is not a scam it's not an overnight get rich quick scheme but but it's a legitimate way to increase your income and to reach that goal of financial security a lot faster than you normally would. So she's totally on board. Allen: That's awesome. That's really, I mean, I would say it's becoming more common. But in the.. Originally when a lot of people come to us, you know, they're like, yeah, you know, I want to do this, but my wife, she's totally against it. And she just thinks, like you said, you know, she just thinks it's another one of those things that I'm getting into, that I'm all excited about, I'm gonna spend money on course, or whatever. And then, either it's not gonna work, or I'm not gonna do it. So we have that pushback a lot from a lot of people, and I get where you're coming from. Because I mean, when I was little, you know, I've done it all to you know, network marketing, you know, real estate, sales, all that stuff, everything that I could think of, I even did those chain letters. I don't know if you ever did that, where no, you get a letter.. Chuck: I know what you're talking about. Allen: You get a letter, and it has like, 10 names. And you're like, Okay, you got to send $1 to each people on the name. And then and then you change the last and you put your name there, and then you send out 1000 letters, and then all those 1000 people are supposed to send you $1, and on and on and on. And yeah.. Chuck: Oh my gosh I totally remember those. Allen: That was cool. I think I got like, $1 back. Chuck: Yeah well growing up, you know, my mom bought into, I don't know, if you remember Carlton sheets, you know.. Allen: Yup, we got his programs Chuck: She was into Amway and selling Avon, and, you know, she was always trying to find that, you know, that next thing and, and so that's kind of the mindset I had growing up. But, you know, I just didn't really learn any financial literacy from her, you know, it was, it was kind of a struggle, really. So when I, when it found this, I've always, you know, when I got older, a little bit older in life, I started to realize, like, I don't have a whole lot of good financial knowledge from growing up. So I need to be a little bit more cautious about things. So I kind of made sure that this worked before I introduced it to my wife. And once she saw that it was working, she's like, Let's go, this is great. Are you kidding? Wow. Allen: Okay, so how did you so you said, you made sure that it work? How did you do that? Chuck: So we had a brokerage account that I had just bought some stocks in, we opened it up when our daughter was born, we had a few thousand dollars in there. And you know, just it was just sitting there not really doing anything and never really appreciated and value never went up. It was you know, over the years, when I was in real estate, some of the guys in the office, we're doing penny stocks, and maybe have a couple $100 of that. And, and so over the years, there was a total of a couple grand in there, I read that a little over 3000. And so when I first found out about Options, I used that because she really didn't even know about that. It was like this account that she barely knew.. Allen: She forgot about it.. Chuck: Whatever, it's no big deal. And so I used that to figure out, is this legitimate? Is this going to work? Or is this another one of those things where I'm just going to be like, oh, there I go again, making poor decisions about things don't really work. And at first, it didn't, you know, one of the the the program and the education program that my buddy introduced me to, the thing they used to get me into it was buying options, which totally went against everything that I heard from you, and from another podcast person that I listened to where all you guys talked about as being a seller of options. But the way they presented the course and all the information, it made so much sense. There was logic and you know, a program and a trading plan. And so I put that in, in motion with my little small account and lost a third of it over the course of about four or five months. So that's my start into option. Yeah.. Allen: Yeah that's pretty common. A lot of people go that route because it I mean, it's more appealing because oh, if you buy an option, you can double your money, triple your money 10 times your money overnight, you know. And it's great, because they have plenty of examples, you know, they can show you Oh, we did this trade. And we had this trade we did this trip, they don't show you the other 99 trades that didn't do well. But they show you the few that did. So great. So how did you find out about option genius? How did you get started with us? Chuck: I was looking for more education, more information. You know, I watched tons of YouTube videos about what options are. All the Greeks and all the details and all that stuff. And I go out, mental part of my daily routine is to go out for an hour long walk, walk about three miles every morning, I'll put my earbuds in and I started listening to podcasts about investing and and then eventually trading and now options. And yours was one of the few out there that I could find there aren't that many people doing consistent podcasts about options trading. So between you and this other one that I was listening to. Again, both of you were primarily talking about selling options, and here I was over buying options and like something is.. I'm not doing something right. I'm losing money, and these guys are talking about doing something different. I gotta get this figured out. So that's how I found you guys was through podcasts. So thank you for putting out the podcast. Allen: Okay, no, you're welcome. It's been a it's been an interesting journey for the podcast. So what was the the first product that you tried with us? or what have you had? Chuck: So I went to your website, I signed up for your emails, just your basic emails, here's what we do that kind of stuff. And you sent out a scholarship request, you were offering a scholarship for your passive trading program. And, you know, like I said, I didn't have a whole lot of extra money on the side, I was using a really small account, you know, to buy a program is like, Oh, I'm still not sure about this stuff. But you offered a scholarship and your your introductory video for what you want. And you're like, you know, I've offered this before, like, nobody's ever really done anything with it. I was really kind of disappointed by all the people who, you know, I've given the scholarship to I haven't really had any success stories. So maybe you can be a success story. And I'm like, Yes, that is me. I want to be that guy. So I put together my video and I sent it in and you emailed me, congratulations. You know, we're awarding the scholarship, and I just about my head exploded, it was fantastic. So I watched all the courses. I take notes on all the courses that you teach. I have my little options notebook here that I write everything down, like, word and awesome. And just right when it all was over started, started working the plan. So that's how I found you guys. Allen: And how how's it been? so far? That was about two years ago. You said? Chuck: A year and a half ago.. Allen: Year and a half. Okay. Chuck: It was actually February of 2020. Good Time to get started, right? Yeah, I started placing my first trades, and my first few trades were profitable. I hit my profit margins, just like the plan says everything was going great. Oh, my gosh, let's keep going. Let's do the next month beginning of March, you know, open up my trades, and then Coronavirus, right. And so everything went south, but I could see like this is working. I totally get that this works. We just had this huge adjustment in our market based on what was going on. So I just kept going and going after that. And it's been going great. Allen: But you had the hope, right? Chuck: Oh, yeah, no, I can see that it worked. That was the thing I saw the results, I saw that this new strategy I'd never used before. It works. What all of these guys talk about books that I've read, talk about selling options is the way to make money. It works. It was the first time I had ever sold an option. I was like, Oh my gosh, this stuff works. Kind of like how you talked about in your story where you're like, man, I was losing money. And I looked at the this one option. And it was the one I sold. And I was like what it was like a light bulb moment. Right? Allen: Yep. Yeah. So So how did you handle the the Corona bear market? Chuck: You know, I lost some money, but I just got right back in. Like, I think it turned around within a few weeks. Like actually, as it started going down, I start I just flipped to the other side of the options chain, you know, and started taking advantage of it on that side. And okay, because I could see, okay, we're gonna go down for a few days, or maybe a week or who knows how long but that's the beauty of options is, you know, if there's a clear trend and what's going on, you can jump to the other side. Allen: Awesome, cool. Cool. So how have your trading results been so far? Chuck: Um, I'm keeping track. So that account was so small, and I really wasn't doing what I wanted to do based on what the passive trading formula, you know, they're the three main types of trades and you break it all down by account size and my accounts, I was so small, and I wasn't having as much luck with what the one strategy to build it up. So I rolled over my 403 beat from my previous employer to my current brokerage as a rollover IRA and got it approved for options and started trading there. That was October of last year. Allen: Okay. Chuck: And since October, it's up 26%. Allen: Okay, so what does that like nine months or so? Chuck: Yeah, yeah. And also, if I, if I look at the graph, because most math people would like to graph things. As I look at the graph, I should be right around 30 to 35% on a year over year basis. So using using that strategy. Allen: Sweet, very nice. So what strategies are you using? Chuck: Right now and selling puts to get into positions.. Allen: Okay. Chuck: And once I'm in that position, I do covered calls, and I'm doing them a little closer to the money because I don't really care if it gets called away. As long as I'm, you know, not negative in that particular option, like position, I should say, I look at each position like a little business, right? If I'm going to put this money out there, I want to make me money. And as long as I'm profitable in that position, if it gets called away as long as I've made money on it, you know, when it's all said and done, perfect. So that's what I've been doing. It's just kind of been bouncing back and forth right now. I don't I'm not holding anything right now. I might get assigned this Friday. We'll see depending on where that put closes. So yeah, that's what I've been doing. Allen: Then what type of stocks? Are you doing this on? Chuck: Actually, I've only been using ETFs. Allen: Okay Chuck: So I found that stocks dip, you know, they move a lot I've been I've been looking at, I've been doing credit spreads a little bit like, you know, you're taught to do credit spreads. So, I've been doing a couple of those here and there, I'm starting to get back into trying those out and making sure I can figure out I know what I'm doing. But I like doing it on ETFs. Because I feel like you know, an ETF isn't going to go bankrupt, an ETF isn't going to go down to zero. So I've been using, you know, smaller ETFs, some of the different ETFs that have smaller, you know, price per share points. So that, because my IRA account isn't that big. So, you know, but and I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket, I don't want to do all of it one trade, so I want to spread it around. So I've been using just this list of ETFs that I found that, you know, fit all the criteria you mentioned in the course and just keep selling puts on them until I get assigned and then doing covered calls. And if it gets called away, then I just go back to selling puts again, and it just keeps going around around around. Allen: Awesome. So that puts your selling in the covered calls, they are what weekly every two weeks, three weeks a month? Chuck: They're on mostly I'm doing monthly, most of the time, I'm looking for like a 30 to 35 days till expiration, put to sell all of the ETFs do offer weekly options, you know, I want to make sure that fit that criteria of having weekly options. And there's lots of liquidity, you know, not that you necessarily need it if you're okay with being assigned. But still, you know, if there for some reason you wanted to get out of a trade, you got to be able to get out of the trade. But there is one where I've been doing it a little bit more like just testing out this idea of trying it every like two to three weeks. So I've been doing puts where they'll expire anywhere between 18 and 24 days instead of 30 to 35 just to see what the results aren't, you know, playing around with things and right, keeping tracking data and keeping track of everything to see if it offers any edge whatsoever. Allen: Right. And you're not and you're not keeping the stocks too long. So you're not really worried about the dividend? Chuck: No, not at all. I mean, I'm hoping to build, you know, to get to that point. And like you say in your program where it's like, Okay, you got this host of really good stocks, you get your dividends that are coming in, and then you're just doing calls on top of that to help juice those returns. So but my accounts not quite there yet. Allen: Okay, no worries. Chuck: Or size goes. Allen: Yeah, no, that's awesome. So okay, so you're doing like basic butter, I mean, bread and butter covered or naked puts, get some premium, maybe they expire, maybe they get assigned. And then you turn around right around and you do what like at the money covered calls are a little bit out of the money or.. Chuck: Depending on how if I do get assigned, you know, it depends on where I got assigned at. So if it did go through a couple of dollar drops, let's say it was trading at $40 a share and I sold that put and and then it drops to 38. You know, I'll make sure that I sell the call. So that I'm above my cost basis. I want to make sure I'm not losing money on the position. So sometimes it's a little further out of the money. But most of the time, I'm trying to sell it pretty much right at where I got it sound. Okay, awesome. and collect the premiums to build my account faster. Allen: That's cool. Yeah, I mean, congratulations. I mean, you're doing better than most people out there and a lot of Professionals. Chuck: Yeah it's amazing. I'm floored I really am when I started plotting everything and looking at the returns. I was like, Are you kidding me? This is crazy. Unbelievable. Allen: How long does it take you in the day to do this? Chuck: Oh, not long at all. I do in the morning. You know, before my workday starts or some sometimes before I go out for my morning walk. You know if it I'll look Monday or Tuesday. Okay, let's sell another put in, I just got my list of ETFs that I look at and I say okay, how much did that one expire? Cool, I've got some more money in my account. Let's sell another one. Did I get assigned? Okay, let's look at the chain where where do I need to do my covered call at. Okay, let's do it there. And then I go on with my day. That's it. It's I love it because it's so low maintenance during the school year, my days are unswamped. Like I don't have a whole lot of time to sit here and stare at a screen of the markets and go through and look at charts and all that. So this plan really just fits what I'm looking for. Allen: Okay, so okay, now, I don't know if you've done this. But if you extrapolate and say, okay, you know, I'm doing about 25-30% a year, if I can do that every year, which you know, with the style that you're doing, you should be able to do somewhere close to that, right? Does that help you or does that? Have you done the numbers and be like, Well, you know, I could probably retire five years earlier, four years early or something like that. Chuck: That's been a moving target. And it's really been hard to nail down because all of this is just so recent. It's also very recent, and you sent out that email. I don't remember like a month or two ago. What's your number and you linked it to that article. where, you know, that guy offered to give you as much money as you want you write a number down? How much money would you need to never work again for the rest of your life. And I'm going to ask for other people. And whoever gives me the lowest number wins. I thought that was amazing. Because then I got me to think, what is my number? I never, I mean, I know that this whole thing was designed to dial back my my want to work till 68. Right. But what would this get me if I were to project this out? Could I stop teaching at 62? Could I stop teaching at 59, I really need to look at all of the pieces of the puzzle, to get a clear picture of what that's going to look like and when. But it's very exciting. This is exciting stuff to get to do, you know? Allen: Yeah, I mean, you know, I mean, if you, if you're still looking at that way, that's great. But I would like you to look at it from a different point of view as well, now that you've already seen, you know, that it works is power behind it. Now, let's figure out okay, how much do you need every month to pay the bills, so that we don't need to worry about what your big number is in the, you know, in the big number in the sky? Think we need X dollars every month to pay the bills? How much do I need in my account? To cover that amount? Right? So if you want to, you know, like, let's say your monthly expenses are five, six grand, and you know, as an example, well, hey, if I can make that much five, six grand from my trading account every month doing these simple trades, boom! I can retire today, you know, and then it's up to you. It's I could do I want to keep teaching? Yeah, that's great. Or do I want to go volunteer? Or do I want to teach for free? Or, you know, it, the sky's the limit at that point? So, you know, definitely, I don't want people to think that they have to wait till 6568, they could do it a lot sooner. And when you look at it, from that point of view, that's another like, aha moment like what really that possible? Yeah, it is. And it doesn't take as much as you would think, especially when you're, you know, bringing in like, one 2% a month. If you can build it up, then. And once you take a look at it, your expenses. I mean, you're in California, so maybe a little bit higher with the taxes and whatnot. But if you structure it in a different way, it might be a lot less than you realize. Chuck: I think I'm going to do that. Just knowing that, you know, I haven't done a full year, I think once I hit that October deadline, where I've been doing this a year, and I see that number, and I know that it works, that's a really good opportunity to say, hey, how much would I need in my account? In order to do this and live off of it, like pay my bills, pay my expenses, and not have to worry about going to a classroom every day during the school year, or teaching zoom classes or planning lessons or grading papers? Or you know, any of that just, you know, then what would I do with my time? No, I could, like you said, volunteer or tutor for free or do something else. Just Yeah, that's a that's a really interesting thought. Allen: I mean, I wouldn't want you to leave teaching because I know we need our teachers. But you know, just the fact of not having to worry. Like we've had multiple, multiple people that come into our system, where they get to that point, you know, where hey, yeah, I'm making as much as from my job as I am from my trading. But I love my job so much. I want to keep doing it. Yeah. So it feels really good. your self esteem goes up the way you think about yourself, the way you carry yourself all that changes, because now you're like, wow, you know, I'm in control of my own destiny. Chuck: Yeah I can see that I just just from the success I've had, I can kind of see that mindset shift for me, you know, what my thoughts are about the future and, and what's possible. Allen: Like, I know, like, you know, recently after Corona, we've had this really great bull market, you know, things have been going up things have been doubled, tripled since when they from the hit the bottom and they went up. So a lot of people have made a lot of money, especially the buying option, guys, right now they're walking on water, because they're like, oh, everything that every option I buy, it goes up, every call option goes up. So they're making money, but the thing that you're doing, it works in a bull market when things are going up, but it always works when things are going sideways. And it works really good even when things are going down. You know, so if you came to me and said, Oh, yeah, you know, I've been buying options, and I made 40% or 30% this year, really Congratulations, but you're not gonna be able to do that year after year after year. You know, but what you're doing, yeah, it can be done year after year after year. And then you start compounding that eventually, very quickly, within three, four or five years, you know, that number every month of what you're bringing in just exponentially grows and grows and grows and it gets huge. So I'm really excited for you. So it's like the, you know, future looks really really bright for you. Chuck: It really does. It's it's just an having come to you know, financial stability, I will say at a later age in life and thinking about okay, when I got into teaching at least I will be able to retire at some point, you know, even though that was 68 and then stumbling into this It just blows my mind. Because, you know, I wish I had found it sooner just like teaching. I love teaching. I wish I had started doing this earlier in my life. But yeah, the opportunities that trading opens up are limitless. This has just been amazing. And I can't thank you enough because you guys offered me the scholarship. And here I am. I'm loving it. Allen: Yep. Okay, so now we've talked a lot about the good stuff, right. But what now what was maybe the most challenging thing to get you started to doing this or achieve some success with this? Chuck: I think well, two things. One was the account size, small account to start with. But the second was more of a mental thing. And again, I don't know if it had to do with all of those horrible schemes, those money making schemes that I've come to in the past to really just trust and believe in this and know that it works and trust in the process and click Submit on that order and just watch it work. But I think the mental part of it was probably the hardest thing to get over. And I hear so many people that I listened to and read about talk about that aspect of what it is we're doing, where the mental part of trading is probably one of the most important things, because anybody can do a strategy. And anybody can come up with a trading plan. But if you don't have the right mindset about that plan, it's not going to work for you. It's just not. And I think that was the hardest thing that when it clicked for me, it was like, Oh, my gosh, why did it take so long? But I think getting the right mindset was probably the hardest thing for me. Allen: Okay, and how did you go ahead and get that mindset? Chuck: Knowing that there's limited risk, like what we do you limit your risk? You know, the, when there are certain things that you know, people talk about options, I have a friend who used to work in the financial markets. And I was asking him if he knew anything about options, because oh, man, I don't know, the only thing I know is those are really risky. But what we do you define your risk, right? You You have a, here's your maximum loss, you are willing to lose, you're not going to lose your house and your life savings and be destitute living on the street. There's a and you can make that as small as you want. And I think that helped comfort me a little bit and just saying, Well, look, if it doesn't work, this is what I'm going to lose. Am I okay with that? Yeah, that's not going to make a big deal in the long run. So let's give it a try. So that part of it really helped me get over the mindset of losing, or the fear of losing being greater than the fear of opportunity, or the the actual idea of opportunity. So yeah, just the mindset thing that really took a while for me to wrap my head around, and just do it. But I again, reading so many people talk about it, and great examples of how to get over it. Just, it's I'm so glad I did. Allen: Awesome. Awesome. Cool. So let's say if we have a listener who's in your shoes, where you were about year and a half, two years ago, what would you tell that person? How would you tell? How would you advise them to get started? Or what should they do first, second, third? Chuck: Educate yourself. Definitely, you know, I spent several months just educating myself as much as possible with from reputable people. Like I said, I listen to your podcast, I listen to podcasts of other people, I read books, watch the YouTube videos from reputable sources, you can kind of tell the snake oil salesmen out there, so I would always just kind of tell them, you know, ignore those. But, you know, there are plenty of valid sources of free material to educate you about what options are and how they can work for you. So first, make sure you know what you're doing. But then second, get yourself a somebody who knows what they're doing to help you out. This has been such a helpful community that you've introduced me to everybody in our Facebook group, you offer all of the support, you know, it's just been so helpful to know that there are people out there doing it with me, even though I'm here alone in my office, you know, watching the screen or doing what I'm doing, but definitely somebody who's new - educate yourself, find somebody who's going to help you, and then just do it. You just be okay, with losing a couple 100 bucks. Trust me, I think most people have probably spent a couple 100 bucks on something useless Anyway, you know, and so, I think it's worth it to see that this works. And that'll just be a complete different, a complete mind change for you. Allen: Cool. Okay, so now thinking back to the program that you were in the passive trading formula, give me like maybe two or three takeaways that you know, when you went through it, it really hits you and you're like, Okay, this you know, this makes a lot of sense. This is good. I need to start using this stuff. Chuck: There are rules for everything. You have everything there is a template, it's a pre determined, this is how you do it. This is what you look for this is when you see this go. And as a math teacher math is just rules, right? And what you do when you know there are rules for every type. Math. So if you follow these rules, you'll get the right answer. So if you follow that trading rule, you will get the desired outcome. You know that I think that was one of the biggest takeaways from your entire program was that there's a template, it's laid out for you, you know, here, here's what to look for, here's what to do when things go wrong. Here's what to do when things go right. Here's how to be successful at this and then just do it. That's it. That was the beauty of it is how simple it is. And the fact that I don't have to be glued to my computer screen all day. It's perfect. Allen: Mm hmm. Cool. Okay. Chuck: I hope that answer your question, I hope. Allen: Yeah, I did. Yeah, it's up to you is whatever I mean, you know, everybody looks at it from a different point of view. You know, when some people start asking the same question, it's like, some people they talk about, oh, yeah, you know, I'm gonna be able to do this. With like, some people have certain disabilities, and they can't, they can't work or they can't focus, or they can't do some some other things. And they get drawn to this. Other people look at it. And their takeaway is like, Oh, you know, I'm coming at this from like, let's say, a real estate background, we have a lot of real estate investors, they get involved in options, because it makes sense. You know, you're you're buying a house, you're renting it out, you're cash flowing it, well, you could do that same thing with stocks, you know, your covered call is cash flowing your stocks. So it's kind of the same thing. And so different, like I love your answer is great. Everybody looks at it from a different point of view. So I just like hearing what attracted and what people took away the template thing, you know, that that's something, I've heard it but not not too much? And I think it is, it's one of the things we like to do is just keep it simple, you know, you can, like you said, there are other people out there, they're teaching this stuff. But what I find is that they make it so complicated, that it stops people in their tracks from like, oh, man, I'm never gonna understand this stuff. What is he talking about? i? Geez. So that's what we kind of, you know, especially this program is like, yeah, this is really simple. You know, like, just get started, start with one foot, start with another foot, you don't have to go running, you just start walking a little bit, and crawling a little bit, and eventually you'll, you'll get the hang of it. So.. Chuck: Yeah, it's been great. I think the other thing that hooked me the most was you use the analogy of insurance a lot. And that really was like another lightbulb moment. For me. There was a book I was reading, where they talked about it from being an insurance company perspective. You've talked about it from that perspective, I used to work for AIG selling life insurance back before they had to get bailed out. That was an interesting time. But insurance for that perspective, and selling options totally makes sense to me. And being able to define your risk, you know, what insurance market Do you want to go into? Do you want to be a reinsurance company where you're going to handle all the crazy insurance that nobody else will touch? Or do you want to be a super conservative insurance company, that's really what trading options is, you're, you're out there taking on a little bit of risk and collecting some money and just do it month after month. And it's amazing. It's just amazing. And that so that whole insurance analogy just really clicked with me. So between that and and the step by step, here's the template, follow this process, and let it fly. That those two were the huge takeaways for me. Allen: Okay, cool. Awesome. So based on your experience, would you recommend Option Genius to others? Chuck: Oh, yeah, I already have! A buddy that I mentioned, options to he used to work for the wealthiest guy here in San Diego County was the guy manages several billion dollars worth of investments. But you know, his portfolio kind of shrank over the past several years, and he's just looking to hang it up. So he got laid off. And he was the one I asked if he knew anything about options, and he could get all freaked out, oh, they're risky. And I said, Well, you should look into this guy, you should, you know, go listen to some of his podcasts. That's how I was introduced. And if what he's saying makes any sense, you know, I'm happy to turn you on to what they're doing over there. It's It's amazing. It really is. And so, I don't know if he's, I haven't talked to him. I don't know if he's listened to the podcast and ran with it or done anything with it. But I'll probably check in with him here before I go back to school next month. Allen: I appreciate that. Yeah. I mean, you know, everything that we can do to get the word out there, because the situation for.. I mean, you're you're lucky that you're a teacher, and you have that built in pension, you know, it's kind of I've learned a little bit about it, but it's like your teachers are kind of in that situation, or better often. Most companies are most people that don't have that fallback plan. A lot of people are really, really and you have the other thing, I don't know if you, you're in high school teacher, right. So I mean, if you were unionized, I've seen these, it's harder to lay off a teacher. Chuck: Oh, yeah. Allen: But we have so many, so many people that come to us and say, you know, I was a high level executive. I was making a couple 100 grand a year, but then they decided to lay me off and they brought in somebody that's, you know, doing the work cheaper. And now I can't find a job that will pay me the same amount I was making so my family's used to a certain lifestyle. I can't provide it anymore. Yeah, I wish I had found this stuff so much sooner. And so that's why it's like I'm out there like man, you know, we really need to get this stuff out there. People need to hear about it. Chuck: I agree! Allen: Even if they're doing just the basics, you know, just, you know you already have, most people already have a stock portfolio, they already have their indexes, just, you know, just sell a few options every few years, every month, you know, not even every month, they can do it every few months, they can still make a little bit more than they're making now. And in the long run, it'll add up and workout. So Alright, last question for you. What do you think the future holds for you now? Chuck: That is completely up to me. You know, I've always been a believer in that, that I kind of control my destiny and my circumstances, don't necessarily, I'm here because of who I am. So, but I feel like my future has just, it's wide open. It really is I daydream a lot more. I think about the opportunities and the possibilities a lot more. You know, it's like you said, What if 5, 6, 7 years from now, this could replace your teaching income? Would you continue to teach, you know, or would you do something else? And those are the thoughts that I have. And I just, like I said, haven't really committed it to paper and, and, and talked it over with my wife to figure out okay, if I could, you know, would I? Or could I? Or should I, and what would I do? You know, what would I deal with all that time? But those are the, that's that's what I see for me and a future is just so many possibilities. You know, there's so many things that I thought I would have to wait to do until I'm much much older than I am now. And, and the thought of being able to get to do those sooner rather than later. It's really exciting. Allen: Yeah. Is there anything that one thing that you've always wanted to do that you're like, yeah, I'm gonna give it a shot? Chuck: So interesting story. My last job in the restaurant business, I was a brew master. And I worked for a company called rock bottom breweries. There used to be one I know you're in. In Texas, there was one in Houston for a long time. I don't know if it's still there or not. But I was a Brewmaster for the rock bottom breweries, and I absolutely loved it. It was a fun company. It was a fun job, that beer community, the craft brewing community, and this was back in the late 90s. No, this was before everything blew up like it is now. So and I had to get out because of a workplace injury. Well, you know, so many of these little tiny neighborhood breweries are opening up where it would be super easy to manage on my own and just do it part time, B 4 days a week, I've seen people do that business model. I think that would be a fantastic thing to do with my time. Just make some beer for the local community sponsor, some little league teams and some softball teams and just just, you know, work part time and have a great time. Allen: That sounds awesome. Yeah, yeah. So what are you gonna do it? I know, I'm pushing you here. Chuck: I know, I think I should I really do. I think if that's the one thing I could do, if I got out of this, what would I do with my time? I think that's what I would do. I really do. Allen: Sweet , cool. I like it. I like it. It's a good plan. I mean, I wouldn't want you to stop teaching but you could do this in your afternoons. Chuck: Tutoring is an option. And with tutoring, you can set your own hours tutors get paid fairly well, you don't have to, you know, be locked in a classroom for six and a half hours or glued to a computer screen teaching three or four hours a day. Tutoring can just be Hey, an hour here an hour there. And you know, you're still helping students out you're still passing down that knowledge that you know, and, and being a part of the education journey, you know, somebody who's who's never been, you know, to college, or whatever it may be. But at the same time, having all my other time to do other things that I want to pursue, like, like running my own brewery. Allen: That sounds interesting. That sounds like a lot of fun. Yeah, I mean, I'm in Houston. Well outside of Houston. So I don't remember that one. But there are several here. And like, I've been to a couple of them. There's one called St. Arnold. I think they they sponsor, you know, the MS. Ms. 150, which is like a bike race. They're big sponsors of different charities and stuff around. I don't drink, but it's just the vibe when you go there. And it's just a whole it's, it's just different atmosphere. So yeah. Chuck: Oh, yeah. And that's what drew me to it was the community, you know, as a job. It's just a job here. You know, it's pretty physical manual labor to run one of those breweries. Yeah. But it is more of the community, you know, sponsoring local events and just reaching out, you know, giving giving money away cuz brewing beer is like printing money. The cost of the materials to make that stuff is next to nothing. And they're selling it for four or five, six bucks a glass that's, it's like printing money. It's crazy. So you know, I would just love to be a part of my community here and give back. Allen: Yeah, I've always thought to get into something like snow cones or something like that. You know, you're just selling. Chuck: Yeah. Oh, my gosh, those used to come to my daughter's Elementary School. Same thing. Yeah. You know, just putting a little flavored syrup on a cup of ice and you're charging four bucks for that. Oh, my gosh, yeah. Allen: Fun thing. Cool. All right. So thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for your time. I'm so happy and proud of your success. Had you really, you know, you took that scholarship, you ran with it, it was all on you, you know, I mean, we we did what we could we supported you however we could, but it takes, like I said, you know, when you saw the video, there are several people that have been through that program, and they start everybody starts out fresh and excited. And you know, but then life happens and they kind of fall off. But not you. I mean, you took it, you ran with it, you're actually doing it. And I think that's the biggest thing, you know, you want to change your life, you have to set your goal, you have to set it and this is something that I'm going to do. And then you just do it month after month you keep at it and you work on it, like you said you had, you know, you lost a little money in the beginning with the different program, and then you found something that made sense. And that's like, the biggest thing is, oh, this makes sense to me, okay, I press this, I do this, I do this. And that happens. Okay, let me try, you tried it, it worked. Allen: And you're like, Okay, I could do this. And then you just kept building on it and building on it. And like you said, Now you're getting you know, you're trying to do the credit spreads, you're learning a different strategy, you're getting a little bit more creative and more advanced. You don't really have to, you know, you've had great success, you know, if the S&P was doing 30% every year, like, we'd all be billionaires, we wouldn't have to do any of this. But it does it. But if you could do that year after year, I mean, you'd be you know, you could be starting your own school and your own Brewmaster school or whatever you want to do. You'd be starting up pretty soon. So I'm really excited for you. I appreciate you. Thank you for taking the time to apply for that scholarship, and then just taking and run with it and doing it and it just makes me so, it makes me so happy. You know, it's like, yeah, you know something, I'm actually doing something that's making a difference for somebody. Chuck: I can't thank you enough, Allen, for extending that, for offering this all the support, you know, for the past year and a half that I've been part of the program, you know, the the coaching and the support community on Facebook, and just, you know, just putting that information out there and sharing your knowledge and your belief in other people. So I just want to extend that thank you to you personally, because I will be forever grateful. Allen: You're welcome. You're welcome. And I mean, you've made me come to the decision, that yeah we want to offer this scholarship again this year, you know, in the past? I don't know, man, is it helping anybody? We just wasting our time? But no, I, you know, I think we need to even if it helps out one person like it's, I think it'd be worth it. So normally, we do it around Thanksgiving. So those of you who are listening, if you're interested in the program, you want to wait till Thanksgiving, I wouldn't advise it. But hey if money's tight, then maybe that's what you got to do. Right. So we're on Thanksgiving, we'll probably come out with a scholarship again, for a limited number of people. But yeah, thank you so much again, Chuck. This has been awesome. Appreciate it. And we'll talk to you soon. Chuck: All right, thanks, again, take care. Allen: Uh huh. Buh-bye LOVE ALLEN SAMA - OPTION GENIUS AND WANT TO LEARN MORE TRADING TIPS  AND TRICKS? HERE ARE SOME NEXT STEPS... SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PODCAST FREE 9 LESSON COURSE: https://optiongenius.com/  WATCH THIS FREE TRAINING: https://passivetrading.com  JOIN OUR PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP: https://optiongenius.com/alliance  Like our show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps.

Bringing you the story of my manager Mr. Allen I had a conversation with Mr. Allen successful Business Owner / CEO ✴ Entrepreneur and Real Estate Investor Deuteronomy 28: 1-15 comes to mind

A Conversation With Mr. Allen I wanted to know how they remain so blessed.

This week we ask whether Allen should open his factory sealed Empire Strikes Back VHS tape so he can digitize it. We also breakout sales of the top 10 selling discs by format, Finally we make a case for not buying an 8K TV just yet. We also read your emails and take a look at the news on an action packed episode!! Question of the Day Question of the day comes from Allen -   I have an original VHS copy of Empire Strikes Back, it is still shrink-wrapped.  Is it worth opening to digitize and add to my @plex server?   Ara's answer - Yes! Preserve it before its unwatchable. What say all of you? I found an unopened 1990's original on eBay for $22 shipped. Lee Overstreet - As someone who does a lot of analog digitization, I'd say only bother if you have the right equipment and know what you're doing to get the most out of it.  i.e.: High end preferably S-VHS VCR, TBC, lossless capture codec, chroma/luma adjust, etc.  No cheap composite doohickeys. Bill S - Since it's a VHS it would be the original before all the enhancements. I'd go with digitizing it before the tape degrades. Graham Cole - eBay it Scott Foseen - No,  shrink wrapped it is worth more as a collector's item.  If you want it on plex buy a new disk instead DJ from the Brightside HT Podcast - I would keep that on display until the day I die.  As far as I'm concerned it's priceless and isn't worth anything because I'd never sell it. It has to be pretty rare and some thing that unique is a pretty cool item to have.  Congratulations! Top 10 Sellers for Week Ended 8-1-20 Broken out by Format Source - NPD VideoScan First Alert (based on unit sales from reporting retailers) Note - In the original numbers, NPD VideoScan considered UHD a Blu-ray version and added it  to the Bluray Share for each title. We subtracted the UHD share from the NPD VideoScan Bluray numbers in the table below Title UHD BR DVD 10) The Secret Life of Pets 0.1% 1.9% 97.9% 9) NCIS (S7) 0 0 100 8) Jurassic World 0 7 93 7) Top Gun 8 25 67 6) Jaws 13 5 82 5) Capone 0 44 56 4) The Mule 0.4 7.6 92 3) Sonic the Hedgehog 9 41 50 2) Trolls World Tour 6 45 49 1) Scoob! 5 38 57 Full list of 20 here… Do You need 8K? Spoiler Alert… the answer is No! Pixel Counts for HDTV Formats 720p 1,280x720 921,600 1080p 1,920x1,080 2,073,600 4K 3,840x2,160 8,294,400 8K 7,680x4,320 33,177,600 Viewing Distances where Resolution is Noticeable So does resolution matter for your viewing distance? For this discussion we will look at a screen size of 75 inches and how resolution impacts the viewing experience. This is information from Carlton Bale and based on the resolving ability of the human eye. He states:  A person with 20/20 vision can resolve 60 pixels per degree, which corresponds to recognizing the letter “E” on the 20/20 line of a Snellen eye chart from 20 feet away. He created a chart showing, for any given screen size, how close you need to sit to be able to detect some or all of the benefits of a higher resolution screen.  We link to his entire analysis here (Screen Size vs. Viewing Distance vs. Resolution).  His analysis does not cover 8K but you will be able to draw your conclusions from looking at his work anyway.  At 22 feet (6.7M) 480p=720p=1080p=4K At 15 feet (4.5M) you can tell that 480p is lower quality but 720p=1080p=4K At 10 feet (3.0M) you can tell that both 480p and 720p are lower quality but 1080p=4K At 5 feet  (1.5M) you can tell that 480p, 720p, and 1080p are lower quality Who sits this close to a 75 inch TV? Most people sit anywhere from 10 to 15 feet from their TVs. Many sit farther. Ara's media room is 13.5 feet (4M) from his 90 inch screen. According to Bale Ara can't see the difference in resolution between 1080p and 4K. As it turns out Ara would need a screen size greater than 140 inches to see any benefit from resolution. Of course newer TVs with higher resolutions usually come with other enhancements like HDR, better color, and contrast. Although a 720p TV is good enough resolution for many, these TVs do not have the better and more important feature enhancements of wide color and HDR making the image look far worse.  Someday all you will be able to buy are 8K TVs. Will that alone have any perceived improvement on your viewing experience? Most likely not. However, there will probably be other improvements that will make buying an 8K TV worth it. But that's not the case today. Save your money and buy a high quality 4K TV and understand that 4K is not the most important feature of your TV.  Of course there is the issue with finding 8K content. Is there any? Will the studios start filming in 8K? There is definitely some 8K content out there but as we said earlier. It doesn't matter to the human eye. Possible uses for 8K TVS Large Video Wall that can display multiple 1080P or 4K screens simultaneously A huge computer screen I got nothing else!  

In this episode we discuss BAE's partnership with Jaunt Air Mobility, Boeing's continued trouble delivering airplanes, a lightning strike to an Airbus A320 in New Zealand and more. We also take a look at the VoltAero Cassio, a unique medium-range hybrid electric aircraft prototype and discuss its road to airworthiness certification. Learn more about Weather Guard StrikeTape segmented lightning diverter strips. Follow the show on YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit us on the web. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Full Transcript: Struck Podcast EP22 - Boeing's Tough Sales Month; An Airbus A320 Gets Struck By Lightning, BAE & Jaunt Air Partner on Flight Controls, Plus VoltAero's Hybrid Electric, Aircraft, the Cassio Dan: This episode is brought to you by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. At Weather Guard we support design engineers and make lightning protection easy. You are listening to the Struck podcast. I'm Dan Blewett.  Allen: I'm Allen hall.  Dan: And here on Struck, we talk about everything aviation, aerospace engineering, and lightning protection. Alright, I'll come back to the Struck podcast. I'm your cohost Dan Blewett. And we've got a great show for you here today. And our first segment, we're going to cover some kind of scary news, uh, on an Airbus, uh, out of New Zealand was diverted after a lightning strike. So we'll, we'll chat a little bit about that. Um, Boeing seven 37 max might be delayed again. I mean, the saga continues, uh, we'll chat a little bit more about Boeing and the, the amount of jets they delivered this quarter or not this quarter, but this past month, which was crazy low, um, and a little weird quarantine run in from, uh, unlucky a plane full of people. So that's a, some. Kind of funny, uh, COVID news here, but in our engineering segment, we'll talk a little bit about, uh, BAE working with John's, um, on flight control actuators, and then our EVT O L of the week. We're going to talk about the connect air, uh, the volt Aero Casio, which is a four Cedar, um, actually maybe larger pass, uh, passenger capacity. So pretty interesting little pusher, plane Allen, what is going on?  Allen: Well, it it's really strange aircraft news over the last week or two. I know it, it seems like airlines are struggling and they are, uh, but I got to say that the aircraft industry in terms of projects has been relatively busy and that's a good positive sign because it's all those little projects that get rolling that turn into larger products later on. So. I think so.  Dan: Well, you said you've gotten some new, some new projects recently, right?  Allen: Yeah. Several. Uh, and that always comes and sometimes it just comes just because everybody's sort of back from vacation, August early August, people like to take off and then they come back and, you know, mid August, September and things start rolling again. It's just kind of like the shutdown around Christmas and January is always chaos. Mid January is so positive. Some positive things going on out there.  Dan: Well, that's, that's good. That's good news for sure. Everyone wants to get back to work and you see good people get rehired and the industry get back to normal. That's for sure. So let's on that note, let's start first with Boeing and how many jets they've delivered. So in July, 2018, and this is an article from Barron's. They deliver 39 jets, uh, this past July, they delivered four. So what do you think about these numbers? Obviously, this isn't surprising anyone given how insane this year has been. Again, my prediction is still, we still have four months to go to see if the crackin comes out of the deep sea. Um, just to cap off this crazy year. But, I mean, what is your sentiment about four planes being delivered?  Allen: Well, the, the issue really for Boeing is the seven 37 max. And because of COVID, there's not a lot of international flights going on.

In Struck episode 11 we discussed propeller planes and what happens when lightning strikes. Propellers used to be made of wood, then aluminum and now carbon fiber, but leading edge erosion and protection is critical, so how do manufacturers plan for this? Learn more about Weather Guard StrikeTape segmented lightning diverter strips. Follow the show on YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit us on the web. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Watch the YouTube video version here. Struck Podcast EP11 Transcript: Propeller Technology and Prop Plane Lightning Protection Dan: This episode is brought to you by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. At Weather Guard, we support design engineers and make lightning protection easy. You're listening to the Struck Podcast. I'm Dan Blewett.  Allen: I'm Allen hall  Dan: and here on Sruck we talk about everything aviation, aerospace, engineering, and lightning protection. Allen, how are you doing? Episode 11 we're really getting up there.  Allen: Yeah. Exciting. Dan:  We're 10% deep. 10% more than we had last week.  Allen: Oh, that's true.  Yeah. That's good. Good math right there.  It's ready to go for a philosophy major, right?  Dan: Yeah. Gonna be going to continue getting, getting lower and lower as we go. Well. Oh, that's true too. Right? It's a declining return on investment.  Right. So, yeah, this is rough. This is rough. So today's episode we're going to chat about, um, leading edges on, uh, on prop planes, uh, and some of just the electrical problems that can cause like noise issues and obviously like the lightening implications. Yeah. Um, cause there's obviously a lot of different types of props. There's different ways of combating that stuff. So that's kind of on our docket today. That's gonna probably. Be a pretty widespread conversation it sounds like. But first things first, what's your favorite airline? Oh, you have to pick one. Who do you go with?  Allen: American and in America  Dan: In America.  Allen: Southwest.  Dan: Southwest.  Allen: It isn't because I like them either. Uh, because I, I really. The thing about Southwest is so, well, it was so full. Every year, every flight I've been on with Southwest, and probably the last two or three years has been 100% full. Uh, but you got to give them some CRA, a little bit of credit that the. Flight staff is very amenable, helpful, upfront, cheery, and you do get on off the airplane pretty fast and they fly a lot of different places and it's pretty clean cut. So you can put some luggage on the airplane and they get charged a whole bunch of money. Yeah. Southwest,  Dan: Southwest, I do like their baggage system. I'll give them that. I had a couple of rough experiences, uh, like the last, within the last two years kind of soured me on it. But I do agree with everything you just said. It's nice when you're on like Delta or American, they'll have power outlets on the seats that someone doesn't have yet.  But Southwest has the free, and I don't know if other airlines do this. Maybe Delta does, but uh, Southwest has the free live TV and movies that are free and you can, you can buy wifi for about eight bucks, whatever it is. So that's, that's not bad. Yeah. It's  not bad.  No, it's not bad. It's just so full. Where Elisa was, it was so full. It's not full anymore.  No more. Yeah. In the land of coronavirus, that was the before time in the before time. They had full airplanes. Right after time. Well, I'm not so sure.  Allen: What do you think it's going to change? I don't think it's gonna change all that much.  Dan: I think probably I probably can't. The logistics there just won't make sense to fly half full airplanes.  Allen: No. No, it makes zero sense at all. And I'm kind kinda wondering, based on some of the Twitter traffic I see lately airplanes are pretty fall in some cases. Uh, you know,

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, Allen and Dan discuss the impacts on the aircraft industry and the internal workings of aircraft companies. How many aircraft OEMs will survive this world-changing struggle? Learn more about Weather Guard StrikeTape segmented lightning diverter strips. Follow the show on YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit us on the web. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Transcript Dan: Welcome back! This is episode 4 of the Struck Podcast. I'm your co-host DanBlewett and I'm here joined remotely by lightning protection expert Allen Hall. Allen, how are you doin? Allen: Great Dan, how are you doin' down in Washington DC? Dan: I am doing well. It's been beautiful the last couple days. It was almost eighty degrees yesterday. And so it's really nice out now but pretty windy. I think I want to probably get a run in after the podcast is over. But yeah it's still, the ghost town which I think is the right thing to do. But how's  Williamstown doing? Is it warming up there yet? Allen: No. In fact your wind storm is our snowstorm. It's supposed to snow tonight between one and three inches. So tomorrow would have been a snow day for the kids not to go to school, but obviously, they're home already. So that's out the window. But we have not reached spring yet. We're still a couple good weeks away from real spring.  Dan: Yikes.We're--you know as we talked about-- weeks away from anything right now. There's only one thing we're all wondering how many weeks away it is which is when does this whole thing start to end. Got any predictions?  Allen: I think we're talking about middle May. And just listening to some news last night and some airline talk over the last couple of days, it seems like in at least the United States you may see some activity and some people returning to work and being a little more productive. Starting in May and then it slowly gradually increases where we bring people back and get things going again. I was just at one of our customers' facilities earlier today and there was roughly twenty percent of the people there. And it's been that way for a couple of weeks but they're also thinking maybe next week a couple more people can come back. Not huge percentages. But as things have leveled out, at least around us, they're probably gonna bring some of them back. Dan: Yeah. So as we check up on the airline industry, there are a couple new news stories just recently. So Boeing and Airbus are both closing some factories down at least temporarily. You know Airbus in Alabama they're not laying off their employees, they're gonna have their jobs back it sounds like. But they're just heading home for right now. So they are furloughed I guess. And then Germanwings which is the low-budget airline from Lufthansa overseas sounds like they're shutting them down for good and just sort of consolidating with their overall bigger brand. Do you expect more of this?   Allen: Too many airplanes Dan: Yeah. I mean is this a...I was listening to another podcast earlier today and they were talking about auto industry brands. And that at one point there were a hundred ten different auto manufacturers. Brands like Chrysler, Ford, Jeep. And like economic downturns like this can sort of just eliminate some of the ones we don't need  necessarily. Do you feel like that's happening here in aviation?  Allen: Yeah. Downturns have predicted winners and losers. If you have enough cash stored away and you have an ability to quickly scale back up, you're gonna be a winner. If you don't you're going to be gone. And you saw that in the aircraft industry in the United States through if you look into the late 60s and the early 70s. There was a lot of small aircraft manufacturing--a lot of more aircraft manufacturing. Douglas Aircraft, McDonnell Douglas is still around. Yeah. There was a lot more aircraft manufacturers. A lot of them were leftover from sort of World War 2 era.

On this week's podcast, Marcus sits down with Allen Carroll, a partner with Wilkins Miller. I think if we learned anything from this episode is that Allen is not only committed but likes to have fun! 31 years of the same post-college job to flying planes and riding street bikes, there's much wisdom to be learned. Tune in and listen or read on MobileAL.com, Spotify, or iTunes. Allen: Hi. I'm Allen Carroll. I'm a partner with Wilkins Miller. Marcus: Well, welcome to the podcast, Allen. Allen: Thank you, Marcus. Congratulations to you and your team on your recent recognition as small business of the year. That's an incredible honor and recognition, so good job. Marcus: Thank you very much. I do appreciate that. I think we were talking a little bit before, and I mean it was as big a surprise I think as I could ever have imagined, but it is absolutely an honor, and we don't take it lightly. Yeah. Allen: That's great. Marcus: Well, we always start by getting a little bit of information about who the person is. You and I have a chance to visit a little bit, so I know a little bit about your story, but why don't you tell our adience the story of where you're from? Where'd you go to high school, college, married, how you got to where you are right now. Allen: Sure. I was born in Mobile, the only child of two great parents that ... best parents anybody could ask for. I graduated from Baker High School and then went onto the University of South Alabama, where I graduated with a degree in business with a concentration in accounting. I joined my firm, Wilkins Miller, right out of college. I just celebrated my 31 year anniversary with that firm this summer. Wilkins Miller is a CPA and advisory services firm here in Mobile, with offices in both Mobile and Fairhope. Sort of on the person front, I was fortunate enough to marry a gorgeous, young lady that I met in high school. We got married right after college, and next week we will celebrate our 31 year anniversary. Marcus: Congratulations. Allen: Thank you. That was the easiest decision that I ever made. Marcus: The hardest sale, but the easiest decision, right? Allen: That was easy. We've got two kids, a 26 year old son that lives in Auburn and a 22 year old daughter that is at the University of South Alabama. Marcus: Very good. How long has Wilkins Miller been around? Allen: Wilkins Miller traces its roots back to the early 60s. When I joined the firm in the late 80s, '87, it was known by a different name at the time. It was actually an office of a national firm, and our name has changed over the years, but the organization that I joined as the core is still there. Marcus: Very good. I mean, you all have a very good name in the area, not just for the accounting services that you provide, but also for kind of the business knowledge that you bring along with that. Allen: Well, you're kind to say that, and thank you. We're proud. We have a wonderful group of people. We've got a wonderful group of clients as well. Marcus: The reason why I say that is because your team has been involved in the emerging leader stuff, and I think, if I remember correctly, 1702 and a number of other things that I've been involved in, so I've gotten to know a couple of folks that work for you, and I very much enjoyed getting to know them. But let's go back in time, your first job. This is your crap job, right? This isn't Wilkins Miller, you know, starting out in accounting. This is flipping burgers, or scrubbing toilets, or mopping floors job. What was that first job, and what were some of the lessons that you remember from that? Allen: Yeah, Marcus. Early on, like a lot of kids, I was cutting grass probably in middle school, at a really young age, around the neighborhood. I actually did that on through high school, until I got real jobs. My first real job was at Dollar Rent A Car, which I was washing the rental cars and cleaning the cars as they returned them. It was kind of a weekend job through early high school. Some of you guys may know, Margie Wilcox is our local state representative now. She was my boss. You know, in terms of what did I learn in them, I guess at the end of the day it was just work really hard, and try to go the extra mile, and make a difference. I did that there. Of course, that kind of morphed into airport jobs all through sort of late college, or I should say late high school and throughout my entire college career I worked at the airport. But in the end, I think ultimately just going the extra mile and trying to do things right, and set yourself apart is ... because a lot of folks- Marcus: They don't. Allen: ... they don't. Marcus: Yeah. It's interesting, because we've done a number of these interviews now, and one of the common themes, especially with people that have achieved great success, is not just doing what is expected of them, but actually going above and beyond that, whether it's the customer service, or the information that's provided, or the washing of the cars, you know? I mean, making sure that everything is done to a T. We were just talking with Mamun, which he's a realtor, but he's from Bangladesh, which was a really interesting story. He started out as a dishwasher. You know what I mean? I mean, even there in washing dishes it's like be the best dishwasher that you can be. It's the old adage of if you're gonna be a garbage collector, be the best damn garbage collector that there is. Allen: That's it. Marcus: Right? Allen: That's it. Marcus: Then you just find that as you're doing these things that you're handed more responsibility and more success. Allen: That's right. Marcus: Now, I normally ask about how you start the business, and you didn't start Wilkins Miller, but obviously as a partner you have a very integral part. Why don't you describe, because I don't think a lot of people understand what that kind of entails. What does a partner at an accounting firm really do? Allen: Well, a partner in an accounting firm ... Of course there's various disciplines within a traditional accounting firm. You've got financial reporting, which might typically be referred to as audit types of things, where folks are auditing companies, the financial statements. You have tax compliance area. You have outsource accounting area. You've got a number of areas. You have a consulting area, which is where I spend most of my time, with forensic accounting, litigation services, working with attorneys. That's where I spent the majority of my last 25 years. But within any industry, and accounting's a great example, you know, you're focused early on with technical skills and learning technically skills, being the best at that, but as you mature, and get more experience, and work yourself through the ranks, so to speak, you can grow and become more of an advisor to your clients and working more closely with clients, and senior leadership, and owners. Allen: So, at the end of the day, you're working with folks trying to help them achieve whatever it is that they're trying to achieve at the highest lever, and so partners in accounting firms are ultimately responsible for those relationships. We have help with all of those things with a number of really good folks, and every engagement is approached with a team. But you are a business owner. A partner is a business owner. A partner is responsible for and plays a role with setting direction of a firm, just like any other business owner does, responsible for developing people, developing business, playing a significant role with community activities. So, it's like any other small business owner. Marcus: Now, I know one of the things ... because we have very much and entrepreneurial audience, right? Their mindset is entrepreneurial. One of the things that I've learned over the course of the last two years is ... Last year a buddy of mine, Abe, who's also been on the podcast, suggested a book, Managing By The Numbers. It's the book that they use as part of the Emerging Leaders Program. As you kind of go through that, they're talking to you about balance sheets, and profit loss statements, cashflow, all that stuff and the analysis of all of that. I think one of the things that people don't realize when you go into business ownership is you start as someone who has a talent most oftentimes, like I started, I knew how to code websites. Marcus: One of the things that has to progress as a business owner is you have to first understand that your primary role is people and sales, but then you also have to have a very firm grasp of your financial situation, and that's not just looking at the checkbook and going, "Well, there's $500 in the bank account, so I can write that check." I think that's where people kind of get locked into accounting as not just something that you do at the end of the year to file your taxes, but accounting as a way of looking at your financial situation, and is it for me to buy a building? Is it okay for me to invest in this piece of equipment? Is it okay for me to press in and hire two or three more people? You know? Allen: Marcus, that is so true. Accounting is not ... it shouldn't be historical. While the historical financial statements or the tax returns, all those are infinitely important to the success, at the end of the day the numbers are telling a story. You know, we all need to be looking forward to what that is and of course understanding what those numbers ... or what the story is behind those numbers. Then let's all do our part to help express those, help the owners, the decision makers use that data and information to pick their future and accomplish what it is that they want to accomplish. Yeah. We work very hard to work with our clients to help understand the story behind the numbers, because that's also the fun part with what we do. Marcus: Look back. When you first got the inkling that you were gonna go into accounting, do you remember that moment? Was there something like a decision that was made or something that happened that- Allen: You know, Marcus, as a young person, it's tough. What I did know was that I loved the business. I really loved business. I know that accounting is the language of business, and so I went into accounting because I like business, not so much that I was the debits and credits guy. That was [crosstalk 00:10:51]. Marcus: Crunching number? Allen: Yeah. That was a necessary evil. That's important, and we are in a technical business, but, again, the numbers are ... just they tell the story. That's how I selected accounting is that I fell in love with business early on, and accounting being the language of business was why I chose accounting. Marcus: Very good. It's interesting, because sometimes people, especially like in my world ... I managed to sell a website to somebody, and I put that website together, and I thought, "Wow. There might be actually something to this," and the business has just kind of progressively grown over a decade now because of that. I don't know. Is there a situation there? Because you came out of college and went into Wilkins Miller. Did you even have that experience when you started at Wilkins Miller, like, "Oh, no. This is it. I'm really jazzed"? Because it sounds like you made that decision kind of early on. Allen: Yeah. I knew I liked business. In 1987, we didn't even have computers. Computers were kind of a fresh thing. Marcus: What? Wait. There was no computers? Allen: They weren't widely being used. Marcus: You had to get the abacus out [crosstalk 00:12:05]. Allen: That's right. It was all by hand. Early on there was a lot of technical, a lot of things that are being done by hand, but I think kind of bigger picture, you know, I knew I loved business, and so being at the core of business, in terms of accounting, was where I found my home. It's highly technical early on, but as you get more experience, you get to get out of some of those details, and of course computers and software have helped us get out of the details, even with the young folks today aren't in those kinds of details, and ultimately provide higher level service. But as I got more experience, I increasingly loved the field, as I've gotten more experience and got to work with the business owners and the CEOs, like you, helping shape direction, and select strategy. Again, doing our part to develop the numbers, but then help interpret what does all that mean? It's a lot of fun. It is. Accounting's got I think an increasingly exciting profession for a lot of folks, because of some of those details. Marcus: Yeah. I think as people come to understand what it can do. Now, if you were talking to someone that wanted to get started in running their own business, what's the one bit of wisdom that you would impart to them? Allen: The one bit of wisdom. I would say jump in with both feet and try to be the very, very best at whatever it is that you choose to do. Try to be the very best, and get passionate about it, and try to be the very best, whatever I is. Marcus: Yeah. Those are life lessons that don't go wrong in any way, shape, or form. Allen: That's right. That's right. Marcus: Yeah. Now, what does a typical day look like for you? Allen: Oh, gosh. There is no typical day. That's what's- Marcus: I need to reword that question, because I get that quite often. It's like, "No. There is no typical day." I mean, give people kind of a glimpse. I know you're probably meeting with people a lot and spending a lot of time just answering questions and stuff. Allen: Yeah. I spend a lot of times with our team, which I always really enjoy, on the phone a lot with clients, and managing projects, spending time on those, a lot of phone, a lot of phones, a lot of conversations that occur. Marcus: Now, when you look, and not just to the business world here in Mobile, but when you look to the business world, is there anyone that you kind of look to and think, "Yeah. That guy's ... There's some stuff to look at there," that you really think is cool? Allen: You know, Marcus, that's a great question. It's also a tough question. When I think about that, I don't have it zoomed in on one particular person. I think about some of the traits of people that I admire or that inspire me. I've been fortunate to have a lot of really good mentors over the years that folks had invested in me, colleagues, partners, you know, a variety of folks. My parents certainly made a huge impact on me. But I think about folks that motivate and can get the best out of people. I know I've been the benefactor or the beneficiary of folks that led me, and I could do more with them being there and pushing me than I could do on my own. Allen: I think about football coaches. You know, I'm an old football player through high school. I always admire the college football coaches and their ability to motivate people I think about the business leaders that can do the same thing, in terms of developing teams. In the end, I am really inspired by the folks that are really passionate about what they do, you know, and that they really, truly do is and try to do it at a world class level. I mean, that to me is always really a cool thing, you know, within any industry, or profession, or whatever it is. I'm always really moved by that. Marcus: It's interesting how that has ... I mean, it's not just the business world anymore, is it? When we look to how things have changed even over the course of let's say the last even 10 years or less, you know, you can be a world class baker, or a world class electrician, or a world class whatever and just caring about your craft. I mean, it doesn't have to be Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, or anything like that, right? Allen: That's right. That's right. Marcus: Going kind of along that same vein, are there any books, or podcasts, or organizations that have been helpful in moving you forward? Allen: Yes. In terms of books, a couple of the books that have shaped my past and helped me get better, a couple was, and I would kind of take them in order was Jack Welch's book, Winning, that basically taught me that even at the highest levels of leadership, that getting involved in the details, and understanding, shaking things up, trying to get an organization better processes, whatever it is. That was an early reading for me. But probably the biggest book or the book that made the biggest impact was Good To Great. Are you familiar with Good To Great? Marcus: I am. Allen: Jim Collins. Marcus: Very much so. Allen: For those that may not be as familiar with it, Jim Collins and his team spent 10,000 hours studying and researching companies and looking at similar or the same industry, comparing companies that went to become excellent and then those that stayed- Marcus: That were just mediocre. Allen: ...mediocre. What they learned, as you know, that it's all about the people. It wasn't some grandiose strategy. They found, it was a little bit of a surprise, from what I remember, is that it was all about getting the right people on the bus and in the right seats, and then everything else good comes from that. I read that early, pretty much when it came out. That really has helped shape my own thinking. I think we instinctively know a lot of those things, but we've tried our best within our firm to do that. We don't get it perfect all the time, but we really, really try to keep our eye one that. That was an important reading for me. They actually have a monologue that goes along with that for the nonprofit sector that I've- Marcus: I didn't know that. Allen: ... read, and it's really great as well. Marcus: Is it? Allen: Then some, following on from that, the power of purpose, you know, the book, Starts With Why. Basically, the theme is- Marcus: Simon Sinek I believe. Allen: Yup. I think that's right. The power of having a strong purpose, and that too has been I think ... Again, I don't know that there's anything that is just earth shattering. I think it affirms our instincts that we all want a strong individually and organizations need a really strong purpose and a mission. If you have that strong purpose and mission, a lot of great things can come from that. Marcus: Those two go together though, don't they? Allen: They do. Marcus: So, if you have a strong purpose and mission, you know the people that you need on the bus in order to achieve the goals that you have set forth. Allen: That's it. Those are two perhaps most important things for us to get right. Then the book, Blank, by Gladwell. Marcus: Yeah. Malcolm Gladwell? Allen: Yeah. I think that- Marcus: I've not read that one, but I've heard very good things about it. Allen: You should read that. Again, I don't know that anything will just like surprised you, but it will affirm that I think most of us have really pretty good instincts, that there's a reason for that. We have all these experiences that build into where we are, and it affirms to me that I think we need to maybe listen to those. When I look back, I felt like I've had pretty good instincts, but I haven't always acted on them. Marcus: Interesting. Allen: That book will give you some confidence to act on. Marcus: You said that a couple of times, that there's nothing earth shattering, but I find when I'm reading a book, or going to a conference, or listening to a podcast, or something like that, I am looking for that affirmation, but sometimes it's just a nuance, like there's some ... I'm gonna take one little piece out of that whole thing. I listened to a three hour podcast, or I'll read a 200 page book, and there may be just one paragraph in that whole book, and I'm just like ... You know, I just kind of put my hand against my forehead and go, "Why didn't I think of it in that way before?" It makes the whole thing worth it, because let's be real. We're all reading these books. Marcus: I have this spoof that I want to do on Tai Lopez's video, and I don't know if you know who Tai Lopez ... He's the guy that did the iPhone video in his garage, and he's got a Lamborghini sitting there. He goes, "Yeah, but what I find more important is the 4,000 books," or something, that he had seven bookcases. I want to do a spoof on that, because his whole thing is that he talks about books as a way of folding back the time, because you are taking somebody else's knowledge and injecting it into your head, and that helps shorten the amount of time that it's gonna take you to learn and get where you want to be. Allen: That's a good point. Marcus: So, I think when we listen to a podcast, or read books, or things like that, if we change our perspective and think of it in that sense, then it becomes even more powerful. Allen: That's true. I guess what I was referring to is we have thoughts that we go through time, and maybe we don't have the confidence to think that we're either really on it, or we're missing- Marcus: As business owners, we always have that thought. Allen: Yeah. When you read and you get the perspectives, you either ... that you debunk some thinking that you may have had, or it affirms some of your core thinking. Marcus: Absolutely. Allen: [crosstalk 00:22:38] Marcus: No. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. What's the- Allen: Marcus, you talked about organizations. Of course, I've learned a lot from my organization, but one of the organizations, and it was a service oriented role for me, I was serving on the board of Saint Luke's Episcopal School at the time. It was my kid's school. Marcus: Very good. Allen: It was probably in the 2002, 4-ish, to the late 2000s range. That school was considering, the board was considering creating a high school. It only went to the eighth grade at the time. I was sitting there as chair of the board at the time. So, we began to study that whole process. What I learned put a lot of things for me. I learned an incredible amount through that exercise, but what I learned is, again, the power of people, having the really good people on the bus to accomplish something. Of course, that school went on to acquire the old former Right's Girl School Campus out on University, and it did create the high school, which is doing great things today. My daughter graduated from the high school. Marcus: Awesome. Allen: But the cool thing was is that people, the power in people, okay? Having the right people on the bus in the rights seats, and we had a world class team that came together to make that possible. Secondly is the power of purpose. You talk about a strong purpose is sitting back and saying, "Let's go start a high school, and how can we afford it? How can we fund it? Does it make sense?" That is a strong, strong purpose. Allen: Then the other thing I learned through that is timing, the importance of timing. I didn't realize or didn't appreciate this at the time, but looking back I can see it, that there was probably a very short window of time, because that was on the eve of the whole financial crises that of course the market crashed, and the economy took a big step back in the beginning of I think it's the Great Recession is that we refer to it as. Literally probably a six month or a year window of time that that would have been possibly, because of all the moons aligning, and then there was a period that it would not have been possible. I think that the power of timing ... I wish we could all look in a crystal ball and see all of that. We can't see that, but I think that so much of both good and challenges that come to the world or have come to all of is in our businesses is a lot of timing too. Marcus: There's some truth to that for sure. They all go together, right? So, people, purpose, timing. Yeah. The relationships there are very, very important. What's the most important thing that you've learned about running a business? Allen: Just take care of people I think is the biggest thing. Just try to get the right folks, take care of them, and serve your clients. Marcus: Right. Show them that you appreciate them. Allen: Go that extra mile. Work your rear end off to deliver to clients. Marcus: Do you have any interesting ways that you reward people? Allen: Yeah. Marcus: You've been a very giving ... I mean, full disclosure, you and Lindsey have both been very gracious and brought gifts, because of the small business thing, so I Thank you very much for that. So, I'm betting that that probably carries over into the business world too. Allen: Yeah. We try to have fun. Marcus, we do a variety of things. We try to have a lot of fun as a group. We enjoy each other. We spend more time with our colleagues than we do our own families often. So, much like you all here, I can see y'all have fun. You have a great group as well. That's a big part of it, just enjoying each other and compensating folks well, trying to maintain some work/life balance or integration as well is important. We've got a number of different things. We often have our socials and our TGITs. Marcus: I know you have retreats, where you get together- Allen: We do. Yes. Marcus: ... and have speakers come in and stuff like that. Allen: That's true. Marcus: I mean, there's all kinds of different ways. I guess where I was going with that is you mentioned compensation. Compensations isn't all ... I think I want to break through that box of people thinking that, "Well, I just have to pay people more. I have to give them ..." There is some level of, yes, you do need to pay people what they're worth, but there are small rewards that you can do, whether it's just buying somebody lunch or telling them in some other way that you really appreciate the extra mile that they went. Allen: That's a great point, saying, "Thanks. We appreciate what you're doing," is a big deal. You're right. It's not just about monetary compensation. There are lots of intangibles, because if you don't have the right organization, there may not be any amount of money could pay somebody to get them to really stay with you for the long term. Yeah. There's more to it. Marcus: This is the most difficult question that I'm gonna ask you, and you're gonna squirm a little bit when I ask you this, but how do you like to unwind? Allen: Gosh. I've got a bunch of things that interest me. I grew up, I learned to fly at a very early age. Marcus: Really? Allen: At 18, I got my pilots license. I guess I'm deeply passionate about aviation. Marcus: That is so cool. Allen: That was at Brookley back in the early 80s. That's a life long passion. I'm not current right now, but I really, really, really love flying and aviation. I've got pretty much if you can get on it, and ride it, and twist the throttle or push the gas- Marcus: [crosstalk 00:28:20] motorcycle or- Allen: ... I'm gonna have fun with it. Yeah. I've got motorcycles today. I grew up riding dirt bikes. I've got some street bikes now. I love to get out in the spring or in the fall and ride my bike down to- Marcus: You don't like to ride in the dead heat of summer? Allen: I don't care for that. Yeah. Marcus: With the haze coming up off the asphalt. Allen: That's really just no fun for me. I get on the boat during the summer. My wife and I have a boat. We enjoy getting out and getting in the water, being on the water. I love Dolphin Island. I kind of grew up and my parents have a place on Dolphin Island. My wife and I do now as well. I enjoy getting to Dolphin Island as much as possible, getting out on the water. Those are the kind of things that we enjoy. Marcus: We got to get you back in a plane though. Allen: I'd love to. Yeah. I'm just on the bench right now, just because of time. Ido really love flying and aviation. My son and I, we were fortunate to go to Oshkosh probably 15 years running. I don't know if you ever heard of Oshkosh, but Oshkosh is the great big industry trade show for general aviation up in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The whole town shuts down. I think a third of general aviation fleet come through that event. It's like Disney for the aviation types. You know? It's like Disney. Marcus: Abe, from Harper Tech, is a pilot and has a small plane. I've always been envious, because it's nothing for him to pop over to New Orleans and pick up beignets and come back, or fly up to Birmingham and get a hard drive from somebody and come back, or go there for dinner or something like that. I love that idea of being able to, you know, just go, because so oftentimes, as business owners, we don't have time, right? So, if you can cut it out somewhere, that's great. Allen: It's a great way to travel regionally, but you have to stay with it, and take it seriously, and fly a good bit to be good at it. Marcus: Good? Yeah. Yeah. There's nothing worse that a bad pilot. Now, tell people where they can find out more about Wilkins Miller. Allen: Our website is . My email address is . Marcus: Very good. I imagine you guys . I know you're on , because I get pinged there a couple of times too, which is cool. An accounting firm that has an Instagram account. Go and follow them. That's really pretty cool. Allen: Thank you. Marcus: Yeah. Well, Allen, I want to thank you again for coming on the podcast. To wrap up, any final thoughts or comment you'd like to share? Allen: You know, Marcus, I'd like to thank you for doing what you're doing in these podcasts. I'm certainly honored to be here to participate. Thank you for being a cheerleader for the entrepreneurial community in Mobile. Having grown up here, I'm so excited about what's going on, and I think the kinds of things, what you're doing, is an important element in what's going on, so thank you for that. I mean, lots of wonderful things that are going on, so we appreciate what you do. Taking time from your business to do this is incredible, so thank you. Marcus: Thank you for saying that. Well, Allen, I appreciate your willingness to sit with me and share your journey as a business owner and entrepreneur. It's been great talking with you. Allen: You're welcome. Thank you, Marcus.

Hosts Ryan Ripley, Allen Holub Discussion Allen Holub (@allenholub) joined me (@RyanRipley) for a discussion about #NoEstimates, #NoManagement and what it truly means for an organization to adopt agility. Allen is a trainer, writer, speaker, and coach who takes a non-tribal view of software development and eschews the dogma that surrounds many of the current agile topics and practices. Allen recently gave a keynote at DevWeek 2015 on #NoEstimates where he opened with: “We just need to stop doing all estimation now.” Along with #NoEstimates, Allen I discussed what it truly means for an organization to adopt agility, why such a transformation is so difficult, and how Kanban wrapped around a waterfall can make life easier for both companies and coaches. We wrapped up with a discussion on #NoManagement and Holocracy. And then…we called it a night. Agile for Humans is brought to you by audible.com – get one FREE audiobook download and 30 day free trial at www.audibletrial.com/agile Resources, Plugs, and More Ryan – https://ryanripley.com Vasco Duarte's NoEstimates Book The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell Drive by Daniel Pink Allen – http://holub.com Allen is teaching a 3 day class on agility at SDD Deep Dive in London on Nov 10-12 Allen’s class offerings: “Agility” focuses on agile culture and what you need to do as an organization to make agile processes work “Designing for Volatility” – an in-depth dive into how to design scalable fault-tolerant systems that can be built in an incremental way and can stand up to the stress of constant change “Design by Coding” an extension of TDD/BDD techniques to the architectural level. Self-Insight: Roadblocks and Detours on the Path to Knowing Thyself by David Dunning The original Kruger/Dunning paper Then of course, there’s John Cleese on Kruger/Dunning The post AFH 021: Agility with Allen Holub [PODCAST] appeared first on Ryan Ripley.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Genealogy Gems Podcast Episode 158 August 2, 2013 NEWS: Attention Gmail Users:Google has revised the Gmail dashboard to now include tabs, separating your emails based on the type of content. Overall, I really like it, but I wanted to bring to your attention to the fact that your Genealogy Gems email newsletters will probably land in the Promotions tab, rather than your Primary tab. The problem with this is that we are used to focusing on what is in the in box in front of us, and I know I'm having a little difficulty retraining myself to check the other tabs. To ensure that you get your Genealogy Gems newsletter emails instantly, move the newsletter to your Primary tab. Click on the  email to grab, drag and drop it on the Primary tab. From that point forward your newsletter emails should show up in your Primary tab, and you won't miss a thing!   The Genealogy Gems Podcast App is now available for Windows 8 phone, tablets and desktop! Our app provides you the ability to stream or download free Genealogy Gems Podcast content, and even share your favorite episodes. Here's what you need to know: Phone / Tablet:  First, for $2.99 from the Windows Phone Store.   Once installed, a live tile will be available on the start menu. Opening the app will provide you a list of episodes available for the show. You can swipe left or right to move through favorites, downloaded episodes, and recently played episodes.  Selected episodes will be highlighted with a check mark in the corner. Tapping on an episode you wish to listen to will open an in app player. Clicking on the three dots in the lower right hand corner will open up the menu shortcuts, giving easy access to marking episodes as favorites, downloading the episodes for offline listening, or sharing the episodes out with your friends. Desktop: ($2.99 from the Windows Desktop App Store.)   Opening the app will provide you a list of episodes available for the show on the right with a player on the left and utilizes all the standards of the Windows 8 navigation. Selected episodes will be highlighted with a check mark in the corner.   An episode can be bookmarked by marking it as a ‘favorite', and episodes can be downloaded so that they are available offline.   When downloading a file, the status of the download will appear. Once an episode is favorited or downloaded, you can set the app to show only those favorite episodes or those downloaded files. You can also view a list of what episodes were recently played.   The Genealogy Gems Podcast app is the one and only family history podcast app available, and was named a Must Have Apps for Hobbies by App Advice.   Fold3 and Ancestry Trees Now when you discover an ancestor's record on Fold3.com, you can save it to your online tree at Ancestry.com.   According to Fold3.com's press release: "Whenever you see a green 'Save to Ancestry' button above a document or on a Fold3 memorial page, you can link that document or page directly to someone's profile on Ancestry."   "You'll be asked to log into your Ancestry.com account, and then you'll see a drop-down list of your trees. Locate the tree you wish to save the document to, begin typing the name of the person to whom the record should be attached, choose the correct name from the list that appears, and then press save."   Watch this tutorial video to learn more and see how it's done:   OCLC and FamilySearch Partnership The patron catalog on FamilySearch.org is renamed the FamilySearch Catalog. It is re-branding of the FHL Catalog. FamilySearch is planning to load their catalog records into WorldCat by the end of the year. In the case of our very larger records, these may be abbreviated. Patrons discovering their catalog records on WorldCat will be able to click through from WorldCat to the FamilySearch Catalog to view the complete record. WorldCat will eventually show holdings in selected regional family history centers as well. There are currently no plans to change circulation policy. Films can be ordered to FamilySearch Centers as before. Other materials are not circulated.  However, they are scanning their books and have over 80,000 of them on line. There are links to them in the catalog. They can also be searched on Familysearch.org by selecting “Books”.   PAF Retires If you've been doing family history research for a while, you probably have heard of (and maybe used) PAF: Personal Ancestral File software. Well, it's been hard at work for a long time--as a true pioneer in genealogy computing--and now it's retiring.   It's not that your PAF software suddenly doesn't work. But as of today, July 15, 2013, you won't be able to get downloads, supports or upgrades from FamilySearch, which has made the software available since 1984.   What does that mean for PAF users? The current version of PAF supports exports to GEDCOM files, still a universal file type for genealogy software. So while GEDCOMs still remain supported on other software and online family tree hosts, you'll be able to transfer the data from your tree. Those who want to continue to use FamilySearch products (like Family Tree) are advised by FamilySearch to switch to software that partners with FamilySearch: Ancestral Quest, Legacy Family Tree or RootsMagic. Learn more about the PAF discontinuation, what it means to you and supported software options at FamilySearch.   And just to put in a plug for RootsMagic, a Genealogy Gems Podcast sponsor, RootsMagic 6 is the only software that is "share+ certified" by FamilySearch for use with Family Tree: the only software, as RootsMagic says, "certified to collaborate and share data and sources with FamilySearch Family Tree." If you're already using RootsMagic 4 or 5, you'll need to upgrade. Purchase RootsMagic 6 or order your upgrade here:     And speaking of RootsMagic: Now you can find short training videos in addition to free full-length webinars on RootsMagic's new YouTube Channel, RootsMagicTV at   If you're a RootsMagic user (or may be interested in becoming one), FamilySearch Family Tree or PAF user, you'll love these helpful tutorials.   And let your voice be heard: They are even taking suggestions for topics to cover in future short videos, too! email them at .     British Research The London Metropolitan Archives says that half the inquiries they receive are from family historians. This is likely due to their rich resources, click here to peruse the collection:   Because there is such a strong genealogy interest in the LMA, they are making a huge effort to reach out to genealogists. They're all about educating us and sharing what's at LMA through their website, hands-on classes, remote research services and partnerships with data sites like Ancestry and FindMyPast. All this from a city archive!   Check out this video they've made for family history researchers:     Were Your Ancestors "Vicious" or in "Chronic Want"?London Poverty Maps Map It Out! There is a fantastic blog posting on Mad About Genealogy about the Booth Poverty Maps, which look like a riveting way to understand your ancestor's 1880s London neighborhood.   According to blogger Linda Elliott,  "Booth employed a team of social investigators who walked around the London streets often in the company of the local policeman and recorded what they saw and heard. The notebooks that they filled out can be viewed online and make for fascinating reading with amongst other findings they record what the policeman thought of each street and sometime each building and its inhabitants."   Linda describes each category in greater detail in her blog post, along with everything a genealogist needs to know to use the maps   MAILBOX: Response to the update on Ancestry from Allen: “I just listened to your most recent show and wanted to comment on the Ancestry.com search updates you discussed.  I'm sure you have a direct line to them and wanted to offer some suggestions they might be able to use.   First, and I think you may have mentioned this specifically, it would be nice if there were a way to exclude certain records from a search, either automatically or by selection.  In particular, I am thinking that if I have a 1920 Census record attached to a person, there should be some way to exclude 1920 Census results from a search.  Clearly that is not a record I need if that person already has one attached.  Secondly, and related to the first, it would be nice if there were some "level of confidence" or other rating one could apply to a record match.  That way I could attach a record to a person with no confidence but still have it reference a certain person, or with a moderate confidence or high confidence.   This might also apply to relationships as well.  I think this would go a long way toward solving the problem of people posting incorrect information on their tree and others copying it.  The truth is, there is all kinds of information that we associate with our trees that we're not completely sure about but still feel reasonably confident about, but if there were some way to make that know, both to ourselves and others, it would help the situation.  Ancestry.com could then incorporate these into my first search suggestion, so that records with a high confidence would trigger a filter to remove other similar records that would not apply.  In any case, I love the show.  Keep it up.”   From Debbie Cook: My son sent me the interesting link below to a Flickr page that I thought might interest your subscribers.  They are older photos superimposed on to the existing landscape at:   UPDATE: Genealogy Gems Toolbar has been discontinued.   Sarah wrote in to say: “I want to learn how to use Roots Magic 6 that goes to Trees” Lisa's Answer: You can watch the free RootsMagic class on "Using FamilySearch Family Tree with RootsMagic" on their website at   From Sherry, a Premium Member from British Columbia: “I wrote to you several months back to tell you about my new family history blog, "My Descent into Descent", (), and how you inspired me to create it. Well, you've also inspired me to use my new iPad, which my husband gave me for Christmas, as a tool for my research, and now for blogging. Recently, my sister and I took our long-awaited "Family History Road Trip" to New England, and I took my iPad along to blog from the road! I also brought along a keyboard, and would blog in the morning, using the Blogger app, while my sister and niece were still asleep. It was fun to share our experiences almost as they were happening, as well as the crisp and clear photos I was taking with my iPad. As my sister was more interested in the stories from our mutual family tree and less in the research, we tried to plan our trip to include destinations which would interest us both. As I have discovered that we are Mayflower descendants, one of the places we visited was the Plymouth Plantation in Plymouth, Massachusetts. As you may know, it includes a near authentic replica of the village of Plymouth circa 1627, and has actors portraying the roles of the people living there that year. They are well-versed in the stories of the pilgrims they are portraying, and stay in character while they are conversing with you. I was hoping I might run into an actor playing one of our ancestors, but I couldn't believe our luck! Of the handful of actors we met, two were portraying our ancestors, Hester Cooke and Richard Warren! Who actually gets to talk to their long departed ancestors on a family history road trip? Thank you so much for the many ways you inspire and inform us all. I would very much like to recommend to your listeners that they consider blogging their family history. Since I started my blog in November, I have had over 4,000 hits, when I only expected to receive a few. Most excitingly, I had always wanted to connect with the descendants of my great grand aunt Lily. After telling the story of that part of the family in depth over several blog posts, I waited for several months before I heard anything. As it turned out, some of her descendants were curious about their family history, and while Googling some of the names, my blog popped up! They could not believe their good fortune in finding out so much about their tree all at once! I plan to visit them this coming week. They are excited to meet me and my husband, and have a family Bible to show me.” Leigh has a new genealogy blog! “I just wanted to let you know that I've been listening to your old Podcasts and working my way up to the present.  I'm on Episode 80 now, and I'm learning so much from you.  It has never occurred to me to start a blog, but after listening to your advice on the subject, I finally decided to give it a whirl.  I mentioned you and your Genealogy Gems podcast in the post and linked to your page.  I've heard you say that you appreciated that on previous podcasts, so I thought it would be okay.  If you'd like, you can view the blog at  . I love your podcasts, and once I'm caught up, I'm planning to become a Premium member.  Thanks for pushing me out of my comfort zone!" Winnie the Pooh Quote:  “You can't stay in your corner of the forest, waiting for others to come to you; you have to go to them sometimes.”   Thank you to our sponsor RootsMagic.com GEM: Behind the Scenes of the TV series Who Do You Think You Are? with Producer Allie Orton It was a sad day when NBC cancelled Who Do You Think You Are? here in the U.S., but genealogists are now drying their eyes and grabbing their popcorn because it's returning to TV this month. The TLC channel has picked up Who Do You Think You? and the first episode featuring singer Kelly Clarkson premieres on July 23, 2013. Here to tell us all about it is Producer and Research Manager for the series Allie Orton. She's a graduate of the University of Southern California, and began work as a researcher on the first U.S. season of "Who Do You Think You Are?" back in 2008. In her current role she oversees research development, coordinates communication between Ancestry.com and the research staff, and shepherds these compelling stories to completion! In this interview Allie shares: How she got involved in the show The impact of the cancellation How celebs are selected The research team makeup The art of storytelling Kelly Clarkson episode Stand out moments If it is getting any easier to produce the show Her favorite episode (hint: it's this season) Her favorite person (OK, people!) to work with How she'll be spending her time during the premiere What you can expect to see this season Book referred to: Exclusive for Premium Members: Allie's Advice for Genealogists in Genealogy Gems Premium Podcast Episode 100   STAY IN TOUCH: You can stay in touch with me all month long by subscribing to the free Genealogy Gems Newsletter right on the homepage of my website And here's a thought to ponder until we meet here again: People don't care what you know until they know that you care