Welcome to the After Hours Podcast Hosted by Harry Hoss and James Freedlender Presented by My Investing Club
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James 0:12
What’s going on guys, we’re back with another episode of the after hours Podcast. Today we have Jason who is a Platinum member at MIC. We’re just keeping them to the tradition of getting through all the members. Like I mentioned in a previous episode, we’re just it’s cool for everyone to see how people in the community are and how they’re growing how they’re experiencing mi see itself. So wanted to get Jason on give his kind of feedback and hear a little bit about his journey. So Jason, thank you for coming on, man.
Jason 0:40
Thanks for having me, guys. I appreciate it.
James 0:43
Of course, man. So let’s kick into it. You know, how did you get into trading? And then how did you end up finding MIC and all that?
John 0:51
So I had a buddy during COVID, I just PCs to DC. And I reconnected with an old friend of mine and obviously when COVID had everything shut down, and my buddy was like, Hey, man, what are you doing during the day? I’m like, I’m not doing anything. He’s like, I just made five grand trading. I can’t remember what ticker was, was it? He was like, Yeah, I just made five grand today. In module, we’re enlisted members. We were enlisted members in the military. Um, he’s now out as well. So five grand in one day is almost, you know, half a paycheck. Yeah, a month. So I was like, man, tell me about us. And then we started. He started talking about it, I found a couple of the, you know, the, how you want to call like the discord groups. And, you know, like with anything, when you talk about something around electronics, or you look up something on electronics, the head start popping. Yeah. Tim Sykes came across my, my, my page. And I started talking with those guys. And the guy saying, you know, it was it was a lot of money, I’ll say, I don’t know, if I’m ready to commit that much. Then I bounced into the discourse. And I found that, you know, the education route is the way to go. Because, like most other people, I was just listening to what the discord guy said, and I was losing a lot of money. Yeah. And I was trading, like, I listened to him. Like, they’re like, hey, if we make a call, just for instance, hey, we make a call on Tesla. It’s gonna run up way too late. You know, wait till it, you know, dips a little bit. That’s when you get in. Don’t get in right when I call. So the high cool, I do it. And I did. And I lost. A terrible, terrible losing streak. Then another guy started popping up on my ads. I don’t even know the guy’s name, but he was very aggressive in his ads on like YouTube and whatnot. It was two to 5% every trade, that’s all we need done. And I’m like, Oh, okay. So I looked into that, and it just didn’t fit my style. And then I saw an ad with the free webinar that bam, and Alex, us. And I watched that I’m like, Oh, okay. This looks good. So I reached out, and I talked to a talk to Tosh. And he was a hey, man, yeah, this is what we’re about, you know, look us up on YouTube. Check out all of our videos. So I started watching YouTube for a few days. As a man, this is a lot of great content. And this is what I need. Because I knew I was wrong, I guess you could say by following the pumpers. But I wanted to education because I knew that I was about to retire. So I retired from the Air Force, this past January. So I knew that was a minute. And I didn’t want to work for somebody else. So I was like, hey, you know, I can get into this. And Tosh was like, Yeah, you don’t need a lot of money to start, you just, you know, compound it, build and build. And so is there alright, I think actually, so a lot of times the videos about how to grow a small account, and that’s kind of what locked me in. So I joined up for an annual membership. started seeing all the videos. As soon as the literally the day the accelerator course came out. I watched it all from start to finish. It was I loved it. And I think that night, I don’t want to say 11 o’clock. 12 o’clock at night. I message Tosh on here, like, Hey, man, what can I do to upgrade to a Platinum? And within like five minutes, he responded to me, which blew my mind. Because like I said it was it was close to midnight. Ever since then, you know I did that. That’s how I got kind of found in. I’ve just been trying to watch as many videos as I can. That’s awesome.
James 4:36
That’s awesome. How long ago was that? When did you become like them?
John 4:42
See, I have it up. Let me see if my my thing shows it. I want to say I don’t know if it shows it. It was right when the right around the time the accelerator the first accelerator course came.
James 4:55
So it’s been a bit. It’s been a little bit. That’s really cool, man. That’s really cool. also now as your trading like change, are you long bias or short bias now, kind of where do you where do you stand on that?
John 5:08
So I’m primarily short biased, I’ve watched the actually a lot of your videos and a lot of times videos, to really to help me get locked in. So I normally trade like the low hanging fruit, because I’m still trying to learn so one of those higher percentage trades. While I’m still trying to get figured out, every now and again, you know, I’ll see the chat. And, you know, hey, wait for the top to be set, you know, hey, this is the back side, then I might look at something and go with a smaller thing.
Finding Success in the Low Hanging Fruits
John 5:44
But actually the other day I sent it to Harry, I can’t remember what trade it was. But I used his first his friends concept on I think it was I Yeah,
James 5:55
forever.
John 5:57
I saw go up. You know, I think it went from what was like three to seven or whatever, three to six, whatever it was. I saw that the little friends hanging and I was like, I’m gonna take a shot. Small size. Let me just take a shot, you know, because it was, I think it was either right by zombie time, or right after. Yeah. And I messaged him, I chickened out. But it worked perfectly. It ended up going I think, like $1 and a half higher than I got out.
James 6:26
That shit works when that when the market sentiment changes and you have those runners and stuff, you know that that ship works. We just haven’t had the market like that. And for it feels a little bit. Nice to get back to it. So are you finding success on like you said, you’re mostly short. Are you finding success in the low hanging fruits kind of where are you? What are you doing with that right now?
John 6:46
Yeah, so I’ve been I followed my plan. I would say probably know the rules. I should say I shouldn’t say my plan. But the MIC rules, I follow those pretty consistent. I still have my hiccups that I’m working through. But I’ve been consistent every day, this year that I traded except for one
Harry 7:05
Wow. That’s really great.
James 7:06
Great. That’s great.
John 7:08
I was I was stubborn. I know exactly why I went red that day. I sized in to early size into fast. And then shell shocked got me. I didn’t put in a hard stop. And I just flew right up. And by the time I could hit the button. It was done. Yep. Yeah, but it wasn’t a huge loss. Like, in the past, following the pumpers, I would lose a substantial amount of money each trade. This one was manageable. I think it was. I think it ended up being about roughly two maybe three days.
Harry 7:48
Do you think that your discipline from like, kind of like maybe like the military background, had like kind of helped in your trading? Question? Because like, I know, like Vic mentioned it, and a lot of people kind of have mentioned that, that have like, served. So I was just wondering, like how, like, if that helped at all?
John 8:09
A little bit. It’s more of my mindset of I’m not it for me, it’s it’s not as much the discipline is the mindset of I’m not gonna allow myself to fail. Because the jobs I did in the Air Force, if I failed, somebody got hurt, or worse. So the mindset of I’m not going to allow myself to fail is, is more of it, like the military training mindset. But the discipline? I mean, I don’t know, because I don’t feel like I’m probably more disciplined now than I was. But I don’t feel like I’m at that level yet, where I still make a lot of mistakes I get in too early. I find myself chasing too much. So, but yeah, I mean, my discipline has saved me, but for me, it’s more of the mindset that the military gives you like the no failure mindset, especially. I like that a lot. I like that.
James 8:59
How many years? Would you say you’ve been at this?
John 9:02
Trading? Yeah. So at least I want to say it was around April, June of 2020. Wow.
James 9:10
It’s not even that long, man. That’s pretty good. I mean, if you if you’re already finding like that kind of consistency, and like, you have that level of discipline, like that’s, for a lot of guys, that that takes years. So that is so kudos to you, that is awesome. And it sounds like you kind of at least understand like the responsibility of trading because like you’ve had some serious responsibility in your life. So I find that really cool. And I guess like at where you’re at now, you know, what is causing you the struggles what’s what’s stopping you from kind of getting to that next level? In your trading do have you pinpointed that Do you know things that are that are giving you trouble or or how do you feel about that?
John 9:48
So the the initial issues that I’m having, or the current issues that I’m having right now, I kind of get in? I think a little too early. I don’t trust my lines enough, like for talking purposes. Say a stock, like we had lunch at 5.25 5.60, stop at 5.70 It’ll get up to like 5.10. And it will start to creep down and I’m like, Well, I gotta throw some I gotta throw something in, I have a lot of like a starter size. But still, you know, that brings my average down. And by the time it hits that, you know, 560 line that we were anticipating, I have a small amount of bullets. So my averages is not where it should be. And my tabs, I mean, they we talk all the time on my hand, look at this line, this line and this line. And then sometimes I don’t wait for my lines, which is, gets me. And then the other big issue I have is trust trusting, like letting it stay on ring, because I have, I guess, for lack of better words, PTSD of lading green trade, go read and read it real fast. Yeah, so I Scout, I’m mostly just, once I hit that 10 cent range, I put my stop. And I’m just like, hey, I’m out. I’m out.
How to Be Patient With Low Hanging Fruit
Harry 10:56
Yeah, we, we, we had someone else on this morning. And I guess like kind of like the difficulty that he was facing was that basically, he wasn’t kind of patient enough for his lines. And I was kind of giving him some pointers on saying like, if we have a stock, for example, let’s just use kind of low hanging fruit as an example, the times that I’ve seen low hanging fruit failed the most would be like, if we have a stock that open super under VWAP, it’s usually like just overview VWAP where we get that fail, it’s usually like the line that’s like right after VWAP, where we see it fail. And if we open up kind of at VWAP. It’s like a line where we’re a bit like distance from VWAP. So we have like, some room to kind of come down, you know, that was like a problem, because he’s like, you know, I just find myself getting into early every time. But I told him, I was like, you know, you have to kind of, I guess like paint everything together, you know what I mean? Like, you really have to try and like paint a picture, right? And the problem is, is that a lot of people are just shorting random lines on low hanging fruit, and they don’t really know what they’re doing, you know, but if you have a situation where we do open up super underneath VWAP. And then as we’re kind of coming up, we get a little bit over VWA{. And we got all those long traders that are just buying and chasing, and chasing and chasing, because they’re like, Oh, it’s a VWAP, reclaim this thing has got to go to the moon, right. But usually, that’s kind of a long crap. Like, from my perspective, and like, from my trading experience, I’ve always noticed those things to be kind of long traps, right? So number one you have alarms chasing. So if that fails, you know, you can rely on all the lungs that are bagged for supply, you know, and then maybe we have like a whole or half dollar number up there. There’s another thing that you can kind of add to the list, right? Plus, this thing has already overextended from the run. Plus, you have the bag holders from the day before. So you have like five, six things to really piece your trade idea together, rather than just saying, Oh, well, I liked this line, because I think it’s going to be a good line, you know, but if you can piece all those kinds of things together and thread the needle kind of through the cloth that can really kind of help you a lot, you know, especially on the Broken stocks, like he was like, oh, like I was shorting in too early, and I would get squeezed out. And then it would end up kind of going lower, like nine, nine times out of 10. Everyone’s right on the low hanging fruit. It’s all about the timing. And it’s all about the areas, right? Where are you want to start looking to go short, you know, so if you can just sit there and wait and say, Okay, this area is aligned, where I have like multiple things that line up, you’re gonna have, you know, a higher win rate and a higher percentage, rather than just saying, Oh, well, this stock popped a little bit. We’re below VWAP. We’re below a lot of stuff. But oh, well, it doesn’t matter because I’m just going to short this pop or whatever. And some of them do just die right off the open. You know, I mean, there’s nothing that you can really do about that. Because the one time that you do Chase, you are probably going to get squeezed out. We see that and we take that drink all the time. So that’s just kind of my point of view of James. I don’t know if you want to chime in.
The Problem With the Low-Hanging Fruit
James 14:06
Yeah, I always find like for the low hanging fruit The problem is kind of like what you said areas just that, that people try to get in early. They it’s like they look at a low hanging fruit chart as a one chart and that the stock is like broken and like under View up. And then like Do you know how many like charts in the chart recaps and fills like I see someone losing on a low hanging fruit which shouldn’t happen that often in my opinion, because if you there’s just two separate charts like a day one stock that’s broken under VWAP. Sure, you can hit those pops under VWAP or pops to VWAP if you want to scalp it or something like that. But like on the low hanging fruit like you said most of the time, people are just getting in way too early. And the way I like to approach the low hanging fruit. I don’t play them often anymore. But what I what I found success on those or what I did well at least was I just started avoiding the first line no matter what like I stopped shorting like the You were on a low hanging fruit or even like the first line above it if it was close, because I just always felt like the low hanging fruits that I lost on, were the ones where I was getting in a round VWAP. Or anywhere near that area. I don’t know, if it was just previous shorts covering, or, you know, like Harry said thinking it’s if you have reclaimed whatever. So I just started kind of erasing my first line. And that actually helped a ton. Because more often than not, again, a stock is gonna match, it’s gonna like, go to your line, that’s where you want it to be. And I kind of just had this, this mental discipline of like, it’s either gonna hit my perfect line or low hanging fruit. And like Harry said, you can use there’s so many factors, you’re like, Oh, this is where Long’s are stuck. This was a previous support, now, there’s going to be a resistance, you know, you can line up factors, this is where yesterday’s VWAP was, whatever you want to do. And like, it’s either it hits that line or Nothing, I just cancelled, like fantasy wars, you know, fantasy orders on low hanging fruit, especially if that’s kind of the strategy you want to trade, I definitely recommend kind of like, almost only using them because a lot of times low hanging fruits don’t give you the opportunity to like, actually size in because it’s not really an A plus setup. For most it’s, it’s unless it’s like there’s a plus low hanging fruit, which is like a major mover day one, like, you know, I’d say like, even right in the in this market, 30 to 50 million plus volume traded, and it broke down. So like you have a tonne of volume, that might be an A plus low hanging fruit. But if it’s just the day after, like a normal setup, then you know, there’s really not that much opportunity to size. So to me, it’s like you set your fantasy orders, you set your stops, and then you have your areas to get out. Because there’s set on the chart already with your support resistance, and then you kind of just it’s like hands off. Because where people tend to lose on the stocks is when they try to take the driver’s seat too much. They try to be like, Oh, it’s balancing, it’s not gonna hit my lines, I can hit my line, I’m gonna get in a little bit, I get a little bit more. And by the time it actually does what you thought it would, it blows your ass out of the water. And you’re like, how did I just lose on this thing? Like I had the right plan, you know, so that those things kind of helped me out a tonne, especially when I was, you know, more new?
John 17:01
I’d say. Yeah. Is there anything else?
Getting in Early and Staying Disciplined
Harry 17:03
That you think like maybe it might be like preventing you or like any other issues that you think that you have? Because like, you know, while you have us here, like it’s awesome to just kind of go over and kind of talk about stuff like that.
Harry 17:18
Somewhat like, the biggest thing is just getting in early. And then the heart stops, I got to be more disciplined, putting those in. Because with with that I have a like, when primarily like when we’re when I’m green, like when I’m winning, I find myself. For talking purposes, I’ll find myself will say I got in at 7.50. It’s now down to 7.20. So 30 cent Swing, I put my stop in at like 7.30. So I still can get a piece that I feel like I’m not. For some reason, I’m not figuring out how to I’m missing on how to kind of give myself enough wiggle room to work it gives a little bit I don’t because I consistently find myself getting stopped out. I mean, so I take it because it’s green. But it seems like it’s like every stop I have is that magnet, it hits that or maybe a penny of up and then goes down another 30 cents.
Harry 18:15
Well, James can either go or I can if you want. I’ll go up here. I think in terms of like for me, when I’m in something like that, I’m always going to be saying to myself, like you have to be thinking, and this is this is what I kind of say that first bounce back for me. So let’s say let’s say also for talking purposes, I’m short from 7.50. Right? And the stocks now down at 7.30 Right? Chances are that move is all you’re going to get from that trade. So your trade has now given you that that amount of money, right? So you’ve you’ve made that, that that amount of money. And now that bounce back is really going to depend whether you’re going to make more, or whether you’re kind of I guess like what you’ve made has is like going to come back on you right? So for me that bounce back is going to be the most crucial part, right? Am I going to want to maybe add a bit more size because I see that we’re really struggling to bounce back for you know, am I going to add a bit more or am I going to get stopped out if it’s really strong that bounce back determines really, maybe the next 30 minutes or so of the stock. So for me if I’m if I’m going to you know, long a dip, like I want to give that a bit like if my thesis is that this could maybe go down $1 I want to give that a lot more room than just setting my stop at like rate right below my entry right? I want to measure the stock up a little bit right I want to size this thing and I want to start collecting a bit More information on what this thing is going to do. And now that I have skin in the game, I have, you know, rather than just looking at something and like not really caring, like I actually care, I’m actually focused on the ticker. So for me that bounce back means all the more of, you know, I guess my plan on the stock, you know, so for me, I would always keep my stop at breakeven or a little bit higher still in that situation, because, you know, we may hit 7.50, we may go back down a little bit. And we may need 7.60, in order for this thing to really get crushed, right. But knowing that that bounce from 7.50 took it all the way down to that 7.37 7.20 area means there’s something going on at 7.50 means that I am right, but that bounce back is going to tell me how strong the stock still is. And I can still use that information to maybe add size higher, or maybe I’m going to cover 7.30.
The Importance of Having a Stop-Loss Strategy
Harry 21:03
And I’m going to try and short that up again, like there’s a lot of things that you can do. But for me, when I’m exactly in the trade, I don’t, I don’t like to have a habit of like moving my stop down right away, just because like that tells me that I’m worried about the money aspect of it. Whereas in this situation, since the trade is so new, and since you just put the trade on, you know, you still got to collect some information and learn a little bit about the stock and the way it’s trading. In order for me to really nail the next one.
James 21:35
Know what I mean? Yeah, I, I kind of feel like, you know, especially as a short seller, to grow your account, you do have to kind of master the idea or a master, but you have to get really a lot better at adding to a winner. But still, while realising respectable risk. So like something I used to struggle with was that like, I, I would just like have this like, arbitrary stop number in my head like not dollar, like I just stopped on the chart. And it never really worked out that well, because I’d add more size. And then if I did take a loss, it’s kind of random. So like, what I always kind of recommend now is like, finding this consistency in your losses idea, which I’ve heard from other traders, and I love it. Because, you know, now it’s like, no matter what trade I’m in, I always have a kind of like a set like, risk a number in my head that I’m going to lose if I’m wrong. And I base that on the chart. So like if hive day is you know, 10 cents away from my from my potential entry, I know where my stop is, I know how much I’m gonna lose, and I can size it accordingly to that now when the stock breaks down, and it’s like proving that it’s working, I can’t really add to that position, or anything like that, unless another level presents itself that that is important. Because hive day to me is like important. Like that’s how Alex has it right hive days, like the ultimate stop out. So like my size is based off that. But once the stock proves itself, and it like makes a lower high, that’s now my level. So now it comes to this, like, is there enough range in the stock to add and move my stop down to that previous high. And I’m always going to keep that risk, like I, to be honest, I don’t really ever have the mentality of like a breakeven stop, just because again, I like to allow my trades the room and like I’m always okay with what I’m going to lose, because I’m always in understanding of the dollar amount than the middle lose. I know what it is. And it’s tough like it is, it’s a tough mentality, I just find like in small caps, especially especially in the short side, having these tight, breakeven stops or like this arbitrary like five cent stop from your average or 10 cents from this line, it doesn’t really work. Because I mean, small caps are jumpy as hell, like the amount of times where I can move my stop down, I get I’d get stopped out for the trade just work in my favour, like two seconds later. So kind of learning that skill, especially like when you are shorting I think is like from being able to adjust your risk to a level on the chart. Like I saw a couple of really good traders post on Twitter this week, you can actually but they were explaining how they move their risk down. And it’s like, it just makes so much sense. You know, and it’s just I think people get so scared that they’re gonna give back money, or that a green trade might turn to a losing trade. And I think there’s a difference between like, Are you being greedy fuck because the stock’s down 60 cents and like you’re thinking go to $1 you could make $1 a share, and then you let it like blow up on you and bounce back to your average or you know, are you still in the right is your thesis still correct is everything still working out how you want it to because also taking off that trade too early and just scalping out is going to it’s doing a disservice to you you’re putting money on the line you’re risking it you know you need to make money to grow your account you need to make money to compound your account and grow over time. So that’s like a big that’s something I think you should really focus on and just kind of learning that aspect and being okay with it. And just putting in a hard stop right away man like always is the key for me like I just put a hard stop and now it’s like in the beginning I used to like almost fight with myself in the head in my head like oh, you don’t want to put that in because what if he’s Stop out. Now I don’t care if I stopped Oh, like it doesn’t, it shouldn’t matter if you stop Oh, if anything, it’s a good thing you stop out when the trade is not working. But it has to be like a reflex to like put that hard stop in. And then just kind of like it gives you time to reevaluate, to even look at the chart and say, Alright, hard stops in, I can kind of take my hands off and see, is this working? Can I move my wrist down? And I think that that’s kind of a big game changer. For me. At least it sounds like here he kind of along the same lines?
Collect Information When You’re in the Trade
Harry 25:26
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, like you want to collect, you want to collect information when you’re in the trade, you know, and that’s probably the number one thing is that I would rather be in a trade and get stopped out and like know all the information and know how the stock acts. So like that way when maybe I get short again, and something different happens. I’m like, Okay, well, this is way different than what just happened here. Especially on low hanging fruits, like, unless it’s a low flow, you have really good odds, unless it’s just a really, really micro low float where they just cut the supply and move the thing up a tonne, you know, you have great odds. So you can kind of take, you can kind of use that extra kind of odds thing to say, okay, like, unless we’re doing a tonne of volume, and it’s grinding me out, or unless it’s a low flow. You know, the timing is why it’s so perfect, right? The timing is why those trades work well. So like you have all the more to gain. Number one by just I think just having a normal stop. And also send yourself like, these are also low hanging fruits. Right? You know, they’re not, it’s not like you’re trading a crazy jumpy day one, it’s not like you’re trading a new IPO that just came out, you know, they’re low hanging fruit. So you can add a little bit more maybe size and a little bit more. And you don’t have to be as you do have to be cautious. But you don’t have to be as cautious as like any of those other like examples. I think.
Do You Have Plans to Expand From Low-Hanging Fruits to Day Traders?
John 26:55
That’s really good. I agree.
James 26:56
Now, Jason, are you do you have plans to kind of expand from low hanging fruits? Just kind of curious, do you ever like think about day ones or any of that stuff?
John 27:05
So I’ve dabbled in a couple of the day ones over the last week or so. But so when I’ve been in those, it’s been? I’ll say like, not even I don’t even know if you would call starter size, just because I’m trying to learn it. Again, you know, for talking purposes, you know, I trade right around 500 shares will say, so I’ll get on like a I can’t remember what it was the other day pre market, it ramped up, a crashed, and everybody in the chat was like, Oh, I think it’s done, you know, one of the pumpers was in it. And then I think it was Alex or I can’t remember who it was, was like, hey, now I would adjust my line to here, here and here. You know, because it’s on the backside. So I was like, okay, just trying to see the philosophies I do. For those I do watch a lot more. That’s why the commentary in the in the room is awesome. Because I’ll put we’ll say 100 shares just so you know. Yeah. Feeling really small. So I can get in the game and see, okay, hey, if they’re saying this, this and this kind of like Harry was talking about so I can understand their thought processes and do the trade with them, having no expectations have of winning or losing so if I win, not a big deal if I lose not a big deal at all, because, you know, it’s what maybe 10 20 bucks I’ll lose, if it doesn’t go the way that yeah, you know, somebody has explained it or whatever. And then I sit and I watch and it just it amazes me like the one thing I’m really starting to try to focus in on talking about what the stops is. I love watching how Kimber, who was the other day I don’t know if he was Steven or somebody the other day he stopped out they got into a trade it stopped out it went up came down and then they re attack at a at another level. And they were like this is why we stop so then we’re ready to re attack it oh my man that’s you know, that’s such an awesome Yep. And I need to I need to pick so yeah, I’m looking at Hey ones, but it’s more just watching what you guys say in the room. Yeah, yeah. That’s cool.
James 29:15
I like that now what are you doing to get better yourself? How are you improving your your trading your strategy with with the low hanging fruits? Are you doing anything kind of on the side you have a tab group you work with, you know, what’s, what are you doing actively outside of market hours to get better?
John 29:29
So I watch videos I attend Monday, Tuesday. And then I rewatched Thursdays like on Fridays because this is what I do. My times are full I got four kids. So nighttime is key is kids. Yeah, but I watch as many videos as I can. I do have a tab group. There was a couple of guys in the accountability section of slack that was like hey, I’m looking for I was like hey, so Mike. As I took about eight months off last year, due to some personal reasons where I just I had to pull money out of my account to take care of some things. And I was able to get the money back reap, re attack. So I’ve really focused in January one, treating it like a job, you know, like in the military. For one of my jobs in the military, I worked finance. So I go to the basic, you know, the tech school for finance, I learned the base level finance, I go off to the next base, I start working customer service, taking care of people’s money, their vouchers, you know, moving money around for people. But while I’m doing that, I’m still learning how to become more proficient, it’s called upgrade training in the military. So I’m, I’m treating it just like I did with my military training, I’ve got that base level, low hanging fruit, it’s kind of like my, from the reason I chose it, it looked like it was like, kind of like that entry level. Hey, if you want to be profitable, you can use this Low risk, low reward, but still, you start to understand the game. And now it’s take that next step. And my Tanya, we, we send each other videos, one of us actually was a Thursday or Friday of last week was a man, we, I really want to get better at building my watch list. And finding, you know, because what he was talking about was how people kept posting the watch lists. And then hey, here’s the gaffers for the morning. He was I need to get better at that. So we went on to the web page, it’s out a couple of videos, hey, let’s watch this, this and this. And then let’s talk about it.
Treating Trading Like a Job
James 31:38
That’s huge. I mean, I feel like you need those guys to kind of bounce off of and like, you know, like, kind of like, I liked what you said, too. It’s like, I’ve noticed, once you start treating trading, like a job, that’s like, a lot of the interviews I’ve listened to, and the other podcast episodes that might hear from other people is like, that’s usually when people trying to turn the corner, when you can start treating this like a job rather than a gambling addiction. It’s, that’s usually the tipping point for a lot of guys. And, you know, I mean, it is it’s like, you’re like you said, it’s a military, you’re a military guy, you could you have to treat this like a regimented job that has like a success rate like that, you know, what you have to do to be successful at your job, the better you do your job, the better, more efficient you are, and the more money you’re gonna make. And it’s the same thing in trading. It’s like all it’s all very similar. And like, I think it’s cool, I think you’re on a really good path that that discipline that you have, and understanding how serious it is. And, you know, I think I kind of wanted to ask, you know, maybe you can wrap it up. But, you know, you said you have four kids, right. That’s cool. That’s crazy. So now, how is it that this is something that we don’t ask off? But how, as a father, as a parent, is it hard to kind of put the time into this? And like, study and do that, but like, you seem to make your work? So I’m just gonna want to have you touch on that a little bit, you know, pressure, do you? Do you ever feel it? Do you feel like, there’s like, almost like, you have more will to be successful? Because, you know, you have kids? Like, how does that that word, because it’s something I don’t deal with areas and deal with, you know, we don’t we don’t ask any people these, these things.
John 33:05
So, um, I’ll start off with saying, um, I feel like I’m kind of an anomaly. Now that I’m retired from the Air Force, I get my retirement pension. So cool. You know, I can’t remember what was it Bell and one of his tweets or something, and he was like, hey, you know, when you’re starting out, you don’t want to make this put pressure on yourself to where you have feel like, you have to make money because if you feel like you have to make money, you won’t, you’ll you’ll break rules. You won’t be as successful as possible. I can remember I thought might have been valid camera who it was, yeah. Yeah. So I, I, I am lucky enough to have my my current wife, she, she has a full time job. So we kind of live off of my retirement and her her paycheck. And she’s able to get I’ve a we have a blended family. So two of the boys go to school three minutes away from here, which is by where she works. So she takes them one of the one of our children rides the bus, because her middle school is a little bit away. And I just take one kid to school at for me 8am 9am market time. I get him to school, I get I get back at let’s say 9:05. And then I lock in from that of 9:05. Until see be 9:30 For me, or excuse me, 10:30 For me, and that’s where I I’ll do my you know our trading kind of like that philosophy that I studied. And then when I’m kind of like how Vic was saying in a couple podcasts ago, and I know he mentioned in the room a long time ago to when he first became a moderator. I listened to the podcast as I drive because I do a lot of driving so on and, you know, kind of similar what he did. I was like, well, that’s a good idea. Instead of listening to music, listen to something that’s going to help me so that’s how I do it. I I don’t feel pressure, though, because like I said, it’s this is play money. Yeah. And what I mean by play money, it’s like, it’s not money that has to go into my pocket to feed my family.
James 35:12
Smart man.
John 35:13
that’s really me I look at as just a keep the money in the account, it stays in there, I pull out money every every month, at the end of every month, I made a promise to myself, and God knows that, hey, at the end of every month, I’m gonna pull up my ties from my trading account. And then that’s it. And when we’re planning on going on vacation, then I’ll pull money out. So we can go on vacation, we don’t have to impact our day to day. And it’s easy. It’s easy for me because I don’t like it’s I don’t have a full time job anymore. The pressure is not there. For me. Even if I didn’t trade at all, we would be able to sustain our life or livelihood. And the kids are in school. And even when they’re not, they kind of let me be for the first hour of the day. And then that’s when it’s difficult, like over the summer when they’re on breaks. Because I don’t want to sit and watch videos and study because I want to spend time with the kids. But they’re there. They’re at that age not working like Hey, guys, I need an hour, just give me one hour, early afternoon. Well, I’ll do it after they go to bed. I’ll stay up a little bit later, watch an hour or two videos, or review my trades for the day. And then prep for the next day.
The Importance of Having a Routine
Harry 36:22
Yeah, and I think that’s great. And that’s a lot more discipline than a lot of people are putting in. That’s the thing is that for someone like you like just even listening to me, like, like listening to me listening to you talk just what I was trying to say, like I was like, wow, that’s like a great amount of work, you know, to be putting in every single day. Whereas most people are like, for them. It’s like a choice. Like, they’re like, do I want to put this in today? Do I want to do this today? Do I want to do this? Do I want to do that, you know, as far as you you’ve ingrained it and made it a part of your routine and your habits. So now it’s not as much as a choice for you, where it’s some something that you need to do each day. You know, it’s something that is ingrained in you to do each day. And that’s what I think is so great. Whereas a lot of people are like, do I want to watch Netflix? Or do I want to work on trading, and then a lot of people pick the Netflix and then it compounds and compounds and compounds. And then a lot of my trading calls, I’m like, Man, you really gotta pay attention to those videos. So you got to start watching the video. So you got to really treat it like it’s, you know, university or whatever, you know, if you were doing a course right now on, you know, I don’t know, anything, you know, this is how you would have to approach it right? And it is the exact same thing. So I really do applaud you on that for sure.
John 37:41
Like I said, it took me a while so I’ll be upfront with you guys. Even though I’ve been a member of MIC, and I’ve watched the videos I watched the accelerated course, before I realised that shorting was kind of fit my lifestyle better, Harry, I watched all your videos. But then I was breaking all the rules. So now that I’ve kind of made that business plan, I stick to those videos. I watch him I do the notes I listened to you know bows, Tuesday lives, Alex’s Monday lives, hashes market sentiment, or not, Tosh constantly asked him not to look like an idiot.
John 38:29
Once I started dedicating to that, hey look like if it’s not if it’s not one of these rules that fits my standard. I’m not going to do it. That’s when I found that success. Because if if you know I’m watching a Tom video, and Tom says hey, I short like this. Then I watch a James video and James is like, Hey, I short like this. And I say Harry video. He’s like, hey, look, if you’re gonna log you can’t do this. Yeah. And then I’m like, Oh, well, that’s three different people for three completely different places. Both around the world and in their trading. It’s got to be something.
James 39:02
Yeah. Yeah, I like that. I think that’s probably a good place to end it. Actually. That was that was a really nice kind of ending statement. I feel like
Harry 39:09
yeah, so thanks for coming on, bro. Yeah, Jason. Thanks, guys. Thanks.