How Did You Get Started in Trading?

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, and we're going down? You know, there was that point in time that I thought that was happening in a couple months, you know, but not not even a month ago? Uh huh. Then Sir, they just decided I need to take a breath, or is this the day that the markets going to correct 10 or 20%, and I'm going to lose a massive amount of money in my positions. So that's the importance of making sure that you're managing your risks and understanding that the money that you're using, this should not be your savings account for your kids college education, that should not be the mount of your emergency only money, this should be your discretionary money, that you know that the unlikely event that all the markets go hell in a handbasket, you could lose the whole thing you get, you need to be make sure that you're prepared to take that risk. So that always is in the back of my mind to make sure that you're managing your risks appropriately. Because it's not only just about the making money, it's about making sure that you're losing as little as possible.

Allen: Yep. So now this program that you are in, it focuses only on credit spreads and layups and how to trade them that way, I probably would not have that to be the only strategy in my toolbox. You know, selling options is great for everything you've outlined. But the like I said over and over again, the biggest time an option seller gets hurt is when the market changes direction. And you can you can mitigate that risk by doing some of the strategies that we talked about, but it's still kind of painful. So like you said, you know, if the market goes down 20% tomorrow, you know, you're going to get hurt to a certain degree. But that's why we also that's why really, I came up with passive trading, the whole system of passive trading and having a foundation in stocks and dividend paying stocks and the other strategies as well. And then you kind of diversify yourself. So yeah, you know, layups are great credit spreads are great, they're a great place to start, especially for, you know, somebody just getting into options, they're a great place, if you have a smaller account, as you grow in size, you know, as you like you, you got 400. As you get to 5-6-7 More than that, it's really important to move away from just one strategy and have your foundation set. And we've talked about that in other podcasts as well. But I think that gives you what I call staying power. And so that, you know, even if the market tanks or something bad happens, all of your trades will not just go down and expire worthless, you know, or expire in the money and hurt you at the same time you do have that something of value that can pop back up, like with Corona, you know, when we had the corona bear market, yes, my trades hurt, you know, my, the spreads trades that I had on, they got hurt. But the overall portfolio did fine because the market tanked. And then it rebounded. And then, because it rebounded right away, and we had money on the side and all that stuff, like you mentioned, you know, we were able to jump back in and make money month after month after month, and whatever was lost was easily easily recovered, because of the proper money management in the foundation that was set. So very good point for you. But you're still You're still saying that you're going to do this full time, I thought you I'm a little bit confused. You said you're still a financial planner, or is that you're done with that?`

Kevin: I'm still a Certified Financial Planner, but I don't have an active practice.

Allen: I see. Okay,

Kevin: I don't I don't have clients, you know.

Allen: Yo don't wanna get back into that?

Kevin: No, you know, I really enjoy I enjoy what I'm doing now, to be honest with you. It's really now part of this, obviously, this helps achieve the financial goals, but then I've always been driven towards life purpose. So the question then is, is what is it that I will be doing that will will fulfill my purpose and mission in life? And so that's really what I'm exploring now. So this is the key. So..

Allen: Have you figured out what your purpose is?

Kevin: No, actually, you know, now I, you know, Allen, I've always had a pretty, I've been really blessed I have, you know, I believe in, in a Divine Being that that controls us and gives us direction in life. I've always had that at this point in time. This is what I'm trying to figure out, what then is purposes for my life. This helps me certainly sustain myself financially. And you know, so the money that I taken in this, this has just been part of the dollars that I'm using to generate short term income of course, as you mentioned, the importance of having longer term investments. That's all this is all aside from a regular investment portfolio that I have in the long term, you know, but the question is what then is the purpose outside of generating money? What is it that you want? What is it that I want to give back to the community? What is it that I want to ultimately achieve? By the time I get to the end of the time in my life, that's always part of the life journey. And so that's what that's what's still always been defined.

Allen: Awesome, cool. Well, let me know when you get there, when you figure it out. It's good to have time to just sit around and think about it, you know, it's like, yeah, I don't have to work. I don't have to worry about anything else. It's just, okay, I can sit thinking, what is what is the life? You know, what is purpose of life? I think that's like, a first world problem. You know, I don't think like people in third world countries figure that out.

Kevin: No, and that's it. But I believe all of us have a purpose here on this earth, and that's part of the life journey is to figure out what is it that our whole life in, and I don't believe that there's one single purpose, I think that there's different stages in life, I always believe that life is like, it's like a big production, play production, you know, we all play a minor, major roles in each other's drama, comedy, or otherwise called life. And so, you know, the, I just believe that the key to really, to success and happiness is not just what you're able to generate in your bank account, but what you're able to redeposit into the emotional bank accounts of others, and that we were put on this earth to give back to others and to serve others. And so it's just how is it that we do that, I think everybody has a different purpose. Doing that, you know, sometimes people get involved with, that's why I was really interested in non for profit organizations and leading those to, to really help promote a greater cause in with inside my community, or state or country. And so that's, that's what I'm just trying to figure out what it is, you look at some of the most successful people, whether it's Warren Buffett, or whether it's Bill Gates, or Jeff Bezos, they all have different foundations, they're all they obviously have created a mass extreme wealth, but they also understand the importance of being able to give back to their community and being able to help solve world problems and and do something greater than just generate money in the pockets of their shareholders. They know that there's much more to life than that. And so that's everybody journeys is to figure out what is it that I'm going to do to make that happen. You don't have to become a a millionaire billionaire? Or now? I guess it's a well..

Allen: Almost there trillionaire Yeah.

Kevin: But I think what Elon Musk was says 300 billion now as a first person to reach a net worth of over 300 billion or something like that.

Allen: It's all play money, it's all play money,

Kevin: He made any that through credit spreads though.

Allen: Well Warren Buffet he sells options every month.

Kevin: Buffett read a lot of Warren Buffett's books and his philosophy, and he's, you know, he's, there's a lot to learn from him.

Allen: Like, you know, like you said, you know, we're blessed. And we're blessed, in many reasons, anybody listening to this podcast is blessed a million times, and the fact that we've found something that works so well, like you said, you know, Option Selling, it works so easy, and so well, and if you wanted to, he could take, you know, a much less time than you put into it because you're you're just having fun with and you're doing all kinds of other stuff and, you know, playing with it and pushing the limits and stuff, but the fact that we have the opportunity to, because of the position that we're in because of the way that the money is being made, we don't have to worry about you know, the 9-5 or the 50-60-70 hours a week, we can actually think about giving back we can actually think about Yeah, let's set some money aside or let's you know, you're talking about working at a foundation, hey, you could probably go in and make your own foundation if you wanted to. And do it that way. And you know, so it's just that gives us so many different opportunities in life and to set up our legacy and to set up you know, the way we want to give back to other people it's just I get over it just blows my mind every time I think about it, I'm like really I get to do this for a living this is like freaking crazy.

Kevin: Like I said, the the really the sky's the limit the flexibility of what this allows you to do is extraordinary. Now you just the thing you have to decide is the number one it's not just about having the money to put towards it but it's the commitment and you have to become a student of that this isn't something that happens just overnight especially if you've never had been exposed to to trading options before so it does take some time so you that's why you...

Allen: Says the guy who did it like four months

Kevin: Oh but I had the background I had part of the mission so if I did not have that foundation, I can guarantee you take me a lot longer like I said before, it took me least six to eight months..

Allen: To understand the concepts

Kevin: To have my whole brain wrapped around how options worked and you know difference between puts and calls and how they function in the markets and their purpose and things like that. I mean, I was trying to do the math in the beginning was just and I'm a numbers guy was just It took me a while to wrap my head had around it. But so you have to, if you determined that you make the decision that you're going to be committed, and then stay committed and understand there's going to be ups and downs, you have to become a student of it and really immerse yourself. That's why it's important to understand what is your goal, when you're getting into this, start out with the, with the income aspect of it, where you eventually want to be, create that plan. But most importantly, make sure you're committed, don't just stick one toe in it and say, I might just try it for a little bit, you know, get into it. And really make sure that you spend the time learning it, that you become a student that you're just immersed in this. And then you can make the decision if it's if it's right for you or not. But you can't just do this, you know, for a half hour a day just starting. And when you're just trying to learn and that's all you're going to put into it.

Kevin: I've read all your books, your materials, when and inside and out. And I still go back just to refresh my mind you have you become a student of this. You know, I've had a lot of successes, but I don't I'm not, I don't consider myself a master at this, there's so much to learn. In this and in again, experiencing all the different types of markets that you go through and everything else, a lot of this is on the job training. And so it is one of those things that you learn as you go along. As I as I mentioned, I, when you first started mentioning that you need to cash out and spend money and brokerage fees and things to cash out and take your profits, I'm thinking, I think I must be nuts, I'm hanging in here, I want my couple $100 You know, I'm I don't want those people taking my money. And now. And now I celebrate every time that something cashes out because again, I know that that's money in my pocket that the markets not going to take away. And then it opens up the opportunity to make even more money. And so learning things like that and, and also, especially for the guys, I think it's harder to to know that you've got to be able to accept loss, you got to realize that you are going to have losses in this. But the important thing is is that you minimize those losses. And I know sometimes we don't like to make a mistake and say, Hey, listen, this trade just isn't working. I was wrong. When I thought about this direction this was going to go into you make sure that you're you're you're getting out at your prescribed amounts, whether it's 25, or 30%, you don't want to go beyond that if you can help it. Yeah, because those those losses will build. And it takes an awful lot number of trades to be able to make up massive losses, you know, so for me when I first had my first Max losses, $10,000, that's over 10 Actually 11 trades that you have to make up think about 11 trades that had to make up just to get back to breakeven, you count the premium $1,000 premium that you got for the trade. So, you know..

Allen: Yeah that's one of the rules you don't mean ever take up my slots.

Kevin: That one that was in one of those companies that we talked about that happened to be which now as part of my rules, I don't invest in foreign ADRs, especially ones from China that are that have lack of regulations and such as one that that I got into it was it went up actually 25% and I'm thinking man, this thing is really kicking this is doing really well. And all of a sudden one day, there was news announced of, of where this there was embezzlement by this huge hedge fund manager and management of all these funds and the thing dropped over 50% And then that's when I got into my wishful thing I said, Well, this drop 50% certainly people can come in and just kept dropping and dropping. Finally, it turned into a max loss. And I had, you know, an issue one of our trades when I got hit on gold, you know, God, I was wrong about what gold was going to do in two days, you know, went from I think we're up to six or 7% were where the trade was down over 50%. And I said now, gold's coming back tomorrow, it's popping tomorrow, sure the hell didn't with a max loss, and that I said, you know, you just can't do this anymore. You cannot do this and be successful as business. You got to be willing to take the losses and just minimize them.

Allen: Yep, yep. There's certain rules you got to stick by. And sometimes Yeah, they can come from experience, but it's very expensive experience.

Kevin: You know, they are, but that's what the learning process is about. Mm hmm. And

Allen: That's what we try to minimize. It's like, yeah, I can tell you it. But sometimes you won't learn it until you actually do it yourself.

Kevin: But that's the importance of some and having somebody like you and these personal coaching sessions, because you're able to lease lend your wisdom and your personal experience. And that's what you get through your program. You get somebody that can actually be beside you and give you advice. And it's up to you then to decide whether you're how you're going to heed that advice or not. But at least you have rules to follow. You have a system to follow. And somebody with years of experience that can tell you hey, this is what I went through. And I don't want to see you go through this. So I would recommend that you do this or that the other and then you won't make that ultimate decision but at least they have somebody like you there i think you know is well worth the investment.

Allen: Well thank you. So would you, I guess I know your answer. But would you recommend option genius to others?

Kevin: Without question if you want to create, again, your own schedule if you if you want to create a real pathway to financial independence, and want to be able to have the flexibility to work, whenever to set your own paycheck, and really have the opportunity to create and fulfill your life and your financial dreams, I think this is a great opportunity to do that. You just have to be willing to make the commitment, have some resources to get committed, and come in with a, as Stephen Covey said with the end in mind, so begin with the end in mind. And that's the way you start to a pathway of success. .

Allen: Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. I know I've kept you longer than, we were just having so much fun, I lost track of time. But..

Kevin: You have a really long podcast.

Allen: It's gonna be a long one. But to sum it up, like well, you know, do you have any any parting advice for our listeners?

Kevin: The first thing to do is if you are interested in, then you just need to take the initiative and get started, start with Allen's books, listen to his podcast, and then take those steps along the way. And if it's the credit spread, the direction that you want to go into the credit Mastery program, when that opens up, is certainly well worth the investment of our, you know, I've gotten my investment back nearly over four times from what I paid to get into the program. So it's well, well well worth the money. And again, you can set yourself up for really big financial success, but you've got to take that initial step. And sometimes that initial step is the hardest to take. And you just have to get started and you just have to commit and do it.

Allen: Yep. All right. Well, I appreciate your time, Kevin, I appreciate all your expertise and your wisdom. It's been a pleasure to have you.

Kevin: It's my pleasure, Allen, great to be here and thank you for the invitation.

Allen: No problem. All right, everybody, make sure you trade with the odds in your favor. And Kevin is in our groups online. If you want to reach out to him. That's where you find him. Alright, take care.

Kevin: Thanks, you too.

 

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