I have a single question for you. Do you enjoy building? What does this have to do with trading, investing and money? In my opinion, a whole lot! Maybe this is just me, but sometimes my mind wanders and I just think about stuff - haha! This question is one of the conclusions I came to when thinking through what it takes to find success in the world of trading and investing. Let me explain myself…

If you’ve been following the headlines, you know that “price controls” have made an appearance. While this is not a political podcast, it “is” a podcast about all things money which includes the economy. Therefore, anything in the political world that has to do with the economy I believe is on topic for the show. My goal is to never tell you what to think about any issue, but just give you some considerations and allow you to come to your own conclusions. I understand price controls sound good on the surface. How nice would it be if companies can only charge us a certain price for goods and services we want? This is the game politicians from both sides love to play. Say stuff that “sounds good” and then hope people don’t dig into the comments and their implications any further. I assume my crowd who listens to this podcast is NOT like that. I assume you want to form your own thoughts and are always on the quest for pieces of information to consider within your thought creation. Time to talk price controls!

The month of July was going amazingly well until I went into moron mode. I can only speak for myself, but “moron mode” is just something that is part of me. I’ve been trading now almost two decades and this is an issue that arises from time to time. The secret to dealing with moron mode is to ensure the moments it happen have large time gaps between them. Do I want to talk about these moments publicly? Of course not. But they happen, so I want to walk you through the dangers of what I did and offer up a reminder of just how nasty things can get. Am I trying to teach through fear with this episode? Absolutely! Sometimes the best medicine for fighting against an issue is through pure fear. Bad for me, but good for you is the fact none of this is “in theory”, this lesson comes directly from my own personal moron mode. Let’s talk about it!

I want to keep this short and sweet and try something different in terms of dropping an episode "in the middle" of a current even situation. At the recording of the episode, the pre-market sell off was in full swing and only picking up in momentum. Everywhere I looked, it was one negative headline after another. I wanted to take the opposite approach and offer up some of the fear easing logic that I love to use during these moments in time. Let's get into it and offer a ray of light amongst all the negativity currently in the headlines!

During the early stages of your career in trading, you’ll find yourself constantly surrounded by traps. The majority of these traps are due to how your, normal, brain is wired. I say this because I am not implying you are some kind of moron for falling into one of these traps. The human mind, in the spirit of efficiency, tends to skip over details and definitions that matter. What do I mean? I came across someone who is clearly new (and a bit angry) to the markets and they claimed a great sounding strategy. The main part of its greatness of the simplicity behind it. I decided to press this person a bit more and you’ll see how the human mind has lead them astray. Hopefully I was able to help them out in seeing the error of their ways, but if not, I hope I can use this interaction to point out a few things that you are potentially overlooking within your trading. Let’s get to it!

There was a recent article I read titled, “If you always do these 8 things, you’re mentally stronger than most”. From the article, “After spending decades studying mental strength and interviewing and surveying thousands of people for my recent book, “The Mentally Strong Leader,″ I have good news. The mentally strongest people tend to share certain habits we can learn from. There are patterns I’ve noticed when it comes to what they say (and don’t say) and what they do. If you always do these eight things, you’re already mentally stronger than most. If you don’t — yet! — you can look to this list as a mini-playbook that will help you level up your mental strength.” I want to focus on the number one thing on her list. I’ve talked about it 100’s of times at this point, but now I have a bit more cover fire that I’m not just talking from a theoretical standpoint. Let’s get to it.

While I’m known as a trader, I do also invest! Investing does not need to be talked about nearly as much given the long term nature of the strategy; however, I do still enjoy talking about it. I wanted to take a few moments to share with you one of my favorite ETF’s for investing. Will this kind of investment be for you? I have no idea. I don’t know what your goals are and what kind of place you are in life, but I’d imagine there have got to be some of you out there that would find value in this ETF. An important aspect of investing for me is to be able to understand “what” the ETF is doing and “how” it accomplishes its goal. In my mind, the ETF I will be sharing with you makes perfect sense in a very simple way. I’m not too smart, so I need simple! Let’s talk about this ETF and see if it is something that can help you meet your goals in investing!

I recently came across a passionate plea from a retail trader arguing short selling should be banned. This is not a new topic within the world of trading and investing. Short sellers are often the evil people of the market and carry with them a sense of mystery and darkness. They’re often times used to blame for falling prices and the backbone of numerous conspiracies. If you believe short selling should be banned, then that’s fine. You are more than welcome to carry that opinion; however, I will say I’ve never seen a “ban short selling” opinion that didn’t import false logic. In this episode I hope to give you some talking points to arm yourself in case you come across one of these “short selling bad, ban it!” people. Or, who knows, maybe you are against short selling but have an open mind so are willing to hear me out (which I 100% respect). Let’s do some talking about short selling!

I get it. The vast majority of you reading this email do not work in the world of sales. Neither your job title or job description mentions anything about working on a sale’s based commission. The fact of the matter is, you are in thee world of sales whether you like it or not. I recently have an interaction with someone who reminded me that many people are unaware of this fact. The sooner you realize you are a salesperson, the sooner you’ll be able to position yourself to be as successful as whatever your goals are. Even if you don’t want to do sales and want to work at a job where you interact with no one, you are STILL a salesperson. Let me explain how.

While I really can’t stand the term and being called one, let’s talk the world of “guru”. I get it. It’s a pretty slimy term and carries with it a whole lot of negative connotations. I wanted to give a bit more context about my goals as a “guru” (including making money) so you can have a better informed decision as you listen to the podcast and whether or not you want to continue to listen. I recently had someone email me in and say some kind words; however, there was still something missing that I wanted to shed light onto. It’s a quick tip to always keep in mind as you do your searching for an online community. How can you cut through all the smoke and mirrors of what people “say”? Obviously, everyone “says” the right thing and how they want to help and care for you, but do they actually? Do they only care about the money? Let’s discuss this some more.