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

Author Richard Koch discusses the 80-20 principle and its application to trading and life, emphasizing the importance of focusing on the vital few for significant results. The podcast explores how analyzing past trades can lead to trading success by refining proven strategies rather than constantly seeking new opportunities.

I don't know if you're doing day trading, but over 74% of day traders lose money. Interesting stat actually thought would be a lot higher, probably is. Let me give the details. So the other day, I was talking on my phone to a friend and the word migraine came out. We were talking about her child that does he have migraines. It was just one or two times that the word migraine was used. The next day on my phone, I start seeing ads for migraines, migraine relief, migraine therapy. I'm like, What the heck is going on? You know, I haven't been to any migraine sites. I haven't searched for mi-- oh yeah, I mentioned migraines on the phone. So my phone is listening to me. And you've probably seen it. And it's just happened too many times to be a coincidence. The phones are listening to you. Mine is listening to me right now, you know, Alexa, Siri, all these guys. They're all listening. And then they're showing us ads based on the stuff we're talking about. Now, that is the future, that's how things are gonna happen in the future, right, we're gonna be thinking something, and there's gonna be some software, some program that's gonna be able to read our thoughts. And it's gonna show us a billboard with a thing that we're thinking about. So every car that goes by on the highway, will see a different sign on the Billboard, because of what they're thinking about. I don't know, it's gonna be crazy. But so I bring this up, because now I don't do day trading, I'm not interested in day trading, I lost money doing it, I don't want to do it, I found my niche. But as a trader, you know, we talk about trading all the time. And so I see ads for all different types of companies, option buyers, forex guys, day trading companies, all this stuff. And I keep seeing, I kept seeing this ad from a company called Warrior Trading, They're day traders and the main guy, he looked like a really nice guy. Tall, skinny, long ponytail glasses, could be like, your average community college or university professor. Nice guy, you know, a little hippie looking guy. But he looked like, he was trustworthy. And he was talking about how he made millions of dollars doing day trading, and it doesn't take a lot of time. And it's super easy. And he'll teach you everything on his webinar and stuff like that. Now, I never looked at it. But by the the numbers that he was throwing up, and the amount of ads that he was running, obviously, he's got a pretty big company, and they're got a lot of students and people are going to it. So it turns out last month, in 2022, or earlier this year, the FTC went after this company for several issues. The company has since settled. And they have agreed to pay a $3 million fine to the government, to the FTC, because of a few different things. Number one, they were teaching people how to avoid the $25,000 rule. So there's a day trading rule that if you have less than 25,000 in your account, then you can only do two or three trades a day. And then once you get classified as a day trader and you have to have more money in your account, because it's more risky, right day trading is actually riskier than regular investing. And so if you become a day trader, then you have to have a lot more money. Well, they were teaching people how to avoid that rule. So that was strike one. Strike two is the claims that they were making, you know, basically, he had a claim that "Oh, how I turned $500 into a million dollars, I'll teach you how to do this with very little time and you don't need a good education. You don't need this and that. And the claims, according to the government were very exaggerated, and they weren't for average people. So it's not true that you can learn to day trade if you're an idiot. It's not possible for you to day trade if you only have 15 minutes a day, it's not possible to profitably day trade by following your rules if you haven't been doing this for 50 years or some stuff like that, right? Now our company we make claims as well. And then we make similar claims. Now, the FTC sometimes they go after certain companies, the bigger companies and they try to make an example out of them so other people like us get the hint and stop making exaggerated claims. So hopefully our claims are not exactly that, we try to make them not exaggerated. But like I said, you know you guys see the ads you guys see that you guys get the emails, most likely you get emails from lots of different option guys. And there are crazy crazy crazy claims that are being made. You know, oh how you can make 100% in your underwear in two minutes every day. You know in the morning when the open is crazy, crazy stuff. Hopefully ours are not that crazy. Yes. You know, we tell you that we can make 10% in a month and we tried to. Every month every month, and that's 120% a year, which is a lot, crazy a lot. So people won't believe that. But if we can show that we can do it, then we can say that. And so you know, that's why we have to do it. But all of our testimonials and whatnot, you know, we interview the people that are having success. So they reach out and they're like, Hey, I'm having awesome success, I want to talk to you about it, I want to thank you for it. And I want to tell other people to do this. So they can also have success. Those are the people we interview. Right? We don't interview the people that, you know, have been doing options for 10 years, and they've made money like 50 bucks. Nobody really wants to listen that right. So we don't interview those people. Because anybody can lose money. That's not a big deal. You want to learn from people that are making money. So that's the ones you want to interview and list. But I digress. So anyway, so this company agreed to a $3 million penalty. And they agreed to change their advertising and the practices and all that stuff. The third thing, the third thing they found was that the majority of the students were not making money. And so how did they do that? Well, I guess this company has a simulator, which is a software program, kind of like a paper trading program that you would get from your broker. So they had their own and they were telling all their students, don't risk your money, do the paper trading on the virtual simulator, and learn to trade there before you go into the real world. So these people didn't lose money, technically, because they didn't have any money invested. Right? They weren't doing real money, they were on the simulator. 74% of the people on the simulator lost money, and they never made money, I expected it to be a lot higher. But think about it, not everybody uses the simulator. So if they have 1000 students, there's gonna be a lot of the people that don't do anything out of the 1000, there might be 20 30% that don't do anything. They just buy the program. And they're like, Okay, Oh, give me the money. No, you have to do something you have to work, right trading is work, you have to do something. So they probably never even used the simulator. Out of the ones that did use the simulator, those are the ones that are taking seriously, or trying to learn watching the videos or the courses going or whatever. And then they're actually doing the trades. Out of those people, the serious ones, 74% lost money. So I think it's pretty clear to say the majority of people doing day trading, probably over 85-90% lose money, even with you know, Mr. Nice college professor guy teaching them how to turn $500 into a million dollars. So if he's teaching, and I don't know if he's legit or not, he might be probably is I mean, FTC looked at everything. So he probably did that. Hopefully, even with him teaching, very small percent of the people actually make money. So should you be a day trader? No. Then again, this is not just a warning about day trading, this is a warning about crazy claims. So I try to a lot of different traders, people are trying to make a living trading options. And the ones that have the biggest issues. And who don't have as much success as they should keep bouncing around from one shiny object to the next shiny object and a nice shiny object because they see the claims. They see that oh, here you can make, you know, a million dollars by next Tuesday. So they jump into that program, and they jump into another program and gentlemen, so there's no focus, right? There's no reliability is you know, it's not stable. Because they just jump around. And so, you know, there was another company recently, a couple years ago called Raging Bull. These guys were teaching people how to trade options and do day trading and buy options and do all the other stuff. They had a lot of stuff, they were selling millions and millions of dollars worth of their courses every single year. They were the ones I don't know if you remember this, but a guy getting out of the helicopter, the guy in the Lamborghini, and it had a private airplane talking about oh, "I'm the world's greatest options trader in the world". Turns out, the guy wasn't even a real trader, he didn't trade at all. Right? Their company got hit by the FTC for a lot of the same reasons that their claims are just too much. They're too exaggerated. But in the research and in the investigation and found out that these guys-- the head guys, you know, the guy on the airplane and, and his main teacher and the other main coach or whatever, they didn't even have big trading accounts. And the trading accounts that they had were negative, they were losing money. So they were busy teaching stuff that they really couldn't do. And so that company went away for a couple years. And now they're back and they're advertising like crazy. They're selling courses again, they're selling everything again, and the same people so you know, it's a sad state of affairs I guess, in the financial marketing world that we live in, I live in at least, you know, you're on the other side of it, you don't see the inside. It's more about marketing, than actually about getting results, unfortunately, for a lot of people, and so, you know, and that's one of the reasons that our company is still small, we're relatively very small compared to all these guys, because we're not willing to go and make the crazy, crazy claims. And so people don't buy our stuff as much. Okay, you know, but the people who see through the crap, you know, they look at it, and they see our stuff. And I Oh, this is actually legitimate, this is actually real. And that's like, the biggest, the biggest thing that we get when people come into our program, they're like, Oh, my God, this thing actually works. Oh, my God. It's like, it's like, shocking to them. And it still works. I mean, yeah, I trade it every day, we-- I do it all the time. So I guess there's a lot of people out there that are selling stuff that doesn't work, or, you know, maybe you have to do it for a long period of time, or whatever. And people just jump around, and they don't see it. But just be careful. You know, this is just an announcement, like a public service message that, hey, you know, day trading, number one probably doesn't work. You know, I mean, yeah, some people do make money. I've seen them. I know some of them. I know some people that make money day trading, it's serious. It's a job, you got to be up before the markets, you have to be ready and sitting at your desk the whole day. And then when market closes, then you can actually do your work and research and homework and tracking and all that other stuff. So yeah, it's not easy to make money day trading, no matter what the advertisement says. In terms of option selling, it does take time to learn. But it doesn't take a lot of hard work. And it doesn't take a lot of time. Because once you put the trade on, our whole process is different. We're not trying to get out of a trade in 10 seconds, we're trying to stay in the trade for 30 days, right? We're trying to stay in the trade for a long time. Our whole process is different. So while we are in trades for much longer, the time it takes for us to find trades, manage them is much less. So I've looked at many, many different ways of trading, and tried them all, several of them lost money on most of them. And then I keep coming back to selling Options. Because it's, for me, the simplest way to do it, easiest to understand, and you can make mistakes, and still have it turnout, right in your favor. Or at least you don't lose a lot even if you're screwing it up. You know, the whole goal. And I've told this all my students like in the beginning, when you're starting out, it's not to make money. The goal is to be consistent. So if you can trade month after month and not lose money, that's great. Because then you just do one or two tweaks, and then that'll that will just skyrocket your returns. So if you're on the roller coaster, right, that's like Oh, win, win, win, lose, win, win, win, lose. That's the biggest bane of option sellers, because they're not doing it properly. Because there's no consistency. So that's the first goal. It's not about making money in option selling. It's not about how much return you can get. It's about how much they didn't lose. I'm consistent. I can if I mean, if your goal is 2%, then make 2% two to two to two. And then if you want to go to three and four and five, then we just changed a little bit. And then you go 345. And then you compound it and you compound it and compound it and you played the long game. Right? We're not looking to retire in a couple of years. Oh, yeah, I'm going to turn my $500 into a million dollars and then go buy an island and live forever on the beach. No, we're this is a long game. We're doing this for a while. Yes, you can turn a small amount into a large amount. If you compound it and you keep working the system. It's not gonna happen overnight. Okay, it takes some time, but it's doable. It's doable, very doable. So, you know, beware, there's a lot of stuff out there, your phone is listening to you. That's one thing. And if you find yourself on too many email lists, just hit that unsubscribe button, get off the email list. I told that to somebody a couple of weeks ago. That's what she told me. She was like, Hey, I keep bouncing around from shiny object to shiny object. And I'm like, Okay, this is what you do. You find the strategy that makes the most sense to you one strategy, just one, that's what you focus on. And you unsubscribe from every other service. You cancel every other service, get off every other email list. She's like, even yours, like yeah, even mine. If you don't want to sell options to get off my list, you know, I don't want you on my list if you're not gonna sell options, right? It's costing me money to send you emails. So get off my list. If you're not gonna sell options. That's basically all it is. boil it down to simplicity. That's what we're talking about. That's how you get ahead. One concept, one strategy. Just get good at it, focus on it, get consistent, and then the rest is history. Alright folks, take it easy. Talk soon. Bye.  

Let's talk about the Fed and more inmportantly how to make money from the Fed. How do we as passive traders, make money when the Fed is going to make an announcement? So a little bit of history, a little bit of background and when you're watching this, but today, while I'm recording, this is May the Fourth 2022. And today, we just had a Fed announcement, the Fed just came out made an announcement, they raised rates, they raised rates last month, they raised them again, and I want to talk to you about how the markets performing and how we could have made money off it. So now you got to understand in the past-- last several years, markets have been doing great. The Fed was not important, right? The Fed had their meetings, they did their announcements, they raised rates, a load rate, whatever they mostly are just lowering rate didn't raise that much over the last like, say 10 years. But the Fed was really important. We wouldn't even notice as traders, when there was a Fed meeting today. Oh, okay. What happened? Oh, yeah, cuz nothing in the market habit, nothing changed didn't make, you know, Marty was paying attention to what the Fed was doing. So we as traders didn't have to pay that much attention. That changed in 2022, when the Fed said, Hey, we are going to raise rates, and we're going to do it aggressively. That changed the whole ballgame. Everything is different. Now. 2022 marks the time when the stock market returns back to normal. This is gonna be a normal stock market year normal trading year, where we go up and down and up and down. And it's not just straight up anymore, because rates are zero, or very, very low or the keep going low. Okay. So in the past, since the last meeting, when they raised rates a quarter point, the Fed has been talking how the Chairman has been talking, the other governors have been going out and been talking, they put out articles, they put out interviews, they've gone in speeches, and they said, Hey, we're gonna raise rates 50 points. In this next meeting, which was today, right, I'm gonna raise, we're gonna raise 50 points. And they actually said it. And they've been telegraphing everything that they're going to do up till now. And up till now, I think the Fed myself, I think the Fed is doing a great job. We do have inflation, I get that. But those were things that were not in their control, right? You cannot control the COVID day, they cannot control the not having enough cars on the road. They cannot control the supply chain and the lack of truckers in California to unload all the chips and they can't control that. So obviously, yes, there's going to be some kind of invasion, some prices are gonna go up, and then they'll even out and maybe they'll come down or whatever. But they figured out hey, we need to raise rates. Cool. Awesome. Got it. So the raising rates couldn't be zero forever, right? So now they're raising rates, they told everybody, Hey, we're gonna go 50 cents, at half a percent point 50 basis points, or half a percent, we're gonna go up. And eventually, we want to get to two, two and a half. And so today, they made an announcement that said, Hey, we're raising 50 cents, then Powell came out, he answers the questions. And he said, Yeah, hey, you know, inflation is there. But it might be peaking, you know, it might be stopping, or we might not, we're gonna raise 30 points this meeting, and we're gonna raise 50 points next meeting. And then we're going to try to get to that to two and a half point, range. And we'll see how it goes. Because more than a month out more than 60 days, we really can't predict what's going to happen. So we have to go month by month and and see what happens. Because that makes total sense, right? Sounds like a smart answer. Right? He's not he's telling you what they did and why. And he's telling what they could do next. But later on, after that, he's not saying anything, say, Oh, well, that's a check to see, we'll have to see. So kind of leaving the market on edge a little bit. But still, you know what's going to happen? You know, what he's going to do, and you know what the target is? So he's telegraphing, he's basically giving you the roadmap and saying here, this is what we're going to do, there should not be any surprises, right? So you think, okay, he already told us what he's going to do. And then he did what he's going to do. Oh, that concept, right? Somebody actually lives up to his word. He did what he's going to do. And so the stock market should not have really done anything. It should not have been a non event, because everybody knew is already baked into the price. But what happened to the stock market today? Well, it's up over 120 points. The s&p 500 was almost 3%, almost 3%. It's about to close right now, in a couple of minutes. 3% On a day when you already knew what was going to happen, because he had already told you now if you don't believe him, and a lot of Wall Street obviously didn't believe him. Maybe they were expecting something else. Maybe they heard something that he mentioned, you know, there's no way to tell. And so for the people who were trying to predict and play today's announcement, they got hammered. Because nobody expected a 3% move. Not the the options change, not the experts on Wall Street. Nobody expected 3% Move, but somehow we ended up up 2% Today, So, how should you have played this? How could you have made money on it? And how can you make money on the Fed in the future, it's very simple. You make money on the fed by not losing money on the Fed. What do I mean by that? I mean, don't play the Fed, if the Feds gonna make an announcement, you don't want to be trading at that time. Basically, you treat it like earnings. Now, if you've been following me for any period of time, if you're selling options and doing passive trading, we don't trade earnings. Right, because you never know what's going to happen in earnings, it's uncertain, it's high volatility. Don't know what's going to happen. And so you can get blasted in either direction. Same thing with the Fed. This is now in stocks, the Fed is the most important thing to keep your eye on, listen to, to pay attention, they are the most important thing. If you're even trading any stocks, the Fed is more important than how much money that stock is making that company is making how the chart looks on that stock, a Fed is more important than basically everything. You don't fight the Fed. Right. That's the same, it's been around for a long time since they made the Fed. And there's a reason you don't fight the Fed. Now, again, like I said, The Secret should not to making money off the Fed is not to lose money when the Fed made the announcement. Now, this is gonna go contrary to all the other option gurus out there that are telling you, hey, you need to be selling options when volatility is high. And volatility was high right before the Fed announcement. Because it's uncertain, right? So they would have told you oh, man, go sell a calendar, go sell a strangle, straddle and do something, sell options when premium is high, when volatility is high, sell it, sell, sell it. And then what happened, they probably got their butts handed to today, 3% Move, nobody saw that. You know, you look at the implied moves and all that he was not there. So it just goes to show you that if you're going to play the long game, like me, right, I want to be doing this for next 30 years, 40 years, 50 years, I don't know how long I'm gonna live, I want to keep doing it. I don't want to get blown up. I don't want to get my butt handed to me, for a stupid reason. And a stupid reason would be to go into a very high risk situation and put a trade on just to make a little bit of extra premium. So I would not trade today, I would not have traded yesterday, a day before I would wait till the Fed.. Hoopla is over. Right? Markets up almost 3%. Today. 2.99 is where it's closing 2.99% Where today are to let the smoke clear. Let the market tell you when it's going to do next. Then you place your trade. Yes, volatility will be down then. And you'll make less money for selling an option. But it'll be safer. And in the long run, that makes more sense. Because option traders I have so many toxic people I've talked to they do good. They do good because you know it's easy to sell high low delta options. Oh, yeah, probably isn't my client. Yeah, great. Do that. Do that do that. Then the crash? Because they blow up because they make stupid moves like this because they're told to do stupid things. So yeah, this is controversial in the markets and the other gurus don't really like that. I'm saying this. Because they blow up and then they go away. And then a new guru takes her place. I've been around here for like 14 years telling you what to do. Teaching people what to do. So yeah, I'm still here. Maybe I'm doing something right. So if you want to make money on the Fed? Do'nt , don't try it. Not worth it. It's not worth the stress. It's not worth the high blood pressure. It's not worth the extra drink and all that extra yucky, Pepto-Bismol. You don't want it. You don't want the heartburn. You don't want the stress, you don't want the high blood pressure. Okay. Put the odds in your favor. One of the ways you do that there are many different ways to do it. Not just one way. It's not just probably the Prophet. Put the odds in your favor. One of the ways is by staying out of very risky situations, like a Fed announcement day. So there'll be putting on trades trying to game it. If you're going to put on a trade wait till after and then play it that way. All right? Hopefully this episode will actually help you and save you from some heartburn. All right, may the odds be in your favor. Take care

Hey, it's Allen again, from Option Genius. And today I learned something that I want to share with you. Over this weekend, this past weekend, I attended virtually a conference. And it was an investment conference on basically it was on funds. So how to, it was for people who want to have a fund like hedge fund or a real estate fund or crypto fund at all, there's so many different types of funds. And so they put all the people together in a room and they had speakers come and talk about the different things that they're doing and how you can do it, and how you can get investors to give you money and how you can build your track record and all this kind of stuff. So currently, I am thinking about doing that. And so I went there, and one of the speakers was a guy by the name of John Pennington, you can look him up John Pennington, he's probably a billionaire, or if not, he's worth several 100 million dollars. About a year ago, he took his company public, they were a fund, they were a real estate fund. So they were using investors to give them money. And then he would go out and buy real estate and do loans and stuff like that. And they made it to build it up pretty good—several billions of dollars of assets. And then they took the company public. And he was the I believe he was the president or the co-founder, one of them and then he retired. So now he has a lot of time on his hands. But he's still a very smart guy, because you don't build up a company and go public, you know, and make millions or millions of dollars if you're not a smart guy. So he took the stage. And he talked about a couple of different things. One of the things he talked about was he what he calls the Bitcoin cage. Now, I want to give him complete credit for this because I hadn't thought about this. This is his thing. I don't know if he got it from somewhere else. But he brought this in spoken to everybody. And it was very interesting. So I'm telling you this not because we're going to be making money, I will not be selling options on Bitcoin or anything like that. But I want to also show you how other people think and how when you're investing, you need to be looking two or three steps down the road, to really understand what is going on in the markets. It's not just hey, I want to buy this stock is gonna go up and sell puts because it's going up. Yes, that's just kind of what we do. Right, simplicity wise, but long term, we have to also know what's going on. So Ray Dalio, the guy who has the biggest hedge fund in the world is another guy, he has written several books. And he's been talking a lot about the reserve currency, as the dollar is currently the reserve currency of the world, meaning that most of the trade around the world is done in dollars. So that's very, very, very, very, very important for the United States. And if they stopped being the reserve currency, the dollar stops being the reserve currency, it's going to be very negative for our economy, our country, our debts, borrowing money, all that stuff, taxes are gonna go up all kinds of crazy stuff is gonna happen. And at this point, China really wants their currency to be the reserve currency. They don't want the dollar, they don't like the dollar anymore, and Russia is trying to get everybody off the dollar, as well. So it's gonna be interesting, the next 1520 years, see what happens with that, but call him John, John Pennington, the guy who's talking. According to him, the Fed-its main mandate there number one mandate is to keep the dollar the reserve currency. That's what he says is that their most important goal, their most important objective is to do that. Now a few years ago, nobody ever heard of Bitcoin, right? But bitcoin is billed as a currency is that's where it's supposed to be used to buy stuff with itself stuff with it, right now, because of the US tax laws, it's not really a currency, right? Because you pay taxes on it, every time you sell it, every time you buy something, you paying taxes, you got to record all that stuff, that's crazy. So until they get rid of that, it's never really going to be a true currency. But still people are using it to buy stuff with. And so it's gaining more and more traction. And it's unregulated by any government. So that's the appeal to it, right? And there's no one government that can take away your Bitcoin or and they actually found ways they can, but technically, you're not supposed to do that. And so the federal government, obviously, you know, there'll be the they got smart people that work in there, they'd be like, well, you know, this Bitcoin thing, it might take over as the reserve currency of the world, and they're going to replace the dollar, that's not gonna be a good thing. And so the Fed is thinking, okay, so how do we stop that? How do we not allow that? So before I tell you how they did that, let me give you a little bit more background. In the 2000s JP Morgan was manipulating the price of gold. Yes. JP Morgan, the bank was manipulating the entire gold market. So they were keeping prices within the range that they wanted to they were not letting go up nine where they say you can look this up and they were fined by the s&c. You know people found out about it, they were fined about it. And, you know, most people didn't even hear about it, they were fined a billion dollars, because of their manipulation. And this went on for nine years. So that's a lot of manipulation. And JP Morgan, you know, it's a big bank. But if you compare it, the resources that they have to the Fed, it's nothing, because they only have a certain amount of cash and serve on a market cap that they can tap into news, the Fed can print money as much as they want. They like unlimited supply of cash. And over the last several years, they've been printing, printing printing, and I'm sure nobody knows where all that money that the printing went to. So I'm sure the Fed has, you know, taken some of that money and done other things with it. That was just a footnote somewhere. Oh, yeah, $50 billion, went to this program over here. Nobody knows what it is. Right? And so John, he made the inference that if JP Morgan can manipulate and control the gold market, gold market is 10 times with Bitcoin, it's, it's way bigger than Bitcoin. Really even greater than that. I mean, it might be more than 10 times larger than Bitcoin at this point. So if JP Morgan with limited resources can manipulate a market 10 times bigger than Bitcoin, it means the reason that a fed with unlimited resources could easily manipulate the Bitcoin market. Make sense? Do you see what I'm going on here? I'm trying to connect the dots here. So what John was saying is that the Fed is manipulating the Bitcoin. And they bought up a lot of Bitcoin when it was at lower prices. And now as it gets higher and higher, they are selling the Bitcoin that they have. So they're keeping a lid on prices, because we had a lot of people mentioning later, oh, yeah, Bitcoin should be at 100,000, it should be valid should be at 200,000. Because every day, there's less and less Bitcoin out there. It's been mined. So it's, it's not like there's an unlimited supply, eventually, they'll stop making it. But that supply, that's the amount of mining that they're doing is becoming less and less and less. So basically, all a bit, most of the Bitcoin is already out there. There's a small percentage of it, that needs to be mined yet. But people lose their Bitcoin all the time, people put their money in their wallet, and then the guy dies. And nobody knows where their bitcoins just gone, where it can be stolen or hacked. And there's so much Bitcoin has been lost just because people forget their passwords. So the supply of Bitcoin is going down, that shouldn't be sending the prices up just by itself, but it's not. And so John is saying that the Fed is purposely keeping the price down, because they don't want interest in Bitcoin. If Bitcoin prices got super sky high, everyone's gonna be buying it, everyone's gonna start using it, all that stuff, they don't want that to happen. And so they're purposely keeping prices down. And what they what they're trying to do is most of the people who trade Bitcoin who buy bitcoin, they're doing technical analysis, right, so they look at the charts and the Bitcoin chart is going up, they're gonna start buying and holding, and if the charge is going down, then they're gonna leave it alone or sell. And so the Fed wants to create a chart of Bitcoin where it's slowly, slowly, slowly, lower highs, lower highs, lower highs, very bearish looking chatter, so that the people avoid Bitcoin and move on to something else invest in something else. And so Bitcoin eventually falls out of favor. Now they can do this for the next 15-20 years. People live on Bitcoin rises. It's crazy, but it's very possible. Now, is this accurate? Is this going to happen? The Fed really doing this? You might be thinking, Oh, conspiracy theory, conspiracy theory meaning, right, maybe that's what it is. But it makes sense. Is it doable? Yes. Is it in the favor of the Fed to do that? And the US government, if not the Fed and the US government or somebody else, you know, that wants to keep the dollar as a reserve currency? Yes, it is in their favor. And Bitcoin becomes the world's reserve currency. Whoa, big shocks all around the world, especially in the United States. So it was just eye opening to me to even hear that see is like, wow, okay, you know, this is some next not just next level thinking, this is like four stories up thinking, right? This is the kind of stuff that these guys talk about, think about. And it's like playing investing is like playing chess, right? You don't just think one or two moves ahead, you got to think 1520 moves. That's how the Masters do it, then the grandmasters they think, like 30 moves ahead. So that's how they become grandmasters. So this is the way people think on Wall Street and how they obviously there has, you know, I mean, I don't even know JP Morgan was manipulating gold prices. I didn't know that but they people know about it. And if that's possible, then there's a whole bunch of other things that are possible as well. They shouldn't be done. But they are being done. And if the government is doing it, then all bets are off because nobody's gonna go to jail eludes me, we're gonna find out about it. Probably. Right? So that is the Bitcoin cage. I know, we didn't talk about options or trading or anything like that. But, you know, I just wanted to put it out there and be like, hey, look, there's other ways to think. And you can't just look at one thing and be like, okay, Bitcoin, yeah, it's gonna go up because of XYZ. Well, there are other factors involved. So you got to look at all the offshoots as well. And when you make your investment thesis, so, you know, whatever you're investing in, look at all the different angles, think about it, you know, talk to other people that might have contrary views to what you're thinking. If you're if you're a Bitcoin bold, then talk to people who think bitcoins going to zero. You know, Warren Buffett said that Charlie Munger says that, why are these guys idiots? No, they're pretty smart. But they have reasons. So find out what those reasons are and then find out why and listen to it and keep an open mind. And then head yourself. Always head yourself. So yes, I still own Bitcoin. I'm hoping it goes 200,000. But this talk did keep me from buying more. So we'll see what happens. Right? We'll see what happens. He might be right, he might be totally off but if Bitcoin doesn't go up 200,000 over the next 10 years, then we'll know that he was right. Be crazy if he was anyway. So that's it for this episode. I'll talk to you guys soon. Bye.

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

Vince couldn't trade like he wanted to because he was a commercial pilot and it is hard to put on a position and not be able to monitor, adjust, or exit when you are flying across the world. So we started with our Blank Check Oil Options program....and for 2 years...Vince has not has a losing month! Listen in to hear his amazing story and how we accomplished this.   JOIN OUR FREE PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP: https://optiongenius.com/alliance  Like our show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps. Thank you!

Episode 4 of 4. In this last episode of the series, Allen helps you understand what level your trading is at on the Option Continuum and exactly how to move up to the next level. Make sure to listen to the episodes before this one to catch up. JOIN OUR PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP: https://optiongenius.com/alliance  Like our show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps. Thank you!

Episode 3 of 4. In this series Allen help you understand what level your trading is at on the Option Continuum and exactly how to move up to the next level. LOVE ALLEN SAMA - OPTION GENIUS AND WANT TO LEARN MORE TRADING TIPS  AND TRICKS? HERE ARE SOME NEXT STEPS... SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PODCAST FREE 9 LESSON COURSE: https://optiongenius.com/  WATCH THIS FREE TRAINING: https://passivetrading.com  JOIN OUR PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP: https://optiongenius.com/alliance  Like our show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps. Thank you!

Episode 2 of 4. In this series Allen helps you understand what level your trading is at on the Option Continuum and exactly how to move up to the next level. Make sure to listen to the episode before this one to catch up. So now that you know where you are, right? And you have an idea of how many levels there are ahead of you, I have some steps I can take you from one level to the next. And then I have some more steps that can take you from any level to move you along. So let's go through those. I mean, if you want, you can take screenshots of these. Level one, if you're at level one, if your Option Clueless, you know, very simple, read the passive Trading Book that we gave you, that's going to help you a lot. Get familiar with stocks and options, you know, start watching the financial media starter, covering what the words are, and try to make sense of it. And then we do have a reading list at the website OptionGenius.com/readinglist. So that's a reading list for selling options specifically. So if you want to get into options, those are some of the books that I recommend, they'll get you started, and basically just get more information, just gathering information. Okay, that's the one thing, the first thing. Option level two - options scared, here, what I want you to do is go ahead and open an account, you don't have to fund it, just open the account, go through the process, start creating what I call the watchlist. Now, the watch list is a list of stocks and ETFs that you particularly would like to watch, in particular like to trade. So if there are some companies out there that you're really interested in, add them to your watchlist, you know, and start watching them, start seeing how did their stock behave? You know, if you're working for a company, then that definitely should be on your watch list. Pay attention to the stock, how does that stock behave? You know, if you eat out like I do at fast food, I know everything about fast food, I know almost all the restaurants, I know how they're doing, I know what items are selling or not. It's just something with me. So a lot of the fast food companies, they're on my watch list, then you want to learn the basics. And you'll find the basics in the reading list. You know, you'll learn the jargon, you'll learn what is a put, what is a call, how does it work? Why do we sell the why do we buy stuff like that? And then number four, really, you got to know why that thing that we did in the last session, really, really ask yourself dig deep, you know, the deeper you go the more times you you ask yourself that why question - it gets really emotional. And I've seen people do it. And they've just been crying because they finally understood something about themselves that they didn't know before. Because we think oh yeah, I just wanna make more money. No, it's not the money. It's never about the money, there's always something more deep, more mental, more emotional. That's why we're doing this. And if we don't understand that, then we don't we don't follow through. Level three is option confused. So this is where you have an account, I want you to start trying to put on some trades. And these are virtual trades, paper trading. So you're putting on trades you're putting on, you know, maybe you buy some stock, or you sell an option, you buy an option, just seeing how it works. And then you need to list out all the questions that you have, right? Everything that doesn't make sense to write it down on paper, don't just think, oh, yeah, I got to figure it out, write it down on paper, look for the answers. And then either ask us if you can't find them. Okay, that's how it's gonna get you to the next level. The next level is option curious. Which, right here, you're going to be trading smaller trades, on stocks that you already own, or that you would like to own. So here is where I want you to actually put money to work. And maybe you put $500 in a trade, maybe put $1,000 into trade or even less 250. Sometimes, you know, and you're doing small trades, to get your feet wet, to go through the process to understand, hey, this is not as scary as I thought it was going to be. You know, if you just do it over and over and over again, it breaks down those barriers. And you'll be like, Oh, okay, I got this, this is simple, I can understand this. And then you want to keep a trade log. And this is just for everybody. Keep a trade log of all of your trades. Now I do it on paper, I have a folder here with me. And I have my trades going back for a decade. And I write them all down on paper. And I have some of them on spreadsheets, but really I like to have them on paper. And then at the end of the year, I haven't done it this year and I am to. But at the end of the year, I go back and I look at each trade. And I look at the ones that I didn't do well on the ones that I screwed up on. And that's how I learn. Because you don't learn when you do a positive trade. You're like, oh, yeah, I did it. I'm smart. I'm gonna genius. You don't learn anything. But when you get your butt handed to you, that's when you're like, Okay, what did I do wrong? What happened? Was there something I could have done differently? Or was it just the market and sometimes it is just the market. But the only way to figure that out is to go through every trade and you can't go through that until you're taking you have a record and a log of all of them. So this is how you get from option curious to the next level, which is option dangerous. So here we want to identify your risk tolerance. Okay, so this is one of the things risk tolerance is one of the reasons why I feel and I see people fail at trading when they really shouldn't. So there are and I see the ads all the time. There are plenty have newsletters and courses and ebooks and stuff that we can buy. And we can download and webinars to watch. And things that we can buy where it's the next greatest thing, right? It's the one system, that's going to teach us how to trade in one hour a day, or 20 minutes a day or two minutes a day, or whatever. And it's gonna make us a billion, a million dollars overnight. The thing is that, that thing might work. But it doesn't work for everybody. And it might not work for you if your risk tolerance doesn't match. So that's why I love trading options, because you can dial up and down the risk, you know, you can be more conservative, you can be more aggressive on all of our strategies. But most other types of trading, you can't do that, you try to be a day trader, you're going to be taking a lot of risk. Even if you put small amounts in every trade, you're still going to be taking a lot of trades a lot of risk. And for some people, you can't handle it. So if you take a square, and you put it try to put it into a hole in a round hole is not going to fit. So that's why most people cannot do most types of trading. Because the risk tolerance doesn't work. You also go in and go back to the basics. So if you're trying to do a system or a strategy, and you're not having success at it, it might be that you're trying to make it too complicated. So you need to simplify, you need to take it bare bones, start at the basics, level one, step one, step two, step three, you also need to start back testing. So depending on your broker, they might have the software available for you for free, or you might have to pay for it. But this really, really helps. And it really, really gets your confidence up where you can take your idea, you know, it's like, okay, I want to trade this way. And I'm going to do this and this, and this is how I'm going to adjust it. And this is I'm going to put on the trade. And you actually go back in time, find that situation, put the trade on, and then go forward in time to see how the trade worked out using historical data. So I've been doing this for a long time. And whenever I have a new strategy, I don't put real money to work, you know, I go back and I back test it. So I'll go back, you know, five years, 10 years, pick one particular stock, and then earnings or expiration by expiration, I'll put the trade on over and over and over and over and see how that strategy does. If it does great, then I'll try another stock. And then I'll try a different time period. Or if it doesn't do so well, I'll try to adjust it and see, okay, this didn't work, maybe I can try this, until I come up with something that works really well - then I tested with real money. And that's what small real money and then a test with more real money. And then if that works, then that's when I share it with my students.  So we have an oil Option Program, you know, that's the way I did that, you know, started with backtesting, then did it with small amounts of capital, then larger capital, and it'd be like, You know what, maybe I should teach this to other people. And then we taught it, it really worked well. And then you know, since then it's been growing. So number four, you got to deal with your fear. And that the backtesting really helps with that. But dealing with the fear is just, you know, overcoming a mental block. Really, number five, you got to get over the arrogance. And I've seen you'll see this a lot online right now. Because it was.. 2020 was a year where, you know, a lot of people made money in the market because the markets went up. And whenever the markets go up, people make money and they get arrogant. No, I can do this. Oh, I'm so super smart. I'm a genius. And like Warren Buffett says, you know, you don't know who's wearing clothes until the tide goes out, or something like that.   It's nothing like that, you know, you don't know who can swim until the tide goes out or whatever, and the tide is going to go out, you know, the market will not continue to go up forever. And that's when the arrogance will really hurt. So you gotta you have to have that humility aspect. And then number six is you gotta stop listening to everybody. There's a lot of people out there, and you don't know, who knows what they're talking about. So somebody could be like, Hey, I met you know, this happens a lot in Facebook groups online, somebody posts and say I made 1,000%. I mean, if you want, you know, I'll tell you how to do it. Just pay me money. Okay, but you don't know anything else. You could listen to this person and lose your shirt. Because maybe that was fake. And we're finding out that there are a lot of companies out there that sell newsletters that are fake, and they're lie, unfortunately, you know, in the book, passive trading, I talked about a guy Wade Cook, and Wade cook. I bought his book. He was very, very famous in the 80s. I mean, this guy was this guy was all over the place in the 80s. He had a dozen books and seminars all over the country. And I got one of his books and I learned what a covered call was. And I was like, holy cow. This is the coolest thing. And he's talking about how he does covered calls and he makes 20% a month and it's so easy. I think oh my god, this is amazing. I got to do this. I got to do this. Turns out Mr. Cook was not making money trading. He was losing money trading. And all he was doing was selling his books and seminars and whatnot and you was making money that way. But when they actually looked at his trading results, he was actually losing. And so he ended up in jail for tax evasion or something. There's another company right now called Raging Bull, they just shut down, because the government's coming after them, because their claims were so outrageous that they weren't backed up. And they were saying that they have traders that are making millions of dollars that were not making millions of dollars. They weren't making anything, they were losing money. So I mean, it's really a shame. And it, it really gives a black mark or black eye to what I'm trying to do. You know, because people that fall for those things, you know, the dreamers and the dabbler, they fall for those people, they see those people. Oh, you know, he's the and I actually did one of the podcasts is called the world's richest options trader, because that's what he called himself and he was flying around a plane. Turns out that guy's not making any money trading. Right? And so it gives people like me, a black guy who's really trying be like, hey, look, these are my real results, you know, I obviously made every single one of these trades. And I'm going to show you tomorrow, the results from nine years of trades. And I could not have done it five years ago, because I didn't have those nine years of trades. But now because I've been doing this for so long, I actually have the results from actual trades. And so I'll show you some actual trades of how you can double your money every year tomorrow. But again, you know, don't listen to everybody. You got to really verify who's doing it and they have to show you, they have to show you. So that's level five. Let's go to level six, Options Humble. LOVE ALLEN SAMA - OPTION GENIUS AND WANT TO LEARN MORE TRADING TIPS  AND TRICKS? HERE ARE SOME NEXT STEPS... SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PODCAST FREE 9 LESSON COURSE: https://optiongenius.com/  WATCH THIS FREE TRAINING: https://passivetrading.com  JOIN OUR PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP: https://optiongenius.com/alliance  Like our show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps. Thank you!