Greatness Is A State of Mind

Good morning.

I’m incredibly grateful to have this safe space to share. 

It’s been a volatile few years. 

Moments of pure bliss, often overshadowed by paralyzing fear.

After 29 years, I’m recognizing this subconscious fear and the grip it’s held over my life. 

Fear is a funny thing. It induces us to live in a state of fight or flight. Rarely offering the opportunity to breathe and comprehend the repercussions of our actions. 

Perhaps foolishly, I approach life knowing I’m destined for something great. I walk through the World with grandiose ideas, while simultaneously feeling guilt for lying to myself about my current “reality.”

I can trace the first moments of fear to my childhood. 

I don’t want to sound ungrateful. I forgive my parents and appreciate their efforts to provide, but the emotional weight placed upon me was/is something that no child should ever have to endure. I just wanted peace. 

My first dream was to be a star athlete and earn the means to provide a safe space for my Mom. This wasn’t an irrational belief. I was a decorated athlete - never losing a 50-yard dash, setting school records, earning first place for my age in the Boulder Boulder, and running Point with kids 2 // 3 years older than me. My desire was rooted in merit. 

But the emotional strain of my environment consumed me. And being young, I didn’t understand the need to care for myself. I’d protest eating and sleeping as a cry for help. But rather than hear my cries, I was cast as “ungrateful, picky, and insubordinate.”

In reality, I was terrified. I just wanted out. 

The emotional turmoil led me into a deep suicidal depression. And my lack of care for my own well-being turned my worst nightmare into reality. My body stopped growing. I found myself crippled with vertigo. I was hospitalized and paralyzed for weeks. My brain looped the cries of suicide, and literally tried to create this reality. 

This was my first lesson in the metaphysical world.

Shortly after, I discovered the financial markets. I was hooked. The steady stimulation was welcoming. And I knew there was order to the madness.

I went all in. But I lost sight of my reason why. 

The propaganda portrayed in the timely debut of Decaprio’s The Wolf of Wall Street grabbed me. This careless, hedonistic lifestyle became my new vision of “success.”

I worked hard, circling across the country, in search of my opportunity. I was welcomed by incredible individuals, but I failed to find alignment. 

All I wanted to do was trade… and trade a big line.

In 2024, after enduring the typical boom + bust nature of Wall Street, I decided to take responsibility for my life to the best of my ability. 

I studied and passed the Series 65, granting me the right to legally manage other people’s money. I then registered a business without understanding what I was getting myself into. 

Again, all I wanted to do was trade. I didn’t want the responsibility of operating a business, especially a highly-regulated financial entity. I prefer to avoid paperwork like the plague. 

As you can guess, the money didn’t pour in. Nobody wants to be the first to allocate capital to a young, “foolish, unproven trader.”

But here’s how this story comes full circle… My first “client” was my Mother. 

She’d watch me sacrifice everything to chase my new dream. She’d seen the success, the failure, and witnessed the rug get pulled underneath me from the cold reality that is Wall Street. 

And yet, she took a chance on me. 

A rational “financial advisor” would say she was a fool for allocating her money to me. She literally put her life’s work in my hands. An act of faith I will cherish forever.

And admittedly, I struggled at first, trying to trade it safe. But as her equity curve slowly bled, I could feel her confidence in me fade. 

At one point, the drawdown in her account totalled -13.2%. Typically, if hedge funds exceed a -10% drawdown, they close up shop and return capital to investors. But for me, failure was not an option. The delusional confidence in myself pushed me to proceed. 

I had a few small wins in November + December, but was still well below her “high watermark.”

And then I got lucky. 

Late December, I sized heavy into one of the hottest stocks in the market. I caught a massive winner, propelling her account to a new all-time high. In January alone, I generated a +20% gain in her portfolio. I say I got lucky, but what did Seneca say about luck…

“Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.”

The luck I created was forged in the last decade of waking up every day to follow the flashing numbers. And taking the risk of relocating nearly a dozen times to find my place of peace. Environment is everything.

I often find myself misunderstood. I’m looked at as “foolish, reckless, arrogant.” And maybe this is a sign for me to better articulate myself, but the truth is, I’m just fighting to survive. 

I still feel the fear that has plagued me for all these years. My checking account is overdrawn by $247.81. I sleep on mounds of student debt, I haven’t paid taxes in 2 years, and there’s a feeling that at any moment my income could vanish - poof, gone. 

But now more than ever, I’m proud of who I am. Greatness is a state of mind.

Disclosure: This is not financial advice.