 Hey guys, this is Bow, better known as Monter Rock. Welcome to our second podcast. What's up everyone? My name's Alex, I'm 26 years old, been trading for about six years now. And today's gonna be a really special episode. Today's episode is gonna be about how Bow and myself got started trading and how we kind of met each other and kind of where we are today. But before I continue, I kind of want to mention that if you're brand new to trading, if you don't know anything about stocks or the market, Bow and I create a free two-hour mentorship course for the brand new trader. There's no strings attached, there's no funny business. All you have to do is reserve your spot at myinvesteclub.co. So let's get started, Bow. Do you want to kind of talk about your job? This is gonna be a special edition because I've always wanted to tell my story as in how I started and what it takes and the reality behind what it takes. Because a lot of people think that trading, you have to be from the Ivy League, you have to go to Harvard, you have to be this, you have to be that, you have to have a lot of money and that's further from the truth, man. The best traders I know, they didn't grow up rich, they didn't go to college, they didn't go to Ivy Leagues. They, what they had in common was they worked their ass off, they were disciplined and they never gave up. And so that's what we want to talk about today because Alice and I are very different in terms of our backgrounds, in terms of who we are, our age difference, things like that. But we have something very in common. We are very passionate about what we do, we're very hardworking and we care, we truly care about ourselves, our families, all that stuff. And so all that has translated to our success and my success, I'm not talking about financially, I'm talking about just being the person that we are, that we want to be, come. So with that in mind, let me start by telling everyone how I started, okay, Alex? I've been trading for a long time, man. Like over two decades, people didn't realize that stocks used to trade in fractions, man. Right now you see a stock trading, let's say, at $2.52. It didn't happen back then. Back then it was actually, it's weird. I just don't want to say like, when you think about the logic, it should be in decimals like it is now, right? It wasn't, for some strange reason, in fractions, man. IBM was trading at $104 and three eighths. What the heck is a three eighths? So we usually have these calculators. I used to have a calculator sitting by my desk, Alex, and I would actually have to start trading that. What is three sixteenths? What the hell is that, right? So you have a bit like 100 and three sixteenths by 100 and five sixteenths. I would just like, what's the spread? So we came very good at math. So Batman was kind of funny, right? I mean, if you think about logic right now, it's like, what the heck? Computers were doing that stuff back then, you know what I'm saying? So it seems kind of counterintuitive. But the reason they did that, in my opinion before, is because when you're doing it in fractions, the spread is so big, dude. Because with decimals, you can get down to one penny, right, Alex? And what is a penny in fractions? It's 100th. You don't see that. The most I've seen is like a 64 or 32, but if you're doing $100 stocks, you're doing it one fourth, one eighth. And you imagine, you know, like right now, if a stock is trading at, let's say 25 cents spread, you're like, holy cow, that's a big spread, right? Imagine you're trading in fractions. You're trading by 25 cents. You're trading one fourth is 25 cents. And so the market makers were making the spread, these companies, these brokers making the spread. And so they were big bucks back then. And so when it started to become decimalized, people were scared, because everyone's scared of changes, right? So I remember back then when they started talking about decimalization, when I was like, holy cow, how can you trade? How can you trade? I was not an expert trader back then. I was just gambling at that point. I just started trading, I was just gambling, but they thought that the world would end decimalization as like Y2K, things like that. So it's kind of funny where the market has shifted when logically it should have been in decimals as we get with it. Who the heck is trading in three eighths, right? Things like that. So that's the world that I came from. But even before then, man, I wanna talk about, we don't wanna do this podcast to try to inspire you as to, you know, you don't need to start, you don't need to have like an Ivy League education. You don't need to have like super rich parents in order to day trade. And day trading is not gambling. So the moment I became successful at day trading is the moment I realized that it is not gambling. If you do it correctly, it is not gambling. So when you started trading, Alex, it was already decimals, right? Yeah, so when I started trading, it was right when the marijuana stocks were collapsing. So everyone made a shitload of money on the marijuana stocks. I wasn't really involved. And as soon as I started, everything just went straight fucking down. And I was like, what the hell is going on here? Because I didn't know that I, as a small-time trader could trade NASDAQ stocks. I thought that I could only trade penny stocks, OTC stocks, because I wasn't a professional, you know? Yeah, man. It's like, dude, the marijuana was crazy, man. I made many millions on that craze. It was crazy. But anyways, even before that, man, let's talk about our upbringing, how we grew up. And so people can understand like where we came from, right? I'm actually an immigrant, man. I came, you probably heard this story many times, but I'm going to tell it again from my point of view. I came to America when I was five years old. Didn't speak the language. I was actually a Vietnamese boat person. That was the name, technically, after the war. So after the Vietnam War, dude, it was very bad. And so people were trying to escape Vietnam. And so my family, my mom got into a boat. It was a tiny-ass boat. I posted pictures of this on Twitter. People couldn't believe me. But we escaped, man. It was three days in the ocean. No food, no water. My best recollection of my favorite meal was when we were finally rescued on the boat and the sailor guy, I forgot who rescued us, but it was on our way to Thailand. They gave him me crackers, dude. And I still remember this cracker for the rest of my life. Oh man, you found that. Yeah, so for those that don't know, we do the podcast on audio and we also do it on video on YouTube. And the video version, I'm pulling up the picture of Bao from Vietnam. So if you wanna check out the podcast on YouTube, it's youtube.com slash myinvestedclub. Yeah, thanks for finding that, man. I mean, for the longest time, dude, I was very ashamed of this photo growing up because I was like, who wants to be an immigrant, dude? So this photo is actually in Thailand, dude. And this was like taking, not too long ago, but that we actually arrived in Thailand. So we got saved as the whole thing was to flee Vietnam, to go to Thailand, because Thailand, now we are refugees so that we, so my dad was in the war, he was in America already, so he sponsors over from Thailand. But that picture is very significant, man. I mean, for the longest time, I was so ashamed of this photo because I'm like, I just wanna be a regular kid. I wanna be a regular American. I wanna be thought of as like some dark-skinned kid who's from Vietnam. And back then, man, it wasn't like this today. This was 1980s. I arrived in like 1980 or something like that. And I lived in Portland, Oregon, man. Portland, Oregon. I was the only Asian in the whole entire class. It was me and one African American named Ray Ray, dude. I still remember it through this day. I got bullied every day. They call me Bow Wow. And Bow Wow wasn't cool back then. Before the rapper Bow Wow, Little Bow Wow became cool. Bow Wow back then was like a dog. They kept barking at me. It was horrible, man. And so this is what the adversity that I grew up with at his beginning was. We were poor. We were on welfare. I mean, we're just trying to fucking survive, dude. People would not believe it the way that I am today. People still don't believe it. But when I look back, I still don't believe it. I cannot believe I was even alive. A lot of the people that escaped Vietnam never made it, dude. It was like, so this is a very similar story to your dad. Alex, can you tell me? Yeah, so my dad lived in Turkey. So he lived in a village in Turkey. And they had a house the size of a closet. I think it was like made out of stone or something, something old school. He had three brothers and four sisters living under one roof. His father was a blacksmith. You know, that makes like fucking metal shit. And basically, they were bullied and hazed all their life because they were religious, right? So my family's Christian. And in Turkey, a lot of people are not, they're not into that stuff. So every single day after school, there used to be kids that threw rocks at my dad and his siblings. And the moment that my grandfather found out about that, he built them all these fucking metal rods. He did his blacksmiths shit to build them metal rods so that if anyone ever threw rocks at them again, they would have a way to protect themselves. So after all that shit, you know, my father wanted to kind of have a different life and come to America. He said it's the land of opportunity. It's where everyone is going. His goal was to go there to make enough money to bring his family to America. So he came here in his early 20s. I think he was maybe 21 or 22. Didn't speak the language, only spoke Turkish. Didn't have really a dollar. The way that he came here is he went to Canada. And then from Canada, he came to New York. So he actually, it's kind of crazy because I think about it to myself, man. Like if right now I'm 25 years old and I fucking fly to Russia and I don't know the language and I don't have any money, I have no idea how it would ever survive there. Yet my dad found a way to do it and it kind of blows my mind. Like the whole story of even you bow, like you coming and not really not knowing anything and being bullied is kind of crazy because shit, man. It's like, I can't do that stuff today. So I have a very deep level of respect and admiration for anyone that kind of does that stuff these days. But that's the thing. I feel sometimes like, I am like your dad, Alex. And I'm like you as well, I'm like a combination. Cause you know, I went through the adversity that your dad did. But at the same time it's like you went through the same shit that I went through. So it's the same exact bullying, the same thing. Cause people don't understand us, man. They look at you, Alex and they go, oh, that's a rich kid. But they don't understand that the struggle is that your dad went through. You know what I'm saying? They just take it for granted. They look at me now, it's the same exact thing. They look at me and they go, this is the guy that drives my car. He doesn't relate. He's an asshole. He's an ego maniac. And it's like, dude, do you not understand that that doesn't mean shit for me? Everybody can do this. So my whole thing when I grew up, man, was to be able to tell the world that, hey, man, I am not marginalized, the people that are immigrants, the people that are, you know, like, the people that the work their ass off to get where they are, you know, like, dude, those are the people that press me the most. And when I grew up, there was really hardly anybody that fucking helped me, man. I came to this realization that society is kind of fucked up in the sense of, they only want to help people if it benefits themselves. So like the, I don't want to get into politics, but the politicians always do stuff because they want to get votes. Friends want to be friends with someone because they got money or fame or something they want from them, right? And so it was a very sad feeling growing up to be very lonely, to be able to, I mean, to be like basically a shoved aside like trash, because that's what we were, man. I was an immigrant. My family was an immigrant. We were considered fucking trash, dude. It's like, how do we help society? How did we help America? And so growing up, I carried so much fucking hate with me which drove me to my success as well, I can say, but at the same time, I was very angry. I was not happy. I did everything for the wrong reason that it just so happens that I made it. That's because I had to, dude. I had to take it. There's no fucking choice. There was no safety net. There was, if I fell, I'm dead. You know what I'm saying? So that was the whole thing. I didn't, as an Asian as well, like if you fell, not only do you let yourself down, you let your old family down, your dynasty down, your ethnicity down, your dog down, whoever the fuck your pet is, you know what I'm supposed to say? It was the most horrible feeling. So I'm stuck in this fucking Asian world, but I'm not really Vietnamese, Vietnamese, you know what I'm saying? I'm not really American. So it's kind of like half. So I am a very, like normal representation of the fucking American melting pot. There's so many people like us just wanting to have our own piece of the American dream, right? So I'll tell you how I did it, guys. I did it by, you know what man, I could fuck back, I could do whatever, but I tell that reason that the energy to fucking have a purpose. And so you can take the chip off your shoulder and either do something negative and fight and do stupid shit like that and hate on others people. I hated people, but I didn't fucking act on it. That's the difference. I channeled it to do what I want to do. My whole goal was to say, one day, fuck you, I'm gonna be your boss and you're gonna come and ask me for a fucking job. I'm gonna fucking say no. That was my fucking dream as a kid. You know what I'm saying? So when that happened, it didn't really make me fucking happy. So I'll tell you one good story that kind of changed my life as well. So I was maybe in eighth grade or ninth grade, I forget was one of those. I used to get beat up every day in PE. So you know, like the locker room, you take off your shirt, you change your PE. Every time I took off my shirt, I was a little chubby little Asian kid, whatever. And so the guy next to me was this big, big guy. He was like a, and he would beat me up every fucking day, dude. And I was like, I fucking hate it, but I had no choice. I was, what can I do? So the only thing I had to do was laugh it off. But I hated going to PE, dude. Hate doing this shit, but I sucked it up. And then one day I got sick and then I went back and I go, where's that bully? Where's the, and then someone next to me go, dude, you didn't hear yesterday when you were gone sick? He got stabbed. Who the hell stabbed him? This Asian kid next to him. So I wasn't around for him to bully. So he tried to bully the neighbor, but the neighbor was a thug. He took a pencil and stabbed him. And so they both got expelled. They both got expelled. And I was like, oh my God, now I fuck. So everything happens for a reason. You know, it's just very unfortunate. So that's when I realized there's two ways to act in life. You know, people piss you off all the time. You can either suck it up like I do and fucking channel it or can react negatively like him. So I mean, I don't, I mean, you can call me a pussy or I'm not, but it's kind of like that helped me, man. What, what good is it for me and my family if I got expelled, right? And I've been jailed doing a haul where the hell it is this time, right? So, so that taught me a valuable lesson in life too. It's like, okay, man, evil is one thing, but just you can't be too fucking stupid, man. Same thing with you, man. I mean, like Starbucks, people don't believe like, how did you end up in Starbucks? You told me this, but I don't know you want to share with people like... Yeah, I mean, sure. So let me actually pull up the photo. So this is me when I was working at Starbucks if you could see the screen here. It's Photoshop, bro. Yeah, me Photoshop, right? Nice and skinny. So what ended up happening is, so my dad came to this country in the 80s. He opened up his own business and he was thriving for a very long time until I think it was early 2007, early 2008. His business went bankrupt. So all of a sudden, all the hard work that he did and everything that he worked his ass for was almost disappeared instantly because of the whole, you know, 2000, 2000, 2007, 2008 in America. So, you know, I had a choice. I could either just sit there and do nothing or I could try to get a job and try to help my family out. So that's kind of how the whole Starbucks thing started. There was a Starbucks maybe five minutes away from my house. I applied to get the job there. I learned everything about the whole business and the drinks and everything. And the crazy part was back then, you know, I was making, I think it was like $100 or $120 a week after taxes. How old were you in this picture, man? This picture has got to be when I was like 18 or 19 at least. So yeah, I think I was still, I think I was end of high school, first year of college or something like that. Very, very early. So I started just working there because I said, you know, that's probably gonna be, I just wanted a job, man. I just wanted a job to make some money. I had a girlfriend at the time. So basically the way that I split up my money was, you know, gas was really, really expensive back then. So to fill up my tank, it was like $60. So I filled up my tank for $60. You know, I took my girlfriend out to the movies for 40 bucks, maybe had some food for like 30 bucks and that was it. I had no more money left for the entire week. So I was working my ass off the entire week just to be able to, you know, hang out with this girl, make her happy. And, you know, what ended up happening is she broke up with me and I was really upset. So this was kind of like my first real girlfriend at the time. And I really liked her and I was head over heels. This, this being young, I guess, She broke up with you for the manager? No, no, no. She broke up with me. I think she found, she found someone better, I guess. I don't know. Someone more good looking, but. But that's awesome, man. You see, you see the commonalities now. So working as Starbucks, it take, I mean, dude, I don't know if I can work as Starbucks now because people are screaming at you, right? They're ordering around. Oh my God, you have no idea. You have no idea. So there's guys ordering, you know, venti double frappuccino lattes with skim milk and, you know, all this shit that you gotta remember. And they, they're really, they have no, no patience for you, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, cause the people that drink coffee in the morning, man, they give me my damn coffee, man. I can't start my day and stuff. So, and then I see it, man. It's like, it takes a certain personality to like be able to take it. Cause I'm, yeah, I work retail. My first job actually was at a great, it was, it's called Great America was six flags in the amusement park. So I actually worked there for a fucking minimum wage, dude. $3.50. Wow. That's how old I am. My minimum wage back then was $3.50. I remember working for, dude, basically almost a month and got like $3 paycheck. My first paycheck, I remember exactly what I did with it. I bought a CD player, a CD player for almost like $253, that's expensive right back then. And two CDs. Wow. And I worked for an entire fucking month, dude, to buy like two CDs or some shit. And CDs was brand new back then. So I still remember the first CD I bought. It was Erasure. It's fucking funny to eat Erasure. I don't even know who that is, bro. That's Monorock kind of shit. That's where I got my name. So people always ask me, where you got Monorock? Monorock is a genre of music. It's like new wave music. It's European kind of pop dance, kind of like the precursor to trance, I can say. I don't know. It's basically synthesized music. It's synthesizer and stuff. So that's where my name comes from, Monorock. It's cheesy as hell. I don't know why it's just kind of carried on for like, geez, as I was a kid, man. I just gave myself a stupid ass name. Before that was Insomniac. Insomniac might have been better name. That's funny. But yeah, I mean, so I was at Starbucks. My girlfriend broke my heart and I said, you know, I have a choice. I could either get upset and just deal with it and become a hermit and just whatever. Or I could find the way to kind of, you know, like you said, about like to never deal with that shit again. So I thought the way to deal with it was just get rich. So I said, I'm gonna get rich now. I'm gonna make her regret her decision. I'm gonna show her why she lost. And if she ever comes back, when I say no, it's gonna be the best moment of my life. So why? Did you see how it happens, man? Some bad thing happens in your life and you can take it two ways. You can say, fuck you, fuck you. Or you can challenge the way Alex did. He goes, you know what, man? I'm gonna fucking prove to her. But when he says prove to her, I think it's more, you're gonna prove to yourself, Alex. That's what it is. And so the same thing as me, man, is like, fuck this shit. I'm gonna fucking prove to myself that I am not just some garbage trash immigrant. Because nowadays, man, this is a big, it hurts me, man, but when I see these immigration wars and stuff, it's like, people don't understand. Like, man, I rather have a bunch of great, hard-working immigrants than a bunch of spoiled, entitled Americans. For me, it's like, man, Americans do not understand how great they have it. You know, they always complain, complain, but dude, we live in the best fucking country. That's why I always advocate other people going to different travel to see several countries so that you can appreciate this shit. I appreciate now so fucking much that, because I grew up with nothing. And when I visited Vietnam, the first time I went back to Vietnam, dude, they didn't even have, dude, they were taking, it was an outdoor toilet, dude. It was basically a hole in the fucking ground. So I, this was a while back, I went to Vietnam and this was like Saigon, which is the city too, man. And I remember going to a cell phone store to visit someone and I asked for the bathroom and she's like, I don't think you want to go to the bathroom. I don't do it, I don't go to the bathroom. And so she takes me out to the back and this is a cell phone store, dude, right? And this is not like someone's house or anything. This is a fucking business. And in the back was literally a fucking hole on the ground. I'm cool, I'm just gonna pee and leave. But that's the sort of stuff was like, man, I'm not gonna take shit for granted anymore, literally shit right, but, but those kind of things like puts me back to reality because like Alex says, man, it's like, I'm gonna prove to her or rather prove to myself. So a story like, so I had, man, I was bullied all through school and stuff. I was a very weird kid. I was, I kept to myself, I was an introvert. I think I'm still an introvert. I just happened to socialize because I have to for work, but meet down inside, I kind of like to keep to myself. But all throughout high school, my goal was to say, fuck you, everybody. I'm gonna come back to the 10 year anniversary like a reunion and say, fuck you, fuck you. Look at me, look at me. So when that happened, when my 10 year anniversary reunion, high school reunion came up, I didn't even fucking go. I was super successful then. I hate you, I hate that word, but, and I had classmates like, classmates like hit me up and say, well, man, Bao, why didn't you go? I heard you're a baller now and so I was like, so my whole intention to go was to flaunt it to them, to say, fuck you. And so when that time came and when I actually made something myself, what is the fucking point? Trying to prove to a bunch of people I do not like. So this is exactly what you helped me with today, Alex, because I'm a very sensitive guy. This is why Alex and I are great friends. He's like a brother to me, because dude, he's an awesome big hearty guy, just like me. We have so much feelings and emotions. And so, and we wear it on our sleeves, man. It's like, we get hurt. I'm a guy, but we're emotional. And so, Alex likes to remind me, Bao, why are you always trying to please the people that don't matter, right? Focus on the people that you care about. And so same thing with the high school reunion, when that time came and I was like, fuck, I came to the realization. This is when I was, so this is, there's many steps in life that you remember as in your maturity growth. And that high school reunion was one of them. I wanted to go so badly, drive in my, with my fucking Ferrari, say, fuck you, you think I'm a loser? You bullied me all this shit, fuck you. But when that time came, it was not worth it. I didn't go. I felt great by not going, because what's the fucking point? It's just like, those people don't mean anything to me. And now that they finally talk to me, because they see that I'm successful, or what the hell it is, they want to be my friend. It's like, where the fuck were you when you were bullying me fucking throughout school, right? They call me all sorts of name, man. It's fucking, you know, it's very different. I think if I grew today, Alex, I'd be even more fucked up. Social media hasn't really fucked up a lot of kids. And so, it's tough. I was all decidable these days too, bro. You have all decidable and like, having friends comment on your posts and say like very hurtful and mean things, having all these internet trolls come after you. Like it's just, it's tough, man. It's a tough world to live in these days, man, that's why I decided to do the podcast today. Cause I'm like, so you helped me a lot, Alex. You basically said, you know what, like, man, there's always going to be people that's going to talk shit about you, whatever the hell it is. They don't know you, who cares? And so, and so it's very hard for me as a caring individual to like overlook that. But I have to, I mean, I'm an old man now and I'm still worried about what people think about me. You know what I'm saying? But I think that's the good and the bad thing. It keeps me grounded and says, dude, I do fucking care about people, man. I'm not sitting here and saying, fuck you, everybody. I'm genuinely helping people. Anybody that hits me on DM, just like yesterday, man, this people ask me for money all the fucking time. It's like, yeah, that can give me $4,000. Can you fund this? Can you buy me this shit? And so, you know, I was like, so I did the reverse of what I normally do. I actually kind of listened to him. So I first, I kind of scolded him, but by being positive, like constructive, I was like, you know what, man, instead of asking for money, you know, this is your, you don't have an opportunity to ask me any question you want. When I was growing up, I had no mentors to ask. If I wanted to help on college, who the fuck should I ask? If I wanted to help on my job information or whatever the hell, right? So nowadays, social media, people are using it to show off, to troll other people. But dude, it's a great way to meet people like myself and Alex, who's been there, who can help you. And so this guy is able to interact with me. And so I'm thinking in my head, at least he's fucking reaching out versus attacking me or some shit. And so I started telling him that, that he started to apologize to me. He finally came out as that, you know, he's from Africa. He only makes $200 a month. And so I did one thing to him. You know what I mean? When I go out, I spend hundreds of dollars on stupid shit like alcohol. Today, what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna give him a hundred bucks just to fucking like, because like I want to show to him that someone fucking cares and doesn't want anything in return. If I can save one person a day, my goal is like just be a positive influence on one person a day. You imagine that one person goes out and helps another person and vice versa, right? And so this is the thing I've been trying to do every day. Every day I'm trying to do one positive act. It's very hard man, I'm telling you. It's very hard to do things without selfish reasons. And so I've been trying to get my head around that, right? Like everything that we do, we always want some shit out of it. So is there such a thing as a selfless act? I mean, just because that's the thing that I feel bad about just talking about. So by talking about it doesn't mean that I'm actually selfish, that I'm bragging that I did this. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, but the reason I speak up upon it is I want other people to look at life like that. You know what I'm saying? Like Alex, they helped me a lot. You know, not many guys can tell another guy, hey brother, I love you, you know, things like that, right? A lot of guys are like very tough and shit. And so I appreciate that, Alex. And so- I love you, bro. I love my guys. Cause like, dude, it's, what I've known or what I've learned about you is you're a very caring person. You really actually care about trying to make the world a better place. Like, you know, one of the first times I've met you when we were partying together, what I remember is, you know, rather than tipping the hosts at the club or tipping the bouncers, you went to the bathroom and tipped the bathroom guy $100. And you had no reason to do that. You don't get anything out of that, but that just goes to show that you are even trying to help and look out for the little guys that are overlooked. And that's why I think this stuff matters so much to you is cause like you said, you're trying to do one good deed a day to make it so that another person does a good deed and then domino effects to make the world a better place. And you know, some of these people on the internet and on social media are just such hateful negative people. And the problem is that, you know, we have to be focusing our energy on trying to help the people that want to be helped rather than wasting our time trying to help people that are clearly very brainwashed in their thought process. So, I mean, dude, like I say it all the time and you say it all the time that we're both very emotional people. I don't, I mean, maybe it's a good thing. Maybe it's a bad thing that we're like this, but I mean, it's caused us and led us to where we are today. And again, it's not easy trying to give constructive criticism to someone. It's not easy trying to help someone because at the end of the day, no matter what advice you give someone, no matter what you tell them, unless they want to change, unless they want to improve, they will never do it themselves. It's the same thing with the Starbucks story. I had a choice. I could either sit there and do nothing or I could try to improve and make my life better so that, again, maybe for my own selfish reasons, I could feel better about myself, you know? But yeah, man, that's the thing. It's like, so let's talk about training now. We're supposed to talk about our stories, but, you know, this is a big component of who we are. And in my opinion that a big key ingredient to success, regardless of what you do is being humble, being able to drop your ego and say, you know what, man, I am vulnerable. I am sensitive. I am emotional. I am not a perfect person. I'm willing to learn. I'm willing to become better. I'm not here to fight you. I admit I have these flaws. And so that was my thinking all along when I started learning to trade. And so I'm open to hearing and helping, to hearing other people helping me. It could be a guy that just started trading. He'd give me one great advice. He's like, Alex, help me a lot. You know what I'm saying? And that's how we bounce back to one another. And so I've always had great trading buddies. I had a few, but they have in common was, they're exactly the personality I do. They are not jealous. They're happy for your happiness or success. That's a key thing. That's very hard to find in another human being, man, because people in our industry are very competitive. If one person is up, they're like, oh, fuck, I'm smarter than you. I can do better. I'm better looking than you. I can make more money. And so they're not happy, but they don't understand that. You know what, man? It's like, if the other person is a C, it does not mean that it makes you any less. It should motivate you. If you think you are truly smarter than the other person, that other person having success should motivate you to say, you know what, man, if this guy can do it, I can do it 10 times better. And so that's a sort of attitude in my opinion that you should have in life. Don't be hating. Be appreciative that he has paved the way and showed you that even as a dumb ass guy can do it, I can do it. And that's always been what I was trying to tell the world. If you take a look at how I am versus the rest of the traders out in the world, we are very different, man. I'm not here flashing shit. I'm like, I'm a normal guy. I drink. I don't try to hide shit from people. I tell people how I am. I'm a flawed human being. But because of that, it helped me to get through all the negative shit in my life, as well as to show the world, like, you know what, man? You don't have to be a fucking perfect person. Become successful at anything you fucking do. Just be your fucking self. If I can do it, guys, if I can do it, if Alex can do it, you guys can do it, too. We are definitely not the model, the model Ivy League fucking Goldman Sachs type of guys. You know, in fact, I apply for those jobs and shit. They don't accept me. I didn't go to the right school when I applied for jobs. So let me tell you another inspirational story. So I went to UC Davis. I studied engineering. And so for most people, UC Davis is a very good school. I had a bunch of choices I could go on to. I turned down Berkeley, actually. It was a top engineering school in the fucking country, right? I turned it down. That's because I grew up in the ghetto. We didn't have counseling. We didn't have guidance counselors. You know how it took the fucking SAT, Alex? No, what happened? You took the prep courses, right? I walked into the fucking class, like the exam time, I read the fucking instructions, bro. That's crazy, bro. Fucking do the SAT. I'm reading the directions on the fucking SAT, dude. Wow. I still did very well. I scored a very good score. I got into Berkeley. But that's the thing, man. It's like being privileged, man. It's a great start, but being not privileged doesn't mean it's an ending to your life. And I'm gonna tell you something, man. If I was counseled to go to Berkeley, I would not be here with you. I'd be a fucking normal, boring ass engineer hating my fucking job, regardless of how much money I made. So when I got out of school, I applied for jobs and they always asked this, what other school did you apply to? And I told them Berkeley and then I got, I didn't want to go. No one believed me. So first off, I was already fucking trolled, dude. When I graduated college, I was already trolled. They didn't think I was a paper fucking admissions guy, right? Paper college guy, right? But so I never got those jobs I really wanted. You know, I consider myself highly intelligent, highly skilled for that job. But the fact that they didn't believe me and I was not credible, even though it was a fucking absolute truth, they didn't hire me. And so I only got hired by one company and it was, and that's what led me to look and reinvent myself. I'll tell you the secret of life. It's called finding your niche, guys. If I had a job as an engineer, I would never fucking work my butt off to excel. I would be very comfortable making my comfortable, nice salary as an engineer. I would never look to do and maximize my other talents. So I call it finding your niche. You know what my niche was? I was a good engineer, but I wasn't the best engineer. I liked to party. I liked to go out. I didn't like to study. Where the real core engineer guys are, dude, they're at home on Saturday nights reading a fucking coding book, a computer book. You know what I'm saying? They're living and breathing that. That's why they're successful. I could do all that. And so I had to find my niche. You know what? I looked at myself. I go, what are you good at, though? So I found, so I'll give you a example. So what I did was this. I said, you know what man? I'm very good at articulating complex things to a normal human being. And so I went into sales engineering. And so now instead of coding and making the product, I was selling the product. And I make twice as much, three times as much doing that as I did as an engineer. It's fucking remarkable. Because when I found my niche, I was like, who the fuck can articulate things? Well, be personable to talk to executives who have buying decisions. It's not the engineers who are nerdy and stuff. And so I was competing with the wrong, in the wrong things. So when in life, if you do not like the test questions, this is what I like to tell people, right? If you do not like the test questions, go and write your own fucking test. So I wrote my own fucking test. I went out and I forged my niche to find exactly what I wanted to do. So I was huge. So I was very surprised. I was like, dude, I worked like a third of the time as much as I did as an engineer. I made fucking two, three times as much as I made. And so you just have to find what your niche is. You know what I'm saying? And so I was not very successful as an engineer. I hated doing that engineering shit. I was very good. I did the bare minimum. And so that's the thing. So if I had gone to Berkeley, I would have never found my niche because I would be too comfortable. And then when I found my niche, I realized that there was a glass ceiling in corporate world. I can only do so much. I was passed over for a lot of promotion. So one thing that registered to me, Alex, this is crazy, man. They, in sales, it's all about talking and how you look and presentation, right? My boss, before he did not promote me, he basically told me, why don't you change your name? People can't fucking pronounce your name. I'm like, mother fucker. You know what I told him? I was like, I'm not gonna change my name. People better learn to pronounce my name correctly. And so with that attitude, I'm like, dude, I'm not gonna fucking sit down and conform to what people think. I'm not gonna be fighting people, but at the same time, there's a limit. If that conformed, I would still be their fucking monkey, dude. And so I felt I reached a glass ceiling because of racism. People don't believe it, man. There's fucking huge racism out there. When I'm on the phone with a customer, they think I'm a white guy. And then when they meet me, they're like, holy shit, you're fucking Asian. Right, I don't sound like an Asian. What's an Asian supposed to sound like? They're supposed to sound like me either way. But it's like fucked up shit. And so that's when I moved to New York. I was living in New York and working as a sales engineer. And everyone was doing day training. I just happened to love it, dude. In the beginning, I was gambling. I thought it was gambling. I'd made a lot of money in my job, so I would take that money and just fucking start training stocks. When you start training, you think you have a fucking system. So I was gambling on earnings. And I was like, hmm, I'm gonna analyze the earnings and fucking guess. So that very first trade, my very first trade, I made 33% in Silicon Graphics. Fucking the stock went up. I was like, fuck, this is easy, dude. I got a fucking system. So I was like, fuck, I'm gonna, so I'm like, if I make 33%, every fucking trade, I'm gonna be fucking a billionaire soon. So all I did was research this shit. I thought I had the fucking game because I started making money doing the earnings. And next, you know, dude, I picked the wrong shit and started going down. And I lost all my fucking money obviously, right? You always lose all your money. But that's when I realized that, you know what, man? I love this trading thing. And I became very good at it because I was very passionate about it. So I always tell people, make passion your paycheck. I never knew I was gonna be like, how I am today in trading. I would never imagine I'd be fucking sitting here with you 20 years later, helping other people, being successful, whatever the hell it is, right? I just wanted to do it because I loved it. I did not like my job. But you know what, man? There's a leveling up in the life. Just because I love playing football too, doesn't mean I'm fucking quitting my job and become a wide receiver for the Cowboys. You know what I'm saying? That's what I want to do when I'm seventh grade, man. I wrote essays on how I wanted to be the wide receiver for a fucking Cowboy. I didn't fucking realize that they're not gonna take me a four foot tan Asian guy. It's crazy, man. Cause I had kind of like a similar experience with my first trade. So I was actually, when I started trading after Starbucks, I lost a bunch of money going long because what I was taught was that you have to just buy the breakout. Anytime the stock breaks out is when you gotta buy it and that's the trade. And every time that I did that, the stock did the reverse. It went straight down every single time. So it wasn't until I discovered what shorting was which was you make money when the stock goes down that my trading kind of changed. So the first short trade that I ever took was on a stock called VGGL. I shorted 2,000 shares at $4. And it was like 30 seconds later, the stock tanked 50 cents. I made $1,000 and I was like, that's it. I'm gonna be rich. I found it. I found the secret. And then slowly, like you said about the trades after I went to losers because you have no process. You have no idea what you're doing. You're just shorting shit or buying shit because it's up or down and that's not the right way to do it. So it was only until, again, like you mentioned that we have to refine our process and understand that we should only be trading with an edge. And that's kind of what changes our trading around, you know? Hey, Alex, do you have that spreadsheet, the calendar that I made back in the day, 2009? Yeah, let me try to find it. Give me one second. In the meantime, you wanna talk about it? So yeah, so flash forward to trading. All right, man, people make a lot of money. People lose a lot of money. What I realized is this, man, it's not how much fucking money you make in one day. It's how much you can consistently make it over time. And a good example is this. So one of my old friends, this he took me to the next level of trading. He didn't realize this, right? So I was just making my $300 a day, bro. I was making consistently every fucking day. It's $300, $300, $300. And then this guy, he's a dumb guy. I don't hate to say he's dumb, but he's not very intelligent. He'd be springing up at now 25,000, 10,000. And it's like, holy fuck, this guy. But he'll be losing that the next day. He'll be fucking losing that the next day, right? But then, so remember when I said, you can either look at someone and hate them or admire them to motivate you. So that guy motivated me. I didn't hate him. I was like, fuck, if this guy can do it, I can do it too. That was a whip, dude. I was trading tiny size. So I started increasing my size. And then she knew I was making consistently thousands of dollars a day. But then he always looked down upon me. He's like, oh, you're trading penny stocks. And so he never took me seriously. And then later on, he blew up. Obviously he blows up. He's now driving an Uber taxi. So remember when I talked to you, Alice, you were swinging up and down like him. I saw all that. I was like, dude, I don't want you to be like that. It's like, you want to scale over time. You don't jump in making 20,000, 30,000 a day. You're going to fucking eventually going to kill yourself and stress or whatever else. And so he fucking, he just fucked up. It's like, when you're trading that size, you just can't handle it, you know what I'm saying? So I don't want to get too much of that story because Alice knows that story too. And one of his partners, my friends and stuff, but... So here's, I think I found the screenshot, pal. This is 2009. Let me see. 2009. Let me see if I can zoom in a little bit. I've never shown anybody this. Count the number of red days, Alex. So this is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. So nine red days in all of 2019. 2009? Oh, 2009, sorry, yeah. No, no, there's some more over here. Let me see. Let's count them over here. I got one. Can't see, one, two, three. How many are there? Let me see. One in January, two in February, three in March, nothing in April, nothing in May, nothing in June. July was one, August was three, September nothing, October nothing, November nothing, December nothing. December, I fucking pissed off because I took off a vacation. But take a look at the lost days. How big were the lost days? Yeah, so... 100,000s. So January, losing day was $2,000, but you still made $27,000 on the week. February, that month you made $103,000. February, you lost $5,000, but you made $27,000 in that week. March... That scratch, I don't count the scratch, that's the scratch. Yeah, that's nothing, I don't even look at that. But look, if you look at it consistently, January, $103,000, February, $52,000, March, $72,000, April, $54,000, May, $67,000, June, $576,000, July, $232,000, and it just goes on and on and on, you know? So this was not my biggest financial year by far, but it was my most consistent year. And so that's what I was the most proud of. And so there is a level of size that you can go up and anymore and you're not comfortable, you're gonna get dinged. And so, I mean, I did well, and you take a look at this, it's like, I call it like, you know, fishing. There'll be days where I just make $1,000, $500, and then there's other days I'm making like hundreds of thousands of dollars in the day. So you just have to, you just have to fucking fish and work your process. So that year I ended up, let me see, I don't want, I hate talking about this shit, but I guess I do, okay? That year was around 2.1 million, it looks like. All right, so let me see, let's take a look at 2010. So 2010. Look how we fucking weird that got, bro. So 2009, you know what happened? 2009, I did not even size up, man. To be honest, I didn't really size it up. I kind of pushed it, but I didn't fucking overpush it. 2010, this is the problem. So after 2009, I'm like, fuck, I only have like 10 losses, right? 10 fucking lost days, or something ridiculous, nine or 10 entire fucking year. I'm like, why am I pussy? Imagine if I fucking double my size, I'd be fucking killing, I'd be making five million bucks, right? And so 2010, I kind of pushed it and look how many red days I got. It just fucking like, dude, you see the toll is fucking different. I'm still up, but the losses are just like, like staggering more, I mean, it's still okay, but it's nowhere where I should have been. So this was an example of overpushing it. If I was saying one year I was very consistent, no stress, Alex, but when we were talking about no stress, this year was more stressful. I made money because I kept on pressuring myself. And so sizing up and pressuring yourself may not always lead to a bigger payout. Yup, it's true. It's true. And that's kind of what I was struggling with. I became a consistently profitable trader. I started making, I started with $50 a day and it went to $100 a day and it went to $200 and $500 and $1,000. And then it got to the point where I said, I have to stop being a pussy and it's time to size up. And what ended up happening is, you know, I'll be making 30,000 on Monday, losing 50,000 on Tuesday, making 80,000 on Wednesday. And it was just so, so, so stressful that I kind of found myself losing touch with reality. I found myself getting more and more upset and more and more depressed. And it was only until I slowed down my trading that I kind of started to find a little bit more happiness in my life and found actually more money trading less size. So those calendar years, no one even knew the fuck I was, guys. I was doing this for a long time. People knew me because of the Fannie Mae, but the Fannie Mae trade didn't come until like 2013. That was all the way back to 2009. So you see the leveling up process, people go, oh my God, you did so well. But they don't realize that, dude, I was building up for that one fucking trade. I always call it like this. Luck is when opportunity meets preparation, right? I prepare for that one fucking day. Now, I've never shown anybody this. I held this, I don't want this to define me because this is just like, just, people think, oh, fuck you God, lucky weather fuck, but I wanted to show you that 2009 because this was four years after that 2009. And people didn't see the five years before 2009 that I was building myself for making $300,000 a year trading to 500,000 to a million. You see what I'm saying? It's a slow consecutive process that leads up to all this thing. So it leads up to that one. So let me go back to that, the P&L, Alex. What I like the most about this is not the money, which I like the money too, obviously, but so I was trading many accounts. So this has happened to be four accounts. But if you take a look at that, so go down to the third account, X, U, I, I was fucking making, I was trading millions of dollars of stock, making million, 1.4 million dollars and still managing a $400 fucking position. It's funny cause something's never changed. So I like to point this out cause, you know, this is what it is, man. It's kind of like, this is my mentality. I was never in it to make the money, to be honest, man. I didn't even see the fucking P&L. So we always say, trade the process, right? And so keep to your process. So the moment I looked at P&L, I just shit myself. That's when I started to say, fucking exit, exit. So the point of this is like, dude, I kept with my process. I didn't know I was gonna fucking make this. Who knows anything? Who knew you were gonna make this? But I kept my process. Look at the other stocks I was trading. $79 on N-O-R-X, $290 on that. Why the fuck am I still managing these positions? It's because it's my process. You shouldn't say, I'm just doing the robotic process. And so if you deviate from your process when you screw up, and so this is part of my process. If I just didn't do my process, I don't think I would have been this successful. Even $500 to me is a lot of money, guys. Because I don't want to take, because if I take $500 for granted, what's gonna stop me from fucking up everything else? So I've got to maintain form throughout the whole thing. So that was always been my thing, man. It's a process. So I wanted to show everybody this in the past, and I never saw anybody this man. People think that, oh, a bow is an asshole, a bow is lucky, whatever. But people don't understand, this is, I showed you 2009, this is 2013. You didn't see five years before that, you didn't see after, you didn't see any of that stuff. But that point is this is decades building up to this fucking level. And when you make it, I always have this quote, you only need to get rich once, guys. I fucking made it, I put it away, we'll say I moved the way, I don't fucking need to be training these sizes anymore. Market conditions change. I was a young kid, I had no fear because I was young. If I didn't make it, I had time to fucking go. And I'm older now, I have family support, I have responsibility. I don't need to be fucking stressing on it like this. And so this is why I wanted to teach people. And so I didn't, we didn't launch MIC until a year ago. And you know it's only back 2009, I couldn't start a service. Do 10 years ago, I couldn't start a service. I was, you know, I was, but I didn't want to because I didn't think that I wasn't ready. I had the technical skills, but I didn't have the life skills. I didn't know how to teach. I didn't know how to do this. So throughout the 10 years, I finally learned how to teach. I mentored a bunch of people, they came multi-millionaires. One of the guys that made eight million bucks and then fucking retired, what I made, what I'm fed in May trade, he made him over a million dollars. He was my biggest competitor that day. He took most of my fucking fills because I taught him and he was basically training the exact entries of X's as I am. That's how, that's how in sync we were. The same thing with me, you, Alex. Yeah, and it's crazy because if you think about the way life works is I actually had dinner with that guy last night, you know, so who would have ever thought that when you were trading with this guy years and years ago that, you know, the two people that you traded with now are just hanging out and grabbing dinner together. So everything happens for a reason. It's kind of like a full circle type of thing. And it's just, if you think about it, it's pretty fucking crazy, right? Dude, everything happens for a fucking reason, man. It's like life comes in full circle. I'm so glad that I met you, Alex. Seriously, I believe in fate, man. This is fucking fate, bro. Remember, we found all these old tweets that we were tweeting back at each other and stuff? Yeah, man, it's crazy. It's crazy how, and even time flies, bro. We've known each other for so long now that it's just like, but we're like family now. It's more than just friends, you know? And you guys are like, dude, man, I, who knew we were gonna start this? I'm like, fuck, dude. I didn't start this thing 10 years ago. Why would I ever start this now? And so we always tell people, man, which is the truth is like, you have, if anything in life, it's timing. You have trading is about timing. A relationship is about timing. The relationship I had with Alex to FormMIC is all timing. We have to be in the right place. I have to be in the right mental capacity to wanna help people. Because like, man, I made enough money where I'm gonna just fucking sell into the sunset just like David, he moved to the Turks and Caicos and just fucking disappeared. Took his eight million bucks and get the fuck out, right? I don't wanna tell people how much I made my career, but so you imagine if my fucking pupil made that eight million dollars trade with me in like the four years, whatever the hell he did, you can imagine. And so like, I could have fucking disappeared. And so like, why would I fucking sit around answering people's fucking emails, helping people, unless I really wanted to do it? So it's all timing, you know what I'm saying, man? Now I wanna pass my wisdom to the world. I wanna help people because, man, when I die, man, what the fuck am I gonna be remembered for? I'm not gonna be, I don't wanna be remembered for any, I wouldn't be remembered for helping people to changing people's lives. I don't even fuck about my own life. But there's gonna be generations that can be benefited from our help. And they may not become the best traders in the world. Not everybody is destined to become the best trader, but the information that they get is gonna help them in any career that they fucking want. The hard work, the discipline, being able to be surrounded by positive people with like-minded goals. And that's the whole thing. MIC is a great fucking place for people to come in and have positivity. Check out after hours, man. Pull up the after hours, Alex, let me see. Give me a sec. All right, here's a picture of you and Philly. See, people just hanging out and chilling. It's like, dude, we work hard, and we build lasting relationships, and that's the whole thing we wanted. We wanted people, this guy flew in Pima. He flew in all the way from Australia, man. He brought us a boomerang. I believe in karma. Boomerang is like, what goes around comes around. What you give, you get back, right? And so this is, to me, in my opinion, man, this is my kind of legacy with you to help change lives. And we have changed a lot of lives. Pull up that tweet, that go to my Twitter, and pull up the tweet I had with Tom Diesel. This is a remarkable story to you. I want people to see this. This is so remarkable. So you want to talk about how you met Tom first? I want to pull this up. Yep, so Tom, he joined MIC right when it kind of entered, and he basically was a Vietnamese guy living in Europe. And we kind of like, he was a very humble guy, and he's like, I'm gonna work my butt off, and he goes, man, I've always had a disciplined problem. And so we worked together to solve that. And he, dude, he drove a fuckin' Uber just so that he had money to trade. He worked another job, he drove an Uber while working another job. Read some of this, man. Read some of this out loud. Alex, what do you want to say? So Tom, start with the guys on top, guys. So Tom said, guys, I just wanted to share the good news. I'll be moving to a new home at the end of this month. Sorry I haven't been around to help much, but you know how stressful this can all be. I just wanted to say that without MIC, it would have never been possible for me to reach this goal. It's crazy how things have turned around in just one year. I'm glad to be part of this family. MIC changed my life, and I'm sure it will do the same for many people in here. Love you guys as well. And Tom was saying that he was driving Uber at night so that he would be able to... Read this out loud. Right here, man, you guys. Yeah, so he said, man, to think back and made me cry, I don't even know how I did it. I was driving Uber at night because that time no one would drive and it gives you better rates. I was driving from midnight till 4 a.m. that slept in the morning to train in the afternoon. You know, it's... Even reading this shit right now makes me feel... It makes me feel like so humbled that Tom is exactly the type of guy that deserves to have all of his success because he actually put in the work for it. Dude, I remember, man, he was down to his last $700, dude. And he wanted to quit. He goes, man, I can't do it anymore. My family, I can't support my family and all that. So don't tell anybody this. So what I did was I gave him a free membership, Jim, I see. And I was like, dude, man, don't worry about it. Don't tell me. Now don't ask me for free memberships, okay? You know, that's the type of guy I am, meaning like, man, I have faith in someone because everybody just needs someone to say I believe in you. And I truly believe him because, you know what, man, he worked his butt off. How many people would drive an Uber at night to trade? You know what I'm saying? That is the work ethic. And he's honest, man. He's fucking putting himself out there. He was down to his last $700, dude. And then he started making $25 a trade over and over, $50, and started slowly building his bankroll. And now he's fucking moving to a new place. I don't wanna fucking talk about how much he makes. That's his own thing. But I guess he's like, he went from $700 to over a year. I mean, holy fuck, I don't know what it is, but shit. He was saying that the average salary where he's from is $1,500 a month. So he's making almost 10 times that. So I mean, the point is this, man, the point is not the dollar amount is the fact that this guy is able to do this and you can too. The only difference is he actually executes and he acts upon what he wants. A lot of us just sit around and talk, I want this, I wish this, but we don't make it happen. So just like me, man, the reason, I am guilty, Alex. I'm like, fuck, today I didn't work. I had some stuff that I had to handle. And then I was like, I always put shit to the moral. Like, oh, I'm gonna do this podcast tomorrow. And so today I was like, I'm like, fuck, man, fuck this shit. I'm gonna fucking do this podcast today. Why put it off until tomorrow when you can do today? So I'm starting, Alex is the hardest working guy, man. I was like, I cannot believe how hard you work, Alex. You work so hard and you inspire me, man. I was like, I'm gonna get on my lazy ass and come here and do some work. Answer emails, PM, do the podcast, wherever it is. I was like you, Alex. I worked my ass off when I was a kid. And over time it's tiring, man. To be honest, I was very tired. I'm very glad I met you. And it's like, I hope you don't break down at my age. But as you can see now, it takes a toll, man, right? It takes an army, it takes a lot of friends and support system to do all this. People think all this shit is easy. It's not fucking easy. It's like, fuck, we never worked as much as we did now. I mean, for the past year, we worked our butt off, it was just us and like Tosh raised a fucking and a bunch of handful of guys. And I thank all the moderators now that are helping us. These guys are wonderful people, man. I mean, a lot of these people, I have no idea before MIC, but they were just wonderful people. That's like, they don't need to be a fucking multi-million dollar trader to be a moderator. That's not my intention. My intention is to pick the right people with good attitude to inspire people to help people. They are now learning, it doesn't matter. People are becoming awesome fucking traders, man. I think they're better traders than I am now. And I'm glad, I'm fine with that. I want the moderators and you guys to trade better than I do. You know what I'm saying? Because you, I mean, if I could coach you to trade well, fuck dude, I could do this. We can do this for the masses. That's my whole point. My whole point is to help other people. I'm not here just to fucking help myself. And that's why I think it hurts me a lot when I hear these negative things. But we honestly really want to fucking help people. And we put our heart and soul into this and it's just fucking sad that, you know, some people are trying to tear us down and stuff. So when you're right, man, we have to just kind of like forget it. This is one thing I'm learning that that's my negative side. I get into these depression modes. That's how I was being as a kid, right? So some people have their positive side and negative side. When I work, I'm on, man. It's just getting to the point where I'm actually focused on work. That's the hardest thing for me right now because I really don't need to do this shit. I have so much other shit going on. I don't need to do this shit. And so I have to find the passion and the reason to do this. And so when I read stories like Tom, Tom's story, it fucking motivates the fuck out of me. And it's like, damn, dude, there are people out there that are just wishing for the opportunity to learn to do this. And we are, you know, I'm not taking credit for this shit. This is all, this is all him, man. He's fucking phenomenal. We give him straight up. And he is now helping other members to do this. And that's what I love. That was basically our conversation to Tom. My conversation to Tom with that guy was like, you know, I pay for it, pay for it. I don't, what do I want from Tom? You know, he has $700. He has free membership. He's just a wonderful fucking guy, man. Seriously, I just fucking want people to know that. It's like there are good people out there that deserves fucking an opportunity. That's all every immigrant wants in the world, guys, is an opportunity. And like you said, all it takes is one guy to say that I believe in you. And that was what you did for him. And that changed his life. And you changed my life, Alex. You know, you're like, Val, I believe in you. Let's start something different. And that's how I am. I see what started, man. So I thank you, man. You believed in me. I was fucking seriously bad that time. I didn't fucking work. I didn't need to work. I filmed the work once a week whenever I wanted to fucking work. You know, I didn't need to fucking money. I didn't fucking like, dude, I was basically killing myself, seriously, because I was so, I had no purpose, guys. Alex knows this. It's like, dude, everybody needs a purpose. It's not financial, man. You don't need to be fucking poor to be sad. I was very well off. I was talking about world. One of my saddest work moments was the day I made all that fucking money in family in one day. And then I woke up the next day. I thought it would be, I would be fucking cured of all my depression. I would be fucking happy, but I was so miserable. That actually hurt me when people found out because now my friends never started. My friends didn't pay for shit after that. They'd go, oh, that was fucking great. It's like, what the fuck? I never got birthday gifts. No one set up birthday dinners for me because they're like, fuck Val, what the fuck does he need? What can you get back? I never got any fuck. I said, everybody, Christmas gifts. All those pigs I sent, all those lucky charms you see I sent, you know what I'm saying? I don't fucking get shit from anybody because they always look like me. I'm like, oh, fuck me, shit. But I just wanted fucking like, dude, the best gift you give is not a financial, it's a thoughtful, caring gift. Like you think about them, right? And so the pig I sent to you, whatever, it was a cheap ass gift. I have it right here, bro. Yeah. It's on my desk, always on my desk for good luck. The funny thing is I had the pig I threw them all out because I thought the pigs gave me bad luck. I threw my pigs out. So I guess the pig I gave was good, but I shouldn't keep it for myself. I mean, it's crazy because I was like, like we started at the beginning of the podcast, we kind of talked about how we got started, like our adversity, what we did to kind of that one moment in our life. We had a fork in the road, right? That's the one thing that all of us have in common. We had a choice. We could either continue to be depressed or we could do something about it. Tom had the same choice. He could either spend that last 700 he had or he could try to be proactive and change his life. So whenever you're at that crossroads in your life, because it's gonna happen eventually, know that the easy way of just giving up is the wrong way. If you put in the work and you actually want to improve your life, there are so many resources out there that could help you improve your life. Yep. How long is this podcast already? That's it, bro. It's been an hour and 10 minutes. So let's wrap it up. Yeah, we'll save the rest for the next time. Yep. I hope everybody enjoyed that story. It was not really a blueprint on how you should live your life, but I guess now you understand Alex and I a little more. And so hopefully you didn't get bored in trying to figure out who we are, but that's our story. There's more interviews online. You can find of me and Alex. Chat with Traders has it. I don't wanna repeat all the stuff that's in Chat with Traders, but check it out, man. Chat with Traders episode 100 is mine. I'm 104, I think. So perfect. You guys wanna know more? Well, the bottom line is this. I wanna leave you guys with one thing. You can do it. Don't think that you cannot. We all came from huge adversity. I was not even supposed to be alive. I was on a boat. We were raided by pirates. I thought I was gonna die as a kid, but here I am, man. We went through adversity. So success is what doesn't have this quote. I hate these quotes, but it's true, man. It's like, life is not a linear line. You have your ups and downs. It's how you bounce back from your failures, man. It's not a failure. It's a temporary bump on the road, right? To your destination. So don't ever fucking lose focus of the goal. And always think positive. So my whole life, I was like, you know, you can either think of life as half empty or half full. I was always very blessed, man. Even when I had nothing, I was very blessed because I'm alive. A lot of kids over in Vietnam are not alive. So my advice to you guys is, you know what, man? Fuck everybody, man. Do you be positive, fucking work your ass off and you can't fucking do it. I love it. Thanks, guys. We'll see you next time. All right, thanks, guys.