 Welcome to the After Hours podcast, hosted by Harry Haas and James Friedlender, presented by My Investing Club. What's up guys? We are back with another episode of the After Hours podcast. Today we have a super special guest, we are Alex, got a pretty good return it. So thank you for coming on with me, what's going on? It's good to be on. And if you guys don't know, we're recording this at 8 a.m. on December 29, two days before New Year, man. Yep. I'm depressed at this year's over. I feel like it went like that. Bro, I haven't explained to everyone that like the last two months, I would say November and December felt like an eternity. But everything before that felt like it fucking flew, dude. I don't know what the hell happened. It's crazy. Like when COVID, like when COVID first hit, right? So I was like two years ago now, I mean, MIC was only like a year old. It was like just about a year old. Now it's like we're going on three years of this. Yeah, bro. Crazy. Our first, our first, I guess, year of MIC, we threw like eight meetups, bro. We threw a meetup every other month because that's that's what we want to do. Our entire mission was to bring traders together because we knew how lonely it was going to be. Right. And then COVID hit. And it's like, oh, shit. Now we went from having all that fun and meeting everyone and everything to being forced to be locked down and don't get me wrong. People made a fucking lot of money. But, bro, as you guys know, you could have a shit load of money, but, you know, if you're not interacting with humans, like whether it be like your friends, your family and you're stuck at home, it's miserable, bro. It's fucking miserable. So I'm glad that it's slowly starting to change. I'm glad that it's slowly starting to get better. And, you know, I don't think this COVID thing is going away, but I think that it's something that we're going to have to get used to. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I agree. I agree. I think one thing that's really cool, and I went out to dinner with a few friends the other night and we were just chatting about MIC actually. I was saying how it originally was so cool because what we could get together and like meet in person. But through COVID, like, I think what makes MIC so special is we all are really close. I mean, we talk so much, especially during the shutdown, like all we could do was sit inside and like stay on slack. So it was like all the mods, everybody were so close. And it's like, it really is like a tight knit family. So I think it's that's what makes this community so special too. It's true, bro. It's true. Like, like we're having our meetup next month in California. And I'm really excited, bro. Like we got over a hundred people showing up and that's just the people that register. So it might be close to 200 people, bro. And remember, these are members, non-members, just people that love fucking trading because as you guys know, bro, if you talk to trading about anyone in your family, they think you're gambling. Now, after eight years, they don't think I'm fucking gambling anymore, but it's the worst thing in the story. You know, I know, Harry, I'm bummed that you can't make it out. Dude, I'm trying my best. Um, everything's changing daily. So, you know, I hear, I hear care. That's kind of kind of stripped of that stuff. Yeah, like even like here, like we went from like everything was like open to like 50% capacity to restaurants to like if you travel, you have to like quarantine for two weeks too. But if I don't know, because like we might be back to complete normal, like everything changes so frequently and it's like unexpected. Yeah, so you just, you never know. It is what it is. But hopefully we're moving on and whatever we'll move on from the COVID stuff and at least for you, you don't have Tom Diesel showing up. I know I did. I'm trying to get a private jet out here. So what do you guys do for New Year's? Any plans? Well, for me, I'm not really sure yet on anything either. Cause like every, my dad bought like this whole fucking thing of lamb. Like he was going to like roast it and shit. And now he's just like, now everyone in my family is like, ah, fuck it. We're not even having dinner anymore. Like everyone is so pissed off. So I mean, I don't know what's going to happen, but I really don't know. I had a sick New Year's plan that I was going to. I have like the king suite at Angkor, which is like a casino in Boston. It was so fun. Dude, it's sick. It's sick. And we were going to go up before we had like a table at some bar and our club and it was going to be sick. Everyone has COVID, every single one of us. Everyone has COVID right now. So I'm not, I'm not too sure. I think my New Year's is going to be kind of fucked, which really sucks. Yeah, it's fucked up, bro. I mean, like I'm going to go to Miami and just try to do something over there, but like, bro, to be honest, like, I don't know. It's just, it's just kind of sketchy right now everywhere, bro. I really don't know, but COVID doesn't exist in Miami. So you're good to go. It doesn't exist in Miami. It's just, it's different out there, bro. It's different out there. The lifestyle is different. Like the problem is, unless you have a metric shitload of money, you can't really do anything in Miami because, bro, when you're there, like you, you see these people balling the fuck out and they're balling all day long. And I'm thinking to myself, what the hell are they doing for day job? Like, what are they selling drugs? Like, how can you make this much money and not work? You know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah. Anyway, bro, I follow your brother. He is a living man all the time. What is what an animal man? Oh, he's young, he's young, he's got money and he's living life. Alex, how did you, I guess, how did you deal with that? Cause like, I mean, to me, like you're like a ball, like you make a shit ton of money, like you fucking have a lot, but you go to places like that and you see people probably have more, make you feel like, wow, how the fuck are they doing this? How do you like deal with that actually like day to day? Cause you have a job that technically you can make as much as you want. But you can sit here all day and make money if you wanted to, I suppose. But how do you deal with that? Cause that's tough. Huh. So I don't know, bro. Like to be honest, like I just, it just, it makes me curious, bro. I would say I'm a very curious person. I like, I think it may be just because like we're men, we like to learn how things work. Like if we like look at this fucking pen, I know that if I open it here, I could release the ink. And if I ever need more ink, I could get ink on this. I just like learning how shit fucking works to, you know what I'm saying? And and when someone has a shit load of money, bro, and I'm talking like multi, multi-million dollar a year type money, because that's hard, bro. To make to make a hundred grand is hard to make half a million dollars. It's very hard to make a million dollars as near impossible to make 10 million dollars a year. I get curious, bro. I want to know how the fuck they do it, right? Because to me, bro, I'm just, I just want to learn, bro. I just want to learn. So to me, when I see these people and when I see what they're doing, I mean, I just sometimes I get curious if I have the opportunity to ask. I ask, but what I've realized, bro, what I've realized is the two biggest wealth generators in the world in existence are real estate and the stock market and some sometimes fucking crypto too, right? We're in the world where crypto is some sort of crazy shit too. But to me, bro, it seems like real estate and stock market is how these people become mega rich. And if you own a public company, if whatever reason, that's how you become billionaire status, right? Because that's the only way, bro. The only way to become a billionaire, in my opinion, is to have a public company because the valuations are so extreme. Your company can make a hundred million dollars in revenue and you're worth five billion, you know what I'm saying? So for me, bro, it's just curiosity. I always want to know how people are making money. And I've learned that's real estate and stock market. And, you know, I have some stock market holdings. I have some investments. I do like some some things on the side. But, you know, I like to stick to what I'm good at. And I don't really have real estate because it's not something that I understand, you know what I'm saying? Like I have to be educated first. I understand that no matter what we do, we have to learn. So just because I have a spare million dollars doesn't mean that I'm going to go buy a million dollar property and then become a landlord all of a sudden. When I don't know how to fucking contact the plumber, I don't know if the fucking foundation is good. I don't know about the landscape. I don't know shit about that, right? So I think the people that become mega, mega rich are experts in their field, right? So, for example, I know the fucking market and I know until my fucking dying breath that eventually all the time the fucking biggest companies are going to get bigger because they have a monopoly. Stocks like fucking Apple, stocks like fucking Amazon, stocks like Microsoft, stocks like Facebook. You could fucking they'll go down for five years straight. But the next 10 years, they'll fucking quadruple. So that's where I park a lot of my money. I park a lot of my money into these assets that I know are legit. And I know someone that I used to trade with at S&B Capital. I would say maybe he's making. Conservatively, ten million dollars a year, let's say, right? Conservatively, what he does, it takes all 10 million, puts it all in spy. Every single penny, he puts it into fucking spy. They think 20 percent a year, right? So I don't I don't want to I don't want to be the guy that tries to master everything. I'm really, really good at the market. And I think I've been looking at spy for the last eight years. And sure, eventually it's going to go down. But let's say the market goes up 20 percent for five years. For the three years that it goes down 10 percent. You're still fucking green. It's just a game of time. So I like to park my money into things that I understand. I understand the market. So I park it there. I've been kind of messing around like some venture capital stuff because I'm trying to learn. So I'm parking it there and I have some crypto investments. I hold Ethereum. I hold a little bit of Bitcoin, no shitcoins, because I understand the technology. But real estate, real estate, I don't understand it yet. And when I have the opportunity to learn and when I have the opportunity to slowly dive in, I will get there too. But I already know how to make a shitload of money. It's the market and real estate. So our edge, because we're all fucking young, it's time. If most people start investing when they're fucking 40, because that's when they start to have money. For me, bro, I'm 27 and my investments are paying out fucking almost as much as my trading, almost. Right. And if I could get it to the point where eventually that money is paying more, then, bro, I'm that guy in Miami that doesn't have to fucking work, that doesn't have to do anything. And people wonder how the fuck I have all this money. Yeah. That's good. I love that. I mean, something I've dealt with that's like, so I think it's hard. It's like, maybe it's just private, because I've been trading out three years. And I mean, here, I don't know if you ever felt this too, but like. Mary, how long have you been trading? Almost five, six years now, like a long, long, long time. What's due? I think the hump is like two years. I think if you could pass the two year hump because the first year, you don't know what the fuck you're doing. Yeah. The second year you start to get a little bit of traction. If you could complete that second year, I think it's one. Yeah. And I mean, now, like even for me, like I'm even moving past the day ones, like I've been really still working hard on just getting better. And where I've made the most money this year has not necessarily always been day one thought, but then these multi day runners where they've kind of like held up for day one. They've held up a little bit for day two and then like day three and four, that type of move where everyone's kind of shorting on day one. They're hoping for it to be everyone shorting on day two. They're hoping for you found your niche. Now you found exactly what works for you. Yeah. Yeah. So that was when I really kind of like took off. Like I remember like a lot of people are messaging me like, oh, what'd you see on the tape on LVGN? And I was like, and I messaged a lot of people. It wasn't necessarily about the tape. It was just the fact that this thing had not been breaking down at all. Like it should have. And especially when I when I like a lot of people, they first start longing and then they move into shorting because they understand that long game of being trapped and being a bag holder and being whatever. But I started with shorting. So I almost kind of reversed. That's crazy. I almost kind of like reversed that type of role where I understood just like, you know, you're you're short something and then it's not going down. It's not going down. It's not going down. You're like, fuck, this thing has to go down. It's a piece of shit company. This thing has to fucking go down, right? I know everyone's saying that and I'm completely in agreement with them. Like eventually it is going to go back to zero. But it's that time of when people start to get emotional and keep fighting and keep fighting. And then we kind of get that bigger move. But after that bigger move and shorts are blown out, that thing is fucking done. You do not try and long that thing. After when I first started, when I first started, I had the reverse minus touch, everything that I touch went the fucking shit. Like I was like, and it was like a signal that it would crater, you know? Yeah, it's crazy that you started the other way. And now you're a fucking badass long trader. Yeah. And I mean, also, I think like a part of it now is that I recognize that like day ones, like and like this is what I've been kind of talking about in the other podcast as well as like the day ones. Like they're not, I'd say as like a lot of people got into trading and everyone when everyone's trying to long something like it's either really choppy on the way up or we just fucking fade because everyone's everyone's long, right? So when we have credit, right? When we have everyone long, it's just goes the other way. So I found for a lot of these day ones, like I don't recommend shorting them at all. But I also don't recommend longing them and trying to chase the top either. Like, you know, I get some DMs all the time just about that. So I mean, just for me, like it's just been such a headache every single morning where I'm like, yeah, I'm watching it. I'll take a look, but even for Austin, too, like me and Austin talk a lot on a daily basis, just about like the current market and stuff like that. And it's just been a headache. So I just started focusing really on the kind of multi day runners. And that is what has kind of given me the most edge, not necessarily day two low hang crew, because like, I don't recommend that at all. But the stuff that kind of keep moving and keep moving forward, that's what I kind of focus on, you know, I say and all that. But I think I think the biggest problem is that and we talk, I mean, we've talked to us a million times, just everyone's in such a hurry to get there and they act like to have a job that you can have freedom for the rest of your life, you deserve to make that money in the first year. I mean, it really is. It's like year one, like you said, you have no idea what you're doing. You're two, you're finding a little bit of footing. I found like year three is where like the confidence came in. Maybe it's just because it's more timing, like you're seeing in front of the screens. I mean, but every day, I mean, we start when you got a YouTube blog yesterday, you know, you do a whole YouTube live explain everything you do to make money. And some guy goes, how did you do that? And it's like people just no one can no one pays attention. No one does it. And it's like, you know, the M.I.C. process is there because it actually puts like a I would say a jumpstart to your timetable significantly, you almost can. I don't want to say skip it. You kind of feel like you skip that kind of like very, very newbie stage. And I see it with members all the time. You know, I have two things that. Number one is I have come up on my eight year anniversary. My eight year training anniversary is in February, seven, seven years, 10 months, whatever the fuck it is. OK. Any job that's going to make you millions and millions and millions of fucking dollars, bro, is not going to happen overnight. It's just impossible, bro. It's just fucking impossible. Like the way you have to think about it, bro, is you you have the potential and I'm sure I'm making I think this year is a little three million called whatever called three million, right? In the grand scheme things, I'm a fucking nobody, dude. I know a guy that made twenty million dollars this year. Trade, right? I'm a nobody. It doesn't matter. But the point is that it took me and that guy's been trained for 10 years, right? 10 years. Well, it took me years and years and years to get here. And if you think that you're going to make more money than a doctor, a lawyer and an engineer combined in your first year, it's impossible, bro. It's impossible. This is this is like you being a professional athlete. Just because you get fucking drafted to the nicks doesn't even make ten million dollars your first year. You have to show up every single day to practice. You have to show up every day. And then once you get really good at it, then you will get your opportunity. But this is your opportunity. I mean, like, bro, like, you know how many fucking hedge funds and prop firms steal our traders? Literally, they come in and steal our fucking traders because they know that our guys have a solid foundation that they don't have to train them and they don't have to fucking teach them, right? Yeah, it's just to me. There's been a lot. It's no brainer, bro. It's no brainer. But the problem is it's it's it's my mindset is long term, bro. My mindset has always been long term. And that's why I could take those $2,000 days. I take those $2,000 days every fucking day because I know that I it's going to add up and that it's going to lead me less stressed. Well, I have so many fucking things on my plate that I cannot afford to be stressed. And because I cannot afford to be stressed, it forces me to take the easy trade because, bro, I'm 27 years old. I got fucking white hairs over here. Like, I've been at the extreme highs. I've been at the extreme lows because of trading. I never want to get back to the extreme lows and the extreme highs never feel as good as the extreme lows. So I'm in this middle ground. I'm in the middle ground of I don't make the most money on the year, but you better believe that I am stress free. I could buy whatever the fuck I want. And essentially a couple extra million, let's say another million dollars that I make is going to make me more depressed than happy because I'm not going to use that extra million anyway. I'm not going to use it. So why am I trying to do it? It's competition. It's ego. It's everything. It's all the evils inside of you. And to be honest, like I got no problem making three million dollars a year working an hour a day. And if I really want to go fucking drink, I could go take a nap. I could fucking play video games all day long. I could do whatever I want, but there's no reason to be pushing hard. There's no reason to be forcing because eventually there's going to be like a graph where the more money you make, the sadder you're going to get because the more stress is going to entail. So you need to find a sweet spot between stress free and your goals. Right. And like, bro, think about you, James, you make consistently anywhere between 500 to $2,000 a day in your fucking sleep. Sure. I mean, 500 to $2,000 a day in your sleep. Sure. It may not be a million dollars, but hey, you're making half a million dollars working an hour a day and going to your fucking day job. Right. And to me, bro, that's powerful. It's very powerful because, bro, 500 grand a year, a year is bro, you're a top, top fucking top one percent, bro. That's top one percent. So like, I think people because of social media, because of Twitter, because of all this shit, they try to do more. They think that they got to be the guy that makes 10 million dollars a year. And if you're that guy making 10 million dollars a year, I guarantee it's not stress free. I guarantee that it's not easy. And you have to go back and realize what you want to do. If you want your entire life to be trading, go ahead and make 10 million dollars a year. And then when you become rich and you have no friends, no family, you'll realize that it was wasted. Or you could be the guy that makes six to small seven figures very easily every single year, having a family, having a relationship, traveling, enjoying your fucking life and realizing that, hey, you still got money left over, bro. The guy that's making 10 million dollars a year. Trust me, bro. What he's doing with those extra millions is he's just buying property that he's not using. What's the point? It's true. It's as I get older, too. I just did this whole post on it actually. So this weekend I went to Portland, Maine with my girlfriend and one of my friends and we ran into this couple and we were just we just had a bar. We're talking and I didn't tell him what I do for work. We weren't even really talking about it. But he was a little bit older than his 30s. He was just saying how he's done well for himself. But the best thing he has is he has unlimited time. And he has all this time in the world to spend with his wife. You know, his family, everything. And he said that he had a job that was paying double and it was so fucking stressful. He was miserable. He fucking hated it. So now he thought he just found a new job that pays extremely well, but nothing crazy has no stress, nothing. And he's like extremely happy. And that's something I've noticed in you out in like, because so now I've been watching you trade for like almost four years or whatever. And it's like, when M.I.C. first started, dude, you were like, like 50,000 shares on this stock, 50,000 shares on this stock. Everything that moved, you were just in. And you would still make a shit ton of money. But the stress, and we used to talk on the phone about this, the stress was so obnoxious, just not worth it at all. And seeing you now, it's like, you almost are at this like zen. And you're already just like, you're happy, you're good, and you're consistent with what you're doing. And I think that's probably why you make as much money as you do now. You gotta find a sweet spot, bro. Like when I was trading, I was trading at any given day on any given small cap stock. I had anywhere between 50,000 to 150,000 shares any day, right? And by using that type of size, it kind of made me, it kind of made me a little bit unemotional to the size because after you're trading that much size for that much, like for that long, you have nothing to do but be emotionless because you cannot focus on the money. You must focus on the setup. And because I use so much size, when I drop my size down to like 5,000 shares from 150,000 shares, bro, I could get up. I could go get coffee. I could make a fucking burrito. I could do all this shit. And I still wouldn't care. I still wouldn't care because using that much size in the past and dropping it down, brought me back to reality, brought me back to normal. And now, bro, now I never want to use that type of size again. Sure, bro, there are some days that I think to myself, bro, I can fucking make ten million dollars, bro. All I gotta do is keep doing what I'm doing. Just a little bit better. I can make fucking 10 million. And then I think to myself, what the fuck am I going to do with that money? Like, what the fuck? It's useless. It's useless to me, bro. It's just, sure, I want to make, everyone wants to make 100 million. Everyone wants to make 10 million. Everyone wants to make 20 million. But once you to get to that point, you must first make 100,000. You must first make 500,000. You must first make a million after you make that million. Then you're going to and you've paid off your family's house. You've helped this, helped that, done everything that you need. And you still have money left over. You start to think what makes me actually fucking happy, right? You could have as many watches as you want, as many cars as you want, as many fucking women as you want. What makes me happy is the question you're going to ask. And to me, making an extra couple million is not going to make me happy. What's going to make me happy is being less stressed so that I don't take out my anger on family and loved ones. And because I live a life with low stress and focus on happiness, just so happens that the world wards me with money. Right? Yeah, I love that. I think everyone should at least learn how to trade for like six months. Everyone in the world, because it's really a journey about kind of like self discovery, I think, and you really kind of discover what you want in life because like you're doing something that has like unlimited potential, but it takes time to kind of figure out and it takes a lot of mastering your own emotions and being in control of yourself. And I think a lot of people, what they don't understand is like, see, I have the exact same mindset and exact same approach as Alex, like as far as stress, as far as like everything you just talked about, like the same type of mindset. But I think like and like I believe the same thing for James, too, like we all do, and it's just because we've been around for a while. And I think we've really kind of been able to find through trading what kind of makes us thick and what kind of makes us better. And, you know, I think about like, you know, a lot of stuff, there's a lot of people I know who have like a nine to five job and they're like, oh, like if I had a million, I'll be happy. If I had this, I'll be happy. If I had that, but they don't really have that kind of like, you know, experience or like trading back. Because like I think when people are trapped in nine to five, like that's all you think about till you're like, whatever, it's just money, whatever. Money is a tool, bro. Money is a tool, right? So for example, it's having having a million dollars in the bank. This does not directly lead to happiness. It is what you do with that money that will in turn lead to that. So for example, let's say like, OK, I'll give you an example. So for Christmas, Christmas just passed like five days ago and I bought myself like a new watch. I spent a bunch of money. I bought myself a new watch because I like art. I like timepieces. I like store value, whatever. I spent a lot of money on this watch. And what I did is it made me a little bit happy. Don't get me wrong. Like I was I was happy. Like on a scale from one to 10, I was probably like an eight. But what I did is one of my family members, her husband lost her job because of covid and they've been kind of struggling. They don't really have much money. So what I did is I got twenty thousand dollars in fucking cash, bro. Straight fucking cash like this, like a brick, this fucking big. And I wrapped it up and I gave it to her for Christmas as she started fucking crying, right? And that didn't mean that twenty thousand dollars, which is just a fraction of what I spent on my watch, giving that to her, seeing her reaction, and being able to change her life because of that got my happiness to a 10 on the scale. So the twenty thousand compared to, let's say, the hundred thousand. Yeah. The money, right, spending more money sure made me a little bit happy, but even spending less money and using it for something better brought that happiness scale higher. You know what I'm saying? If you're not happy before the million, you're not going to be happy after. It's just it's a vicious cycle, dude. It's like, like I said, I think it's just hard. It's hard, especially in today's world, with social media and everything, you just see people blowing money like fucking crazy on crazy shit. Yeah. And then you just you compare it to yourself so hard. And it's like that's what I love about what we like, what we all have created here, I think, is that just we have a community of people that teach you like, dude, if you make a thousand dollars a day, you know, it honestly makes me so fucking happy. Like it sounds stupid. When I go out to a steak dinner, I can go out with my friends. I can go by myself. I get steak. I get a drink. I get it makes me generally just smile. I don't know what it is. I love the fucking food. I love trying food and everything. You know what it is for me, bro? You know what I really love? I really love being able to click the button that says overnight shipping extra fifty dollars. I fucking click that button any fucking time, bro. I pay the extra fucking fee and I don't give a shit. It's the best feeling ever, bro. I love that. No more ground shipping for free. Waiting a week to get my shit. I hit fifty dollars. I get over an eyebrow and that to me, bro, is being fucking rich. Yeah, that was like when I sent you the floating shoe thing and it was in 30 seconds. You're like, all right, I'll be here tomorrow. And I was like, this is crazy. But it's it, dude. It's like these little things in life that really do make you happy. It's like, you don't have to make, of course, I want to make 10, 20 million dollars a year, of course. Of course, bro, the fuck doesn't, bro. Of course, yeah, you're an idiot. Bald, do you want to be fucking depressed? Do you want to fucking like you want to give up everything that actually matters, bro? And that's the big money is possible. The MIC process took me from knowing fucking nothing to making fucking coffee, bro, to making millions and millions and millions of dollars. So by being in here, you have the right foundation and it is up to you to choose how much money you would like to make. Right. If you only want to make five hundred dollars a day, we could teach you. If you want to make a million dollars a day, we could fucking teach you. It is the same fucking process just with more money. But before you can master making a thousand dollars or a hundred thousand, you must master how to make a hundred. Right. That's just a whole fucking thing. If you don't know how to make a hundred, you cannot make a hundred thousand. So stop trying to go for a hundred thousand when you can't even make a hundred. Yeah. And I think the big the big word there that a lot of people forget about is that they focus like on exactly what Alex just said, but they only focus on the hundred dollars or the hundred thousand and they don't focus on the process, which is like the key part of that whole sentence is the process. Is the the steps that you're taking every single morning, the stock selection, the, you know, looking everything up, the flow, you know, the bigger picture. It's it's the process that is going to make you that money. And it's not a story, bro. I had no process. I don't know what a process was. I didn't I didn't get it, bro. And everyone throws around the word process, but no one like no one really explains it. So for me, guys, what a process is that it's a routine and it's a strategy that I could repeat to make money every day. So for me, when I first started, I had no repeatable thing. I had a little bit of a strategy. I was looking for stocks that gapped up and with that. That was my strategy. But the repeatable part was I was trading all fucking day long. I would make money in the morning. The stock would rebound midday. I would get squeezed and I would lose my money. It wasn't until we implemented something to the process called the zombie rule that improved. It wasn't until I started wiring out that things improved. So for me, it took me a while to refine my process. And by having that process, by having that routine, it changed my life. I'd say it all the time and no one listens. The zombie rule made me a millionaire. The zombie rule made me a millionaire and no one really listens. Like, like the reason why the zombie rule came to life is, bro, I would trade with Bao every fucking day and I would notice every fucking day. Midday, he would give back half his fucking day. And until we sort of refined it to know exactly what fucking time it happens. Bro, both of us were going for all day faders. We were trading rent just because of stock tanked in the morning and bounce midday. We were like, oh, I'm sure it's bounce. And then it went through high the day. So after years of watching my training, accounting, accountability, but lose money midday, we're like, you know what, let's fucking change this. And let's find, let's create a process. Let's create a routine. Let's create a repeatable something to make sure that we don't fucking lose money after the morning. That's where the zombie rule came into play. And then when I started being disciplined with the zombie rule meeting, I followed it every day, bro, I came a millionaire. Yeah. And the thing is that, oh, James, you can go if you want. Go. No, I was just going to say, I hate hearing that people, I hate hearing that people like critique like the zombie rule or they critique like part of the M.I.C. Cross anyway, because at the end of the day, it's all looks back to what we're talking about. It's like, sure, you could stay here all day long and technically trade. Yeah, you could make some money. Yeah, you could lose some money. Most likely you're going to lose some money, but you could stay all day. But what is that extra 500 bucks going to do for you? Right. It's really not going to change much. Your best trades come from that 930 to 1030 slot. After that, it's like you take what the process gives you. It's good money. It's enough. It's plenty. You don't need to stay here all day. That is not why I fucking trade. Let's say we finish our trading from, let's say we trade from 9 to 1030. Just make it easy right now and a half, whatever. That's what you make. Well, let's say you make a thousand dollars. OK, and then you trade from 1030 to four and you make an extra $500, that extra fucking five, six hours of trading isn't really worth the stress and that extra money. Or instead of that, why don't you go out to lunch from 11 to fucking 12 at 12 to one, go to the fucking gym from one to two, take a fucking nap, wake up, you don't take a shower. And all of a sudden you still got an hour until the market closed. You could do so much with your life if you just trade the M.I.C. process properly. And that's the best thing we have a superpower that we could work for one hour and the rest of the day we could do whatever the fuck we want. And that's why I was actually talking to a member yesterday. His girlfriend DM me on Instagram. Like she lost her father because of covid and one of our members like really helped her like really helped her through it. She's like all he wants for Christmas is just like talk to you. Can you talk to him? I was like, yeah, like I'll call him. Like he's exactly what we want in M.I.C. We want someone that helps other people. And when someone loses their father and the guy is like trading and trying to learn and try to help, I mean, to me, that's exactly the type of person we want. So I was talking to him and basically what we kind of what we kind of got down to is that after a certain amount of after a certain amount of doing this after a certain way of trading after you do all this stuff for enough time, you're going to realize what's really, really important. In that moment, he realized that taking care of his girl was more important than fucking scalping bullshit trades. And because of that, the world warred him with like a call for me. You know? Yeah, I love that. No, I love that. I love that. Actually, I went back like just like, I don't know, I was just super bored one day and wasn't anything really going on. Also, I live in Canada. So like there's like what you guys have divided by 10. So, you know, I was super bored. So and I was looking at I remember there were a couple of guys who would always trash the zombie rule the bow. They would always like tweet at bow. They'd always, you know, you know, message the zombie rule. So I just searched up like from modern rock. And then I was like, zombie. I was just kind of scrolling down, scrolling down. All the accounts are fucking gone, bro. Every one of those guys blew up because they were like, they they try so hard to to find something wrong. And they're like, oh, the zombie rule. You're like, I saw a stock fade after 10 30. Like that's that's not a rule. That can't be true. And then all them blew up shorting zombie, right? Even if 30 percent of the stocks go up over high day, keep running after zombie rule. You are going to lose more money on those stocks than you do holding for the fade. It's like the people that said Tesla, Tesla is going bankrupt. Or the market's going to crash three years later. They're all. They're mortgaging their houses to cover everything. It's it's great. The beauty of the M.I.C. process in its simplicity, like the simplicity of it is great. Like I told you as I'm teaching that guy who wants to store next to the shop and like every day he's like, how can it be this easy to make like to make money? And I'm like, it's it actually, it's sadly, I hate to sound like a dick. It is easy. It's just, can you stick to it? It is the that's the reason I think 90 percent of people that they fail. They can't fall like a basic guideline, which we have. And like, I don't know. I like this episode a lot because I feel like it really wasn't even about trading or more about like kind of like money and all that stuff. But at the same time, it really does implement back into your day to day trading, just take your money. We're doing something amazing. That's it. And I love it. One last thing before we finish up is you guys have any New Year's resolutions or any things that you're trying to do going into the New Year's? Mine, for sure, I think is just working on like me and my girlfriend both talked about this and we said 2022 is going to be more about like self care. Like my girlfriend is going to graduate from university. And like, you know, I guess like when she was in university, too, it was just like kind of like learning trading. Like you're always stressed out. You're always running around like and with me in trading, like I can always go to the library with her and like go on M.I.C. Or look at stocks or do whatever. Like, I mean, I can always do that. So like I spent a lot of time with her as well. And I found that like she was really stressed out and like we just we had a lot of like family shit going on and, you know, shit like that. So we said that 2022 was really going to be about self care, going to the gym and sticking with it, trying to eat a little bit healthier. Oh, my God, I become sort of fat as well. I went to do it. I consistently went to the gym five days a week for a year straight. And then in like November, bro, I was just like really fucking stressed. I felt like really overwhelmed with like life. And I took like a couple of days off and then that turned into a week off. And then that turned into a fucking month off and all of a sudden, bro, now I'm fucking fat. So I'm going to really try to do that, too. Yeah, that's it happens. I don't know. I think I think for me, my my goal this year is to I really want to find more happiness outside of like kind of what we're talking about outside of anything to do with financials or even just comparison bias. Like I do. I'm one of those people I suffer from it. I find it very hard. I go on Instagram, Twitter, anything. I see people doing crazy baller shit. And I'm like, oh man, like it just it bothers me deep down. I'm like, you know, you got to remember about that, bro. Is I know a lot of people that do shit like that and are in debt because of it. Like, I know my dude, my girls, uh, friends, like they let's say on an engagement ring, they spent 100 K 75 K that is on a loan. So to me, if you're spending money that you don't have on a ring to show off to other people, you're already fucked. You're already fucked. And that's what everyone does, bro. It's not just the shit that you see. It's everyone. So you may see a guy flexing in a fucking Lamborghini. But he's probably in debt, in debt because of that car, just to fucking flex. Yeah, I have all those people muted. I literally have everyone on Twitter muted. I have everyone muted except for Alex, Bao, a couple other people. Instagram too. Fucking muted. Yeah, that's why it's just my goal, man. It's my goal. I think it's a good one. Yeah, that's what I do. We do those fuckers. I deleted it from my phone and fuck it. But Alex, what's your resolution? Um, honestly, bro, my resolution, I guess, is I basically just want to just enjoy my life more, bro. Like I'm, as you guys know, I'm here all day long, seven days a week. I don't fucking leave this office. I work like a fucking animal. And what I realized is if I even take like a few days off, I feel like a brand new person, but it takes me four, five months of stress to take one week off to my goal, bro, is every quarter I want to take a one week vacation just to start. Obviously that's still fucking nothing. That's kind of what I want to do just to start. And also I want to start funneling money into other investments so that I have peace of mind and I have a safety net because the goal is always take that short term money from trading and funnel it into other things. And that's kind of what my goals are. My goals are by the end of 22, 2022 to have all my, I guess, investments set up for me in the right way. And I'm I'm pretty much almost there. I'm pretty much almost there. I should be I should be good in a couple more months, just parking the money in like a couple of different places. Yeah, I love that. That's funny because I used to message Alex, like at least once a year and be like, man, I'm so fucking stressed, bro. I'm so fucking stressed. And Alex would literally say to me, take a week off. And then I'd be like, bro, but I can't. And then I'd end up taking like two days off, three days off because like I think I really learned, like when I was younger, I had you guys to kind of learn from. So I was like, oh, you know, what are Alex and now doing? How much work are they putting it in? And you'd see Alex, like on the YouTube lives, like I'm here all day staring at the screen, like I'm working hard. Well, you guys see it, you guys see it of over here. The mentors and moderators lead by example. I don't tell everyone to work all fucking day and then just fucking I don't do anything. Right. The reason why I trade in the morning and walk away is because we have the entire MIC community to run. Right. We have an army of people behind the scenes, right? An army of people working this up as someone has to lead the army. Right. So my job as a leader is not only to lead but to lead by example, to show everyone what can happen. If every day you walk away a zombie time, if every day you make a plan, you can make as much money as me. The only way that's possible is if I do it and I show you because you have no excuse. If I'm showing you every fucking day for 12 months straight, I'm walking away as a zombie times and I'm making millions of dollars. What is your excuse not to? I am leading by example. And that's what you guys are doing, too. Yeah, I love it. Oh, yeah. Probably a good place to wrap it up. That's a good place to wrap it up. Let's make some fucking money today, man. Yeah, yeah, let's do it. All right.