 So I got to a point where, oh my God, I have to make a video recapping how I did today. I must make money. I cannot make any mistake. So that became like such a mental pressure on myself that I felt like I missed out on a lot of opportunities I could have maximized on in 2021. What's going on guys? We're back with another episode of the After Hours podcast. Today we have a very, very special guest. We have Humble Trader who has become incredibly popular in our trading community. So thank you for coming on. Hi, hi everyone. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being on here. So I wanted to ask you, Shay, a lot of people know you from your YouTube personality. You I think recently crossed a billion subscribers. That's awesome. Well, what a lot of people don't know is that before you were a trader, you were in the VFX scene. So how did you kind of transition from the professional world to the trading world? How did that transition? Yeah, like how did you go from like being in the VFX world to finding a day trader? Yeah, so I was in Los Angeles at the time, working in VFX. I got you working in some studios. And what happens is when you're in the film industry or TV commercial, you kind of are on the contract base. So the contract would last like two weeks, a month or two months. And in between, you're kind of like, unless you're very, very, very good, which I wasn't, you wouldn't, you kind of would have to spend some time looking for a job. So that's kind of why I was inspired to find another way to pay rent is because I have so much gap time in between the job I just finished and the next one that I need to find a way to make money. So that's where I used to like trade and learn trading during those gaps. And then when I kind of have like, at least some idea of what I'm doing, then I'll do that in the morning from, because on the West Coast, I'll wake up at 5am and then I'll kind of get ready, trade a little bit. Market opens at 6.30am. So I'll trade till around 8 o'clock, 8.30 local time and I'll go to work at night or 9.30. So I'll do that, you know, every single day, Monday to Friday when I still had a job. Did you have anyone in your family that was involved in the markets or had you discovered the markets? I found, I found one of the really famous gurus with a Lamborghini some like, I'm sure you guys know who that is. Classic, the class of the same person that got us all started. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's him. So I think that he's like the origin is like where everyone got started and how everyone got attracted to the Lambos, right? So that's how it got started. Nobody in my family was ever involved in like the US stock market. We're all immigrants. So they kind of knew something about the, we're from Taiwan, like the Taiwanese stock market, like they will invest, but US markets always been like a very foreign concept to us. Do you ever get to work on any movies that we would know? Yeah, Planet of the Apes, the second one and the third one. Lego Movie, I worked on the second one. So it's not the cool one. The cool one is the first one if I did the second one. Angry Birds Movie, I did both of them. And the rest is like some really lame ones, but those three are the only ones out of the industry that we don't know about. Like what's some like secrets that like no one knows that happens like behind the scenes and like VFX. So there's a lot of drug culture, unfortunately. Yeah, good and bad drugs. Yeah, because sometimes you really stay up all night till 2, 3 a.m. and you need a way to kind of stay motivated. Yeah, makes sense. Yeah, and it's yeah, what else? You know, everyone's really underpaid. You do a lot of favors to make sure you have the next job. You can do a lot of favors. You have to like, like whether you are a man or woman, you kind of have to like kiss. What's that word in what's that? Yeah, you kind of have to do that and it really sucks. That's one of the reasons I hated the industry. It's like, you cannot get ahead by working hard or doing good work. It's all about like who you know. Yeah, maybe you could kind of shift gears to like trading a little bit and we could talk about maybe like daily process because like I don't really know like a lot about like kind of like what you trade like maybe it's just like me, but so I was generally curious when we kind of had this interview because I was like, oh, like we get to learn like a little bit more better. So what's kind of like your kind of like daily process as far as like coming into the market? Like what type of strategies do you trade? What do you look for? Yeah, maybe we could just kind of start there. Yeah, I think the my I guess my process has kind of changed a little bit over the years, but I think the bull park is still the same in which I still wake up early because I'm still on the west coast. I'll scan. I'll usually like just open up my scanner and like trade ideas with Benzinga. Look at the gappers and then I used to focus a lot on the small caps. That's what changed. Now I focus more on the large cap stocks. So I didn't have a lot of money like a small caps, a dollar to $3 stocks, $5 stocks. That's kind of where I was used to focus a lot. And nowadays I trade mostly like the earnings, like the large cap gappers like AMD today, Meta the other day, you know, Google that stuff. That's why I focus on now. And then before it will be like small cap stock and low floats, like the LFIN, the BPTH, those really good ones and that kind of transition during COVID pandemic market to like a lot of mean stocks. That's a lot of large caps. And now I trade like the mega caps. Are you struggling to find the right stocks to trade? Are you making money for one, two, maybe three weeks in a row and losing it all in one day? Are you struggling with sizing up on your trades? Well, I found that the best way to fix these problems is to trade alongside a millionaire trader live on stream with no delays. My investing clubs new live trading stream is the missing puzzle piece to your trader. Every day at 9am, I share my screens, find the best stocks to trade and build my watches live. Then I execute those trades live on screen. It's like you're sitting right next to me as I trade every single day due to the high demand of the screen share, we only have a few spaces available every single month. So if you're seeing this now, it means that space is still available. And here's the best part if I do not generate $20,000 in realized gains per month on live stream, you do not pay. So go to myinvestingclub.com slash live trading to get 50% off your first month on the live streams. Spaces are limited and filling up quick. What do you have to lose? This may change your life. That's really cool. Was it hard for you to transition from like starting out with some small caps and getting into large caps? Because it obviously is such a big difference. And like one, it's like less pre-market prep and like, you know, obviously it's just different structure. Was it challenging for you to make the change or were you already like, were you not finding success with small caps before you made the change? I don't think it was difficult, but I think I think I've always been, I'm a very organized person in trading also outside of trading. I like to kind of categorize things into little buckets. So I always trade the small caps in like a generalized bucket like, oh, small caps, you know, if I want to go long, look for like positive news, day one, day two, you know, it has to be gapped over a certain percentage. So I'll categorize that. And then large caps, it's like, okay, like if I'm looking to buy the dip, I'll buy it instead of at the open, I'll buy it around like 10 o'clock or 12 o'clock. So I kind of always kind of categorize them separately. So I can kind of know that, okay, if I'm trading a large cap and you do just that, small caps, I only do that. So I think it was also a forced transition because small caps, you should kind of, this summer is a little bit different, but small caps, it will be summers before a pandemic that I wouldn't have any single green trade on the small cap stocks, because they will move like 10 cents. And, and I'm not used to that. I didn't realize they're so cyclical that there might be like months in between from, you know, June to October before I placed any successful trades. So I kind of was forced to adapt. If I still want to make money during summer, I kind of have to trade the mid caps, large caps, mega caps. So kind of out of necessity, I think. Yeah, was it hard for you to find like a strategy with large caps, or like, did you kind of base it off something that you've learned in the past, or have you tried it all? Have you tried shorting, like longing? Like, how did you find that breakouts or the like earnings plays or more your, more your speed? Yeah, so for the large caps, one was trading part-time. I started out with just at the end of the day, after I came back from work, I look at the large cap gainers on the day. And if it's during earnings season, you get a lot of like big runners that trend out really nicely on the first day of their earnings breakout. So what I used to do is a very, very simple strategy. Anyone can do this. The next day, I'll look at like, what's like the key support from the day before, the first day of the large cap breakout, and then I'll try to buy the dip, or I'll, if I miss the dip, I'll wait for you to continue the trend and break out through the higher day from previous day. So essentially a breakout strategy on second day, and it'll go higher. Not always, obviously, but the probability of that success succeeding is really, really high because usually earnings, like if you really, really beat earnings, the stock will run for multiple days. So that's the very, very simple strategy I used to trade a lot. And then I kind of developed that into, okay, then why don't I just buy the stock on day one overnight? Why don't I just swing it overnight? So kind of developed into also a swing overnight strategy as well for the larger cap stocks. So you mostly primarily just been like kind of like longing large caps, forgetting about small caps. Was it, was it kind of like hard to let go of small caps? Or you were just like, no, I'm into large caps now. I'm not a small cap trader, kind of like that kind of motto or? No, I would say I kind of made that transition after analyzing my trades. Like all my biggest losses in 2020 were on the small caps and the biggest gains were not small caps. So I just, I understand they are like the fun, fun, you know, dangerous stocks to trade. I feel really excited. And, you know, I feel like I feel really excited to trade them, but I have to kind of face the reality like small caps when they, if I was shorting, because I got really into shorting small caps in 2019 and 2020. So and then 2020, everything went to the moon. So it was really difficult for me that year shorting small caps, especially a low float. So I kind of just, yes, nowadays I still trade them, but it has to be like after it's really extended for four or five days, like TUP, I didn't trade it until it reached $5 yesterday. So all the way from the, from when it went from $1 to $5 the four days before that I didn't touch it at all. So I'm just a little bit more selective on the kind of low float small cap stocks that I want to trade nowadays. I still trade them like once a while. I just want to, I just want to like trade it. You can't get away from it. It's amazing. They're so exciting and there's so much money to be made, but a lot of the more conservative day-to-day money could be made from large caps and it has no locate fees. Most of the time, the commissions are low, if not free. So there's a lot of opportunity there. Have you ever thought about trading forex or crypto or anything like that? Not forex. I have thought about trading crypto, but by the time I was so late into the trading crypto game, by the time I was trying to set everything up and I figured out how I was going to transfer money into my wallet to buy this and that, the market started tanking. And then with what have happened with the FTX last year, I was just like, I'll forget it. There's no point. What are your points about your trading? Because I grew up in the Middle Eastern family and unless I was making a bunch of money, they just kind of rejected the idea of trading. So how was your family when you told them that, hey, I'm going to quit my job at VFX. I'm going to become a full-time stock trader. Did they give you any backlash? Well, I knew they wouldn't understand. So I didn't tell them. Oh, wow. You didn't tell them? I didn't tell them until I had already quit my job and was full-time trading for a year. Yeah. I mean, I knew it's not like I needed them to support me or financially and I was already living on my own. So I just knew it would just create unnecessary stress for me if I had told them. It's my money, I'll do what I want. Yeah. Yeah, I just gotta be smart about it. I mean, I'm just saying a family, obviously, but I know my parents, what I worry a lot and like nag at me, so I just tell them. Yeah. Did you have some sort of savings built up from the career before you said, you know what, like, let me just have a little bit of a nest egg first and then I'll kind of transition over. Yeah. So I saved up about one year of living expenses outside of my trading account before I kind of quit Co-Turkey. Yeah. Because a lot of people think that trading, all right, I'm going to become a trader, I'm going to quit my job tomorrow, but the reality is that it takes time to be able to save up a little bit of a nest egg, have a little bit of a cushion so that you don't feel like you're trading to make money. How many times have we traded forcing trades to make money and we end up losing money? So I think that's very important. I'm glad that you built up a nest egg before that because a lot of people listening, I feel like they may have the wrong idea of trading because we got into it for the Lambo, the Get Rich, I'm going to make money, I'm going to travel the world, I'm going to trade on the laptop and this and that, but the reality is that trading is more complex than that. If you want to make more money than a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer combined, it's going to be a little bit tricky and because it's going to be a little bit tricky, it doesn't mean that you should be quitting your job. In my opinion, I think most people should just trade part-time. For me, at least, I make most of my money in the first hour. So if I didn't have MIC or community or other things to do, it's a perfect way to stay busy throughout the rest of the day. So I don't think anyone should quit their jobs or trade full-time. If anything, I think that trading should be a way to supplement your income. Yeah, for sure. When I first started trading in LA, I was just trying to make enough to pay rent. I remember I was living in a two-bedroom apartment with two other roommates, so one person was living in the living room and we were paying, I think, $600 or $700 each. So I was just trying to make that in one month. So it started out doing that and obviously it scaled up slowly, but that's why I wanted to pay rent in LA. That's it. Of course, in the beginning, I thought I was going to get rich, but once reality hits, it's like, okay, I'm happy just paying rent and then help with student loans, eventually I pay more bills. But yeah, I think part-time trading is a way to go at least for the first two years, for most people. Was it hard for you to mentally adjust to having a set paycheck before, because I assume you're doing decently well at your other job and then to go to trading? Well, I mean, you were able to take up a year's worth of money, a year's worth of money in a trading account, so I think you were doing all right. So I think I will say this, if I had a cushy job, I don't want to offend any engineers watching this, but I know the engineers down there are working 20, 30 hours a week getting paid at 300 grand. If I had that job, I never would have went into trading. Like, come on, there's no need to. But for me, it was really unstable. Like when I had the job in film production, yes, I'll make decent amount of money for a couple of months. But it's the in-between, like the one month where I don't have any job that's extremely unstable and stressful for me. So because of that, it was hard for me to save a lot of money at once. I kind of work job, and then I like flip stuff on the side, I flip couches on the side, and I did all the things. Couches? Yeah, yeah, furniture. Oh, okay. Yeah, couches. Yeah, yeah. I'll go to the, like the... Goodwill. Goodwill, yes. Yeah, like a nice area, and then you'll get some nice stuff, like not just couches, like clothing. I found the Burberry Jacket ones. Yeah, yeah. So grandma passed away. Yeah, no, if you want to save up, you kind of have to like, you have to think smart, you have to hustle hard. So you went from a very stressful environment, which was the film production world where you have a job today, but you don't know if you have a job tomorrow. You don't know if your funding is going to get cut from the movie. You don't know what's going to drop here or there. You don't know if they're going to change anything. Yeah. And you chose day trading. Yeah. What led you to make that kind of like, this is really stressful. Yeah. Why not do something that's equally as stressful? So what was it that all of a sudden you went, you know what, if I can handle this, I can do this? I think you are right. The stress level for trading is probably even higher. But at least, you know, after the first six months, yes, I lost like pretty much blew up a couple of times. At least I understood that if I lose money or make money, it's because it's all because of myself, right? There's no one else I have to rely on where I could blame. Whereas when I was working in the film industry, sometimes, sure, it's me who get it late. But a lot of times it's like due to some other people's, you know, progress or the producer had a change of heart, director want something else. So a lot of different changes because of outside scenarios and outside reasons, not because of me. I pretty much prefer it to just be myself responsible for my own outcomes. So more it was it was more about that ability to control it. Yeah, really to control whether you made it or broke it. Exactly. Yeah. So I like that. Let's say let's say someone goes out, they quit their job. What would be the first thing you suggest them to learn? Like would it be like technicals? Would it be fundamentals? Would it be like supply and demand volume? What would be like the number one thing where you know, like that you would say like, hey, focus on this and not like Bollinger Bands or something like that. I tell them to focus on how to get a new job. Yeah, that's all I'm thinking about. McDonald's hiring. Yeah, I mean, I don't think I never recommend people to quit and like start trading. I feel like anything else is probably a better idea than trading right after you just lost a job. Yeah. The problem is the industry is so like get rich quick money. Yeah. So like you don't even think it's stressful. What are you talking about stressful? You make money in your sleep, right? So I think a lot of people don't understand what comes along with trading at the real professional level, which is not easy, but it is extremely lucrative if you can do it the right way. And something that I think is great, Shay, is that you make a lot of content on YouTube to help the newer struggling traders. So I know that they're in your comments all the time. They're messaging you, they're talking to you, but for the new and struggling traders out there, is there something that you see that is the most common issue that people are struggling with? Yeah. So they usually will try something for like a week and then immediately jump to something else. So they'll try stocks trading for a week. Oh, Longling isn't working. Let me try shorting next week. Oh, stock shorting is not working. Let me try options. Oh, options not working. Let me try, you know, like, you know, crypto instead. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. So that's the biggest mistake. I think you need to like at least stick with something for at least a couple of months to really know if it's working for you or not. Yeah. And then they open an Amazon drop shipping account and that's going to change everything that they do. They buy a garage full of toilet paper. How did you know I did that? Go from trader to drop shipper to forex trader, right? Right up the ladder. Yeah. We were that guy that we were making fun of back in like, what was it, 2018, 2019 trade neck? Oh, and then it was all the CFD business and stuff like that. And what was that guy? Trade trade net. Trade net was the guy. Yeah. And then there was that dude that came out with the meme that's neck was like from his ears to his shoulders. And everybody started calling it trade neck. It's to be honest, I've not met one successful forex trader. Most of them are freaking scammers, man. Every single one. I mean, I don't know about you, Shay, but have you met a single successful forex trader? I met one that made some money, but he decided to switch to his trading stocks. There you go. Yeah. There you go. So what drove you to start posting things to YouTube? I know that before you answer that question, I'll preface to this. We mentioned this before we started the recording, but Humboldt Traders YouTube channel has now passed a million subscribers. So props to you. Thank you for all that you do for the community. What was it during your trading that encouraged you to start posting? Yeah. So after I went full time trading, what happened is I kind of lost that creative outlet. So I was working in film and VFX, then I stopped doing that. So there was, I'm naturally a very creative person. I love making videos, telling stories. I used to write a lot of stories as well. So I kind of lost that outlet. So that's number one. And number two is that because I started out trading part time, I used to finish all my trading before my local time would be 8.30. That'll be 11.30 a.m. Eastern. So that was where I found my success. But when I went full time, I was like, sit there from nine o'clock market time to four, and I'll sit there for an entire day. I'll make money in the morning and lose everything. Yeah. That's usually what happens. Yeah. So I realized I needed something else like a site project to either keep me distracted or just like a creative outlet. So that's why I kind of turned into YouTube to do both of those things. Yeah. And it was really fun. It started out like a little hobby project that would work on the evenings and Sundays. It takes so much time. And then now eventually, it's like, what, three, four years later, it's like a full-on business. Yeah. That's crazy. I mean, it's cool. But is it hard for you to do this because you're so public and your videos are great, by the way? But is it hard like when you're having like a rough stretch of trading, like when you're like having like some down days or whatever, to still post and be like honest? Because like at MIC, we post like day in, day out, no matter how good or bad. And do you ever struggle with that? Yeah, for sure. I used to like post a lot more about my trading recap. I used to film recaps every day or every other day, because every day would be a little bit too much for me. Every other day, I used to do that. I did that for a whole year. And then it got to a point of like, it became a little bit too much for me. I understand like, I'm sure I'm old for transparency. People would love to see your wins and losses. I did that for a whole year. And I realized it was kind of affecting me and my trading performance. Because whether you made money or you lost money, like at the end of the day, you should be posting and doing the recaps for yourself. So I got to a point where, oh my God, I have to make a video recapping how I did today. I must make money. I cannot make any mistake. So that became like such a mental pressure on myself that I felt like I missed out on a lot of opportunities I could have maximized on in 2021. I feel like I made a lot of money in 2021, just like every trader in the market, but I feel like I could have made a lot more. Had I not been so focused on, oh, I got to keep up with the video recaps. So I think whatever you do, whether it's a recap, a post, written or a video, you have to do it for yourself. And you have to do it in a way that serves you as a trader. Yeah, I think that's super, super, super true because it's a lot of pressure to do that stuff as well. Because I know that when I have a pretty bad day, the last thing I want to do is get on camera and just say how much I screwed up. It kind of hurts you. And then the flip side of it is that if you're always posting and always posting, you almost feel obligated to post. And you may trade a little bit differently based on your wanting to post. So I used to post a daily P&L for years, daily, daily, daily. And I found myself kind of getting lost in the sauce every time that I did it. And then at the beginning of the year, I was like, you know what, let me start that small account challenge, let me grow that, let me do the daily P&L. Then after that, I'm just going to relax and do whatever I want. But for me, it's just, I totally get it. I totally understand the pressure and props to everyone that does it every day. But at the end of the day, no matter if you post it or not post it, no one's going to be happy for you. Everyone's going to be jealous. Everyone's going to talk shit on you. Everyone's going to say it's fake. Everyone's going to say, you're not real. So at the end of the day, what's the real point? What if it's for you, if you're doing it for yourself? I think that's really important. Something that I was talking to Jack Kellogg about is his losing days. So something that he told me really, really important that like really stuck to me is that whenever he had like a severe losing day, and I recommend this for everyone is he would whip out his iPhone and just record himself in the way he's feeling like, Hey, I just lost 100 grand today feeling like shit, you know, making 100 grand is never as good as losing 100 grand. I don't need to be doing this right now. I have this, this, this to improve and he keeps to himself. He keeps it to himself. And whenever he is feeling down or whatever he needs that reassurance, he just whips out that video for himself. So I think it's important for people to do it. But to post it publicly, I don't think it's necessary. You know, yeah, for sure. I agree. I think it's fine. It was a lot less pressure when I was smaller. But now with over it's with with this much subscriber is I'm great. I'm grateful. I appreciate everyone supporting me. By the same time it's immense amount of pressure and like everyone expects you certain things from you. You get recognized in public a lot. Yeah. It's like usually at like really inconvenient times. One time I'm trying to catch a flight at the airport. Yeah. And then and then I one time I was like playing pool or sorry playing ping pong with my friends at a bar and then we were all like super drunk. And that's not the best. The best one is when you're middle of a meal and you're just like yeah. Yeah. That's me and photos. People are like let's take a photo and I'm like I got a hot dog stuffed in my mouth. A lot of people don't get it. They just think you show up every every week and you make a video and you just record it and it's ready to go. But like I think a lot of people don't understand how tough that creative process could also be because like how many times are we going to cover level two how many times are going to cover VWAP how many times are going to cover this like eventually the topics that you know are interesting almost become obsolete. So how do you find that creative motivation to create this type of content that people have not seen in content that you also enjoy creating because I learned that if I just make content just to create it is not like it's like a job. Whereas if you're making content that you're actually interested in like we're doing this like this is fun to me. Yeah. So how do you how do you what is your creative process like in making these training videos. I think I would say because it's now my fourth year on YouTube it does get difficult. I want to say every year and a half or so like I'll run out of completely be out of creative ideas. So I'm actually currently going through a stretch like that myself right now. I'm like oh man I don't know what to make you know I'm I'm so tired of these strategy videos they work but at the same time you know I only do like five strategies like that's all I have. I cannot create strategy just to put on YouTube and I don't want to do that. So sometimes I do go back into my earlier ideas or videos and like that will sometimes inspire me you know like oh four years ago I presented certain things this way. I can try a different way of presenting it. So you're repackaging your original idea or sometimes I just talk to other traders, talk to other friends, talk to non-traders. I think I think it's important to talk to people who don't trade and see what fascinates them about the stock market. So that might help you out too. So I do that I talk to my friends who are not in trading who are not in the stock market but they want to learn they go ask them oh what do you want to learn about like how in what kind of way would you learn the most what like are you what's your focus on are you trying to make you know set hustle money like a hundred dollars a day or are you trying to you know just like pay for your bills pay for a mortgage like what's your goal. So just really trying to understand that that also helps and then and then otherwise taking some breaks this helps a lot. Like when I was in Europe I had some couple of decent ideas when I was away from the market and from work. Yeah but I would say it's normal to go through like you know I would say a couple months of oh man nothing I hate everything I make there's nothing fun out there I'm done I just want to trade. I probably have gone through that twice now. Do you have any psychology and discipline tips for any traders like who are kind of like struggling maybe with like the psychology of it all or just like the discipline to just execute trades the right way and execute kind of strategy the right way. Yeah so execution is the toughest one because you cannot learn execution from reading a book. You have to like I tell everyone to subscribe to the Dash trader replay it's like ten dollars extra per month and then retrade everything you either messed up on or you could have improved that day. So I used to do that I still do that quite a bit I'll probably do that once every two weeks nowadays that's how I got better with execution because you cannot learn execution from yes you can kind of learn from seeing other traders charts but you need to be pressing the buttons yourself. Yeah. So that's that's I feel like that's the only practical tip anyone can use to learn execution. Now psychology wise reading books does help a lot with psychology there's a there's a lot of books out there like trading the zone trader trader read and what's that book the the I'm like daily trading coach. Yeah that one helps a lot but there's a there's some atomic habits. What's that atomic habits that one helps a lot too with by building a really simple and lean trading routine and not get distracted that one helps with my discipline a lot but yeah otherwise it's just I think also outside of trading if you have like a I don't know if anyone here is interested like has like a workout routine so I used to be really really strict with my workout routine that helps a lot because if you have like a really strict regimen that's gonna carry out into your trading as well. Yeah that makes sense and I have a pretty strict restaurant routine. Eating routine is pretty strict. It's strictly terrible for myself. Does that help with trading? I have a lot of haircare routines. That helps too. You did some like pole dancing and stuff like that too didn't you that's pretty wild. Yeah that helps like I think a lot of people don't understand how much like just any exercise at all just can help relieve stress so aside from exercise do you have any tips to relieve stress after a stressful like a tough day trading? Yeah go on walks as lame as that sounds. I pretty much go for a one hour walk every day after the market. Yeah just to think reflect on trading and you you feel a lot better after you've done the walk because you're like all by yourself right you're like in your mind a lot thinking and it forces you to be along and reflect on what you did well what you did wrong. Rain or shine? Sorry? Rain or shine? Yeah yeah yeah in my case when it's raining you still walk and we don't need some dollars. So now what you need. Yeah go for it. Sorry. I was gonna say so you said earlier that you're super like organized and like you have everything like set in place and I feel like listening to you like you have your trading and that you have your YouTube and like what are your goals with both of those going forward like what is it what is the next five years look like for you? So for my trading I still want to trade daily but I want to start I kind of started dabbling with selling options on the side that's kind of I want to create like an income generating portfolio in which you kind of it's like a you kind of set it and forget it for a couple months because you're selling the premiums so I kind of started watching some videos learning a few things so I want to do that on the side because the more you make whether it's from trading or your businesses the the higher risk you have and I don't really want to keep on risking that much money what I used to be able to risk 50% of my portfolio now I don't really want to do that because the more you make the 50% becomes a lot more so that's kind of what I want to do and and start diversifying more into other asset classes whether it be real estate or other businesses I don't want too much money tied in my trading account anymore because I think with the especially what happened the last two years with the crazy crazy low floaters like the the amtd the the top there's a couple of trader friends I talked to unfortunately they made a lot of money but they kind of blew up just for with one trade so that kind of like I'm sure they'll be okay to make that back but they lost a lot right so for me I'm just I just also realized that the us traders we are our the number one threat to our trading account so I just don't want to put that much money in my trading account anymore I want to start diversifying and put it somewhere else where I cannot touch it so that's kind of my goal at least with trading is to actively trade less and be even more selective with the trades I take now with YouTube I do YouTube is where kind of like I don't really care if I make money or not with YouTube the like oh like I have a team now so I kind of reinvest everything back into my team so I want to do a lot more like traveling and trading content that's something I want to talk to you about later Alex so I want to do more of that so I'm less tied down to my office in Vancouver and be more kind of have a more global footprint with the content I create and like visiting a lot of traders around the world that's kind of what I want to do next step with the YouTube side that's great I mean is there anywhere special that you've been aiming to go to that you haven't gone through yet uh in terms of well I think eventually I'm going to start out with like the North American cities and then eventually I want to hit up like Dubai Singapore there's a lot of big traders there a lot in the in the future space so I want to see them and see how they trade and what is it like living there and trading there versus in North America yeah that's cool I like I can't even imagine what it would be like to live that life because I've been like in Boston so long and like I like travel and stuff but like has that always been a passion for you like always wanting to actually travel and like because I think part of becoming a trader is having the freedom right and you're the ability to make money wherever you want to be and also with your other job with YouTube you can kind of do that too was that something you wanted to do forever or is that just kind of more of a recent thing now that you've kind of like quote unquote made it and like just have like a new kind of goal and aspiration um I think I really only started doing that in I started doing that during pandemic travel a bit more um but I don't I think I kind of realized with all the stuff I've done whether it's VFX or flipping furniture like like I'll do that for a certain phase so I don't know if there's anything I would do forever even even with trading like you know trading I think I will evolve eventually who knows I might stay at what I might stop day trading and just swing trade and sell options who knows um so I just know that if there's something I'm very interested in I'm going to do that to the best of my ability for now a couple years and then see what's next so yeah I'm just being kind of following what I really want to do and what I'm passionate about and traveling trading at this right now that's kind of what I want to do is would you say that traveling is like your favorite hobby outside of trading or do you have any other hobbies that you like to focus on when you're not trading um so pole dancing is one I still do that um it's really fun but also I'm actually really dangerous um I'd say well you if if you lose your grip you can fall right just screw your head up you're falling in very odd positions yeah yeah so that's that everything else just on top of you crushing your body in its game over sometimes you're speaking from experience yeah well I attempted and that's pretty much what happened at least you tried did you make some money no no I got a lot of pity I got a lot of pity though that paid for itself in the long run that's pretty much how I got married I think actually that's how I met my wife I was injured after attempting a pole dance move and then yeah I was like you like what you see sign here press hard three copies you scan the real good then Joe would you say that it's been or hasn't been hard to kind of like find a partner or like dating wise like what has that been like trading because I know like for most guys that I know that are trading it's been like really difficult if not really why I want to know a lot of people that really struggle with like relationships and stuff like that especially in trading because like you're trading all day and then sometimes you don't want to talk to anyone or sometimes like I have a girlfriend myself and my girlfriend just kind of gets it you know like even if I'm in a bad mood like she loves to read so she's like I'm going to read so like that's kind of like how we kind of manage that which is super good but yeah like for you like has it been hard or has it just been like easy like anything else you know I would say it's it's not hard now in the beginning while I was struggling with trading I would say it's too like kind of before and after right before when you're struggling with trading you're really insecure like there's a shame when you're losing money day in and day out you're ashamed of yourself so even if you try to go and meet people whether you're a man or woman you just feel really insecure and when you are insecure that kind of carries out to like how you interact with other the other people so obviously it was really really crap when first that was when I was in that phase and then I would say it got a lot better but I'm really introvert so I don't like talking to people so so when I would say one when I feel like talking to people it's not it's it's easy but when I'm in that phase where I just don't talk to anyone then obviously I'm not even trying so when you get to go on YouTube and your personality on YouTube is so bubbly and bright right what was it that you had to do did you have to physically tell yourself like this is a character I'm playing this is a role and I need to be this I don't get to be reclusive and just be by myself I have to be out there no no no I think for introverts it's like you're at home I would say four out of four days out of the the week then when you do go out or when I do go on camera I'm like yes I like conserve all these energy okay yeah so I feel really happy talking to you guys I haven't seen anyone the last three days I didn't talk to anyone so so yeah that's okay I have a podcast schedule today three days before I'm doing anything everybody who's texting her gets left on red they're so pissed they're like what the yeah yeah mom I'll call you back after this before we wrap up Shay I wanted to ask do you have any questions for us is there anything that we can answer anything that's particularly on your mind um yeah how's how's how's your training this year I know you guys focus on small caps which I like look at once a while now but not a whole lot how's the small caps this year so small caps the beginning of the year started off really strong for me I turned my 35 I do like a challenge at the beginning of the year where I started like a $35,000 account and I see how far I could grow it at the beginning of the year I was able to grow that $35,000 into a million in 55 days because like a record it's like the most unbelievable thing ever for me but towards like the middle of the year ish like I would say maybe about like after the first quarter I started to get a little bit sloppy in my trading because I was so confident I was so overconfident that I started over sizing on some stocks I started getting a little bit sloppy on some stocks and towards the middle I kind of got you know up down up down and now um what I'm trying to do this year for myself is I'm trying to size down more and focus more on finding internal happiness outside of my P&L because I would judge my happiness on the day based on how much money I made right it's it's pretty sad to say but like that's what I used to do if I had a green day I'd be extra happy if I had a red day I'd be extra sad and I felt like that that was kind of controlling my life for a little bit too long so now I'm kind of focused on sizing less making a little bit less money but focusing on finding happiness outside the market so that's why you know eventually I want to move to Florida that's why you know eventually I'm gonna take it a little bit more serious with my girlfriend but aside from that um I've it's been a little bit summer's kind of been a little bit up down I would say the beginning of the year was strong and now it's kind of just like chopping around and yeah okay yeah honestly for me it's been pretty well I had a big kind of like last like three years in my trading where like I really like did really well um and now I've been focusing on like swing trading and uh more kind of like strategies like that you know because like as you make more money like you know you just don't want to scalp for like ten cents anymore no offense to those people you know but um that's kind of what I've kind of been marking on jam uh my biggest thing this year is like I'm I've always been like I'm going to knock on every piece of what I have like I've always been very consistent and my biggest thing this year is just kind of like fighting greed and you know we're very lucky and like I think we're very blessed to be able to make like a few thousand dollars a day like kind of no problem and it's just kind of fighting that urge to like really push myself and like just being really happy and enjoying what I'm doing now so but it's been good and the market's been all right so okay I was probably the least active one out of all three out of all four of us for 2020 and 2021 I burnt myself out I was pushing as hard as I could with the large caps which is what I do is large caps and options I was pushing really hard and uh a buddy of mine that we trade together both of us just we burn out and for 22 I pretty much did very very very little like the bare minimum and then in 23 man we moved from Texas to Colorado and I don't know what it is but this time zone just works better for me and it like reignited reignited all that burning urge to blow all my money gamble risk you know you know bet on crazy shit and um yeah come back to small caps show what I said why don't you come back to small caps with me because we did so well the first time he's betting on a horse in the background I had I had James transitioned for a moment I had him I had him thinking straight for a little bit and then Carvana happened to him and he gave up on me Carvana was great oh man no I have to say this is kind of a quick change but like I really do appreciate you coming on uh Shay because I I'll be like scrolling on Instagram or YouTube and like I see all your videos all the time and it's like it's cool by doing these podcasts that we actually get to like talk to you and like talk to these people and like there are real people behind like the the trading videos and all that stuff so I really appreciate you coming on yeah thank you for having me yeah that was awesome this is awesome thank you thank you yeah and it's obviously it's nice to I met Alex that was fun we had uh you and bow I want to say that I you know when I first started like I obviously didn't have the youtube channel till 2019 so I've been trading for eight years so from 2014 to 2019 the five years I kind of just like looking at you guys silently um quietly in the background like on twitter and I follow you and bow and a couple of the traders it's it's been really really um great to see your progress what you and bow have done and you guys were also my inspirations in my early years as well so I just want to say that and that's a while about uh meeting Bao and then him visiting in Vancouver that was also I don't know if I told him this that's why I was hoping you'll be here I'll tell him next time I see him like he is also because because I don't see a lot of Asian traders until recently so for me to see someone like him this is like eight years ago that was that also made me feel like oh I can also do this like he has black hair I have black hair he looks like that I look like that I could do this and that's that's that's kind of how everyone passes the elevator back down I'm sure there are so many female traders as well you know there's probably so many people that hit you up like hey like you're a girl I'm a girl like I could do it too right yeah so yeah like I think in trading besides the money meeting traders and where and learning about everyone's stories and where they came from how they found trading that's being one of the most enjoyable experiences um in terms of this industry yeah love it that's really cool thank you Shay thank you for coming on thank you guys thanks for having me and thank you Joe for the dad jokes that's a specialty that's all it's always got it's all I got is self deprecating humor