Becoming a Millionaire at 19 off Stocks, Most Money Made Off One Trade & Balancing Emotions Day Trading | Mark Thomas DSH #249

I'm sure you see that even yourself.

Oh, daddy's money, you know.

I bought a McLaren.

Oh, daddy bought you that money.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I used to get triggered because I get those too, but it's like, there's no point fighting trolls on the internet.

No, and the thing is, and I had that same thing in, they wish they could be you, and for whatever reason, they can't find that success that you have.

So the only thing that makes them feel better is to hate on you.

Right.

Welcome back to the Digital Social Hour.

I'm your host, Sean Kelly.

I have with me today professional stock trader, Mark Thomas.

How's it going?

Good, good.

Glad to be here.

Yeah.

This is actually the first in-person podcast, first podcast I'm on because I host my own podcast.

So this is totally reverse roles.

So let's do it.

I'm looking forward to this.

Yeah, it's always easier when a podcaster comes on, actually.

I've said that too.

It's like

I guess you, the more podcasts you do, you just build up a knack to it and you get better at it.

Yeah, I look back at my old ones and I was like, oh, that's tough to watch.

Oh man, so how did you get into stock trading?

How old were you?

Yeah, so I started, I was like 14, 15, so late 2016, early 2017.

It was my cousin who introduced me to Bitcoin.

Started trading crypto, did pretty well with that.

And then fast forward to 2018, transitioned into the stock market.

And as most most people realize, like the amount of capital you have,

even if you have 10,000, 15,000 bucks trading just shares of a stock, you're not going to really see worthwhile or substantial gains.

So I'm like, you know, options are risky.

Inherently, if you know about options, you're essentially leveraging your money 100 to 1.

One option contract gives you the right to buy 100 shares of a stock.

You know, I blew up a couple accounts, $10,000 account out the window trading options.

And then I found an edge.

And I think every trader needs needs to realize that you you have to find an edge to find consistent profitability in the market and it took me about a year to find this edge and so you know now we're in 2023 the last you know years have flown by and I've been consistently profitable since then so when you say edge what exactly is that yeah so I created a software now this is an order flow software so what I do I license I take all of the order flow data from different data providers throughout the market so this is all retail order flow data.

I take that data, we buy that data, license it, and then I have this, the software that I created with the help of a couple other guys, so I can't take all the credit.

And so that software is paired with the technical analysis I do.

So as a trader, like my style or strategy,

to kind of put it into the simplest terms, if you guys don't know much about trading, I'm a trend trader.

I trade based off of a series of moving averages.

I look at setups within those moving averages, trying to identify different patterns on different tickers, and then I'll pair that with this order flow software that I created.

Wow.

Yeah.

So what's the most you've made in a single trade?

So it's nothing crazy.

And I feel like everyone is like, you know, I even had a friend ask me like when I bought my LDR8, he's like,

what stock did you trade to buy this?

And I'm like, it's just consistency.

My biggest trade was 30K.

Okay.

And so it's like, if you are consistent, you know, you can make 100K a month.

You just need two or three good trades a week.

So I'm a swing trader.

Right.

I started out day trading, and it's funny enough, the company's name is the Daily Traders.

I started out day trading, transition into swing.

Main reason being the time that it takes to swing trade, I spend about an hour and a half to two hours trading every day.

That's it.

And that's it.

And that's what most people think.

It's like you don't need to sit on your screen all day and just burn your eyes out and stress.

And I figured, you know, starting this company and having a lot of, you know, other things I wanted to do and focus on outside of just trading, if I could find a way to trade to kind of minimize the time I had to spend on my screen which was swing trading and then really finding that that I guess style within swing using the software I have nice so what is your win rate in swing trading so when it comes to win rate and I want to talk about this because it's interesting and and the last so when I say what my win rate is I'm looking at a year to a year and a half worth of trade data

and so it's it changes as market conditions shift

my win rate and any traders win rate is gonna gonna change so last year I closed the year with a 75% win rate damn which is pretty good and I think most people

assume that you know you need

80 90% win rate to make money

you can be consistently profitable with less than a 50% win rate really it all comes down to risk management risk to reward sure if you have a 50% win rate you know you're kind of limited to taking one-to-ones so the more the higher the win rate you have, you can kind of push that risk-to-reward per trade you're taking.

Right.

And so, you know, working with that year and a half worth of trade data gives me the most accurate win rate as market conditions change and shift.

Right.

Yeah, because you're taking the balance of everything.

Yeah, so I'm taking, and as I add on trades this year, I'm kind of removing trades off the back over the last year and a half.

It gives me the most accurate kind of numbers that I can go off of when it comes to managing risk.

Have you ever taken a huge L where you just couldn't sleep at night?

Like it was just a massive L?

Um, yeah, I mean, I lost a car on one trade.

It was two days, I lost 64,000.

Jeez, biggest loss.

Would have been a nice Tesla.

Oh, what was it?

What was the stock on?

I was trying to remember because I got asked the same question the other day in a little interview I was doing.

I was in Miami.

It was two years ago.

I don't remember the ticker.

And it was one of those trades where I look back on it and I learned so much from it.

And

realizing that, you know, a loss is just a, it's, you don't call it a loss, call it like a, uh, you know, a learn.

And I was working with someone the other day, one of my students, and I was, and I was telling him when he was logging his trades, it's like, don't put win, loss, put win, learn, win, learn.

Because there's so much you can learn from a loss, especially a big loss like that.

And so as a trader, I grew just from that loss, even though it sucks.

Yeah, that's a good way of looking at it.

Yeah, you have to stay positive.

And

obviously, the emotional aspect of that, obviously that did shake me up a bit.

But over time, you just become

numb to losing.

You get used to losing money because you realize losing money is part of trading.

That's part of this job.

Like, you lose money.

Yeah.

It just comes down to risk management.

You know, you want to win more than you lose.

It's a numbers game at the end of the day.

It is.

And it's funny because I wasn't like a numbers guy.

I was never good at math in school.

Realizing that you don't have to be like school smart to make money trading.

Right.

right?

And overcomplicating things is what a lot of people do.

And I simplify everything, I keep it very straightforward.

And so, the math behind it, yes, you need to know certain figures and numbers because it is a numbers game.

It's a numbers game.

There's like three parts of trading: okay, risk management, trading psychology, and then the trading itself.

So, that edge or the charting, technical analysis, fundamental analysis, whatever it is you do to find those trades.

So, it's really those three parts that trading boils down into that you need to master.

Right.

And what were your parents' reactions when you said, mom, dad, I'm going to become a stock trader.

I'm not going to college for this.

I'm just going to do it.

Yeah.

So

I mean, I started finding success.

Obviously, friends, family saw that.

I bought my mom a car last year, like brand new Volvo for her birthday, which was like really, really rewarding, really crazy to be able to do.

I didn't even make a YouTube video about that because it's just like, it's not stuff I do for content to get views, just because, you know, I can, you know, giving back because my parents have always supported me and when I told them initially like you know I don't want to go to college I actually ended up

not technically dropping out of high school I never went to senior year I ended junior year and then I got my my diploma because my mom kind of pushed me to do that online okay yeah I moved to LA when I was 18 I moved out all on my own and I'm almost 21 now so it's been it's been a wild ride but support all around from friends and family oh that's good I feel like that's pretty rare actually

it is

You know, especially if your parents go to college, they think you need that to succeed.

I don't come from a really wealthy family.

Just got it.

You know, middle-class family.

And so I never had any fallback, anyone I could fall back on, even now.

Like, you know, you put yourself in a position where you can't fail.

I always say that.

Like, I've never had a plan B.

My plan B is my plan A.

It has to work.

And so, you know, knowing like I don't have...

Daddy's money or something and I get that all the time on TikTok.

I'm sure you see that even yourself.

Oh, daddy's money.

You know, I bought a McLaren.

Oh, daddy bought you that money.

I used to get triggered because I get those too, but it's like, there's no point fighting trolls on the internet.

No, and the thing is, and I had that same thing in middle school.

And people, you know, whenever you're doing something different outside the norm, people love to hate on that.

And it's because they're jealous of you.

And not just because they're jealous.

It's, well, they wish they could be you.

And for whatever reason, they can't find that success that you have.

So the only thing that makes them feel better is to hate on you.

Right.

Yeah, I can't even imagine a kid trading stocks in my middle middle school would have gotten bullied into oblivion.

And it's kind of a shame like that that's the way society is.

It is.

It is.

It's when you're outside of the norm at any age, especially younger.

And I

school is an interesting topic because

I was very set on getting good grades, becoming a good student my first, you know, two years of high school, freshman, sophomore year.

And then I really decided like, you know, that's not the direction I want to go and that's not my path.

I want to trade stocks full-time, right?

And so, you find a way, whatever you are passionate about, and that's the thing.

I'm passionate about trading.

And if you're not passionate about something, I don't think you're going to find success in it.

You have to love it, you have to eat, sleep, and breathe it.

And that's all it was for me.

And people look at where I am now and they don't see the years it took and the failures to get to where I am.

Yeah, you started at 13.

It's been what eight years?

Yeah, 14, 15.

So seven, seven and a half years, halfway through 2023.

Now, it's

like I tell anyone: if you're looking to find success in anything you do,

find someone that you look up to.

Don't mimic or copy them,

but use that as inspiration and motivation.

So I had

motivational people in the trading space that I was looking toward, who I wanted to become and become more like.

So who are like the goats of the stock trading space?

Yeah, so Chris Cady,

Chris is late 60s, not to age him.

really nice guy, Chris Cady.

He traded on Wall Street for 43 years on the floor of the exchange.

I actually was in New York this fall.

I met Chris in person, and he was someone I looked up to as just, you know, this trader who had been in the game forever.

And, you know, he really made this his life's purpose to, you know, continue finding success, you know, every decade in the market.

Steve Hawkins, creator of Market Profile, another, you know, very genius figure who I got to talk with, network with.

And not that I trade like either of them, but it's just surrounding yourself with other people who are doing better than you.

Right.

And that's with anything in life.

Find people who you look up to, who are doing better than you.

Meet them, network, surround yourself with them, their mentalities, their mindsets, and take what you can and implement that into your own trading or whatever mindset.

Yeah.

So I don't know the exact percentage statistically behind this, but why do you think a lot of people lose money on stocks?

So, trading is one of the most difficult jobs

in the world.

It's also one of the best jobs in the world.

And I think a lot of people lose money, and that is because they either have the wrong guidance, as you know, there's a lot of fluff, a lot of BS.

I don't know if you can swear on your guy.

There's a lot of on YouTube.

There's a lot of gurus.

I've even been called a guru.

And

finding that person out there in all the noise who can show the results, prove they're profitable.

You want to find a mentor who's actually successful in what he's doing, and you need a way to like for them to prove that and for you to see that.

So a lot of people just go down the rabbit hole of YouTube, follow the wrong people, buy the wrong courses, what have you.

And then the learning curve to trading, for some people, it could take five years.

I think the average is probably between two to three years to really become consistently profitable.

And most people just give up.

That's it.

Most people give up or they blow up their account.

They don't have any more capital.

You can only blow up your account so many times and refund your account so many times before you're like, I don't have any more money.

I'm going to go try something else.

Drop shipping, what have you.

Yeah.

So what about paper trading accounts?

Do you recommend people start there?

I do.

And it's funny.

Like, I, you know, I used to not be a huge fan of paper trading.

And the one reason is because there's no emotional aspect involved in trading psychology being one of those three parts of trading.

You need to learn how to manage emotion.

And so you don't have that when you're paper trading, but you can learn the basic skills and kind of go through those.

like something as simple as uh instead of uh buying a call you sell a call or you close the position by accident or you just learn those basic things paper trading yeah it's gonna save you money right like you're gonna lose money either way but you're gonna save yourself some money if you hop into a simulated market and trade with you know paper money absolutely so with all the fluff out there how can someone navigate these landmines and become a better trader is is is it worth buying a course and following these signal groups yeah so that's a good question.

And the one thing with signal groups,

and kind of my opinion on this, I was just making a YouTube video about this the other day.

It's like, if you pay for, I think Benzinga has like a signals group.

There's individual people who have gathered a bunch of traders together to post their trades.

So say there's like five or ten traders in a signals group.

The problem is that even if you enter every single trader's trade, so they post their entries, they post their exits across 10 different traders, trading different strategies.

You enter all of their trades throughout an entire trading year.

The chances that at the end of the year, those 10 traders together will actually be consistently profitable.

All of their trades combined, it could be 100, 200 trades, extremely unlikely.

More than likely, you will not even be able to get in on every single, you know, alert that is, you know, posted in that group.

Right.

You, you know, you get, you get in on one alert, you miss two, you end up, you know, you see the ratios.

Everything comes down to a science, especially when it comes to risk management, which I keep saying a lot because risk management is vital in becoming consistently profitable.

And so there's just this huge lack and misunderstanding in how to actually trade.

And it becomes this follow-the-herd kind of sheep, just

cattle ranching.

Everyone's just following this one guy or multiple people.

And you miss out on, well, learning the actual lifelong skill of trading.

Right, because you're not actually learning anything.

You're not learning anything.

You're just blindly following someone.

And obviously, like what I do is I post my personal trades.

I didn't do that to start an alerts group.

And when I, like, starting this company, The Daily Traders was totally on accident.

I posted a couple videos on TikTok because I'm trading.

It's something I enjoy.

I thought some other people might find this interesting.

I ended up blowing up on TikTok and, you know, friends, family were asking me to teach them how to trade, taught my dad, my siblings how to trade.

And I just ran out of time and I'm like, this is not, you know, I need to focus on my own trading.

I need to focus on other ventures outside of just trading because I'm very entrepreneurial, always have been.

And so my mom actually was like, Why don't you just create a course?

And the word course, you kind of think, Oh, guru, like, oh, you create a course, oh, you'll be a trading guru.

So, I'm like, What if I can prove to everyone that their mentor that they invest into is actually consistently profitable?

So, I'm like, I'll just show my trades, I'll post my trades, I'll show my entries and my exits, and people can follow along if they, you know, so desire.

Um, I don't have any series licenses, I'm not a financial advisor, I can just share with people what I'm doing.

But then I also think it's important to learn that lifelong skill of trading.

Like, it is a skill that you you could have for the rest of your life.

You'll never have to work a nine-to-five if you learn how to trade.

So I did put together a course just to teach people that exact system that I use to find and execute upon these trades.

That's cool.

Is trading a recession-proof skill, you think?

Yeah, it depends on how you trade.

And so last year, I don't know the exact number, so I don't want to spin anything out.

I trade both calls and puts, long and short.

So the market's going up, I can make money.

Markets going down, I can make money.

That's the thing.

If you know different strategies or within my system, I have different setups where I can go long or short on a chart.

So even if we're in a bear market, in a recession, I can still capitalize on that and still make money.

Wow.

And, you know, more volatile markets obviously create more uncertainty.

Yeah.

If you get caught on the wrong side of a move, you could totally get screwed.

But that volatility can also, you know, more risk, more reward.

You can make more money on that volatility if you're caught on the right side of that.

But being able to play either direction and switch that bias quickly and have like systems in place where you can switch that bias and go from long to short on a chart based off what the technicals are telling you or what my software tells me.

That's just going to open up the world of possibility where the market could be totally for five years and I could still make money.

Wow.

So you switch your positions like mid-trade?

Not so the way I trade is I could trade one ticker one week and be long and the next week I'm short.

Oh, wow.

My actual, so right now my trading volume and volume is, I mean, the trades I'm putting on, the amount of trades I'm putting on, I'm only putting on a trade or two a week.

I'm not sitting there, like I said, all day and trading because I don't day trade, I swing trade.

And you only need a couple good trades a week.

You can still make 100K a month just with a couple good trades.

And I trade with 500K right now.

And when it comes to paying yourself as a trader, it's you know, something you have to figure out how you want to go about doing that.

Some people like scaling their accounts.

Say you start the year with 10,000, 100,000, and you increase your position size, you scale that account, managing risk.

Some people like starting the year with that initial value, say whatever, 500,000 in in my case, and then you know, say I'm up 530,000 off of that initial value at the end of the month or at the end of the week, then I'll pay myself.

So I keep my account balance around 500,000.

I can show you my account, actually, if you want to see.

That's cool.

And then how are the taxes determined from that?

So it depends if you're trading under an entity or not.

Obviously, I have a really good accountant, very fortunate.

I found him three or four years ago.

And so capital gains taxes are brutal.

There are only so many things you can deduct if you're trading under an entity.

So your monitor setup, like I have, well, my old office in Portland, I'm in Malibu now, but my old office, I had this crazy setup, like seven, eight screens, desks, chairs, like $10,000 set up.

And I could deduct that because I'm trading under an entity.

You know, you just have to figure out how you find the right CPA that can really give you the right direction on how to, you know,

yeah, I'd love to see your account and like the year gains or whatever.

Yeah, so this is, let's see, I'm in a position right now.

I called out inside my mentorship group last week on Apple.

Yeah.

So I'm short on Apple.

And you keep them open for a week, you said?

So my average hold period or my swing period is

between three to five days.

So, you know, I might get stuck holding Apple for

I might get stuck holding Apple for a week or two.

But when it comes to options, you have to choose the expiration date of a contract.

And so, like, I'm buying contracts that expire six, seven, eight months out.

I'm giving myself that flexibility or that room to hold a trade a week or two if I have to, but preferably like the optimal trade is going to be within three to five days that I'm closing that position.

And I'll have max two trades on at once.

You know, most of the time I'll have one trade on.

Wow.

So you stay very focused on one or two a week.

One or two a week.

And, you know, I've seen people that I've worked with that have 20 trades on at once.

And it's like, I don't know how anyone can manage that many trades.

Yeah, that sounds like he'd be up all day, all night, like watching them.

Yeah, and it's like you have 10 trades on, you know, maybe you're up on five, down on five, you know, they're kind of just gonna offset each other and kind of being just flat.

So just focusing on one or two really solid trades that A-plus setup,

that's what's worked for me.

Yeah.

So trading a little less size right now, because the market has been very difficult this last six months, this year so far.

I've been trading less volume, like putting on less positions, just being a little more conservative until market conditions become a little easier to trade.

We've seen a lot of chop, a lot of volatility, just being more conservative.

Last year, I think people think that you have to each year have a bigger year trading, and that's not the case.

I was talking with this trader, he was actually on our podcast, and he made 6.8 million in 2021, 2022, he made 1.1 million.

And he's like, yeah, you don't have to have a bigger year each year.

Right?

The market's going to present different opportunities.

It's whatever the market presents you is whatever you're going to make.

And focusing on that end goal, that year, like, don't look at the week outlook, the month outlook, look at the end of the year year outlook.

And that's why it's like if you have a bad trade

in the long run, you look at the end of the year and you look at your equity curve and you see that you'll be up at the end of the year if you continue following the same system that you have in place with that same win rate, with that same risk to reward.

Right, you got to stay disciplined, locked in.

It's super like trading, you have to be so disciplined.

One of the things you have to be really disciplined in is journaling, keeping track of as much data as you possibly can.

And it could be something as simple as you know, you log your last 50 trades, what have you, And you see, you know, I've won 80% of the calls I've taken and I've lost 45% of the puts I've taken.

So now I'm just going to go long.

I'm just going to trade calls.

I'm not going to trade puts.

Now you just become that much more profitable.

Actually, spending the time to journal and log your trades, your entries, your exits, as much trade data as you can, it's going to help you maximize and kind of squeeze the most out of your trading system.

Wow, that's smart.

It's so simple and people don't do that.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, I mean, everyone's busy.

We all have our lives, you know,

work, what have you.

It's hard to set aside that time to do so.

But if you want to become consistently profitable, that's something you have to do.

Yeah.

So talk to me about risk analysis, because your first few years trading, you probably have a lot of anxiety, a lot of emotions.

Yeah, yeah.

So from an emotional standpoint, like I said, you get better at dealing with losses.

You realize that, you know,

that's part of the game, like I said.

And I think one of the things that's helped me is a tool.

It's Tilt or the Tilt Meter.

Tilt originated from a gambling term and it's when you get very emotional in your decision-making process so I have a way to kind of track or log my emotions so I can become more emotionally aware of myself as a trader so if I see you know my tilt starts going into the red it starts going negative hey maybe I should sit out of the market take a couple days off take a week off or say there's something like you know like I'm moving because I moved from Maine to Malibu

two months ago now two and a half months ago and I knew I was gonna be super busy there's gonna be a lot of you know stuff going on outside of my trading world, a lot of distractions that would you know more than likely have an effect on my decision-making process.

Right, my tilt would probably go negative.

So, I just sat out the week.

I didn't trade the week, and you have to realize, like, you don't have to trade every week.

That's really hard for people to do, especially when you're starting out and you don't have a big bankroll.

Obviously, the more capital you have, the more money you have in the bank.

It gives you, you know, more of an ease.

Like, oh, I don't have to make money, but that's the problem.

Most people think, you know, because you don't get a paycheck trading, you're not getting that paycheck like you you would in a normal job like i got to get a trade-on so i can make money right when that's like the opposite mentality that you should have wow that's so cool yeah i get tilted during chess and i notice i play way worse when i'm tilted yeah like way worse yeah exactly and so it's just anything like that like keeping track of your tilt just becoming more emotionally aware and more emotionally mature i think and that comes with time Obviously, you get more mature as a trader.

Yeah.

So, you know, doing this year over year.

And then when you build up that track record of consistent profitability, you can look back at your last year, you know, last six months, and you see, hey, you know, I'm going through a little red spell right now.

I'm not doing that well, but I have a system that, you know, I'm sticking to, and I know that I'm going to be green at the end of this year.

Right.

So when the market crashed a year or two ago, you were able to basically adapt.

Like, yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I have and always have had setups that I can play either direction of the market, whatever bias that may be and so you know I did pretty well I was more conservative because

you know you get short and then you end up getting squeezed it all comes down to like if you set your levels you have your stop loss your take profit you hit that target whether you're making money or losing money you're out and that's the problem most people end up holding their trades beyond where they should have and it's

human psychology I think we're kind of you know our the way we think about things and most people get into trading think as soon as they're they're green, you get this like urgency when you when you see that money, you're up.

Oh, I should, I should lock in profit.

I should take this capital that I just made.

And then when you're red, everyone thinks, oh, it's going to come back.

Don't worry, I'm going to make money on this trade.

So people end up letting their losers bleed out,

more than likely blowing up their account.

When again, that's like the reverse psychological way you should approach things.

So yeah, dip.

I was able to do well because I could play either direction, play, you know, that pullback and then that retracement back up to

that was a very emotional time for a lot of people, so it'd be hard to stay disciplined during that.

Yeah, I mean super hard.

And I mean, you said you traded a bit, crypto.

Yeah.

And that's how I got started.

And so like long term, I'm very, like, my...

My bias and outlook on Bitcoin has shifted over the last couple of years.

I used to be, I'm still a Bitcoin fan.

I like Bitcoin, right?

And I got stocks now.

Lost my shares.

Bitcoin.

Oh, Bitcoin.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anyway, my long-term outlook on Bitcoin, you know, I still believe in Bitcoin.

I think we'll get back up there to 100K plus.

I ended up selling kind of as we came off that high at 67.

Nice.

I didn't sell the top.

I can't sell.

67 is still pretty good.

I didn't sell 67.

I sold like 45.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, like a lot of Bitcoin that I was holding.

Okay.

You bought it at what price?

Because when I was trading Bitcoin, it was just around a couple thousand bucks.

Oh, so you made up huge.

And so I did pretty well.

I mean, I kind of sold on the way up and then really got rid of mostly everything around 45, 46.

I mean, at that point, you're not going to 10x.

You know what I mean?

So I like your strategy, to be honest.

Yeah, long-term investments like, I don't know, Roth IRAs,

anything like that, even though I was told by people like, you know, max your Roth, you know, put whatever 6,000 in a year.

Like I've always been in the mentality, like, I don't want to be rich or wealthy when I'm 50, 60.

right I want that now but there's also a problem with many traders where it's like

you know you everyone thinks training is a get rich quick scheme yeah you enter market people enter markets uh with this you know idea that you're gonna become a millionaire within that year

or in the next two years

you know my and most people should realize like the success I've had is not typical that's not usual

and people see like

anyone in this space this trading space or any anything that you can do making money online all these you know influencers everyone looks at them and is like wow they're they're doing really well and and then that becomes like the norm in people's heads and so like one guy makes four thousand a month and then looks at someone like me you know who makes a hundred thousand a month and is like I'm the same age I should be doing just as well and then they end up getting down on themselves right and you know thinking they're not as good as the other person and that's not the case everyone has their own journey uh trading there's no right or wrong there's a a million ways to trade.

Everyone's opinion, there's always going to be a reverse opinion on someone else's opinion.

For sure.

So, and that's what I've realized is really cool.

And speaking with traders, I was at this big summit in Miami

and speaking with some really big traders who are way bigger than myself.

Like one of this guy, one of these guys, he made like $860,000 in a day.

Jeez.

And

there are similarities and correlations when it comes to, you know, the mindset behind what it takes to become a profitable trader.

But how he he trades,

I don't get how you make money doing that.

It doesn't make sense to me, but clearly he's doing well.

And so it's just whenever I hear someone tell me how they trade,

and most people are skeptical.

If someone's like, oh, I made 160K in a day trading.

Maybe it's because they haven't had that big of a day.

I haven't had 160K a day.

But people find ways to make money that you would think were not even possible in the market.

100%.

There's always different opinions, different strategies for sure.

Yeah, million strategies.

And that's what makes trading so cool.

Absolutely.

There's no rules.

Absolutely no rules.

And I always hated following rules like in school.

Yeah, I didn't do well in school either.

Any group activities, I'm like, no, I'm not doing that.

I just don't, I didn't like feeling like I was like everyone else.

Not that I feel like I'm not special.

I'm not different.

I just am determined.

I'm motivated.

I'm driven.

I sacrificed a lot to get to where I am.

And you need that level of discipline and sacrifice.

and I was talking with my friend who I who I met up with and you know he's like dude you just disappeared for like three years like I don't think people realize like I literally cut everyone in my life out like all my friends like I might have been in touch with like one or two people I was just focusing on you know trading and building this company and yeah like nothing else mattered to me that was it you know sacrificing you know the basics like oh video games Netflix I was never really into video games but family friends yeah parties that didn't interest me what interested me was well making money i actually i have a dollar sign tattoo not many people know that it's here so i can't show you but it's just i i think it's it's not even the money that motivates me it's just waking up every morning and having a purpose and a passion the second you wake up you know exactly what you're gonna do that day and and

setting goals and engraving things into your mind where I would literally write down like I am a millionaire.

I am a millionaire.

I am a millionaire.

I'd say it.

I'd write it down over and over and over in this journal.

And you say things in the tense that you already are that.

I said that right.

You don't say, I will be a millionaire.

You say, I am a millionaire.

And so a lot of those, you know, visualization kind of...

The more you can drive something into your mind, you believe it's true, it's possible, and it'll happen.

100% manifestation.

Yeah, exactly.

So you became a millionaire at 19.

What was that like?

Because that's a lot of people's dream, and you achieved that as a teenager.

What was that like?

I think I hit a point where I was like, wow, I can buy almost everything, anything I want, like not a yacht or a jet, right?

Yeah.

But, you know, I could buy some nice supercars.

I could go into a store and buy, you know, whatever I want.

And that,

I had to experience that kind of, it's a, it's a maturity that comes with, a maturity that comes with when you make a lot of money, you kind of just go on this craze of spending and walking into stores and dropping thousands of dollars on clothes and i was i was in the hamptons and i went into the store and there's this jacket i'm like oh i like that jacket i you know i don't look at price tags i just picked up the jacket they ran it oh three thousand dollars i'm like okay but now i'm becoming more emotionally you know mature when it comes to money Where it's like, I think money, the value of money, I totally lost.

I didn't have any sense of how much $1,000 was worth.

That's when I became a millionaire, realizing that, well, I have so so much money and the value of money means nothing I can make money so easily and so fast it doesn't mean anything to me right and I feel like if I had if I hadn't shifted kind of my mindset and realized like oh you know there is a value to money

I could have gone down that rabbit hole of you know wearing all this gold like I have a nice watch but wearing all these golden chains and that really don't matter right like I have this is a $20,000 watch I let I always want a Rolex I bought a Rolex when I hit a certain goal yeah a certain amount of money that I made in a month and so so setting goals,

however you can do it, I had like a

kind of like a little pictionnaire or whatever where I had like car, watch, this, this.

At each point I hit a goal, I'd get that thing to reward myself, to show myself and really see and realize how far I'd come.

Because you look at a million dollars in your bank account, 500,000 in your trading account.

It depends on what you do with that money.

Some people misuse it.

Some people go out and party, go to clubs, can blow 20,000 in the night at a club.

And I think think that's just that's stupid and i don't ever want to become that person nice yeah but if if i didn't really if i didn't realize that like earlier on maybe i would be there now maybe i'd be going in and a lot of people go through that when they come into some money they just start spending crazy yeah yeah exactly mark what's next for you man well you know i think this software um that i've been trading on privately for years now, I'm just almost about to launch it, which is, you know, it's something that I've had this conversation with my advisors where we could take this software, turn it into a hedge fund because of the profitability factor.

So, I'm launching it privately to some people inside my group, just like kind of beginner user access.

I don't know where that's gonna take me.

I think I could either turn this software into a hedge fund or you know, a nine-figure software company.

Wow, so I'm very excited for that.

Yeah, I can't wait to see where you go with that, man.

Yeah, any closing comments?

You know, anything, yeah, I was gonna say some really cliche, like inspirational thing, but um, I mean,

like, if I could do it, anyone can do it, right?

It's true, it's like there's nothing holding anyone back, it doesn't matter where you come from, uh, you can come from no money, you can learn how to do it.

You came from Maine, right?

Yeah, that's wild, like, middle of nowhere.

That's nuts, man.

Mark, it's been a pleasure.

Thanks for coming on, man.

Thanks for watching, guys.

Digital social hour.

I'll see you next time.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.