May The Force Be With You

Good morning. I come to you today full of energy and full of ideas. Inspiration finds us in many ways — for me, it has happened again and I stand before you, my good friend, hoping to share some of that energy.

The markets have worked quite perfectly this year. They have slowly extracted our patience and hope. Crypto topped in March and chopped for 7 months. Now it may be bottoming, forcing us to decide if we want to take yet another risk into the abyss of trading, putting our capital and emotion on the line, testing our limits of pain so that we may find the ecstasy of winning.

This is the game of our lives. What should I risk? Is it worth it?

Every day that goes by we face more risks. We take risks with our money, our relationships and our futures. Every time you get into a car, you’re taking a risk. Each time you drink a beer or buy a meme coin. Every date you go on, every post you make on X dot com.

Everything has some level of risk. The key is to minimize your drawdowns and maximize your upside. As you get older, you realize what this means. It’s not some platitude that was made up to sound smart — it’s the cold, hard truth.

You see, the upside that comes from risk is fleeting. It’s a euphoria that lasts a few months if you’re lucky. Even if you 10x your net worth or fly to the Maldives or find your life partner — your upside will fade. To maintain that upside, you need to keep taking risks, hopefully compounding wins to create happiness.

While the upside can feel good, the downside can last a lifetime. A severe drawdown can permanently damage people financially and emotionally. It can take years to come back from. The human brain cannot process pain the way it processes pleasure. We are survival based animals — after a while we will simply avoid risk to stay away from the pain of our past experiences…and to avoid the pain of repeating those mistakes.

In markets I have experienced this. I don’t trade crypto much because I can’t handle the drawdowns that come from it. I’m very self aware, resilient and able to handle a lot in life. But it’s just not worth it anymore. It’s too much to watch your portfolio swing 40% lower and feed on the cortisol 24hrs a day.

In the rest of my life the same thing has happened. I don’t take risks like I used to. I’m more calculated in almost everything. I don’t dream of 400% gains in a weekend — I dream of peace and good sleep. Call me a boomer all you want, I could not care less. Life will get you too, young sensei. Just wait.

But this past weekend I had an experience that made me remember just how important that upside can be. For me, it comes from meeting people. For you, it may come from financial gains. It’s all the same shit. It’s the equivalent of having an alt season after a long bear market.

It is the crisp bite of an apple in the fall, the deep breath that comes at the top of a mountain, the time warping peace that happens in a warm ocean. The click of a well made box.

What I realized is that, while it’s important to stay vigilant with our risk, we must maintain space for the upside to happen. We must continue to believe it’s possible and will happen. We must keep the faith.

It’s easy to get jaded about life these days. Sometimes I look around and all I see is bullshit — dystopian technologies and broken people running society at large, a future that’s been stripped by thousands of greedy termites. I find myself retreating back to the corner, away from the noise and away from the dark magic of life. Fuck this, I think.

But then lightning strikes. And I realize that God has been with me all this time. Or maybe it’s The Force. Or nature. Or whatever you want to call it. Some mysterious, wonderful energy that has been watching me this whole time, loving me, protecting me.

And it reminds me that there is so much fucking good in this world it hurts to think about. There is so much worth fighting for. There is so much to give and so much to share. There is simply no limit to our abundance.

If that sort of message bothers you or sounds ridiculous, I would encourage you to examine why. Because for many years I dismissed this as sort of woo-woo quasi-religious bullshit and stayed rational. The right hemisphere of the the brain was mostly a pain in the ass, getting in the way of my efficient, calculating left hemisphere.

It’s a lonely place to be. And no matter how much money I made or how many sick trips I went on or how many amazing experiences I had, it was never enough. I never felt complete. I never felt like I had arrived. I would do what most men in crypto do — suffer silently behind a screen, grasping for one final trade that brings me home.

It doesn’t have to be like this man. It doesn’t have to be like this.

What I have learned this year is that no matter how bad it gets, no matter how hard or dire things may seem, we must never give up hope. Faith will save you, my brother.

And I don’t mean religion or going to church or whatever. I mean that you must learn to abandon disbelief and choose the light. You must choose to believe that something bigger is at work each day to help you out of this god forsaken business and bring you out of the trenches of Telegram and closer to The Truth.

As Napoleon Hill said - “Faith is the only known antidote for failure.”

Now, this doesn’t mean you can give up responsibility. In fact, just the opposite. Taking action and owning your life is precisely the way to unlock this energy.

But you must learn to believe in something. You MUST believe that The Force has your back even if you feel like you will never get ahead in this world.

That doesn’t mean you should blindly believe you’ll get rich or that alt season is coming. Or that having $50M is going to appear in your bank account at some point.

It means that you must make the decision each day that things WILL work out for you. That your life is beautiful and you deserve to be happy. The rest will fall into place.

I know how hard the markets are. Lord knows how much trading and investing has taken a toll on me. I stand with you in our collective desire to win, to prove ourselves, to see through the matrix and to enter Valhalla.

I know how hard they have been this year and how the world feels bleaker than ever. You and me, brother. We’re in this together.

But today, this Monday morning, I’m trying to remind you that amazing things are still possible and can happen. I’m trying to inject a bit of hope into your narrow, focused world. I want to hug you or give you a high five or do whatever I need to do so that you feel the magic again.

The coming months are going to be absolutely wild in crypto, markets, politics and life. Remember that no matter how good or how bad it gets, you have an angel with you, protecting you.

Work hard, execute your edge, be kind and do everything you can to stay positive. There is no alternative.

May the Force be with you.