Transcript

Clay: This is The Stock Trading Reality Podcast, episode 236.
Announcer: This is The Stock Trading Reality Podcast, where you get to see the realistic side of a trader’s journey. Get inspired and stay motivated by everyday, normal people who are currently on their journey to trading success. And this is your host, do you know how to pronounce tsunami, because he can’t, ClayTrader.
Clay: Now, I’m very curious. How did the announcer guy do? Did he get it right, or did he screw it up? I don’t even… Should I check? Tsunami. I think that’s how you’re supposed to say it, but I say it, or I said it tusami, and boy oh boy, did I get the grief around the campfire several weeks ago out camping with friends, and it was a great time. Everybody took our families out. There was kids running all over the place. It was mass chaos, but in a good type of way. And we’re sitting around the campfire and I don’t even know, something came up and I said tusami, and they all looked at me like…
Clay: Now, they weren’t really shocked because my friend group, they know that I’m a moron and I can’t really pronounce that many words. As long-time listeners too, I’m sure you’ve realized that I’m not good at pronouncing words, but yeah. Tusami definitely got me. It’s tsunami in case you’re wondering. If we have any like linguistic people here, oh the irony. I can’t even say that. But if you understand the origin of words, do you have any idea why there is a T in that word? I don’t know. I’m looking at it right now. It just… If there was no T, then sunami, that makes perfect sense. So if you’re like an expert in language, please… And I’m actually kind of being relatively serious, if you know, I actually want to know, what’s the history of the T being in the word of tsunami. But yeah, so do you know how to pronounce it? If not, I guess we just got our little speech lesson there because yeah, I can now, but if it was the heat of the moment, I could definitely see myself just going back to the tusami.
Clay: But it is what it is, and needless to say, the remainder of that camping trip, it was thrown in my face viciously, but that’s why I like my group of friends because we just give… That’s just… I think that might be how we bond. We just beat each other up over our mistakes. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but it works for our friend dynamic. So it is what it is.
Clay: Well, I am super excited to bring this… if you’re maybe new or I always record these after the actual interview, so I can say with full certainty that great, great interview. Very, very motivating. We are talking with Leon, but he goes by Blew. In the chatroom, B-L-E-W. And he’s a guy that… He motivated me. He got me fired up. He inspired we. We’re cut from the same cloth in many ways. The guy is just a flat out hustler and grinder. He’s out there just doing what he needs to do.
Clay: A little spoiler alert, the guy had a stroke, but like I said spoiler alert, he then went on to say, “Yeah, that stroke was actually a good thing,” which, I mean… Talk about one instant where, you know, I’m not a big fan of excuses, but I could see somebody throwing up the card and be like, “Hey, cut me some slack. I had a stroke,” and I’d be like, “Okay. I get that.” But no, Leon was like, “Yeah. I had a stroke. It was a good thing.” And I’ll just leave it at that, but that’s kind of the guy Leon is. He just gets out there, does it, and he’s doing well, and he walks you through the journey of the ups and downs and how he’s gotten to where he is right now.
Clay: Another little spoiler, the guy’s account is growing. He’s doing well, and he’s got… He’s taking it day by day, but there are definitely some things that I can relate to, and I’m very confident there’s going to be at least a few little bits of info that you’ll be able to pick up there, and maybe not necessarily relate to, but just keep in mind as you progress down your journey. So with that being said, let’s get to hearing from Leon, or as I refer to him, as Blew.
Clay: Leon, welcome to the show.
Blue: What’s going on, Clay?
Clay: Now, I’m a little torn. Do you want me to call you Leon, or do you want me to call you Blew? Because in my mind, you’re just Blew. B-L-E-W. But I’ll call you whatever you’re going to best respond to, so what do you want me to refer to as?
Blue: Blew is fine.
Clay: All right. Cool. I’m pretty excited about this because you’re very intriguing. You’ve been a member for at least a couple years, haven’t you?
Blue: It’s almost been two years. I joined in January 2018.
Clay: All right. So that makes sense because you’re in the chatroom, and then you’re kind of gone, and then you’re in the chatroom, and you’re kind of gone. Or, I don’t know, maybe you’re just lurking, but you’re one of those people that you’re always around but you’re not around. I don’t know how to quite… Does that make sense to you? Do you understand maybe where I’m coming from? Because sometimes you’re always participating and it’s great, and then other times, “Hey, where’d Blew go?” And then all of a sudden, Blew seems to be back. Am I crazy, or do you understand where I’m coming from here?
Blue: No, you’re not crazy. I just had a lot of stuff going on. So I still continue to trade the whole time. It’s just sometime I’m in the chatroom, sometime I’m not.
Clay: All right. Good. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t crazy. So, I’m glad that this isn’t like my imagination run wild. But I am actually very, very excited. And before I forget, I want to thank you for volunteering to do this. I did not have to pull your teeth. I asked. You were like, “Yeah, you know what? It’s probably about time.” So I really do appreciate that. It makes lining up guests so much easier when all you got to do is ask them one time, and they’re like, “Yeah. I’m going to step up to the plate,” so I’m looking forward to seeing where all this goes. So with that being said, let’s just start at the beginning.
Clay: Where did you hear about the markets? How did that kind of all play out, and what sort of things happened that made you decide, “You know what? I want to get a little bit more hands-on with this. I want to get a little bit more active within the markets?”
Blue: Well, when I was younger, and I worked at a company… I was like a helper for a driver, and he used to always talk about his 401K and how at the time he didn’t even have to work anymore because he had enough in his 401K, about like 45, to stop doing his job, but he just worked just to have something to do. So that’s when I found out. I was probably about 19. I’m 38 now. So, it came across my mind then, but I never knew how to look into it until 2014 when I was talking to one of my uncles. He’s real big on the market, but I never sat down and talked to him because I was a kid and growing up I was kind of scared of him. So I was talking to him. He talked me into buying my first house. And the company that I worked for, Warren Buffett actually is an investor to the company. So he said that was one of his favorite people in the world was Warren Buffett because of his whole investing thing. So that’s what kind of got me started into it because he started talking about him investing and… I knew he was well off as far as money goes, but I didn’t know how. And he started talking about his portfolio.
Clay: Did that cause the light bulb to go off from the 19-year old version of you, like, “Wait a second. I’ve heard this before?”
Blue: Yeah, it did. It actually did. And it made me start looking at stuff like dividends and mutual funds and stuff like that because he told me when I was talking to him, he said, “You got to find a way to make your money work for you instead of you working for your money.” So that was one of the biggest things that I took away from what he said.
Blue: And once I started… I started searching Google and everything, and then I started looking at YouTube videos, and I actually came across a stock trading video, a penny stock, but I don’t even know who the person was. And I kind of stared at him, and I was like, “No. Looks a little complicated.” So I just left it alone. And so then-
Clay: Not to interrupt you, but I always find it a little fascinating… First off, I’m assuming that, like you said, your uncle was… Well, first off, let me take another step back. I like your uncle a lot. If there’s no better advice, the key is to make your money work for you, not work for your money, so I don’t know if there’s any really truer advice out there when it comes to wealth building, so shout out to Blew’s uncle if he happens to listen to this. Second-
Blue: Oh, he passed away, so-
Clay: All right. Well, he left a good legacy it sounds like for you. But now I’m assuming that he talked strictly, because he mentioned his portfolio, so I would assume that he’s not sitting there saying, “Oh yeah. You got to do this swing trading or day trading stuff.” Is it safe to say he was just strictly an investor?
Blue: Yeah. That’s what he did. He was an investor. He invested. He collected his dividends. And I think he reinvested that for the most part because he didn’t have any kids, so him and his wife, all he had to take care of was them two. So I’m pretty sure that’s what he did. He just kept reinvesting. And he told my mom once about a $30,000 hit he took in the market, and I’m guessing it had to do with the whole internet bubble that burst it, and he probably lost a lot then.
Clay: In his defense, he definitely wasn’t alone. So this brings my whole question full circle here. He was an investor in telling you about investing, so what in the world were you searching for on Google, what in the world were you searching for on YouTube that brought you to a penny stock? Do you remember any of those early searches? I can understand if he was like, “Oh yeah. You got to do day trading,” so all of a sudden, you’re talking about day trading. But how did you go from kind of a mentality of dividends and portfolios and investing, and then end up on a penny stock? Do you remember any of those early searches, because it’s always kind of fun to reflect back on some of those first things that people look for when they were doing their “research?”
Blue: After I searched for dividends and stuff like that, I kind of was trying to look at the stock market because I started looked for ways that I could put money into the stock market, but… and a video just popped up with somebody trading with candlesticks, and once I saw that, it was like, “Okay. I don’t understand this.” Click. I cut it off.
Blue: So it’s crazy because it took a couple years before I actually went back to it again, and that’s because I ran across somebody on Facebook who was a little young guy who had his own little Facebook group chat, and I ended up jumping in to his group chat and started seeing him trade, but he traded DGAZ and UGAZ, and you’ve probably seen him on YouTube too before. He a really young guy from Texas.
Blue: But I started following him and then, that’s what really got me into it. And I ended up going and putting some money in Robinhood because they started talking about Robinhood and how it was, you can trade for free. But they didn’t say nothing about the PDT.
Clay: Oh, yes. The good all PDT. Just to take a quick step back, you mentioned you ended up on the video and there was candlesticks, and you’re like, “What what?” And then you just clicked it off. And then it sounds like a couple years passed. Is that accurate?
Blue: Yeah, because it was 2014 that I started looking for all that stuff, and then in 2000… What’s that? 2017 in the summer is when I actually started looking at… I think I looked it up again because I was-
Clay: Really my question is what all of a sudden brought you back into the markets, because you saw a video, and click off. A couple years passes. So why did you start looking again? Was it something… Did you talk to somebody else, or how did all that come about?
Blue: Well, it was mainly just to find a way to make extra money, so I started looking around. Because I… before I was working, I always worked, and I always have something extra to do on the side, whether it was selling DVDs, CDs, selling food, selling something out of some kind of catalog. But because I’m a truck driver and I’m out over the road and stuff for days at a time, it was like I can’t figure out a way to make extra money. And I started looking back into the stock market off of that just because I was looking for ways to try to make some extra cash on the side.
Clay: All right. Cool. Well, we’re going to get to that in a second, but I can’t resist me a good side hustle, somebody that’s grinding, somebody that’s making it happen. So, you’re out there hustling DVDs, CDs. How did the business model work? Was it just that you find cheap CDs and then just mark them up a little bit, or what… Because I’m fascinated by this because… You’re a good example of, you know sometimes you just got to get out there, roll up your sleeves, and get it done. So, I don’t need the in-depth business plan, but talk a little bit more about this side hustle, because that’s the name of the game.
Blue: Well, I used to work in a warehouse, and I knew everybody in there. They would walk to the store, and that’s where I started doing little stuff to try to make some money because they… I was also… what is the… a loan shark too, like a little loan shark because the people at my job would need extra money, so I would loan them, charge them extra money to loan them money.
Clay: I love it, man. Did you carry around a baseball bat and stuff too just in case you had to break any kneecaps, or-
Blue: No. I had people that worked there with me like my father and my stepmother. We all worked together. And my dad actually the one who got me into doing it because he did it.
Clay: That’s awesome. I’m assuming that you were pretty good with your money then growing up. If you had money to loan out, I would assume that you were not out there just frivolously spending it and all that. Is that a safe assumption?
Blue: No. I was broke. I grew up poor.
Clay: You were… All right. Well, then we got to talk. So how were you loaning out… Now I’m very fascinated.
Blue: At that time, I was working. But I grew up poor, so I didn’t know nothing about money. I was really ignorant to it. So it was like, when I get it just spend it. And when I got a little older and started working, it was like, okay, why don’t I just try to use some of my money to make some extra money, whether I buy food, because I was buying food for the place so they didn’t have to walk to the store, to sell it to them while we was at work. I was the loan shark. I would burn CDs. I’d tell people to write out a list of songs that they want, and I would go search for them and find them and burn them onto one CD so I could sell it to them.
Clay: Like Napster? Napster style?
Blue: Yeah. Yeah.
Clay: I don’t know if I told this story, but I… Man we’re cut from… Blew, man, I like you that much more. I straight up did the same thing. I remember the dial-up internet, having to burn CDs from Napster, and then the regulatory authorities shut me down, a.k. my dad was like “Clay, you can’t do that. Stop.” But I’m like, “All right. Fine.” So yeah, the regulatory authorities got me with my Napster CD burning days. But I still remember that. I did it at work, people would show up, because I invested into the CD burner back in the day, and they’d be like, “All right, here’s my playlist of songs.” So then you-
Blue: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Clay: Yeah, man. So man. Blew, I like you, man. We’re just… Now, I can’t say I was ever a loan shark back then, but that’s awesome, man.
Clay: Now, did I understand that right? You would go to the store and buy food so that you could sell it to people just because that way they didn’t have to go to the store themselves? Did I understand that business model right?
Blue: Yeah. They would go to the corner gas station and stuff like that on breaks, so instead of them going to the store on breaks, I just went on ahead and started buying like pops, can pops, and sodas, that some people call it sodas. But can pop, sodas, chips, doughnuts, snack cakes, and stuff like that. But I would buy them in bulk, and then I’d come in there and I’d sell them to them and make a profit off of them because I ran the warehouse and I would just go out around to all of the stations trying to see if anybody wanted anything.
Clay: Man, you’re flat out hustling. Out of curiosity, where are you from geographically?
Blue: Cincinnati, Ohio.
Clay: So that makes sense why you’d call it pop. As a fellow, former Ohioan, yeah, we call it pop there in the Midwest. Because most people, it’s like, “Wait a second. He calls it pop too? He’s got to be somewhere in the Midwest.”
Clay: All right, man. I got to bring us back on track because I feel like we could do this whole podcast on just the hustling, making it happen. But in all seriousness, listeners, this is what it’s all about. You just got to like the hustle. You got to like, you just got to like to grind and get out there because yeah, there’s general frameworks to trading that you need to follow, and there’s definitely general rules that you need to follow, but really when you boil it all down, you just got to get out there, hustle, grind, find a strategy, build a strategy that works for you. So that’s why I’m always so fascinated by these situations because it’s just, Blew’s out there. You’re my boy, Blew. Have you seen Old School, Blew?
Blue: I know what you’re talking about.
Clay: All right. I’m probably not the first person to ever say that to you. I don’t think I’m really that original. But, yeah man. That’s motivating stuff. You got me fired up right now. But, all right. Let’s bring it back to trading.
Clay: So you stepped away, like you said, and then you… I asked, “What brought you back?” And you’re like, “Well, what brought me back was I was in hustling mode. I was looking to make more money.” And then you said you stumbled across that Facebook group, and it sounds like that’s what led you to the Robinhood account. Hey, why not? Robinhood. That’s great. There’s no fees. But then the pattern day trading rule. So that’s where you left off. So pick it back up from your Robinhood account and then not even realizing about the PDT rule.
Blue: When I joined the room, I don’t even know where I got the first stock from. I don’t even know… what I traded. I just know that he would tell you that to do your own due diligence on stocks. Don’t take his stocks that he trade because he got his own setups. Find out… look over some charts and see what you like, and then trade it like this.
Blue: I didn’t even know what… I was ignorant to charts, so I was just staring at the charts, and I said, “Okay. This look kind of fluid. So I think I want to try to take this trade.” It went in one of those spotty-looking charts. So I jumped in, and I only had $100 in my Robinhood account, so it was under $1 stock.
Blue: So as soon as I jumped in, my heart started beating fast, my hands started sweating, and I start freaking out like, “What am I doing? What’s going on?”
Clay: I like it.
Blue: So I was trying to find out how to get out. So I’m fumbling around with my phone, and I finally get out the stock with $1 loss, but I had to wipe my head off because I had sweat on it, and I was like, “Okay. Let me take a step back because I’m going to lose my mind.”
Clay: So you got in the stock, but you didn’t really know how to get out of it? You had to fumble around just to figure out how to… That’s a good story. That’s… I don’t think you’re necessarily the first person, but oh man, the stories we have when we first get started and you’re truly as dumb as dumb can be, but you just don’t know you’re dumb. I look at myself, hey, and I don’t even know what it was, 80 bucks, 100 bucks, and I don’t even remember what. 60 bucks in commissions, I’m paying 30 bucks to buy, 30 bucks. I don’t remember what it is because I’m using my Fifth Third Bank. You know Fifth Third Bank. I think they’re based out of Cincinnati, aren’t they?
Blue: Yeah.
Clay: Anyways, I’m using my Fifth Third Bank, oh my… Would you agree, Blew, that we are all morons when we first get started?
Blue: Yeah. I know I was.
Clay: Well, the key is the sooner you can admit that you’re a moron, that’s the sooner you’re going to start to get better because, oh man. So, I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing with you because that’s pretty good. You get in a stock, and then you don’t even know how to get out of it.
Clay: All right. Well, you’re breaking a sweat and you lost just $1, right? So your $100 account went down to $99, right?
Blue: Yeah, it went down to $99.
Clay: And that was just… So not a huge loss, but it sounds like just the idea that you realized pretty quickly, “Wait a second. I have no idea what’s going on. I just… “Literally beads of sweat formed, “and even though I just lost $1,” so very clearly, in that sense at least you’re pretty self-aware. So where did you go from that point? Did you hit the pause button, or how did things play out after that sweat-inducing experience?
Blue: The next day I think I had jumped in and out of trades two more times, and it was like super quick, and then got locked out of my account. So I said, “Okay. They won’t let me trade no more.” So I just pulled all my money out, and put it in a Fidelity account. And I’m thinking that the charge on there was like decent charge, and I didn’t even know about shorting or nothing like that. So everything I was trying to get in was anything that was going up. So then they locked me out too, and that’s when I found out about the PDT rule.
Blue: So I said, “Okay, now I need to talk to somebody about trading.” So the guy’s group that I was in ended up sending out a message in there asking if there was somebody who actually knows how to trade, who’s been trading for a while. At least two years. I thought that was long enough. So then a couple people responded saying, “Nobody that’s in here is a trader that’s been trading a while. Everybody’s beginner traders.” So I ended up leaving that group right after that. I said, “Okay. I need to find out how to trade.” And that’s when I got… really… I was already into my YouTube journey, but I went real hard with just looking at everything I could on YouTube, and I came across one of your videos.
Blue: And it kind of made me mad because at the end of the video you said, “If you like… ” You basically was saying, “If you like what you see here, I have a… I have my courses,” and I went to look at your courses, and I said, “Oh, he trying to hustle me.”
Clay: From one hustler to another, I mean, you got to respect the game, though. Right?
Blue: Yeah. So I was like, “Okay, I’m not paying them for this.” So I started searching around.
Clay: You cheapskate. I feel like I’m talking to someone in the mirror right now. Goodness. What are you like… We might be brothers from another mother for all I know. We better have our blood tested. Goodness.
Blue: So then I ended up… I ended up getting another guy’s course. He’s a bigger name too, and I ended up buying his. His was like $1,000, and I didn’t know what style I wanted to trade. That was the biggest thing. I learned all of the fundamentals and stuff like that through his course, and then he has some live… a whole DVD full of live trading, telling you why he got in and out. And I ended up in his chat for a few months, and I kind of felt like that it was more for somebody who knew what they was doing more. I needed somebody that was going to say, “Okay. I’m going to take you from A to Z,” and he was more of if you know enough of trading, then he could come in and help you some, but if you was a beginner, it was like, “Okay. This ain’t the guy for me.”
Blue: After being in his chat for like three months, I purchased another guy’s DVD and ended up in his chat. But he was basically just starting his stuff. So, he was rarely inside of his chatroom. He’ll hop in, say a few things, and hop back out. Couldn’t ask him too many questions, so I just left his, and-
Clay: Could I ask you a question quickly? I’m just straight up curious. So you didn’t want my course, which is fine, but then you go and you buy a couple others. So, what made you decide to go with theirs over mine? Asking strictly from a curiosity business standpoint. Did they just have lower prices, or… because I mean-
Blue: That’s all it was. I was being cheap.
Clay: No, that… That’s… Listen. We’re cut from the same cloth. As somebody that’s going to hustle and grind, of course you don’t want to waste money and stuff like that, so I get it. I will commend you though in this regard. You are… You’re definitely… Let me… What… I’m trying to search. A lot of people are like, “I’m not spending money ever. I will never spend money to learn anything.” But you seem to at least have understood and grasped onto the concept that you know what, putting some money upfront, education, learning, that isn’t investing. So do you have any idea where that came from, how you were able to at least recognize that it is worthwhile to invest in your education? Sure, maybe as you’re saying, you missed the ball a couple times, but how did you get over that hump? Because there’s so many people out there that never do. They just literally look at it as, “No. They’re trying to hustle me. That’s a rip-off.” And so on and so forth. So how did you just kind of make the realization that it is actually kind of worthwhile to make an investment into learning?
Blue: It’s kind of ironic because it came from you, because it was on one your YouTube videos, and you said something about doctors and lawyers having to go to school to learn how to do what they’re doing to make what they’re making, so why do you think that you can just step into the stock market and know what you’re doing? And how to go up against all these smarter people? So it made sense, and I said, “Okay. He right about that, but I don’t want to pay all that money for it.”
Clay: Fair enough. I love the candidness, and this is good stuff. All right. So, before I cut you off, you had made that second course, but I don’t want to say you got ripped off because I don’t want to insert, but it sounds like the person, like you said, would show up, say a few words, and then they’d be gone. So how long did you stay with that service?
Blue: It was only like a month after I blew up an account trying to trade. Because he basically bought wash-outs and I tried to buy wash-outs and I threw my whole account into it and it just kept washing out on me. And I kind of froze.
Clay: Was he giving like, “Okay. Get in here,” or how did… Let me put it this way. How did you arrive at that stock? Was it some sort of alert that he had issued, or did you find it on your own?
Blue: I found it on my own. By then I knew how to basically find stocks that was moving on my own as far as using like the… finding stuff that was gapping-up and gapping-down and had high value on them for pre-market. So that’s how for the most part I was looking for stocks in the morning, and I would look at them… have my charts up, and whichever one I seen moving is the one I would just jump in when I saw a wash-out off of his strategy.
Clay: And it was a matter of starting to apply some of the knowledge you had, but very clearly you were still maybe lacking a little bit in the trade management department.
Clay: So that account is gone. Blown up. You’re like, “Okay. I’m done with that service.” So where did you go from that point?
Blue: It was close to Christmas, so I stopped trading. It was only for maybe a month, but in my head, I always would… every day I was still watching stuff in the market. I always had my charts up. And by me being a driver, for eight hours, 12 hours, I’m just listening to different stuff on the stock market. Either it was your podcast, or other YouTube videos, and stuff like that. So I actually ended up breaking down in tears because I couldn’t pick it up, and I said, “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to pick up to even get like any kind of success in it.” And this was only a few months later, after I had started trading.
Clay: So you’ve shed some-
Blue: And [crosstalk] now like five months.
Clay: So you’ve shed some tears too in the market. The market has brought you… Welcome to the club.
Blue: Oh yes.
Clay: It’s crazy how somebody that’s… wants to succeed so bad, it can… So you’re not alone there. But so you’re breaking down, you’re thinking, “I want to succeed,” and was this still all over Christmas you were saying?
Blue: Yeah. It was right before Christmas. And-
Clay: So did Santa bring you some sort of a new trading account, or how did that all play out?
Blue: In the beginning of the year January 2018 is when I said, “It’s got to be something out here I’m missing, and somebody got it and I’m getting ready to find it.” So, I hopped into your… the chatroom. I bought the chatroom for the year since it was the beginning of the year.
Clay: The Inner Circle subscription?
Blue: Yeah. And the minute I got in there, people started talking about… I guess they was talking to somebody else and they was telling them that if you bought a course that you have the chat for life. And to me that was like, “Okay, why didn’t he say this inside the YouTube video because I probably would have jumped in and just threw my money into the course then.” Because that was like the big… that was the sales pitch for me because the minute I heard that, I went and bought the course. I said, “I’m going to get the course then because I’m going to be a member for life. I don’t have to go around jumping into chatrooms or nothing like that.” And that’s how I ended up in there.
Clay: Interesting. So the big nail in the coffin for you was just lifetime membership to the chatroom that came with a course.
Blue: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Clay: That is a good bit… I’m going to have to reflect on that because right now things have changed a little bit structurally. Not for you obviously. You’re grandfathered in. But that’s a good bit of feedback there. So yeah, I appreciate that.
Clay: So you got inside the chatroom and then people were talking about, “Hey, it’s all lifetime membership.” So is that the point where you jumped fully in, or did you still need to observe a little bit more?
Blue: I didn’t observe the chatroom. I went and started talking to my girlfriend about it and I told her. I said, “You know, I been struggling with trading, and I got to find something, and paying this $2,000, I’m pretty sure something in there that I can take from this course that’d help me.” Because I just knew it was something. That’s just what I kept saying to myself. And she said, “If you feel like this is going to help you, go ahead and do it.” And I went on ahead and bought it that same… I guess it was the next day after I got into chat.
Clay: All right. So you did not need to be persuaded at all. You were ready to go. But I do commend you for not hiding it or doing anything behind your girlfriend’s back. That’s good on open form of communication because you need a support system going on all this.
Clay: Well awesome. So now you’re in, and did you… when you made the purchase, was your plan just still, “No, I want to still trade with real money,” or were you planning on taking a step back? What was your mentality going into the whole university program after you had made that investment?
Blue: I actually didn’t trade, but it was for a short period of time. I pounded through the courses so fast, I actually pulled up chairs, and just couldn’t… I wouldn’t even stop watching them. While I was driving, I was either listening to it while I was driving the whole time, and then when I would lay over at hotels, I would watch the whole time I was at the hotel, fall asleep with the videos on, drive back home listening to stuff, get home and re-watch it, and that was every day until I got through everything. I ended up watching everything twice, but I did it so fast, it was like okay. And it helped a whole lot. A whole, whole lot.
Clay: Did you retain everything do you think, or did you go too fast?
Blue: I think I retained most of it. I think there’s stuff in there that I do need to re-watch, but it’s like more of like some of the indicators and stuff like that which I don’t use all of that stuff anyway.
Clay: But as-
Blue: As far as the setups and stuff, I retained all of the setups and stuff. That was… And the options. That’s what I wanted was to learn how to trade the options and directional.
Clay: And so my question then becomes, what made you want to do that? Where did you hear about options? And then why options? Why did you want to do that?
Blue: It was from one of your podcasts just hearing about everybody trading options and saying how you can put very little capital up, and to me it was a way to manage your risk better. So if I put in… whatever I put in is the only thing I’m risking. And that was like my biggest problem was throwing my whole account in instead to try to get enough shares to try to make 20 bucks. So, that’s how I ended up looking into options was through the chat and the podcast.
Clay: Did you know you wanted to do options before you started the courses, or is this something you discovered while you were going through the courses?
Blue: I discovered it while I was going through the courses.
Clay: So you’re going through the courses and then some way in the middle, you find out you want to do options. Was there, when you got through all the courses, was there any sort of paper trading that happened, or did you just hop right in with real money doing options?
Blue: I did paper trading with options for maybe two weeks just to learn some of the mechanics, and then I started trading them which it took me a long time to dwindle down my account because I was able to manage my risk a whole lot better.
Clay: But you still dwindled down your account?
Blue: Yeah, for the most part. It took maybe the whole year for me to dwindle it down though.
Clay: And was your logic here, like you said, you want to get more the mechanics down and just see how things move, or was… I guess, like you said, you very clearly did well in the risk management department if it took you literally a whole year rather than one trade, poof, it’s all gone. But… what was your goal with that account? Just to get your feet wet, or was it just… What do you think the cause of dwindling that account down was? Just bad entry points, or what?
Blue: It was mostly trying to find what kind of setups I wanted to take. So I was creating setups and mashing different setups together because during the whole year, I ended up… The way I wanted to trade was more of intraday but holding trades for majority of the day. Or longer periods in the day. So, some of the setups that I was looking for was like reversals and stuff like that. Reversals and what was off of pre-market levels, to try to hold them for the whole day. So it was more of an experiment instead of paper trading, and so that’s all I was using it for.
Clay: That makes good sense as you’re just… I like how you put that. You’re kind of taking, “I like that potential strategy, but let me mash it with that potential strategy,” and as listeners, that’s actually the name of the game. Anybody out there that says, “Hey. Trade like this.” They are lying to you. There is no “trade like this” because we’re all different. We all have different risk tolerance levels, so again, going back to… there’s definitely general frameworks. There’s definitely general rules that you need to follow, but within there, that’s really what it’s all about. Just mixing and mashing and trying to experiment.
Clay: So like you said, this was not… Let me put it this way. You didn’t go into start trading thinking, “Yup. I’m ready to go. This thing’s going to grow to hundreds of thousands of dollars.” Your mentality from the start was, “This is kind of my experimenting account and I just want to try to mix and mash and see how things all play out.” Is that pretty much a fair summary of what your mentality was as you started to trade?
Blue: Yeah. Because a lot of people they come in saying they want to make $100 or $1,000 a day just starting out, and I always said that I was happy if I made 20 bucks. If I made 20 bucks a day, then I’m happy because it’s always going to be scalable. You can put more into it and make more once you get some kind of strategy and setup that’s going to work for you. So that’s how I looked at it and that’s what I was just doing with the account.
Clay: That’s-
Blue: I ended-
Clay: Go ahead.
Blue: I ended up though having to take a step back because I had a stroke in the summertime, in September last year. So-
Clay: You had a stroke? Oh wow.
Blue: Yeah. I know. While I was out on one of my routes. And I kind of stopped trading for maybe a month or two, and I still would look at the charts, but I just wanted to make sure that I took care of my house and everything. So, I took everything out of my account and started paper trading, and just said, “Okay. Let me paper trade because I think that’d be the best way for me not to just throw money into my account and blow it up.” After I had the stroke, I had to take a step back at work and take a position that paid less. And I didn’t want to put money into an account or waste money that I couldn’t really afford. So instead I just started paper trading, and it actually helped me find the kind of setups that I liked. And that was the biggest thing. It actually helped me, the stroke did.
Clay: That’s motivating stuff right there. Instead of sitting there playing some sort of victim card, you were like, “You know what? This stroke, that helped me out.” Talk about… I don’t know. What’s the saying? If someone gives you lemons, make it lemonade, or something like that. I don’t know what that saying is, but that’s… I like the mentality. That’s… Well, obviously first off, I’m glad everything’s okay, and I also… I respect the fact that you were just like, “All right. Let me make sure that… Let me just drain the account because I don’t need to be doing anything silly with my money right now. Let me just kind of get things back on track here,” as a lot of people could almost use the stroke in a sense of, “Well, I got to do this now because I have this, that, and the other going on.” Whereas you remained calm and clearly made some good decisions.
Clay: So what ultimately… Let me ask this. What sort of setups did you discover that you liked during that whole paper trading phase?
Blue: It was mainly taking reversals off like double tops because it helped me with managing my risk, because a lot of times I would look at getting into trades and I would get where I should get out, but understand where I should get out on certain setups, but I wouldn’t do it. And so, me doing it on double tops, it gave me a little bit of wiggle room, and I said, okay. I started setting parameters if it goes over this amount, then I’m just going to cut it. But if it stays around this amount and until the account is closed, either over the double top and if it doesn’t break back down, then I just take the trade off. And it just started helping me be able to control my risk because once I blew that account up, that was from the other courses, I was like, “Okay, I got to figure out how to manage my risk better.” And then I also only trade whatever I can lose.
Blue: Say I get into a NVIDIA trade, and one contract is like 150 bucks. So I’ll take a tradeoff of that, and… That’s how I take my pre-market trades off of just whatever I can risk, that’s the amount that I would trade. And I would leave it on all week. So if it’s in the money, then I’ll just hold it and I’ll have a trailing stop. If it comes out of the money, it can always come back in the money by Friday, so I will leave it on because to me, it was already gone. Once I put the $150 in or the $100 or whatever, it was already gone. So it actually ended up helping me control risk just by doing that.
Clay: Isn’t it amazing how when you have true peace of mind about the amount that you can lose, that it’s almost freeing. Like you said, if you’re comfortable losing a certain amount, and I like how you put it, in your mind that amount was gone anyways. It really does open up just kind of the doors of flexibility. That’s kind of crazy, isn’t it, when you reflect on it?
Blue: Yeah, it is. It really is.
Clay: So you are… Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but for this NVIDIA example, is this still during your paper trading phase, or have we transitioned back and you actually doing real money?
Blue: That’s how I started doing… doing that setup is through paper trading, and I recently just started using real money just to test it to see if it’s going to work. Because when you paper trade, some of your entries, the amount that they may enter you in at be off of what you were actually getting in at if you were actually putting on a real trade. So, I started doing it… well, last month, and I actually been doing good with it, with the setups, so I think that the way I’m going to go.
Clay: Awesome. So you are back in the real money, and off of how long… do you think the paper trading, a guesstimation. How long were you paper trading for?
Blue: It was like… October of last year I started paper trading, all the way up to last month.
Clay: So you paper traded for a long while then, which knowing your background context… So I’m curious because the first time you said, “Yeah. I paper traded for like two weeks, and then I went live.” And now all of a sudden, you paper traded for a whole lot longer. So I think I know the answer but I don’t want to assume. Do you maybe you regret in some senses only paper trading for two weeks with that first amount, or is it all kind of just part of the journey anyways? Because it sounds like you’re a big believer in paper trading now because that’s what really helped you out. So do you maybe regret at all that you only paper traded for two weeks?
Blue: No, actually I don’t because when I start up… I felt like I had to get a taste of the money being on the line because when I tried to paper trade for two weeks and I just felt like it was like, okay. It’s just like a video game. If I lose it, I could just start over. And so, putting the money out there on the line gave me a sense of how I’m going to feel when it’s in there and then like hold in longer trades. If I had the right amount in, I could hold longer. So, no I really don’t regret it. It just, it is what it is. I lost the money. Everybody loses some money at sometime. I’m glad I just didn’t blow up like $10,000 or nothing like that.
Clay: Absolutely. This is me just asking more as out of curiosity. And I see where you’re going. So paper trading, you’re like, “Okay. Two weeks. Let me just get some money on the line.” And then of course… So that gave you, like you said, that gave you the feel. You understood. You met some of the voices that’ll come out. And you kind of had the feel. And then you went back to paper. Did you find that your paper trading you felt was more emotionally realistic because you did have previous experience with real money on the line? So do you think that actually helped out your paper trading more the second time around?
Blue: Yeah, it did. Because every time I would put a trade on, I would feel like the same way I felt when I was trading actual money.
Clay: Interest.
Blue: And I only traded the amount that I said that I wanted to trade with real money. Like how you always say on the podcast as far as putting the money up, don’t go in and say, “I want to buy 100 contracts,” knowing you can’t buy 100 contracts with your own real money.
Clay: Well, that’s actually really… Now, I’m… We’re treading on fine ground because the way you explained it, that’s actually super interesting and I can see how that makes sense where paper trading around two, it became that much more realistic because you did have money in the market. But please, I can see listeners being like, “Well, Blew said that you paper trade for two weeks and then you go… ” And like I said, I’m not going to argue because that does actually make really good sense, and that’s pretty fascinating. So out of curiosity, when you went live with money, I would assume that was an amount that, you know had it just went… Let’s just look at a worst-case scenario. You put on one trade, and then that one trade, poof. The amount goes gone. I’m assuming that that wasn’t going to cause you to be living under a bridge. It wasn’t going to cause any sort of personal finance heartache. So in other words, was that money that you could totally have afforded to lose?
Blue: Yeah, yeah. I’m not putting nothing out there that’s going to put me out on the street.
Clay: All right. Well, I just want to make… Because I know. Blew, you should spend a day with me in the customer service chat. Sometimes I can see somebody be like, “Well, that Blew guy said that he only did two weeks, and then he put in a bunch of money in, so that’s what I did with my rent money.” It’s like no, no, no, no. Apples and oranges. Blew did it in a very strategic way. It was not with rent money. But I can see how that could potentially make paper trading a little bit more realistic in that sense.
Clay: Now… You mentioned double tops and reversals. Do you view any other types of reversals? Do you like to play like double bottom for example, or are you just looking for a certain select type of patterns out there?
Blue: For the most part, I trade off of the pre-market highs and lows, double tops, double bottoms, and if it’s hold and under VWAP, or over VWAP, once it goes up and if it has a pourback if it starts to hold the VWAP and curl back up, then I’ll usually take a tradeoff of that risk and… up under the VWAP or close under the VWAP.
Clay: And your risk management is… Are you holding? Are you just like do or die, meaning well, I’m putting 150 bucks in so this thing could expire worthless on me? Or are you willing to cut a loss before it totally expires worthless? How does your risk management work in that regard?
Blue: As far as my pre-market levels, it’s usually only take, like I’ll take a tradeoff of, okay so I’m willing to lose 100 bucks, then I got a setup where I take off of pre-market levels, and I’ll take it and I’ll let it go for the whole week because it can always come back and put me back into the money, and that’s the only one that I’ll usually take without just getting in it where I get in and have… and then just let it go. But the double tops, double bottoms, and the VWAPs, I cut them. I have risk on them, on the amount that I’m a lose.
Clay: Awesome. Awesome. Because I was just curious that I didn’t know if you were just, “Well, it’s either going to expire worthless or I’m going to make some money.” But as you just saw, with some of those setups, you were cutting them, so that’s good.
Clay: Now you mentioned you were doing pretty well. I realize some of this is personal information, but I’m assuming your account is growing. Do you have a percentage, or can you give listeners at least some sort of reference point in terms of how things have been going since you’ve been putting this paper trading strategy into the works the past month or so?
Blue: I’m at a 60%-win rate right now. But a lot of times, it’s mostly double tops and double bottoms that I usually actually lose money on. So, I’m looking at if I cut… either cut them, which I don’t want to do because I actually make some money on them, but I lose money on those too. But as far as the pre-market ones, most of them come back, so it’s doing pretty good. It’s doing way better than I was doing. So-
Clay: Well, let me ask you this way. You’re at a 60%-win rate. Awesome. Is your account bigger where it is now than where you started?
Blue: Yeah. Actually, let me see. Tripled my account in a month.
Clay: Well, I mean… I just want to… I guess what I was trying to get at is, okay, that’s good that you’re at a 60%-win rate, but if the 40% of losses are wiping away all the gains, well then that’s kind of a massive red flag. But you just said that you’ve tripled your account. So clearly, those 40% of times where you were losing money, it’s not like they’re disasters or you’re not getting run over by a semi or anything like that.
Blue: Oh no.
Clay: So that’s awesome, that 60%-win rate and those losses are not wiping away anything, and sure they of course cause your account to pull back a little bit because they’re a loss, but it’s not like it’s a total account reversal or anything. Your account is growing.
Blue: Yeah, it’s growing.
Clay: So how do you… How are you saying you’re doing in the mental department of accepting those losses? It sounds like you kind of, it is what it is, and you take the loss and you move on, where I know some people really struggle in that regard. So, is it pretty accurate to say that maybe that might be one of your strengths that you’re just good at cutting losses and accepting the fact that, hey, this one didn’t quite work out?
Blue: Yeah. I… kind of realization just by taking so many losses and being beat over the head so much trading that it’s just part of the game, man. If you let it bother you, it’s going to affect your next trade. So, for me, it’s the minute I get in a trade, I know where I’m getting out no matter what, and I just move on to the next setup.
Clay: I like that. You know, if you’ve just been beaten over the head enough times, you just accept it, I guess. So I guess that’s Blew’s advice is you just got to go out there and get punched in the face enough, and eventually it will come around. But I was hoping you had some like secret little Jedi mind trick, but that’s… I appreciate the honesty and… Do you get upset about it at all, or are you just like, are you literally like, “It happens. Next trade.”
Blue: It don’t bother me at all because the whole thing with options is when you know what you got on the line, then it helps keep from you… Because when that stock dumped on me and took my whole account, that was a real eyeopener where I said, “I got to find some way to keep this from happening again.” So I can only lose whatever I don’t put into the trade now, and I usually don’t put a big amount into my trades. So that helped me a lot because just always seeing your account red, bleeding out every trade, be like, “What am I going to do? How am I going to get this to turn around?” So I kind of got used to the red, and now I can just say, “That ain’t nothing.”
Clay: And so, you just cut it and more on, and you’re still at 60%-win rate, which is fantastic, and your account like you said is tripling, so that’s great stuff.
Clay: My question though, and unless something has changed, but are you still a truck driver?
Blue: Actually, I start back driving the end of this month. Or the end of September.
Clay: What is your plan with that? Are you still going to be able to deploy and use this current strategy you’re doing, or are you going to have to make any tweaks with that? Or how is that all going to work?
Blue: I’m a delivery driver so I deliver to restaurants, so for the most part while I’m at… I always know what time it is and I know where I’m at. So, I usually plan around it so that I can be around… I always have my laptop with me. And I was doing this when I was over the road the first time anyway. I would either stop at one of the gas stations, the truckers’ gas station and they have Wi-Fi, and I would log in. But most of the time I would use my Wi-Fi on my phone and I would log in, watch the charts, have my plan set up, and then once my triggers happened, then I take my trade, and that’s what I had planned on doing it now. Just take my trades off my triggers, and I can manage it while I’m running my route because I usually try to hold my trades longer for throughout half the day at least. And I usually put on a trailing stop too.
Clay: In other words, it’s going to be… it’s not like it’s some sort of pie-in-the-sky theory of you still being able to trade once you transition back into driving. I get the impression you’ve thought things out very closely, and it’s going to be very doable to continue to replicate your current strategy, even though things change up a little bit from the driving point of view. So that’s good. That’s… My fingers were crossed. I’m like, all right. I hope Blew’s just not like talking where it’s like, are you sure this is all going to work out? But yeah, you definitely have thought all that through, so that’s a good step in the right direction.
Clay: Do you have any… Or before I forget, are you still with Robinhood, or who are you using as your broker for all these… Who is the tool that you are using here to make all this happen?
Blue: Actually, right now I’m using tastyworks to make my trades out for… I was using… What is that other one? It started with a T too. TradeStation. I was using TradeStation, but for some-
Clay: Don’t they have super high fees? Or, I guess… That’s like an all-in-one package, right? You get the charts and they’re a broker too? Is that… I’m pretty sure that’s TradeStation.
Blue: Yeah. You get the charts and they’re a broker, but as long as you make a certain amount of trades per month, you don’t have to pay for the charting. And it’s like almost five bucks each way. So I didn’t mind as long as… It was just more of the platform would freeze because I guess it sucked too much of the Wi-Fi… took too much Wi-Fi, and I don’t know. It just would make charts freeze all the time, so I said, “Okay. They need to fix this.” So-
Clay: TradeStation did all that?
Blue: Yeah. It did.
Clay: Wow. They’re… They’re a big… I don’t know. I guess that would make sense though. I know they’re a pretty robust platform, but apparently like you said, they use a bunch of internet energy or something and maybe that was bogging things down. But you use tastyworks now, and are you pretty happy with them?
Blue: Yeah. Yeah. I just can’t put a trailing stop in with them. I think I’m going to end up… Once my account is built up some, then I probably go to… What’s the one [Who’s] uses?
Clay: Probably Interactive Brokers?
Blue: Yeah. That’s the one I want to go look at. Them and Lightspeed. Those are the two I’ve been looking at. I got to figure out how Lightspeed works with options.
Clay: Yeah, they’re… It’s… I don’t know the exact pricing differences, but they’re close enough where I would say that it’s definitely personal preference. So I guess, if tastyworks doesn’t do trailing stops, how are you going to… I’m assuming you’ve accounted for that within your strategy once you get driving again so you’re not going to need trailing stops or anything like that?
Blue: Yeah. I’m just… For the most part, because by me already… the setup that I take is like I can risk it and just let it go to zero if it goes because I’m already… that’s when I put the trade on, I’m already planning on it going to zero. So, once it gets a certain amount in the money, then I’ll usually put in a stop. Once it goes up a certain amount more, then I’ll trail it and put it up to another area on the chart. So that’s how I’ve been doing it since I started trading with tastyworks.
Clay: Now when you say trailing, you mean you’re manually bringing up the stop loss and you’re trailing it, right? That’s what you meant? Because-
Blue: When I was paper trading, I was using the trailing stop, but now I just manually trail it with tastyworks.
Clay: But you’re using thinkorswim for paper trading?
Blue: Yeah.
Clay: All right. So I was going to say, “Wait a second, but you just said that there wasn’t a trailing stop.” But that makes sense. That was thinkorswim vs. tastyworks. But that makes sense. So a trailing stop with tastyworks is you actually literally trailing the stop on your own, so having to go in there and reenter it, and reenter it as time goes by. All right. That all makes sense, and… I’m excited to see how all this goes for you, but I’m pretty stoked that you’re at the 60%-win rate. Your account is growing.
Clay: And the reason to listeners out there, win rates can be a little deceiving because someone’s like, “Yeah, I win 80% of the time, but those 20% where I lose, it wipes out all the gains I had from the 80%.” So win rates matter, but they don’t matter. It’s all about, well, what exactly is your account doing? So that’s why I kind of hit Blew, well, is your account bigger now than where it was when it started? So very happy with the answer there.
Clay: And I’ve been looking up at the time. We’re basically at an hour, but I do want to ask one question more. Do you have any sort of… What are your goals going forward? Have you really thought that ahead, or are you just still in kind of mindset of, “I just want to nail something down,” because as you beautifully explained earlier, I love the logic of, “Let me just get something that’s scalable, and then I can go from there.” Or… So what is… Ideally speaking, where would you like to be in a few months from now, six months from now? I’ll let you define the timeframe, but what are your goals and your just broad, big-picture plan going forward?
Blue: As far as the setups, I think I like the setups I’m at, and I’ll probably just stick with those. And as far as my time, I want to end up trading full-time. And hopefully I’ll get to do it within the next four to five years. If not, I’ll continue to work until I get it, but I won’t stop trading until I’m able to do it full-time and take care of my family off of it, because that’s all I really trade for. I don’t really worry about how they got everybody making all this money. Which that’s actually one of the things that drew me in was seeing people’s low Twitter feeds and saying, “Oh, I made such-and-such amount,” and it helped me see what the potential was, but I wasn’t trying to catch up to them. It was just more of do-it-on-my-own skill and if I get there, I get there. If I don’t, then I don’t. But I love trading so much, it wouldn’t even… If I don’t make no money, I’d probably still end up trading, so I don’t know. I haven’t made many plans [inaudible] besides I want to trade full-time one day.
Clay: I think you perfectly summarized the biggest plan… Your answer was basically as good as it gets, is, “Listen. I’m taking it day by day. I’m not in it because I want to drive a Lamborghini. I’m in it because I love it. It’s a great time. I appreciate the challenge of it, and I’m just going to keep grinding and hustling, and I’ll keep on working until it works,” and really that’s probably literally the best answer you could give as far as a big-picture plan. But I do like your step-by-steps. You want to grow your account, and then you want to transition to either Interactive Brokers or Lightspeed, so those are definitely some baby steps that you have. But yeah, I really can offer up… Sometimes, I’m like, hey. Can I give my two cents? But I don’t have two cents here. That was a very good way of viewing the market and you’re not being blinded by the glitz and glamor. You’re just saying, “Hey, if that happens, great if I can scale up. If not, I enjoy it, and I’ll just keep hustling and grinding.”
Clay: And let’s just say you only ever make, I don’t know, 50, 100 bucks, 150 bucks a day or I don’t know, 300, 400, 500 bucks a week. That’s pretty good money when you step back and just think about doing that by pressing buttons and doing it as like a side hustle type thing. So I would definitely say your head’s in the right spot.
Clay: So final question here. If I were to lend you the time machine, which before we got started, Blew was like, “Yeah, I’ve listened to… ” Did you say you’ve listened to every episode, or almost all of them?
Blue: I listened to all of them.
Clay: All right. Awesome. Well, I appreciate the support. So you know about the time machine. So if I were to give you the time machine and you could go back to sometime in the beginning, what would be one bit of advice that you’d give yourself?
Blue: Slow down. Get a little bit more educated, not as far as buying a course, but see who’s out there before just throwing your money into the market.
Clay: Blew, just be honest. But like, don’t be such a cheapskate and just buy Clay’s course from the get-go. All right.
Blue: Yeah, I might as well be-
Clay: Just say that. I’m paying you. You’re supposed to say that, Blew. Our agreement has been broken, so all those… No. I’m just kidding. That’s fair, and that’s why I-
Blue: I kind of wish I did because I just felt like me throwing, doing it the other way with the other courses, it didn’t really help as much as… It just gave me the basic knowledge of what I already found out on YouTube. But I needed more, and that’s what your courses did. It had so much knowledge, and it was broken down so good. And I kept saying, “Clay, please go to the next thing. I know this already.”
Clay: Good. Good. You’re filling in the sentences. It worked. Fantastic. But, no. What you said is right. And that’s why I encourage everybody. If you’re a first-time listener, don’t go and just buy my stuff. Seriously. Look around like Blew said. Get to know who else is out there and find somebody that you like their teaching style. You feel like you can jive with. Because that’s really what it’s all about. So that was a great bit of advice, and honest advice. Just be familiar with out there.
Clay: Now, if you’ve been, “Oh yeah, Clay, I like your stuff,” then don’t be a Blew. Let’s go. Come on. Sign up. Let’s get started. But if this is like the first time you’ve ever experienced anything ClayTrader, well then yeah. See who else is out there and try to feel other people out, and figure out who you want to be comfortable with because at the end of the day, just succeed. And if I can help you succeed, awesome. If somebody else can, awesome. But you got to figure out somebody that you’re comfortable with. Did you want to say something there, Blew? I feel like I cut you off there.
Blue: Well, yeah. I do have a YouTube channel that I was starting. I stopped doing it for a while, but I plan on starting it back, but it was more of I was going to say that on the YouTube channel I actually said that if you’re going to get a course, I would go with getting your course to get everything from the foundation, and then if you don’t want to trade the same setups that you have, find somebody that has the setups that you want. But you do need to go to somebody who can put everything into some kind of framework for you, and that’s what I liked about your course because it put everything right there in front of your face where you don’t have to go putting the pieces of the puzzle together. Which I know I heard a lot of people say, but it’s true. It helps just knowing the way to go about doing a trade and then just go find somebody that has the setups that you want or mash some stuff together like I did and experiment.
Clay: There you go. That’s well said and again, I’m glad you found value in it. And yes, I clearly maybe annoyed you a little bit with some of it, but as you know, that was by design, and it sounds like it might have worked as intended. But good stuff.
Clay: Now are you ready for some fun questions?
Blue: Yeah. I wrote them down.
Clay: Good. Well, the first question is, what is your favorite bird? No, I’m just kidding. So I was-
Blue: I was about to say dang. I’m going to say robin because my mom’s named Robin.
Clay: There you go. And I think that might be the state bird of Michigan. Whereas the cardinal is the state bird of Ohio. Right? Did I remember that right?
Blue: Yeah, that’s right.
Clay: All right. Good. All right. No, I’m just kidding. But what is your favorite movie?
Blue: I have two because I couldn’t decide between them. And it’s The Dark Knight with the Joker. I love Heath Ledger in that movie.
Clay: Oh, that’s a good movie. Yeah.
Blue: And Training Day.
Clay: Oh man. That is… Oh, the… “So we go to the office?” “You in the office.” And then it cuts to the sound and the hydraulics going, and it’s… You know what I’m talking about, what part of the movie?
Blue: Uh-huh (affirmative). When he first got in the car with him.
Clay: Yeah man. And what song was that? I forget. That was so… Was that like a… Xzibit… I don’t remember what it was, but-
Blue: Yeah, it was Xzibit.
Clay: … like it was the perfect…. Yeah. Oh man. That’s what I-
Blue: I actually like Wedding Crashers too. That movie, I kept watching that movie. That movie is crazy.
Clay: Yeah, that’s- Yeah. Yeah man. We got the same taste in movies too. But I guess we’re from Ohio, so that’s-
Blue: Yeah. That might be what it is.
Clay: Well, let’s face it. Blew, let’s be honest with listeners. Ohio people are the best, and it is what it is. I am now in Michigan trying to spread the good word of Ohio, but-
Blue: I’m starting to wonder if you’re my long-lost twin because we’re about the same age, both going bald at the top, you know. I think we might be-
Clay: I’m sending you a blood kit. We’re getting our blood work done, okay? It’s in the mail already. We’re going to figure this out, and we’ll see what happens with it.
Blue: [crosstalk 01:08:31].
Clay: What about food-wise? What do you like to eat? Food and then dessert.
Blue: I love steak and potatoes. I can eat that every day. And that’s a carrot cake from Servatii’s. That’s my favorite… junk.
Clay: Your junk food? Now, from where? Is that like a place down in Cincinnati, or is that a brand that I’m just not aware of?
Blue: I’m guessing it’s only in Cincinnati because I haven’t seen it anywhere when I drive around. Unless you want me to say Krispy Kreme, because their doughnuts is just the greatest.
Clay: They do have some good… great doughnuts. Now, I don’t know if you know, but my sister ran track for University of Cincinnati, so I vaguely understand Cincinnati. Are you a fan of the Skyline Chili?
Blue: Oh yeah. They fine. I don’t eat hotdogs that much because as a kid growing up, I ate a lot of hotdogs, so-
Clay: Okay. All right. But that’s one of the one things I know that’s unique to Cincinnati. Procter & Gamble-
Blue: And Grippo’s.
Clay: … they’re unique to Cincinnati. Who?
Blue: And barbecue Grippo’s. They potato chips.
Clay: I can’t say that-
Blue: You might not have tasted them yet.
Clay: All right. Wasn’t the one Shark Tank, the grilled cheese place, weren’t they based out of Cincinnati? Or am I just totally making that up? That might be a lie. Do you watch Shark Tank? What are… I can’t even remember. Anyways, we’re going way…. I guess at this point, who cares? If people are still listening, then they’re like, they’re fully on board the Blew train here.
Clay: And then, what other questions did you have written down? The hobby one? You have that one written down?
Blue: No.
Clay: Well, were you on a… What other questions you have written down? You said you were ready, or just those two?
Blue: Oh, I just had those and three words.
Clay: Oh, okay. Well then I’m going to ask you one more, but what do you like to do outside of the markets as far as hobbies are concerned?
Blue: Most of the time I’m just spending time with my family as far as my kids, which I want to say Happy Birthday to one of my sons. He just turned 18 today.
Clay: Awesome. Awesome.
Blue: But most of the time, just spending time with them, taking them out to eat, watch movies and stuff, game night. I used to bowl a lot, but I stopped doing that, and I kind of get, feel like I’m getting old. But, that’s what I do most of the time.
Clay: Awesome. How many kids do you have?
Blue: I have two and my girlfriend has two.
Clay: Cool.
Blue: So it’s four.
Clay: So you have plenty of action going on then is the moral of that story with-
Blue: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Clay: Yes. I definitely understand. But yeah, awesome. Well, by the time this goes live, it’ll be a few weeks past the birthday, but that’s okay. It’s the thought that counts, but as of the recording of this… Is it his birthday today?
Blue: Yeah, the 30th.
Clay: August 30th. Happy birthday-
Blue: [crosstalk 01:11:11].
Clay: … to your son. Is he going to be… Do you think he’ll listen to this?
Blue: No, I been trying to get him and my oldest son just to look into trading, and they keep blowing me off. Because I actually want to do a eCommerce store too, so I’ve been trying to get them both to look into both of them, but I’m like, “You all got to step outside the box. Don’t be scared.”
Clay: That’s right, man. Tell them to start standing on the box. Say that’s the key. You stand on the box. All right. You just don’t get a hand outside the box. Tell them you got to be standing on it. They’re going to turn out fine with… you got your… I like you, Blew. They’re in good hands for sure. But, the final question, three words, and what would these three words be that you would associate with what it takes to be a successful trader?
Blue: Persistent, resilient, and coachable.
Clay: Oh, coachable. I don’t know. Well, I don’t know. You’re the expert that’s listened to every single podcast.
Blue: I haven’t heard it.
Clay: I only work here. Has anybody ever said coachable before?
Blue: I haven’t heard it.
Clay: Yeah, that’s a good one. Because if you’re not coachable, then-
Blue: Yeah. You’re going to struggle.
Clay: Not only in trading, but you’re just going to struggle in life too, but we won’t go down that rabbit hole.
Clay: But Blew, man, this was a good time. My expectations were high. They were met. And I don’t know, like you said, you’re mysterious, but good to know that my hunch still is right every now and then. But again, thank you for volunteering to be here. I appreciate it very much so, and yeah man, just keep on grinding. Keep on hustling and get out there and do your thing. So thank you. For listeners’ sake, for a little context, we were recording this on a Friday afternoon before Labor Day. So I mean Blew could easily be like, “Man, I’m doing a long weekend. I’m not going to spend my time.” But he’s taken his time out of his Friday and an afternoon to do this, and that just really goes to show the quality of the people that we have with part of the community. They just make it happen. So I appreciate that, Blew, and thanks for hanging out.
Blue: Thank you.
Clay: You going to come back again at some point?
Blue: Yeah, whenever you want me to.
Clay: All right, man. Well, I think I might come down to Cincinnati and spank you in bowling first, and then we’ll see if you want to come back on. But, we’ll see what happens.
Blue: I’ll be waiting-
Clay: You up for that?
Blue: I’ll be waiting.
Clay: All right. All right. We’ll see what happens, but that could be in the next… who knows? That could be in the next Vlog on the YouTube channel is Blew spanking… or just, I don’t know. I’m seeing the thumbnail right now, just a bowling ball between us as we’re like staring each other down like boxers.
Blue: Right.
Clay: We’ll cross that bridge later on. But thanks again for hanging out.
Clay: Now for you listeners out there, before we go, final few things. First off, if you’re listening on iTunes or any of the other podcast players, please subscribe, and especially on iTunes if you could leave us a rating, that really helps us out. Especially a written review. That goes a long way and just helps to get the word out there, and I really would appreciate it.
Clay: Second, if you’re listening at ClayTrader.com on the show notes page, then there is a live chat box on that page, so if you want to reach out and talk to somebody directly with feedback, questions, comments, whatever you have, we love to hear. I love to hear from listeners of the podcast, and there’s nothing better than saying, “Hey, I’m a listener of the podcast, and… ” and then they go into either a question or suggestion or whatever. It’s really… It’s cool to know that people are actually listening to this because as far as I’m concerned, I’m just having fun doing this, and I know that people are listening and benefiting. That’s pretty neat. But if you could do that, that would be great. But if nothing else, like I said, a simple rating on iTunes or a written review really does go a long way.
Clay: So thank you to you as listers. Thank you, Blew. And we will see you all back next week.
Announcer: This has been the Stock Trading Reality Podcast. Thanks for taking the time to hang out. To learn more about Clay and the ClayTrader community including the trading team, premium training, and more, visit ClayTrader.com.