The Most Unbelievable True Story: From Warehouse Associate in January to FO S&T in March. Buckle In....

Okay monkeys, first and foremost I’ll put up a disclaimer here. This will be a very long post, but if you’re in need of encouragement then reading this the whole way through will be well worth the time invested. Here we go...

I truly remember it like it was yesterday. I was a 16-year-old high school junior brimming with ambition but wielding the wit and intelligence to match it. I was sitting in my parents’ living room watching my favorite movie of all time: The Pursuit of Happyness starring Will Smith. I knew in my heart from that day that I had found my calling; I was going to be a trader. I was absolutely mesmerized by the energy of it all; everyone waving their arms, screaming into their phones, tickers and ladders flashing in and out, up and down. Just viewing the excitement of the markets through my television screen gave me a rush I knew I wouldn’t find anywhere else. I started doing my research, and Google search after Google search led me back to one result: if I wanted to be one of these hotshots I was going to need a college degree in finance.

Fast forward to 17 years old, August of 2011. I had accepted a half academic ride to one of the schools of my choosing that also allotted me a preferred walk-on spot for a sport I was equally passionate about. For anyone wondering, it was most certainly a non-target.

Fast forward once again, now I’m 18 and had chosen to walk away from my sport of choosing for good for two reasons: 1. It had become apparent to me that I wouldn’t be going pro and 2. It was time to go all-in on my dreams of becoming a trader, and I was ready to give it my undivided attention. Once I left behind my sport I swore the newfound free time I had wouldn’t be wasted. I landed a job as the Manager of the Event Planning team for the School of Business, I founded and acted as President of my college’s first ever Investment Management Club, and I was also considering equity research at this point, so I even networked with my professors and started building a network within my local CFA Society. By the summer after my sophomore year I landed a highly competitive S&T internship in a major city through a personal contact. The world was at my fingertips. Around college I was “the guy” everyone knew would be the most successful of my class. I had a great GPA, a long list of leadership accolades, a huge network in a major city, and a prestigious internship. The wind was entirely at my back and nothing would stand in my way of becoming a Wall Street household name.

Here we are now, 20 years old. The air was cold as ice...the scrubs I was wearing felt paper thin against the icy metal chair I was shoved down onto waiting for the emergency psychiatrist to arrive. It was eerie, nobody even spoke to each other much around here. It seemed like everybody was just fed a never ending conveyor belt of pills all day, so the only thing anybody ever did was sleep. There were no locks on the doors, no seats on the toilets, not even plastic forks. I wanted my clothes back so I could stop feeling like a criminal. I wanted my phone back so my conversations weren’t all being so closely monitored. Most of all though, I wanted my freedom back. If I had any idea how awful these places are, never in 100 lifetimes would I have checked myself in, but there was no turning back now. “_____ , this can’t go on. From what I hear you’ve begun cutting yourself”. The icy chair burning through my scrubs felt like it would melt compared to the feeling I was about to experience when every ounce of blood would rush out of my body after hearing his diagnosis: bipolar disorder. “I’m diagnosing you with bipolar disorder, type I characterized by mixed episodes and paranoid features. A brand new antipsychotic just came on my radar that’s been tested to have minimal side effects. Good luck.” Just like that I was sent back to school, first semester of junior year about to start. I had to find a way to balance the massive expectations I was facing from those around me with this newfound disease I now had to live with. Little did I know there was simply no way to plausibly prepare for what was to come...

I’m 21 years old now, senior year. The sickness had not only entirely consumed me but tore down everything I had built brick-by-brick for years. I was consumed in a state of depression to the depths of which no one should know. I was sleeping 16-18 hours a day, stopped showering, dressed like a homeless transient, barely ever went to class, and secluded myself socially. My GPA plummeted, my colleagues lost respect for me, I lost my position in the Event Management Team, and the Investment Management Club, my pride and joy, deteriorated.

Against all reasonable odds my personal contact came through for me and offered me a proprietary trading job in a major city on a golden platter. No résumé, no interview, no competition; all I had to do was say yes. To the profound dismay of the fragments of those who stuck by my side, alongside my family, I declined the offer. He warned me that if I turn down this opportunity now I’ll never get another one again, but I knew that I was in absolutely no shape to handle the stress and pressure that comes along with the demand of a position like that. I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, allow my peers to see me in the shape I was in.

May of my graduation year now. I had two classes left before I could officially graduate but they let me walk anyway. By this time my self destructive nature seemed to know no bounds and I had detached myself almost entirely from my family. I had a very small circle of close friends who chose to see the best in me and stuck closely by my side. I took a job right out of school that was significantly less demanding but allowed me to still participate in the open freight market, so at least I was going to have the opportunity to participate in a market of some kind. It gave me the opportunity to move out to Southern California which was always a dream of mine, all to the tune of an anemic $45,000 per year.

Fast forward once again. I’m 22 now. The company expanded far too quickly and had to shut down all satellite branches, mine included. Fortunately, however, I was given an offer to return to headquarters. Four months later the company is in dire straits. “____, I’m sure you’re aware of the position our company is in, and because of that we’re going to have to let you go”. Less than a year out of college I experience the frosty bite of unemployment. I go to the library the next day to fill out applications. I come home in the afternoon to find my significant other sleeping in bed. Apparently she had lost her job too. In a 24-hour span we go from barely getting by to Armageddon.

One month later, 22 years old still, I find a new job. I take a pay cut to a further dismal $40,000 per year but I’m desperate. I take out a credit card to sustain myself and my significant other and it’s maxed out by the time I start my new job. This new position has absolutely nothing to do with my dreams of becoming a trader, but anything is better than nothing. My illness continues to advance. I’ve been through four psychiatrists in one year, each unable or unwilling to treat me like a human being rather than a number.

However, something transformational occurs a few months later. My girlfriend convinces me to get an Instagram and I stumble onto something that would change my life forever: ridiculous as it may seem, a Tim Sykes advertisement. Do I decide to waste money I don’t have on Tim Sykes DVDs? Of course not. However, the notion of independent retail trading has become apparent to me for the first time, and my passion for trading finds new life after several years of dormancy. Do I have any semblance of a trading strategy? Not at all. Do I know the first thing about what it means to be a retail trader? Not a thing. Do I have any money at all to invest into a trading account? Not a dollar. Do I reconsider this as a viable option despite the three monumental barriers to entry I just mentioned? Not a chance.

I find a natural talent in trading. I devote an obsessively fervent amount of energy into studying the charts. All nighter here, five hours there. I don’t have any money but I paper trade every single day on my lunch breaks. I can’t monitor my positions so I develop a swing trading strategy. I can only get in front of the computer from 12-1 so I figure out a way to trade the midday lull. When there’s a will, there’s a way. After over a thousand hours of studying the charts, replaying past days in OnDemand, and screenshotting hundreds of before-and-afters, I develop a proprietary strategy built around 2-3 day holds. Over the next 12 months I’m returning 7-9% a month with a 62% win rate. I develop two other proprietary strategies over this 12 month span; one to be used in conjunction with fundamentals for long-term holds and another for very short-term trading. I create a full equity research report on a large cap ($15-$20B) tech stock just in the off chance I may one day get the opportunity to put it in the right hands. It’s a longshot but it can’t hurt. It’s complete with chart screenshots, 10-K driven research, a full DCF, an explanation of my technical strategy, and irrefutable time-stamped proof that I found the idea when I claimed to. As projected, the company I created the report on smokes earnings estimates a few weeks later and returns 17.7% in 40 trading days vs S&P +1.94%. The success I’m experiencing is satisfying, but agonizing as well. I feel so close, yet so far away from my dreams.

Jump forward another six months, I’m 24 now. Financial problems are omnipresent. My bank account is commonly overdrawn the Monday after I get paid. It’s overdrawn by $600-$800 by the end of each pay period. Debt collectors call so often I have dozens of blocked numbers on my phone. I hadn’t spoken to a single person in my family in over three years. By this point my illness has begun to spin out of control. I experience night terrors almost every time I fall asleep. I refuse to hold a conversation on the phone because I’ve become convinced that the government has tapped my phones and is trying to frame me for a crime I didn’t commit. It takes me an hour and a half to get home every night due to my pulling over several times because I think someone is secretly following me. I’m beginning to completely lose touch with reality.
I get a new boss at my job. We become good friends and he realizes my passion for trading. I convince him to allow me to keep my laptop open at my desk so I can devote my attention to the charts in my off time throughout the day. I pick up a side job so I can finally start saving up for an account. I’m one very important step closer.

I’m 25 now, and over the last six months I’ve been delivering pizzas on the weekends to save up for a trading account. It’s all cash at the end of each night so I don’t have to constantly throw it into the black hole that is my eternally overdrawn bank account. After I get a little tenure on my résumé I manage to land a corporate finance job for a small company. It pays $65,000 so I finally start to get some breathing room. I find a psychiatrist I can trust and he decides to up the dose on my antipsychotic which turns out to be life changing. I begin feeling like myself again for the first time in what felt like a lifetime. After six long months I manage to scrape together $3,000 to trade with. Things are looking up and I finally get my shot. I start off slow and begin to prepare myself for the real deal. Then the mail comes in. I’m subpoenaed by one of my credit card companies to the tune of $2,500. My account is immediately drained just weeks after waiting three years to get started. Crushed doesn’t even begin to express the emotions I’m experiencing.

“____, we just think you’d be better utilized elsewhere. We really didn’t see this coming. I’m sorry”. It’s February of 2019. I’m 25 years old and my grim old friend comes back to visit, unemployment. The corporate finance role I landed was with a small company that went through hard times and I was in a newly created position. If they could operate without me before, guess what that means...My bank account is on the verge of being closed due to it being eternally overdrawn, I continue to
stay disconnected from my family, I’m borrowing thousands from anyone and everyone who’s willing to help me out, I’ve worked myself to the bone for over three years toward a dream that seems further away the harder I reach, and worse yet, I have no insurance, and my medication retails at $2,300 a bottle.

I had gone about four weeks without my medication at this point. The night terrors came crawling back out of the depths of the underworld and returned to their old homes in the dark and dusty cobwebs of my inner psyche. After over 5 years of overcoming what seemed to be a never ending conveyor belt of adversity, the struggles of my illness coupled with profound financial stress begins to crumble the foundation of my relationship (we were engaged at this point). I had persevered in every way I knew how but I was beginning to experience my limit. My illness was full swing into doing what it does best, changing the fabric of who I am into an unrecognizable conglomerate of all my least attractive character traits.

It was a nasty day, even for March. The wind howled the icy freezing rain into a screech and it was one of those days that seemed frozen in nighttime, where the sun remained distant for the entirety of the day, creating an eternal aura of “8 PM”. The mixed episodes were causing panic attacks on an almost daily basis and I was full swing into one. I had become so accustomed to them that I could function fairly seamlessly in the throes of one. Typically the only thing that alleviates the shakes I get from them is a cigar, so to the corner store I go with 96 cents in change dangling in my pocket. The idea of going back home afterward sounds acutely unattractive to me because I feel like being alone, so I drive to the library because it’s closed on Sundays and the parking lot will be empty. I begin reflecting, “Where did it all go so wrong?”. I pull into the parking lot and kick my car into park. To say I was mentally and emotionally spent would be a gross understatement. Each successive day was getting longer and more difficult to trudge through, much like lumbering through snow that just seems to get eternally deeper as you advance toward a destination that gets further away the more steps you take. There is a distinct shift in perception when the bridge between “losing the will to live” and “wanting to die” is crossed, and I was pondering the distinction. Suddenly, a thought occurs to me that would change my life forever. Many times over, there was no doubt in my mind that my life was damaged beyond repair, but one concept had never occurred to me before. If I really wanted to, I could finally make all this pain stop. There was a way out from all of this. It wasn’t what I thought of as ideal, but anything would be better than further enduring the nightmare that was my current reality. Now, how to go about this...it was almost too perfect. I had just gone shooting with my best friend the day before, wielding a Springfield 9mm he gifted me with for home defense years past. It was still in my trunk, fully loaded. I’ll call him to say goodbye because he’s the only person I could think of who I’d want to speak with in my final moments. I just so happen to be in an empty parking lot, alone, with a loaded gun in the trunk at the exact moment this thought first occurs to me. Almost poetic. I make the call, leave a voicemail, and say goodbye once and for all. I load a single hollow point bullet into the clip, I cock it, and believe it or not, pull the trigger.

The gun jams. Unbelievable. I guess I should have cleaned this thing after I got done shooting yesterday. When there’s a will there’s a way...maybe I should punch it into oncoming traffic. No, I don’t want to hurt anyone else in the process. Maybe kick it into sport mode and find a brick wall I can floor it into? Definitely not, I want a sure thing. Despite my best efforts, I guess today isn’t my day.

I’m working at a smoothie shop now to keep some semblance of an income stream. It’s a bit degrading but I’m working closely with people who care deeply about me so it’s some consolation. My physical health seems to be slowly slipping; vomiting, shakes, dizziness and weakness begin to occur increasingly prevalently. I come into work one morning and feel profoundly weaker than usual, so I go sit down to rest in my car, then...nothing. I wake up in a hospital bed with absolutely no knowledge of how I got there. “We don’t really have any idea what happened. Our best guess is an atypical seizure. It could have been fatal so we need to figure out the cause behind this promptly. Do you take any medications?” I consult with my psychiatrist. Withdrawals. Apparently my medication is also used as an anticonvulsant, and withdrawals can cause seizures. I had gone about 10 weeks without my medication at this point.

It’s June of 2019 now and I finally manage to land another corporate finance role with a company that had just come out of bankruptcy. It’s a risky move, but at this point I’m happy to take absolutely anything that will save me from filing for more extensions and borrowing more money. I get insurance and access to my medication again. Things are looking up, and my significant other and I begin getting a little closer because we have reason to hold some hope for the future.

October of 2019 comes, and the company I just started with a few months ago takes a dive. I’m 26 years old, 5 years out of college, and I’m now unemployed for a third time. I’m not going back to the smoothie shop because I’m not making the mistake of going without insurance again. I come to find out that Amazon offers benefits upon the first day of employment, so I suppose my next move is warehouse labor.

The breaking point is finally reached. My significant other did everything in her power to be there for me for as long as she could, but we’ve both become thoroughly convinced we aren’t good for each other. She did her best, she stuck by my side as long as she could, but ultimately felt we were both better off leading our own lives. At this point we had been close for 7 years, together for 6, and engaged for two. She moved out of our apartment and into her father’s house.

It’s November of 2019. I’m 26 years old and I’ve never lived alone before. When my ex-fiancé moved out she took all of her income with her, but 80% of the bills were now attributed to me. I was making $15 per hour and at a massive deficit. Living alone and being in such a bad place in life was deeply hazardous. I begin drinking 7 days a week. I have a very hard time sleeping in an empty place so I continue to drink $2 bottles of vodka until it’s easier to sleep. My gas is shut off so I have to shower at the gym and wear my winter jacket indoors. I can only afford to eat one meal a day, so I lose about 20 pounds in the month of November. I’m selling plasma twice a week to pay for gas and groceries.

Another Sunday, this one is a nice day out. I was sitting on the couch, drinking as usual, when it occurred to me that everyone else in America was spending this day with loved ones. I felt like I had no one. I couldn’t reach out to my family because I hadn’t spoken to any of them in years. I was single for the first time since I was a teenager. I couldn’t reach out to the few close friends I had left because I felt like a colossal burden to them. I was well aware of how they meticulously agonized over each word uttered to me, being as cautious as possible to not say anything that might send me over the edge of making the decision I came so dangerously close to committing to months earlier. I was finished with putting that kind of pressure on them. I felt alone in the truest sense of the word. Ironically, I was watching The Pursuit of Happyness, and it had dawned on me at that point just what a massive waste of potential I really was. I sat there, drinking more and more heavily, as I tried to dissect the decisions I made that delivered me to the miserable existence I was currently enduring. Where did it all go wrong? What could I have done differently? I lived a highly ethical life and had never really done anything to hurt anyone, so why me? My gun had been confiscated by my best friend months earlier for obvious reasons, but a quick Google search elucidated what dose of my medication would hurl me into a fatal seizure; all it took was four little white pills. I sat there on the couch, continuing to drink heavily. I began to let my mind wander and consider, “There has to be a reason I’m finding myself back in this position. Maybe this is my destiny. People die young all the time. Maybe God will continue to take more and more away from me until I finally fulfill my destiny. I really think it’s just my time.” I decided I’d take one pill at a time, washing each one down with a very strong mixed drink to make it a sure thing. I washed down the first one with about four shots. Second one down the hatch about a half hour later, let’s do five this time. Third one, no going back now, how about five more. Then...darkness. I wake up to my alarm at 6am on Monday morning. I vomit violently, and my lower sides (what I’m now assuming were my kidneys) seize up into a deep, immensely painful cramp, and blood begins to cascade out of both of my nostrils. My head tears into a migraine so intense that my vision gets blurry. Then...darkness. I wake up again, it’s dark outside so I’m assuming I’ve been sleeping for quite a while. I check the phone, 4am. I’ve been sleeping for about 30 hours total. It took me a while to realize that I drank so much so aggressively with the first three pills that I passed out before I could take the last one. Despite my best efforts, I guess yesterday wasn’t my day either.

After my outrageously close brush with death, I had finally decided enough was enough. Maybe my life was damaged beyond repair, maybe it wasn’t, but I was at least going to give it a shot. I pick up the phone and have the first real conversation I’ve had with my mother in five years. It was incredibly healing, but also made me deeply aware of how monumental of a task it was going to be to reclaim my life. I’m still drinking every day, but I claim a minute glimmer of renewed hope.

It’s January of 2020 now, my career continues to show no signs of hope as I’m still working in a warehouse, but I’m in a much better place personally. I’m speaking with my mother consistently, I take a visit to my hometown for the first time in six years, I reconnect with my brother, and I go to my family Christmas party. I’m welcomed back with open arms far more seamlessly than I would have ever anticipated. I begin drinking less and start to feel a renewed will to live. My apartment lease is up in January and I can’t afford to pay rent, so I move into my best friend’s spare bedroom. Living in a home with other people around is distinctly comforting, and I begin to start tracking the markets again for the first time in a very long time.

February of 2020 now. I ask my parents to let me move back in with them in an attempt to reintegrate myself into their daily lives and make up for lost time, so they approve. I quit my job at Amazon and move back in to my childhood home. I start filling out job applications and hear nothing back for a couple of weeks. Then I stumble across an S&T position online. Never in 1,000 years would I think that any HR department would give me a second thought pertaining to a front office position, but I had nothing else to do with my time, so...

Beyond any logical explanation I get a call. Needless to say, I was shocked. I leave a good impression with my passion and general knowledge and get an in-person interview. Completely out of nowhere I get my shot. I spend every minute of the next few days brushing up on market knowledge and scanning for trading opportunities. I come to realize that I’m pretty rusty. I haven’t had the opportunity to consistently trade in about a year. But something remained...

After almost two years of collecting dust, the research report I wrote back in June of 2018 is finally read by someone. The stock has returned over 34% overall, EPS have more than doubled, and the company sees three dividend increases since the inception of the report. This was almost two years ago though, and every blind squirrel can catch a nut every now and again, right? So I make the claim that my strategy will work in any market, and he courteously asks me for a trade pitch to prove it. I pitch a short in the commodity futures market a few days later and I return 407 ticks, or 103%, in 1.5 trading days. This alongside, once again, irrefutable time stamped proof of when I found the opportunity. My proprietary strategy proves robust, and despite my rustiness, my entirely self-directed knowledge driven by my fiery passion for the markets leaves a lasting impression. I hadn’t even passed my FINRA licensure exam yet, and they hire me anyway due to being “deeply confident” in my ability to excel. After 7 years of going toe to toe with and ultimately conquering severe mental illness, after over 5 years of paralyzing financial struggle, after three years of giving my all and spinning my wheels on a simulator with no end in sight, after two botched suicide attempts, after 10 long, painful, arduous years of patience, my dream becomes a reality. I’m officially Wall Street’s newest front office S&T Analyst.

So here I am. Closing in on 30, living with my parents, 450 credit score, three credit cards closed on me, two years behind on student loan payments, a fragmented résumé (to say the least), trying to make up for five lost years of my family life, and single for the first time since I was a teenager. But, somehow, I’m still here and I’m still standing. I still have to build my book of business so I’m certainly making nothing close to a fortune yet, but in defiance of all quantifiable odds, I’m back on the doorstep of my dreams. And that’s enough for me.

Thanks for reading fellow monkeys, it took quite a while to reflect on all that happened leading up to this point so I could put this all together with care, and truth be told there’s a lot more to this story that I left out. However, if these words convince just one person to keep believing even when no one else believes, to continue persevering when it seems like there’s no way out, and to continue to embrace the power of the indomitable human spirit despite what may be rampant negativity of your circumstances, every second invested in this post will have been worth it. I have nothing left to say, so I’ll leave you all with some final words that I relied upon heavily from none other than, you guessed it, Pursuit of Happyness.

Will Smith (As Chris Gardner)- “Don’t ever let someone tell you you can’t do something—not even me. People can’t do something themselves, they wanna tell you you can’t do it. You got a dream, you gotta protect it. You want something, go get it. Period.”