Perhaps my greatest strength, and also my greatest weakness, is that I have an obsessive personality. I am quite stubborn. When I decide I want something, whether that's mastery or some peculiar metric I've determined matters, there is very little that will stop me.
Looking back on the past few years, I can confidently say that I did a lot. I didn't really think any of this was going to happen. At least not so soon. My base assumption was that I would grind through four years at my T50 and work my way up the ladder at a big three firm. But after one semester at school, I decided to drop out and focus entirely on the markets.
Dropping out turned out to be one of the most transformative decisions of my life. I owe a lot to my parents for supporting me in that. I don't think I would have been able to truly focus if I knew they were hesitant; the uncertainty would have eventually thrown me off my game.
A lot happened in a very short span of time. Things worked out. The right doors opened, and the direction has undoubtedly been forward. I stepped into these years a wretch, someone with no innate confidence and no clear idea of who I was. I climbed out of them, not with a complete understanding, but at least with some sense of self. Enduring severe financial swings over the years helped clarify that.
The first "major" financial loss I suffered, and I use major sparingly here as it was major relative to the time it occurred, was back in the summer of 2023. I had lost about 14 grand going long on some coins during the summer crash. This was 80% of my portfolio, comprising nearly everything I had accumulated up to that point. I still remember how apathetic I was. Later that night, I was talking to a friend, and he said something that stayed with me:
"Mark, in a couple years, you're gonna look back on this and laugh your ass off about the shit you were stressing about."
It's funny looking back and realizing how absurdly right he was.
For a long time, I worried about who I was beneath it all. If you stripped away the money, lifestyle, and everything else I had spent my adult life focusing on, who would be left? If you had asked me that a year ago, I wouldn't have had an answer for you. But now, I understand that I’m the same person regardless of what happens. There is a core of me that will never be changed by external circumstances.
I did something I never thought I'd be able to do: I found solace in myself.
For a long time, I had this quiet assumption that once I got "good enough" at life, every quirk would get smoothed over. Once I built enough, won enough, survived enough, there would come a point where the internal shaking stopped. But while I've become more capable, confident, and able to operate in this world, I haven't become more still on the inside. I tremble more now than I used to.
Sometimes when I’m engrossed in something, I’ll catch my hand or leg involuntarily shaking. Other times everything narrows and I lose awareness of the room around me, as if my body is bracing before I’ve registered it. But maybe this isn't weakness. Maybe it's just a sign that you're living. The body's way of understanding consequence, reminding you that the thing in front of you matters. Maybe strength isn't measured by how strong you feel on the inside.
Lately, I've been in a different state of mind, one I haven't been in for almost two years. I feel restless again. As if every fiber in my body has reawakened, urging me to take action again. The hungrier I get, the clearer my vision becomes. As I start to take my first steps forward, I can't help but notice something peculiar. The road I've already traveled is much shorter than I expected. The path ahead is infinitely longer.