I’ve been trading on and off for two decades — mostly on my own, piecing together strategies from wherever I could find them. There was no mentor, no reasonable course, no community. Just trial, error, and a lot of expensive lessons.

But trading wasn’t my first business. I started my first company in high school — an HVAC business with major accounts by the time I was 18. Since then, I’ve built and run a real estate company, a mortgage company, a sign company, a software company, rental properties, flips, owner-financed deals. I still own several of those businesses today.

Here’s what I learned: Running a business is hard. Employees depend on you. Overhead never stops. There’s always another headache waiting. Trading offered something different — no payroll, no utility bills, no Friday panic about making someone else’s mortgage payment. Just me, the market, and a strategy I trust.

I take my trading profits and put them into real estate — mostly owner-financed homes for good people who don’t qualify for traditional loans. I buy boats, cars, resell them. Trading funds the life I actually want to live: deep-sea fishing, scuba diving, spearfishing, and quiet walks on the beach with my wife and daughter here in South Carolina.