The Wisdom Hidden in "r/wallstreetbets"

   "r/wallstreetbets": An Anecdote for Life

    I have a friend who lost tens of thousands of dollars day trading. He would spend his days option trading at more than 2:1 leverage, shorting stocks, trading cryptocurrency and perusing through Forex. He found himself in the r/wallstreetbets lifestyle, attempting to gain financial independence through high-risk, high reward strategies.... only, they were not strategies. My friend would spend twenty minutes to an hour, combing through Reddit, TikTok, and various forums in search of the next meme stock, biotech lab to short, or altcoin that promised him outrageous returns. He fell prey to the venom that is self-pride and the confirmation bias of wealth influencers who "teach" trading courses. He would make thousands of dollars in the span of hours, and then subsequently lose all of his gain in the same day. Some days his portfolio would be up, but most days he would funnel money into his portfolio in an attempt to recover the loss from his previous day. Unfortunately for him, an investment strategy that relies on memes and the hearsay of millennials in beanies is more akin to gambling than it is to investing, and as we all know with gambling.... The house always wins.

    Unfortunately, he isn't the only man I know who lost it all trying to win big. Time and time again, I have seen young and naive men, throw their life away trying to chase an influx of wealth that ends up destroying them. From the degenerative behavior of "traders" on r/wallstreetbets to the victims of CryptoZoo and FTX, it seems biologically wired in men, to perform high risk maneuvers in the hopes of seizing unrealistic rewards. It is a failure of our fathers and our brothers, that these men are often incentivized to seek and ultimately fall for these pipe dreams. I mourn their loss. Some of these young men have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars because they were fed a lie, and no one spent the time to redirect their attention.

    Likewise, there is a growing movement among the younger generation to "be their own boss" and find wealth in business and entrepreneurship. This new generation is told that you are a loser and a sucker if you work a 9-5 and seek a stable and fair pay. Now, I am all for small businesses, I myself am a small business owner. But what the financial gurus and the drop shipping marketers don't tell you is that most small businesses fail. In fact, 20% of small businesses fail in their first year. By year five, 50% of small businesses fail, and by year ten, upwards of 70% of small businesses fail. (Cite) When I first started this business, I fleshed out what I wanted to do, created a general strategy for my business, an estimated risk tolerance and even a marketing strategy. Even with everything in place, over the course of the year I barely scrapped by. I ended up having a fiscally profitable year.... but only by $40.22. Now granted, my business model utilizes a very low risk, low reward strategy that lacks both the upsides and downsides of a higher risk business model, but still; over the course of a full year, when the DBA was filed, the books were published, the marketing was done... I came out on top with a whopping gain of 11 cents a day.

    Now, although my business paid out less than a cent an hour of work, I do not despair. Quite frankly, although my profit was infinitesimal, I find it humorous that I have at least outperformed 20% of my fellow small business owners. Most of the r/wallstreetbets and crypto bros would see my meager gain and scoff at my celebration of this fiscal year's profit, but I know something that they do not.

Life, like investing, is a marathon, not a sprint.

A Harsh Reality

    When I was training for the Marine Corps, we would often do long distance runs. Occasionally, a new guy, wanting to prove himself tough, would join us for physical training, and would attempt to outpace us during the run. He would run as fast as he could, hitting a 5:45 pace for the first mile and would lap us with a grin by the second mile. However, by the fourth mile, with only one more lap to go, his smile would be long gone. Nearing the end of the run, everyone would lap him as he meandered ever slower towards the finish line. I was like him when I first joined the officer program for the Marine Corps. I would dead sprint as fast as I could for as long as I could, but eventually, my body would fight back, my lungs would burn, my sides would split, and the pain would eventually slow me down to a snail's pace. It was always the runner who knew their limits, and their pacing that beat me at the end of the day.

    The r/wallstreetbets guys are the inexperienced runners of the financial world. They worry so much about quick progression, running as fast as they can, that they fail to see they are missing the goal of investing and of life. Addicted to the highs and lows, the amateur day trader will bounce from 1000% gain to 1000% losses endlessly. Eventually, the runner's fatigue will set in, maybe it was a poor options call, or they didn't think that X biotechlab would make it past the first phase of clinical trials, regardless of the method, eventually their luck runs out and they lose everything. They go into debt and the financial loss cripples them forever.

A Hard Truth

    The hard truth that most of these crypto bros and amateur day traders refuse to understand is that there is no quick fix for their future. Life is hard and no magic stock or call will set them up for financial success. Sure, they'll win big every once in a while, and one or two of them might end up getting lucky and becoming the next 30 Under 30. But for every one of those radial success stories, there are hundreds if not thousands of stories of failure and misery. You might be able get a 1% return daily for the first month of your day trading experience, but chances are, that success will be short lived, and those risky trades will end up incinerating your life savings eventually.

    I find that the young men that fall for the day trading, beat the market mentality, find themselves making these poor financial decisions because they internalize the anti-work ideals of the ultrawealthy and they have swallowed the propaganda of the wealth gurus. The truth is, it is okay to work a 9-5 and live a normal middle-class lifestyle. There is more to being a strong and capable man than your net worth, the watch on your wrist, and the car that you drive. You are not a loser for not wanting to start a business and it is completely respectable to be more concerned with finding purpose and raising a family than seeking the next dollar.

    The route to success in life and finance is not a sprint. If you spend every waking moment attempting to get to the next dollar or the next life achievement, you'll eventually burn yourself out and stumble. It is better to pace yourself in life, and seek long term success than to lose yourself chasing the next notch in your bet.