Making $200K Overnight By Trading Short Squeezes - Bryan (aka Gig em Ute)

In this episode we are joined by Bryan, also known as Gig em Ute, another successful trader from the Financial Cloud community.

On top of having some monster wins in trading over the last year, Bryan is also a successful entrepreneur who just had his company acquired.

We dig into his journey as a trader and entrepreneur and we discuss a ton of things like: 

• how he saw COVID coming through his business dealings with China
• inflations impact on the economy and financial markets
• what makes a trader successful
• his advice to aspiring traders
• and much more!

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All show notes & resources available here -> https://boundtoberich.com/gig-em-ute

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Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated using Descript.

Ismail: [00:00:00] Welcome to The Bound to Be Rich podcast, where I attempt to reverse engineer people who seem to be successful, no matter the circumstances, so that you can apply those lessons to your own life. I'm your host, is Mel Hume. One quick thing before we get started. I am starting my own email newsletter and I would love for you to join it.

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The link to join is in the show notes, and I hope to see you on the list. In this episode, we are joined by Brian, also known as Gigu, another successful trader from the financial Cloud C. On top of having some monster wins in trading over the last year. Brian is also a successful entrepreneur who just had his company acquired.

We dig into his journey as a trader and entrepreneur, and we discuss a ton of things like how he saw Covid coming through his business, dealings with China [00:01:00] in inflation, impact on the economy and financial markets. What makes a trader successful? His advice to aspiring traders and much, much. Let's dive in.

Brian, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate you making the time. 

Bryan: You bet. I'm excited to, to talk about, I'm excited 

Ismail: as well, and I think. 

Bryan's Background.

Ismail: But why don't we first start, if you don't mind just telling us a little bit about yourself and how you got started in trading. 

Bryan: Yeah, so I'm, you know, when you think of the financial cloud, I'm probably on the, uh, upper end of the age group.

Uh, there's a lot, uh, a lot more, I guess, young traders on that discord. Uh, I, you know, I started my own business, uh, about six, seven years ago. Um, and in contract manufacturing. [00:02:00] Had some success there and, and recently sold it to a, a company, uh, and found myself, you know, looking to, to keep myself, uh, busy and learn something new.

Uh, and so with some of the assets that, uh, that I acquired there, I, I started to get into trading, um, really back in, you know, the spring of 2020. Actively, you know, I've always invested, but never, you know, as active as I've been in the past couple years. , uh, started to get involved and really started finding people on Twitter and, and started to follow 'em.

And I obviously didn't want to just take anybody's advice that you, you know, you read online and came across a, a couple of people that I found had success and they, they had some logic and reason behind what they were doing, and that led me to, uh, to, to, you know, the discord and, and then ultimately, uh, becoming a part of the, the, uh, you know, a member of the, the financial cloud.

That's how I got into it. Um, you know, I've just like anybody else in [00:03:00] trading, there's, you have ups and you have downs and, and it's, uh, it's good to have people online so that you can not only learn, but you can also understand, you know, where, uh, what you did well, what you didn't, and be able to understand kind of the psyche behind what it takes to be a trader.

I 

Ismail: love that you said that. There's ups and downs. That's one of the things I'd like to talk about in the show is that it makes this seem to be so easy. Everyone just makes millions of dollars and it's. Not that simple. I wish it was. Um, what, 

What is Contract Manufacturing?

Ismail: what is contract manufacturing, by the way? What's that business that you started?

Bryan: Yeah, so I, uh, contract manufacturing is, is where I have equipment and capabilities to manufacture, um, products for brands, right? So I, I do a lot of, um, food and beverage type, uh, packaging in, um, flexible packaging. So if you see baby food at the, you know, the grocery store or energy jails for endurance.

It's flexible packaging. I get the ingredients, I pasteurize it, and then I put it into the pout. So that's what contract manufacturing, uh, is. The brands don't have the, the, the capital [00:04:00] and or the will to, to get the equipment to manufacture. So they'll go out and, and, uh, and, and have someone else do it. And you 

Ismail: specialize in those kinds of edible or beverage things, or do you do like, like more physical, hard, uh, products?

Bryan: Yeah, it's almost all liquid. All liquid. Liquid or puree or, or, or gel. Interesting. Um, so that's, that's the, the area of business, you know, that I, that I was in. I, before that I was, um, did quite a bit of work in the medical device and, and new product development. Uh, had some, you know, great success there and, and, you know, took ideas and concepts and medical devices from concept all the way to FDA approval and implement.

And so with that I was able to understand where business opportunities are and to be able to assess and, and put a business plan together and, and raised about $25 million to build up a plant from scratch. And, uh, and that's, that's kind of what I was able to 

Ismail: accomplish. 

Correlation of entrepreneurship and trading

Ismail: So you seem to have a very entrepreneurial past.

Do you find, um, [00:05:00] any correlation with trading? Has anything that you learned as an entrepreneur helped you with trading or is it just totally. 

Bryan: No, there, I mean, every day's new, right? And, and you know what, and just like with, you know, being an entrepreneur, you've, you've got, you know, challenges that come up.

You've got, you know, situations where you win and you've got situations where you lose. And you've gotta go back to, you know, in essence, belief in yourself. Um, you've created the hypothesis or, you know, a, a business plan that's, that's based off some assumptions. So there is some correlation there. I mean, the way you execute it is complet.

you know, different. And, um, you've gotta be, you've gotta be able to make some decisions, at least in the, in the way that I trade. You've gotta be able to make decisions quickly. Um, because, you know, in this market, particularly this year, it's been choppy. So you know, you can be up 20% and then, you know, , go get a drink.

And I've done that. I've had really expensive Coke Zeros, where I go, I go get a fountain drink and I come back and I'm like, Are you [00:06:00] kidding me? And then you learn, you know, that, Oh, I didn't, you know, have a stop loss on, or I overestimated, you know, the momentum of where it's going. And then I find out that that Coke Zero was more than a buck.

Ismail: Yeah. Um, the, I've had very similar experiences,

Learning from the young generation.

Ismail: but you seem like a very accomplished guy. Very smart guy. Is there any, is it weird? And I'm oversimplifying here, but is it weird to kind of be learning from young, for lack of a better word, kids? Not that they're not, that they're kids, they're right. 

Bryan: Yeah. And I appreciate you saying that.

I, I don't think I'm the smartest guy. I think that the reality is, is that there's always something you can learn from, from someone, Right. And, and whether, whether, whether there be, you know, their education, their, their background, you know, where they come from. There's, there's something to be ga you know, garnered if you're, if you're paying attention to it.

And, and to be honest, I kind of like the fact that there's young guys out there. I'm the boomer. They don't, I, I don't go out there and tell them that I'm the boomer because if once they see this, they're gonna be like, Oh my gosh, [00:07:00] digging mute. What are you doing? And, and I, you know, I, I like it. I, I like their energy.

I like the fact that they, you know, they're hungry. Um, you know, they, everybody's got different motivations as to why they're trading. And, and so even if I'm not making trades, I like listening to their logic. I like listening to their banter. Um, so yeah, no, I, I mean, I, I I have to check your ego at the door if you're gonna trade, period.

Yeah. And that, and I've only been, and I'm acting like I've been doing this for a long time. I haven't. Um, but it, you know, if you think you're smarter than, than everybody else, then you know, you're, you're gonna find yourself, you know, drinking your own Kool. and particularly when you've gotta make assumptions.

You know, just like starting my business, I had to have people tell me what was working, what's not. And you need mentors. And so, you know, if you try something new, I don't care what it is, whether it's cycling or trading or whatever, you, you have to take people's 

Ismail: input. Yeah. I find that most successful people have that mentality where they're always looking to learn.

They don't think they're above anybody. [00:08:00] Um, doesn't matter. And like the great thing about the market is that it doesn't care how old you. What race you are, where you're from, the market does not care. It treats everyone equally. Great 

Bryan: equalizer. And, and I, and that's what, you know, really, I like that. I mean, I, and I've been telling, I've got three kids, you know, so I've got, some of my kids are almost honestly as old as those, you know, some of the guys on, on this court.

And, you know, I, I've, I want them to learn. I wish I had learned some of the, the, the, you know, the fundamentals that they. At their age, I, it, it would've changed. You know, I'm not saying I wouldn't necessarily have gone out and been an entrepreneur, but it would've changed my perspective on investments, um, and the value and, you know, what's a win and what's not.

And I, it's, it's something I hope, uh, honestly, to get my. You know, my kids involved in, in, in trade. It's one of the reasons why I wanna learn is so that I can, you know, pass that on as well. That's, 

Ismail: that's fascinating to hear because a lot of people in your generation, Cause I know I used to [00:09:00] work on Wall Street and I, I had these mentors that were like, Don't trade.

Um, this is a back, this was a while ago. Not the, not the craziness that we have now. And the, I was given books on index investing. Index funds, so I learned like value investing and that's what I've done, uh, for the better part of the last like 15, 20 years. So it was always grilled into me. It's too risky to trade.

You can't win by trading. But now you have this experience and you want to teach your kids to do it. Um, 

Missing Mentoring

Ismail: what do you see that these other, for lack of a better term, boomers are missing? 

Bryan: Well, you know, I don't know if it's necessarily, I wouldn't, I wouldn't put it as a zero sum in saying that they're missing something.

Right. Cause I think there's value in different ways that you know, and what your objectives are. You know, what, what the, what you want to. . But what I would, what I would say is, I mean, cuz there's, there's so many different types of traders, right? There's, you know, day traders where they're, you know, trading every five minutes and there's also people who are doing swings over extended periods of time.

You know, there's, there's different ways to approach it, right? Um, but I, what I hope [00:10:00] to, you know, that they get is they understand that they don't have to be passive, right? They, they don't have to just sit down and just take what a mutual fund is gonna provide and just say, You know, your expectation is that you're gonna get seven or 8% a year, and you're not gonna be able to do better than that.

And I, I just, I just think that if you have belief in yourself, you're willing to learn and, you know, to the point where you're willing to, to listen regardless of where it comes from, as we just talked about. You know, I just think that there's, you know, there's an opportunity for them to, to get more and, you know, that's what I think is so intriguing and it, it, you know, at, at this, when I listen.

These guys, I know there's gonna be people who are gonna, they're gonna fail. There's gonna be people who are gonna lose it all. I, I can, I'm certain that's gonna happen. Um, but there are also people out there who are gonna do better than they, you know, they would've otherwise, and, and that changes their lives.

Right. And so, you know, we, that you hear that all the time on Discord and, and it's not to, you know, be, um, cliche about it or to say that that's that's the case. [00:11:00] But I think there's, there's situations if they handle it right, meaning they don't get overly greedy and they recognize that they've won. And that's one of the key things.

that that can change people's lives and you know, they, they could come from, you know, poverty or they could come from a, you know, lower middle income and be able to put themselves on a path to financial freedom. And once you have financial freedom, that doesn't bring happiness and it sure takes a lot of your stress as a way on everyday life.

Right? And that's, that to me is, is kind of the goal here. And that's why I want to pass that on to my, you know, my kids and get them. , but you gotta manage your emotions. It's hard. And I, I'll be honest, that's one of the weaknesses I have in the trading is, is, is discipline. 

Ismail: Same. And it's like a, it's kind of like, I remember when I was working in the Wall Street and I used to see these senior executives always working on their golf, putting in in the office.

It's like, and they said that you can always get better, you can always improve your put. And I feel like that's how trading is. Like you're never, you're never there. You can always get better. No, 

Bryan: what was Cuz [00:12:00] every day's different. Right? And every dynamic's different. You know, there you've gotta, you know, everything's different about it.

You know, who you're working with, what you're working with. It's just, it's, it's 

Ismail: just different. So with what you've seen so far,

Plan for a full-time trader?

Ismail: I know you said you just sold your business, but I think you're still obligated to continue working there for now. Um, so I assume that trading is not yet your full-time income.

Do you see it being your full-time income afterwards? 

Bryan: If I get good at it, , I mean, I'm not saying that I'm not, I'm not doing well. You know, I, I, I would, I'd want to have a lot more confidence. You know, the one thing I do like about, you know, being an entrepreneur or being in a business, operating a business is the interaction with people, you know, face to face, right?

And, and being able to see things work in, its in its place. Not saying that you can't get that same satisfaction in trading, but I don't know, I, I mean, you know, maybe five years from now or something along those lines that, you know, we'll see where, where it, you know where it goes, but probably not right.

Yeah, and I [00:13:00] use it. I use it means as, as you know, it's a supplement and more honestly, education. Mm-hmm. , um, it's an expensive education and, and so, you know, I I I want to put it to work and yeah, definitely, um, want to supplement what I, what I have. 

Ismail: It's, it's definitely, it can be a very expensive education, but like you were alluding to before, that if, if you stay alive long enough and you manage your risk properly and you get that one trade that you were saying can change your life, It's pretty hard to screw that up if you do, if you have the proper risk management and, and mindset, because I've seen it myself.

I've had some ridiculous wins, uh, over the last year and I was never really trading, I was always more of an investor until right after covid. Uh, but one, one thing I'm curious 

Impact of inflation on the market.

Ismail: about from your point of view as a, as a business owner, uh, cause I've been beating the drum about this for like over, what is it?

Year and a half, two years is inflation. The negatives of that, which are already mostly here and probably in my opinion, gonna continue. Have you seen inflation impact? Do you think 

Bryan: that Oh man. Yeah. [00:14:00] Yeah, I have. And it's, uh, I mean, I deal with it on a daily basis, right? And I'm dealing with food that's being delivered to, you know, Costco or to, you know, your, you know, your local grocery.

Um, yeah, inflation's real. And, and it's, uh, it's not going away anytime soon. And so this, this, and I, this is probably what you're, where you're going. The idea that, you know, you're gonna get inflation at 3% over the next, you know, few years. That's, that's not the reality. And if you're not getting a greater yield than that, then you're losing.

Yep. Um, but yeah, inflation, I mean, I could go off, we could take this entire podcast, I could talk to you about what I'm. And it's, you know, it's across the board and it's, it's not just in material costs, it's labor, right? So we have some, um, you know, intensive labor steps in our, you know, in our operation.

And, you know, we're seeing 20, 30, 40% increases in, in, in wages above and beyond what we were getting, say 18 months ago. and it's, you know, [00:15:00] and that, you know, in food and in contract manufacturing, it's not like I'm, you know, where I was in medical devices at an 80 plus percent margin. I don't have that. So, you know, the only way you can absorb those type of increases is through price increases.

And, and that has to be passed on ultimately to the consumer. So it's real. I I think it's gonna affect the stock market. I am not, I am not long term bullish on the, on the market. Um, I think there. , there's some, you know, there's some headway that's gonna, that's gonna come here that's, that's gonna manifest itself over the next 12 to 24 months.

I would agree. 

Reason for selling your business

Ismail: Is that, uh, part of the reason why you decided to sell your business? 

Bryan: No. Um, candidly, I had a lot of exposure to China. I saw Covid coming, again. There's another podcast I could tell you about. Um, I saw, uh, Covid coming in December of 2019. . Um, because most of my, at the time, most of my business [00:16:00] was, uh, we, we take ingredients from China, I'd manufacture it here in the United States cuz they want food manufactured in the United States cuz of the quality and the standards we have here.

And then I would ship it back or they would, they would ship it back. Uh, but in 2019, um, you know, I saw some some crazy things that, you know, that just didn't make any sense. Where, you know, communication went. , I couldn't get, uh, materials off, off Long Beach Port. They were quarantined by the CDC in January, uh, late January, 2020.

Um, they wouldn't gimme a reason or indication why. And two of the 11 ingredients in that container were from Wuhan itself. And, and they incinerated it. They didn't even gamut or radiate it. So, you know, we were seeing, I was seeing these telltale signs from supply chain in China, and I, I knew this was coming like a freight train.

So ultimately, you know, I got, I got a little. Cold feet and, and a little bit nervous. And so, uh, you know, the board and, and, and I decided that it was, it was best given the [00:17:00] uncertainty of what was coming to right to sell. And it, we had a great operation. So had I known that there was gonna be some of the government subsidies in place, I probably wouldn't have sold.

Um, but, you know, at the time, just like, it's like, it's like trading, right? I mean, you're at this, a critical pivot point on a chart and you don't know if it's gonna break down or if it's gonna break. and some of the indicators were, were saying, Hey, it's, it's, it's going down. So you sell. And then the reality is looking back, you know, because manufacturing has boomed actually since, um, Covid has hit.

Um, and you know, I would've never in a million years guessed that. So it's just, again, honestly, it's not much different than trading. That's, But you can't look back, right? You can't say, Hey, oh man, if I would've just only held on, because you're, you're dealing in re and you're dealing in real time. You can learn from it.

And that's, you know, that's, that's, that's important. You've gotta go back and understand. You've got check your ego. You gotta say, What did I do and what, what [00:18:00] were the signs that I misread? There's certainly some in my own business and, and in like trading you see it as well. 

Ismail: That's super interesting cuz the timeline that you outlined there, I think that's before uh, people were made aware of the severity of covid in the media.

Oh, that was even January when you saw the supply chain issues. So you saw this firsthand before it was a big deal. 

Bryan: I did and, and in fact, this is me speculating. I, I don't want to go off and state that, uh, definitively. The, the group that I worked with, they, they're, they're American citizens, US citizens, but they're Chinese nationals, and so they would go to China regularly.

So they would go to China for three weeks, come to the United States for two weeks. In the end of, um, November, the CEO of the company that we were working with came back from China and was, I mean, deathly ill, I mean, Ill, to the point where he was as sick as could be, and his cfo like a week later, and they're in the, the, you know, Los Angeles area.

uh, was a [00:19:00] perfectly healthy woman, uh, was admitted into the hospital for pneumonia. This was in, you know, right before Christmas, 2019. And I am convinced, I have no doubt in my mind that it was, it was Covid. Uh, but yeah, to your point, I mean, I, I really was the harbinger. Um, you know, and, and we, we, you know, talked with our board and some of the investors and, and I was telling them that this covid thing was coming like a freight.

But yeah, I, I mean, I saw this thing coming, uh, well in advance because of my exposure to China. I, you know, I've been working with China for so long, and the fact that they went dark, I mean, no emails, no phone, no commitments on when deliveries were gonna come. It, you know, um, it, it, it just, and then I started hearing rumors about, you know, materials that are used in Pepsi and Coke going on shortage.

And that told me, Hold on a minute. I mean, everybody drinks Coke and Pepsi. If there's anything easily to forecast, it's probably. Why are we having that type of problem on shortages? And that told me there was no one working. So [00:20:00] yeah, I mean, we, we saw this thing coming a, a mile 

Ismail: away. I mean, not to, I don't wanna get into conspiracies here, but it sounds, it, it seems like this is what people were frustrated about with the Chinese government is that.

There was clearly something going on and, and people try to keep it quiet again, I don't wanna get into conspiracy cause I don't know all the details. Yeah, no, I, and I, 

Bryan: and I don't even, I don't blame 'em. I mean, cuz they, they didn't know what they were dealing with. Right. Again, it's hindsight, but I, I do believe they did know, and I'm not, you know, again, I'm not a conspiracy theorist.

I think they did know, um, and it was over Chinese New Year, so they, they had this, this kind of natural break where manufacturing kind of goes into a lull and, and, and slows down over that time. , that was the other, This sign too, they extended out their Chinese New Year because you know, most of their employees are coming into a factory.

They live there and then they go home. You know, during Chinese New Year. , you know, they didn't want people coming back to the factories. And that's, that's kind of, you know, and we haven't, we haven't recovered since, candidly, and that's why we have the shortages we have. But did you, anyways, hopefully that ties into the financial cloud.

[00:21:00] My point is No, 

Ismail: no, that's really interesting. So 

Bryan: I'm, that's why I sold my business and there is, there is correlation to it. I, you know, it's all about timing, right? And figuring out valuation and figuring out is this the right thing? You know, there's, it's, it, it, it probably wasn't, in hindsight, there was something we probably could have, uh, weathered.

Ismail: And now a quick message from our sponsors.

Message from Sponsors

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I attribute a lot of my own success in trading to the financial cloud, [00:22:00] and I love the team there, so I'm more than happy to help spread the word. I've also got several of my family and friends to join. My favorite feature is the live. So for literally the entire market day, I'm listening to professional traders calling out plays and describing what they're seeing.

There are also algorithms they've built that notice unusual activity and instantly call them out to alert you. And I'll admit I was skeptical about bots at first until I saw how effective they were. So believe it or not, these plays are now the core of my trading. And of course, there's also the disc core group with a huge active community, nonstop education and classes offered as.

Quite honestly, they do not charge enough for all the value they provide. Sign up via the link in the show notes to get a seven day free trial and 50% off your first month. Or you can just use promo code rich, r i c h, and within that time period you'll know if it's worth it. In my experience, it's been a total no brainer.[00:23:00] 

All right, let's get back to the. Do, do you feel,

Sharing Win/Loss ratio

Ismail: if you feel comfortable, Cause I've, I heard about some big wins that you had, um, from Tom. Yeah. Uh, whatever you feel comfortable sharing. I like to share the big wins and, and big losses. Any, any kind of, uh, information you can share so people see the gamut.

It's not just, Hey, I made six figures in one day. There's also some, some bad days too. . 

Bryan: Yeah. I've had bad days. I've had good days. I mean, you know, the most that I think I've had on my account, um, you know, was, was over 200,000 on a, on a. . Um, I've also had a 65,000, 70,000, uh, multiple. I've had a couple of those where, you know, losses and, and so, you know, you can wipe out gains and, and, and as easily as you make it.

Um, to me, you know, while those are exciting and I, and no doubt, it's, you know, it's fun to post and say, Hey, look, I just had this, you know, this huge win. Um, you know, it, it, it's the steadiness to it, right? Those big trades, to be honest, if I'm [00:24:00] asking myself why and what did you do, you know, Brian, to make that happen.

Um, some of it was, you know, squeezes that you kind of identified. The financial cloud played a huge role in that. And I mean, some of those tickers I've never in a million years would've known about. Um, but I, there wasn't anything that I would say I could pinpoint and, and put some hard facts as to how can I replicate that again.

So there's a little bit of a sense of a gambling aspect. I don't want to use that term because gambling is, you know, it's just odds, right? And I don't want to, I don't wanna say that there was, there was more than odds going into it. Um, or, or luck. It's right. Or luck is another way to say it. And there's, there's plenty of that.

Um, but to me it's the steady gains, right? It's being able to preserve your, your, your principle. And then, you know, to me, the, for me, the hardest thing I have as a trader, Point, Right? And so I, I can't watch my, my, my screen every second, [00:25:00] right? And so, you know, you, I may hear something or I read something that says, Hey, this is a great thing.

And I go in and I, I, you know, I overweight a, a trade and I'm, I'm now in deeper than I want. All of a sudden there's a quick downturn. And, and I find myself now trying to make up, you know, for that loss by even doing bigger traits. And those are, those are the, the, the, the cycles you gotta get out of is, you know, when you're, you're with.

Financial Cloud does a great job in that. Um, I mean, for me, what I really value that they bring is it's not just saying, Hey, go buy Tesla and it's going to, you know, seven 50. Um, it's not that. It's, it's, here's the reasons why. Um, and there's different approaches to it. You know, some will use Elliot Wave theory, some will use, you know, momentum, some will use volume.

There's a lot of different ways that they're determining as to what's there. And it's, it's cool to see how that comes into, cuz then the luck. I mean, there's always an element of luck, right? News trump's everything. You never know what's gonna happen and you know, the market can turn down in a, in a snap and you can have these flash crashes.

But you [00:26:00] know, if you, if you understand kind of what is going on at the sentiment at, you know, at the macro level and then understand these technical points, then you know, trading becomes something that's manageable and he's gotta manage your risk. Yeah. 

Ismail: It's important to keep that like, Mindset because I personally, for example, like to illustrate your, the point that you try to make.

Making it big in Stock Market

Ismail: I had a large win with a, I dunno if you remember the day Fastly dropped, like our walk, because the, 

Bryan: So I've got a story on 

Ismail: that, but keep going. So I was gonna say, I actually had a lot of puts on Fastly at that time. So did I. So I had a very large win. Uh, I was right, right. But you can't let that get to your head.

Yes, I had puts on it because I thought it was overvalued. It ran, like, I remember it went to like one 20 from 30 bucks. It was a crazy, 

Bryan: it was around one 15 and it dropped to like 90 in a second. Exactly. 

Ismail: Uh, so yeah, I was right that it was overvalued, but I didn't think I was gonna be that. Right. I got, I got helped out by the CEO putting out a statement, and then the next day you wake up [00:27:00] and it's a, it's a huge win.

So what's, what's your story? 

Bryan: So it happened after hours, if I remember correctly. Yes. And if I remember correctly, it was TikTok or some, they lost an account. I can't remember what account they had lost. And I had a decent size number of puts. I mean, for me, I think I had, I don't know, $30,000 of, of, you know, puts in that, in that play.

And I, I, I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna take the 10% cuz you know, you, you're not gonna shun a $3,000. , but all, you know, I, I sold it literally right at close and I'm watching it. But you, you exited 

Ismail: and exited your putts, right? 

Bryan: I exited, I exited it, right? I mean, literally right at the end of, of trading and I'm sitting in my truck and all of a sudden I look on my phone on, Oh my God, I tin or swim and I see this enormous red candle.

And I just sat there and I mean, you're just looking at it going, Are you kidding me? I mean, and it goes both ways. And that's the reason why, you know, you gotta manage your risk. You gotta be disciplined because it easily could have. [00:28:00] Um, Yeah, right. They could have announced, Hey, I'm, we're, we're bringing on whatever account, and all of a sudden I'm, I'm upside down.

It's the reason why you've gotta be happy. You know, they always say, You can't go broke, making, making a profit, and, you know, you may have made more. So that's when you come back and you learn and you, you know. But anyways, that's my process story. So, yeah. I, I, I remember that distinct. You would've had 

Ismail: a, if you had 30,000 inputs, that would've been a massive, that might have been your best win, 

Bryan: right?

Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, Yeah. So how do you 

Ismail: overcome, how do you overcome the mental aspect of that as a trader?

Mental aspect while trading

Ismail: Did it bother you the next day, or are you like, whatever I made my 3000, I did, I, I took off risk and next day 

Bryan: I don't, you know, I don't remember what happened the next day, but I, I can speak to what I've done in the past specifically, you know, to situations like that.

Sometimes it's just best to walk away and not trade. I mean, there's, there are some days you, you don't have to trade. and you know, and, and that's something that, you know, that [00:29:00] I've gotta learn, you know, what to, you know, what to do because you can have a big win or you can have a big loss and you can compound that loss because you're thinking about what happened yesterday and you, you know, you've kind of got, you know, it's the big rage I guess, and it's an awesome show, but it's like Ted Lasso, right?

I dunno if you watch Ted Lasso, I don't, but I've heard of him. It's great. And there's a, there's a, there's a line that, you know, he uses and that's be a goldfish. And, and, and the ration or the thought process behind being a goldfish is, you know, forget about your mistakes. Just move forward. Right? And don't let it, don't let it bother you.

Press forward and keep going. And, you know, that's, there's, there's an element of that. And that not to say that you shouldn't remember because you. , there's a reason you feel pain. Right? And, and whether it be emotional, whether it be physical, it's to tell you, Hey, guess what? Don't do that again. Right. It, it that, or try and avoid it.

Right. And so, you know, that's you, you need to feel that pain. Yeah. And you can't get numb to it if you get [00:30:00] numb to it. Then, then, you know, then things are, are you're, you're playing with Monopoly money at that point, and that's, that's where it gets, you know, it gets pretty, uh, 

Ismail: you're right. I've definitely had some very painful moments too.

I remember on the flip side, um, not being able, like, I remember Amazon before their most recent earnings, I had a small call position and I was like, All I'm gonna get out right before close. Um, and it didn't. and then it, the stock just cratered. Uh, so that was a painful moment as well. Uh, but, but those, those things fuel you, uh, as long as you learn from them to get better going forward.

Yeah. So I guess that leads to my next question.

Advice on trading you'd give to your younger self & kids

Ismail: If, if you could go back to yourself when you were starting or, you know, talking, talking to your kids about trading now, what advice would you give them or give yourself if you could 

Bryan: go back in time?

Patie. , you know, And, and, and that's, that's the one thing that I, you know, that I hope people as they listen to this, and, you know, in the financial cloud, I know, uh, preaches it, but you're not, you know, there's, you [00:31:00] read about, we talked about this at the beginning of the podcast. There's this idea that you're gonna become a millionaire quickly and that, you know, you can get, you see stuff on Twitter where someone turned $5,000 into a million and, and that's, honestly, that's amazing.

Um, but that's really, really hard to. to match and to replicate. Right? And, and that's where it goes back to, you know, we talked about some of my big wins where they're over 200,000 and it's like, that's phenomenal. That's great. Well then I also had some big losses and, you know, the idea that you can just, you know, get this steady, consistent gains above and beyond what you would normally get investing, um, compounds and, and you, and you win.

uh, you know, you're 25, let's say, and, and you're, you're beginning to trade. You know, don't expect to be a millionaire by 30. Not saying it can't happen. I'm not saying that can't be a goal, but, you know, you've got a lot of time ahead of you, right? And, and so be smart, be consistent, and that compounds over [00:32:00] time.

And, and then you win. I mean, there's, there's, those are, those are true principles of just putting money to work. Um, you know, there's, there's peaks and valleys. You just gotta. Uh, it was funny cuz I was, I was running, I love to run and I, I'm in Salt Lake City and, uh, I, I get up in the morning and, and with the, the timing of light right now, you get the, the sun over, you know, coming up over the Wasatch Mountains and you see these, you know, peaks and valleys of going of the mountains, right?

And I look at that and it just shows you how much tradings on my mind. I'm looking at that and I'm like, That's a graph. Look at that. You know, and I'm, and I'm starting to think like, would I trade there or not? And as I'm, you know, running towards these. and cuz they're silhouetted against the sky. Right?

And, and it dawns on me that, you know, life is, it's li a lot of luck like life. You're gonna have peaks, you're gonna have valleys, you're gonna have wins, but you just gotta be consistent and, you know, you're not gonna have a graph that's gonna go from zero to a million in, in a year. If you do, that's phenomenal, Put that money away and never touch it again.

and put, and then [00:33:00] start, you know, start a small account again or put something there and, and, and try and get consistent gains. You know, there's a reason why you don't hear a lot of traders that are worth 500 million. I mean, because of what we're talking about. And you just, you know, it's, it's hard not saying you can't do it, It's just 

Ismail: hard.

Yeah. So it's funny you talked about compounding. Um, I, I have a, my most popular TikTok got like over 500,000 views. Something went a little viral, was about the power of compounding gains. And I know Tom has a video about this as well on YouTube. , 

Real Scenario of Compounding Gains

Ismail: what are realistic returns? Like when you talk about steady, slow, and steady games, compound them.

What's realistic? So people have an idea. 

Bryan: I mean, like, if you're getting 25, 30% on, on your investment a year, you're winning. I mean, that's, that's reality. Now, do I think, you know, as, as you're, as you're nut or you're, you're nest or your investment, your principle gains and gets bigger in value, it's harder to sustain a 25, 30% growth, [00:34:00] right?

If you have $10,000 and you're investing $10,000 and you do it right, I don't think there's any reason why you couldn't get a 4, 5, 600, even a thousand percent return on that investment. If you do that right within a year to say you can do that on, let's say a principle amount of a million dollars, that's a, that's a lot different, right?

So it depends on how much money you have. It depends on, you know, where you are, you know, and, and, and how, you know, what you're willing to, to, to put it at risk, what your risk tolerance. But if, you know, again, if, if I'm 25 years old and I've got $25,000 that I'm putting to work, there's no reason why I don't think that person, if discipline use tools like the financial cloud, you know, do your own research, become educated.

That's one thing. Tom, is Tom's an educator, Um, and listen and, and you put check your ego at the door. There's no reason why that shouldn't be $50,000 at the end of the year, in my opinion. Um, whether it be market goes up or down because there's price action both ways and. You [00:35:00] know, it doesn't, the market doesn't necessarily have to go up to make money.

You've gotta understand some of those principles, but that's, that's my belief. I mean, I, it just, again, it depends on the amount you have, um, what you're doing. But it, you know, I, I think you should be able to get at least a 20, 25, 30% return. You know, that's, that's what, you know, you would see typically, like in a preferred or a private equity type, you know, investment if you were to, you know, take that off market and let someone else do it.

Yeah. I 

Ismail: mean, if you look, First of all, I love the answer that you gave. A lot of the critiques people have with like, for example, my, my TikTok. Oh yeah. Why don't you just do that, uh, and become a, you know, multi-billionaire. Just keep going, keep compounding, and I think you hit it right in the head. It's totally different.

Compounding a million dollars and compounding $10,000, Right? There's a, the law of diminishing returns as you have a bigger and bigger nest egg, right? It's harder and harder to get those big returns. And as you well , no, I say as you alluded to before, with the inflation that we're experiencing, Um, the old days of just making 10% a year being great is not great now because [00:36:00] with inflation you have to kind of get that at least to just get by.

Bryan: You do. And, and I, you know, and I don't think, again, I, I don't wanna go too much off on the inflation aspect, but I do think that people need to take that into consideration, uh, that, you know, 10% return right now is not what it was 10 years ago. That's, . Um, and so, you know, the value of money is, is different and it's yet to be seen, you know, what this quantitative easing is, is gonna do on a monetary policy.

Um, but yes, I mean, you know, you've gotta keep your, and then you know, when you get more and more money, I would not suggest that you constantly put it into trading and do those things. I, you got real estate, which is, you know, which is a great in. , there's other, as there are other tools and vehicles that you know, you can certainly use.

Ismail: So one thing I'm just really curious about before we move on from the topic is 

Your Investment in scarce assets

Ismail: we seem to agree on inflation. Um, personally after Covid, I, I re because of the education that I had, I, I saw major inflation coming [00:37:00] and I pivoted my portfolio to mostly scarce assets like gold, silver, and Bitcoin. So I'm curious, Yeah.

Have you made a similar move? Do you. Uh, like, are you into Bitcoin or do you not? See, 

Bryan: I was, um, I got out of it and I think when it peaked in the spring, um, that scares me in part because, you know, and this is important, you know, trading can consume you. I mean, it, it can consume your after hours. It's gonna consume your day, it's gonna consume your weekend.

There's a lot of work, and I, and that's something I think people need to understand is, you know, you've gotta create a. . If you don't have a plan, then you're just relying on someone else. And no offense to any of the guys on, on, you know, tfc, you know, it scares me that sometimes I'm listening to a 25 year old and I'm putting work based off what they say, you know, money to work based off what they say without having some, And I've done that and I've, and I've been, they, and they know what they're doing.

Don't get me wrong. Um, and I do it more often than [00:38:00] not to be candid. Uh, but I, I, you know, I think you need to, you need to have a plan and do some work, but it can. and going back to the Bitcoin and the, and you know, all currencies and whatnot, digital currencies, you know, there it trades 24 7, right? And so sometimes I need downtime.

Sometimes I need to just watch a movie or go throw, you know, my baseball with my son or you know, talk to my wife and go to dinner. And there are moments where honestly, I'm, I'm so preoccupied cuz it's addictive. I mean, there is an addictive nature to, to trading and you've gotta be really, really careful.

where it, it just consumes your mindset. And so you've gotta have balance. And you know, it's one of the reasons I love to run. It's one of the reasons why I look for, you know, other, other avenues, um, to, you know, preoccupy my time and get focused and, you know, want to get to, you know, to a point where you're so focused on it and that you, you know, kind of lose perspective and, and get sucked in.

That's what scares me about Bitcoin. Um, not that [00:39:00] it's not an asset that's going up, it's just that I. Take a break from it. Whereas with trading, you know, equities or options, you've got at least that 

Ismail: break. Right, That makes sense from a trading point of view. Um, so 

Deciding to join Financial Cloud?

Ismail: why did you decide to join the financial cloud and, and pay for it?

If anyone here listening is considering the same thing, like what made you decide to do it? 

Bryan: Um, well, I mean, number one, you're investing in yourself and I, and, and. You know, I, I, like I said, when I, you know, when I started following these guys on, on Twitter and kind of seeing their success, I, I had a skeptical eye, you know, kind of to where and how things are done.

Um, but, you know, it's, it's not a lot of money when you look at it from the whole, whole scheme of things, particularly when you're talking about returns and the education, you're, you're gonna get over time. Um, it's worth every penny in my opinion. And I, and I think it's, you know, and I, I don't wanna state exactly what it is cause I may get.[00:40:00] 

The subscription rate wrong. Um, but I, it is, you know, it's, for me, I look at it as, as an education. , I'm either gonna pay myself, I, I, I, I make investments in myself all the time. Why not put it towards education? That's how I look at tfc. So 

Benefits of using Cloud-based tools

Ismail: what's your favorite benefit from them? Because, um, they have a lot of, they've got the newsletter, they've got all these different things in the discord.

Uh, me personally, I think you mentioned it briefly in the beginning, I like trading can be very lonely. Right. So you're by yourself, you're on the computer, you're by yourself. I love being able to listen to that voice chat, uh, and like hearing other people also trading and, and talking you out of things or talking you into things.

So that's my favorite is what do you think is like your most valuable feature 

Bryan: that they give you?

You know, um,

they, they give you the, they if you listen and you're willing to learn, they're gonna give you the tools to, to believe in. . Right. And, and I like that. [00:41:00] Um, you know, certainly I, I don't know. I mean, you know, I've, I've DMed them here and, you know, every once in a while we, we'll connect, but you do have a sense of, of who they are as, as people.

Um, and so it's, you know, it's this, there is a connection there to the point where you say it is. I would say that's that. Honestly, it's one of my favorite things about. I mean, I feel like I know Tom, um, you know, he, he's gonna have a baby, and I'm like, Oh God, should I get Tom a present? You know? And, and, and I, in all seriousness, I've sent Tom, you know, I mean, not to give, like I've sent Tom some of these right?

And he's got a kid. I'm like, Tell me if you like them. And I've sent 'em to Avery and, and you know, guess he likes, uh, he's, he's out there, you know, working out. I mean, here's, here's another aspect to it, and this is really cool. And I, you know, hopefully TA's okay with, with me saying, , you know, I reached out to him.

I'm from Utah. I'm a big jazz fan, right? And I, and he's on the Grizzlies and they played in the first round of this, you know, most recent playoffs. And I, and I just say, Hey, look, you know, love your [00:42:00] work. I love the fact that you're an athlete, that you're actively involved in trading and you're really good at it.

And I, and I love that, you know, you've got this physical specimen, it's like in the 0.1% of the world, right? I mean, he's got every physical talent that I can't even dream of, right? And he's got it. That's. But he is also got this mental capacity that's off the charts, right? So I sent him this note and he's like, Hey, that's really nice.

I appreciate that, by the way. Do you want tickets to the game? And, and so, you know, he is like, How many do you need? I said, Can I take my kids? And so we went to the, you know, to the jazz Memphis game and it was game five. And I never even got to say, you know, to him personally, like, Thank you, Right? Because he's down on the, on the court there were covid restrictions, a lot of things going.

but that was cool. I mean, that shows that there's a community element to it that's really, really cool. And they really do. I mean, certainly there for business and they wanna make money and they should. I mean, that's, they're, they're putting their time and their talents to work, but they care about it, right?

They care about the success. They [00:43:00] celebrate people's wins, and they, and they also like, they feel for you when you lose, right? And. , and I don't know, I, to me it's, it's a, it's a really, really cool, uh, you know, entity. I don't, you know, I haven't gone out and spent a lot of time on other discords or other groups that are out there, but I do like the idea and the fact I do like who they are as individuals and, and to me it's, it's, you're gaining it.

They're, they're genuine people and it just makes it, you know, an enjoyable experience. I 

Ismail: love that anecdote. And I, I totally agree. That's part of the reason why I've spent so much time interviewing. People on their board, uh, people on their group. I just like those guys. I think they're genuine guys and they're, they have a good mission of trying to help people.

Uh, and I've gotten to know them, I think pretty well, and I, I, it's hard to fake that, right? That's, uh, genuine, uh, good people, uh, trying to help people learn how to make more money. So that's 

Link in the show notes.

Ismail: why I feel comfortable promoting them. And I think anyone that's listening, if they're interested in checking it out, I'll have a link to everything, the show notes.

Um, feel free if you don't feel like paying for it yet. I think that they do offer some free. [00:44:00] Parts of their discord that you can join. Um, but all that stuff will be in the show notes for everybody to check out. Otherwise, Brian, 

Parting words by Bryan.

Ismail: if there's any last parting words that you want to 

Bryan: give? No, I, I mean, I'll say there's great, I, I enjoyed, I didn't know quite what to expect on this interview.

I've enjoyed, uh, getting to know you, uh, better. Me and I, I'll say that, uh, you know, Financial Cloud, Tom Avery, ta, all those guys, they're fantastic. Um, and it's, and it's not just guys. There's women on. And, you know, as you can see, I'm kind of the old guy probably on that group. Um, I can guarantee it, but you know, I don't feel like I, you know, don't belong there.

And, and so, you know, whoever you are, whatever you're looking at, I, I highly recommend it. They're, it's, it's worth every penny and I'm not getting anything out of this. I, you know, I'm giving them stuff. They're not giving me anything. So, other than, other than education, So I, I like it. They're great guys and, and highly recommend it, and I appreciate the time.

Awesome, Brian. 

Thank You & Wrap up!

Bryan: Thank you so much. All right. Take. 

Ismail: One quick reminder before I [00:45:00] let you go to join my email newsletter, it's gonna be like a personal note for me to my friends. Of all the cool things that have come across that morning from hacks and tips, interesting stories, products, books, was Toic Money and who knows what else?

It's totally free and if you don't like it, you can always opt out anytime. The link to join is in the show notes, and I hope to see you in the list. And there you have it. If you enjoy this episode, please remember to leave a review. I may even give you a shout out and read yours out on the show for any and all resources that we discussed.

Check out the show notes or head on over to bound to be rich.com. Until next time.