I am inspired by FIRE.
I worked hard. I always did.
Up to this point in my life, I packed sandwiches, cleaned toilets, typed documents, answered phone calls, taught English, tutored mathematics, analyzed data, built algorithms and apps, shipped code, and mentored students.
And guess what, I will always work hard.
But the point is not about working hard for others. The point is about working smart and working well for a solid reason.
What that reason is — that’s up to you. But I will tell you what my reason is.
My Why
I actually like to work — but I realized that my “liking to work” has some parameters that need to be satisfied so that I will continue to like working. And these parameters are:
- I set my own hours
- I set my own priorities
- Leave me alone
- I still like to talk to people
- I’d like to have pinpoint conversations, and I hope my interactions has been beneficial to them
- I like my work to pay me well
Above all, I am inspired by FIRE.
FIRE is an acronym that means Financial Independence, Retire Early.
I don’t take FIRE literally though. I have my own spin on FIRE.
First of all, I don’t just want financial independence. I am seeking financial abundance. If you don’t know already, financial abundance is often thought to be the ultimate stage of financial freedom, which starts with dependence. then solvency, then stability, then (free) agency, then security, then independence, and finally, abundance, as pioneered by R.D. Roth.
On this road to financial freedom, we have to choose a conduit. My conduit has been my multiple jobs — but it is so, only up to a point.
I said up to a point, because I had been re-structured out of my job.
I had enough of being a corporate slave, where you cow-tow to others, defer to your boss, tow the corporate line, follow the party song, and basically live a life in the spare time of being a slave.
The restructuring has been the biggest blessing in my life. I am a naturally anxious person, and although my multiple contracts outside my employment had already earned me more money than my full-time income, I couldn’t be sure. I know that was illogical and irrational, but have I mentioned that I was feeling anxious?!
This whole time while I was building multiple contracts, apart from my full-time job, I have also been building the foundation of my trading skills. I have been building like crazy. I have spent long hours learning the markets as a human, and I have spent even longer hours building algorithms for the machine, and equally long backtesting, tweaking, and live testing my algorithms. As far as algorithms are concerned, I have many, and I have used several. I have traded on my own, and I have traded for firms. I have traded the weekly charts, and monthly charts, and I have also traded the shorter timeframes – 1 hour, 4 hours, 8 hours, 12 hours, and 30-minute, 15-minute, 5-minute and even 1-minute charts. I could say that I do well in pretty much all the timeframes, but had been tremendously attracted to lower-timeframe trading.
While my full-time employment, as well as multiple contracts, took my working hours way past 80 hours a week, I was still trading on top of THAT schedule — trading AND building algorithms. Trading AND coding AND backtesting. Trading AND deploying the algorithms.
I see it first-hand, from personal experience, that trading can be an extremely powerful tool — IF, and that is a big IF, IF it works with your personality, your risk appetite, and with your technical inclination.
Right now, sitting in the bliss of post-restructuring, I am finally not a corporate slave. On top of my data science game, I now choose to step out of the corporate world. I am still a mentor and instructor in data science and still a passionate writer. But now, I can freely express my OTHER FLAVOUR, if you will, and can do so without fear of corporate pushback.
My reason for this blissful existence is backed by the fruit of years of preparation. I do have multiple contracts that will continue to support me, but most importantly, my trading has matured to a point where I can draw an income that is equivalent to my full-time employment as a data analyst — through my trading business. This trading business will give you no boss, which is great, and no clients, which is even better, but based on your skill level, it will give you the chance to eat what you kill.
Let’s put this another way — because I put in the hard work myself in the past — for years actually, and regardless how horrible it was, I never gave up — I am now in a position where I can work on tasks that I want to work on: trading, oh yeah, teaching, oh yeah, mentoring, oh yeah, and writing, oh for sure.
On the path of financial freedom, I am at the stage of financial security. J.D. Roth defined this stage to be “You achieve financial security when your investment income can cover your basic needs. That is, based on how much you have saved and invested, you could live a meager existence for the rest of your life. Even if you never worked another day in your life, you have enough to afford simple housing, basic food, essential clothing, and insurance.
No, I am not financially independence, which is described as “he ultimate goal for most folks. At this stage, your investment income is sufficient to fund your current standard of living for the rest of your life. You can afford the basics, but you can afford some comforts too. You have Enough. (I leaped from agency to independence in April 2009. This is the stage I’m in today.)”.
But I am also not stopping at FI. I want financial abundance. \In the final stage of financial freedom, you have “enough — and then some”. Your passive income from all sources will not only fund your lifestyle indefinitely, but grant you the freedom to do whatever you want. You can share your wealth with others. You can indulge in luxury, explore the world. You can build a business empire.
And this blog/channel will be a documentation of this journey. I have already experimented with some of the techniques and tricks in trading and algorithmic trading, I can share that with you.
I want to talk about trading — trading as a tool to build wealth and freedom. We all have to ask ourselves, what are we fighting for? For me, I am fighting for wealth and freedom so that I can help out others without worrying about myself, enjoy my life by constantly learning (without worrying about tuition fee and living expenses), by travelling (without worrying about costs and spending), and by contributing to worthy causes (without worrying about my expenses).
This is a journey that has no definitive end — at some point, money will cease to matter. Before that, it will matter a whole lot.
But my journey will not end with the money. This is going to be a journey that begins with a desire to live life more meaningfully and without financial worries. This journey makes sense for who I am.