JUL'24 and AUG'24 - Reflections and Results

Reflections (Personal)

I have been doing a lot of thinking, self-reflecting and self-analyzing.

For Arete, I felt that something was "missing". I was putting in the work, day after day, week after week, in some ways effort felt good but at the same time it felt like something was holding me back.

Deep in my heart I already knew the answer. I tried to convince myself that maybe others were right, maybe their advice meant a better future path for Arete from a results and longevity perspective. Back in 2020, when Arete was born, it was created with my most authentic self.

Because I had nothing to lose, I had everything to gain.

If I failed, I would lose $50 max in website costs and perhaps my time; nothing life changing that would alter the way I live. That was also the period where I was bogged down the least by external influences and I could focus 100% on being me, sharing selflessly and giving out a ton of value. That was also the period where I saw the community grow organically but slowly. I am 100% fine with that because people join the community for what Arete stands for. Slow is steady, steady is fast (in the long run).

Right around in late 2023, I decided to pivot Arete away from personal stories and mortal struggles, and pivot solely on sharing Options related content. Having spoken to some people to gain their opinions, I thought maybe they were right; focusing on Options only content (just the finance stuff) maybe, just maybe, sounds like a better idea and that's what the audience might be looking for. Hence, I made the adjustment.

I even hired a freelance IG reels creator from Europe to help with my reels. For months and months I executed but deep inside the very core of my being, I felt something was "missing". However, I wanted to be open minded to ideas and the potential prospect of reaching out to more people in a different way.

That did and did not work.

What did work was that there were a couple of potential people enquiring about Options, keen to learn, and eager to start. However, it felt like the reason for wanting to start was more commonly a very surface level one. "How much can I make in a year from this" ? It is purely transactional, dollars and cents $$. What is truly needed to succeed is the desire to weather through ups and downs for years, and not let a few months of results dictate your longer term fate.

As a result, what did not work was that I spent a ton of time onboarding people into the community but because their mindset was not the way I hoped for it to be, the Arete mindset, I saw an larger than usual fluctuation in members joining and quitting/giving up.

I blame myself for it.

I deviated from Arete's core principle.

Joining Arete's community should never be about quick gains or a short ride; fundamentally it's almost for certain unsustainable for new joiners. In a sense, I did attract some wrong crowd (which I have already fixed recently by removing them in the group). I have had people who didn't pay up for up to a year, leaving me on read et cetera...and I didn't make a big fuss out of it. I only wanted to focus on getting people good results in Options trading.

A bit of a tip for those who do this -- if you have benefited from someone's time, resource or advice, especially if the person really took the effort to help you -- it is never a good approach to leave them on read (more than twice). Just know that anything that has value always has a price tag to it, and anything of great value you receive out of goodwill for free should never be taken for granted. People don't say it but trust me we know. We just don't want to be rude and trust that you have the moral integrity to do the right thing. We will move on as time passes but if you ever seek help again it is most likely we will politely decline it. Imagine if this was your job interview for a job you really wanted, would you ghost or leave your hiring manager on read ? Even a simple reply goes a long way. Even if it is a note of rejection, or you needing more time due to personal reasons, trust me, we understand and will not judge or get mad at you.

Back to topic... I have decided to re-adjust the way I share content on Arete to be less about Options only and include the human-mortal side as well. By executing this way, it is the best path forward for both my readers and myself because I can add so much value to your lives outside of Options, which is the reason for Arete in the first place. I want you to be richer, and you can be richer not just simply from Options but from so many other sustainable ways as well. You can get a better job, invest in real estate, upskill yourself et cetera, all of which I have successfully done and saw up to a 5 X increase in my annual income from 2020 to 2024 over the span of 4 years.

Furthermore, I know that by executing in a way that is most authentic and real to me, I can continue doing this for years and years to come and not be restricted by a self-limiting scope. Afterall, this is the Arete journey. A journey of Ups and Downs. A story of only wins and no losses is a boring and more importantly, fake story. There are lots of fakes out there. I don't intend on being one.

Moreover, as I continue to collect enriching experiences in my own personal journey, I will never run out of things to share; even if I am operating Arete alone. When I hired a IG reels freelancer, he actually bailed on me and ghosted me. That created a lot of issues - we lost momentum, lost consistency, and more importantly, he didn't really resonate with the brand, his sole purpose was to do copywriting to convert sales.

The worst thing that could happen is I have zero sales or zero growth in the community, which I will be sad about because that would mean I would have impacted lesser lives. But I cannot help everyone. As I grow older I learnt to accept this reality. I am perfectly comfortable with this.

This documentation of my journey from level 0 to level 999 is really to keep myself accountable and responsible. And I enjoy writing and reflecting. At the end of the day, I will have a blog with all the stories, failures, successes, learnings which I can look back to and read with a sm:)e.

Reflections (Options Trading)

In the second half of the year, we finally started seeing some overall MTD profits after a slow start for H1. The sad thing I would say is that those who joined our community in Q1/Q2 probably didn't see the quick results they had hoped for, but if they stayed for minimally a year I believe they will be satisfied with the results. Sometimes your timing and your intuition is really important in the choices you make in life.

The highlight for Jul'24 and Aug'24 happen to also be the lowlight and then a unexpected highlight again!

In Jul'24, given that the market was flat and not moving much, and also to keep things more passive, I pivoted to more passive strategies for our option trades. It's really not that difficult; analyze, execute a trade which expires in 1 month and wait. Through this experience, I learnt that I do enjoy options trading in a slightly more active way. My end goal would be to do things as passively as possible but if there is a way I can do both concurrently, setting aside a small capital to trade more actively if I wanted to, why not ?

With this, I resume a little bit of day trading, raking up $150 per trade on average in profits 3 x a week and overall making $1,500 on the side each month which is not bad. (Highlight).

The lowlight happened in Aug'24. I lost $2,700 in $SPX. It wasn't my biggest lost per contract to date but it definitely was low-key demoralizing because all the profits I did for the past 1 month+ amounted to nothing.

Then a miracle happened.

I made it all back in $SPX again the next day, in fact we made $3,400. It is a crazy experience (and a great story) I will never forget because mentally I was prepared to fight back for the next month to recover back to breakeven. To not only recoup back the losses but end up profitable the very next day is unthinkable for me.

It's funny how I summarized the whole fiasco in 3-4 paragraphs when there's a lot more that happened during the saga. If you are in the community and you see this, IYKYK. And thanks for never giving up in me and yourself. If this experience, unfolded to you in real time, which can never be faked, hasn't shown you that "come back is real", I don't know what else can.

The lesson I learnt here is to never give up. If I spent the entire day in my own headspace and not decide to take action, my results would have been starkly different.

I mean, since I cannot change what has happened, the best move forward would be to take action towards resolving the setback, right?

I learnt a lot about myself that day. I remember I woke up in the morning, mildly affected by the loss in my account but it didn't impact me much since I only sized 1 contract. I was way more affected by members who made a loss because of me. I felt responsible. That day was tough emotionally because I had to calibrate my emotions, and manage the emotions of others AND start working out a solution to make it back again; which I am glad I did.

It was a tough day. I am thankful that it happened.

Results