024 Interview with Dave Lukas of 12minutetrading.com and misfitentrepreneur.com

Hello and welcome to the Consistent Profits podcast brought to you by Inside out trading and Brian McAvoy where the focus is on consistency because when you have the consistent part down, profits become easy. So hello everybody. This is Brian McAvoy with a new episode of the Consistent Profits podcast brought to you by Inside Out Trading. I'm excited today to be interviewing Dave Lucas, creator of 12 Minute Trading. Thanks so much for being on the podcast today, Dave.

Hey, thanks Brian. Pleasure to be on with all of you in the audience as well.

Yeah, indeed. Now, so everybody knows Dave's not your average sword here. Now he is the creator of the 12 minute trading investing education service where he helps people to create financial independence through investing strategies and that they can do in less than 12 minutes a day from their smartphone, which is very cool. We're going to get into that. His other companies are in E commerce and distribution and he's also a real estate investor. Dave's an accomplished entrepreneur, investor and advisor who's achieved the Inc. 5000 list five times and entrepreneur360 list three times. He's involved in a number of ventures, most notably as the founder and host of Misfit Entrepreneur, a top rated weekly podcast devoted to giving their audience access and actionable insights from the world's top entrepreneurs, focusing on their non traditional methods for achieving success or otherwise known as their misfit side. And the show is listened to in over 160 countries. Dave's also the author of the Amazon bestseller 10 Year Career, the Fast Track Guide to Retiring Young, Wealthy and Fulfilled. And he speaks to organizations on success, leadership and entrepreneurship. Dave's clearly got a lot going on, but he managed to keep his sanity and enjoy life. Dave, again, thanks for being here and taking time for this interview.

Yeah, you got it. Looking forward to it.

Now, I noticed when I was looking at your history that you played football in college. You lettered for three years.

I did.

How did your football experience affect you when you left school and you moved into the grown up working world?

Well, sports is a great metaphor for life in general and entrepreneurship in fact, probably saw this too. We can get into it, but I actually do a talk on nowadays. I'm a highly competitive ironman athlete so I'm ranked top 5% in the world. So there are so many parallels between investing and trading as well as entrepreneurship with that. But. But I think one of the things that sports did for me was give me, it grounded me, it helped me with discipline, it helped me with routine and helped me with staying in good shape. I think it's important to be physically fit, mentally fit, but physically fit, you know, as an entrepreneur, as really in your life, because it does feed through to other areas of your life. It affects other areas of life. Your health truly is wealth. And so I think that's another side of it. So. But the, you know, the nice thing about playing sports, I started playing sports, you know, when I was a kid and played football basically from second grade all the way through college. And so, you know, you, you go through a lot of adversity. You go through the ups and downs. You know, you go from being a starter one year to maybe not the next, or having to change positions. Things like that happen to you. And so you have to overcome adversity. You have to deal with the different things, injuries can come up, all that type of stuff, right. That you have to work through and you know, not just physically, but mentally. And I think the mental game is one of the most important pieces to life for, for, for everything, for yourself, for your business, for, for investing, especially the mental game, really, the. Everybody's looking for the holy grail and investing. And the holy grail, you know, isn't a strategy or anything like that. It's actually what's between your ears. And so, you know, a lot of that, you know, prepares you well for life. Right. And so coming out of college, it was, you know, I had been through a lot of trials and tribulations and had to, you know, go to work every day basically and run a 40 hour a week, essentially, job in college while doing everything, you know, to play sports. And so the structure was there, the fitness was there, the mental preparedness was there, you know, and all of that. So it definitely helped me, you know, in a lot of areas.

Yeah, very cool. Well, yeah, the maintaining your health and the mental perseverance and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, definitely. Now I noticed though that, you know, you went to school, you graduated what, 2004, right. It wasn't long after that you started the 12 Minute Trader. Were you already trading while you were in, while you were in college or did you start right afterwards?

I would say in college. I was a dabbler like most people are. So I started trading in earnest after having some of my initial success investing in real estate. So right out of college, I actually started a, a business in the health and supplements sector and failed miserably. After about a year. I had about $1,000 a month in income. I was working three other jobs to make ends meet. I was actually, you know, bouncing at a nightclub till you know, two in the morning I was, you know, valeting cars in addition to, you know, serving at a high end restaurant. I was basically working from like, you know, 7:00am to like 2:00am every night, you know, doing this. And I wasn't, I mean I was paying the bills, but I mean I was sleeping on the floor of an apartment and everything else. And I learned some of the best, best lessons ever during that time about building teams and you know, truly going through the peaks and valleys of entrepreneurship. But after about a year of doing it, I took a step back and said, you know, I really, you know, need to learn what I do not know. And at the time I had it in my head I wanted to build, you know, a massive company. I wanted to build a Fortune 500. That was my goal, right was to, to create a Fortune 500 type entity. And so I said, well, you know, how am I going to learn how to do that, you know, without having the experience there. So I effectively shuttered that business and kind of sold off, you know, what was there. I didn't make anything on it and ultimately went and worked in the Fortune 500 space for about seven years. And I started in sales and did very, very well. I was rookie of the year in sales my first year. I was rep of the year the second year out of thousands of reps and everything. And that bought me a lot of autonomy. It fast tracked me to working with the C suite and got me really a lot of that experience that I was looking for. And it was during this all happened within a couple of years of getting out of college. And so during that time I made a lot of money and I started investing in real estate. I also had a lot of freedom. I actually, you know, during that time went on a pretty big journey to learn from the best of the best. Those are the, the years that kind of set the, the, the base for, for what became the book later and that I, I would go and I would, you know, I'd go learn from the Zig ziggers of the world. I got to sit down right across from them and pick their brains. The Brian Tracy's and you know, a number of millionaires, guys and gals worth 102,300 million plus, even a couple billionaires during that time. And my whole goal was like to look for what the patterns were, what are the consistencies that not only made them successful but keep them successful. I started to implement those in my life and started to have bigger and bigger results and you know, kind of ran the Course of my time there, you know, and it was during that time I, like I said, started investing in real estate. I'm a buy and hold guy. I'm a cash flow guy, always have been. I like to do something once and have it keep paying me, right? And so, you know, I love real estate for that. I love the leverage of real estate, right? 20% down. But you know, even in the, in that time it was 0% down, no DOC loans, you know, and getting into 2007 and 2008. And so it was, but it was all about cash flow, right? I would buy a place, I would, you know, get it below market, I would rent it and so on. And I found a lot of principles in that, right? So if you can buy a dollar below a dollar price, if you can collect cash flow from it, right? And then there's some tax advantages to real estate with depreciation and everything that, that allow you to, a lot of ways make a lot of your money tax free. And so those were some of the principles that I learned, the leverage that I learned during that time. And I started to look at other ways to find leverage and I started to, you know, I dabbled more in the markets. I was still buying stocks and things like that. I started buying options and everything. But, you know, it, it wasn't a huge part of my time because I was working like crazy. Where it really, really kicked off is during that, that kind of, towards the middle of that time at that Fortune 500, I invested in a little software company and I was the only investor and really liked what, what the product was, where it was going, and thought I could help them, you know, even just through my knowledge of sales. And so for a couple of years I was just an investor helping that company. It began to grow and to. After a couple of years, it made sense for me to go on full time. And so I did that. But I sunk, yeah, I sunk a lot more money into it when I did. So I, I basically left a job making multiple, multiple six figures to make, you know, less than 50,000 a year and start building this thing, right? And so I had, I didn't have, I had savings, but I didn't have a ton of money. And it was about that time that my wife and I decided to adopt. And we had to find a way to effectively afford all that process. We adopted internationally, our daughters from China. And at the time it, you know, it was about 40, $50,000 to go through that process and do that, right? And obviously coming from where I was Being, you know, where I was, you know, cash was a little bit strapped, and I had sunk a lot of the savings into, you know, know, funding the growth of the business. And so that's when I turned to the markets and I took some of those principles that I had learned in the real estate and brought those to the markets and figured some things out, because I was determined not to have to finance my daughter, if you will. And so you use that to help augment and pay for things, and then, you know, things kind of went from there, and I'll stop there. Not to be too long winded, but that's kind of how I really got serious in the markets and then, you know, build it.

Well, so at what point did. And you were talking about the Grasp Technologies, right? That's your software company.

Yeah, yeah.

So at what point did that start to turn around where you could kind of refocus and within.

Within about a year. I mean, we started Grasp, we had an incredible run. You know, we were growing at, you know, hundreds of percent a year. And the only challenge was if anybody's ever built a business out of cash flow before, growth sucks cash. So when you're growing like crazy and you have to continue kind of build the infrastructure and everything on the fly with it to accommodate the growth of the business, as well as hire and do all that stuff, I mean, we didn't. We weren't. We were growing like crazy, but we weren't making that much money, at least for the first four or five years. Right. It was enough to, you know, effectively pay the bills, have a little bit extra, and every little dime extra I was taking in investing. Thankfully, I bought and had some real estate that had residual from it. You know, that was nice. That was helping to pay the bills as well and do that. But effectively, it was. During that time, it was like all getting invested back in. You know, every surplus I had was getting invested back into my investing side. Right. More real estate, more in. In the stock markets. Trials and tribulations, though, I, you know, learned some hard lessons, as we all do in the stock market. Right. Learning to invest. I paid my dues, and after doing that for a few years, you know, I was able to help fund our daughter, do what we need to do, and, you know, put ourselves in a. In a really good footing. And then, you know, by that time, we had gotten over the hump, you know, reached over, you know, you know, reaching a couple million dollars in sales in the company and, you know, started to have a decent margin and grow it from there and everything else. And so it was just kind of a couple year time where we had to kind of just really, you know, grind it out, if you will, and you know, have these other things going on, like adopting our daughter during that time. So.

Yeah, yeah, very cool. Well, so at what point did you decide to write the book on the 10 year career?

So it was kind of right after that time was a. Probably around 2010, 2011, when, you know, I wrote the book after kind of going through some of those times and everything and learning what I learned through that and coming out the other side, right, and started to put it together. You know, the I, I talked earlier and I said the, you know, the holy grail, if you will, is between your ears. And that's probably one of the biggest things that I learned during that time. And I wrote about that in the book and did a whole chapter dedicated to your conditioning and your understanding how your mind works. And so we're all conditioned. You know, we, we always frame it as like, look, we all come out of the womb with a clean slate, right? It's not like they said, like, hey, beautiful baby, too bad make more than 35,000. Like, it doesn't work like that, right? So how did, like where do our bars come from? Where do our limitations come from? Where does all this happen? And it comes from this conditioning that we get throughout our lives. And you know, parents, friends, family, media, culture, school, all these things shape our beliefs and the way that we think and all that type of stuff. And so do like incidents that happen to us and stuff too. You know, you touch the stove and it's hot, you don't do that again. And so this, this all frames these automatic essentially responses to these, all these scenarios in our life. And our brain files all that away. Our subconscious is the most powerful part of our brain. It runs us without us even knowing it. And so anytime you run into situations, you have the automatic just initial, effectively responses. I mean people, I mean, how much do people really think to brush their teeth or throw a ball or do things right? Or even when you talk, you know, it kind of just happens, right? Where does that come from? And so I kind of did this just deep analysis and work into understanding that and then understanding how to effectively isolate the type of thinking and the habits and stuff that may be debilitating to your success that you picked up along the way and being able to then change those to what you want to have. Because that's living from true choice. Once you understand that, hey, I picked this up from, you know, somewhere, or I did, you know, I didn't choose to. To believe this, right. Or that. I just, you know, for some reason, I think that once you start to recognize those things and say to yourself, okay, wait, that's not what I truly want or I truly want to believe. This is what I truly want to believe, and you start to reframe that, everything changes, right? You take really, you know, more control, but you also can change your whole life, your potential, everything. And that's the. I think that's the crux of it. Right. It's the same thing when you're investing, because it's in a very emotional subject. You have to learn how to get control over your emotions and understand how to separate logic from emotion and use that to your advantage. Same in business as well, too. So that was, I would say, one of the most important pieces of the book and one of the things that spurred me to write the book was when you have to teach something, you have to be really good at it. It, or you should be, you know, and you should understand it really, really well. And so the book was an exercise in taking all these things and putting them into practice and proving that they worked and. And all that. That's why it took me like five plus years to write it, because I had to do it first, you know, so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Very cool. Well, yeah, on the. On the matter of teaching, I mean, one. One thing that I've always found interesting, when I was. I remember back in high school, I think it was my junior year, our psychology teacher, at one point he came in and he just had this. He just had this interesting mood about. It was a Monday morning, and he comes in and he's like, you know, I just wanted to thank all of you. And we're all looking at him like, are you okay, dude? And he's like, I just wanted to thank you because I've learned more as a teacher than I ever did in school, and I found that to be absolutely true. Yeah. And the reason why, though, is when you're. When you teach it to somebody else, you're forced to organize it in your head in a way that you can communicate it to other people. And so that's how. Yeah, it winds up taking you to a whole nother level with your understanding of things. And so. Yeah, that's right. Well, it's cool that you did that by intention with the book too, though, because. Yeah, writing a book, same thing. It forces you to validate everything, to organize it, and in order to Be able to, you know, in order to be able to articulate it.

Right?

Yeah. That's very cool. Well, I gotta ask. Yeah. You're in the Ironman competition though, too, though. How did you get started with that? And how long ago was that? Was that, like.

So I've been competing for. Going on almost six years now. And it was born out of coming out of, you know, college, having being used to that rigorous physical schedule and all that stuff, and then looking for outlet, right. As well as the competition side. That was something that I didn't mention earlier. I think one of the great things about sports is it teaches you to compete. And I think competition is. Is a very healthy thing for. For success, really, in anything. And so for me, after getting out of college, I, you know, I would. I kept, you know, I kept my regimen and schedule of, like, working out, lifting, doing that type of stuff, but I was looking for new challenges. And so I started out, you know, I'd never, you know, playing football, you don't run a lot of long distance. You run short bursts. So all my work, everything I did was geared towards short term. I. I don't think I ever ran over three miles. Right. Like, you know, and so I started first with, like, doing half marathons and then marathons and that type of stuff to see if I could do it. And it became an exercise in just pushing, pushing the physical and mental boundaries. Right. And it was kind of on a whim. About six years ago, my fitness center that I belong to, it's got a pool, it's got all that stuff. It's a really nice fitness center. And they had an indoor triathlon. It was like a sprint. It was like 15 minutes in the water, 20 minutes on the bike and 20 minutes on the run or something like that at the time. And I was like, yeah, what the heck, you know, I mean, I'll give it a shot, right? Try it out. I had done swim team when I was a kid, and so, you know, I. I could swim and stuff. So I'm like, yeah, we'll get. We'll give a shot. And so it was a. It was a really interesting experience because it was in some ways a rude awakening. In some ways it was. It was, you know, really, really good for, you know, me as a individual. And so I jump in the pool for this thing and I go like, like sprinting out, you know, freestyle. And after about two or three laps, I'm exhausted. So I'm having to, like, basically do breaststroke and just, you know, make it through the 15 minutes, right? And I got done with that and I got on the spin bike and just pedaled my, you know what off on the spin bike and then, you know, ran the run as fast as I could. And you know, at the end of this, like 45 minutes or whatever, I was just exhausted. Like, like I was just, you know, completely just dead, you know, like, like more exhaust than I've been, you know, since running wind sprints in college. And I, I finished, I actually finished second out of 60 people in this thing. And so it was at that point that I was like, you know, okay, this is a great challenge. This is something like you have to learn three different disciplines and all you have to change, you have to go through exchanges and all this stuff to, to do them. I'm like, all right, well, you know, this is pretty cool. Let's, let's go down this, in this road a little bit. You know, if I finish second, where could you really be if you knew what you were doing right? And so what do you do right? So I signed up for a half ironman because there was actually 15 miles from my house that was like two months away. And so, you know, one of the things that I think is important for people too is like setting goals right, but setting milestones and markers right. So if you have something that you need to accomplish a month, two months down the road, it forces you to have to work towards that and put those things in place if you're serious about it. And so, so that, so I like two months to get ready for this thing. So I didn't have a bike. I had to go buy a bike. You know, I had to go start swimming. I had to go do, you know, I started reading online and like how to do things for triathlon, but I showed up at the starting line for that thing not knowing what the heck I was doing. Still didn't even know about nutrition, right? So by the time I'm in the half marathon in an Ironman, for those of you that are, you know, maybe new to that is a full Ironman is a 2.4 mile swim followed by 112 mile bike ride followed by a marathon as fast as you can do it. It's the, you know, one of the most grueling one day races that you'll ever do. So half half ironman's half of that, right? And so I'm in my, I think my third or fourth mile of the, the half Ironman and my legs started to lock up. Like I just like Couldn't, like, run anymore, and I couldn't figure out why. And there's like, I'm, like, walking, trying to jog, and, you know, this guy that ends up next to me, and I'm sticks, like, poor, you know, just saying, hey, I. I don't get it. I don't know why I'm not. And he's like, well, have you taken any salt? And I'm like, well, I drink Gatorade and stuff. He's like, no, have you taken any salt, like, physical salt on it? I'm like, no, I. You know, I never take salt. And he's like, you're. You're locking up because your. Your body's out of salt. Gatorade's not doing it for you. And so, like, that was my introduction to learn. Hey, you got to take salt throughout the race and all this stuff. And so. So from there, it became kind of a mission, like, to figure this thing out, get competitive, get good at it, you know, hone your skills just like anything else. And, you know, it. It. It's, you know, now here we are. You know, I've been able to compete in the Ironman World Championships. And, you know, I do one about every quarter at this point. And that keeps me disciplined, it keeps me regimented. It keeps me, you know, moving towards a reason to keep operating at a very high level. Because once you kind of get into that shape, it. You know, you don't want to lose it, but it's easy to lose it, right? But more than anything, Ironman has taught me the importance of the little things, because the little things make the biggest difference. The air in your tires, the nutrition, the salt intake, the calorie intake, the. The transition time between getting from the swim to the bike to the run, how much time that can make up, that can be the difference between making it to Kona for the championship or not, you know, so the. The little things make the difference. And so that. That really helped me in business, right? I used to be somebody who was like, ah, we don't need a standard operating procedure for that. We know what to do, right? We don't need to detail that out, right? Well, now, like, everything, like, step by step, detail it out, right, so that everybody can follow it. Trading's the same way. You know, every little, little thing can make a big difference, give you an edge. And so, you know, that's helped me really hone my trading skills over the years as well as the mental side. Every single race is different. Every single race has its challenges. I'VE been at points where I. My brain was saying, if you keep going, you're going to die. You know, so I, I mean, I remember I was in St. George, Utah, at the world championships, and it's out in the middle of the desert. It's 95 degrees. I'm from Ohio, so we have. We're very flat. We get hot, but we don't get desert heat at 95 degrees where your sweat just wicks away. And it was up the mountains. 8,000ft of climbing for this race and everything. Don't climb mountains around here. And I remember about mile 20 in the marathon, I basically had to lay down on the side of the road and my head was spinning and nothing that I took in would stay down. And I basically had to walk, jog, and pick myself up and make myself finish that thing. It wasn't my worst finish ever. It wasn't my best, but the point was, is like I had to break through a mental barrier like none other to get myself up off the. And I mean, there's other people, like almost half that ra. Half the people in that race quit or, or dropped out. And so to like, pick yourself up and get through that mentally is. Is. Takes to another bar, another barrier. Right. And that helps you in business and everything, too. You kind of just re. Keep resetting the bar. And that's another reason that I, I really love racing that race.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Very cool. Yeah. What an. What an excellent, excellent story with all that, man. That's. Yeah. Well, I'm so thrilled to hear you say, talk about salt. I remember back in. When I was in high school, way back when the coaches would hand out salt tablets to us, salt tablets during summer. And you know, like in the 90s, it's like, you know, the big, you know, low fat, you know, no salt diets and all this kind of stuff. It's like, no, stop telling people that. Salt is a horrible thing. You really need it. You do later in the summertime, and if you, if you take somebody's diet down too low in salt, you put them seriously at risk. So, yeah, I was thrilled to hear you say that because. And I try to stress it with the younger generation when I'm talking to kids and especially athletes, because that's a big deal. And they're like, oh, no, salt's bad. It's like, no, it's not. You need it. So, yeah, the whole thing with the competitive. Competitive spirit and, you know, attention to detail. Yeah, definitely. Very cool. And I can see how that works out. Helping you in all your endeavors, but especially in competitive sports. And now as far as, you know, business and everything, obviously, you know, you're geared in that. That was like your education, and, you know, you jumped to it. And obviously with your career, you've. You've definitely pursued a big time, not just, you know, taking the job, but actually pursuing as far as entrepreneurship. When. When did you decide to start the Misfit Entrepreneur? And how do you wind up kind of taking that. That, you know, that.

Yeah. So that. That started as a side project after we adopted our daughter. And so when. So when I got my daughter, she was 18 months old. She had the three pairs of shirts that she'd ever worn, three pairs of pants on. She couldn't walk. She didn't have any teeth because of malnourishment. And after about five days of three square meals a day, she teeth were popping. And we were. You know, I would find myself. We were. Had to stay in China as we went through this process. And so I'd find myself, like, just in the hotel. You know, it was funny because the. The Olympics were on. It was the only thing we could really understand because everything was in Chinese, so you could at least watch it, you know, But I would find myself, like, just in the hotel room and. And stuff and be kind of bored, right, because, like, you know, during the day, curling's on. So, you know, I would get her and we would. I would hold her hands, and we go walk up and down the hallways trying to get her legs underneath or get her strength underneath her. And back to what I was saying before about conditioning, it, like, really dawned on me, like, you're conditioning her right now. The things you're doing are having an impact, you know, and that sort of thing on her. And the thought hit me, that's that, you know, there's. There's got to be a way to immortalize all this incredible information that I've learned, that I will learn, and from those I get to meet along the journey so that Hannah, my daughter, can learn from her daddy and his misfit friends long after I'm dead and gone. Like, that was the thought that popped in my head. And so fast forward a year, you know, we're home, we're gelling, we're a family, we're doing our thing. And the thought's still in the back of my mind. And as an entrepreneur, anybody listening, you know, if something sticks in your head that long, it's in the back of your mind.

You just.

You have to scratch the. Itch and so I sat down over a week and I'm like, what am I going to do? Do I write more books? Do I, you know, write? Do I do. I think there was a commercial at the time with a dad leaving videos behind. I think it was like a Google commercial to his kid or something like that. I'm like, do I do something like that? Like, what do I do? And, you know, it, it hit me like, why not a podcast? I love the spoken word story, is how we pass things on from generation to generation as a species and everything. And you can feel the emotion in it, right? If somebody was just listening to this, not seeing us, they could feel, feel the emotion in the discussion that we're having and everything. And so I said, well, why not do a podcast? I'd done tons of them, been as a guest, but I've never hosted one. And so over a weekend, you know, threw up a splash page, hacked itunes, called a few friends, got a few interviews in the can, and fortunately built a decent enough network that the next week I sent out, said, I'm doing this now and would love your feedback. And, you know, the whole reason for the title stems from that initial thought in my head of, you know, but, but, you know, that the dirty little secret is everybody's a misfit, you know, and the thing is, is that a lot of times we're taught back to the conditioning. We're taught to suppress that side of us, you know, the unconventional side, the, you know, the goofy side a little bit and stuff, you know, and as I looked back on things, it was the misfit side that had made the most difference in success in so many ways. It was doing the things differently, was going against the grain and going, you know, contrarian, you know, from, if we're talking market speak, right, To a lot of things that really spurred me forward and made the biggest difference. For example, I gave myself a 30% raise in a matter of four weeks when I was a first year salesperson. And I gave myself a 30% raise because I had, I had done some study on this subject of the, the subconscious and the understanding of, you know, reframing for performance and all this type of stuff, right? So I, I created a white pager for it and a curriculum for it. I went to my boss's boss and basically pitched him on training the, the representatives across the region that we had, you know, on this concept so that they could be higher performers. And I told them that I wanted a 50% raise to do it. And after review and talking to me, they didn't give me 50%, they gave me 30%. And I became the regional, you know, trainer for this type of stuff, Right. But I gave myself a 30 raise doing it like most people, you know, wouldn't, you know, you know, they would think, oh, don't do that. You know, and if you get rejected, you could get fired. All this stuff, I was just like, let's go for it. You know, this stuff is. Is really good, and it works, and I'm living proof, right? This is the type of stuff that's helped make me your. Your top sales rep. Right? So again, you got to put it into practice and embody it and do it before you're gonna, like, teach it and stuff. But that was, you know, a way to do that. So, you know, for me, I've always noticed that, you know, that kind of misfit side is really made a big difference in my life. So. So that's what we do on the podcast, is we, you know, we basically bring top entrepreneurs on and we explore that misfit side and get that uniqueness out of them so that others can learn about that and unleash theirs.

Yeah, very cool. Yeah.

Yeah. So it grew from a side business to its. Or a side project into its own business in its own right over the last eight years or so.

Well, one thing that you do on air that I think is very cool. Very cool, you know, because you said you were thinking about your daughter when you did that. Did that. But occasionally having just a, you know, lesson. Lesson for Hannah the other episodes. Very cool. You do that.

So, yeah, every fifth episode, I talk directly to her and give her a lesson from her dad. So it's just part of leaving that. That behind for her so that she can still hear. Hear from me and, you know, probably don't, you know, nowadays she's going on 11 years old, and so it's like, dad, but, you know, just getting. Getting into those years, but hopefully, you know, it'll. It'll be there for when. When the time's right. Later in life.

Oh, yeah. Well. So. So are you ready for the. For the coming years? Puberty and. Yeah, all that.

Oh, yeah. So we're, you know, she said, shoot. Yeah, she's 11, going on 18 already, so.

Well, I got a daughter, too. What you got going on? Mine's a little low, 32 now, but yeah.

Well, you've been through it, though, you know. Know what I'm about to go through.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's. It's interesting Times nowadays. I mean, I know I put my parents through, through all kinds of hell, so. Oh yeah, my kids, my kids were actually really good. Good to me. Yeah, well, I can tell. Just, I mean, and who you are and what you've been doing though, you've been, you've been definitely setting a good example for your daughter and letting her know. Yeah, it's, what's, what's possible.

Very cool, thank you.

Now I'm kind of coming back to the trading part of it. It's cool. I mean and I can see how a lot of, you know, what you've, what you've done has kind of played into it. But with the 12 minute trading, one thing I thought it was kind of cool that you note on there in particular again, you know, being different and thinking outside the box. It says on your site that you strive to earn a conservative 12 to 15% a year without much hands on management. And rules mean that if you can't manage a trade from your phone, then you don't want to do it.

Right.

So that actually is really cool. Rather than, you know, talking like the normal, hyped up, you know, you know, 100, 200 a year and you know, being busy, you know, full time day trading, I think it's excellent that you're talking about, you know, not, you know, not much hands on management.

Yeah.

And, and approaching it more from a, almost passive investing perspective. I think that's excellent. But when somebody comes and they come to the site and they join your program, so what's it like for them as far as the experiences where you got community?

No, no. So we can talk about all that. But let me maybe give you a little insight into the philosophy of this. You know, remember I talked about real estate and some of the things I learned there earlier on. Right. And one of the things that I learned about in real estate is leverage. Right. So you can, you know, you can control an asset with a small amount down, right. So you can, you know, 20%, 10% down, you can control something that's worth, you know, the 80% of it or the 90% of it. And so there's a lot of leverage in that and everything too. And the markets are a really interesting place. Most people, retail traders, they're taught, you know, go buy and hold and you know, buy low, sell high and all that type of stuff. Same with options. You start learning about options. You know, you buy quality go up, you buy put if you think it's going to go down. And what most people learn if they do that is, they don't really get anywhere. You know, they may hit a winner here, but then they give it back on the next three trades and it's like feast or famine. And most day traders don't last past, I think it's three months. I've got stats on this and everything, but, you know, 99% of traders, you know, don't ever make any money. And that's because they're competing in the really the toughest game in the world. And, and you're playing against the best of the best with all the tools, the resources of the world and everything that you're competing against. And so I originally started doing that. I originally started buying and holding and hoping to make money because that's what most people do. And hope's not a strategy for anything. And so after a little while of basically not getting anywhere after having success in real estate, I started to say, well, where's the leverage, right? Where is the, you know, where, where is it? What are these guys doing at the Goldman Sachs of the world and everybody else that I'm not either able to do or I haven't figured out because those guys seem to print money. And so I started looking at it and asking the questions, right? So one of the first things that popped in my head that I looked at is, okay, I'm buying a lot and I'm not making any money, right? And as I thought about it, like, if you buy a stock or you buy an option, you really, there's, there's three ways that it can go. It can go up, down, or stay the same, right? So that just means if, like, just out of the gate, without any edge, without any real strategy behind it, if you just buy and hope, you have a 33% chance of making money. Now, to put that in perspective, the odds of winning a hand at a blackjack table in a casino in Vegas are 46.36. You are light years better taking your money to the blackjack table in the casino, but the house is still going to win, right? Right. You know, and so I said, okay, so if buying only gives me a 33% chance, who has the 67% chance? Because that out of the gate, because that's who I want to be. It's the sellers, right? Well, at the time, you know, I'm investigating like, well, how do we become a seller? How do we become a seller? And, you know, part of it was like, oh, well, you can be an accredited investor and get in on an IPO and take a company to market and sell your shares. Well, I wasn't at that level yet, right? And so I wasn't going to do that. The next thing was, well, you can take a company public, right, as an owner and sell shares on the exchange, right? Well, it wasn't there yet either. And so I said, well, what other is there, other ways to sell? And that's when I found, you know, the there is with options, right? And so started out learning about naked puts, right? And people listening probably heard of that before. But if you haven't, naked put is the closest thing to, like a real estate transaction in the way that I always like to do it that I could find. I. When I found out about naked puts, this was, gosh, 15 years ago, I was so excited. Like, I was plowing money into naked puts. But what they are, is effectively you are selling the right to take an asset from you in the future at a lower price or get the asset at a lower price. So, for example, if you got a Stock that's at $30, you can sell a put three months out in the future at $20. And that means that in the future, if the stock's at $20, you'll get that stock at $20, right? So it's again going back to, I want to buy a dollar for $0.50, right? So the market price is $30. I want to, I can say I'll be willing to take it from you at 20 in the future, right? But here's the cool thing. When you sell, you get paid, right? So you don't have to wait to make money. Now. Now, this is the, this is the thing that really did it for me is that if I had a real estate transaction where I went to the, the, let's say I got $100,000 property I want to buy. And I went to him and I said, you know what? I, you know, I'll give you 70,000 for that property, and I want you to pay me $2,000 to buy it from you at $70,000. They would look at me like I'm crazy. But that's effectively what happens in a naked put as you get paid to take on that obligation. So somebody pays me to buy the stock at a lower price in the future. It was like a huge epiphany, right? And so, you know, so it. And I was starting out with 67% chance of winning in my favor because options are finite, right? Options end. And if the Stock isn't at $20, if it's at $20 and 10 cents, right on expiration day I don't have to buy the stock and I get to keep the money they paid me, right? So wonderful, right. Like I, I found, I found the Holy Grail, right? Because everybody's looking for the Holy Grail. Well, you know that stocks can fall more than that, right? So your risk is if the stock falls below the $20 minus the amount that you got paid. Let's say I got paid $2 for that, that naked put, right? So options trade 100 share blocks, which means I got paid 200 on a $2,000, you know, effectively transaction. So I've got about a 10 return. But if the stock falls below $20 minus 18 or minus 2, $18, then I'm at a losing position, right? And so that can happen, right. And nowadays I have defensive mechanisms and stuff that are in place that, you know, keep me at break even or better. But it's rare because you have 67 chance, you know, in the beginning. And so after going through a few rounds of that getting put some shares, most of the time not getting put chairs and keeping the money and just keep reselling and stuff, I learned some pretty valuable lessons and then started to put in things in place to boost my odds of winning to over 90%. And so nowadays that's where I stand, over 90. Now the other side of that coin is collecting rent on your market, real estate, right? So let's say you get put the stock at $20, you can turn around and sell what's called a covered and you can sell that at a price that's above your $20 and you'll get paid and somebody will take it from you in the future at that price and pay you to take it from you. So now it's like collecting rent, right? And that's where I started from there I branched out, I do now more sophisticated things like credit spreads and iron condors and things like that. But the whole point is just to create income on a weekly, monthly and longer term basis. And so one of my favorite trades nowadays that I do week in week, you know, that I've become kind of famous for is it's called the double double and it's designed, you know, to double the capital allocated to it in the course of a year. But remember what I said earlier about the big players and the toughest game in the world and if you go up against them, you're going to lose. You're a little, you know, retail trader, you know, investor versus the Goldman Sachs of the world. It's not a winning proposition to go play their game. But what you can do is you can play in the margins where they don't, which is really cool. And that's one of the reasons I love an Iron Condor trade is because I can go out and I can say, okay, I know where like at this point time, I know the max move in any given time frame on a stock and index, all that type of stuff up and down. I know the key levels and everything that, that exist. I know the range that has been in all of that. So I can go out to like the S&P 500 and I can say, okay, you know, within the next four weeks the S P500 should stay in this range, you know, this far up, this far down is, is about, you know, where it, where it can and historically has gone at the extremes, right? So I go out and I set up what's called an Iron Condor. And so I set a, what's called a call spread up above. And I put spread down below outside of that and bracket that basically and just say, okay, as long as you stay in this range, I get paid up front to take on that risk. And again, options are finite. So every day that the price isn't at the level, they start to lose value. And as time goes on they hit some, some points where they really start to lose value. So I, you know, I ultimately can buy back those trades for pennies, right, and free myself from the obligation. But the thing that I love about the Iron Condor is I can basically bracket a market or a stock and just say, hey, you can do whatever you want, you know, fluctuating up in that range for whatever time period. And you know, I don't care. I don't care if you go up, I don't care if you go down, I don't care if you stay sideways. I make money. I don't have to be right. I don't have to call a direction. I don't have to do any of that stuff. And it's so liberating and so much more freeing and so much less hectic and everything else. And yeah, I can set up a trade like that in about two minutes and go outside and go on my two hour training ride that I need to do and not have to worry about it, right? Because the, the data and the levels and everything self defend for these things. And that's why I've been able to keep a winning rate at the level that I am now. I'm not a home run guy, right? I'm not, I'm not going for Thousand percent returns. I'm going for base hits that add up to home run like returns over time just repeating like water dripping on a rock over and over again, you know. And so, so that's the philosophy. That's what we do. And so when somebody comes to us, we teach them that from the ground up. We've got all the training and everything for it. I do live sessions every single week, you know, Q A and all of that, but you know, and then a weekly newsletter where I go through top down in the markets, video everything that I'm doing, every trade I'm setting up, why the mechanics of it, how it's being done. I don't make a move without my students knowing it before I make a move. And so it's kind of a unique thing. You know, I actually alert everything prior to doing anything. And that's the nice thing about trading this way is it, it doesn't move that fast. Like you, you know, you missed, oh, I missed the entry for the call, you know, or whatever. We don't have to worry about that stuff. And so it's a, just a, a much easier way to create consistent income and not have the, the headaches and put the odds in your favor and become the house and not the gambler.

Gotcha. Yeah, very cool. Yeah, I'm glad, I'm glad you went into that because as far as your, your commentary on how you took what you learned in real estate and applied it to trading, I was like, yeah, I wanted to know about that. So, yeah, thanks for sharing. Yeah, very cool indeed. Very cool. So, so you said that you're giving alerts like every week. So as far as somebody wanting to get active trading, when they come on board with you, they could probably get, get going fairly quickly.

Yeah, every single week we, you know, we have trades and we have different strategies we employ based on the market. Right. So we were in a bear market last year. We much higher volatility. So if we were to do, you know, some other strategies that we have now, we're back into really a bull market that we call kind of quiet and trending. Got as we're doing this today, we got a little bit of the first signs of a correction from this massive bull run that we've had where do one that brings some little volatility back in. But yeah, so we have different ones for different markets that, that really do the best in those markets. And so we switch up, you know, based upon those transitions and stuff. But every single week, you know, and I communicate throughout the Week I do a midweek update and all this other stuff too, you know, so it's, I've really done everything I can to make it the most comprehensive service out there when it comes to selling options and everything. So yeah, somebody starts today, they could be doing their first. I would recommend sim trades, especially if you're new to this. You know, you can do paper money, you can learn the mechanics, you can learn how they work, go through a few cycles because you're really learning a skill that you can use the rest of your life and pass on for generations. And so I know people are always in such a hurry to make money and make money, but take a little time and learn first. It's not going to hurt you to go through a few cycles and do that and then really start to put capital to work. I think that's important for, for new traders is to play the long game. That's another great lesson I've learned from building businesses and from racing and all this other stuff, you know, over the years is that, you know, you play the long game. It's the tortoise versus the hare.

Oh yeah. Now as far as capital, what kind of capital should somebody have like as a minimum if they're wanting to come and do you know what you would train them to do?

I started doing this with about 3,000 bucks, but it's very limiting. You know, I had to build it up over, over a long time and add to it. You know, five to $10,000 is a pretty good level to get started doing this stuff with. I and I range. I do, I do trades all the way down for really small accounts that can do, you know, we still sell naked puts, you know, and you know, some, you know, like right now I'm doing a lot in oil space because that sector is starting to kick into gear and so I'm taking advantage of that. And so there's a lot of beat down oil stocks like 4 or 5 bucks you can sell puts on. So it's very cheap, you know, a few hundred bucks, you know, you can make a nice 8 to 10 to 20 return on. And so we, we scale down to that and then we go all the way to the other end of the spectrum where I do what I call large account traits, you know, where your, you know, Your risk is 2500, 5000 a pop and stuff. But your returns are commensurate and all that stuff too. So we kind of really range it so that everybody can participate.

Very cool. How long, how long are you typically in a Trade.

So it depends on the, it depends on the strategy for that. Double, double trade I just mentioned. I'm usually in 2.1 weeks is the average. You know, if it's a weekly trade, I'm usually in two days and out and then long term trades because I do three to six months trades. A lot of the same principles. You know, typically we'll three months is, is about 40, 45 days. Six months is about three months. But again those are, those are set to be truly set it and forget it. You know, there's far out of the money that you know it takes a 10 to 20% correction to get to levels or you know, same thing on the, the way up and stuff. And so you kind of just got to let time work and you just, they're boring. It's like watching paint dry, you know. You know it's really kind of the insurance company model in the end of, you know, you're collecting that premium and everything and then your, your job is to just you know, do set things up so you don't have to pay out, you know. And that's kind of what we do.

That's a lot of very cool aspects of what you got going on there. Very cool. Especially this, the whole, yeah. 12 minutes and you can go, go live life and not spend.

Yeah.

I mean hours in front of the charts.

There's, I mean I, you know, I, and I bless them. I know people that do that and there's just some people that love, they, they, it's boiler room. They want to be in front of those charts all day long and that's their thing and they love that and stuff. It's just not me. I, I, I've always, you know, maybe I'm lazy a little bit but I want to make the most amount of money in the least amount of time and go enjoy my life. So.

Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. Well Dave, I tell you what. Yeah. Like I said, you got a lot of cool stuff going on. The 12 minute trading and the misfit entrepreneur. Excellent stuff. And we didn't even get into you know, the speaking you do so we'll have to have you back on at some point. But yeah, thanks for taking the time today, man. I mean you got it very cool to get to know more about you and I wish, I wish I would have run across you a long time ago. Just like I said, you got a lot of cool stuff going on.

Oh, thanks.

And yeah, and for everybody listening, you know, if, if what you know, Dave was sharing, you know, resonates with it all. Definitely swing by, you know, 12 minute trading, calm, of course we'll have a link in the show notes and you know, if you're in the business space, misfit entrepreneur, you know, took a look at that. Yeah, you got some really cool people going on there. Got great stories. So definitely some inspiration and good, good tips to pick up over there. Now as far as your 12 minute trader or 12 minute trading, you said that you've got a two minute free trial for people. So if they do want to check it out, they can at no risk.

Yeah, we do a two week, two week free trial. Again, there's no pressure here. Look, it's either for you or it's not. And so we give people full access for, you know, two weeks. You even get access to our proprietary indicators we use in the code form and all that stuff during that time. And so, you know, if it has an interest to you, if kind of how I've explained it makes makes sense to you, then you know, you can just. 12minutetrading.com forward/free trial and you can sign up for two weeks and you know, check it out, kick the tires. If it's for you, great. If not, totally understand. But at least you'll open your eyes to what the concept is and stuff. And then after that, I mean I again I, I'm very fortunate. I sold my businesses. I've been able to, you know, I was able to kind of comfortably retire about 40. And so I really do this now to really help others build wealth and create their financial independence. And so it's just 97 bucks a month ongoing for everything. And so that one and one contract of one trade that I do on a weekly basis pays for itself in the month. So I've always just done it so that it can pay for itself and keep it going and keep it to where we can continue doing the things that we do with it. So give it a, give it a, give it a look and you know, hopefully it makes sense for you. Love to see you there.

One quick question and we'll go and wrap things up now. What you have going on, does that require people be on a particular platform or with a particular broker or is it agnostic to all that?

No, you can do it across different brokers. I'm a big thinkorswim fan just because it was one of the best options, you know, platforms out there for the longest time. Now you have Tastytrade and a number of these other ones that all do the same stuff that are really Good too. So it's agnostica platform. You can do these trades in them. You just need the options clearance. Obviously if you haven't traded options before, you just have to get that clearance. Okay, very cool. And you can do These trades in IRAs and retirement accounts and stuff too, which is nice.

Nice. Excellent. Well Dave, thank you again for, for taking the time today, man. It's been great having you on.

Oh yes, it's a pleasure. I always love talking about this stuff and if anybody has any questions on anything, you can always send them my way. I mean I'm across all social media. You can find me at Dave Lucas Trader on Twitter and sorry, my dog is barking in the background but that's why he's barking, because the doorbell is ringing. But yeah, so Dave Lucas Trader, LinkedIn. You can find me there. And then if you have questions about trading support@12minutetrading.com or even support@misfit entrepreneur.com, you can find me there.

Okay, yeah, I'll make sure to have all the links for all that in the, in the show notes and description. So excellent. Well Dave, thanks again and everybody thanks for attending today and looking to better yourself as far as trading and life in general. So we'll see everybody on the next episode of the Consistent Profits podcast. Dave, thanks again.

Thank you. Thank you everybody.

Cheers. Thank you for joining us today on the Consistent Profits podcast brought to you by Inside Out Trading. Make sure to swing by Inside Out Trading and pick up your copy of the proven formula for consistent monthly profits. If you enjoyed the show, make sure to subscribe on your favorite channel and we'll see you on the next episode. Cheers. Like as a minimum, if they're wanting to come and do you know what you would train them to do?

I started doing this with about 3,000 bucks, but it's very limiting. You know, I had to build it up over, over a long time and add to it, you know, five to $10,000 is a pretty good level to get started doing this stuff with. I and I range, I do, I do trades all the way down for really small accounts that can do, you know, we still sell naked puts, you know and you know, some, you know, like right now I'm doing a lot in oil space because that sector is starting to kick into gear and so I'm taking advantage of that. And so there's a lot of beat down oil stocks are like four or five bucks you can sell puts on. So it's very cheap, you know, a few hundred bucks, you know, you can make a nice 8 to 10 to 20 return on. And so we, we scale down to that and then we go all the way to the other end of the spectrum where I do what I call large account trades, you know, where your, you know, Your risk is 2500, 5000 a pop and stuff but your returns are commensurate and all that stuff too. So we kind of really range it so that everybody can participate.

Very cool. How long, how long are you typically in a trade?

So it depends on the, it depends on the strategy for that Double, double trade I just mentioned. I'm usually in 2.1 weeks is the average. You know, if it's a weekly trade, I'm usually in two days and out. And then long term trades because I do three to six months trades. A lot of the same principles. You know, typically we'll three months is, is about 40, 45 days. Six months is about three months. But again those are, those are set to be truly set it and forget it. You know, they're so far out of the money that you know, it takes a 10 to 20% correction to get to levels or you know, same thing on the, the way up and stuff. And so you kind of just got to let time work and you just, they're boring. It's like watching paint dry, you know. You know, it's really kind of the insurance company model in the end of, you know, you're collecting that premium and everything and then your, your job is to just, you know, do set things up so you don't have to pay out, you know. And that's kind of what we do.

A lot of very cool aspects of what you got going on there. Very cool. Especially this, the whole 12 minutes and you can go, go live life and not spend.

Yeah.

I mean hours in front of the charts.

There's, I mean I, you know, I, and I bless them. I know people that do that and there's just some people that love, they, they, it's boiler room. They want to be in front of those charts all day long and that's their thing and they love that and stuff. It's just not me. I, I've always, you know, maybe I'm lazy a little bit, but I want to make the most amount of money in the least amount of time and go enjoy my life. So.

Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. Well Dave, I tell you what. Yeah. Like I say, you got a lot of cool stuff going on. The 12 minute trading and the misfit entrepreneur. Excellent stuff. And we didn't even get into, you know, the speaking you do so we'll have to have you back on at some point but yeah thanks for taking the time today man. I mean it's got it very cool to get to know more about you and which I wish I would have run across you a long time ago. Just like I said you got a lot of cool stuff going on.

Oh thanks.

And yeah and for everybody listening you know if if what you know Dave was sharing you know resonates with you at all definitely swing by you know 12 minute trading calm of course we'll have a link in the show notes and if you're in the business space Misfit entrepreneur took a look at that. Yeah you got some really cool people going on there. Got great stories so definitely some inspiration and good tips to pick up over there. Now as far as your 12 minute trader or 12 minute trading, you said that you've got.