Michael Zuber turned $7,000 into $200,000 by reading financial statements, then lost $160,000 by ditching that discipline. He got overconfident, started chasing CNBC headlines and options trades instead of doing the work, and paid what he calls the stupid tax for abandoning what made him money in the first place.
Chapters
What is the highest stupid tax you had to pay while learning how to play the game? Well, my stupid tax actually occurred before real estate. I turned $7,000 into $200,000 and then I got hit with the stupid tax. I remember saying I'm smarter than Warren Buffett and any freaking person that says you're smarter than Warren Buffett, you're about to get your ass handed to you in a very short amount of time. I lost 80% of $200,000. Something really unfortunate happened. The less work I did, the more I made. I'd stopped reading financial statements. I only looked at summaries. I made more money. I started watching the trends and trading on CNBC headlines. I made more money. And by the end of it, I was gambling, I was using options, I was doing all this stupid shit. The thing I wasn't doing was the homework. My stupid tax was, you got to do the work all the time, you freaking moron. And it just wiped me out.