Hold onto your hats. This is merely a precursor for 2026.

Knowledge is power!

There was a veteran trader who paid for everything in cash. Lunch. Flights. Hotels. Not because he was old-school — because he was allergic to debt. Someone once asked him why he didn’t use leverage like everyone else. He smiled and said, “I like knowing I own my sleep.” When markets collapsed, he slept. When others panicked, he hunted. Lesson: Leverage borrows confidence from tomorrow. Cash lets you stay calm today. And calm beats clever every time.

In prison, a guy asked me to help him calculate how rich he’d be once he got out. We ran the numbers. Perfect assumptions. Perfect returns. I slid the paper back and said, “Your calculator works. Your habits don’t.” He looked confused. “Math doesn’t fail people,” I said. “People fail math.” He stopped asking about returns. Started asking about discipline. Lesson: The math is easy. The behavior is brutal. That’s why so few win.

I knew a guy who missed every big rally. Tech boom. Missed it. Housing run. Missed it. Crypto surge. Missed it. But somehow, he never lost big money either. When asked why, he said, “I’d rather miss a party than attend a funeral.” Twenty years later, he wasn’t famous — but he was free. No debts. No regrets. No blown accounts. Lesson: You don’t need to catch every upside. You only need to survive the downside. Longevity is the real edge.