The Start of Something New
As of publishing this, it’s been about 6 weeks since I started the Shogun anon account, and I thought it would be a good time to introduce myself, my story, and what I’m about.
My journey into this world started about a decade ago, sometime in early high school. I won't give too much away, partially because I don't want my life story on the internet and because I don't want to bore you (it's not that special). Back then I was a young autist with above-average intelligence, below-average social skills, and lofty ambitions who was just waking up to the game of life. By this, I mean that I decided it was a better move to set myself up for the next 80 years of my life rather than focusing on the drama of the hour.
For me, the logical starting place was fitness. I wasn't fat but was never much of an athlete either, and thought that getting in shape could help me get girls and act as a foundation to build the rest of my life on (the first assumption was false, the second true, btw). I tried a bunch of things early on and slowly made progress through a combination of some Arnold books and deep dives through random fitness websites. Besides getting in decent shape, I found out the internet could be a pretty cool place if you dug around enough to find the right information. As the years went by, this initial realization took me down a winding path through a lot of different crowds, each of which had its impact on me:
- The old manosphere/mindset blogs like Bold and Determined and Good Looking Loser showed me that a traditional career isn't the only path to success, and both the good and bad sides of the "red pill".
- Entrepreneurship groups like the Fastlane Forum taught me how to make my first dollar online. Books like How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis and * The Millionaire Fastlane are a few that I look back on most fondly. Not purely for their quality, but what they moved me to accomplish.
- Wall Street Playboys showed me what it actually takes to go from zero to 7-8 figures, turned me on to Wall Street as a career path, and first got me into crypto in 2017.
- The BowTied community helped transform me into a true polymath, leveling up my fitness, cooking, fashion, culture, and so much more.
Somewhere along the line, I think during the COVID era of 2020-2021, I got significantly turned on to crypto. Maybe because the bags I bought in 2017 and continued to DCA into were finally up, but also because the vision was so compelling to me:
- A world where the smartest and most productive members of society were unrestrained by countries or borders.
- A world where you could replace trust in humans and unreliable institutions with trust in software code.
- A world run on decentralized rails, with no single person pulling the strings.
I spent a lot of my time during those years learning everything I could and speculating on the markets. I made a ton of mistakes, earned and lost a small fortune, and even started a modestly successful CT account, although I deleted it in a bit of an unfortunate mental breakdown (pro tip - don't neglect your social skills and relationships in pursuit of money). I pushed forward through the ups and downs, both in my personal life and in the crypto industry, and I'm happy to still be here today.
So why am I back now, and what's the aim of this account?
To tell you the truth, there is no grand vision right now. Instead, I'm operating on a couple of ideas I believe to be true:
- Attention = Value. Therefore, it's +EV to build an audience, even if I don't know what to do with it yet.
- Everyone should be trying to monetize their skills online. Crypto research/investing is where I have the biggest edge to do this right now, so that's where I'm starting. Over the next 6-12 months, my primary goals are to earn money trading, build an audience through publishing research/alpha, and perhaps land some consulting or advisory roles with projects I think are adding value to the industry.
- Life is better when you're building something you believe in, and there's no one I'd rather bet on than myself.
This will probably be the only post where the focus is on myself. Moving forward, you can look forward to actionable ways to improve your life, market alpha, philosophy, and thoughts on any other rabbit holes I end up going down. If that sounds interesting to you, feel free to hit the subscribe button, and thanks for reading.