How To Bet On Yourself In 2026 (When No One Else Will)

As we have moved into the end of the year, there have been a lot of ideas and narratives circling that are a little bit disturbing for people. They are

really putting pressure on people to look at the world and think about all of the different problems that are stacked against them. And what I want to do is

explain exactly how to bet on yourself in 2026 when no one else will and the brutal truths that this encapsulates. And this is really started from all of

the things that I've seen where you have people talking about that the social contract is under threat. There's all these problems in the world. No matter

what you do, everything is going to be stacked against you. that it doesn't matter how hard you work, you're not going to be successful. There's so many reports and articles that are going over how things are, you know, in inequal,

right? There's a ton of inequality that is persisting. The rich get richer, the

right? There's a ton of inequality that is persisting. The rich get richer, the poor get poor. All these narratives over and over and over. Everyone is talking

about how the current situation with affordability is impacting people's household cost, groceries, every single level of society. And then everyone is saying, "Oh, and markets no matter what, the quants are always going to win." And

the quants are the ones that are telling you that for some reason. And you know, they're squeezing out just a couple percent returns a year and just saying to everyone, "Hey, don't even try." So you have all of these things over and

over and over. And then the cherry on top is, you know, this whole idea that $140,000 is the new poverty line. And it basically is shoving this narrative in

people's face that's saying, hey, if you're not making $140,000 a year, you're basically broke. And there is this implication even, right? Even

though there even though people are kind of framing it as oh we need to change the you know entire problems in the system and th this this and that there's this entire underlying bias that if you're making less than $140,000 a year

or if you're in this type of situation you're basically broke and the world is stacked against you. And there are a consistent amount of challenges that

come up, especially as it relates to markets that I see over and over and over. And especially if you're on social media, you're going through the content

over. And especially if you're on social media, you're going through the content cycle. These questions or these ideas constantly come up over and over. And

cycle. These questions or these ideas constantly come up over and over. And

one example is I'm always one step late to turn rates and liquidity to all these changes that take place or by the time I've read everything, the trade is gone.

Or everyone online looks like they're printing money and I'm just scraping by despite knowing and kind of understanding the markets a little bit, right? I mean, especially that one, you know, everyone's posting their P&L,

right? I mean, especially that one, you know, everyone's posting their P&L, everyone's showing you that they're making millions and millions of dollars, you know, maybe less on crypto Twitter, but no matter what, the algorithm will

find a place to show you how someone's making money and you're not. And then on top of all of this, you have people really focused on a lot of flashy things

for the entire content cycle. And if you are someone who really cares about improving yourself and trying to get an understanding about markets, the macro regime, you're building a business, whatever that might be, there is a

constant feeling of inadequacy and this feeling of I'm always on a massive learning curve. I'm always feel behind no matter what. It feels like every

learning curve. I'm always feel behind no matter what. It feels like every single person knows something, you know, that I don't or they know more than me.

And then on top of all of that, you have all these changes in AI where it just feels like if you're not on the edge of AI and know every single thing that's happening, you're basically behind. And you kind of see this over and over where

people think that they because they're not on the the front of AI and the edge of every single thing with happening, which hey, it's important, but there's always some new update coming out. There's always some new app. There's

always some new idea that is coming out, gets priced in markets, and it's too late. And by the time I've done all the work and built conviction, the real edge

late. And by the time I've done all the work and built conviction, the real edge has almost already been arbitrageed to zero. And especially in today's markets,

things move so fast that you have to be able to, you know, have a view and a specialized knowledge on the forefront of everything because all of these

changes move so fast in markets. And so what I want to really talk about is how do you bet on yourself in this environment when no one else will? And

in my experience and something that's really impacted me and I would encourage everyone to go through all of the Naval tweets on how to make you know how to get rich without getting lucky. One of the things that he talks about is all

returns in life whether in wealth, relationships or knowledge come from compound interest. So, if you're here and you say, "Oh, you know what? I

compound interest. So, if you're here and you say, "Oh, you know what? I

already have the financial independence or financial freedom that I want or oh, it's actually not in finances that I need help. It's just in this sales role in this other thing." Right? If I just figure out this one thing, whether it's on the mental side or emotional side or if it's in the business that you're

running, whatever that might be, all things in life, all returns [clears throat] come through compound interest. And so

what I want to do is I want to say, okay, let's push back against all of those garbage narratives that are trying to take control out of your hands and push uncertainty around you so that you feel like you don't have any ability to

change your future. and let's talk about how does the actual returns work and how should you think about taking a bet on yourself instead of you know getting caught up in this content cycle which just news flash anything that's on the

TV or that's constantly thrown at you every single day probably have a good idea that it's not there because people desperately want to help you right like a lot of that with the entire algorithm is all about intention maybe that can be

helpful or maybe not but it's all about intention And so what I want to talk about is how do you bet on yourself and specifically how do you think about returns and opportunity in the world right now. I am

going to start with this chart because this is going to visualize the two different paths you can have in the returns that you're targeting. That can

be in markets, it can be in whatever aspect of life that you potentially have, right? It could be in, you know, you're trying to work out and get in

have, right? It could be in, you know, you're trying to work out and get in better shape. You're trying to make money in markets, trying to grow the

better shape. You're trying to make money in markets, trying to grow the business you have, you're trying to expand your network or your relationships, whatever it might be. This is how you want to think about returns, right? In the chart, you have the growth or the percentage growth

returns, right? In the chart, you have the growth or the percentage growth rates through a couple different scenarios. Basically, what we do in this chart is we say, you know, when we approach any type of scenario, there's

different payouts that we have. And so this chart shows the different payouts that you would have as you move through different decisions in a year period, you know, a year time, you have a ton of decisions that are very consequential

that you are going to make. And in the chart, you can see on the bottom axis right here, you will notice that this is the number of decisions that you make in a year or you know, I have it as 100. Sometimes people have more, sometimes people have less. But let's just say you have a 100 decisions in a year. those

100 decisions, let's say 50% of them is right of those decisions and you actually are not making more errors than mistakes. So it's just a a coin flip on how many times you're right versus you're wrong or your hit ratio. That

could be in oh how am I interacting with this person? Is that the right way or the wrong way to do it or is it optimal or suboptimal? Is it how am I exactly finding opportunities in markets so that they are right more than they're wrong.

So on one hand you have okay how oft am I right? How oft am I wrong? Let's just

say you're right 50% of the time over the hundred decisions that you make in a year. Okay from there you could still lose money every single day if you're

year. Okay from there you could still lose money every single day if you're risking more than you're making. these lines right here. Visualize that over a

hundred different decisions in a year that you have and let's say you're going to be right on 50% of them. If you're risking $5 to make $1, your net result

is losing 30% of whatever that is, a 30% negative rate on your growth or draw down or whatever you want to call it. So you can consistently make decisions and

if 50% of them are right, you can still end up losing at the end of the year if you're risking $5 to make $1. And you can just see that in the legend right

here. If you flip that and you say, "Oh, you know what? I actually am going to

here. If you flip that and you say, "Oh, you know what? I actually am going to risk $1 to make five." The opposite result can actually be exponentially

higher. And notice that this you know result is at you know above 500%.

higher. And notice that this you know result is at you know above 500%.

Right? So you can have a growth rate in whatever this might be. It can be in the information you're taking in. It can be in returns. It can be whatever it is.

Those types of returns that you have are directly connected to the riskreward and the payout that you have. So, if you are trying to bet on yourself and you view that as, oh, couple different bets here, a couple different bets there, but I

really need to dial in the riskreward. If you get this wrong, it really doesn't matter what type of opportunity that you have. If you don't structure your payout correctly and so one of the things that I always think about when I am trying to

take a bet is what's the hit ratio? So, how often am I right versus wrong?

What's my payout? Am I you know most people when they're in markets or life they risk a ton of money to make a very small amount of money. I mean just think about you know you know the casino you're putting down a ton of money and

your payout is maybe one to one maybe. And so you need to be thinking about that when you are going through life and taking bets because if you are going through and trying to develop skill sets or whatever it might be and your payout

is a onetoone payout over time you can just be flat or lose money. So that is the type of visualization that you need to be thinking about when you're saying

okay when I'm taking a bet on myself I need to quantify it with a riskreward the hit ratio and also the number of decisions I'm making in a year and when you're in the thick of it a lot of times you don't even think about this the

differentiating factor for successful people is that they are actively and intentionally thinking about these exact metrics when they're making decisions

over the year. And so you really have three problems to solve for when you are thinking about returns in life. Number one is you need to take risks that have

a higher payout and riskreward. So the higher the payout that you can get, the more returns you can get. A lot of people are starting right here in life.

They have negative returns because they keep making really bad decisions. What

you want to do is first get that to neutral and then get it to positive. You

need to take the risks in your life that have a higher payout and riskreward and you want to find the highest payout and riskreward.

Number two is you need to find opportunities and execute on them in a manner so that you have a higher success rate. That sounds very simple but here's the thing. someone who is given opportunities consistently, even if they

the thing. someone who is given opportunities consistently, even if they are given lottery tickets, if they don't go cash those in or they lose those, it doesn't matter how many winning lottery tickets they get, they're always going

to figure out a way to screw it up. And all of us know this if you've been in markets for any period of time. There's always been that amazing trade that you did all the research on. You went through everything and you maybe put on

a little bit of risk and then you ended up screwing it up because you got emotional, you made an error and you took off risk, you put on too much, whatever it might have been and the idea actually works out but you don't make

any money from it. And so that is an example of oh great idea great riskreward but your execution is not in alignment. You're making errors that is

decreasing your hit rate and increasing your error rate. So that's number two.

Number three is you just need to find more opportunities.

If you can do these three things in the domain that you're in, all of those other narratives that go out there about, oh, doesn't matter what you try, like the deck is stacked against you, everything's out of your control, like

your best years are behind you, all this stuff. Like if you do these three things consistently in the domain that you're in, then you will actively increase the amount of things that are in your control and your ability to actually be

successful in whatever domain that is and whatever success looks like for you.

And so let's break these down a little bit more. You have these three problems that you're trying to solve for. Take risks that have a higher riskreward.

Find opportunities and execute in a manner so you have a higher success rate and find more opportunities. those three things. What does that tangibly look like? Those are the three problems we're solving for. Here is how you want to

like? Those are the three problems we're solving for. Here is how you want to think about the three solutions for that. Number one is okay, you want to take more risks and have a higher riskreward payout. How do you do that?

Number one is you need to upgrade your interpretive framework to find and filter for the highest riskreward opportunities. So what does this tangibly mean? It means that you have so many opportunities coming at you every

tangibly mean? It means that you have so many opportunities coming at you every single day. Whether that's on social media, your conversations with people,

single day. Whether that's on social media, your conversations with people, the data that you have, the process that you've built for finding opportunities in life, whether that's with your business or whether that's with your portfolio. If you are constantly taking in

portfolio. If you are constantly taking in information so that you're able to find opportunities, what you need to do is upgrade your interpretive framework to find and filter so that you don't just

find opportunities, but you find the best opportunities that exist. the

highest riskreward that is out there. And the way that you do that is really one through education and building better strategy so that you can understand things in a clearer manner. And you know, everyone is kind of always

trying to find that hot tip, that one single thing. What successful people, especially successful traders, are doing is they're trying to always upgrade their interpretive framework so that the way that they process information is

significantly better than anything else in the market. Because I don't want my success in the future to be determined by any single event, right? My success

or failure in the future to be determined by a single event. I want to create a framework so that my success becomes inevitable because I have a superior way of processing and understanding all of the information that comes at me. So that's number one. The second one is, you know, this idea

of find opportunities, execute so you have a higher success rate. What you

need to do is decrease the margin of error by taking complete ownership over the things in your control. So what does that mean? It means that you need to take all of these narratives and the content cycle and all of the different

things that are distracting you and you need to push them completely out of your life and you need to look at all of the errors in your life and begin decreasing them. That's really hard because most of us we don't want to go to one of our

them. That's really hard because most of us we don't want to go to one of our friends and say, "Hey, can you point out all the things that I'm doing really horrible in my life so I can improve on them?" We don't want to do that because

it makes us feel horrible about ourselves. The most important thing that you can do is get a very clear brutal feedback about the errors that you're

making and actually iterate correctly. And then the final thing here is find more opportunities. You want to increase the quality and quantity of your

more opportunities. You want to increase the quality and quantity of your information network. What does that mean? You need to have better data,

information network. What does that mean? You need to have better data, better models, and better people surrounding you that are helping you in this process. You know, I think especially in today's world, one of the

this process. You know, I think especially in today's world, one of the most important things that you can do is have a really solid network of people that you can talk to and bounce ideas back and forth. And so those three

solutions, you have these three problems. I need to find better, you know, riskreward. I need to execute to be more successful. and I need to find

know, riskreward. I need to execute to be more successful. and I need to find more opportunities if I want to have high compound returns in life. Okay, I

understand the three solutions for those. How can I make those even more tangible with these three solutions and connected them to a tangible process?

And I will explain three systems that I've connected to these ideas. Number

one, in this section where I said upgrade your interpretive framework, what does that mean? Well, a great place to start is a system that identifies

silos of knowledge as a generalist. In today's markets, durable edge really comes from identifying where different domains stop talking to each other

because there's so many specialists in today's world. You have a guy that the only thing he does all day long or entire group of guys is just trade

Nvidia or just trade Apple, right? you have so many analysts circling around one specific thing and what earnings are to the decimal point. What you want to

do, especially if you don't have a ton of capital behind you and billions of dollars to put into R&D so you can have analysts, data, and all these alternative sources to be able to refine your edge. If you

don't have those, one of the most important things you can do is identify silos of knowledge as a generalist. The second thing is when you're decreasing your margin of error by taking complete ownership, the margin of error shrinks

fastest when you fully quantify and control inputs rather than attempting to forecast unknown unknowns. In simple terms, it means that you want to

quantify and control what your actions are through the day. So yes, you can't control whether you ultimately are, you know, if if the the price of the market, you're not the one that controls that, right? But if you are quantifying all of

the actions that you take, you can always manage how much money that you risk in a trade. So we never know exactly where a market's going to go, but you can determine how much you can risk in a specific trade to be able to

be in or out of that trade. And that's really key because everything is always happening in the world around you that is uncertain, but you can always determine your exposure to that, especially as it relates to markets. And

then finally, the idea of increasing the quality and quantity of your information network. Better data, better people, better models. Edge comes from tracking

network. Better data, better people, better models. Edge comes from tracking information before it becomes a narrative, not from consuming channels

built to distribute consensus. What this means is that you want to be finding people and sources of information that are clearly very early in the adoption

cycle. If you just go look at the diffusion of innovation or the diffusion

cycle. If you just go look at the diffusion of innovation or the diffusion of ideas, whatever it might be, it always starts with minority and then it moves to the early adopters to the early majority and to the late to the late

majority. And so you want to find edges and information that are so early that

majority. And so you want to find edges and information that are so early that they're not narratives and priced by the entire mechanisms of consensus. I mean,

especially with all of the financial podcasts that we have today, one of the most important things that you can do is actually have information that is not talked about on those podcasts. Right? if it's on those major podcasts or news

media outlets, right? It's there's a very good chance it's already priced.

And so, a lot of these things come down to how can you bet on yourself and that comes from understanding risk, understanding those solutions you need

to solve for, and building systems that actually capitalize on that. Now, the

biggest hurdle to betting on yourself is not the environment that we're in. It's

not the inequality that exists. It's not the quants. It's you. You are the biggest hurdle to being able to bet on yourself. Once you start there, everything will become a lot clearer. And so, I'm going to go over 10 brutal

truths about betting on yourself. And the first one is the market isn't your problem. You are you're not losing because macro is hard. You're losing

problem. You are you're not losing because macro is hard. You're losing

because you're showing up as a gambler, not the house. In a casino, you can't flip the odds. In business and markets, you actually can if you build skill.

Until you do, you're just donating capital to all the people who are actually functioning in this framework where you're building systems. Right?

That's number one. Number two is your conviction is just untested opinion. And

most people call it conviction when they haven't done enough reps to know if they're actually right. Real conviction comes from when you're actually tracking what are my forecasts, what are my views, how am I going through all of the

post-mortems of my good and bad trades and a process so repeated that it's boring. Until then, you're not betting on yourself, you're just betting on your

boring. Until then, you're not betting on yourself, you're just betting on your ego. Right? That's a key thing. A lot of people talk about having conviction. If

ego. Right? That's a key thing. A lot of people talk about having conviction. If

you have conviction, then you are having extreme testability in that. Number

three, overthinking is how smart people stay poor. Read an economist on how we're all screwed and placing zero trades isn't risk management. It's

procrastination. You don't get paid for what you could have done, only what you executed on. Markets reward ship decisions, not impressive thoughts. And

executed on. Markets reward ship decisions, not impressive thoughts. And

especially on social media with all these economists throwing off all their views, right? Like all those views are really cheap if you're not taking risk.

views, right? Like all those views are really cheap if you're not taking risk.

And a lot of those people sound incredibly smart and they have a right answer for every single thing. But at the end of the day, when we're talking about markets and that entire idea of creating compound returns, you really

want to come back to what's the system that I have for creating those returns.

Number four, if you don't measure it, you're not serious about it. You'd never

buy a business that doesn't know its numbers, but you run your own capital that way a lot of times. No system, no regime playbook, no back tests, and you

call it well taking markets seriously. And what you really want to do, I'll just say this as a side note, you want to have a spreadsheet and you want to have every single possible decision that you can make and you want to quantify

it. Even if it is discretionary and it has a subjective element, that's okay.

it. Even if it is discretionary and it has a subjective element, that's okay.

Put it into a process and a system and measure it. That is key because you want to have clarity when you're going into things and not just wing it and kind of shoot from your hip. Number five, your current work ethic can't afford your

goals. Everyone wants to have these elite returns, 50% returns a year, 100%,

goals. Everyone wants to have these elite returns, 50% returns a year, 100%, 200%, 10, you know, 10,000%. Some people, you know, they have these amazing years, especially on some of these massive crypto plays. And everyone

wants these elite returns on recreational e effort. And here's what I would say. the rule of 100 for investors. 100 days, take 100 days where

would say. the rule of 100 for investors. 100 days, take 100 days where you either log 100 minutes of real education a day or a 100 writeups where you're actively going through the process of thinking.

If that sounds excessive, then your goals probably are too. And you need to take those goals and put them right next to how hard you're working. Number six,

boring process beats exciting predictions.

You want sexy calls. The market pays boring rules. Entries, sizing, add or cut rules, max paying, and then reviewing that cadence. Once that's

built, the individual trades barely matter. Until that's built, every trade feels like an existential because you're naked out there. That is what happens so

much because people sens sensationalize just these different macro views and trades. Number seven, you're competing with people who outpractice you. On the

trades. Number seven, you're competing with people who outpractice you. On the

other side of your trades are funds that are logging thousands of reps. They're

building models and mapping out all their scenarios. If you practice volume rounds to zero, it's not unfair. It's just causality. So the anxiousness that you feel if you just is just your body telling you the truth that you haven't

done this enough, right? So, a lot of it is you need to out compete all of these people that are working the same amount, right? Or are working

incredibly hard. I cannot express that enough about how hard people are

incredibly hard. I cannot express that enough about how hard people are working, whether it's in the hedge fund space or in the private, you know, family wealth management or family office space. Like there are so many

people that work and they never take days off ever.

Number eight, copying consensus is a guaranteed path to mediocre. And if your system looks exactly what everyone else is doing, your returns will too. Just

have that expectation in your mind. In business, don't be a commodity or die on price. Same thing here. If your process is indistinguishable from the crowd, you

price. Same thing here. If your process is indistinguishable from the crowd, you will get crowd returns before fees and mistakes. And that's a lot of why reason why people underperform is because their entire process is basically the same as

everyone else's. And then on top of that, they make all these mistakes.

everyone else's. And then on top of that, they make all these mistakes.

Number nine, your habits are your real portfolio allocation. You love to tweak position sizes in a spreadsheet, but your real allocation is your behavior.

How much is in distraction? How much is in deep work? How much is in actual review versus doomcrolling on Twitter? And I get it. We've all been there and done that. Lifetime value in business is how much profit you extract from one

done that. Lifetime value in business is how much profit you extract from one customer over time and how much value you can really give that person, right?

Your lifetime value as an allocator is how much your skill you extract from your own experience over decades. If your daily habits are trash, your future self is a really bad investment. Just think about that for a little bit. And

then number 10, your biggest position is your future self. The only bet on yourself that actually scales is you become the kind of operator who can eat

years of uncertainty. Do the boring work of anyway and keep improving the machine. And you know, trading is really in many ways entrepreneurship because

machine. And you know, trading is really in many ways entrepreneurship because you are your own boss. You actually have to pull it together yourself. There is

no one coming to save you. And so entrepreneurship is acquiring skills, beliefs, and traits. Markets are just the scorecard of that. And so those are

the 10 brutal truths about betting on yourself. It is not easy. It is

incredibly difficult to bet on yourself. But part of that is having clarity about what does it mean to bet on myself? How do I have those returns? How do I have the solution to those? How do I build systems? and how do I approach it with a

very sober mindset about how all of this operates. That is the breakdown that I wanted to provide to you today. And with that, I will see you guys soon. I hope

you have an amazing start to 2026.