This article was written by Iâm a lifelong entrepreneur who, alongside my other ventures, has always made time for the markets. Driven by genuine passion, Iâve been active with varying intensity for roughly 30 years, gaining perspective across multiple market cycles. Iâve built a company from scratch and operated as an entrepreneur in the food industry, lodging, and real estate, which has given me a strong, groundâlevel understanding of how businesses really work. Because of that background, I always see the company behind the stock, and I like to keep the narrative and the numbers connected.The first twenty years of my market experience ran in parallel with other ventures â at times more like a hobby â but the last decade has been fully focused on the markets. Having gone through the 2000s dotâcom bubble and the 2008 subprime crisis with real skin in the game, I see both as extremely valuable lessons. I genuinely believe you learn far more from painful mistakes than from easy wins.In recent years Iâve experimented with different trading strategies, mostly built around options. Iâve won big and lost big, and in the process gained a muchâneeded understanding of what prudent risk management really means â and how painful it is when itâs not implemented well. Even when I take more risk on the trading side, I keep my longâterm buyâandâhold positions completely separate from trading assets.My academic background is in Economics, and Iâve recently refreshed that foundation through a course aligned with the CFA curriculum, focused on securities valuation and risk management. Iâm a believer in lifelong learning â it keeps you connected to new theories and how theyâre applied. At the same time, I take Jesse Livermoreâs centuryâold, simple market truths as a core part of how I interpret everyday market behavior. I