I'm going to ruffle some feathers with this post. So be it.
However, before I do that, let me apologize.
You deserve better.
For the past year or so, I've published a bunch of trading, educational, and mindset content. Much of it, I'm proud of.
But I cheated.
At first, I cheated just a little bit. Recently, it's become much more so. Perhaps you've already noticed.
I've fallen into the trap that so many of my colleagues and friends have fallen into: letting AI craft my content.
It started innocently enough. I would write a post and then paste it into my favorite AI chatbot to ask it to fix any misspellings or bad grammar. Then, I noticed I could ask it to fill in some blanks on some ideas I hadn't fully fleshed out. Before I knew it, I'm typing just two or three short sentence prompts into the chat window and it's spitting out fully formed 500-word essays that I thought "sounded" true to my voice. But I've suddenly realized, that's bullshit. And what I'm publishing is bullshit.
I'm sorry for this. That isn't authentic. At best, it's just laziness. At worst, it's intellectually dishonest.
Please accept my apology.
If you've been reading my thoughts on trading for any length of time, you know I talk about hard things. I get vulnerable. I try to be real.
Going forward, starting with this piece, I will never again publish another blog post, tweet thread, or newsletter, that isn't typed fully and completely by my dumb, fat, stupid fingers.
You deserve better.
Now, maybe you might argue that my writing style is not, in fact, better. But I can promise you, it will be real.
As many of you know, I recently returned from a 6-day retreat where I did a lot of soul searching. And one of the things that hit me front and center is the need to be my most truly authentic self. To the extent where I've experienced failure, frustration, or underperformance whether in my trading, my relationships, or my work -- the common denominator is that I wasn't engaging in actions or activities that jive with who I truly am.
Now, just like many of you, I'm fully capable of performing actions and activities that don't light my fire. And I've done a lot of that. But for me, like you, to be truly successful at anything, I have found I (we) need to put as much effort as we can into aligning our actions with our souls.
When I returned from my retreat, I found myself trying to catch up with all the trading, research, and mindset content that I either subscribe to or scroll through on a regular basis. And in doing so, I was struck by how similar every.single.thing reads these days. It became immediately clear to me that all I'm doing is reading AI-generated content. Content that has no soul. Sure, much of it is factually correct, but it has no spirit behind it. It reads like its from someone who doesn't have any skin in the game.
I wrote this on X:
A reader responded with this:
And he's so right.
As I was catching up on "content" this week, it was immediately striking me within seconds of reading each piece that what I was reading was AI generated. It made me realize I'm part of the problem. And it made me sick to my stomach.
When everyone is just publishing slop generated from AI, then no one has a voice.
Life is too short to spend it reading AI-generated slop.
I've long said around here that we should all just #TurnOffTheNews. Well now, I'm turning off AI-slop from my media consumption diet.
I don't need to name any names. You know who's doing it. You know it within seconds of starting to read it. And if you're a publisher who feels the need to have AI create your "content" so that you can maintain your status as a goddamn "content mill" that just constantly generates schlock for clicks, then I feel sorry for you. You keep doing you, but I'll be tuning out.
As for me, I'll continue writing and sharing my thoughts about trading, education, mindset, and anything else that I think might be useful or helpful to another trader out there. But it will surely mean I'll publish less often. Because the truth is, the truly meaningful stuff doesn't come out on a publisher's schedule. It doesn't meet deadlines. It doesn't beg for clicks.
What's truly important and impactful lands on its own time. When the feeling is right.
Going forward, I'm not going to pummel you with drivel. I'm only going to hit you with what I think is helpful, useful, or thoughtful.
Why?
Because you deserve better and I respect you.
P.S. Please forgive any misspellings or third-grade grammar errors. A human typed this post from beginning to end.
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