Sometimes the best presentations happen when you throw away the presentation.
I was supposed to give a talk at our Portfolio Accelerator event in Toronto yesterday. Had my rough outline ready, even cobbled together what I generously called a slide deck. Standard stuff: options trading wisdom, actionable insights, the usual suspects.
Then I watched Louis Sykes deliver his presentation.
My boy @HaumiCharts once again set the bar impossibly high with an absolutely stunning visual masterpiece. After seeing Louie's work, I looked at my shoddy, half-baked attempt at slide deck art and felt genuinely demoralized.
So I deleted it. The whole thing.
My plan was simple: recreate the same content with a completely new look. But something funny happened when I stared at that blank slate. The universe was telling me I needed a completely different path.
Instead of standing at the front of the room showing everyone how smart I am about options trading, maybe I should sit in the middle of the room, humble myself, speak from the heart, be vulnerable, and most importantly—be me.
It felt terrifying.
No plan. Nothing prepared. Yet somehow I was expected to fill 30-45 minutes with forty pairs of eyes staring at me.
I started with the simplest truth I could manage: "Hello. I'm Sean, and I'm a Trader."
Then I took a breath.
As simple as that sounds, those words have always been hard for me to say without internally recoiling. There's something about publicly claiming the title "trader" that opens me up to judgment, assumptions, and all those imaginary slings and arrows I carry around in my head. But saying it loudly and proudly in that room? It was cathartic.
From there, I launched into some topics that scare the hell out of me—the ones most traders can relate to but rarely talk about.
Additionally, I talked about our technological future. AI organizing our daily tasks, robots doing the heavy lifting, robotaxis and flying cars everywhere. And how that scares me. Not the technology itself, but what we might lose—our human connections, and our ability to cross-pollinate those life-giving energies that enrich our souls and drive us to be our best selves.
I talked about how the faster markets get, the more I want to slow down. How my snail's pace has become my edge in a world obsessed with speed. I don't know any other way.
But most importantly, I found myself imploring everyone to create more "space" in their lives. Physical space. Mental space. For having and experiencing both paradigm-shifting and seemingly insignificant thoughts. Space for all of it.
Within that space, I challenged them to start listening to their intuition. If acting on it feels scary, at least take note. Write down those gut feelings and review them later. See if your instincts were right. If so, meditate on how you can learn to trust that inner voice.
And finally, within that space, find a way to bear witness to what's good and great. Appreciate what we have and what's yet to come. Because if we can't enjoy the ride, what are we even doing here?
This unplanned, unscripted, practically unconscious public meditation encapsulated much of the transformative work I've been doing on myself since 2024.
Over the past eighteen months, I've been fortunate enough to build meaningful friendships and partnerships:
A fellow spirit animal who opened my eyes to new possibilities.
A psychotherapist who's an absolute genius at his craft.
A weekly men's group that supports me in ways I never thought possible.
A small Trader Circle that creates space for traders to talk about feelings and how they impact our work—both positively and negatively.
I've built my own community. And I challenged everyone at Portfolio Accelerator to do the same.
The markets are a wonderful place to learn who you are. Don't let anyone tell you differently. Embrace the inputs. Don't be afraid of what you might discover.
Find your people. Prioritize them.
Create space to make it all happen. Space to appreciate the bad for the lessons and the good for the validations.
Sometimes the best thing you can do is delete your slide deck and speak from the heart.
Our next Portfolio Accelerator is in Park City, Utah in February. I sincerely hope you can join us.
Sean McLaughlin | Chief Options Strategist, All Star Charts
