I never imagined that going completely deaf and losing everything I owned would turn out to be the best things that ever happened to me. What I thought was the end of my life ended up making me far more successful and happy than I ever imagined.
Every year at this time of Thanksgiving I like to reflect on the path that I’ve taken to be where I am today. It is very easy to forget the blessings and good things in our lives especially when we have been struggling with a very difficult market and a terrible economy.
Many of you have read my story over the years so please forgive the repetition. I hope it might serve as a reminder that even when things look impossible and the future looks bleak that life can still work out far better than you hope.
Back in the early 1990s I had earned law and business degrees from the University of Michigan and become a CPA after employment with two of the big four accounting firms. I was working hard to establish my own corporate and tax law practice in Ann Arbor, Michigan and was slowly making progress.
One bright and sunny summer day I was talking on the phone with an IRS agent trying to settle a tax shelter case for a client. I had worked out a pretty good deal and I was trying to finalize it but no matter how hard I tried I could not understand what the agent was saying. I had to hang up the phone and actually meet in person so I could hear and finally conclude the case.
I had suffered from some hearing loss due to genetic reasons for most of my life but it had never really been a major hindrance. It would be an embarrassment at times when I misheard things and I’d try to avoid court rooms and noisy places with poor acoustics but I could deal with it fairly well. That is, until I started losing my remaining hearing at a very rapid pace.
I consulted various doctors and tried hearing aids but there was no obvious cause and within a relatively short period of time I was totally deaf. I could lip read a little but I could hear almost nothing. The only way I could communicate with most people was by written note.
Practicing law is tough enough in normal circumstances but its impossible when you can’t communicate with anyone. Within a short period of time I closed my law practice and lost all my assets. Not only was I broke and without a job but I was recently divorced as well so the emotional toll on me was extreme.
It has been said the being deaf is worse is being blind because it isolates you from the world. I came to understand that well as I couldn’t have even simple conversations with people. I was lonely, greatly depressed and had no hope that the future would be any brighter. Luckily I had a small disability insurance policy which provided enough to pay my rent and put food on the table but what in the world was I going to do with my life?
One day I started fooling around with a borrowed personal computer and came across a new online service called Prodigy. This service made it possible to interact with other people in cyberspace. I was hungry for any sort of contact with other people and this very clunky computer and 14.4 baud modem allowed me to communicate without having to actually hear.
Just having some personal contact was a great relief but what really change my life was that I eventually stumbled across some message boards dedicated to the stock market. I had taken a few investment classes in business school and was familiar with basics like model portfolio theory, discounted cash flows and various valuation approaches but I knew nothing about active trading, technical analysis or psychology. It surprised me greatly that there were these folks online trading stocks actively who weren’t worried about all those things that were so important to my professors in business school.
I was fascinated and was soon reading everything that I could find about trading and the stock market. I had a small amount of money in an IRA and was anxious to see if I could actually do this. There were no online brokers at the time and since I couldn’t talk on the telephone I would have to drive over to my broker’s office and tell him what trades I wanted to make.
I struggled at first as I tied up money in slow moving big caps that did nothing and was stung by small cap frauds but eventually I started to have a little success and made a few hundred dollars on some small trades. The more involved I became in the market the more I came to understand that the secret to success was to understand emotions and psychology. Fundamentals didn’t matter until someone decided that they did and that was the time to start trading a stock. What worked for me was to understand the mood and to run with the crowd as it became increasingly emotional.
As my little stake slowly started to grow I gained confidence and developed some basic rules for my trading especially when it came to protecting my capital. Eventually real time quotes, online brokers and charts became readily available and I had all the tools I need to actively trade. I had nothing else to do with my life and I could not afford to lose a penny so I dedicated myself to the market.
I started having my first real success in 1993 and 1994 as I traded stocks like IIVI and WTT which doubled and tripled and split in a very short period of time. I soon came to understand the power of momentum and actively studied the approach used by William J O’Neill the founder of Investors Business Daily.
The late 1990’s turned out to be the ideal time to be an aggressive, small cap, momentum trader. My small stake soon doubled and tripled. In 1998 my income from trading was more than 10 times the stake I had started with a few years earlier and it continued to multiple after that.
The bubble days of 1999-2000 were like a gold rush for traders but what made a huge difference for me was that I stayed extremely discipline and appreciated the fact that it wouldn’t last forever. The insecurity created by being deaf forced me to always keep my defenses up. That may have cost me some profits on the way up but it served me well when the crash occurred in 2000-2001 and I was able to keep my accounts near all time highs.
I had never dreamed that I would be able to make money like this. If I hadn’t lost my hearing and had remained in law I would not have been nearly as success financially and what was even better was that was having a great time interacting with people online. I really loved what I was doing and people actually were interested in what I had to say.
After a number of run-ins with the Motley Fool on American Online, who I took great joy in antagonizing due to their disdain of active trading, I started a trading site in conjunction with Herb Greenberg. The site was called Shark Attack and we operated the first real time chat room dedicated to trading. The site eventually migrated to the internet where I still operate my chat room at SharkInvesting.com. In 2001 Jim Cramer invited me to write for Real Money and in 2007 I published a book called “Invest Like a Shark: How a Deaf Guy with No Job and Limited Capital Made a Fortune in the Stock Market” after an editor from FT Press read my Thanksgiving column.
The stock market had become life and it was completely by accident. What was really great about it was that I enjoyed it so much it never really felt like work. However what really made for a fulfilling life was that I had met a special woman while visiting my parent’s vacation home in Florida. We developed a rudimentary form of sign language and I was finally able to share life with someone who cared. We celebrate our 16[SUP]th[/SUP] anniversary tomorrow and have been blessed with three great children.
Technology not only allowed me to become a stock trader but it also helped me to regain my hearing to some degree. A number of years ago I had cochlear implant surgery which is basically a robotic ear. It gave me imperfect hearing in one year but it was good enough to allow me to carry on a conversation without the pad of paper I used to always carry with m. About a month ago I had cochlear implant surgery done on my other ear with the latest technology. Next week I’m going to be hooked up to the new device and, hopefully, will be able to hear in stereo for the first time in over 20 years. I am extremely excited about the possibilities and can’t wait to find out how well it will work.
The point of writing this story is to let you know that if I can be this lucky and blessed it can happen to you too. No one has ever been as down and out and felt as hopeless as I did when I was broke and deaf. If someone told me I should stay positive and to be optimistic it just made me feel worse because I saw absolutely no way out of my circumstances.
Everyone faces challenges in life and it is very important to not give up. This dreadful economy we have suffered through the last few years have caused great damage to the lives of many. If you are struggling don’t give in to the feeling of hopelessness. Life has an amazing way of working out and it help the process along if you keep a positive mindset.
I’m very thankful for what has been given me and the best way I can show my appreciation is to better love all the people who have encouraged, helped and supported me over the years.
Have a great Thanksgiving.
- RevShark
Every year at this time of Thanksgiving I like to reflect on the path that I’ve taken to be where I am today. It is very easy to forget the blessings and good things in our lives especially when we have been struggling with a very difficult market and a terrible economy.
Many of you have read my story over the years so please forgive the repetition. I hope it might serve as a reminder that even when things look impossible and the future looks bleak that life can still work out far better than you hope.
Back in the early 1990s I had earned law and business degrees from the University of Michigan and become a CPA after employment with two of the big four accounting firms. I was working hard to establish my own corporate and tax law practice in Ann Arbor, Michigan and was slowly making progress.
One bright and sunny summer day I was talking on the phone with an IRS agent trying to settle a tax shelter case for a client. I had worked out a pretty good deal and I was trying to finalize it but no matter how hard I tried I could not understand what the agent was saying. I had to hang up the phone and actually meet in person so I could hear and finally conclude the case.
I had suffered from some hearing loss due to genetic reasons for most of my life but it had never really been a major hindrance. It would be an embarrassment at times when I misheard things and I’d try to avoid court rooms and noisy places with poor acoustics but I could deal with it fairly well. That is, until I started losing my remaining hearing at a very rapid pace.
I consulted various doctors and tried hearing aids but there was no obvious cause and within a relatively short period of time I was totally deaf. I could lip read a little but I could hear almost nothing. The only way I could communicate with most people was by written note.
Practicing law is tough enough in normal circumstances but its impossible when you can’t communicate with anyone. Within a short period of time I closed my law practice and lost all my assets. Not only was I broke and without a job but I was recently divorced as well so the emotional toll on me was extreme.
It has been said the being deaf is worse is being blind because it isolates you from the world. I came to understand that well as I couldn’t have even simple conversations with people. I was lonely, greatly depressed and had no hope that the future would be any brighter. Luckily I had a small disability insurance policy which provided enough to pay my rent and put food on the table but what in the world was I going to do with my life?
One day I started fooling around with a borrowed personal computer and came across a new online service called Prodigy. This service made it possible to interact with other people in cyberspace. I was hungry for any sort of contact with other people and this very clunky computer and 14.4 baud modem allowed me to communicate without having to actually hear.
Just having some personal contact was a great relief but what really change my life was that I eventually stumbled across some message boards dedicated to the stock market. I had taken a few investment classes in business school and was familiar with basics like model portfolio theory, discounted cash flows and various valuation approaches but I knew nothing about active trading, technical analysis or psychology. It surprised me greatly that there were these folks online trading stocks actively who weren’t worried about all those things that were so important to my professors in business school.
I was fascinated and was soon reading everything that I could find about trading and the stock market. I had a small amount of money in an IRA and was anxious to see if I could actually do this. There were no online brokers at the time and since I couldn’t talk on the telephone I would have to drive over to my broker’s office and tell him what trades I wanted to make.
I struggled at first as I tied up money in slow moving big caps that did nothing and was stung by small cap frauds but eventually I started to have a little success and made a few hundred dollars on some small trades. The more involved I became in the market the more I came to understand that the secret to success was to understand emotions and psychology. Fundamentals didn’t matter until someone decided that they did and that was the time to start trading a stock. What worked for me was to understand the mood and to run with the crowd as it became increasingly emotional.
As my little stake slowly started to grow I gained confidence and developed some basic rules for my trading especially when it came to protecting my capital. Eventually real time quotes, online brokers and charts became readily available and I had all the tools I need to actively trade. I had nothing else to do with my life and I could not afford to lose a penny so I dedicated myself to the market.
I started having my first real success in 1993 and 1994 as I traded stocks like IIVI and WTT which doubled and tripled and split in a very short period of time. I soon came to understand the power of momentum and actively studied the approach used by William J O’Neill the founder of Investors Business Daily.
The late 1990’s turned out to be the ideal time to be an aggressive, small cap, momentum trader. My small stake soon doubled and tripled. In 1998 my income from trading was more than 10 times the stake I had started with a few years earlier and it continued to multiple after that.
The bubble days of 1999-2000 were like a gold rush for traders but what made a huge difference for me was that I stayed extremely discipline and appreciated the fact that it wouldn’t last forever. The insecurity created by being deaf forced me to always keep my defenses up. That may have cost me some profits on the way up but it served me well when the crash occurred in 2000-2001 and I was able to keep my accounts near all time highs.
I had never dreamed that I would be able to make money like this. If I hadn’t lost my hearing and had remained in law I would not have been nearly as success financially and what was even better was that was having a great time interacting with people online. I really loved what I was doing and people actually were interested in what I had to say.
After a number of run-ins with the Motley Fool on American Online, who I took great joy in antagonizing due to their disdain of active trading, I started a trading site in conjunction with Herb Greenberg. The site was called Shark Attack and we operated the first real time chat room dedicated to trading. The site eventually migrated to the internet where I still operate my chat room at SharkInvesting.com. In 2001 Jim Cramer invited me to write for Real Money and in 2007 I published a book called “Invest Like a Shark: How a Deaf Guy with No Job and Limited Capital Made a Fortune in the Stock Market” after an editor from FT Press read my Thanksgiving column.
The stock market had become life and it was completely by accident. What was really great about it was that I enjoyed it so much it never really felt like work. However what really made for a fulfilling life was that I had met a special woman while visiting my parent’s vacation home in Florida. We developed a rudimentary form of sign language and I was finally able to share life with someone who cared. We celebrate our 16[SUP]th[/SUP] anniversary tomorrow and have been blessed with three great children.
Technology not only allowed me to become a stock trader but it also helped me to regain my hearing to some degree. A number of years ago I had cochlear implant surgery which is basically a robotic ear. It gave me imperfect hearing in one year but it was good enough to allow me to carry on a conversation without the pad of paper I used to always carry with m. About a month ago I had cochlear implant surgery done on my other ear with the latest technology. Next week I’m going to be hooked up to the new device and, hopefully, will be able to hear in stereo for the first time in over 20 years. I am extremely excited about the possibilities and can’t wait to find out how well it will work.
The point of writing this story is to let you know that if I can be this lucky and blessed it can happen to you too. No one has ever been as down and out and felt as hopeless as I did when I was broke and deaf. If someone told me I should stay positive and to be optimistic it just made me feel worse because I saw absolutely no way out of my circumstances.
Everyone faces challenges in life and it is very important to not give up. This dreadful economy we have suffered through the last few years have caused great damage to the lives of many. If you are struggling don’t give in to the feeling of hopelessness. Life has an amazing way of working out and it help the process along if you keep a positive mindset.
I’m very thankful for what has been given me and the best way I can show my appreciation is to better love all the people who have encouraged, helped and supported me over the years.
Have a great Thanksgiving.
- RevShark
