Welcome to The Free Dominion!
I’m honored your interest has taken you this far, and while I’ve got you here, I’d like to tell you what The Free Dominion is all about.
I started this publication as a way to build a community of people who are fascinated by financial markets and want to learn and evolve together as traders. I believe many people are drawn to markets because of the allure of growing and accessing greater amounts of personal resources such as money, time, and freedom. Those were certainly things that I found appealing about the prospect of becoming a trader. However, like with many pursuits in life, reality often differs greatly from what we envision at the outset of a journey.
As of this writing (mid-2024), I’m roughly seven years into my trading journey and it is certainly not what I envisioned at the outset. I’ve read all the books, tried all the services, made mistakes and made money, made mistakes and lost money, did the right thing and lost money, did the right thing and made money, gone through periods of feeling confident followed by periods of feeling useless, lost sleep thinking about markets, fallen asleep thinking about markets, felt confident this is what I want to do, and then swore I’d never trade again. I could keep going, but I think you get the point.
One unique thing about trading is that you will likely have to experience all of the above by yourself, and that’s hard as hell. In response to that, and in an effort to connect and share with others, I started posting on X/Twitter in early 2021. Since then, I’ve grown a small following. The daily posting adds structure to my thinking and additional accountability, and the interactions make it feel like I’m not totally alone. Getting feedback that my posts are helping others is also very meaningful, and it ultimately led to me wanting to share more, which is why I started writing on Substack.
This newsletter evolved out of the weekly notes I used to write for myself on Sundays. I used those notes to flush out the details of everything I was seeing in markets while also chronicling my performance, my decision making, and my emotional state. They were a way to hold myself accountable. I also used the notes as a trading journal where I reviewed developments in open trades and outlined the parameters of potential new trades. These notes became the single most important part of my trading process.
Trading is one part of what I refer to as my journey into freedom. Who I spend time with, what I read, what I listen to, how I think and make decisions, how I parent, how I spend my non-working hours, and just about everything else I do passes through a simple filter of whether or not it will move me closer to freedom. Even the exploration of freedom itself is part of this journey since freedom can mean many different things depending on the context. For more background on how the subject of freedom became an interest of mine, I’d recommend reading:
To be clear, I am not an expert on freedom nor am I an expert on markets. In fact, I’m not even sure there is such a thing. If anything, my goal in trading markets is to be an expert executor of the trading systems and processes I have developed. I don’t make predictions, I don’t promise to have found a way to get rich quickly, I embrace being wrong, I manage risk, and I follow where my curiosities take me. Those are the parts of trading that often go overlooked yet are critical to surviving and succeeding, and that’s what this newsletter is about.
My trading systems are always a work in progress and I developed them to fit my lifestyle, schedule, personality, risk tolerance, and interests. It would be foolish to think that these systems will meet the needs of anyone but me. The reason I share my trades is not because I think anyone should follow me into them (you shouldn’t), but because it creates opportunities to have discussions about process, risk management, trading psychology, and everything else that actually matters in trading.
So, there you have it. That’s why I’m here and that’s what you’ll get if you subscribe. Speaking of, here’s another chance to do so…
Seriously, thanks for coming by. I’m genuinely excited to see where this all leads and to have you along for the ride. If you want to know a little more about me, head on over to the About page. If you have any questions or comments, hit the button below or shoot me an email at thefreedominion@substack.com.