Interview: Blind Options Trader Beats the Market with 32% Returns
An in-depth interview on Theta Profits where I share how I trade options as a totally blind trader, my weekly put-selling strategy, and the discipline and mindset that drive 32% returns in the US Investing Championship.
Transcript
Transcript for the YouTube interview:
0:00 [Alfredo] If you have good habits in one area of your life, like for example me taking care of my diabetes, then I'm definitely 0:06 [Alfredo] going to have good habits in other parts of my life, like me trading. I'm going to be more disciplined. 0:12 [John] Today's guest is unlike anyone we've had before. He is totally blind, yet he 0:19 [John] supports his family by selling options. How does he do that? Let's find out. 0:26 [John] Hi, Alfredo. You lost your sight in 2008, but instead of giving up, you found a way to 0:34 [John] succeed in one of the toughest fields out there, options trading. If you had 0:39 [John] to sum up your journey from that moment until now, in one minute, what would you say? 0:46 [Alfredo] Well, as you might imagine, it was devastating losing my eyesight. However, 0:52 [Alfredo] because of losing my eyesight, I am uniquely positioned to do trading 0:59 [Alfredo] because I learned several things. First, I learned that if 1:06 [Alfredo] somebody else can do it, I can do it. There's nothing stopping me. And then I learned to adapt because of my 1:12 [Alfredo] blindness. You have to adapt to your blindness. And lastly, I learned the concept of internal locus of control versus 1:20 [Alfredo] external locus of control. So what that means is that everything good and bad 1:26 [Alfredo] that happens to me is attributed to me or it's my fault. I do not blame 1:32 [Alfredo] any external source for what happens to me. So I always have the 1:37 [Alfredo] ability to correct any errors, for example, trading errors, because I have 1:43 [Alfredo] internal locus of control and never blame the market or my broker for 1:48 [Alfredo] things that happened to me. 1:48 [John] That's inspiring. In this interview, we'll cover your personal journey: 1:56 [John] what happened when you became blind, how you got into options trading, and how you actually do your trading when you 2:03 [John] cannot see. We'll also cover your main options‑selling strategy. But tell 2:10 [John] me a little bit first, Alfredo, about your personal background. Where did you grow up? 2:16 [Alfredo] So basically I was born in Mexico. However, when I was five, my mom 2:21 [Alfredo] migrated to the United States. So I've been living in the United States ever since I was five. And I had diabetes. 2:31 [Alfredo] I've had diabetes since I was five. And that really shaped my whole life because 2:37 [Alfredo] it was really hard for my parents to deal with me and diabetes - for my grandma 2:43 [Alfredo] and my mother. And it was also really hard for me to cope with diabetes. So 2:49 [Alfredo] basically what happened is I never listened to anybody. And at first it was 2:55 [Alfredo] okay because it seemed like doctors would say, "Oh, you're going to get your hand cut off or your legs cut 3:02 [Alfredo] off or you're going to lose your eyesight." But I was so young that nothing - it seemed like I was Superman. 3:10 [Alfredo] Nothing would happen to me. But then it caught up to me. I lost my eyesight 3:15 [Alfredo] because I didn't listen. I over‑ate. I never checked my sugar, and that's 3:22 [Alfredo] how I started. 3:22 [John] How old were you then? 3:27 [Alfredo] When I lost my eyesight, I was actually 25. 3:32 [Alfredo] It was in 2008. 3:32 [John] How did that affect you when you suddenly lost your eyesight? 3:40 [Alfredo] Oh, that was devastating because it took about a year for me to lose my eyesight. But 3:45 [Alfredo] about three months before totally losing my eyesight, I was only able to see with one eye. And I remember there 3:52 [Alfredo] was a particularly nice mountain view in front of my house 3:58 [Alfredo] where there was a bus stop, and I used to see those mountains. I used to love looking at those mountains because it was 4:05 [Alfredo] beautiful when the sun would come out of those mountains. It was beautiful. But three months before I totally lost my 4:11 [Alfredo] eyesight, I was trying to look at the mountains and I couldn't. It 4:17 [Alfredo] was really devastating. And I promised myself that I was going to change - that 4:24 [Alfredo] the reason that I was losing my eyesight - it was not the doctor's fault. It was not my mom's 4:30 [Alfredo] fault. It was my fault. So I had to change. I had to adapt. I had to adapt 4:35 [Alfredo] to the fact that I have diabetes, and I had to move forward - and that's what 4:41 [Alfredo] changed everything. 4:41 [John] But where did you get the strength to take that attitude? 4:48 [Alfredo] Oh, one of the things that helped me a lot was my then‑ 4:55 [Alfredo] girlfriend. I was taking care of her, and it felt really bad that I could no 5:03 [Alfredo] longer take care of her because I couldn't work. I didn't know how to live as a blind person. I had to adapt. 5:09 [Alfredo] I had to learn. So that was my courage. That was my motivation. It was like 5:16 [Alfredo] I will take care of my girlfriend. Now she's my wife. So that's kind of a nice 5:21 [Alfredo] story. But that was my motivation. That's the thing 5:26 [Alfredo] that propelled everything. 5:26 [John] So what did you do then when you 5:31 [John] realized that you wanted to improve your life even though this devastating thing 5:36 [John] had happened to you? 5:36 [Alfredo] When you become totally blind, you don't know what to do, right? So I enrolled 5:42 [Alfredo] in the San Diego Center for the Blind. Basically, it's a center for people who are blind. That's where I 5:49 [Alfredo] learned that if somebody else can do something, I can do it. There was a - I 5:55 [Alfredo] learned that there was a blind doctor, a blind programmer, a blind teacher. I was like, if they can 6:02 [Alfredo] do it, I can do it. So that's what started everything. 6:02 [John] Not letting your blindness stop you, you 6:10 [John] somehow made your way into options trading. How did you get into that? 6:16 [Alfredo] Okay, so getting into options trading took a little longer. I lost my eyesight in 2008, but I started trading in 2015. 6:24 [Alfredo] So basically what happened is that four months after becoming blind, I started enrolling in Cuyamaca College - 6:30 [Alfredo] my local community college - because my mom always emphasized education. So I 6:35 [Alfredo] went back to school. I already had a computer administration degree. So it was a little bit easier to navigate 6:42 [Alfredo] on a computer with accessibility software. Basically, whenever I open any screen or do 6:50 [Alfredo] anything on the screen, I imagine Excel cells or the browser opening. 6:55 [Alfredo] So, it's a little bit easier on my brain. After going to Cuyamaca I went to my 7:01 [Alfredo] university, got my bachelor's, and then after that I got an internship 7:07 [Alfredo] which became a part-time position as a programmer, and from there I 7:13 [Alfredo] started doing full-time work and my master's. When I was doing my master's degree I started 7:21 [Alfredo] researching statistics. I love statistics - it was awesome - but the way that it 7:27 [Alfredo] started was researching the NFL - umm, the NFL spread. You know how they 7:33 [Alfredo] say, "Oh, the Chargers are going to win by three points," or "the Kansas City Chiefs are going to lose by two points," 7:39 [Alfredo] or something like that? Basically, what I found out was that 7:45 [Alfredo] the spread broke down the game in half. So what that means is that the 7:53 [Alfredo] casinos always won. 50% of the people who bet that the Chargers were 7:58 [Alfredo] going to win by three points would win, and then 50% would go the other way. 8:04 [Alfredo] Basically, that's how the statistics came out. So what I learned 8:10 [Alfredo] was the house always won, and that in order for you to win in 8:16 [Alfredo] the NFL spreads or betting, you needed subject-matter expert knowledge 8:22 [Alfredo] like some knowledge that nobody has, or being able to see those games all the 8:27 [Alfredo] time. So that moved me into the stock market because I saw the stock market 8:33 [Alfredo] and it was like: there are rules and everybody's playing by the same rules. Since there are so many 8:42 [Alfredo] people, it's going to be hard to rig the rules. That's why I started trading options - because I could use 8:49 [Alfredo] statistics and math to find that edge. And because I was blind, I was 8:56 [Alfredo] uniquely positioned to take advantage of that, because the way that I trade is a little bit 9:02 [Alfredo] different. I don't get cluttered by all those graphs and lines and moving indicators and technical 9:09 [Alfredo] indicators. I normalize them or break them down into their numeric 9:15 [Alfredo] y and x‑axis, which is what a chart is. 9:23 [John] But I still wonder how you do this in practical terms. How do you 9:30 [John] read or understand charts? How do you follow the option chains and get all 9:35 [John] this information? Those of us trading options are so used to using our eyes to look at the chart and 9:42 [John] the option chain and study the rules. I'm really curious how you do this in practical terms. 9:49 [Alfredo] I'm a programmer, right? And I also do a lot of complex formulas. So I use complex 9:55 [Alfredo] formulas in Excel and programming to set rules for what I can 10:02 [Alfredo] trade and what I cannot trade. And like I stated before, a chart is just a y 10:10 [Alfredo] and x‑axis. It's basically two columns and a lot of rows. 10:18 [Alfredo] And I use my formulas and my knowledge of statistics to summarize the 10:23 [Alfredo] information. I'll show you a demo later on. 10:30 [John] But all the information in the Excel sheet - do you get it read out to you? Is that how you 10:37 [John] understand it? 10:37 [Alfredo] Yes. I have special software called a screen reader, and 10:45 [Alfredo] everything in my computer can be read by me by the 10:51 [Alfredo] screen reader. Not everything - graphics are hard - but a formula is just a text file. So I'm 10:59 [Alfredo] able to read the whole text file. I use the up and down arrow keys and it reads it. Then with 11:06 [Alfredo] the left and right arrow keys I'm able to position my cursor where it's supposed 11:11 [Alfredo] to be, and then I edit the formula. It's just about adapting. 11:18 [John] It's hard for most individuals to imagine not being 11:25 [John] able to see and still do this. But you just have to adapt. 11:30 [Alfredo] And that's what makes me uniquely positioned to be able to trade and be 11:35 [Alfredo] profitable - because I'm blind and I'm able to adapt to most circumstances. And 11:42 [Alfredo] the trading arena is always changing. So I'm able to adapt with it because 11:48 [Alfredo] basically I'm a living example of adapting. 11:54 [John] That's impressive. And you have a demo for us so we can see how you actually 12:01 [John] do this? 12:01 [Alfredo] Yes. I'll try to do a brief demo. Right now the stock market is 12:08 [Alfredo] still live, but I'm not going to do any live trading. Basically, this sheet 12:14 [Alfredo] is the sheet where I trade. There are 500 or 600 weekly options, 12:24 [Alfredo] and every day I have a special formula. It's called 12:30 [Alfredo] "security type," which tells me which options I'm going to be able to trade that day, and usually it runs 12:37 [Alfredo] from 50 to 90 stock symbols or options that I'm able to trade. And then 12:44 [Alfredo] from there, what I do every day in the morning: I always trade from 9:30 a.m. 12:51 [Alfredo] Eastern to about 11 a.m. Eastern. And then at the end of the day, only 15 12:57 [Alfredo] minutes before the market closes. The reason I do that is because most of the premium for selling options is in 13:04 [Alfredo] the morning. In the middle of the day, there are fewer options. There's not a lot of premium for options - sometimes there is, 13:10 [Alfredo] but most of the time there is not. And you have to be focused on a 13:15 [Alfredo] certain time frame, in my opinion, because otherwise you're going to be all 13:21 [Alfredo] over the place, and it's going to get confusing - and then you're going to start losing money. So basically, again, I 13:27 [Alfredo] adapted to what the market gives me. I only trade in the morning and 13:33 [Alfredo] sometimes in the afternoon. In the afternoon, most of the time is for earnings trades. But sometimes when the 13:39 [Alfredo] market gaps down, then that's where I'm at in the afternoon. One example: 13:44 [Alfredo] RCL 207.5 - 13:50 [Alfredo] if you can see that number - the number 207.5 - 13:55 [John] we can see it. 14:02 [Alfredo] Okay, thank you. So basically, that's the 14:07 [Alfredo] strike price that I'm going to sell based on my formula. 14:13 [Alfredo] And this 223 - this is the actual stock price the stock is at 14:21 [Alfredo] right now. And that's what gives me that number - the 207. It tells me 14:26 [Alfredo] the stock is at 223. And in order for me to get a good margin 14:33 [Alfredo] of safety based on my strategy, I'm only going to sell the 207.5 or lower. I wouldn't sell anything above 14:39 [Alfredo] that. And this is for Friday. Since today is Tuesday, September 14:45 [Alfredo] 2nd. I always trade for Fridays. 14:51 [Alfredo] And then over here - this is the number of contracts, right? It says that I'm supposed to sell three 14:57 [Alfredo] contracts. So when I see this information, I call the broker. I have 15:03 [Alfredo] to actually call them - like back in the 70s or 80s when everybody would call a broker. The reason I 15:10 [Alfredo] call a broker is because I'm adapting to my blindness. Basically, a lot of 15:16 [Alfredo] brokers don't have their websites or apps accessible. So it's really hard for my screen reader to 15:25 [Alfredo] trade like most sighted people do - clicking and adding to their inventory. Well, 15:31 [Alfredo] for me, I have to call the broker, and the broker executes my trades. The only thing about that is 15:36 [Alfredo] that I can't make as many trades as I could. Eventually I'm going to 15:41 [Alfredo] automate all this system, but right now that is how I trade. Let's say I'm 15:49 [Alfredo] going to trade this - I'm going to erase the 15:55 [Alfredo] and the reason I'm going to do that is because I'm going to execute the trade, and 16:02 [Alfredo] right now this is a live Excel sheet. If I execute a trade, it will go to my subscribers, and I don't want 16:10 [Alfredo] them to get that. 16:16 [Alfredo] Every time I do a trade, I press a special keystroke (which I programmed into Excel), and it will 16:22 [Alfredo] send that signal to my inventory list (which I'll show you), and then 16:28 [Alfredo] also send a text to my subscribers, which they can subscribe to on my website 16:34 [Alfredo] and they can do the same trade as I did. 16:41 [Alfredo] So I'm going to do this - and you see 16:46 [Alfredo] it says it's now going to be sending 16:51 [Alfredo] because I didn't want to send it to them. And then this is the normal screen. So 16:56 [Alfredo] once I do that trade goal, 17:03 [Alfredo] with my weekly trade, it's going to be down here. You see how it is? 17:10 [Alfredo] It doesn't have the strike price because I omitted it on purpose so that my subscribers wouldn't get it. 17:16 [Alfredo] These are all the trades that I have done. I think I did four today, 17:24 [Alfredo] and maybe six on Friday. 17:24 [John] What strikes me is that when you 17:31 [John] have to trade in this way, you also become a very disciplined trader. 17:39 [Alfredo] Yes. Actually it's not necessarily my blindness - it was that mindset shift 17:46 [Alfredo] when I was looking at the mountains. Remember I said that I promised myself I was going to change, right? So 17:53 [Alfredo] in order for me to change I had to adopt good habits. I have to check my sugar more often. I have to eat better. 18:02 [Alfredo] I couldn't eat hamburgers or pasta or bread. I have to eat a lot of vegetables. So that is discipline. 18:08 [Alfredo] Those are habits. Those are positive habits. And what happens is that that 18:13 [Alfredo] spills over to other parts of your life. Like if you have good habits in one 18:20 [Alfredo] area of your life - like me taking care of my diabetes - then I'm definitely going to have good habits in 18:26 [Alfredo] other parts of my life, like trading. I'm going to be more disciplined. Like I'm disciplined in my diabetes, so 18:32 [Alfredo] I'm going to be disciplined in trading. Now, if you start with bad habits - like 18:38 [Alfredo] if you have bad habits in your life (let's say that you overeat a lot or you 18:43 [Alfredo] go to McDonald's a lot, or do not exercise a lot) - those are bad habits, 18:48 [Alfredo] and most likely your trading is going to be affected because those bad habits are 18:54 [Alfredo] going to spill over to your trading. You might say, "Oh, no, that's not true." It actually does. 19:00 [John] So now we've been through how you actually trade as a blind person. 19:07 [John] I'm curious: what is your main options strategy? 19:07 [Alfredo] The main options strategy that I have 19:13 [Alfredo] right now is my weekly put‑selling strategy. I sell weekly options from 19:19 [Alfredo] two to eight days in duration. I count at least two days because 19:25 [Alfredo] for example, let's say that I sell a put option today and I 19:32 [Alfredo] sell another tomorrow - so that's two days. I don't sell monthly options because, based on my statistical studies, 19:38 [Alfredo] weekly options give you a bit more edge - more premium - than monthly options. That's not the important part. 19:46 [Alfredo] The important part about weekly options is that you shorten the period of risk. Let's say Tesla - 19:54 [Alfredo] it's 320 right now, right? Then my strategy would say: sell a 300 put option 19:59 [Alfredo] for Friday, and I'd sell it. If I converted that to a 20:06 [Alfredo] monthly, it'd say sell the 280 - because there's more risk, right? But 20:12 [Alfredo] people don't see that there's even more risk in that because there are 20:18 [Alfredo] more days where information can come into the market and 20:25 [Alfredo] the market can tank. Instead of, in three weeks, it might go to 270 - and then 20:30 [Alfredo] a week after that, before expiration, it will go to 250. With weekly 20:36 [Alfredo] options, you minimize the risks. 20:36 [John] Can you be a bit more specific about the 20:42 [John] mechanics of your strategies? How do you choose your underlyings that you trade? 20:42 [Alfredo] Okay, so that's a really good 20:48 [Alfredo] question. The way that I choose my underlyings is: first, I love large‑cap 20:54 [Alfredo] stocks. Large‑cap stocks, in my opinion, are anything that's $150 billion. And 20:59 [Alfredo] I also have another tag for "extreme large‑cap," which are $450 billion 21:05 [Alfredo] market‑cap stocks. I try to trade those most. So what that means is that 21:11 [Alfredo] if I get a signal for Tesla, I'll sell more options 21:16 [Alfredo] than if I get a signal for, say, Crocs, for example, because that's a 21:22 [Alfredo] that's not an extreme large‑cap. So that's one of the ways that I choose stocks. 21:27 [Alfredo] Another metric that I use that's really important to me is the 21:32 [Alfredo] Altman Z‑Score. The Altman Z‑Score is a study/model developed about 21:39 [Alfredo] 60+ years ago by Prof. Edward Altman. Basically, it 21:46 [Alfredo] produces a number that typically ranges from negative values up to around 8 or 9, but usually it 21:53 [Alfredo] lands between 1 and 5. If the number is less than 2, 22:00 [Alfredo] that means the company is more likely to go bankrupt in one to 22:06 [Alfredo] three years. It might not happen, but it signals poor fundamentals. If it's between two and 22:12 [Alfredo] three, that's a gray area - okay, but not great. If it's more than three, that means a 22:19 [Alfredo] really good company. So I do not trade any stock that has an Altman score less than 2.5. And if that 22:25 [Alfredo] stock - if a stock like Tesla or Nvidia or Reddit has an Altman score of 22:32 [Alfredo] greater than 4, then I'm likely to add more contracts because I feel more confident trading those stocks. 22:32 [John] What deltas do you typically sell your puts at? 22:39 [Alfredo] Most likely my delta is 22:45 [Alfredo] going to be between maybe 5% to 12%. That's what I figure. But 22:51 [Alfredo] I'm not 100% sure because I don't use deltas. What I use is the margin of 22:57 [Alfredo] safety. Based on the day, I add a margin of safety - that's a multiplier of 23:04 [Alfredo] the Average True Range. For example, Tesla - let's say it's at 320. 23:11 [Alfredo] And the ATR is maybe 10. It's a Tuesday, so 23:19 [Alfredo] the multiplier for that (because it's a Tuesday) is going to be two. So I'm going to sell the 23:28 [Alfredo] 300, because 10 * 2 = 20, and 320 − 20 = 300. That's how I get 23:35 [Alfredo] to my number. Usually that delta is between 5% and 12.5% 23:42 [John] in my opinion. And when do you exit the trades? Do you let them go to expiration, or do you have 23:48 [John] a take‑profit rule or a stop‑loss rule? 23:48 [Alfredo] I usually let them go into expiration 23:54 [Alfredo] except for earnings trades. Those I definitely cover the next day - I 24:01 [Alfredo] don't hesitate to cover them. But usually I let the stocks go to 24:07 [Alfredo] expiration. However, if a stock is going negative, 24:14 [Alfredo] then I might roll for the next week, depending on how negative it goes. 24:20 [Alfredo] But again, that's another multiplier of the Average True Range. So, for example, a 24:25 [Alfredo] stock might go negative 0.2 below the 24:32 [Alfredo] Average True Range, which might translate to 1% down from the price, but 24:37 [Alfredo] I would use the Average True Range for that. 24:37 [John] If I ask you to put your trading 24:44 [John] style on a risk profile - from 1 (very low risk) to 10 (very high risk) - where 24:44 [John] would you put your put‑selling strategy? 24:44 [Alfredo] I think my risk profile would be 4. 24:52 [Alfredo] It wouldn't be 5 because I think it's a little bit safer, but it wouldn't 24:58 [Alfredo] be less than 3 because I still trade small‑cap stocks, and those are a 25:05 [Alfredo] little bit more risky than large‑cap stocks. And even though I try to minimize 25:11 [Alfredo] the risk of the stock market moving too low for my 25:19 [Alfredo] strategy, sometimes unexpected things can happen - like that glitch from 25:25 [Alfredo] 2011. That wouldn't wipe me out, but it might affect my 25:32 [Alfredo] system. There are some things that I cannot control. There's always going to be risk in the system, and that's why 25:40 [Alfredo] I set it at 4. But it's definitely not 8, because I use a lot 25:46 [John] of margin of safety. What have been your results from options trading? 25:52 [Alfredo] Although I started trading in 2015, I was on and off. When I started trading back 25:59 [Alfredo] again, it was in 2022. Basically, in December of 2022 26:06 [Alfredo] my profit just for that December was about 0.1%. 26:11 [Alfredo] Then in 2023 it was about 2%. And in 2024 it was about 10%, 26:20 [Alfredo] and now I'm at 32%. Those statistics for 2025 are verifiable from the U.S. 26:27 [Alfredo] Investment Championship - because I'm in the U.S. Investment Championship race - and 26:33 [Alfredo] that's what they have me at - 32%. So it's definitely a clear improvement 26:39 [Alfredo] year‑by‑year. 26:39 [Alfredo] Yes. And the reason I do that is because my blindness uniquely positions 26:46 [Alfredo] me for trading the market - because I adapt. I adapt. And I always 26:53 [Alfredo] think, hey, if somebody else can trade better, then why can't I? And again, I also use internal locus of 27:01 [Alfredo] control - which means that if I lose, guess whose fault it is? It's my fault. 27:07 [Alfredo] So guess who's supposed to fix it? Me. That's 27:12 [Alfredo] why I'm able to improve my system all the time. 27:19 [John] What can other traders learn from your mindset - and the mindset you had to 27:26 [John] develop because of your blindness? 27:26 [Alfredo] I have three major things that people can take away from this conversation. And 27:34 [Alfredo] basically, first: if I can do it, you can do it. There's no question 27:41 [Alfredo] about it. I know it's kind of weird because I have the eyeglasses, 27:47 [Alfredo] but I am totally blind - I'm not kidding. What you can take away is: if a totally blind person 27:54 [Alfredo] can be a programmer, a totally blind person can use AI to create a website, 28:00 [Alfredo] can do options trading, can get a master's degree - there's no excuse for 28:06 [Alfredo] anybody out there who wants to be a profitable trader. There's no excuse. If 28:12 [Alfredo] you sometimes doubt yourself - you might say, "Maybe I can't do it." Well, remember this 28:18 [Alfredo] conversation - this YouTube video. Remember that little blind guy who was able to do it? Well, yeah - he's not 28:25 [Alfredo] only thinking of doing it - he's doing it. So there's no excuse for 28:30 [Alfredo] anyone to not be a profitable trader. 28:30 [Alfredo] The second thing is adaptation. You have 28:37 [Alfredo] to adapt all the time when you're trading. The market changes, the economy changes, 28:44 [Alfredo] technology changes. Now we have AI. We have Trump. We used to have the other 28:50 [Alfredo] presidents. So that means also that 28:56 [Alfredo] adaptation means if you're losing, you have to adapt. You have to research, analyze, and implement 29:02 [Alfredo] strategies so you can be profitable. If you're profitable already, you still have to adapt because you have to 29:09 [Alfredo] diversify. You always have to diversify because if you only have one strategy, that's not enough. 29:16 [Alfredo] So you again analyze, research, and implement. You always adapt. And the last thing I'd like everybody 29:23 [Alfredo] to take away from this conversation is the need for internal locus of 29:28 [Alfredo] control versus external locus of control. 29:28 [Alfredo] Like this past 29:36 [Alfredo] April, the market tanked a lot, and I had a lot of my positions on 29:43 [Alfredo] margin. I was negative on margin, and the market started tanking, and I was going 29:49 [Alfredo] to call my broker. I didn't. I called them maybe an hour and a half after the market opened, 29:57 [Alfredo] and they told me they had closed some of my positions without telling me. They didn't 30:03 [Alfredo] call me. They didn't send me a message. They just closed them. So I had to reopen them. That caused me three 30:09 [Alfredo] weeks of having to roll positions to manage my risk. So what 30:16 [Alfredo] did I do? I used my internal locus of control and said, you know what, 30:23 [Alfredo] that was my fault. That was not their fault, because everything that happens to me is because of me. 30:31 [Alfredo] Everything good or bad that happens to me is because of me. So I implemented a strategy where now I 30:37 [Alfredo] always have a buffer - that I never 30:42 [Alfredo] invest all my capital. So I have a little buffer so that won't happen to me again. But for example, let's say I 30:49 [Alfredo] had external locus of control - I would have called Vanguard. I would have blamed 30:54 [Alfredo] them. I would have said, "Hey, why did you do that?" And they'd say, "Oh yeah, we have these rules," and 31:02 [Alfredo] "Don't do that again." And then they'd say, "Yeah, we're not going to do that." Well, guess what? They don't 31:09 [Alfredo] care. You have to care. You have to take care of your stuff. So being external - 31:14 [Alfredo] having external control - and hoping that other people are going to prioritize 31:19 [Alfredo] your needs over their needs - is not going to happen. I'm sorry. So that's why you need to have internal, not external, control 31:27 [Alfredo] and be able to understand that everything you do is because it's your 31:34 [Alfredo] fault - so you can take the appropriate actions to correct it. 31:39 [John] What have been your best resources for learning options trading, Alfredo? 31:45 [Alfredo] That's a really good question. There's this psychology book - 31:51 [Alfredo] Mark Douglas, I think - I'm not sure of his name. I truly apologize - but he's basically the godfather of 31:58 [Alfredo] trading psychology, and that's the best book. I would recommend that book to 32:04 [Alfredo] everybody. Do you know which book I'm talking about - Mark Douglas, Trading in the Zone, or 32:09 [John] something like that. 32:09 [John] Yes, the Mark Douglas psychology book. 32:15 [Alfredo] Everyone should read that five times over - hands down. If you don't read that, you're missing 32:21 [Alfredo] out. That book helped me change my mindset - 32:26 [John] and it's been recommended by several other guests on this show as 32:32 [John] well. It's truly recommended. I'd also suggest people 32:37 [John] watch some of the other interviews we have on Theta Profits with different options traders, and about 32:44 [John] different strategies. 32:44 [John] Alfredo, thank you very much for joining and sharing 32:50 [John] your inspiring story. 32:50 [Alfredo] Yes, thank you for having me.