As we step into 2025, I want to take a moment to greet you and wish you good health, wholeness, and success in the coming year. Instead of adding to the end-of-year noise, I waited until now to share this message—along with a few reflections and nuggets that might help you along your journey. Perhaps the best way to begin thinking about the future is by looking back at 2024.

A year in review

This was a challenging year for me, personally, on several levels. While nothing epically bad happened, I navigated many changes—some small and some not—and, truthfully, really did not enjoy much of the process. Still, the lessons were far-reaching.

Over the past few years, I have been directing much energy into understanding issues surrounding the fundamental nature of reality and of consciousness. These deep waters do not run still; it is a study fraught with contradictions, complications, and uncertainty. While some aspects of this are becoming almost commonplace—we hear lots of talk about “simulation theory,” for instance—these questions are enough to make anyone feel a little crazy. And perhaps that’s exactly what happens when you take these questions seriously.

Some conclusions, tentative as they may be, are becoming clearer: I’m pretty sure that much of what we see and experience is not “really real.” To some very real extent, reality is a bit of a “choose your own adventure” story. Want to believe in stark materialism? Your experience will certainly verify that. Want to walk another path? Be careful what you wish for; reality might be more malleable than you expect.

There are profound secrets hidden in plain sight, and language itself is one place to look. There is great value in orienting your life around cycles, and cultures who lived in closer contact with nature have shown us how to do that. These ideas shaped much of my thinking in 2024, and I suspect they’ll continue to unfold in the years ahead. (You’ll hear more from me on some of these topics, as well.)

Going ever-so-slightly crazy?

You might ask how I arrived at these conclusions. Three practices stand out:

• First, I hinted that I have been deeply involved reading Jung over the past few years. One of the mysteries has always been where he got his insights. In reality, there’s no mystery at all, as he explains his path quite clearly, and it’s laid out for anyone reckless and driven enough to follow for themselves. Here be dragons.
• Second, I’ve spent a lot of time in meditation over the past year. Meditation, when practiced with dedication, is a genuine technology for understanding the mind and human experience. Beyond fads and apps, the experience itself challenges everything you think you know about who you are.
• Third, I had opportunities to carefully explore some classic entheogens due to travels in recent years. As a society, we’re rediscovering their profound therapeutic potential for PTSD, depression, and more. However, these tools require respect and preparation—before and after. Casual use is risky and often counterproductive. Properly approached, they can offer glimpses of possibility, but repeated use rarely leads to growth. Once you see what your mind is capable of, you’ll never be the same.

I’ve also gone even more deeply into some mundane aspects of craft and daily living, perhaps seeking to deepen that connection with nature and with earlier cultures. Even tasks like cooking and bread baking offer meaningful insights into the human experience.

Trading and markets

In many ways, 2024 was a bit of an inward-turning and introspective year for me. I did not think it appropriate to publish too much or to talk too much publicly, as my path led more reliably to sunlight-dappled clearings in the forest than to the Financial Times. However, I was never far away from the markets, and some valuable insights flowed from the year.

First, I published a set of papers looking at the quantitative edge behind some of the scans and tools we use at MarketLife. All the data were truly out of sample; we created the exact specifications for the tools years ago, and then have just been running them and collecting the data every day. There are two messages here: first, this is a very strong verification of the calls and scans we publish for our MarketLife members. But the value extends beyond that: this is also yet another quant verification of the utility of rather simple technical tools. In other words, what I write and talk about works, and it continues to work, year after year.

One of the real gems of last year was seeing the fantastic results from the group of people working through the TradeCraft process I created. This is a first of its kind, truly comprehensive approach to the challenge of trading—figure out who you are and why you want to trade before you figure out how you’re going to trade, and do all of that work before you figure out how the market moves. This is, of course, a tremendous amount of work and time invested, but you don’t stand any chance of finding enduring success as a trader without doing it. Only after doing that work should you begin the process of crafting a trade plan and really nailing down your methodology. It’s the exact opposite of the “life hack” or “quick fix” approach, but it’s also the only thing really works.

Intersections

This last bit is harder to write about, but the most meaningful revelations came from my work exploring the fringes (and the heart) of consciousness. Without writing a whole book here, let me say this: it’s real. It’s slippery, but it can be measured and evaluated. It can be trained. And even some of what you might consider ESP is real.

A Latin phrase, Nihil in intellectu quod non in sensu (“Nothing in the mind that isn’t first in the senses”), is a cornerstone of empirical thought, cognitive science, and psychology. It’s also what allows skeptics to dismiss claims of the paranormal without investigation. We must be careful; this idea traces back to Aristotle and has been reaffirmed by legions of thinkers, but I have very strong evidence that this is not true. Information can reach the mind in ways that defy the senses and even time.

So what does this mean for trading and traders? Well, the nature of intuition is not what we have thought. It’s not just about heuristics and earned, unconscious expertise. Your mind, and your entire being, responds to flows of information in ways we don’t yet fully understand.

Too many traders fail because they engage with intuition in harmful ways. It’s likely that much of the gulf between paper trading and real money results is explained by the mechanics of intuition. Every word I’ve ever read on the topic is wrong. I’d go so far as to say that every word written on trader intuition is wrong (including what I’ve written in the past. I’ll have more to say on that soon).

As we move into 2025, I hope this post inspires you to explore your own paths—whether by refining your craft, reconnecting with nature, or challenging your perspective on reality. The year ahead holds opportunities for growth and discovery, and I look forward to continuing the journey with you.