Peter Macke

Lots of big life changes in progress.

Put in my 2-week resignation last week for my Med Device Packaging Engineering job. My last day is next week on Thursday, June 26. Moved home earlier this month on June 4th.

Haven’t had a day off and won’t have one all month. But I also feel more fulfilled than I have in a long time. Trading is really coming together. I had a wonderful realization recently. After a late night session of backtesting and listening to a Jason Shapiro Interview, I realized I should often start getting out at the close of each 30m candle (the close of the same 30m candle I join on). Caveat is, there are times where I want to go for the home run and hold for longer, for multiple 30m bars. But generally, getting out on the same 30m candle I get in on (a base hit) is a good thing to do.

Some insights that have been on my mind:

“Don’t take advice from someone you wouldn’t trade places with”

I am not sure where this comes from, but it is a good one. There are a hundred trillion ways to live a live. Life is a sandbox game. It is up to YOU. Live true to your values and goals. And if they change along the way? That is OKAY. The important thing is that you living your way, your terms. Or at least working towards that goal.

Another insight on my mind, from the epic spaghetti western The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is from the character Tuco. “If you work for a living, why do you kill yourself working?” Another banger quote that makes me introspective and think “what do I really want to get from my work.”

It is funny, 3 years later, to the DAY (June 3, 2022) from arriving in Denver, I LEFT (June 3, 2025). I spent the past three years doing the corporate America engineering thing. Granted, it wasn’t the best experience. I am sure most people’s is better. 9-months into my first job, I got affected by mass layoffs. Then spent 4 months unemployed. And right before unemployment $$ was going to run out, I luckily got the job I am leaving now, which I have working the past 1.75 year. But it was only a contract engineering job. Crappy benefits. No PTO. Not a real employee of the company.

Sure, there was some good. I am not trying to complain. For the most part, I got to dictate whenever I took time off for the most part. I didn’t have to do all the corporate “Annual review” B.S. But still, I likely would’ve had a better experience had I been full time. But as Billy Pilgrim says “So it goes.”

Now, I am setting out into the unknown. But I know where I am going, and I know what I am running from. Trading is finally starting to work. And I am going full time at my mom’s tea farm and business. Life is good. There is LOTs of work to do, but I am VERY EXCITED. I don’t remember ever being this excited about any career prospect since I did the Packaging Study abroad in the U.K. in 2019 and right before I started at my first Packaging Engineering Internship at Merck. Since then though, it has been a slow realization that “this is NOT what I want to do with my life”. A roughly 6-year arc to get to this point form 2019 to 2025. I realized it especially in January 2022, when I decided I want to trade full time, and be financially independent, not have to rely on a corporation for a living. Then this attitude became really ingrained when at the very end of March 2023, I was laid off.

OK. That is all for now. I will leave with one last quote by the great Mark Twain.

“I’ve had a great many problems, most of which never happened” – Mark Twain

Until next time

-Pete