A Friend's Story of Thanks
James "RevShark" DePorre is a professional stock trader who lives in Anna Maria, FL. He writes the "Trading Diary" for TheStreet.com and also runs a financial service for stock traders. I have gotten to know him pretty well the past few months and today he shared his story of thanks with a few people. Here it is:
What I'm Thankful For
11/23/2005 11:57 AM EST
Many have read my story in the past, but it is what Thanksgiving means to me, and I think it is worth repeating.
One summer day about 15 years ago, I was sitting in my law office in Ann Arbor, Mich., talking on the phone with an IRS agent. My client was involved in a questionable tax shelter, and I was trying to limit the damage.
As the conversation proceeded, I started having great difficulty understanding what the agent was saying. She was speaking loudly enough and very clearly, the phone was working properly and my office was quiet. The problem was that I was going deaf.
I had suffered from minor hearing loss since childhood, but suddenly it was becoming a major struggle to hear. In a matter of months, I was totally incapable of talking on the phone, and eventually I was reduced to communicating with others by written note. No hearing aid or surgery could cure my problems.
A lawyer who is incapable of using a phone and conversing with clients is like a thief without a gun. It is impossible to do a good job. I was forced to give up my law practice, closed several fledging business enterprises and lost most of my assets. Luckily, I had a small disability insurance policy through the state bar association that provided a little income. I was lost, depressed, and after a divorce felt very isolated and alone. I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do with my life. I was well educated, intelligent and had excellent experience, but I couldn't hold the simplest job if it required being able to hear.
While I struggled trying to figure out what I was going do, I started playing around with some of the new online services that were becoming available. I stumbled across a little online community on a service called Prodigy, where people discussed the stock market. I've dabbled in investments, and my interest was piqued by the discussions. Frankly, it was nice just to be able to talk with people on the computer and not to worry about my inability to hear.
I become increasingly active on the stock boards and in the market with my small stake. Because I couldn't hear on the phone, I would drive over to a broker's office and hand him a written note with the trades I wanted to make. I had mixed success at first but I was intrigued by the possibilities and continued to learn what worked and explore various approaches.
Emotional Rescue
Eventually, the first online brokerage firms opened up and I was able to buy and sell stocks quickly and easily. The technology was quite rudimentary back then, with slow dial-up modems, delayed quotes and limited news and data. But I soon discovered that the way to make money in the market was to focus on emotions and psychology, not balance sheets and P/E ratios.
I didn't make much progress at first, but as I learned how the market worked, things began to come together. I started knocking out a steady stream of good trades. Soon my initial stake of less than $50,000 had doubled and tripled. The more success I had, the harder I worked at it, and soon my life was consumed by the stock market. I posted my thoughts and comments on stock boards, and to my surprise, a number of folks were interested in what I had to say.
I continued to learn and refine my trading and investing skills and was increasingly comfortable as we entered the boom years of the late 1990s. My accounts had now grown into the seven figures and I was earning many multiples of what I would have made as a successful attorney. Not only had I found a lucrative job, but I greatly enjoyed what I was doing. The bubble years were ideal for my trading methods, and the profits continued to roll in. But what really helped me was that I learned quickly that it was important to protect profits. When the bubble burst, I did very well in maintaining my profits and learned how to make money in a more difficult environment.
My personal life also had taken a turn for the better. I met a sweet, attractive woman who lived near my parents' vacation home in Florida. She was willing to learn some rudimentary sign language so she could communicate with me. We were eventually married and now have a 4-year-old daughter and a son who will be 1 year old in February.
To make things even brighter, a new development called a cochlear implant had become available to me. About six years ago, I had the surgery and it greatly restored my hearing. It isn't perfect, but I can carry on conversations and function normally in most situations.
On this Thanksgiving, I will once again give thanks for how a great personal tragedy turned out to be wonderful blessing in disguise. If I had not lost my hearing, I probably would have never discovered the world of the stock market. Because I become deaf I have made far more money than I ever imagined, greatly enjoy what I do and have a wonderful family to share it with.
No matter how bad your problems may be or how bleak your life may feel, it truly is amazing how well things can eventually work out. I never thought it possible that I would be so lucky, but it happened and it can happen to you too if you stay positive and don't give up.
