“What am I doing wrong”, I think to myself as I’m already numb. Did I deserve this? Was the market punishing me? You’d think losing a bunch of money in crypto would drive some emotion out of you, but I felt still. Sort of at a weird peace that the loss was made for me.

That was probably over 2 years ago today, and I still am not wildly rich from crypto like I so very thought I would be. I think that’s the natural inclination the majority of young crypto investors think. I saw this person become successful over night so naturally that will happen to me to!

Hahaha how wrong were we?

I don’t say all this to scare you, but to confide in you that this is the normal starting point. This is the dip where people actually learn and grow, or commit to failing at the crypto game, entrepreneurship game, fitness game, or whatever game they’re trying to play.

You’re Trying to Do a 1% Thing

Lets put this into context for a second. You mean to tell me that you want to become hyper rich and successful in one or two crypto cycles, and you don’t think you will take some big failures along the way?

I, for one, should probably say yes to that. That’s exactly what I thought. Well, I didn’t even really think about loss and only considered that I would gain everything.

Most of us get blindsided by loss because we don’t even think it could, let alone will, happen. We know what we’re doing we convince ourselves, until one day we have to sober up to the truth.

This whole thing is taking much longer than I thought it would.

And that is completely ok (and probably to be expected). Most people’s problem is that they:

1. Give up

2. Blame others or circumstances

3. Shift ideas/plans/theories too often

Giving Up

If you give up, you guarantee that you never win. I want you to win, and I want myself to win. I think we’re already having a pretty good start to 2025. But if you give up, you guarantee that you lose.

Why do most people give up?

They could think that they aren’t good enough lacking self belief that this can be learned. They think that they’ve failed once so this is over and lack the vision that failure is part of the process. Finally, they do not know the path forward and refuse to iterate and learn regardless of the outcome. Maybe they even ran out of money and refuse to lose more.

Any of these strike a bell with you?

If so, you need to find clear vision. Something that can help you move forward as you take losses or fail in certain areas of investing or life. My reason is simple. I know that I have dreams and if I give up I guarantee I never get there.

I don’t even really care if I ever get to my dreams. I just know that while I am alive, I don’t want to not try to reach them. To me, attempting to reach a goal is a beautiful aspect of life. I want to try while I have the opportunity regardless of outcome and that drives my continuation when it takes longer than I think.

Wouldn’t you rather be exhausted from chasing your dreams than awake because you didn’t use your energy at all?

Blaming Others Or Circumstances

“The market didn’t go into altcoin season”

“I just don’t have enough money to make a difference”

“Other people are just lucky or smarter than I am”

Have you ever thought of any of these, or similar, reasons for why your crypto goals are taking longer than expected? You weren’t the real cause of failure but it was all these other things that just made it impossible to succeed.

This is a negative thought pattern that shifts blame from you to an external object, and while sometimes this can be true, making it a default is dangerous. It’s dangerous because it basically says that the outcome and feeling of your life is going to be determined by other people and things.

It means that you are not in control of your life. Which is false.

Blaming others might feel good in the moment, but I guarantee you it gets you nowhere closer to your goals and solidifies that this will continue to take longer than you think because you are failing to grow.

What we can all do instead of letting these negative mental patterns emerge is slow down, say to ourselves “okay that didn’t work”, analyze why it didn’t work, and then use this new knowledge to navigate better for next time.

For example, the altcoin season idea not coming into play in 2025 probably hits home for a lot of us. I definitely thought we’d have more traction in alts by now, but we don’t. Instead of beating ourselves up about it and playing the victim blame game, I am simply taking a step back, understanding that this process takes longer than we believe, and learning more about the market as we wait. All we can control is the inputs, and you need to put in a lot of inputs to win.

Shifting Your Game Plan Too Often

Finally, what too many people do too often is shifting their game plan or investment strategy, when that isn’t what was broken.

Now yes, if you are consistently losing money, or don’t have a strategy at all, I recommend you get one. We talk a lot in this newsletter about my strategy of using Minervini, Weinstein, and O’Neal ideas combined into a crypto investment plan.

But even those plans didn’t produce insane results as the altcoin market falls against Bitcoin. I did make good money on BTC, and my alts are above their buy price, but I didn’t make insane riches.

During this time, you need to find a plan, learn the strategy, and stick to the rules. If you’re a long term (over 6 month) investor, you need to make your buys so you can sit tight in altcoin season. If you’re a swing trader, you need to refine your rules now before the craziness starts.

Committing to a singular idea of investing allows for discipline, rules, and repeated behavior to form itself. The worst thing you can do is try tooooo many strategies and become a master of none. You don’t have to invest like everyone else. If you find your 1 strategy, then you can make a million dollars and change your life.

I read this quote today about Jonah, from the Bible. Whether you’re a Christian or not, this applies to you.

The idea basically says that we all have this highest version of ourselves (we also have a lowest version of ourselves). Often times we don’t realize that we fear the highest version of ourselves just as much as we fear the lowest versions of ourselves.

I want you to think about if this is you, and where you might be unintentionally sabotaging yourself on this path to financial freedom. I know I do it to myself whether it is through a lack of confidence, lack of conviction, or lack of patience.

Sometimes we all just need a reminder that hey, this is going to take a long time and that is okay. It is actually to be expected.

I know the cool thing today is to be 25 with a lambo, and trust me I wish I was 25 with a lambo, but I am not. Odds are you are not either. But what we can be is 30, or 32, or 43 with a lambo. I’d still be pretty happy if I got my lambo in my 30s instead of my 20s haha.

Have patience, keep working, and iterate over and over. That is how you build a winning formula and a winning version of yourself.

Thanks for reading and supporting my growth.

Dawson