Tony Knoll’s Origin Story Pt.II

Life looks much like a stock’s price action, it’s all ups and downs. And while I’ve have had a good run until 2019 when we made the first real big profits 2020 wasn’t such a pleasant year either for me or for almost anybody for that matter.

Young Foolishness

You see, when you’re young you make mistakes, lots of mistakes. Some mistakes are worse than others, some mistakes are easily fixable, but some are not so easily fixed.

By the time 2020 and the global pandemic came in I had a good run, and made some real nice profits, but what comes up must eventually come down.

That’s exactly what happened when the global pandemic showed up. Nobody really expected it and to be honest, I was focused on other more trivial and less important things like my then relationship.

If there’s one thing I have learned in my personal life as a man is this: Never focus on women. Focus always on yourself and your personal development, your health and your finances, everything will follow soon after you start to focus on yourself.

But of course, you as a young man might not be able to understand this until you get your guts kicked out of you…

Mistakes Were Made

I also underestimated the impact this sickness would have in not only the markets but in society, economy, and the world overall.

I was honestly never scared of getting sick and I will keep my opinions to myself about this whole ordeal for the time being, but the end point was that I didn’t prepare accordingly for what would follow.

My portfolio obviously crashed, and I started to have problems with vices, my ex-gf was one of them.

Things went downhill from there, I tried to lunch a business, but I had no discipline or motivation to get it off the ground and slowly I sunk into depression and anxiety…

HELL (Health & Loneliness)

Like a lot if not most of Gen Z’ers I suffer from anxiety, panic attacks, and extreme paranoia. Thankfully due to self-discipline, self-control, and stoicism, I have got these things well under control now, I actually haven’t had a panic attack in years now.

But at the time due to my poor health decisions as well as personal and financial decisions my mental health started to rapidly deteriorate.

It got so bad to the point that I had to go to the hospital because of extreme stress that caused a psychotic outbreak.

This was as you can imagine, a horrible experience for me. I was put on medication for a year and a half and during this time getting out of the hole I was in.

The first few months of treatment where just as bad as having the psychotic outbreak, the medication cause night sweats, chills and other uncomfortable side effects I had to deal with…

Loneliness

Due to the pandemic, I couldn’t really go out with my friends because almost all of them were scared shitless about the virus so really the only person who I could talk to was my ex.

I asked her to come visit me because I just couldn’t handle being in my room medicated and alone most of the time, so she came and stayed with me for a month.

This would prove to be a grave mistake however (or so I thought at the time) because we started to have a lot of arguments and that definitely didn’t help with my recovery.

Soon after, she broke up with me over the phone.

Life really grabs you by the neck when you can’t go out and see your friends like you used to and there’s something about betrayal that just changes you forever.

Heartbeak

This was the lowest point in my whole life, but I was fully aware that this was all my doing. I had been irresponsible with my health, and I neglected my businesses due to this teenage-party behavior.

I liquidated my portfolio so I could afford to go to therapy and get my meds (thankfully my family also helped me with this).

So, there I was, recovering from a psychotic break, heartbroken, with anxiety at full swing and medicated. What a shit show.

Grief

I started to grieve badly for the next 3 weeks, I truly felt alone, abandoned, left to rot in my own misery, but I had it coming.

I wrote to my now ex every day, imagining we were still together just so I could have someone to talk to, even if it was just in my head, I wrote and wrote until I made a full 300+ page journal.

God really took things into His own hands to show me a full lesson and see what I was capable of because at the same time a hurricane hit my city and we had no electricity for about 2 full weeks, but I kept writing nonetheless.

Soon, rage started to fill my heart and I made a promise to myself that when I achieve Victory, I would place the journals pages in banners and have them be thrown at my feet.

Rage & Grief

This rage was what for some time kept me alive, this rage made me get up and start exercising like I hadn’t done in a while, I ran and ran. The running because therapy.

I ran even during the hurricane’s thunderstorms, I ran until my feet got cramped and until my shoes and I clothes were soaked wet as I pushed through the flooded areas in my town.

I knew this was God testing my resilience, I welcomed His test…

Depression

When the hurricane passed, I thought the hard part was over, but this was not the case.

I didn’t know the grief process at the time, but I was going through it and just as I thought the worst had come to pass, I slit back into depression for a whole 3 months.

I wouldn’t go out of my room, I slept all day, I barely ate, and the world seemed gray once again.

This period of my life was basically the closes I got to hell, but I slowly started to accept the things that had come to me, I welcomed these changes, I welcomed the pain and with it, the pain started to subside.

It wasn’t until I discovered Rollo Tomassi’s rational male and Richard Cooper’s videos that my life started to have meaning again.

New Mentors & The Red Pill

Through the experience of these older gentlemen, watching what they went through and learning about female nature I had the opportunity to completely rebuild myself from the ashes of the past.

This was the end of an era and having taken the Red Pill marked the beginning of another.

Life looks much like a stock’s price action, it’s all ups and downs. And I had crash, but I was now ready to begin a rally, a period I would call The Great Sacred War was about to begin…

Join me tomorrow for part III…

Bottom Line

Thank you for reading part II of my story, I know this had little to do with investing, but I wanted to share this important and painful period of my life to show you how we all go through hardship and suffering.

Sometimes these hardships are self-inflicted as was (for the most part) my case, but some of them come naturally in the form of the death of a loved one, a heartbreak, bankruptcy, and so on.

The important thing to keep in mind though is that suffering is optional and that there are two types of pain: One is useless pain that doesn’t teach you anything. This type of pain is pointless and can be overcome with strong morale and stoicism.

The other type of pain is The Good Pain, the one that becomes a teacher in time. This type of pain is really a blessing in disguise, and if properly harnessed, you can utilize it to become the best version of yourself.

If you’re going through hard times always remember: Pain and suffering are not forever, they never last forever, and furthermore, if you harness your pain and utilize it correctly, this same pain can be turned into a valuable lesson.

Try to keep your head up, stay strong… You got this man.