george grombacher 0:02
Mark to get us started, give me two truths and a lie, please.

Mark Anderson 0:06
So my two truths and lobby, I’m traveled to five continents this year. I ran over 20 miles during an ultra marathon on a broken ankle, and then I’ve done over 1000 hours of volunteering and Tony Robbins events this year,

george grombacher 0:22
live content, it’s 20 miles on a broken ankle and 1000 hours of Tony Robbins, yeah, well, 1000 hours of Tony Robbins sounds very, very Tony Robbins II. And also, if you get to do something like that, running 20 miles on a broken ankle, seems reasonable. I don’t think you’ve been to five continents yet. Mark,

Mark Anderson 0:46
yeah, you’re right. I’ve only been to four,

george grombacher 0:51
alright. So tell me, tell me about the Tony Robbins 1000 hours. Yeah.

Mark Anderson 0:56
I mean, I just kind of got into it. I liked it. I’ve been doing some like volunteering, captaining, crewing and coaching along with it, and it’s a fun side hobby. So I think a lot of people can have kind of like, misconstrued, oh, do what you love, have a passion. It’s like, nothing’s wrong with just making a lot of money at your job and having that fuel what you actually want to do. And I also think when you like help people, not from being a coach or a perspective that you’re learning new skills, it just resonates a little differently, like almost like your parents are helping you or something. So I kind of like to be a beacon for that

george grombacher 1:35
they get. That’s super cool. How many events, roughly across HAVE YOU DONE? 1000, 1000 hours, a lot. So,

Mark Anderson 1:41
yeah, well, one event can be about a week, and a difficult day is probably like 16 to 18 hours. So you can eat up the the hours pretty quick in regards to that. But I think this year I’ve done, or like will have done, probably like 17 events or something

george grombacher 1:59
incredible. Yeah, they’re cool. And so tell me about the broken ankle in 20 miles?

Mark Anderson 2:05
Yeah, I was like, I was pretty into running during 2020 when everything got shut down, so we couldn’t that was the form of exercise. And then one of my buddies decided to run 100 mile Ultra with like, 25,000 feet of vertical gain in the middle of nowhere in Idaho, and he’s like, Hey, you’re like, my only friend that’s in good enough shape to pace me. Will you do it? You know, he framed it as a question, but it was more of a response. I was doing it. And basically I was, like, trying to take an Instagram story of him within the first like, half hour of running, and then while I was doing that, I rolled my ankle pretty bad in the dark, in the middle of the night, and it was either get taken out by a helicopter or just run it. So I wasn’t going to do that.

george grombacher 2:54
So you just kept going, knowing that if I stop, it’s over.

Mark Anderson 2:57
Yeah, I mean, you got a bunch of bones in your ankle, so it just kind of swells up, and it’ll, like, keep them together. So it’s a little more dramatic than it sounds. It wasn’t that bad. It honestly kind of felt better. I was of moving, but it was an interesting you know, 15 hours of running for sure,

george grombacher 3:18
15 hours of running. Well, I think that that’s awesome. You know, you read or you listen to, I’ve listened to Dave Goggins books on audio, and it’s a different experience than just reading them. But I’ve always been curious to talk to somebody who’s actually done a similar kind of event. So have you gotten the itch to do it also?

Mark Anderson 3:36
No, I like, I think there’s a certain time and guys lives where David Goggins message really resonates with you, and I kind of jumped full into that, similar to the Tony Robbins thing now, and I was probably a little overboard on it, but yeah, there was basically I was definitely channeling Leonard David Goggins, but one of the guys that ran With us actually hit prior year on altrus, and they he was, like, pacing one for his buddy, and David Goggins was, like, behind him. He’s like, I think he’s coming. I think he’s coming. So, yeah, there’s normal people that are, like, granola eating, long haired hippies that run that outside of David Goggins as well.

george grombacher 4:17
Yeah, for sure. I think that that’s awesome. All right, cool. Well, that tells us a little bit more about you, Mark, so it’s awesome. What is a what is top of mind for you right now?

Mark Anderson 4:32
Top of mind for me is kind of just, it’s been what’s going on in the stock market lately, with the yen blowing up, and I just really think there’s a lot of interesting messages out there online of financial stuff, and even now, there’s like people that are scamming the SEC just basically said that Instagram influencers are legally allowed to scam people on whatever the hell they want. And then also. Just like, there’s even funds that I find very unethical that try to kind of prey on lower net worth, people that maybe aren’t as advanced. So just kind of keep in mind, anything that’s hot or has money around it, there’s about half of people that are just there to scam people. So I like to kind of be a voice from that and what’s looking at in regards to that. And I think it’s difficult for people that aren’t doing it full time to notice that type of stuff.

george grombacher 5:24
For sure, I I am not aware of the SEC ruling or comment or whatever it was. Can you tell me more about that? Basically,

Mark Anderson 5:33
it’s like, Logan Paul or like, random people are like, buy my crypto coin. Or like, buy they take, like, some SPAC public and they’re like, buy this, and then they basically dump it and benefit from it. But since they’re not licensed financial people, they’re not regulated, basically. So if you know someone came out that was famous and was like, I did this, it’s the next big thing, buy it. They could literally be on the other side, just dumping all of it to you for profit. It honestly kind of makes sense, because it’s like, it’s like, it’s not the government’s job to regulate and do that, but that just kind of shows you what people are doing. And kind of like the branding and click baiting this thing. Like, I don’t know that much, but Logan Paul is kind of example of just, like, unethical whatever it’s like, he like, pedals, energy drinks to children, and then, like, pump and dumps cryptos and then sues people who try to call them out on YouTube.

george grombacher 6:28
Yeah, it’s certainly a lot going on, and we don’t necessarily need to spend a lot of time on that. I appreciate the heads up, and I’m going to go dig into that myself, but it just does seem odd that they’re going to, they’re going to regulate people who are licensed to do the things that they’re licensed for, but not regulate people that are unlicensed, who are giving financial advice that doesn’t necessarily seem to lime out.

Mark Anderson 6:51
Yeah, no. I mean, it’s a wild world out there. And like not to get too much into politics, but it’s just like there’s some elite money people that are just really calling shots that aren’t elected officials. It’s like, I think we can see that a little bit in the Democratic Party. Or it’s even like, I started YouTube and probably about, like a month ago, and I was like, Oh, I’m gonna read people’s financial documents that are conglomerating money for funds and, like, call them out on YouTube. And within like, three videos in two weeks, I got re ceased and desist letters from lawyers on call nine and these videos have like, a couple 100 views, like, nothing. And then I got contacted by another lawyer as an expert witness to, like, testify for the person that was, like, doing that stuff. So that just kind of gives you a perspective of, like, obviously, I took everything down. I won’t mention who they were, but it’s like, it’s a weird, you know, Davos money thing out there, and people need to be more aware and careful. It’s like, what I like to say is, if you can’t judge people based on what they’re doing, like what they’re saying is practically irrelevant. It’s like, it’s all about how people are behaving.

george grombacher 7:58
Well, Said, I have worked in personal finance for almost 25 years, and the more I think about the work that I like to do and I’m interested in doing, I think of myself as kind of a financial populist is I just want to help ordinary, working class people to become financially secure. I’m certainly never not interested in helping people get rich quick at all, and it sounds like we’re sort of cut from the same cloth. And your work, what you’re doing, you’re helping people to become financially free or find financial success. Tell me a little bit about

Mark Anderson 8:34
that. Yeah, kind of what I would say is, if you’re making 100 grand at a job and you have 50 grand in savings, irregardless of your age, I think that you could be retired in 10 years. Like, that’s it’s actually very simple. Obviously you’d have to have your debt cleared. But there’s so many living beliefs in the system to, like, set you up to be held down that it’s kind of irrelevant. Like, the example I like to give is people are like, Oh, 99% of people don’t beat the market. And it’s like, okay, well, 99% of people also don’t have six packs. But you don’t go up to someone with a six pack and they’re like, How is this possible? You must be cheating. Like, don’t you know that? You know The average American is 32 pounds overweight. Like, this is impossible, but in order to get a six pack, you just have to eat, well, sleep, well, work out consistently, and, like, avoid drinking alcohol, basically. So people really need to reframe what that looks like. And kind of what I’m doing is, like, I would say that I’m giving away the secrets and selling the implementation, where it’s just like, you could do this with yourself. It’s all the tricks and it’s difficult, so it may not be worth your time, or, like, I could just do it for you, for, you know, whatever fee conglomerated legally with it, and again, how people behave. It’s like, My offer is based, like, 10% every 90 days, 100% liquidity. So it’s like, you’ll know if I’m full of BS or not, you know what I’m saying, whereas, like, that’s an action behavior of what’s going on the. You have a benchmark in three months of this is on track, whereas most people are just like in the long run, stocks go up and it’s like, okay, well, if inflation’s like 4% higher than expected in 30 years, all of a sudden you have to work for another two decades. So do you want to figure that out in three months or in 20 years?

george grombacher 10:17
I would rather do it in three months.

Mark Anderson 10:18
Exactly you know.

george grombacher 10:22
All right, so some of these, some of these lies, for lack of a better term, you can’t beat the market. What are? What are some of the other ones that you hear and you point to and you say, that’s just not necessarily

Mark Anderson 10:36
true. Um, I mean, another thing that I find really comical is like people try to get excess alpha, like higher returns, whereas, if you use a little bit of leverage responsibly, which can be done in ETFs or like, finding a brokerage account that lets you margin treasuries, like Interactive Brokers would let you do that. So it’s like you’re getting 5% risk for yield, plus you can own stocks. It’s also just get tax efficient. So like, if you could do a 20% return and pay 20% less taxes, like, all of a sudden you did, like, an amazing stock return of Nvidia or whatever. And you know, the amount of taxes you pay is never go ups or down. So like, people should really focus on getting their Roth going and then backdooring into their Roth. Because you can do that, even if you make over 130 grand, you can always back door like 10 grand from a self directed 401, K, or roll over 401, k into your Roth, and then that money is going to compound for all of your life. And also the government is going to come after rich people with 401 k is because we don’t have enough money for Social Security, so expect not to get Social Security or get taxed more in your 401 k in the future, they’re not going to come after Ross.

george grombacher 11:46
Okay, great. So this three month, well, tell us a little bit about about what you’re actually doing, what the strategy is, if, if that’s the right term, are you helping people to find retirement or success in 10 years.

Mark Anderson 12:02
Yeah, so I’ll kind of try and dumb this down a little more for people, but basically that would be helpful. Yeah. I’m trading what’s called Zero dt or days to expiration options. So some interesting things about options is the pricing of them is basically finite. So there’s a formula that decides the pricing of them. Whereas if you look at Nvidia, they have a $20 billion earnings, and then they get bit up between like a 90 multiple and a 20 multiple. So the underlying business of Nvidia is kind of irrelevant to your investment returns, at least in a shorter interim basis, depending on where you buy. Whereas if you were to look at what I do, if I sold a million dollars of risk premium, because that’s what we’re doing, we’re selling index risk premium, and I kept $200,000 of that based on how I manage my risk. It’s just $200,000 there’s no voting up or down to that multiple. It doesn’t matter what the market is. And the other example I will give is, like, there’s what’s called volatility. And you can look at the volatility index, or the VIX from, like, the last 20 years, it’s around 20 all the time. So when it goes up or below, it eventually gets back to that, whereas if you were to look at a stock chart, it’s, you know, perpetually all over the place. So it’s a much shorter term, consistent, mean reverting asset. And then the other thing about this is we can kind of define where our risk is, because all of these positions gone at 930 once the market opens, they have a resting order in with the brokers, so they will get out. The computer will get out if they’ve deemed risk. And then at 4pm we’re in cash every single day. So you have that full liquidity, and then that creates a high time velocity of money. An example like to give, if you’ve ever been in credit card debt, that’s a high time velocity of money that’s compounding daily. So you’re the interest rate that you’re being charged is a tax on the new balance every single day, whereas a mortgage is assessed yearly. So just through it’s called, like statistical arbitrage, just through the math of that additional compounding, you’re making money just through a mathematical formula, more so than some speculation or something that’s not going to be consistent and robust over a period of time, like low interest rates.

george grombacher 14:15
And so the goal is to be making small gains every day, and it

Mark Anderson 14:21
compounds, yes. So never have a drawdown that has a volatility tax. So 5% drawdown, you need a 5.3% return to get back to even. 50% drawdown, you need 100% return to get back to even. So that ruins the down, that ruins the compounding. But you always get the benefit of the upside compounding from the day, and you limit that downside compounding, so you pay no tax of what that volatility drag is. And I also don’t like to say goal. I like to say income is the outcome, because that’s why we invest for income, not for some number, and it doesn’t count until it’s realized also.

george grombacher 14:57
And how did you come upon this strategy? Did you figure. It out yourself. Did you read about it and say that’s interesting, and want to learn more? Yeah.

Mark Anderson 15:04
I mean, I was in like, the retail trading community, and it was all mostly BS people trying to sell discord services or whatever. And I was familiar with what options were. I’d invested a lot in real estate, and I didn’t like the liquidity or that the government made real laws like that didn’t make sense. Like, if you added real estate during 2020 or something, you saw that, and then I basically just became obsessed with it. Like, I’ve probably done over a million back tests over the last, like four years. Probably I’d challenge anyone on Earth that’s actually done more than me. And then you just start to get patterns like the the way I would kind of Raymond is it’s like, if you look at Steph Curry, he’s been taking 20, like, 2500 shots every couple days, 500 makes a day for like, 40 years, but he’s only made 3000 shots in his NBA career. So, like, he’s taken almost 3000 shots for every shot he’s made in the pros. And it’s like, that’s how you get good at something and master it is like, even though your output is high, no one’s seen like, the millions of iterations you’ve done beforehand to get to that level of mastery.

george grombacher 16:10
And is, how is technology, it’s improving its march forward impacting what you’re doing. So

Mark Anderson 16:19
basically, like, what I would say is that the democratization of technology and the price of it has come down to like a factor of prime. So the data and computer automation I’m doing now, the funds currently trading the markets open, probably runs me 500 bucks a month. A decade ago, probably would’ve cost 5 million bucks, not a month, but a year to 500 grand a month or something. And basically that’s what’s made it available now, the whole AI or whatever that is, I really think that’s significantly over hyped and just what’s been drummed up by Silicon Valley. So VCs can push stuff off of their books at some new multiple in the example I kind of give of that is in 1960 the microwave came out, and everyone was like, we’ll never have to cook again, steaks, grilled cheese sandwiches. Everything’s better in the microwave. It’s the best thing ever. But what actually happened is the microwave was only good for like, one very small set subset of things like popcorn or heating up a cold pizza. And then, like, 50 years later, we got the air fryer, and the air fryer actually makes everything better. What itself so I think that’s where basically AI is right now, is that it’s just an over hyped chat bot that’s rebranded, that’s actually been around for a while. It is progressing quick, and it’s making strides, but in no way do I think it could ever predict financial markets on a large scale? Because it’s just random like aI needs assumptions. Technology needs assumptions. And there’s so many assumptions that would be impossible to make that they couldn’t do it, you know, fair enough. Yeah.

george grombacher 17:58
So earlier you mentioned you’re somebody who’s making $100,000 a year and has $50,000 and has $50,000 in savings, limited debt, I’m assuming, sort of consumer debt. People have more than that, then that, then that’s great. But that’s sort of the avatar of somebody who this would be a good fit for. Could be Yeah.

Mark Anderson 18:17
And the main reason I kind of say that 10 year period, because it’s like, if your typical person is allowed to withdraw like 4% of their account, that’s kind of the rule to live off of. You would need, like, some, you know, something ridiculous, like $4 million to live off of, like 250 grand a year or something. But if you could make like a 25% return instead of a seven, and you also paid like a third of the taxes. All of a sudden, you can withdraw like 15% of your account a year. You know what I’m saying, because that compounding additionally helps you on the upside. And all of a sudden, instead of having, you know, $5 million you only need 1.2 that’s something people could achieve. You know what I’m saying, especially when you’re getting those returns, where I think a lot of the fire message and stuff out there is like, save money, live frugally, don’t buy her coffee. And it’s like, Nah, it’s it’s not like that. It’s like, if I could give anyone financial advice, it’d be like, if you don’t have 50 grand saved up, and you’re not making $100,000 you should be getting into credit card debt and spending every dollar you have to learn how to make money. You know what I’m saying. And then once you get to that point, you can start worrying about investing and doing whatever. And it’s like, if you want to spend $35 a day on caffeine and coffee because you’re working all that time to learn something, it’s like, go for it, you know, because there’s a lower bound to saving, but there’s no ceiling to earning.

george grombacher 19:45
Well said, and I think you also mentioned you’re giving away secrets and selling the implementation. So tell me a little bit more about

Mark Anderson 19:52
that. Yeah, that’s just kind of an Alex hermosi Catchy thing. So I went to, like, a private equity incubator trainings. Yelling workshop that they had, and that’s what he said. And I was like, Yeah, it’s pretty true. Like, this is just like the six pack thing, and psychologically, a lot of people just struggle with executing, you know what I’m saying? And it’s like more businesses have been lost, of like, people worrying about AI or the next change, like, than anything else. Whereas the fact is, if you could just execute, you would absolutely kill it. Like, there’s people that just make pencils and crowns and all the like we all like to champion. Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of, you know, Harvard people mortgaged their house to be an entrepreneur. Where it’s like, those are the billionaires, like 99% of millionaires are, like, the exclusive arts distributor for a pipe fitting in Central Texas, or, like, own a car dealership. So if you’re, like, not trying to hang out with supermodels on a yacht, and you just want complete time freedom of your life, it’s like, sell pipe fittings and be the exclusive dealer pipe fittings in that area. You know, I

george grombacher 20:59
think that that’s really what most people want, is, yeah, time, freedom, so I love it. Well, Mark goodness, a lot of great stuff. We’re ready for that difference making tip. What do you have for us today? Um,

Mark Anderson 21:10
yeah, I would just say kind of the difference making tip is people can get really frustrated, so humans psychologically function well in a six to one ratio of like, rate raised to criticism. So it’s always good to do whenever something bad happens, phrase it in a good sense, like you learn something and give yourself basically like six positive comments or viewpoints in the positive form before you critique something that you’re doing or your thoughts are poor about. Well,

george grombacher 21:37
I think that that is great stuff that definitely gets come on Mark. Thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you? How can they engage with you? And I guess my final question is, then, how long does it take? How much headspace are we talking about to actually put this to work?

Mark Anderson 21:55
Yeah, so you can find me on YouTube. Is zero day. Mark, LinkedIn, I’m available, Mark Anderson. Or if you just search MBH Capital Management on the internet or LinkedIn, I will pop up. So those are all the best ways to find it. You can also email, mail, email me at Mark Anderson, at MBH Capital management.com, and then, yeah, what

george grombacher 22:15
was the YouTube handle?

Mark Anderson 22:16
Zero Day mark, zero day options. Yeah. Zero Day mark, zero

george grombacher 22:21
day mark, great. And if somebody was interested in this, I’m sure that people will be how much of an investment of time is it to learn it, and then once it’s set, to keep it going?

Mark Anderson 22:34
I mean, it can all be automated. And like, I’m traveling the world, I’m doing Tony, Tony Robbins events, and doing it, but the main thing is, like, what I like to say is, if someone comes to me and they’re like, Oh, I’ve been a manager for 20 years, or I’ve been trading options for 20 years, and it’s like, and you’re not showing a lot of success, that just basically tells me that you’re still learning the same lesson for like, the 50th time. So it all depends on your ability to learn. There’s people that are really sharp, and even on my YouTube, I’m teaching this one guy from the middle of nowhere in Tennessee, who I used to work with, how to trade options. And he’s got a kid in the job, and he’s dedicated five hours a week to it. So I think in 90 days of five hours a week you could do it if you could get out of your own way. So that’s the main thing. And then, if not, like, I could basically do it for you, if you can check your ego. But I know a lot of people have trouble with that, so I’d encourage everyone to try as well and see it’s not as easy as it seems.

george grombacher 23:29
Excellent if you enjoyed as much as I did show mark your appreciation. Share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas. Go to MBH Capital management.com find him on LinkedIn under Mark Anderson, and then find him on YouTube under zero day, Mark, I’ll link all those in the notes of the show. Thanks again, Mark.

Mark Anderson 23:50
I appreciate it. Thank

george grombacher 23:52
you. Finally, friendly reminder, it’s never going to be anybody more interested in your financial success than you are, so act accordingly. You.