Brian Lee
Jun 12, 2025
Thank you for being a part of this journey. My writing—and my strategy—will evolve with time, but the mission stays the same: I want to help you retire early. Free of charge. If I can do that, I’ll have earned your trust.
This is the first article in my series on investment management. Today’s focus is the foundation: my core investment philosophy. In the next article, we’ll break down how taxes work. Then we’ll cover covered call basics. Finally, I’ll walk you through my trading formula including stock-picking. The full series may take time to release, but I promise—it’s worth the wait. You’ll need the first two articles to fully understand the strategy at the end.
Before we begin, a word of caution: I DO NOT RECOMMEND BUYING ANY SHARES MENTIONED HERE. These are stocks I’ve researched and traded extensively. Without the context of the formula I’ll share later in follow-up articles, buying them now would likely be a mistake. For now, my goal is to show you how I think about the stock market—not to hand out picks.
A good investment begins with a realistic rate of growth. But what’s “realistic”?
The media loves stories about overnight millionaires and sky-high startup valuations. Those are entertaining—but not repeatable. My own portfolio has done well because I’ve learned how to take calculated risks. But I always encourage beginners to stay conservative until they fully understand their system. That system is where the real excitement lies. We’ll get there—but let’s build up to it.
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned: even modest growth can yield massive results over time. Take 10% monthly growth, for example. That might sound small, but it easily outpaces inflation—and compounds quickly.
Most financial advice focuses on annual returns. That’s not helpful for active investors. A 10% monthly growth rate leads to exponential gains:
\[ 1.10^12 \approx 3.138 \]
In other words, if you grow your capital by just 10% per month and leave it untouched, you more than triple your money in a year.
| Month | Value ($) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1.10 |
| 2 | 1.21 |
| 3 | 1.33 |
| 4 | 1.46 |
| 5 | 1.61 |
| 6 | 1.77 |
| 7 | 1.95 |
| 8 | 2.14 |
| 9 | 2.36 |
| 10 | 2.59 |
| 11 | 2.85 |
| 12 | 3.14 |
Even 5% monthly growth—about 1.796x over a year—is nearly double your investment. That’s the quiet power of compound returns.
If you’ve read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, you already know: many people get uncomfortable when you say a house is a poor investment. So let’s talk about a car instead.
A car loses value over time. Even if you barely drive it, you pay for insurance, maintenance, and registration. That makes it a liability. But rent it out, and now it’s producing income. Suddenly, it’s an asset.
The key lesson: assets and liabilities aren’t fixed—they depend on how you use them.
And once you’ve bought the car, you don’t obsess over its market value day-to-day. You just use it. That’s the mindset you need with investments. Stop treating your portfolio like a roulette wheel. Focus on whether it generates reliable income. Once you do, the market stops looking like a casino.
LQDW is a managed ETF made up of investment-grade corporate bonds. It’s not heavily regulated, so it does carry risk. But it offers an annualized return of 17%. As of writing, it trades around $25 a share. A $1,000 investment yields about $170 a year in dividends. That might sound modest—but compare it to the 2–3% return on a typical savings account.
Most conservative businesses aim for a 10% annual return. So why let your cash sit idle?
What if LQDW drops in value or cuts dividends? That depends on how much income you’ve already generated—and how losses might offset your tax burden. We’ll unpack that when we cover tax strategy and the full formula in upcoming articles.
Weekly options allow you to stack growth even quicker. Mark Cuban once shared how he recouped $25 million he lost in the Yahoo! crash by selling covered calls. Owning stock and strategically selling call options against it generates weekly income.
It’s a powerful strategy—and once you see it work, you’ll start to question the need for traditional employment. Work becomes something you choose to do—not something you rely on for financial survival.
To understand the full formula, you’ll need a solid grasp of how options work. Don’t worry—it’s not as complex as it sounds. We’ll focus only on conservative, income-generating strategies. No shorting stocks. No naked calls or puts.
I think I built a methodical, resilient investment system—one that works with the market, not against it. And once you understand it, you’ll never look at money the same way again.
When the market opens, I spend 30 minutes to an hour reviewing my portfolio, managing orders, and monitoring positions until close. That’s it.
The key to my strategy is setting the right parameters—ones that control the rate of transactions and minimize the need for constant attention. That’s how I keep effort low while maintaining results.
To put it in perspective: I used to make about $300,000 a year as an engineer, working 12-hour days, 7 days a week. Now, I earn a third of that—while working just one-tenth the time. With this strategy, the earning potential scales: $100,000 of income at one-tenth effort translates to a theoretical ceiling of $1,000,000 a year.