How I Went from Earning 6 Figures to Working for Minimum Wage

At age 23, after training for two months, I got cut a check for $16,000. I was trading equity options. I was on a 50% split, which means I had brought in $32,000 in the month of January 2009.

February was even greater. I brought in 40k and got cut a check for $20,000. I was making more money than I ever dreamed of. My last job: working in a cubicle for $13.00 dollars an hour.

How did I get so lucky?

I was offered the job based on my reputation as a No Limit Hold em grinder.

You see, I grew up in Atlantic City, spent the last two years grinding the 1/2 No Limit game, with moderate success.

A friend of a friend’s father was a former trader on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, and he was looking for a clerk to watch over his trades, and eventually, trade their own account.

I trained for two months, collecting a meager check of $1,200, but that didn’t matter to me, immediately I saw the potential.

“This is just like online poker.” I said. “But for big boy money.”

My first year trading I brought in just over $100,000.

My second year, $150,000.

I had the whole world in front of me. I moved to Philadelphia, got some high speed internet, and traded from my home office.

This was, in fact, the beginning of the end.

You see, all the money I made, it came at a cost. I was suffering from a bowel disorder. The nerves as a result of trading were taking their toll. I was going to the bathroom six times in the morning before I could start my day.

I had lost a lot of weight. Almost twenty pounds, and I was having a hard time digesting food.

I went on a vegan diet but that didn’t change my situation, I was still having loose stools. Meanwhile, I kept pushing the envelope at work. Trying to make more money than I did the month before.

In December 2011, I told my boss I needed to take a month off from work. I wasn’t feeling well.

My boss was upset because my loss of income was his loss of income too. Still, I got the month off.

I went on vacation for a week, to Turks and Caicos, with my girlfriend.

At the end of the month I still didn’t feel well. I told my boss I wasn’t coming back in January. He very politely told me that I might not have a job when I wanted to come back.

That didn’t bother me at all. I knew I could find work if I wanted. And besides, I literally couldn’t work. I felt sick and wondered if I was going to die.

On January 9th, my girlfriend and I decided to have a house warming party, even though we had been in the apartment for 6 months already.

Little did I know, this party would change my life forever.

My girlfriends best friend showed up early with her boyfriend and he asked me if I wanted to smoke.

I said sure, as I was a casual smoker of marijuana.

We moved over to the living room and he began to pack a tiny one hitter with bud. As he smoked the bud, I got a strange feeling in my stomach, like I shouldn’t smoke. It was the strongest gut feeling I’ve ever had. But, I decided to smoke it anyway.

It’s only one hit, I thought.

He packed the bowl and passed it over to me. I took one hit and instantly knew I made a horrible mistake.

I felt like I was dead, and at the same time, like I was going to die. I told my girlfriend, I have to leave.

I needed fresh air. I stepped out of the apartment and into the street. I called my dad but he wasn’t home. I wandered the streets of Philadelphia, talking to people about all sorts of things.

I was hearing voices and seeing things.

I managed to get into my dad’s apartment building, even thought he wasn’t home. I slept that night, outside his door. When he came home the next day I felt much better and thought that I was better.

As I walked home I had a feeling, I needed to break up with my girlfriend.

When I got back to my apartment the kid who gave me the bud was still there, he had slept over.

“It was laced.” He said.

I wanted to punch him in the face. But I did nothing. I acted like he hadn’t said anything.

When he left I had a talk with my girlfriend. I told her we had to break up.

She cried. I cried.

But I knew it was for the best.

She packed all of her things and left the apartment, leaving me all alone.

I went to sleep early that night, and woke, in the middle of the night. Everything in my apartment felt foreign, and everything had a special meaning.

I logged on to Google on my work computer and saw articles about comets, and stars, and had the thought that it was the end of the world.

I wrote a cryptic email to everyone in my address book and left my house without a jacket and with slippers on my feet.

I walked all night.

I bummed a subway token and took the subway to Tioga. I knew it was my stop because I had tried to get a Thai Yoga massage just the other day.

There I met a prostitute and told her she was so beautiful. Her response, “Thats my pimp over there. So if you’re not buying, you better go.”

I left.

I keep walking.

As the sun rose, and I realized the world would still go on, I came across two men outside a community center. They gave me milk and told me to head back home.

But I didn’t even know where I was, let alone how to get home.

The men pointed the way to the subway and wished me good luck.

Somehow I found the subway station, and made my way back home.

When I arrived, my Dad and my girlfriend, and my siblings, were at my apartment trying to get the door open.

The cops were there too. And they put me in the cop car and took me to the hospital.

“I’m fine.” I told them. But they didn’t listen.

I was hospitalized for two weeks and given the diagnosis of Bipolar.

I disagreed and said, it was only because of the marijuana that I smoked, but the doctor insisted.

She said, “If you stop your medicine you will be back here in three months.”

I stopped my medicine and I was back in the hospital three months later.

I felt trapped. I couldn’t go back to trading options, and yet, after working for myself for so long, I didn’t want to punch a clock, or wear a uniform for that matter.

I decided to ask my boss for my job back. He had hired two new people during the interim and told me I could trade if I kept swing trading. He didn’t want me scalping options, as I would be competing with his new guys.

For those who don’t know what swing trading, or scalping is, don’t worry, it doesn’t matter much.

Only, I was new to swing trading, which had higher risk than merely scalping.

I agreed to the terms and went back into the office. But I had forsaken all the rules I had created that made me a successful trader. I was gambling now. And, I had no appreciation for the money.

I pissed it all away.

I still remember the day I lost $50,000. I went outside to smoke a cigarette. No big deal, I thought.

I was detached from everything.

Eventually I walked away from trading, with $45,000 in my account.

I took that money and attended graduate school for a year. Eventually, I dropped out of school because I realized I wanted to be a speaker and a writer.

I spent my spare time crafting characters based on my life experiences.

I tried trading one more time. For a company that gave me 50k in equity when I put up 5K. The reason they could do this is because the first 5K you lost was the money you put up.

I tried this new trading platform, but I failed, all my trades backfired.

I had $2500 left of my money in my account when I decided to call it quits.

Then I walked into the local organic grocery store and asked for a job. I got it. The pay, $8.54 an hour.

I didn’t mind the pay, and I didn’t have to wear a uniform, which was cool. I would work on my writing I thought.

I wrote an entire short story at work one day, squeezing out lines on my lunch break. And I met really cool people.

Eventually, I got a job in a local restaurant as a bus boy, and then working the counter.

I loved my job at the restaurant, and I met incredible people. I was making $10 an hour plus tips, but it wasn’t about the money. I was part of a team. I loved the people I worked with. I found the job fulfilling.

My boss knew about my diagnosis, and while I was hospitalized several times from 2014-2018 for stopping my medicine, I always had a job with him.

Those years were some of my best. I will always remember the people I worked with, and the times we shared.

In 2018, I made an attempt to return to trading, via Robinhood. Once again, I failed.

I was off my meds and thought that God was telling me what symbols to invest in. I told my dad and my friends, buy this company.

Once again I wound up in the hospital. But this time I signed myself out. Then I took my car, my guitars, and my two duffel bags and hit the road.

It was the end of the world, again.

I drove to North Carolina and stayed in a tiny cabin I found on air bnb.

I didn’t know it but I was paranoid. I thought the police were tracking me through tinder, and that they were going to set me up for murder.

I drove to a strip club in Asheville and it was there that I met Sage. I paid for a dance and gave her my card. In my delusional state, I thought she would contact me. I thought we had a genuine connection.

That night I got lost. There was a detour sign on the road and my gps went out. I drove my car into a ditch and left my car on the side of the road.

It was late at night, and I was walking from house to house, trying to get the police to come and get my car out.

I wound up walking down the mountain with my skateboard and guitar in hand. Eventually they were too much to carry and I left them by the side of the road.

I was walking down the highway when I heard a voice say, “Take the mail.”

I reached into the mail box and grabbed a letter and stuck it in my pocket.

Immediately after doing this I heard a police car come up behind me.

“Police! Stop!”

I ignored it. I kept walking.

“Police! Stop!”

The car pulled ahead in front of me. The cop got out. I dodged him. Then another cop car came from the opposite direction.

I began to run.

I was tackled to the ground and was tased. But I kept fighting, punching the cop in the nuts.

I spent the next three months in jail. Well two months in jail, and one month in prison.

I was completely paranoid and psychotic while in jail, and wasn’t on medications until the last month.

After jail I’ve had several jobs, but none of them have worked out. I get stressed out easily and struggle with hearing voices.

I lost my job at the restaurant because I was still a mess when I got home from jail. I don’t blame them. I was out of my mind.

It seems there isn’t much I can do now, except writing. I’m hoping to earn a side income here on medium, and have a goal to publish 10-15 times a month.

If you read this entire story, I thank you. That’s my story about going from making six figures, to minimum wage. Please feel free to comment below.