I was watching a podcast and the question came up: if you could have dinner with anyone who’s passed, who would it be? My first instinct was Muhammad Ali. But the honest answer, the one that actually landed when I sat with it, was Norm MacDonald. I couldn’t fully explain why. There’s just something about that guy that hits me exactly right.

A big part of life is figuring out what you actually want. Not what looks good, not what your family expects, not what pays best per hour of effort — what you want. For me that question has a simple answer right now, and it’s trading. Not because it’s easy or safe, but because it feeds every part of me. I love the studying, the hours spent getting a setup precise enough to call elegant. I love the discipline it demands, because discipline isn’t a punishment, it’s proof you’re serious. And I need the persistence it requires, because there is no external structure telling you to keep going. You have to believe in yourself on the days when literally nothing else is confirming that belief.

I don’t want to be a coach. I don’t want to be on a team. I don’t want to spend my energy figuring out how to squeeze a few bucks out of social media. I want to be in the arena — mud, living on my wits, just me against the market. No BS, no excuses, no partners.

This is the whole thing, said plainly. Not a mission statement, not a brand — just a man who found the one thing and stopped pretending he needed a second one. Most people spread themselves across five things hoping one of them sticks. Norm didn’t. I think that’s part of what pulls me toward him at that dinner table.

That line could be about trading and nobody would blink. Some crafts get worse with more hands on them. You can love the work and still need to do it completely alone — not because you don’t respect other people, but because the work itself only makes sense as a conversation between you and the page, or you and the chart.

I didn’t expect Norm MacDonald to be my answer. Ali was the obvious pick — the kind of name you’re supposed to say at a dinner-party question like that. But the market doesn’t grade you on the obvious pick, and neither does your own gut if you actually let it answer. Norm just fit. He was a guy who figured out the one thing he was built for, said so without apology, and didn’t spend the back half of his career trying to be well-rounded about it.

That’s the part I keep coming back to. A big part of life is just figuring out what you actually want. Not what looks good, not what your family expects, not what pays best per hour of effort — what you want. For me that question has a simple answer right now, and it’s trading. Not because it’s easy or safe, but because it feeds every part of me. I love the studying, the hours spent getting a setup precise enough to call elegant. I love the discipline it demands, because discipline isn’t a punishment, it’s proof you’re serious. And I need the persistence it requires, because there is no external structure telling you to keep going. You have to believe in yourself on the days when literally nothing else is confirming that belief.

Norm’s line about standup — “that’s all I’m interested in or good at” — is the same idea from a different direction. He wasn’t hedging. He found the one lane and drove in it. Same with the writing quote. He loved it and still needed to do it alone, because collaboration dilutes certain kinds of work rather than improving it.

That’s trading, for me. I don’t want to be a coach. I don’t want to be part of a team, splitting the credit and the blame. I don’t want to spend my mental energy turning myself into a social media personality to make a few extra dollars. I want the arena — mud on my boots, living entirely on my own wits, me against the market with no partners to lean on and no excuses to hide behind. That’s not loneliness. That’s clarity. Once you know what you want, most of the noise other people are still negotiating just falls away.

Trade safe,
Jay Cradeur
Founder, Day Trader Dojo

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