And early in my military transition, I was a desperate young veteran with a family to feed searching the internet for ways to make money.

I had saved up about $20,000 from my deployment to Iraq.

I had never had that much money before.

Finding a footing in the civilian world was tough for me, so I would spend lots of time online, taking classes, seminars, reading books and listening to audio (yes, CDs), on how to get ahead financially.

I was taking in years of experience and countless points of advice from guys like ...

Jim Rohn

Anthony Robbins

Brian Tracy

Warren Buffet

Robert Kiyosaki

... and totally disregarding them.

Because I got consumed with a website forum called RagingBull (which is still around today).

RagingBull was a place focused on trading penny stocks and making the big bucks!

Heck, it was just pennies! Anyone can do it right!

Sh*t.

Well, I got sucked in and you won't believe what happened?

It all started when I began reading all these forum posts on hot new businesses coming out.

Tons of publicity and a bunch of people on the forum really excited about it.

Talking about how much they were making on some of these companies and the endless opportunities.

I got really excited.

So I decided I was going to make a wager on my future.

As I dug deeper, learning how to trade and reading the forums in-depth, I spotted an up and coming stock that piqued my interest.

It was called AdSouth Partners.

Ticker: ASPR

Here's the thing - AdSouth was super unique! They had invested in this patented MicroDermabrasion technology called DERMAFRESH™ that was making all the ladies go wild because it was getting rid of all the ugly bumps on their face.

It was even wireless, came with batteries, and had a box!

For some crazy reason that sounded like EARTH-SHATTERING tech to me.

I was in.

I had butterflies when I made the transfer from my bank account into the trading account.

Even more when I sent it from the trading account to make the stock purchase.

I put in my hard earned defend-our-country-almost-die money.

And then I waited to get rich!

As soon as the transfer hit, I was clicking my mouse as fast as I could to refresh my browser so I could see the updated stock price in real-time.

What a rush!

And the little voice in the back of my head said, "This is a pump and dump risky gadget and you're going to lose all of your money."

Wait what???

Here's the part you're not going to believe.

I DOUBLED MY MONEY IN DAYS!

That's right!

It worked.

This little penny stock ran like a champ!

Not sure why. Not sure how. Didn't care.

As soon as my money doubled and even before I got out.

Why?

Because once you put your money in someone else's hands, you learn valuable lessons real quick.

1. How much you trust them

2. How much you believe in them

3. The real value of your reasearch

4. The value of their offer to you

5. How much of your decision was made out of confidence

You figure these things out in a way that only putting money in people's hands will show you.

You can't teach it and you can't understand it by learning theory.

The lesson only comes when you TAKE ACTION.

And I was very fortunate to both learn and earn on my ACTION.

It's the EXPERIENCE you gain in the ACTION that you keep and can build on.

So, it's not whether you gain or lose on the trade.

I learned the difference between my PERCEIVED risk tolerance and my ACTUAL risk tolerance.

So put money into penny stocks if you want to.

Don't let anyone tell you what is on or off limits.

The path you lead in life is for you to determine, learn from your mistakes, and get better.