Sovereign Sunday Vol. 1
Radical insights around disruption, leadership, antifragility, sensemaking and execution. And of course, bitcoin.
Welcome to the Sovereign Sunday inaugural issue! I’m Michael Kimelman, a bestselling author, investor, speaker and an expert on disruptive innovation and human optimization.
Sovereign Sunday will be a weekly newsletter that will feature bleeding edge stories, links and teachings on the most important issues and concepts of our day.
This is a real time work in progress. I will be experimenting with several features including subscriber tiers, twitter cards for the Octagon, and podcasts, videos, and other carefully curated links that will save you hours of time and research and accelerate your talent stack and evolution.
I will also develop a process to crowdsource valuable input from the readership. The HiveMind is a powerful concept, and will see more of it as we congregate in emergent networks of aligned individuals with similar principles and long term goals.
I see this newsletter and the brotherhood I’m building outside of it in the Alpha Guild as a vanguard tribe for truth, trust, and excellence. At heart, we will be a value-add, pertinent cell in a distributed network of other positive tribes such as the Liminal Order, Lions Den, Iron Council, Kings Council and Arete Syndicate.
While most of you are likely already familiar with me, if this is your first introduction, let me give you an abbreviated introduction.
I’m a highly sought after expert in disruptive innovation and human optimization. I’ve privately coached, consulted and mentored hundreds of the highest caliber men out there, from Navy SEALS to top tier athletes and hedge fund traders.
Unlike the vast majority of nonsense that’s out there on social media or other programs taught by people who have never accomplished or built shit, I talk it because I've walked it.
In my first life, I was a standout lawyer for one of the top law firms in the world. Then I spent two decades in finance as the top trader at several hedge funds before eventually starting my own fund where I managed a quarter of a billion dollars. I later wrote a bestselling book about my time on Wall Street and the personal trials and tribulations I went through during the financial crisis called, Confessions of a Wall Street Insider.
And for the last few years I’ve been running one of the premier blockchain advisory firms in the world, all while doing leadership and resiliency training for some of the top financial firms out there.
I’d say that on paper I’ve competed and succeeded at the highest levels of corporate america, be it finance, law or technology.
What’s missing is the key resume gap in the middle where I went from having everything you could ever want. My life was PERFECT ON PAPER - stellar resume, big league hedge fund wizard, 8-figure net worth, gorgeous wife, big house, 3 healthy kids….to being ZEROED out in an instant.
In a single instant, I lost everything. My job. Career. Savings. Reputation. Marriage. And ultimately, my liberty.
It was a 7 year nightmare I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
The part that might shock you (if the rest hasn’t), is that I can honestly say prison was the best thing to ever happen to me...and that I’m grateful for it.
Because before that, I was the guy with the glazed eyes, waiting on the train platform for a job I couldn’t stand, needing 3 cups of coffee just to wake up. Despite my perfect paper life by all outward indications…I was f’n MISERABLE and DROWNING on the inside.
Spiritually I was empty and broken. Stuck in a loveless marriage and a career I no longer wanted, chasing paper like a dog at the racetrack chasing a rabbit he’ll never catch. Originally I wanted a few million, got that. Then 10 was the number and I got that...then it was a 9 figure ‘exit’ and I’d really start living, doing something meaningful, helping others, pause to be happy and smell the roses…
Well guess what - when you’re broken inside, there’s no number that matters, no external goal or finish line. It’s a moving goal line that you never hit all the while self-medicating with vodka and wine by the bottle.
I wish there was someone reaching a hand out to me back then like I’m doing now to you.
I didn’t stop and only paused when an FBI SWAT Team kicked in my door. I blinked, and it was 5 years later.
Nothing would have stopped that path except for an external force and that’s why I’m grateful. But for that politically motivated prosecution, I would have continued sleepwalking thru life with declining health, stuck in a loveless marriage, thinking about work when I was with my kids and my kids when I was at work. An automaton chalking off Ground Hog Day type days until I was one day closer to death without finding my real purpose or passion.
God gave me enough warnings that I was too hazy and too stubborn to pay attention to, so he took stronger measures and took all of my worldly possessions away, but gave me a new perspective… and a fresh start.
The most dangerous man in the world is one with nothing to lose. And that’s where I was after walking out of jail with nothing but the shirt on my back.
I went from 8 figures and the NY charity circuit to broke, homeless and single. In my mid 40s. It’s one thing to take your swings and chase risk when you’re an entrepreneur in your 20s. It’s a whole nother ballgame in your 40s with 3 young kids depending on you.
I dare say that there aren’t many people who have had their lives smashed to pieces in their 40s, and are forced to start over with nothing but a big fat Scarlet Letter on their chest. In the age of Google and when you’re splashed all over the NY Times and Wall Street Journal, the chips are stacked against you.
With no credit, no job, and a reputation in tatters, I realized that if I was going to make something I would have to do it entirely myself. After all I was radioactive - unhirable by most firms out there...and that part was absolutely liberating.
I had a very POWERFUL WHY - my 3 young children, and knew nothing was going to stop me.
In the 6 months after I walked out of prison, I wrote and co-developed an unscripted series for television, wrote and produced a major studio documentary, finished writing my bestselling book, and started a real estate investment firm.
In 3 short years after walking out of a literal hellhole with nothing but the shirt on my back, I had rebuilt myself financially... and I did it all while spending a ton of time with my children and re-establishing the most important relationship in my life - the bond between a father and his children.
You see, I had walked through the Cauldron of Adversity....and I came out on the other side hardened.
The government did everything in its power during this time to break me - mentally, financially, physically… just like they do everyone who gets caught up in the clutches of the corrupt criminal justice system.
And I took everything they could throw at me, walked through that Crucible, and survived. When you’ve been through that cauldron, it makes everything else you tackle seem like child’s play.
In my 30 year business career, I’ve led high performing teams, been an individual contributor on high performing teams, coached and mentored teammates, and consulted with dozens of small businesses and startups. After founding and running 4 multi-millionaire dollar businesses, my mission at this stage of my life is to exponentially transform, serve and empower others, so that together we can change the world for the better.
Before I talk about why the GameStop fiasco is a skirmish in a larger battle, here’s a good primer on short selling and what happened if you’re not a finance professional.
Now that you know the landscape, let’s take things up a notch. What we just witnessed this week was a massive group of people have organized where they collectively have a seat at a high-stakes gaming table, which was previously invite-only.
It’s quite ironic that it was a year ago to the day we were sitting down with members of Congress and the Alphabet boys to make the argument that #Bitcoin is a strategic national asset and should be embraced with a ‘regulatory lite’ hands-off approach.
The currents this week have been monstrous. If you watch Entertainment TV like MSNBC or CNN, you probably missed the groundswell that is shaking capital markets.
A battalion of decentralized ants known as #WallStreetBets aka #TheRedditArmy has been giving traditional hedge funds and Wall Street brokers a taste of their own medicine.
And because we live in a world where free markets and free speech is a delicate illusion, the sudden recognition by millions on both sides of the political spectrum that we ‘exist’ at the behest of our masters has been a powerful, red pill.
The bigger story is the kleptocrats and cartels cutting off access to communications, markets and information to protect the privileged few at the expense of the many. It’s a continuation of the groundswell that led to Trump’s election and the anger brewing over the “fixed” nature of the political and economic system (crony capitalism, dollar debasement, etc).
By shutting down access to FB, Twitter, Amazon, Robin Hood, those in charge are doing everything they can to dampen these emergent, distributed networks.
The #Gamestop #RobinHood fiasco is just the latest skirmish exposing the deep corruption across the board in our society — social media, publishing, news media, elections, payment platforms, commerce, and now the market. Systems are rigged to protect the elite and promote their own agenda. The unwashed, uppity masses have learned how the game is played, turned the tables on the powerful, and the elites don’t like it.
What’s inevitable at this point is the war between freedom loving, sovereign men and women who support Constitutional American principles and the authoritarian jackals who want to control us will continue.
What’s clear to forecasters like me who have written and invested based on the above trends for the last 5 years, is that Bitcoin has been the canary in the coal mine for all of this.
It is the only censorship-resistant, trustless asset/store of value that exists outside of the legacy system.
I hope and pray it’s ready for prime time. Because the totalitarian wolves and their media propagandists are coming to try to shackle and destroy it.
And if they’re successful, it’s not hyperbole to say humanity, and liberty as we know it — is finished. #HODL you 💠DiamondHands.
Here are the stories I’m reading this week that are shaping reality:
Retail hunting for extreme profits and Wall Street bodies.
Melvin Capital’s 2.75 Billion Bailout.
Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio says the US is on the 'brink of a terrible civil war' because of wealth gaps and political partisanship. When billionaires and the best forecasters/historians are getting nervous about civil war, maybe it’s time to pay attention.
Silencing dissent: How social media giants advance fake science and drive maximum COVID-19 hysteria
Taibbi’s take on the financial pirates and their comeuppance.
Some Good Advice: Here are 10 Common Mistakes Beginning Traders Make. Avoid these like the plague from my good friend Scott Melker.
Podcasts I’m Listening To…
Michael Saylor - Bitcoin is Hope.
Videos I’m Watching...
Info Wars, Sensemaking and the Networked Future. JML #43. This is a great one.
Chart of the Week
Twitter Octagon
Hope you enjoyed! If you did, please share it.
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In the meantime, tell your friends!
-MK