Gratitude as An Operating System?

Plus beaten down sectors, high flying momentum, and my current holdings.

The jet was on fire before James Stockdale could finish his thought. Metal tearing, alarms screaming, the ground ripping closer. Then the chute, the impact, the villagers, the ropes. In a matter of minutes, he went from admiral and pilot to captive, dragged through the streets and thrown into a cell where pain, isolation, and uncertainty would become the daily rhythm for the next seven years. No timeline. No rescue date. Just darkness, and the slow realization that nothing about this was temporary.

Stockdale had studied Stoic philosophy long before the war, and in that dark cell, it stopped being philosophy and instead became his operating system. He made a private decision that captivity was not something happening to him, but something given to him to grow from. He organized resistance, protected weaker prisoners, and refused early release that would be used as propaganda. When interrogators tried to break him, he absorbed pain as a cost of leadership, not a personal injustice.

What gave him this strength was not blind optimism or ruthless denial. It was gratitude sharpened into discipline. Gratitude for fellow prisoners who refused to break. Gratitude for the chance to live his values when they cost something. Gratitude for suffering because it stripped life down to what could not be taken. Stockdale later said the optimists broke first and the cynics followed, but the ones who endured accepted the brutal facts and still believed their character would survive. When control vanished, gratitude gave authorship back.

That kind of gratitude isn’t warm and fuzzy, it’s forged. Most of us will never face a prison cell, but the principle still applies: when circumstances strip away the easy stuff, what’s left is what you actually value. Try it for 30 days. Find something real to be grateful for every day and see what shifts.

And before getting into the full post three housekeeping items:

1) The Vault: it’s live for paid subs. Yesterday PAYO, MELI, SE, CPNG, PAYX, RELY, GPN, WULF, GLXY, NDAQ, CME, ONIT, and JKHY were added. Some of those will be written up. The Vault is basically a window into my investing process & feels a bit like an analyst at your fingertips that uses only real documents and doesn’t hallucinate.

2) To get access you must be a paid member, which currently costs $505 a year (or $55 a month). On 2/28 Vault access will be only allowed for founding members at a new price of $888 annually. Anyone in paid before them will be grandfathered in at the lower rate.

3) I was really good on HOOD. I think my article top ticked the roll over that everyone is freaking out about. You can read that one here, my track record is top tier. HOOD: Mispriced Call Option

Here’s what’s on my mind with some ideas for longs & shorts as I survey the field. Plus you can view my current portfolio across fins & other sectors. Last year I posted 32.73% and this year not counting today’s rip, I’m at 3.92%. I’m grateful for the bit of volatility we’ve gotten lately, it’s creating some opportunities.