05/08/2026
I watched The Martian with Matt Damon.
In the movie, he gets stranded on Mars. He has to survive there for a year until they rescue him. He almost dies 15 times.
Now fast forward 20 years. He's old. He's teaching at NASA as an instructor, and a new group of recruits walks in. The scene shows him giving advice.
He says: "Look, at some point, when you're up there, something's going to go wrong. And you're going to think: this is it. This is how I end. This is how I die."
"You can accept that fate and you can die. Or you can get to work, do the math, and solve problem after problem after problem. And if you solve enough problems, you get to come home."
Options trading is absolutely no different.
When you manage a short volatility portfolio, you're faced with a series of problems. If you go "this is too hard" and quit, your edge dies. But if you keep solving problems – roll after roll, hedging tested positions, neutralizing your deltas – you survive long enough for your edge to compound and become a millionaire.
That's how you get to come home.