Kid,

The oak outside my window is swaying again as I write this. Twenty years ago, when I first sat at this desk, that oak wasn’t even as tall as I was. Now I have grown old, the oak has grown wide, and the markets have changed — but fear and greed have not.

I am writing this book because I have a reason: I have seen hundreds of young wolves come through this door before you. Most were chased out of the pack inside three months. A few held on for six. A handful for a year. Those who learn to survive — they are few. And what kept them alive was not intelligence or courage. It was respect.

Respect for the market. Respect for risk. Respect for what they did not know.

I am not going to teach you how to get rich. I do not know exactly how that is done — and the people who know are not writing books, they are living. What I will teach you is smaller and more valuable: how to stay alive. Stay alive, and time will bring the rest.

In the pages ahead you will see that most chapters begin with a scar. These are my wounds, or the wounds of wolves I have known. No theory teaches as well as a hand that has bled.

One thing I will say up front:

A strategy is a tool. You are the hunter. The sharpness of the tool does not make you a wolf. Knowing when to use what makes you a wolf.

Now turn the page. The disclaimer — which, by the way, I wrote myself, not a lawyer — and then "How to Read This Book." After that, Part I.

Read Part II twice. Twice. The first time you will not believe me. The second time you will — because by then, you will have taken at least one wound.

Good hunting.