An invitation to the curious.

Hello fellow Steemians! My name is Josh. My handle "seldonsplan" is a reference to one of my favorite novels Foundation by the 20th century science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. In the novel, the great psychohistorian Hari Seldon formulated a plan to save the galaxy, thus called "Seldon's Plan". This is my first post, and the beginning of my journey in the Steemit community. I am excited to take this first step and share a little about myself. I've been a writer my entire life. I started writing short stories when I was 5 or 6 years old. I continued writing short stories and poetry, and even attempted to write a few novels throughout my childhood. And I never lost the passion as I grew up. It's been the one constant in my life.

I'm 32 years old now, and I'm married to the beautiful @oshenalchem (fellow Steemian), and we have 5 kids together. We live in the US, and I work a simple day job in a warehouse. In my spare time, I'm a crypto enthusiast and aggressive swing trader. We've been trading cryptocurrency since August of 2017. We also have a large organic garden and 5 ducks on our 3 acres of land. We believe in living sustainably, and building long-term wealth through hard work and smart investing strategy.

My favorite coins are Cardano, Stellar Lumens, Steem, NEO, Dragonchain, and Electroneum. My current long-term portfolio consists of Traxia (TMT), Cardano, Stellar Lumens, and Steem of course! I am a firm believer in the future of blockchain, but I am a trader more than a "hodler". I am not opposed to selling 90% of my bags if I think the market is heading for a major retrace. And I am actually considering making that move soon to protect my profits from the current market rally. But I always leave something in the market to provide a line of support. For me, right now, I'm content with just holding Cardano and Traxia, when the time comes to sell.

I am an open-minded student of technical chart analysis and market fundamentals. I follow several different professional analysts and traders, and I get a lot of practice doing my own analysis and trades every week. I have developed a rigorous trading strategy for success, and more than anything else, that's what drives my trading habits. I try to stick with the fundamentals, and the proven methods of success. Since coming to crypto, I've learned that there is a lot of bad information out there, and a lot of so-called "crypto experts" that don't know the first thing about trading. You have to be careful in this market. There are too many people looking for a get rich quick scheme, and not enough people who want to work hard and learn the fundamentals of trading. And that's an open invitation to scammers looking to take advantage of gullible, ignorant people. Trading is hard work. There's no such thing as a risk free trade or "easy money" in any market. That's a myth that a whole lot of people lose a whole lot of money chasing after.

And that's why the majority of people give up on trading after the first year. I am coming up on my second year of trading, and I understand how it feels to take major losses. My wife and I naively left all of our money in the market back in January of this year, and we've since traded through the bear market and lost about $25,000 in profit. But we never lost any of our original investment capital, and now we are starting to build our profits back. They say that the bear market is the testing ground that separates real traders from pretenders. And I can say without hesitation that I'm not afraid to trade the bear market.

I hope to share my hard-won knowledge and experience with the Steemit community, and grow into a better trader and writer here. I plan to write on all kinds of different subjects, not just trading. I have a wide range of eclectic interests, and I'm happy to have a place where I can write without filters, and without worrying about censorship. I am thrilled to finally take the mask off, and show my true self to the world.

I wrote my farewell post to Facebook a couple of days ago, and I am committing myself 100% to Steemit from here on out.
This was a decision I made on moral grounds, due to the heavy censorship and rampant violations of privacy on Facebook. I was also tired of the toxic environment there, though. And the endless onslaught of corporate ads. You see none of that here, and what an incredible relief that is!

I love freedom of expression and privacy, and that's why I'm proud to call myself a Steemian. This is who I am, and this is what I'm fighting for. I'm a father of five, and I hope to build a better world for my children to inherit. It's hard to get us all in one picture, so I'm sharing a few pictures of us, so you can see all 7 of us. I could have just shared a picture of myself, but that wouldn't have captured who I really am. More than anything else I'm a father and provider, and that drives everything else I do. My steemit blog is going to be a little window into my ongoing adventure, and these smiling faces are the center of that story.