I live nowhere near Wall Street—my husband and I live in Asheville, North Carolina, where we used to operate a gift shop in historic Biltmore Village.

Our gift store was successful, and we always envisioned it as our retirement plan… until one day, disaster struck.

A heavy storm hit our area, and our shop was completely flooded—everything lost, and we had no flood insurance.

We were in trouble.

So while I began looking for new ways to make money—a friend introduced me to options trading.

Somehow, it just made sense to me, and I got really into it.

Actually, more than that… I became obsessed! And I started reading books, watching financial news, taking courses…

Most surprising of all, I got really good. I was beginning to make more money trading than we had ever made in our gift store, so I decided to pursue it full time.

In 2009, after successfully trading options for 5 years, I wrote Options Trading in Your Spare Time. And

I’ve written 6 more books since then. Because I LOVE that my books have helped so many people achieve financial independence through trading, just like I had.

Then, in 2012 I had one of those “duh!” forehead slapping moments. Why? Because I couldn’t believe I missed seeing something so obvious—something that was right under my nose since I first began trading.