Which is why 90%+ of traders fail. Believing the next trade is a loser causes one to protect their risk capital exposure. All life is good and a bed of roses what could go wrong the opposite.
most of the money was just from saving. I had a decent paying job (for oklahoma) as what was called a drilling fluids engineer or simply mud engineer on the rigs. First thing i did was pay off all debt and have remained debt free through to today. My family jokes about me retiring in my 30s but I don't regret it. Some of the money came from a (small $) private investment in a frac sand company that did really well. I own a boat and RV storage that is paid for and is about the best definition of a passive asset imaginable lol. It doesn't make much money but it is pure profit with excellent tax benefits. So that's pretty much it as far as where it came from but probably more important is the fact that my wife and I are both extremely frugal in day to day life. My grandpa says: "he's so tight (with money) when he blinks it skins his Peter back" lmao. He's an interesting rags to riches cowboy philosopher type that is one of my go to's for life advice.
For now, I would park it in the Magnificent 7 stocks + short term t-bills until they actually do rate cuts. That's just how the economy is setup. My viewpoint is that unless you can trade energy, or the Russell, or Chinese stocks then there is no better place to park your money at right now. But if China attacks Taiwan or if something else bad happens then you are forced to have to trade it anyways.
Plotted annual NDX returns vs rolling average since 1986. Maybe we'll see a sharp decline this year, who knows. But things always mean revert sooner or later