RULES-BASED INVESTING FOR THE LONG TERM
More than the market. 
 Half the fall.

Free to watch. No deposit, no money at risk, no card.

Most investing makes you pick one: bigger returns with bigger losses, or safety that quietly falls behind. Over the last ten years in testing, this system did both.

19.62%

ANNUAL RETURN IN TESTING, VS 15.29% FOR THE S&P 500

-16.7%

WORST DROP OF THE DECADE - THE S&P 500 FELL −33.7%

2.5x

MORE Than THE ENDING WEALTH OF A TYPICAL 9% ADVISOR

~7

TRADEs A YEAR - THEN YOU CLOSE YOUR LAPTOP

Over the last ten years in testing, the system compounded $100,000 into $597,074, against $413,095 for the S&P 500. Backtested simulation. One index and one rule set, start to finish, with no substituted funds. Results as of September 4, 2026. Past results don't guarantee future ones.

Or read the whitepaper first - the full record, the science, and the risks.
The Founder's Club Beta is free for ninety days. You do not have to invest a dollar to be in it.

Fifty spots, before this opens to anyone. What I'm asking for in return isn't money. Come to the calls. Ask the hard questions. Tell me what's confusing, what's missing, and what you'd never do.
Fifty spots. I capped it there so the calls stay a conversation and I can actually be present for the people in the room.
You most likely got here from a video, or from someone who sent you a link. Either way, you don't know me yet, and you should be skeptical.

So here is the whole arrangement. Fifty people. Ninety days. No charge and no deposit. You get the complete record on day one and you get me on the calls. At the end, you decide.

Nobody asks you for money to find out whether this is real.
Two paths. Both fail at retirement-quality returns.
  •  Trade it yourself: Watch the market, react to the news, try to time it. The evidence here is not close: for almost everyone, this loses to simply holding the index. Not because you aren't smart. Because fear bottoms in panics and greed tops in euphoria, and the move that feels most right in the moment is reliably the worst one.
  • ​Hand it to a professional: You stop making the emotional mistakes, and you start paying 1-2% a year that compounds in the wrong direction. Over the same ten years in testing, that difference is about $236,125 versus $597,068 on the same $100,000.

    And whichever you pick, you still absorb every bear market in full. Within fifteen years of needing the money, that stops being a line on a chart.
There is a third path.
Fifty spots. I capped it there so the calls stay a conversation and I can actually be present for the people in the room.
Grow faster in the good times. Step aside from the worst of the storms.
The Serene System is a small set of mechanical rules you run inside your own brokerage account.

It holds one growth fund while the market's trend is healthy. When that trend breaks, it steps aside into gold, Treasuries or cash - instead of riding the whole way down.

No predictions. No emotion. No guru. Your money never leaves your account, and nothing happens without you.
  • One alarm is never enough: Two independent measures of market stress have to agree before the system moves defensively. False alarms - panicking out of a healthy market and buying back higher - are what quietly destroy long-term returns.
  • ​A few minutes, a handful of times a year: About seven signals a year arrive in plain language. You make the move in your own account in under a minute, and then you close your laptop. Think of it like the remote in your hand on the couch: you don't walk to the television, you press a button. Autopilot for your attention, the remote always in your hand.
  • An optional community: The best system in the world still fails the person who abandons it in a rough stretch, alone and second-guessing. So there's a community of people navigating the same signals and the same hard weeks. You can join it, or you can watch the signals quietly and never post a word. Entirely your call.
Fifty spots. I capped it there so the calls stay a conversation and I can actually be present for the people in the room.
Three layers of logic. Applied every day. Most days the answer is "hold."
The trend filter asks one question after every close: is the broad market structurally healthy? If the answer is no, capital moves entirely to a defensive position. There is no debate and no override.
  • The consensus shutter watches market stress from two unrelated angles: how the options market is pricing near-term risk, and how violently prices are actually moving against their own recent normal. Either one alone fires false alarms. Only when both agree does the system consider stepping aside.
  • The price guard means the system will not sell into strength. Even with both stress measures agreeing, price itself must also break its shorter-term trend line before capital leaves. A friction guard then stops it trading on noise, which is why positions are held for weeks and months rather than days.
  • Over the ten years to September 2026  of testing: 19.62% a year, against 15.29% for the S&P 500 · $100,000 compounded to $597,068.84, against $413,098.02 for the index · Its worst drop was −16.7%, while the S&P 500 fell −33.7% in the same decade · A risk-adjusted score of 1.23, well above the 1.0 bar institutions commonly regard as "high quality" - most active funds land at 0.4 to 0.7 · About seven trades a year
These are backtested simulation results: the rules applied to historical data, not a live money-management record. One growth index and one fixed defensive set (gold, Treasuries, cash), under one rule set across the full ten years. No instrument was swapped in after the fact. Results as of September 4, 2026. Past results don't guarantee future ones.
Fifty spots. I capped it there so the calls stay a conversation and I can actually be present for the people in the room.
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And you will become part of our Mother Funnel Circle.
The Grateful Trust Solution
  • Core - the share you choose: The Serene System handles the bulk of your wealth in your own brokerage account. Rules-based, no emotion, about seven moves a year. You keep full control and full visibility the entire time.
  • Explore - the rest, if you want it:The portion you keep for your own ideas, protected by an automated weekly stop-loss we call the Sunday Stop. So a swing you take on your own can't quietly undo the Core.
Jon Bender
I've been in your seat. All of them, actually.
I'm Jon Bender. I'm an engineer by training and an AI lead at one of the largest consulting firms in the world, and I've started three companies over the last twenty years. I tell you that only so you know how I'm wired: process over emotion, evidence over opinion, and very little patience for things that sound good but don't hold up when you check them.

I've also been an investor for more than twenty years, which means I've made most of the mistakes personally. I managed my own money and got it wrong in the ordinary ways. Then I did the other thing - I hired the professionals. I wrote the check, handed over my money, paid the percentage, and watched the results with the same quiet question you've probably asked: is this actually better than what I could do myself, or am I paying for the comfort of not thinking about it? I came away disillusioned. I also came away having learned a great deal.

Some of that learning came from generous people. One friend spent thirty-seven years as a registered investment advisor and has leaned into this work with me, challenging it and poking holes in it. I'm not a licensed advisor and won't pretend to be. What I am is someone who has sat in every seat at this table.

And for twenty years I ran a version of this by hand - watching the signals myself, doing the math on weekends, making the moves in my own account. It worked, but it was slow, and it was mine alone. That's the answer to the fair question a sharp reader is already forming: if it's so good, why haven't you published this earlier? Because until recently it lived in my head and my spreadsheets. What changed isn't the idea. It's that the technology and specifically AI that finally caught up.
Fifty spots. I capped it there so the calls stay a conversation and I can actually be present for the people in the room.
The Founder's Club Beta

Fifty people. Ninety days. No charge, and no money at risk.

I'm opening this to fifty people before it opens to anyone. It's free for ninety days, and you don't have to invest a dollar to be here.

I am asking for something in return, and it isn't money. Come to the calls. Ask the hard questions. Tell me what's confusing, what's missing, and what you'd never do. This is early, and the people in this first group will shape what it becomes.

What you get on day one, not eventually:

  • The complete record: Every rotation across the full history, with the plain-English reason for each one. This is the proof, and you don't wait for it.
  • ​The What to Expect briefing: The candid one, including the losing stretches and what a hard year actually feels like. · Every signal in real time, the moment it fires, with the reason behind it.
  • ​Live comparison to the S&P 500, so you can see how you're tracking, including when you're behind. 
  • ​The community calls, and direct access to me.
  • ​At the end of the ninety days, Founding Members lock in $99 a month for as long as they stay. Everyone who comes after pays $149. That rate doesn't reopen, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise later.
A fair warning about what the next ninety days will look like. The system moves about seven times a year, so there will be stretches where nothing happens at all. That is the entire point of it, and it's also why I'm not asking you to judge it by whatever fires while you're here. Judge it by the record, which is complete and open to you on day one. The ninety days are for deciding whether this discipline, and these people, are for you.
A glass box, not a black box. You see every move the system makes, in daylight. The one thing that stays private is the precise parameter recipe - the exact thresholds that make a signal fire. That is the intellectual property that lets this be offered at a flat membership instead of a percentage of your wealth. You see everything the system does. You're simply not handed the blueprint to rebuild the engine.
One practical note, since it matters and few people say it plainly. Because the system rotates about seven times a year, it is best run in a tax-advantaged account - an IRA, Roth, or 401(k) - where those rotations carry no tax drag. In a taxable account, short-term rates can erode the edge. Where you hold this matters as much as whether you hold it.
Fifty spots. I capped it there so the calls stay a conversation and I can actually be present for the people in the room.
This is education, not investment advice. I'm not your financial advisor and I won't tell you what to do with your money. I'll show you a system, show you its full record, and help you understand it well enough to decide for yourself.
I've also written a book on gratitude and leadership. It has nothing to do with joining, and there's no charge for it if you'd like a copy." That keeps it available and stops it from reading as a second pitch stacked on the first.
The content in this webpage and video is for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute and should not be construed as financial or investment advice or an offer to purchase or sell securities. The content is not personalized or tailored to a specific person or group of persons, nor to their personal investment or financial needs. You should consult a financial adviser or other investment professional authorized to provide investment advice. Investing comes with risks, including the risk of loss. Presentations of trades made by Grateful Trust or its personnel are not a guarantee that any investment decision made by a community member will be successful. Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance.

The performance shown on this page is backtested simulation: the rules applied to historical data, not a live money-management track record. It is not drawn from any customer account. The record covers the last ten years and does not include the 2008 financial crisis or the dot-com crash; those periods are addressed separately in the "What to Expect" briefing.*CFTC RULE 4.41 – HYPOTHETICAL OR SIMULATED PERFORMANCE RESULTS HAVE CERTAIN LIMITATIONS. UNLIKE AN ACTUAL PERFORMANCE  RECORD, SIMULATED RESULTS DO NOT REPRESENT ACTUAL TRADING. ALSO, SINCE THE TRADES HAVE NOT BEEN EXECUTED, THE RESULTS MAY HAVE UNDER-OR-OVER COMPENSATED FOR THE IMPACT, IF ANY, OF CERTAIN MARKET FACTORS, SUCH AS LACK OF LIQUIDITY. SIMULATED TRADING PROGRAMS IN GENERAL ARE ALSO SUBJECT TO THE FACT THAT THEY ARE DESIGNED WITH THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT. NO REPRESENTATION IS BEING MADE THAT ANY ACCOUNT WILL OR IS LIKELY TO ACHIEVE PROFIT OR LOSSES SIMILAR TO THOSE SHOWN
Copyright 2026 -Jon Bender - Grateful Trust
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