Editor's note: Matt McCall might be one of the most remarkable people we've met...

You may recognize his name. Matt has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and on Fox News, Fox Business, Bloomberg, CNBC, and CNN thousands of times – in part because of his incredible track record. In the past decade, he has made more than 40 recommendations with gains of 1,000% or more.

That's why we're thrilled that Matt has joined Stansberry Research as our newest expert financial analyst.

In this weekend's Masters Series, we're sharing a feature story on Matt from our friends at American Consequences online magazine. You'll be surprised to learn that despite Matt's success, he has an atypical story... He grew up poor in a blue-collar town, and didn't even discover stocks until he was in college...

The Inevitable Optimism of Matt McCall, Part I

By Laura Greaver, managing editor, American Consequences

Matt McCall's got something to prove...

A mile-a-minute talker oozing charisma with a magnetic personality, Matt is a passionate self-made entrepreneur, whose big-gains track record and penchant for teaching and helping investors just landed him at Stansberry Research.

I recently sat down with Matt to find out what's behind his insatiable drive...

Matt grew up poor in a very small town outside Philadelphia, next to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. His whole family – his father, grandfather, and uncles – worked for Bethlehem Steel.

For much of the 20th century, Bethlehem Steel was one of the world's largest steel-producing and shipbuilding companies, a Dow 30 stock, and a powerful symbol of American industrial-manufacturing leadership. Until it wasn't...

When Bethlehem Steel went bankrupt, it devastated many families in Pennsylvania, and Matt's was no exception. He remembers that after the company's layoffs, they had to leave their nice house for a much smaller one "on the wrong side of the tracks in the city."

When Matt was 12 years old, his father left. And being the oldest of five kids, Matt had to grow up quick... He worked any odd job he could find – at one point making tartar sauce every day after school at the fish shop across the street from his house.

The first glimmer of Matt's entrepreneurial drive appeared when started his own lawn-care business at age 15. He created and posted flyers on everyone's doors and car windshields in his neighborhood.

"And when it snowed, it was the best," he tells me. "Other kids might have been building snowmen or having snowball fights, but I was knocking on doors... 'Five bucks, I'll shovel your driveway.'"

Matt says he's always been motivated by money and wanting to prove himself.

"Other kids had nice, expensive shoes, like Nikes and Adidas, but my mom couldn't afford them. So I wore these cheap sneakers. They were called MacGregors, and I got made fun of for wearing them. I hated it. I knew I was better than them, even in my Dollar Store shoes.

"I've always been told I'm not good enough, so I always have to prove them wrong. Probably why I've been hustling even since grade school... selling football cards, cutting lawns, you know, up to something," he says with a smile.

That Philly blue-collar chip on his shoulder still drives him today...

"My biggest fear in life is being considered mediocre... 80% of the people I grew up with are still in the same town, living within a 10-mile radius of the house they were born in. I knew I had to get out to be successful."

Betting on His Future

Besides working, sports were also a kind of escape for Matt, who adamantly followed and played football through high school. He got a football scholarship to a small local college but flunked out after the first year.

He repeated this three more times at three other undergrad colleges – landing football scholarships but then failing out of school – until he blew out his shoulder and couldn't play anymore. He finally ended up at state school Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, where he planned on getting his degree and becoming a gym teacher.

Still hustling, Matt had a bartending gig in the evenings, making fistfuls of cash on the regular. Coming home with $200 after a shift one night, a light bulb went off: "It would take me more than a week to make this kind of money as a gym teacher."

As Matt wrestled with the decision of whether to continue pursuing his college education or not, his grandmother passed away. She left Matt $10,000, but before Matt's father would give him the check, he first begged him to do something "productive" with it.

A self-proclaimed "degenerate gambler" at the time, Matt loved sports betting...

It made sense – he was a football fanatic and always hungry for cash, and sports gambling seemed like the solution... except when you lose. And we all know gambling is just that... a risky bet on an uncertain outcome. The house always wins.

So Matt took his $10,000 inheritance and tried a new kind of gambling... He put it in the stock market.

Matt doubled his money fairly quickly... and he was hooked.

Matt McCall the investor was born.

Wearing the Stifling Suit of Corporate Finance

Matt suddenly had a new purpose and passion for college, although he claims his first stock-market win was beginner's luck because he didn't know almost anything about investing at all...

"My family, we'd read the sports pages cover to cover – I could tell you the stat of any player in any league... But I didn't know the first thing about the Dow Jones or the [New York Stock Exchange]. We didn't learn that stuff at home or in school."

But like so many times the odds were stacked against him, Matt switched his major, worked as hard as he could, and took many 21-credit semesters to graduate with a degree in finance from Kutztown University.

He landed his first job at Charles Schwab as a stockbroker in Denver. Matt stayed there for a couple of years and managed to simultaneously get his MBA from the University of Colorado.

But the finance world, at least as it played out at Charles Schwab, wasn't all that Matt dreamed it would be...

"Schwab kind of sucked... It just wasn't fun, and it wasn't for me. They were very corporate, and my interactions with clients were so scripted... I went into this line of work to help people, to teach people, but when clients would call and ask for my opinion or my help, I wasn't free to speak my mind or tell them the raw truth – I had to stick to the script."

Matt started going out in the evenings with his then-boss, and the two of them became "investment junkies" – huddled at the bar, jotting notes on sticky cocktail napkins for various options strategies and how to play different market scenarios.

Frasier and a Fateful Chance

Eventually, Matt left Schwab and joined a startup called Wall Street Radio that had a national radio show in various major cities around the country.

Within a year, he worked his way up to president of the company.

One fateful day, the radio host was sick, and Matt was asked to fill in. Even though he had never done a radio show and felt extremely anxious about speaking live on the air, Matt jumped in and helped...

"By the end of that first show, I was like Frasier – my feet up on the desk, taking live calls, answering investment questions."

He then became co-host and spent the next couple of years traveling around the country doing shows and live conferences. "I loved connecting with people, engaging with them in real time about the stock market," he says.

Tomorrow, I'll share the rest of Matt's story – including what led him to joining Stansberry Research.

Regards,

Laura Greaver

Editor's note: Incredibly, Matt says the next 10 years will "be the greatest decade ever in financial history"... and he has the stocks to back it up.

That's why on Wednesday, October 20, at 1 p.m. Eastern time, Matt is holding a free online event where he'll reveal the secret to his wildly successful personal investment strategy... and announce what he's calling "the biggest prediction of his career." Plus, he'll share the name and ticker symbol of what he believes will be his next winning stock.

This event is free to attend... but you have to let us know you're coming. Click here to sign up now.