We talk to a lot of traders. Not just on this podcast, but across everything we do. And one thing that is common to most of them is some level of stress which must be routinely navigated. And it’s often a real struggle.

“I don’t need to kill it right now. I need to make sure I’m around for the next cycle that is favorable to my trading style.”

From an early age, David Hale had hustle in his DNA. At just 10 years old, he was sneaking into casinos to play slot machines. By 11, he was betting on horse races. And before long, he was hunting for arbitrage opportunities in baseball card values.

It’s hard to believe Denise Shull is a product of parents and grandparents who believed in “buy and hold” and wouldn’t even know how to sell a share of stock if asked to.

Steven Place has been around the block. He’s been through the ringer. And he has the scars to prove it.

A former Rocket Scientist, Steven is a self-taught options trader who’s been plying his craft for nearly two decades.

“I would not give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

Reinventing your career after 20 years is no small feat. Now, imagine trying to do that by becoming an active trader. That’s exactly what Andrew Moss is doing—but he isn’t going in blind.

Matt Kenah is Building Positive Momentum Every Day.

If we only learn one thing from Matt Kenah, I hope it would be this: “The only goal we should have every day is to live to fight another one.”

To say Andrew Menaker took an unusual path to Wall Street would be a severe understatement.

For Wall Street veteran Jared Dillian, getting away from Wall Street might have been the best thing he ever did for himself.

Milton Marmanides does the hard work that traders don’t have the time to do.

They are only losses if we don’t learn something from the experience.

When traders woke up on Monday, August 5th to the VIX at 65 and the Nasdaq index down 5% overnight, they didn’t need a cup of coffee to snap into high alert.

If there’s one thing Anne-Marie Baiynd learned after making the transition from a business owner to a trader, it’s that she’s no longer in charge.

The market, unlike her employees, doesn’t do what she asks it to do.

For Nik Lentz, being scared is Not an Option.

It wasn’t until Nik’s father suggested he get involved in High School Wrestling that he began to learn what drives him: Discipline, Regimen, and Humility.

When Michael Nauss first sat down at a trading desk, his computer had a keyboard and a screen. But no mouse.

And his screen displayed an order book. But no charts.

When you are chasing a wave, you can’t be anywhere else. You have to be present.

Similarly, you can’t be anywhere else when you are chasing trends. You have to be present.

Born with an entrepreneurial spirit and temperament, Michael grew up in a working-class community full of blue-collar, salt-of-the-earth people who worked honest days for an honest wage. And it rubbed off on him. How could it not? 

Flying down a mountainside on two skis while negotiating tight turns and ever-changing microclimates would be a terrible time to lose focus.

Heading into the COVID-19 pandemic, Caleb Franzen was working a corporate banking job that felt like a dead end. “It felt like I was just being moved around from one boiling pot of water to the next.” 

As a Trader with zero to negative correlation to traditional assets, managing money on behalf of institutional investors is exactly where Jason Shapiro is supposed to be.

This episode of Off The Charts may become one of the most important episodes we ever publish. Please give it a watch (or a listen).

Jason Perz has grown comfortable with risk. 

We've all been there. Think about the time you first got interested in trading. It was exciting thinking about all the potential money we could make. But then we were quickly overwhelmed with the reality of all the things we didn't know.

If there’s one thing Brian Lund learned about himself over the past 30 years in the markets, he must write.