My Life in 4 Trades: Denise Shull

29:31This is true for everybody. Still true. So just because someone thinks something about you doesn't mean they're right. Like, we'll end up talking about this related to billions. But like, I was like, yeah, I don't fit their profile. I get why they are saying that, but they don't actually know who I am and that I am very much like those people. I just came from a background where I was the first to go to college. And like, I didn't have that, you know, Miami of Ohio where, you know.

30:01So the fact that I was going to quit and this is before they ever laid anybody off at that point in time, IBM was famous for never having laid anyone off. If I just waited nine months, I would have gotten two years salary. but I didn't. And I decided I was going to quit. I was going to leverage my IBM background because at that point you get an interview with any company in tech, if you were coming out of IBM. Yeah. It was big blue. It was the company. Yes. So I like sent my resume to every tech company. I went through this thing. Should I move to Chicago, Boston, New York, ended up deciding Chicago because I was from the Midwest and I could either then go to University of Chicago or Northwestern in some sort of program that would get me to something in psychology.

30:43So I orchestrated all that and I found myself a place to live in Aspen at Christmas before I went back to quit on kickoff day and they called me to stage and promoted me. And you were like, um, about that. My very IBM, you know, navy blue suit, you know, walk the line boss got demoted because, because like his star employee quit and he didn't even know that like that was going to happen. It didn't bother me so much because he'd given me a hard time about wearing an olive green suit instead of a navy blue suit to a big meeting at Progressive Insurance. I'm never going to get on your bad side, Denise, because you remember everything.

31:26thing. This is amazing, the detail. I do have a certain memory, yeah. In any event, it ended up working. I ended up eventually going to the University of Chicago and design your own master's program. So what do you think, what did you take away from that series of events, that decision, that trade? Well, I already knew this at the time because I'd done it with getting hired by IBM the first time. It was like, Be honest with yourself if there's something you really want. And fantasize about like, what would have to happen for it actually, for you actually to get it. And it may seem impossible from whatever set of circumstances you're in.

32:17But don't cut yourself short or sell yourself short. Like, be honest about your dreams and say, well, like, what if this did happen? Or what if, you know, like, when my kids are older, I go back to school? We so often think, well, I could never do, I could never get from point A to point B. You know, or in my case, like, point A, IBM, we can never, you know, can't regret, we cannot encourage you to pursue a career with IBM. Like, go away, little girl. Like, but, like, I just decided that I knew and they didn't. Like, or I could quit IBM, even though no one ever did. Like, in a way that one's done, think for yourself.

33:01But just simultaneously in that, like, can you, like, have a certain life with contours and responsibilities and dream of a completely different life? As an example, I had a friend during all of that period of time who no one thought was very smart. She became a hairdresser. she had i think it was five kids five or six i can't remember she decided in her mid-30s she wanted to be a doctor it she went back to university of akron she got a pre-med degree she got a northeast ohio school college of medicine at 43 years old she opened her own family practice and went through a divorce in the meantime and had six kids oh my gosh yeah like Like, you know, the thing you want, like when I first decided no IBM was wrong, it was over three years until they actually hired me.

33:59You know, and I had like a friend of mine say, why are you so dead set on this IBM thing? um but i mean my whole life is a testament to like if you play the long game you'd be surprised what you can get what you you know i mean i never thought i'd be i'm like in my dream job now and have been for quite a few years i but i i just sort of did the next thing or gave myself still the possibility of the next thing that might lead in that direction. You didn't talk yourself out of it. I mean, that's in a way you, you know, you jumped, I mean, it is, it was risky what you did, but I think a lot of us hit that juncture, have that thought or dream or possibility and then list all the reasons why it can't happen because it's safer to do that.

34:54And then we sometimes attach a very sort of, you know, moral things to it responsibility you know loyalty all of these other things that seem like good reasons to keep doing that I'm not saying they're not but it takes a lot of courage to roll the dice and just try to do that thing that is not being done at the time you know or seems impossible? I grew up on my own for all practical purposes. Like my parents, first of all, it was, you know, just me and them and I didn't have any cousins or anything. So there wasn't like sort of this big family message of how you're supposed to behave and who you're supposed to be.

35:38And I've had this conversation with a client of mine in a similar situation who grew up in Paris. while you might end up being kind of neglected in a way like not getting what you need in terms of nurturing in a way it has an upside in which you sort of figure you can do anything you want be anything you want to be because you weren't sort of pigeonholed into you know by the time I got into the very heavily religious environment I was already like 12 or 13 years old so you know a lot of most of your personality is formed by that time yeah yeah so your second trade is also one of your best and that was accepting an offer to write your first article freud's path to profit so set the scene for us so at this point are you a graduate student are you working are you are you researching because it seems like you are in psychology now?

36:36No. So I end up at the University of Chicago, master's degree in neuroscience of psychoanalysis. I was dating someone who was a floor trader at the options exchange who had told me I'd be a good trader for like three years, wanted me to buy a weather future seat at the Chicago border chain. I was like, weather futures seat, you guys are all taller than me waving your arms and funny looking jackets. I'm out.

37:09So I'm finishing that master's degree. And he and a group of guys that he traded with at the options exchange went upstairs. I often say my life changed because I turned left onto Jackson. Like, and I, it came from being this very organized, very, I'm going to be a dietician. I'm going to climb the IBM corporate ladder. No, I'm going to give that up. Very planning, goal oriented, whatnot. And I'm walking with his badge was zap. We turned left from LaSalle to Jackson and this guy came running up to him, Don, Don, Don, a bunch of us are going to trade upstairs. We've got full-time, you know, intraday quotes.

37:43You should come try trading upstairs. And so they stand there talking, and I don't really know what that means, right? But then he says to me, you're just finishing that silly master's research paper. You should come with us and keep track of our P &L during the day. I mean, I think I knew what P &L was because you didn't get intraday P &L. And we'll teach you to trade. And I was really just sitting at home working on a master's research paper, filling out applications for PhDs, but I didn't know where I wanted to go or what exactly what I wanted to do. So I was like, okay. Well, anyway, so I ended up becoming a trader and I ended up running trading desks and moving to New York and to get to the paper.

38:25So then in 2003, I was taking some class i was trading i was trading in a prop firm at the time and i was but i was taking classes in the at the mid-manhattan institute of psychoanalysis which is this tiny little school but they had a journal and they wanted to do a journal edition on neuroscience and psychoanalysis so they asked me if i could publish they could publish my master's thesis and i was like uh you guys it's like a decade old and you're gonna look stupid you're psychoanalyst and you don't realize it. Anyway, I finally thought, well, it'll be interesting to do, interesting to have a paper published in my name.

39:01So I updated it. And that's when I learned you had to have a motion to make a decision. So then I'm telling a trader that I work with, like, can you believe it? Like the science says, and he's like, you would have to write an article. And I'm like, right. Like, who's going to publish an article by me? Well, it turned out he was undercover trading by in a fake name, running a trading room for Linda Bradford Rashky, the very famous floor trader from Chicago. Yeah. And so he fessed up and he said, I'm not who you think I am. I actually work for Linda Bradford Rashky, whose name I knew. She's been a market wizard.

39:44She's a very famous futures trader. So I knew right away that meant he knew a lot of editors. so he said I know a lot of editors Linda's written a lot of articles you know I'll introduce you you've got to write about this basically needing emotions in a training decision you have to so this editor asked me if I'll write it and I'm like what do I get paid she's like well we don't actually pay and I'm like what why would I bother to do this and so then I had a couple words by and then she said she'd pay me$250 I'm like look it'd be fun to have an article published, but you have to pay me at least enough to go out for a nice dinner in New York City with wine, or I'm not doing it.

40:28With wine. Yeah, because, you know, I can get the dinner for$250, right? But I couldn't get that. And so she came back and offered me$500. And I said, okay, I'll do it. And that was called Freud's Path of Profits. It was in Stocks, Futures and Options magazine in December of 2004. and people started calling me and saying, I want to know more. Literally, I had people from that article, people call and ask me if I could coach them. Wow. So did you, so, so, I mean, so strange the path because on this random left-hand turn or right-hand turn, you end up becoming a trader, which I don't know if you're the first ever, like, you know, masters neuroscience on the path to PhD psychoanalysis who ends up trading.

41:20I mean, that is not the usual path, but you have that real-time experience now in this. Were you always kind of thinking about the connection when you yourself were trading, or did they sort of seem like separate worlds until you wrote this article? The master's degree seemed like a separate world. I used to say, well, that was, you know, I paid for it myself. I used to say, well, that was an interesting$30 ,000 that was fun, but like, okay, useless, you know? But I was very interested in psychology of trading. I mean, I was in my thirties and I was single and I would tell my friends, no, I'm going to stay home tonight on a Friday night with a glass of Chardonnay and read Market Wizards.

42:06Like, I read - Somewhere in your mind, you're making all these connections, even though it's not maybe like in the front research part, but all of that background you had, it's starting to, you're starting to connect to some of the stuff you're seeing and experiencing as a trader. I was trying to figure out, again, I was trying to figure out why do people do what they do? So the guy that, we ended up becoming really good friends and I don't really know when we were dating and then just friends and I'm still friends with him to this day, but he could read the tape like I could read a book. like it was just like astonishing to watch him he also could get very stubborn and lose inordinate amounts of money in an afternoon like and i was always because i came from like you know such a responsible background with money and like yeah you could lose a half a million dollars in three hours what what like so i had that like i i wanted to know how that could be Like from, I might've wanted to know how that could be before I ever started trading.

43:12I don't really remember. Cause you know, I knew that he'd have this story of losing a bunch of money in the 87 crash. But then I was in an office where the guy that ran the office was kind of a buy low, sell high. Meaning like one day Kmart was down a dollar, it was$6 stock and it was$5. He called me up and said, buy 10 ,000 shares Kmart. Like I, even at that point, that was not my style. I could see that buying things that were going up made more money. But I wanted to know how, like, what was this game of trading? And how did the human mind interact with it? And why could Don or Eddie read the tape, like watch these prices and know what's going to happen?

43:56Why would these other guys just scalp for AIDS? Because that's what stock traded in. Why was this other guy doing like mergers and acquisitions arbitrage, which sounded too easy to be true? like I couldn't even believe it so I I think like I've done with everything in my life what is this how does it work and then when I inadvertently found that these scientists showed you couldn't make decision without emotion I was like all this advice is wrong so all these people are trying to clamp down on themselves, make a plan, trade the plan, be disciplined, and then they do stupid things. Well, because you actually, the emotion is getting acted out, but the problem isn't the emotion.

44:45The problem is the action. Once I knew if you didn't have the emotion, you'd never take a trade. I just like the pieces start to fall into place. And it's still, so I'm sure some of this has to do with at the time, it's a very male-dominated environment that you're in, right? Yes and no. Trading upstairs across the street from the Board of Trade and the Options Exchange for anybody who's from Chicago, there used to be a bar there called Jesse Livermore's. Last I knew it was called the Martini Bar. It was an absolute meritocracy. like so funny that you say that mish schneider says similar things and she was also on like the trading floor that's so interesting so it's just how you how good you did yeah between ibm spending the winter in aspen i got hired by company called com disco they're the ones who like took me to the strip club and whatnot and like that's when i learned that women could be treated differently and so when i did end up agreeing to go onto this trading floor albeit with my friends, but they weren't, they didn't even stay that long.

45:52Like I had this idea, okay, you know, I'm in here with 18 guys. I'm just going to put my head down and look at the screen. Like, and within not too much time, I realized, wait a minute, like how people are perceived, you know, we sort of hierarchy in this office is based on what they do with the screen. And nothing that guy can say to me, because it turns out it was a lovely group of guys. Like there ended up being one of the women there. But literally, if you were a decent person in making money, you were respected. If you were a decent person in not making money, but you were trying, people helped you and respected you.

46:28If you were not a decent person in one way, shape, or form, you know, lying or being too self-absorbed or whatnot, people didn't want you around. It was sort of exactly the way you wanted it to be. Yeah, that is a nice environment. And certainly not always the case, probably not every trading floor. So you, but, and you, if I remember from another conversation we had, you're not just, these are just not ordinary traders. You sat next to some like people who went on to be serious, like serious traders, investors, founders. Wasn't Dimitri Baliazny one of your desks? The firm I traded at was Electronic Trading Group.

47:11that was the guy that buy low, sell high. And we had every style, but about a year into that, I realized, wait a minute, there's a, I didn't know if I even knew it was called momentum. I guess I did. Um, but I'm like, I, my style was to buy the things that were going up and sell things that were going down. That just resonated with me. And so there was this firm called Schoenfeld away from all the other training offices in Chicago. And so I went there and interviewed. And they hired me and sat me next to a guy named Dmitry Baliazny, who at that time was trading 300 shares of stock at a clip. Yeah.

47:50But they were very momentum. We had a system that showed us what industry group was moving. And so you just see the relative strength of industry groups during the day. And so like in the morning, you might see the oil service stocks going moving up in strength. So it would show you there was buying. And so then come back in the afternoon going to buy all the oil service stock. Amazing. So you've kind of put this together now. But I hadn't written the article or done it. At that point, that was 1996, 97. Right. And you're in New York when you write... No, you're in Chicago when you write the article, correct?

48:28No, I'm in New York. Okay. Right, right. Because you want the dinner. Instead of staying sitting next to Dimitri, who became this multi-billion dollar hedge fund manager, I got an offer to put together a day trading desk at a NASDAQ market making firm in New York. It's long and complicated why I got the offer, but I did. And I thought, oh, that'll be interesting. I'll go to New York for two or three years and I'll put together this momentum trading desk in this NASDAQ market maker. So I moved to New York sometime in 97. And then by the time that I started taking those classes, and then by the time I republished my master's thesis, it was 2003.

49:08And then the Freud's Path to Profits in 2003. Right. So your third trade is one of your worst, and this is a private placement deal in a company called Verso. So where does this fall in this timeline since you're in this sort of finance career for a good chunk before you fully revert? It sounds like this was in somewhere in that period. so yeah so the same so my friend that i had dated who got me into the business um and another couple guys from the sebo used to raise you know money and put them in private places for tech or biotech firms and back when i was just keeping track of their p &l They did one of the first ones.

50:00And I put like$10 ,000 in and made like$40 ,000 or something. I don't know. I don't remember. But they were still doing it. And we had done a private placement in another company. I can't really remember the name of that company. But it had gone really well. And we'd made a bunch of money on it. And then the CEO from that company started this company called Versa. And so this group of guys that had way more capital to invest than I did. but they always let me tag along, you know. We did this private placement for Verso, and I think I put 75 grand into it over the course of 2003, as best I can remember.

50:41And I misused my psychoanalytic background. So I believed that people basically create the same patterns. So because the CEO had been successful with his previous startup firm, I had more faith in him because I was misapplying. Like, I mean, there was, you know, more issues with the technology and whatnot. Um, but you know, I don't remember what we originally bought the stock at 50 cents or something. And it went to like five or six bucks. Um, but I didn't sell like my friends are actually selling, but I didn't sell. I, I like, I was sure that that CEO would do it again.

51:23they finally went bankrupt in 2008 well so so so it wasn't a bad decision from the start it was your reluctance to sell or cash out yeah and the truth is I felt like I knew more I mean that was the kind of cornerstone I felt like because I experienced with the CEO and I could have a dialogue. Like I once went to their offices in Atlanta. Um, I felt like I knew more now. That's not really, I mean, yes, I felt like I knew more, but there was a, I couldn't tolerate the loss. You know, I'd made a bunch of money in the nineties and the internet boom and, you know, then lost a decent chunk of it in 2000.

52:23But when I think back, I even, so there's a coach, her name's Flavia. She long, long time ago wrote an article that included George Soares talking about his intuition and if his back hurts, he knows he should get out of something. And she had an intuition coaching program, like where you would work with her and she would try to help you deduce your actual intuition. I went to her. This is before I had the knowledge about intuition that I have. I went to her to help me decide whether I should get out of this. But the truth is I wasn't listening to my gut. I was rationalizing because I didn't want to take the loss.

53:10Did you not want to take the loss money-wise or did you not want to admit that you were wrong? I didn't want to take it money-wise. You know, I remember it being worth seven figures at some point. Like, I don't exactly remember what I paid for it exactly, but I remember it being worth seven figures. And I just, I didn't want to take the loss. I rationalized that whatever his name was, it would do it again, just like he did it with the first company we'd invested in. and I didn't know how it was. I mean, I knew at that point you needed emotion to make a decision, but I didn't understand intuition the way I do now.

53:50Like if that, if I, if I did that chain, I'd be out of it in five seconds. Like I know now to listen to what my gut, like I will say to my clients, what do you really, really, really think to get it? Okay. Then I know that oftentimes what we really, really, really think is not something we don't want that to be true. That would have been my case in, I don't remember what year I went to her, 2005 or 2006, I think. Yeah, probably. Really to sort out, I had to know I should get out of it. I had to know. I just didn't want to face it. This is something that comes up a lot because I feel like when we've done sessions together at an RV event, it's that getting out, cutting that bad trade that's just torturing you off the, it's so hard for people.

54:54It's so hard. And I did what people do. I, you know, I did more research, right? I went and met with the company, you know, I listened to every single, you know, earnings call. I tried to get to know the CEO better so I could, you know, prove that he was going to do the same thing he'd done. There was even a board member selling stock. And I like should have gone red flag, red flag, red flag, red flag. She rationalized it to me. And I just believed her. It's painful. I just didn't want to take the loss. So I didn't listen to my gut. And I did what most people do, which is you do more work. And you justify.

55:41Oh, boy, we can. I feel like everybody knows that. I feel like it feels like when it comes to a trade, but also in life. I feel like there's some culling that should be done a lot of the times and you just justify keeping something around that you have no business participating in, including relationships. So that's a hard lesson. Okay, I want to get to your fourth one because this is a big one. It's also one of your worst. And I think we're going to have to unpack it a little. So that was listening to your lawyer who told you to meet with Brian Koppelman once and that he'd make you a deal. So set this one up.

56:18I mean, who is this person? Why are you meeting with him? What's going on? For people who are not familiar with this story. I know a little tiny bit about this one, but set the scene up. So this does, by the way, like it's the same lesson in a certain sort of way. Overriding my intuition in pursuit of the shiny object, maybe, you know? So in 2012, I was on Squawk Box and Andrew Ross Sorkin interviewed me. I didn't know it, but at the time he'd already started working on a pilot for the show that ultimately became Billions. In 2015, he emailed me late in August and asked me if I would do him a favor.

57:02And I was like, what? And he says, I'm involved in this drama and there's an actress playing a performance coach in the hedge fund and she'd like to talk to you. So I was like, I looked it up. I hadn't heard anything about it. I'm like, okay, well, this sounds kind of interesting. A show about a hedge fund and maybe they'll finally get trading right on TV. Because I've never thought the trading has been accurately portrayed. And I'm thinking I'll have a glass of wine with this Maggie Siff woman at who knows where in New York City. And then when he introduced me to her, she immediately replied, topping the showrunners, the executive producers, Brian Koppelman, David Levy, and the secretary.

57:49And right at that moment, I was like, there's something more to this. this, like the normal thing she would have done is Andrew would have introduced us right by email, me thinking she wants to have a glass of wine. She would have written back, said, oh, thank you. I appreciate it. You know, what's good for you. Where do you want to meet? Right. Great. Yeah. And she might've said, and do you mind if I introduce you to, you know, other people on the team? But what she did was immediately loop in all these other people on the team. And I was like, that's a little weird. And then I hear from Brian complimented at 1130 on Friday night, the next day.

58:30And I knew that it was not what it was purported to be. And then the next time I hear from them is Sunday morning at 10 o 'clock. And it's like the last weekend in August in New York city. And if anybody, you know, you live in the New York area, nobody works last week in August. I mean, like the week before school starts, like New York is dead. And here's this guy writing the show, emailing me at 1130 at night and 10 o 'clock on Sunday morning. I'm like, they apparently really need me. Like that was my gut. And I was like, well, I don't need them. I should like charge them, you know, some number of thousands of dollars.

59:10And my lawyer told me to go in there and he'd make a deal. Oh, I used to know Brian in the music business. I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to do it. I got in there. Maggie wasn't there. It was absolutely a bait and switch for me to tell the showrunners, the main writers, for them to get as much out of me as they could. Ah.

59:39Why? And they did, and, and, but never, never credited anything, right? That's the, that's the negative part of this for you. Not only were you, did you feel like you were bait and switched, but then they never acknowledged that, right? Well, what happened was I was there for a few hours. I started to think, okay, I've told these people enough, like, you know, unless they're going to make me a deal, I don't want to tell them. And they were David and Brian, like literally both of them were writing down every single word I said. It was just like, and they were asking me like, you know, like, like complicated questions about people playing out their childhood and markets and whatnot.

1:00:17And Maggie, Maggie's not there, you know, just to support the bait and switch. It just wasn't the actress wants to have. She does finally get there. And she, then I think to myself, I got to get out of here because like, I'm just telling them too much for nothing.

1:00:36and Maggie as a way of keeping me there keeping the conversation going says Brian you need to read Market Mind Games her book and I because it's written as a fictional story and I'm embarrassed about it you know it's a silly little fictional story by not a professional fictional writer I say just so you know it's like written as a fictional story like and I play myself and Brian Koppelman's head blew off. What do you mean? How can that be? It's a trading psychology book. How can it be a fictional story? And I'm just like, I don't know what's going on. Maggie's trying to calm him down. David Levine's asking me if I'll come to the set.

1:01:16Can Maggie still continue to work with me? And Brian's losing it. I later come to find out that because it was written as a fictional story, their risk of copyright is much greater than if it's just a pure self-help book. I didn't know that. And I didn't know that he'd already been sued for rounders. That was really... So when he... I think he already knew about the book and he knew that Sorkin had used my book and realized he had copyright exposure right then and there. But what appears to have happened is then, despite the rest of Showtime asking me to sign a deal and just come see the pilot and to do all this stuff, it appears that Sorkin and Koppelman were striking their financial deal.

1:02:00And part of their deal was that I would never be on CNBC again, like that I would be on, like they had to erase me out of the financial world. So I think so that people wouldn't recognize Wendy as me. And so that Brian wouldn't have another copyright exposure. I mean, in retrospect. So like all my CNBC relationships vanished. My New York, I had someone who had been wanting to write a profile on me for the New York Times. And when she sort of drug her feet, I kind of was direct with her about what's going on. She literally said, you're just not that interesting. Oh, wow. So you feel like they not only screwed you, but they iced you after that?

1:02:44Well, they, that was the thing that always got me, is I went in there and I helped them. And they had no ethics or morals or care that I'm a woman who started a successful consulting business and they're gonna just completely take away. I didn't do marketing. What I did was I gave interviews. I didn't have a marketing department. I don't have a marketing bone in my body, back to IBM. But I talked about my work, gave interviews, and then, you know, got speaking engagements. They just took it away from me. Without even... And then continued to use interviews and clearly continued to use my book.

1:03:35I mean, ultimately, one of my lawyers who had argued in front of the Supreme Court and won in these kinds of IP cases told me I had more evidence than he'd ever seen. And I didn't even get to discover. I mean, so, but again, it's the same exact sequence. My intuition told me that I'd say, sure, I'll come for the afternoon. I'll charge you X. Let's just have a, you know, letter of, simple letter of understanding, you know, whatever that would have been at the time. And at least I would have gotten paid that because they, it turned out they were so desperate for information. They didn't know how to write that character.

1:04:13they had talked to tony robbins who had granted done some work with was it paul tudor jones but they didn't know how to what was very clear to me is they had no idea how to write this female hedge fund performance coach just why but i grant i listened to my lawyers but i should have listened to myself and said you know what I'm just not doing it. And you'd had that experience once before, right? So why this happens, this is almost always when we're talking about our worst trades, something that comes up, which is people not only make a mistake, but they make the same mistake over. Are you surprised that it was that same thing that you didn't do again?

1:05:00You sort of didn't listen to your intuition because you'd had that experience of having a bad outcome from that. I didn't know as much with this, even though that was all these, I mean, it was, you know, I was already, I did actually already know the research about intuition. And you already had the bad private placement deal. But I didn't, you know,

1:05:24I used to think the private placement was that I listened to the CEO too much. Not that I didn't listen to my intuition, you know? I mean, a TV show about a hedge fund with a performance coach did sound fun. It was fun for all the people who watched it. Yeah, by the way, I knew nothing about her being a dominatrix. They didn't tell me that. It sounded fun. And she, Maggie, she's a lovely person. She's very nice. I did end up I did end up interacting with her a little bit before like it was clear she was ended up was ultimately told not to speak to me or not to acknowledge me um but I trusted the lawyer you know what did I know about the entertainment world well I mean they're you know it's full of I know now everybody everybody knows yeah Do you feel, so a lot of times when you have a bad trade, there's like resolution.

1:06:39Even though, as I said in the beginning, it's difficult, but we learn something from it. And often that's where our greatest learning comes from. This one still seems like it hurts though. This one seems like it's still alive. Yeah, I will probably always want karma to kick in. because you know i am a hard-working honest responsible you know and they painted me as like the crazy woman who said this show was based on her just wanted to work on the show who's trying to get you know like i mean they never use the word blackmail but like trying to get money out of it and that wasn't it at all shaking down yeah i mean And to this day, I mean, you don't see me on CNBC.

1:07:31Like, so even Bloomberg, like, like I lost all access to the financial press, you know, traditional financial press. And I think that's really just lousy, right? Like that should not have happened to me.

1:07:52um plus i mean there's so many tenants of the story like i mean so many insane things happened you know in the end there was an intern working for the judge who went to the college where one of their lawyers is an adjunct professor yeah like that's a little in and of itself sounds like a tv like a tv that's a little questionable but i mean you know i had a writer call me tell me everything you said is true and more i had a cnbc producer say you know i would love to have you back on it's a long story but i cannot like i had so many things and literally all i did was offer to help you know they asked me for help i gave them help they could just made me some sort a deal.

1:08:43They could have paid me some money and had me sign an MBA. Yeah, it seems like the harder road, but you know. They didn't have to set out to like, I mean, their objective, I'm sure, was that the world not know I existed or Market Mind Games existed. Yeah. Because Brian knew he was at risk. That was why it happened. As it turns out, I decided not to let them get away with that and to fight that.

1:09:19So when we look at this, that's a hard one. That's a hard one to I think have floating out there. But now when you sort of look back, first of all, I also think it underscores why it's really hard to, I mean, we all struggle with these decisions, right? We all struggle with trying to identify why we're doing things and how to respond to things. How do you feel now when you think about that? I think the good trade is the one we should go back to and end on because you could have easily just been a traitor, right? You could have just used this knowledge to have killed it in the world of finance and trading.

1:10:07And instead, you decided to pivot back and kind of go into this coaching. Why do you think it was important for you to help other people figure this stuff out since you made that connection? I have watched so many people experience so much distress over attempting to be a successful trader or being a successful trader and then failing or, or just being successful and like how hard it is. And most of it, I, or a lot of it is driven by the wrong perception of judgment decision making. and I just want to solve it. Like I don't want people, trading is the hardest game on the planet, mentally. It's so ambiguous.

1:11:00It's so uncertain. You know, it's snowing out here. It's not going to be 80 degrees this afternoon. Like in the market, it could be all of a sudden 80 degrees. I think we're new highs, but you know, or the reverse, right? It's not going to go from 80 degrees to snowing anywhere. And the market can go from 80 degrees to like a blizzard in the afternoon. It is the hardest mental game on the planet. So number one, I'm fascinated by it because of that. But number two, I think a lot of people suffer and that the statistics would be 80-20 like they are in other fields if people had the right understanding of their own minds.

1:11:37and you know i'm agnostic i don't know like who runs the world or how things work but it does seem like my entire existence like was put together to be in this position to know this and to talk about it so it feels like a calling to me at this point yeah and you do athletes too so it's not just traders but it's it's people who it's like unsticking people i remember we had a conversation once in New York and I asked you, like you were thinking about doing, taking on a really tough project. And I was like, why would you do that? And you're like, because I think I can help because I think I know the answer.

1:12:15That's the thing. Like I do often think I know and to be blunt and to sound arrogant, I'm often sure I'm right, but it's not because I'm so smart. it's because like that only child who had sort of nothing better to do than to think about like why people do what they do you know led to my knowing what I know and led to me following the science um so it's hard for me to watch like someone in the public eye like an athlete who has a like particularly mental block it's hard because I just want to go I can solve this I can It's all this. Like, and it's just because I went down the rabbit hole at the science and I wasn't, like, I didn't, I would say it's flat earth rounder.

1:13:09The reason the world doesn't know what the science says about decision making is because it's equivalent to when we thought the earth was flat and you would sail off the end. Well, we're so sure that emotions are bad, even though it's obviously a logical fallacy. It's not the emotion. It's the action. Which, by the way, that mergers and acquisitions arbitrage trader guy was the most emotional guy I knew. He would jump up and down and scream and yell. And he'd been on the cover of Forbes or Fortune in the late 80s for what a successful trader he was. So that was also one of my conflicts as I was in the whole take emotion out of it.

1:13:44What about Steve? Steve is crazy emotional. The science says you have to have emotion to make a decision. And now the science says you're always predicting a future emotion. And the thing I have now is 20 years of helping, making that real to people and then seeing their performance improve. So, or Lindsay Jacob Ellis, Olympic snowboarder, understanding why she snatched silver from gold in 2006 and finally being able to turn around and stand up herself and get two gold medals in 22. So I, you know, I literally was just kind of the lonely only child interested in this stuff and followed it without prejudice.

1:14:26and feel like I know something that can make a difference for everybody, you know? And I mean, make a difference in life. Like Saturday night, I was at a dinner party and one of the gentlemen there works with something called the Mental Health Coalition, which Kenneth Cole, the a designer is involved in. And like, this is a thing I say, anything you want in life, you can get more of through a different approach for your so-called negative emotions. Like I think a component of the mental health crisis is that so-called negative emotions, fear, frustration, disappointment, let's just say, are misunderstood.

1:15:14You're not allowed to feel afraid. You're not allowed to feel frustrated. You're not allowed to feel disappointed. You're supposed to be optimistic and you're supposed to have gratitude. And the truth is all of those emotions have a purpose. Like they're all supposed to show us something or teach us something. They do get exaggerated and distorted, but at their core, like fear, you know, like I don't necessarily ski like the things beyond the double black diamonds because I'm afraid I'll kill myself. So it stops me from doing something stupid. You know, like they had purposes, but they're not allowed to work their actual purpose in society these days because you're just supposed to be optimistic and grateful.

1:15:57And what happens is when people feel these emotions that at their core are trying to help them, they're made to feel guilty and ashamed. So they have the original problem that gets exacerbated because they're just not allowed to work through it with anybody. And you add guilt and you add shame. And you have a mental health crisis. And we are certainly in the thick of it. Amazing stuff. And I've seen you kind of share that superpower in real time with people in the conversations we've had. And it's just extraordinary. And I think helpful for people to know that you've got bad traits as well as good traits and struggle with the same things that we do.

1:16:40So it's just you have a little bit more understanding or a lot more understanding of what's happening and ability to think back on it, reflect back on it, which is just amazing. Thank you. Amazing stuff. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for being part of my life before trades. Thank you for having me. We hope you enjoyed this episode. At Real Vision, we arm you with the expert knowledge, time-efficient tools, and a powerful network to help you succeed on your financial journey. Get a taste of financial freedom with our free offer at realvision.com forward slash free.

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