In 2000, a young Japanese trader named Takashi Kotegawa (better known as BNF) began trading small-cap stocks from his bedroom with just $13,500. Eight years later, he had turned that modest stake into a staggering $153 million.

This legendary feat serves as the anchor for a recent viral X post by veteran trader Ryan Scott (aka The Flow Horse). Ryan’s post (linked below) argues a provocative truth: despite the cynics, it remains entirely possible to build a fortune in the markets. But if the opportunity is real, why do so few actually succeed?

In this episode, we welcome back veteran trader Matt "Pax" Kenah to dissect this debate. We explore the deep psychological, mental, and behavioral hurdles all traders face, specifically focusing on the challenges of transitioning to a home-trading environment and the discipline required to become one of the elite few who truly thrive.

Links:
Ryan Scott (Horse) @TheFlowHorse - The Post: You Can Make a Fortune Trading - Don't Let Anyone Tell You Otherwise

Find out more about Matt and the PAX group at https://thepaxgroup.org/
You can follow Matt on Twitter at https://twitter.com/paxtrader777

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

“When a trader stops trying to fix themself, and starts understanding themself, that's when trading can really transform. “ – Andrew Menaker – The AlphaMind Podcast 

In this episode, we explore how performance coaching transforms traders’ mindsets, sharpens decision-making under pressure, and builds routines that sustain a long-term edge.

Hosts Steven Goldstein and Mark Randall sit down with performance coach and professional trader Andrew Menaker to examine the psychological shifts that drive lasting improvement in trading performance.

While many view trading as a technical challenge—charts, systems, strategy—Andrew argues the greatest gains come from transforming the person behind the P&L. Through coaching, traders develop self-mastery, which produces clearer decision-making, healthier risk-taking, and greater resilience—leading to significant improvements in performance.

Andrew Menaker Links: 

Website: https://andrewmenaker.com/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-menaker-phd-b2870323/ 

X: https://x.com/Andrew_Menaker/ 

AlphaMind Links 

Website: https://alpha-mind.net 

Email: info@alpha-mind.net 

X: https://x.com/AlphaMind101 

Linkedin - AlphaMind Hosts: 

Mark Randall: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrandallconsultancy/ 

Steven Goldstein: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-goldstein-060a4913/

 AlphaMind Newsletter: https://alphamind101.substack.com/

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

This is the second of a special two-part episode of the AlphaMind podcast, where we sat down with legendary trader and market veteran Peter Brandt for an in-depth discussion on the attitudes, mindsets, and emotional challegnes required to succeed in trading.

Peter’s trading career began in 1974, and since then, he has established himself as a true legend in the financial markets — regularly sharing his insights, perspectives, and wisdom on social media to benefit traders of all levels.

In this episode, the podcast hosts, Mark and Steven, together with Peter brings together a combined over 130 years of experience, engaging in a mutual dialogue on the realities of trading, including exploring  the highs and lows, market triumphs and disasters, and lessons learned. 

This interviews runs approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes, however this episode of the AlphaMind podcast covers the second half of this interview.

In this special two-part episode of the AlphaMind podcast, we sit down with legendary trader and market veteran Peter Brandt for an in-depth discussion on the attitudes, mindsets, and emotional challegnesrequired to succeed in trading.

Peter’s trading career began in 1974, and since then, he has established himself as a true legend in the financial markets — regularly sharing his insights, perspectives, and wisdom on social media to benefit traders of all levels.

In this episode, the podcast hosts, Mark and Steven, together with Peter brings together a combined over 130 years of experience, engaging in a mutual dialogue on the realities of trading, including exploring  the highs and lows, market triumphs and disasters, and lessons learned.

This interviews runs approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes, however this episode of the AlphaMind podcast covers the first half of this interview, but stay tuned for Part 2, coming soon.

Learn more about Peter and connect with him on social media at :
Factor LLC author and founder website: https://www.peterlbrandt.com
Bitcoin Live contributing author https://bitcoin.live?aid=106
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PeterLBrandt
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/factorco

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

There are a host of different factors which lead to great trading and investing performance, but at the end of the day, we live and die by the quality of the decisions, we make. It is ‘Where the Money Is!’.

Our ability to make good quality decisions in financial markets is heavily compromised by our inability to be truly objective in the face of the extreme complexity, uncertainty and randomness. What we think is the best decision in the moment, doesn’t necessarily yield the best outcome.

The world of Poker provides some great examples of how to make decisions in situations characterised by complexity, uncertainty and randomness. Our guest this week, Annie Duke, is a former professional poker player and world champion. Annie authored the brilliant ‘Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts’, and has a new book out called ‘How to Decide: Simple Tools for Making Better Choices’.

Annie believes that we can all become better at making good decisions, and that this ability can increase our odds of success in the financial markets. In this interview we explore these themes with Annie, some of the topics touched upon include: 

•      Identifying and dismantling our hidden biases.

•      Extract the highest quality feedback from the markets. 

•      Accurately identifying the influence of luck in the outcome of your decisions.

•      When to decide fast, when to decide slow, and when to decide in advance.

•      How to make decisions that more effectively help you to realize your goals and improve your performance. 

•      How to better manage your emotions and reduce their undue influence in your decision-making process. 

We are pretty sure you will find Annie’s reflections extremely valuable. You can find out more about Annie at https://www.annieduke.com/

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

This week we are delighted to have Dr Tara Swart on the Podcast. Tara is a qualified psychiatrist and neuroscientist. who left the world of medicine to set-up her own Neuroscience based leadership coaching consultancy and became a coach, working with leaders and increasingly with top traders in Hedge Funds. Tara also lectrues in Neuroscience at MIT, is an in demand speaker, and author of ‘The Source: Open Your Mind, Change Your Life ‘, which has been has described very favourably as ‘The Secret based on Science’. The Source has become a UK best seller, and is now being translated into 36 different languages. 

Tara’s work with Hedge Funds has seen her described as the ‘Wendy Rhodes of London’. For those of you unfamiliar with Wendy Rhodes, she was the Psychology Coach in the Primetime hit show ‘Billions’. 

In this episode we had a great discussion about Tara's book ‘The Source’, and expanded this out to explore how traders can develop an ‘AlphaMind’ by developing their ‘Brain Agility’. Brain agility facilitates the mastering of your emotions, developing greater resilience, being aware of the brain-body connection, accessing your intuitive abilities, making good logical decisions, staying motivated and thinking creatively. 

This conversation is laced with references to neuroscience, psychology, emotions and references to our cognitive abilities allied to how people think about and make decisions in risk, trading and investment situations.  

Tara talks extensively about how to think better, how to hone your thinking, how to develop brain flexibility and how to manage and create your optimal physical environment through better quality sleep, nutrition, health and daily life management for optimal brain function. The podcast also explores other areas including how to cope with fear and anxiety related to trading.

You can find out more about Tara on her website https://www.taraswart.com/.

You can also read the Spear Magazine Article which Tara refers to later in the interview at this link: https://www.spearswms.com/stop-work-killing/

Another great article worth a read mentioned by Tara was Ghosts in the Executive Suite : https://syncreticsgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/Ghosts-in-the-Executive-Suite-2-26-16.pdf

Tara is married to Robin Bieber, one of the world’s leading technical analysts and a guest a few podcasts earlier. 

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

This weeks guest was 'us'.

In this episode Ralf and Moritz of the Tradeciety interviewed AlphaMind Podcast hosts Steve and Mark about their work helping traders to become more effective by tackling the psychological, mental and behavioural aspects of trading. 
 
This interview covered a wide range of themes including: 

• Developing Resilience. 
• The importance of ‘Letting Go’ and overcoming unhelpful attachments. 
• Overcoming the inevitable downward spiral.
• Self-compassion in trading as an antidote to the times when we are overly harsh on ourselves.
• How we unbalance and undermine our ability fo be objective.
• Confidence levels.
• Aspects of ego: How too much ego can undermine, as does a devalued ego. 
• Grounding yourself. 
• Working beyond comfort zones.
• The importance of exploring your risk process.
• Opening yourself up for self-examination.
• Developing Risk Capability.
• Over-reliance on analysis. 
• How our deep held unconscious beliefs and values impact our self belief. 
• The importance of understanding how the markets work.
• Doing forensic preparation and planning, and how this can and does pay-off.
• Taking breaks to reset, refresh, and recalibrate. 
• How your cognitive abilities are impacted by your physical behaviours.
• Being at your cognitive best.  
• The importance of having an edge. 
• Ensuring you are trading when and where you have an edge.
• Avoiding times when you have an edge. 
• The importance of risk management.

You can find out more about Tradeciety at https://www.tradeciety.com/
And view a video version of this episode on Tradeciety's youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HR5H4d_c5Q

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

'The Psychology of Money' is a new book written by former Motley Fool and Wall Street Journal finance columnist Morgan Housel. The book has been called "one of the best and most original finance books in years." by the Wall Street Journal.

You can tell the quality of a book by the people who have reviewed it. When you have an investing legend like Howard Marks comment on the book, you know it is going be worth investing your time to read it. This is what Marks had to say about the book. 

‘Housel's observations often hit the daily double: they say things that haven't been said before, and they make sense.’

The Psychology of Money is one of those books that I feel people will talk about for years. We were delighted to have a chance to read the Psychology of Money pre-publication and were fortunate to have the opportunity to interview Morgan and ask him about some of themes which ran thought his book. 

In this interview Morgan tells us about the book and what inspired him to write it. We also discussed some of the great anecdotes in the book and some of the stories behind them. 

We hope you enjoy this episode and will feel inspired to go and read, and quite possibly re-read, 'The Psychology of Money'.

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

Robin Bieber has been working in the Oil markets for the past 40 years. He has been a trader, broker and analysts, and is now considered one of the leading technical analysts in the trading industry. 

There are few better qualified people who possess the depth of knowledge and insight about how to use and apply Technical Analysis than Robin. Robin joined the markets in 1982 after nine years in the British Army. Robin first worked at E.D. and F. Mann followed by spells at Tiger Petroleum, and Amerex Petroleum, before Robin founded Bieber Oil Ltd, which was acquired by PVM in 1993. He now runs Rb Oil Ltd, a consultancy company

In this fascinating discussion Robin and hosts Mark and Steven move quickly move beyond the usual talk about Technical Analysis to discuss how best to use and apply analysis in a way which brings real value to a trader’s approach and practice.  

We think you will get a lot out of this chat between Steven, Mark and our outstanding guest Robin.

You can find out more about Robin and his work at https://www.rboil.co.uk/

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

Every Trader would love to be bullet proof. To be bulletproof is to be able to survive the mental shots taken at us each and every day in the financial markets. When these shots hit us, they disrupt our thinking, corrupt our decision-making and inflict major damage on our trading and investment performance.
 
In this episode Trader Performance Coach Steve Ward talks about his latest book, ‘Bulletproof Trader: Evidence-based strategies for overcoming setbacks and sustaining high performance in the markets'. He tells us about the book and also what it means to become ‘Bullet Proof’ as a trader. 

Steve also tells us about his journey of transition from Sports Psychologist to leading Trader Performance Coach and author of some of the best-selling books on trading mindset. Including one the most popular books of recent years High Performance Trading. 

Steven has worked in the field of High Performance over many decades, he worked with Olympic Athletes, High Stakes Poker Players, Leaders in Business and with Traders and Investors in the Financial Markets.  Steve realised the similarities between high performance sports and the trading world, and developed a performance practice which has helped many traders make lasting improvements. 

Steven wrote his first book, High Performance Trading, a few years ago. It became an instant hit amongst traders and has seen his reputation in this world soar. Bulletproof Trader is the next instalment in a series of books Steve has written on themes related to mindset, performance and psychology in the similar world of trading and sports betting. 

You can learn more about Steve at https://performanceedgeconsulting.com

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

Our guest this is week is John Locke, an option trader at SMB Capital. John has achieved great success as a trader since starting about 15 years ago having previously worked as a ‘Success Coach’.

As well as working as a trader himself, John coaches’ traders through this company ‘Locke in Your Success’. 

John took the principles he applied to clients in his coaching and applied them to himself. John worked on his own personal and human development more so than focusing on developing his trading strategy, and the other external parts of the trading process. John was effectively developing his ‘Metagame’ as a trader. Thisappears to have been a significant factor in John becoming profitable from his trading far quicker than most other new traders. 

This episode is full of value. – The first 25 minutes of the interview explore aspects of options trading, and this will be useful for all traders whether they are options traders or not. The second part of the podcast, from about half an hour into the podcast focuses on the mindset needed for success and how our emotions can derail us from optimal behaviour and following good process. 

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

Geoff Trickey is one of the world’s leading experts on Risk Personality. Geoff says that ‘personality writes your biography’ and believes that knowing and understanding your risk personality, can provide an enormous edge in how you work and the quality of the decisions and choices you make.

A few years ago Geoff and his team created a new tool for assessing risk personality called the Risk Type Compass. I have used the Risk Type Compass extensively in my coaching work with traders and investment professionals. It has been extremely useful in helping people understanding themselves better and in supporting them to cultivate greater self-awareness around how they deal with risk and uncertainty. Ultimately, it has helped me as a coach help them to sharpen their risk edge and improve their decision-making abilities.

For traders and investment professionals, knowing your risk personality enables you to calibrate how you work, so you are working most congruently with you risk personality. 

Working congruent to personality enables you to go to places when taking risk where your  character and personality provide an edge, and enables you to stay away from situations where they have no edge. It becomes the foundation for greater degrees of self-trust and improved levels of confidence. 

I have written a short article which can be viewed on 'LinkedIn' at this link here. The article  talks about risk personality and why being aware of it is so vital for success in financial markets, as well as other areas of life and work.

The Risk Type Compass (Exclusive for listeners of the AlphaMind Podcast - Take the test free)

Psychological Consultancy have very kindly offered to allow listeners of the AlphaMind Podcast the opportunity to take the test for free and receive a complementary shorted version of the test report.

To find out more, visit the AlphaMind Blog page at this link. Here you can view an example of the Risk Type Compass diagram and will also find further details of how each risk type relates to trader and investor behaviour.

You can find out more about the Risk Type Compass at the Psychological Consultancy website here.

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

A young man amasses $70,000,000 in trading profits, is accused of causing one of the biggest Stock Market Crashes ever, is the subject of a major US govt investigation and a multimillion-dollar manhunt, and all from his upstairs bedroom, in his parent’s modest house, in an ordinary London suburb, without his family or friends having a clue. 

This week’s guest, Liam Vaughan, wrote the book ‘Flash Crash’, which tells the incredible story of Navinder Singh Sarao and the 2010 Flash-crash. 

In this modern Robin Hood tale, Vaughan tells how Sarao managed to become one of world’s top 5 trading participants by volume in the e-mini S&P futures globally. This futures contract is one of the world’s largest and most actively traded contracts, with other participants in this market include major investment banks, international investment firms and global hedge funds. 

Vaughan, who also wrote the book ’The Fix’, about the LIBOR scandal is a master story teller. In this interview, Steven Goldstein and Mark Randall, both market veterans, and former participants in the futures market, discuss with Liam in an open and frank manner a wide range of themes and topics about this incredible story including:

• Did Sarao’s obsession growing up playing computer games may have come to be a major advantage to his screen-based trading activities.
• The paradoxes in Sarao’s character traits and how these supported his success as a trader but at the same time left him vulnerable in other areas of his life.      
• How Navinder’s gifts and mental attributes, seen by some as learning difficulties, probably worked in his favour in his trading activities. 
• How Navinder’s mindset and very different relationship with money may have contributed to his fearlessness and his trading style. 
• Having a grudging admiration for what Sarao achieved
• How the laws changed after Sarao commenced his spoofing activities and after the Flashcrash. 
• How Navinder’s activity exposed the frailties within the Electronic Futures Trading system and how new platforms increasingly developed the ability to manipulate markets. 
• How Navinder had felt the market was rigged against him by other people who had unfair advantages, including other spoofers and HFT traders. 
• Debating whether his activities followed the failure of the authorities to act on his complaints about the activities of others, and whether by ignoring the authorities effectively green-lighted his activities.  
• The huge gulf which exists between the resources and level of expertise in those regulating and policing trading activities and those of the firms and people engaging in activities in markets.
• The importance of balance between your trading activities, and the other parts of your life.  
• Whether Navinder was ultimately a victim in this story. 

You can find our more about Liam on his website https://liamvaughan.co.uk/ and can order the book direct form there. - The book was released in May this year in Hardback, Audible or Kindle form iand s called Flash Crash: A Trading Savant, a Global Manhunt and the Most Mysterious Market Crash in History. 

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

A winning mindset is at least as important to trading success as the strategies and tactics you deploy. But how much effort do put into developing a winning mindset?

Having a robust system or method for finding value, an appropriate philosophy to risk, a strong risk management practice, a thorough understanding of markets are all prerequisites for success. However, it is the combination of these factors allied to a winning mindset, which is where great performance occurs. This is the secret to success in financial markets. 

In this episode we chatted with Damian Hughes, one of the world’s leading experts on cultivating a high-performance mindset. Damian has worked with multiple Olympic medal winners, world champion boxers, and sports team such as Barcelona, Manchester United and the Scotland Rugby Team.

Damian also works with high performance teams in organisations and is a Professor of Organisational Psychology and Change at a leading British University. He has written extensively about developing a winner’s mindset, and his work is endorsed by many of the legends of high performance, including the late great Mohammad Ali, Tiger Woods, Dame Kelly Holmes, Johnny Wilkinson and many others.

You can find out more about this episode on our blogpage here: 

Damian’s books include: ‘

·        The Winning Mindset: What Sport Can Teach Us About Great Leadership.

·        Liquid Thinking: Inspirational Lessons from the World's Great Achievers

·        The Barcelona Way: How to Create a High-Performance Culture

Damian is co-host of the High Performance Podcast with Jake Humphries of BT Sport.

His website is http://www.liquidthinker.com/

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

In this special two-part episode of the AlphaMind podcast, we sit down with legendary trader and market veteran Peter Brandt for an in-depth discussion on the attitudes, mindsets, and emotional challegnesrequired to succeed in trading.

Peter’s trading career began in 1974, and since then, he has established himself as a true legend in the financial markets — regularly sharing his insights, perspectives, and wisdom on social media to benefit traders of all levels.

In this episode, the podcast hosts, Mark and Steven, together with Peter brings together a combined over 130 years of experience, engaging in a mutual dialogue on the realities of trading, including exploring the highs and lows, market triumphs and disasters, and lessons learned. 

This interviews runs approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes, however this episode of the AlphaMind podcast covers the first half of this interview, but stay tuned for Part 2, coming soon.

Learn more about Peter and connect with him on social media at :
Factor LLC author and founder website: https://www.peterlbrandt.com
Bitcoin Live contributing author https://bitcoin.live?aid=106
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PeterLBrandt
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/factorco

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

Brian is a retail trader who placed his first trade in 1967. Brian still actively trades, is a mentor at the Bear Bull Traders community and is author of ‘How To Swing Trade: A Beginner’s Guide to Trading Tools, Money Management, Rules, Routines and Strategies of a Swing Trader’. 

In this episode we had a rich conversation with Brian covering a wide range of themes including: 

• How Swing Trading enables a trader to take advantage of short-term trends, longer term trends, and over-extensions.
• How people can identify which trading style is best for them. 
• How swing-trading enables a thought out trade process that is easy to fit into a lifestyle where you have other priorities which require your time. 
• Fishing for ideas by using approaches which scan thousands of stocks using scanning tools and exchanging ideas with others whom you trust and identify with.
• How to make sense of the ideas by doing your homework, developing a fundamental understanding of markets and conceptualising plans for the trade.
• The importance of having a fundamental understanding of background and context to a market or sector, and understanding where and how money is rotating into and out of sectors. 
• The psychological challenges of sticking with trades and not taking profit early so that performance is compromised.
• Improving the psychological aspects of trading and working on fighting human nature and mental state. 
• The importance of balance in your life, healthy lifestyle, physical health, managing your day, staying mentally healthy.
• The huge importance of having a Risk Management process.  
• Being able to continually adapt strategies to whats working and current.

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

The very essence of the challenge of trading and investing is making great decisions, under time pressured situations, when faced with extreme uncertainty. 

The very essence of the challenge of trading and investing is making great decisions, under time pressured situations, when faced with extreme uncertainty. Traders are making decisions in the moment, under-pressure, in the face of volatile and uncertain news flow, whilst battling their own fickle emotions and internal doubts. Success lies in the trader’s ability to make the right decision in these situations, no easy task.

Intuition lies at the root of great decision-making. And there is no person in the world more qualified to talk about Intuition and Decision-Making under pressure in uncertain and time limited situations than Dr Gary Klein. 

Dr Klein has studied and practiced in this field for almost 5 decades. He is credited with creating a whole new field of study, Naturalist Decision Making. And his work has been applied to help improve how people make choices in life and death studies.

Prior to Dr Klein’s Naturalistic Decision Making approach, psychologists used laboratory settings to study how people make decisions, with a heavy focus on human bias and errors in judgment. Dr Klein flipped the focus to conducting decision research in real world settings, studying how experts including firefighters, military battle commanders, and doctors use intuition and experience to engage in effective decision-making. 

Dr Klein has received praise from psychologists and researchers whose perspectives have differed dramatically from his own. Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman wrote, "Gary Klein is a living example of how useful applied psychology can be when it is done well...Klein and I disagree on many things...But I am convinced that there should be more psychologists like him."

Amongst some of the innovations which have emerged from Dr Klein’s work is the Pre-Mortem tool. Dr Klein presented the ‘Pre-Mortem’ as a tool for improving thinking, planning and risk management of projects in a 2007 edition of the Harvard Business Review, which can be viewed here. He also founded a method of teaching expert decision-making used an approach called the shadowbox method. 

Among subjects discussed were:  

• How the Pre-Mortem tool improves decision-making. 
• Developing expert decision-making using the ‘Shadowbox’ method. 
• How the Recognition Primed Decision-Making model captures how experts make decisions.
• The role of intuition and pattern recognition in decision making. 
• Learning how to use AI tools to aid decision-making. 
• The Naturalistic Decision Making approach to Behavioural Finance compared to the Biases and Heuristics approach. 
• How experienced traders develop the ability to recognise patterns intuitively which enable them to anticipate price moves in ways which even machines have not yet been able to match. 

Dr Klein also shared some fascinating stories from his years in this field, told in his own inimitable style.

You can learn more about Dr Klein at the Shadowbox website: 
https://www.shadowboxtraining.com/ 

You can also follow Dr Klein on twitter @KleInsight and if you are interested in joining a live webcast event Dr Klein is running next week jointly with Bryce Hoffman of Red Team Training. Details of this can be found here: https://www.event

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

AlphaMind podcast host Steven Goldstein worked for almost 25 years as a professional trader at Investment Banks in both Market-Making and Proprietary Trading roles. In his battle to succeed, Steven was always looking to improve and find the secrets to success. To help him on this journey, Steven developed his own set of guiding principles which were personal to him. Over time these principles formed and emerged, and later in his career he collated them into a list of 15 principles and reminders, which he called his 'Golden Trading Guidelines'.

These principles and reminders helped him shape his philosophy to risk, kept him on a productive path, and brought him back to that path when he veered to far from it. 

In this episode, Steven, who now works as a Performance Coach for professional and retail traders, is interviewed by podcast co-host Mark Randall about these 15 guidelines. 

Steven and Mark engage in an in-depth and lively discussion about the Guidelines, with Mark asking probing questions and sharing his own thoughts brought up by Steven's responses.

This discussion will resonate with traders and investors from across the spectrum of markets as they recognise their own performance challenges that they themselves face as they seek to navigate their journey to success in financial markets. 

To find out more about Steven’s Golden Trading Guidelines, you can visit the AlphaMind Blog page https://alphamindblog.blogspot.com where an accompanying article to this episode can be found with a list of the guidelines. Alternatively, go direct to the article here:
https://alphamindblog.blogspot.com/2020/05/alphamind-blog-episode-steven-goldstein.html

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

Bitcoin, and the world of cryptocurrency, divides opinion. At one end of the scale you’ll find the cynics and sceptics, at the other end those who are fascinated by all things crypto, and in between is everyone else, by varying degrees. 

The needle is however moving on this scale: Many cynics are becoming less cynical and more curious, and some of the more curious are starting to dabble in crypto as an investable asset class and a tradable instrument. 

In the past week, Paul Tudor-Jones has announced that he has a small proportion of his private assets invested in bitcoin, whilst Renaissance Technologies, the world’s most successful hedge fund, has started exploring the possibility of trading Bitcoin futures.

This week, there is a lot of excitement around the Bitcoin ‘halving’ event, and articles about Bitcoin ‘Stock to Flow’ have recently grabbed a lot of attention. 

In this episode, we have conducted our first interview with someone form the crypto world. We talk with Paul Gordon, founder of Coinscrum.

Paul is a former futures trader and broker who worked for major investment banks such as HSBC, and traded for himself. Paul become interested in Bitcoin well ahead of it gaining more widespread interest, and in 2012 founded Coinscrum, the world's first, and still the largest and most active, bitcoin/blockchain networking group. Soon afterwards, he left the world of futures trading to become involved in the world of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as an investor, advisor, consultant, and advocate.  

There are probably few people in the world who have the combined breadth of knowledge, and experience of markets and crypto that Paul has. He can seamlessly talk about the worlds of trading, broking, market analysis, and Bitcoin, crypto, and blockchain as well as their various technical aspects with a depth which will become clear as you listen to this episode.  

Paul talks about the rise of cryptocurrencies, how they derive value, some of the challenges they face in gaining wider acceptance and credibility, and where they are on the journey to becoming more accepted as investable assets and tradable currencies. 

Paul shares his knowledge and opinion in ways which will illuminate your understanding of cryptocurrencies in ways that few others can. 

This interview has something for the cynical, the curious and everyone in between. 

Paul also shares some of his own long-term analysis on the Bitcoin price and where it may be heading, though we would point out that Paul’s analysis and opinions, and those of all of us here at the AlphaMind podcast, do not constitute investment advice and are not to be taken as investment advice. 

To know more about the content of this podcast, please also visit the podcast episode page on our blog.

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

This week’s guest is Dr Brian Keating, Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of California, San Diego.

In this podcast, we interview Dr Keating about some of the connections which bind trading, investing and science. Dr Keating talks about how scientists, despite being held on some sort of an intellectual pedestal, are human, and are just as prone to the foibles and behavioural errors which are common to people in all fields, including trading.

The theme, which resonates throughout this interview, alludes to the meta game of science and trading, something which was captured in a quote by Dr Keating, and which featured prominently in Greg Zuckerman’s 2019 book about the trading legend Jim Simons, ‘The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution.’ The quote is: 

‘Scientists are human, sometimes all too human. When desire and data are in collision, evidence sometimes loses out to emotion.’ 

Amongst main themes explored in this interview are; confirmation bias, ego, and our ability, or even inability, to separate our outcomes from our ego.

___________________________________________________________________

Dr Keating's research area is the study of the cosmic microwave background and its relationship to the origin and evolution of the universe. In 2001 Dr Keating conceived the first Cosmic Microwave Background B-mode observing campaign, called BICEP, which sought to find evidence of what (and how) the universe looked a fraction of a billionth of a second after the Big Bang Explosion.

The BICEP project has been an outstanding success, and is still on-going today, however, it has never quite been able to achieve, unequivocally, its main and original purpose. Had it done so, we would almost certainly be talking to Dr Brian Keating, Nobel Laureate. 

Dr Keating is the author of the popular science book ‘Losing the Nobel Prize’, which was selected by Amazon as one of the top science books of 2018.

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

Andrew Aziz is a Retail Trader, Founder of the Bear Bull Community of Traders and is author of Amazon top-selling book, ‘How to Day Trade for a Living: Tools, Tactics, Money Management, Discipline and Trading Psychology’. 

Andrew talks about his journey into trading after completing a PhD in Chemical Engineering, then abandoning a career in that field to focus on becoming a trader. 

In this excellent interview Andrew opens up and shares his views on a wide range of themes, including how easy it is for traders to access markets but equally how difficult it is for traders due to the lack of mentors and guides, and how little good advice is available, allied to people’s over-optimism with regard to the realities of trading.  

Themes discussed in this podcast include self-awareness, and how this leads to greater self-confidence, self-management, growth and progress. We also talk about the dreaded ego enemy and Andrew shares stories of when ego got the better of him in his trading in ways that were to prove extremely costly. 

Andrews own humility shines through clearly in this podcast.

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

Mark Randall is Co-Host of the AlphaMind Podcast, but this week he becomes the interview guest. 

Mark is one of the world’s leaders in the delivery of Performance-Based Mindfulness. He works primarily with corporates, including board-level leaders and people in senior management roles, as well as with traders and investors. 

Mark’s outlook and perspectives with regard to mindfulness have evolved from over 30 years working as a broker in the International Futures and Options markets for some of the world’s leading investment firms, where he developed his own mindfulness skills and practice to enable him to self-manage and thrive in this challenging and highly pressurised world. 

In this podcast, Mark shares his thought and reflections on how Mindfulness enables people to be ‘” Fully Present’ and at the "Top of Their Game" when their work and their job requires them to be so. He sees Mindfulness as adding both ‘a coat of armour’, a shield and a weapon, with which to go into battle daily in the highly challenging and uncertain world of Financial Markets. 

Mark moves beyond the more traditional, and what some would call the softer aspects of Mindfulness, to look at it as a tool to weaponize the mind. 

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

The last few weeks have seen traumatic times in the financial markets. Trading conditions in all markets have seen unparalleled volatility and liquidity levels in excess of the worst of 2008 and which few have ever experienced. 

In this special one-off episode we hear from 4 'Masters of the Markets, who each have been previous guests on the AlphaMind podcast and who have agreed to share their reflections and experiences of the past few week's violent market conditions.

The guests are :

Anthoney Crudele: Veteran S&P futures trader, and host of The Futures Radio Show podcast.

Brett Steenbarger: Trading Psychologist, Author and Coach to Hedge Fund Portfolio Managers and a market investor.

Adam Nash: A highly successful and distinguised trader with over 3 decades trading European Rates & Bond Markets futures. 

Greg Gossett: Greg has spent over 23 years as US Equities Retail Trader and has established an excellent track record in that time.  

These distinguished guests possess vast amounts of experience in financial markets and represent a range of styles, markets, and areas of expertise. 

Over the course of these 4 ten minute interviews, each of these guests share valuable advice insights and perspectives of the past few weeks volatile and highly challenging market price actions. 

Listeners will find this episode a tremendous resource to help them navigate these wild and unprecedented market conditions, which may be a more frequent feature of the markets as this crisis continues to unfold.

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

Denise Shull is one of the world’s leading performance coaches. As well as being a former trader herself, Denise focuses on the positive contribution feelings and emotion makes in high-pressure decision-making situations.

Denise uses neuroeconomics and modern psychoanalysis in her work with traders and investment professionals, and also works with professional athletes, helping them break past the same mental hurdles and barriers that high performance traders face. 

Denise is also well known as one of the key inspirations for the Wendy Rhoades character on the Showtime and Sky Atlantic program Billions. 

In this excellent interview, podcast host Steven, himself a performance coach, explores a range of themes and subjects, including Denise Journey from Trader to Coach, how coaching can become a powerful edge which contributes to stronger performance, and why there is resistance within the trading world to using a coach to gain an advantage. 

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

Mindfulness and meditation can be enormously powerful when engaged in financial markets. These practices have the ability to weaponize the mind for optimal performance whilst creating a robust and resilient suit of armour against the doubts and uncertainties induced by volatile and uncertain financial markets. 

In this conversation, the show hosts Steve Goldstein and Mark Randall explore these activities, digging deep into how and why they can be so powerful with US Navy Seal Commander, Jon Macaskill.

Jon is a serving US Navy officer who practices and teaches mindfulness and meditation. He is currently transitioning out of the US Navy and whilst doing so, is working on a project called Veterans PATH, which seeks to teach these powerful techniques to US Navy Veterans to equip and empower them in their future lives. 

Jon has worked in the most stressful, complex and anxiety inducing environments one can imagine. These include multiple tours of Iraq and Afghanistan leading military teams and coordinating with various other teams and units all whilst potentially being responsible for the lives of others and the success of operations.  

Jon came to mindfulness and meditation as a way of dealing with the stress, anxiety and depression which resulted from his high wire military life. After some initial doubts and reservations, it proved profound in transforming his life, and improving his performance. 

Many people in the financial markets now practice these techniques including some of the world’s leading traders and investors. However, many still feel uncomfortable with the concept, which seems out of odds with the testosterone fuelled world of trading and investment. 

Hearing Jon’s story and reflections will give many ‘pause for thought’ and may influence them in ways which could have a profound impact on how they work and manage themselves in their risk-taking activities.

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

At the core of exceptional trading is the individual trader—you! While we diligently focus on the transactional elements of trading, such as market analysis and risk management, we often neglect the importance of optimizing ourselves to engage effectively with these aspects.

In this episode, we explore the often-overlooked physiological dimension of trading with Dr. Tracy Gapin, founder and CEO of the Gapin Institute. As a leading expert in men's health and performance, Dr. Gapin specializes in helping senior executives, business leaders, entrepreneurs, and athletes enhance their health and performance.

We delve into the critical relationship between mental and physical health, highlighting how internal processes significantly impact healthy cognitive function. A well-functioning cognitive process boosts trading productivity by facilitating clear market interpretation and fostering objectivity in decision-making. It reduces stress and anxiety, enabling more effective judgments and execution. Furthermore, it increases resilience in the face of setbacks, assists in managing risks and emotions, encourages acceptance of outcomes, and promotes detachment from ego—key components for continuous improvement and adaptability.

Prioritizing your well-being also offers additional benefits: it can lead to a longer, healthier life, creating a true ‘win-win’ scenario.

Join us for an insightful discussion that could transform your trading journey.

To learn more about Dr. Tracy Gapin and the Gapin Institute, visit Gapin Institute Website. 

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracygapin/ 

You can also view Dr Gapin's TEDx talk at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io33LOfVxxo

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

In this second interview with David Tait, David talks about fear in trading and how best to cope and manage with the extreme fear which is part of terrain of trading.

When it comes to fear, and fear in trading, there are few people better qualified in the world to talk about this subject than David.  David has sat at the top table of the financial markets for near 4 decades. He was formerly head of FX and Proprietary trading at Goldman Sachs. He has also been Global Head of Macro trading at UBS and Credit Suisse, and currently is CEO of the World Gold Council. 

As well as garnishing a reputation for fearlessness when trading, David is also one of only a handful of people to have climbed mount Everest on five separate occasions, including being the first person to climb from the North side and descend from the South, alongside Sherpa legend Phurba Tashi.

David’s climbs of Mount Everest raised over £1.5 million (Over $2 million) for charities which fight child abuse and support child abuse victims. These charities are dear to David’s heart having himself been a victim of child sex abuse.

The timing of this interview is aimed to coincide with a new movie about David's life-story called “Sulphur and White” which had its royal premier last month.

This is the second of two interviews with David, in the first interview last week, David shared his story, warts and all, reflecting on his uneasy relationship with self-respect and his experiences as a victim of sexual abuse by a now-deceased relative, affected is personal and working life. 

David’s harrowing experiences are probably one of the reasons why he had a higher level of immunity to the work stresses and fears that impact many others. 

In this interview we have a deeply engaging conversation about fear, risk and trading. We explore some tips people can use to help them manage and cope with fear better and discuss both of our own experiences in this area. David also shares some insights of when he was gripped by fear, including how he coped when faced with an ice avalanche close to the top of Mount Everest, which he thought was going to kill him.  

You can find out more about David and the film ‘Sulphur and White’ by visiting   https://davidtait.com/

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

David Tait had a fearlessness which made him one of the world’s top traders. This edge helped establish him as one of the leading figures in trading in the financial markets. David success led to him becoming Global Head of FX Trading at Goldman Sachs and he went on to hold other major trading and leadership roles at investment banks Credit Suisse and UBS and was an original partner at Hedge Fund Bluecrest Capital. 
 
David is now the CEO of the World Gold Council and is an Independent Member of the Bank of England’s Fixed Income, Commodity and Currency (FICC) Market Standards Board. 
 
However, behind David’s success was a tragic and heart-breaking upbringing, which he kept secret from the world for many years. David’s incredible story was both fueled and marred by a terrible and dark past. 
 
David's life-story has now been made into a major motion picture, directed by one of the movie industry’s leading filmmakers, and boasting an all-star cast. The film is called “Sulphur and White” and had its royal premier last week.
 
In this interview David shares his story, warts and all. The interview is timed to coincide with the national release of the movie in the UK this week. 

This is the first of 2 interviews with David: The primary aim of the interview is to raise awareness of the movie, and to help give it publicity to support its release. And whilst this may not be the usual interview on trading and investment, it does however raise some crucially important themes about managing self as a trader, and raises questions around people abilities to separate their lives in the hugely demanding world of trading, from their personal life, and lives of people who matter in their life. 

Some more background on David Tait: 

David has been a prolific fundraiser for children’s charities. Most notably the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). He was awarded one of the UK’s top honours (an MBE) by the Queen in 2010 for his services to the charity. David has climbed Mount Everest on five separate occasion to raise money for charity, a feat only achieved by a handful of people. In 2007 he set a world first by performing the very first North-South traverse of Everest. His charity raising efforts have to date raised over £1.5million ($2million) for the NSPCC and ChildLine. 

All profits from the movie #sulphurandwhite, will be going to the NSPCC. 

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

25 years ago this week, Barings Bank, founded in 1763, was brought down by the calamitous and illegal trading activities of one of its futures traders, Nick Leeson. Working from their Singapore office, Lesson’s accumulated trading losses amounted to over £800 billion or close to $1.4 billion at the time. 

Leeson had been hiding trading losses for the previous 2 1/2 years in a false account he had created, the now infamous 88888 account. For a while these losses were of a size that was concealable, however in January 1995, the losses started to spiral out of control. Leeson had been placing a series of huge bets which relied on the Japanese Stock Market remaining relatively stable. However, the market was rocked when a huge earthquake struck the Japanese city of Kobe. 

As the losses started to mount, Leeson upped the ante, placing even larger bets, effectively doubling up, but the recovery never came, and the losses started to increase exponentially. Eventually, with no hope of recovering the losses, Leeson left a note which simply said, "I'm sorry" and he fled Singapore. An international manhunt followed, gripping the world’s media.

After a few days, Leeson handed himself in to the German authorities, and was later extradited to Singapore where he was jailed for over 6 years alongside some of Asia’s most notorious triad gang members. 

Leeson was released a couple of years early in 1999 on health grounds after being found with colon cancer with a prognosis which was not favourable. 

In this frank and honest interview Leeson talks with AlphaMind podcast co-hosts Mark and Steve about his trading activities. He talks about his failings and those of the system around him. He tells of living with the stigma of being the world’s most infamous rogue trader. He talks about his time in prison, the mental challenges he faced, and how he rebuilt his life following his recovery from cancer and release from prison. Leeson also shares some lighter moments, including how he was hounded by tabloid journalists convinced he had hidden the lost money somewhere.

Listeners may gain a new and somewhat surprising respect for Leeson after listening to this fascinating interview. 

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

Anthony Crudele started as a trader on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) in the late 1990s. He was one of the youngest members of the CME, originally trading the S&P e-mini futures. Anthony was surrounded by some of the most influential traders and brokers in the financial markets and gained huge knowledge, experience and know-how which helped him develop his own successful trading processes which he then adapted to screen based electronic trading. 

Having struggled and then finally built a successful trading career and practice, and just when everything seemed to have fallen into place, Anthony’s world was brought to a shuddering halt when he suffered a heart attack at the age of 36. Despite being physically healthy in every way, Anthony believes the stresses and anxieties connected to the job played a key role in this near-death experience. 

Anthony recovered and was able to continue trading and to rebuild his career. A large part of this was developing the ability to manage and cope with stress by using powerful mindfulness-based techniques and meditation practices which help him to deal better with the stress and anxiety of life as a trader. 

Anthony also hosts the hugely popular Futures Radio Show, a weekly podcast show where he shares his extensive experience as a futures trader, provide insights into what's happening in the markets, and interviews guests from the world of trading. 

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

Don't let the title of this episode de-motivate you. The more you know about your brain and how it functions, the greater the likelihood you can make positive adjustments which can drive superior trading and investment performance. 

In this week’s episode we are in conversation with Dr Daniel Crosby. Daniel is a Behavioural Finance author who has written several best-selling books and is one of the leading authorities on the practical application of Behavioural Finance in the Financial Market's world.

In this excellent chat with Steven and Mark, Daniel explains how our brain's role and function so often works against us rather than for us when engaged in our activities in the financial markets.  

One of the key topics Daniel talks about is meta-knowledge, the ability to know what we don’t know. Daniel describes how the development of skills connected to Meta Knowledge are so vital in driving successful performance in trading and investment roles. He also explains how, paradoxically, the more fallible we realise we are the more likely we are to make adjustment and thus succeed. 

Among some of the outstanding books Daniel has written or co-authored are:

• You're Not That Great
• The Laws of Wealth: Psychology and the Secret to Investing Success
• The Behavioral Investor

Daniels has featured in 3 outstanding Ted Talks, has appeared in the Huffington Post and Risk Management Magazine, and writes monthly columns for WealthManagement.com and Investment News. Daniel was named one of the "12 Thinkers to Watch" by Monster.com, a "Financial Blogger You Should Be Reading" by AARP and in the "Top 40 Under 40" by Investment News. 

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

In this week’s episode we are in conversation with Paul Wallace. Paul is a private UK based trader, who taught himself trading after getting attracted to internet stocks in the early 2000s. 

Prior to that Paul was a fighter controller in the Royal Air Force, and today, as well as working as a trader, and training and coaching other traders, Paul also runs a programme called The Veterans’ Trader Project (VTP) which provides introductory training for ex-forces personnel looking to move into a new career. 

Paul brought with him some fascinating insights and perspectives. And this conversation veered into some surprising directions, including touching upon themes about:

• What is needed to succeed as a trader.
• The delusion many traders suffer about how easy it is to be a trader. 
• Embracing the pain of losing traders to allow you to grow as a trader. 
• The mistaken belief of new traders, that trading systems are a form of ATM. 
• Data Scientist v Traders as system builders.   
• How operating under ambiguity is a shared skill-set of military personnel and great traders
• Preparing mentally for the battle of trading. 
• Improving and developing exceptional performance. 
• Decision-making under uncertainty. 
• Learning from your trains. 
• Being a fear-based trader. 
• Process, Discipline and Self-awareness. 
• The art and science of trading and getting into flow. 
• Building a trading checklist. 

And many other topics and themes.

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

In this week’s episode we are in conversation with David Keller. This is an episode we can only describe as 'Rich': Rich in insight, rich in wisdom, rich in depth, and rich in meaningful dialogue and discussion.  

David is someone who comes with a huge dose of wisdom, knowhow, knowledge and experience about how markets work, and how people in markets function and think.
 
David came to markets from an alternative route to many having studied as a classically trained musician and student of psychology. David found himself mesmerised by markets and technical analysis in particular which seemed to capture the harmony of markets and to open a window into the way humans behave within them.
 
These days, David runs his own boutique investment research firm Sierra Alpha Research LLC, where he focuses on managing risk through market awareness. He combines the strengths of technical analysis, behavioural finance, and data visualization to identify investment opportunities and enrich relationships between advisors and clients.
 
David is also Chief Market Strategist at StockCharts.com, where he helps investors minimize behavioural biases through technical analysis. Previously David was Managing Director of Research for Fidelity Investments in Boston, where he managed the Technical Research Department as well as the legendary Fidelity Chart Room. 

Until recently David was president of the Chartered Market Technician (CMT) Association and is also a member of the Technical Securities Analysts Association San Francisco and the International Federation of Technical Analysts. He has lectured extensively on technical analysis and behavioural finance as an Adjunct Professor at the Brandeis University International Business School in Waltham, Mass.

Prior to that David was a Technical Analysis Application Specialist with Bloomberg LP in New York and was a regular contributor to Bloomberg Markets magazine. 

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

This podcast episode will fascinate all those who work in trading and investing roles. In this excellent interview with co-hosts Steve and Mark, their guest Simon Garcia bares his soul, describes his experience, and shares his views about trading, dealing with the mental and emotional challenges of trading and describing some of the pressures the job entails. 

This podcast episode will also be of interest to those curious about mental health in the workplace. It highlights how the pressures placed on people in traumatic workplace environments can lead to detachment from family and loved ones, as well as to one's core values. It also emphasises how this can in turn impact well-being and lead to impaired mental health, with serious consequences for the individual and heightened business risks for the firm.    

The guest, Simon Garcia, is someone who has won, lost, and won again, the mental battle of trading. Simon has experienced the highs, the big highs, the lows, the deepest of all lows, and then come back to win again. 

By the early 2000s, Simon achieved great success as a bond trader working at Natwest Markets and Deutsche Bank, before moving to Lehman Brothers where he was running a Convertible Bond trading team. Then one day the strains and stresses of trading hit him and hit him hard. 

For Simon, the lights went out. Simon had suffered a mental breakdown.  

At this point in his life, Simon was achieving great success, was earning big money, had a good marriage and a wonderful young family. To the outside world Simon had everything. But inside, he felt like he had nothing. He was at the point where life had become so painful and traumatic that he was contemplating ending it.

In the financial markets this is an all to familiar story. Simon was fortunate however. The firm, through their HR team, came through for him. He got the support and the help he needed and made a full recovery.  

Simon was able to continue as a trader after a break and went to achieve great success for another decade at Nomura and then Societe Generale. 

Simon's story didn't end there though. Following his experience, and whilst working as a trader, Simon started studying to be a psychotherapist. To get his hours of practice and training, Simon spent his evenings and weekends, working in hospitals and for local charities. Last year, after almost 3 decades, Simon left the markets to set-up his own private therapy practice.  He is now helping others. 

I hope listening to this episode will give people pause to think about how they approach their work and how they can ensure they create the psychological safety which ensures they care for themselves, and those around them. 

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You can find out more about the AlphaMind podcast and the show’s co-hosts Steven Goldstein and Mark Randall on the AlphaMind podcast website https://alpha-mind.net.

You can also follow them on twitter https://twitter.com/AlphaMind101 or visit their blog page https://alphamindblog.blogspot.com/

If you are interested in AlphaMind Trader Performance Coaching you can find out more at  https://alphamindblog.blogspot.com/p/the-alphamind-pri

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

Jim Simons is the most successful trader of the last 3 decades by a country mile. Simons founded the Renaissance Technologies the secretive Hedge Fund which employs some of the world’s most brilliant mathematical geniuses. Their flagship Medallion fund has returned a staggering 66% annually, before fees, since 1988.

In November 2019, Wall Street journalist and author Greg Zuckerman published his book which lifted the veil on Jim Simons and Renaissance. ‘The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution’ tells the story of Simons, his early years, his influences, his prolific rise as a mathematician, and his career as a code-breaker for the US government. It explores Simon’s initial ventures into the world of investing and trading, how Simons vision shaped the direction his firm took, his search for methods and models which could unlock the potential to profit in the markets and how he accumulated a team of world renowned Mathematicians to form Renaissance Technologies.  

This brilliant book also tells the story of the Renaissance through some of the individuals which were leading figures within the firm, how they found and improved the model which still runs today as the Medallion Fund, and how they launched other highly successful funds. The book also digs below the surface to reveal some of the dramas which occurred within the firm, the battles between personalities, and finally the how the wealth created by one partner, Robert Mercer, was to have a huge influence on the world we live in today, and which without, we may not have had Donald Trump or Brexit. 

The book is a brilliant read, and in this interview with Zuckerman, we explore his inner thoughts on the book, Simons and Renaissance and discover a little more about what lies behind their extraordinary success. 

You can find out more about the AlphaMind podcast and the show’s co-hosts Steven Goldstein and Mark Randall on the AlphaMind podcast website https://alpha-mind.net.

You can also follow them on twitter https://twitter.com/AlphaMind101 or visit their blog page https://alphamindblog.blogspot.com/

If you are interested in the AlphaMind Trader Performance Coaching you can find out more at  https://alphamindblog.blogspot.com/p/the-alphamind-private-trader.html

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

In the first AlphaMind podcast of 2020 co-hosts Steven Goldstein and Mark Randall share their Top Tips for how to be more effective, more productive, more successful as Traders and Investment Professionals in 2020.

Mark and Steve between them have over 70 years working in Financial Markets and now work with leading traders, investment professionals, manager and leaders in the Financial Markets industry as coaches and consultants. Their work in the field of performance development has helped many traders and investment professionals to power significant improvement as takers and managers of risk. 

In this special New Year episode Steven and Mark share 3 key insights each which they feel will help people improve how they are when they work as Traders. Mark’s focus in the first part of the interview is geared towards physical wellbeing, whilst Steven’s focuses in the second half of this podcast is on mental attitudes and mindsets which people can adopt to help them improve how they are in the daily battle with markets.  

You can find out more about Steven and Mark and the AlphaMind podcast on their website https://alpha-mind.net.

You can also follow them on twitter https://twitter.com/AlphaMind101 or visit their blog page https://alphamindblog.blogspot.com/

If you are interested in AlphaMind Trader Performance Coaching you can find out more at  https://alphamindblog.blogspot.com/p/the-alphamind-private-trader.html

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

In this episode of the AlphaMind Podcast, we sit down with Rick Bandazian, a seasoned event-driven trader who applies his own unique sniping style in the markets. With nearly 17 years of experience in eat-what-he-kills prop trading, Rick takes us on a journey through his trading philosophy, processes, and the mindset that has enabled his success.

Originally hailing from the NJ/NYC area, Rick began his career as an investment banker at JPMorgan before being recruited as an event-driven analyst at First New York. After a stint helping launch a hedge fund with a portfolio manager, he later moved to the National Bank of Canada to focus on event-driven ideas and merger arbitrage. After the 2008 financial crisis, he returned to First New York, transitioning from analyst to trader.

Now, with well over a decade of trading his own capital, Rick shares invaluable insights into his trading style, the risks he navigates, and the fears that accompany being a self-directed trader. Join us as we explore the intricacies of Rick's trading journey and the lessons learned along the way. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the mind of a skilled trader.

Rick has also started a substack about a positioning experiment that has garnered a small following. - You can find out more about that at this link: https://offthetape.substack.com/p/macro-positioning-330-softs-and-wti

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

Chris Cain spent a decade working as a Market Maker in Fixed Income products before moving on to work privately as a trader and producing some outstanding performance in a very short space of time.

Chris is also co-author of a new book, “The Alpha Formula; High Powered Strategies to Beat The Market With Less Risk”. The book is written jointly with Larry Connors who has over 30 years of experience working in financial markets and is widely regarded today as one of the leading educators in the financial markets industry.

The central theme of this interview is the nexus of:
-Understanding how markets behave.
-Understanding ourselves and our behavioural biases.
-Finding approaches which enable people to generate Alpha against this background and context.
-Creating quantitative systems and methods which enable successful monetisation of these. 

This is a great interview which echoes some of the underlying themes of Chris's book: The bringing together of behavioural finance with trading practices in a conceptual away which can help create systematic approaches which drive success in financial markets. 

This was a fascinating interview where Chris shared his philosophy and thoughts to finding value and generating Alpha in financial markets. He also shared his experiences as a Market-Maker, shining a light on how it is in the inside of a trading firm, and what are some of the advantages and challenges for people on the inside. 

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

Beat Nussbaumer started trading FX in 1984 for UBS in Zurich. Over the next 35 years Beat worked for a who’s who of Investment Banks including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and Commerzbank as a market-maker, proprietary trader and Head of FX.
 
Over the past few years Beat has been trading for himself, tutoring retail traders and providing investment bank research. 

In this interview Beat shares powerful insights on the challenge’s new traders face, talks about the realities needed to succeed in the challenging world of Foreign Exchange markets, and explores how the markets have changed in recent years.
 
This is a great opportunity to hear from a trader who has worked at the very centre of Foreign Exchange markets, who understands what is needed to succeed, and has been there, seen it, done it. 

This interview covers so many themes that it is hard to list them all here, there is something for everyone including: 

• Trading techniques. 
• Trading your own money. 
• Exploring trading strategies. 
• Playing in volatile markets. 
• How to manage yourself in the markets.
• The changing nature of the Foreign Exchange markets. 
• Learning to be adaptable.
• Intuition in trading. 
• The rollercoaster of trading. 
• Coping with setbacks.
• The true character of a good trader. 

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

This interview is really in two parts. 

The first 15 minutes of the interview Nick tells about himself and his new venture, and talks about the comparison between trading and sports-betting. Nick sees sports-betting as still in the early stage of maturity compared to the very mature financial markets. For this reason, it is ripe for exploration and provides an exciting opportunity for those who struggling to find an edge in the very mature financial markets. 

The second part of this interview talks more directly about trading and Nick’s experiences as a trader on the inside of the FX market in a Market-Making role. Nick worked at major investment banks Goldman Sachs and Citibank where he was active in market-making roles and was close to the flow as anyone will ever be. Citibank themselves have historically been one of the top 2 or 3 banks in the world in FX markets. 

This is a great chance for the podcast audience to listen to and hear the views of someone who has traded as close to the inside as one can be and did so in the new market environment of the recent years. Nick’s views may surprise many. There is a common belief that being on the inside provides a major advantage, whilst there will always be an edge on the inside, his views may surprise many.  

If anyone is keen to know more about Nick’s new sport-betting venture, the company is called Sportsstack. Their website is https://www.sportstack.com/ and you can follow them on twitter at @SportStackHQ

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

This episode was sparked by an overwhelming response to a tweet posted this week by podcast host Steven Goldstein on the AlphaMind twitter handle  
https://twitter.com/AlphaMind101.

The Tweet:
________________________________________________________________________
For almost 25 years I earned my living as a professional trader, it was a fascinating job that I loved. 

But there were times too when it wrenched the very living soul and every ounce of self-esteem from me. - The advertisers and gurus won’t tell you that. 🤔🤔🤔
_________________________________________________________________________

In the space of 23 hours this tweet received over 1000 likes, over a hundred retweets, many comments and several Direct Messages, making it by far the most responded tweet on the Alphamind101 handle by a huge magnitude, let alone in the space of 24 hours. 

This tweet touched a raw nerve with many who trade and invest actively in the markets, whether private, retail or professional.
 
Trading is a highly traumatic activity which challenges each and every person who tries their hand at it, in ways they never anticipate or expect. 

The trauma of trading is a topic rarely talked about or discussed, yet it gets to the very core of trading success and the human toll it takes on each and every trader. 

In this podcast episode, show hosts Steven and Mark discuss this rarely addressed issue, reflecting on their own careers in Financial Markets, as professional traders and brokers for leading Investment banks. 

To know about Mark and Steven and the AlphaMind project visit https://alpha-mind.net.

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

Dana Cavalea was Strength, Conditioning and Performance Coach for the New York Yankees when they won the world series in 2009. Today he coaches leaders, executives, traders and investors in how to be in peak physical and mental condition to work in optimal states. 

As much as trading and investment relies on intellect and knowledge, they also rely massively on emotional intelligence and it could be said that they are performance activities arguably more so than they are intellectual activities.

In this excellent chat Dana talks with us about high performance and the processes and habits which he sees in champions which are transferable across domains, from sport to financial markets, investment and leadership.

You can find out more about Dana Cavalea on his website: https://danacavalea.com/

You can also get his book ‘Habits Of A Champion: Nobody Becomes A Champion By Accident’, which is forwarded by baseball legend Joe Girardi

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

Benis is a partner and behavioural scientist with 'Final Mile', the world’s leading Behavioural Architecture Consultancy. 

Behavioural Architecture seeks to solve complex issues and problems where conventional approaches fall short. It does this by exploring issues through the lens of Cognitive Neuroscience, Behavioural Economics, and Design Concepts. 

Benis heads Final Mile's Financial Market arm which seeks to help businesses and people engaged in financial markets to make improvements which lead to improved decision-making and stronger performance. 

In this fascinating interview Benis tells us about Final Mile's philosophy and approach to problem solving around human performance in financial markets. We explore key behavioural findings that have emerged in their work, how we as human are impacted by biases, and how we largely absolve and avoid trying to understand and correct these. 
 
This interview moves beyond the normal discussions on biases, emotions and systematic behavioural limitations to explore at a much deeper level how these impact trading and investing performance and how people can start to address these.

You can find out more about Final Mile's outstanding and highly impactful work in many fields on their website at https://finalmile.in

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

This week’s guest is Carol Harmer. Carol started as a trader working for Midland Bank markets (which later became HSBC Markets), in the early 1980s on the LIFFE (London International Financial Futures Exchange) in London.  She started using charts, at a time when few people were using technical analysis, to help her with her trading. 
 
Over a lifetime in the markets, Carol worked for Midland Banks, Nomura Banks, Credit Suisse, and her own business, Charmer Trading. 
 
AlphaMind podcast host Steven worked with Carol in the 1990s in the trading room at Credit Suisse in London. By then, as well as trading Carol was providing analysis and advisory based on her technical analysis work. 

Carol was never afraid to make a big call and had a fantastic eye for markets. Her work and philosophy about markets and price action were to have a big influence on Steven's work and career as a trader. 

Carol now produces an outstanding technical analysis advisory service on many markets to thousands of subscribers around the world including; Banks, Hedge Funds, Asset Management Firms as well as to Private and Retail Traders. In addition, Carol trains and mentors’ traders and continues to trade for herself. 

In this interview Carol talks about being a Technical Trader, her passion for markets and how she uses technical analysis as a tool to find value in markets. Carol also talks about the way the industry treats, serves, markets to and in many cases rips-off retail traders.

Carol has a unique style and is extremely outspoken and forthright in her opinions. In this podcast she doesn’t hold back, firing from the hip and at those who mislead retail traders. 

This is a great interview which will educate and enthral traders and analysts at all levels, across all markets. 

To know more about Carol and her work: 

• Her website is: http://charmertrading.co.uk/
• Her YouTube Channel is in collaboration with Markets.com: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQDjlcwUhOk 
• Her Twitter Handle is @charmertrading
• She can be also be found on FX Street https://www.fxstreet.com/author/carol-harmer 

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

James Brodie has been in and around trading for almost 3 decades. Starting in the early 90s, James worked on trading desks at leading investment banks, started his own hedge fund, built trading systems, taught people and educated himself about technical analysis, behavioural finance, coding, and currently creates and writes algorithmic trading systems for a hedge fund, whilst still trading for himself. 

This conversation covers a broad range of topics and themes about trading, markets, human behaviour, mindset.behavioural finance, performance, technical analysis, coding and systems, psychology, self-development and learning.  

It is a veritable gold-mine of nuggets which will fascinate and enthral.

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

In this episode of the AlphaMind podcast we interview veteran retail trader Greg Gossett. 

Greg is well into his third decade of retail trading, proving that it can be done, and can be done well.

In this excellent interview Greg shares with Steven and Mark his thoughts on the 3 key things he wished he had known when he started trading that he knows now. These 3 aspects are cornerstones to his trading method and his reflections on them are powerful insights in trading which carry important lessons for traders of all levels.

Greg also provides a daily mentor and trading podcast which is available to all free on Youtube. Greg talks about his work mentoring traders on his Gossett Trading & Mentoring and how it helps him in his own trading.

Gossett Mentoring & Trading can be found on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCviK0XeiDS0l1deHtEVmrKw.
Greg's twitter handle is: @gossetttrading.

The latter part of this episode looked at the ‘Performance’ aspects of trading with a rather unusual twist: Mark raised the idea that elite athletes are using ‘Chewing Gum’ to enhance performance, with the act of 'chewing gum' being related to improved performance.This performance aspect expanded out more fully into a discussion on performance, human biology, neuroscience, and trading.  

This was a great and highly inspiring interview which includes some great discussions and valuable lessons on the mental aspects of trading. 

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

This is the second part of the interview Mark and Steve conducted with retail trader JJ aka vwaptrader1. 
 
In the first part of this interview JJ shared stories of his time as a Penny Stocks MarketMaker in a world immortalised in the movie ‘Wolf of Wall Street’. JJ talked about his rise and fall in that world and some of the scandalous behaviours and practices which were part of that world. He also detailed his move into retail trading, his initial struggles and the shock to the system being ‘on the other side’. 
 
In the latter part of this interview, JJ goes far more into the soul of retail trading. He discusses the concept of tape reading and how this ancient art is still the skill which lies at the core of trading. This led to a more detailed talk with JJ opening up about what he learned about himself through trading and how it tested him by sparking the demons within. 
 
This was a fascinating chat which moved towards discussions on personal psychology, ego, dealing with stress and anxiety, using practices to help you cope with this and the value of having a support network around you. 
 
This chat will prove insightful and informative to traders at all levels who will recognise many of JJ’s own experiences and to new and novice retail traders keen to learn some of the potential pitfalls and challenges which they need to be aware of. 

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

In this episode, titled "Turning Challenges into Stepping Stones for Trading Success," we are thrilled to have Performance and Executive Coach Anna Fuhrmann as our guest. Anna shares her unique insights on how traders can transform the challenges they face into opportunities for growth and resilience. She delves into practical strategies for mastering the mental game of trading, emphasizing the importance of mindset, emotional regulation, and adaptability. 

In this episode Anna, shares inspiring stories and expert advice, that can help helps listeners make sense of how setbacks can lead to breakthroughs, equipping them with the tools to navigate the volatile world of trading successfully. 

To more about Anna visit her website at https://www.annafuhrmann.ch/de or reach out to her directly at ​fuhrmann.counseling@gmail.com .

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

Former Penny Stocks Market-Maker, turned Retail Trader, Trader Educator and host of the superb ‘Confessions of a Market-Maker’ podcast JJ aka 'vwaptrader1' talks to Steven and Mark about his colourful career, his time as a stock manipulator, how he helped take companies private, his rise and fall, and his new career retail trading. 

JJ spent 2 decades working in the mad and crazy world of market-making in penny stocks which was immortalised in the classic film ‘Wolf of Wall Street’.

In that time JJ came to accumulate the sort of wealth most people come into trading for, only to see it disappear just as easily. He then suffered the near-death experience of heart attack, followed by a triple heart-bypass. 

More recently JJ moved into the world of retail trading. His journey into this world was anything but smooth, and he soon found that his 20 decades in market-making was of relatively little value in the challenging world of retail trading. 

This interview is the first part of two interviews with JJ where he talks candidly about the world he inhabited, the people in it, and the challenges of making it as a retail trader.

We discuss some of the learnings and insights he has made since becoming a retail trader, and about what he has learned from some of the great guests he has had on his show. We also discuss the MarketProfile tool and associated methods he uses to help him find value in the markets.

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

Mark and Steve talk with Australian Trader Chris Tate. Chris joined the markets in the 1980s forging a long and very successful career in the Financial Markets. 

Chris now works with some colleague in a business called ‘the Trading Game’ which focus on educating and training traders in the Psychology of Trading and Behavioural Finance. 

In this very in-depth interview, we explore a range of themes which at the core explore how people can bring the best of themselves to their work. 

At the beginning of the interview is an excerpt we have added-in which was part of our post-podcast chat that was not meant to feature in the interview. It was a fascinating and very frank exchange of views about some of the crooks inhabiting the industry and the challenge facing aspiring traders in terms of accessing quality and honest education. 

After that is the main podcast which explored include themes including ‘beginners’ luck’, developing a ‘growth mindset’, the challenge of using social media for a trader, working with mentors and the struggles of learning how to be a successful trader. 

This was a great interview which we are sure you will get a lot of value out of. 

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

Merritt Black is Head of Proprietary Trading at US firm SMB futures. In this deep and very poignant interview, Merritt shares his reflections and thoughts on a wide array of themes and aspects about the realities of trading and the painful journey which can so often delight, but at times can also rip the very life from you.

Merritt does not hold back, he bares his soul in this interview, bringing up painful memories which were vital steps on his journey to trading success.  

This interview is so full of wisdom and insight for traders of all levels. New traders will learn so much which will inspire and support them, and will hear some of the harsh realities about trading which they must start to internalise and embrace if they are going to overcome the odds and succeed. Seasoned and experienced traders will resonate with much of what Merritt shares and can use this to contrast their own journeys in the on-going battle with self, ego and markets.

Some of the themes which arise include: The battle with self, developing your edge, looking at your successes to find your own source code, how true and deep confidence arise, recovering from failures, unrealistic expectations and misconceptions that there is a linear formulaic approach. The random nature of markets, being self-aware, developing self whilst also making it less about yourself and more about the markets. The pain of trading, how low and worthless trading can make you feel, recovering from those lows and growing stronger.  
You will be amazed at how much wisdom is shared in just 45 minutes. You may want to have a pen ready to take down notes, because you will learn things from this interview that will enable you to be wiser and smarter.  

AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global Markets
AlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.

Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.

Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.