It wasn’t until Nik’s father suggested he get involved in High School Wrestling that he began to learn what drives him: Discipline, Regimen, and Humility.
For the first time in his life, wrestling gave Nik recognition. He liked it and knew the only way to maintain it was to go all-in.
From high school and into college at the University of Minnesota, wrestling taught Nik how to become the man who would soon enter the ring of Mixed Martial Arts and the UFC tour circuit.
And through it all, being scared was never an option. “I was fighting for survival.” He rarely felt pain in the ring. He was too present to even allow it to enter his mind. For nearly 20 years, Nik was not just an excellent fighter, but he was a survivor.
At birth, he was dealt a losing hand, having been raised as a young child in an abusive home. This manifested in Nik a mentality of having nothing to lose. This drove him to be hyperfocused on the tasks at hand to be the best he could be in the ring.
Inevitably, the time comes when a fighter has to retire from the game. When Nik discovered the markets, he knew what his next move would be. “If I can control myself, the Markets offer endless possibilities.”
To be successful in the market, as in fighting, “you have to deal with the person you are,” Nik says. One of his biggest hurdles in learning how to trade was his introversion, which he had to overcome to reach out to smart people in this new field so he could ask questions, form relationships, and grow. “If you’re willing to look like an idiot for five seconds, it’s often not a big deal.” And the rewards far outstrip the risk of putting yourself out there. All it took was honesty and humility, something Nik knew he was good at.
But he knew he once again had to put in the work. ”One in ten will not do what is required,” he said.
Learn how the art of fighting translates into the art of trading in this wonderfully insightful conversion with Nik “The Carney” Lentz.
“I would not give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes
There’s a profound simplicity that can only be reached by working through complexity. It means that deep understanding is often simple, but achieving it requires grappling with and overcoming complexity.
Jason Leavitt believes this wholeheartedly. And this was his path.
When he first got involved in trading, everything seemed simple: buy low, sell high, make money.
Reinventing your career after 20 years is no small feat. Now, imagine trying to do that by becoming an active trader. That’s exactly what Andrew Moss is doing—but he isn’t going in blind.
Andrew’s fascination with the markets began as a teenager when his father introduced him to point-and-figure charts. From there, he pursued a career in brokerage and wealth management at a major Wall Street firm, gaining deep insight into the industry.
“We all have to follow our own path,” Andrew reflects.
Matt Kenah is Building Positive Momentum Every Day.
If we only learn one thing from Matt Kenah, I hope it would be this: “The only goal we should have every day is to live to fight another one.”
Matt has lived this ethos and he has been repeatedly put to the test. And passed.
Starting out on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange trading floor as a runner just out of high school, Matt quickly rose the ranks to Arb Clerk and was earning great money as a young man in his early twenties.
To say Andrew Menaker took an unusual path to Wall Street would be a severe understatement.
While negotiating with an armed bank robber to de-escalate the situation and ensure the safety of customers and bank employees, he had to let Wells Fargo know he wouldn’t be making it to his first interview that day and, therefore, would have to pass on an opportunity to work with the firm.
Among the many things that stood out during our conversation with David Lundgren, it was this quote: “I want to find a way to listen, and learn, and get a little bit better every day.”
This is a mindset that every trader, every human, can benefit from.
In his early days, David described himself as a “systematic researcher.” This process of discovery held sway for him, and when striking out on his own, he employed the same systematic philosophy to portfolio management and trend-following trading.
For Wall Street veteran Jared Dillian, getting away from Wall Street might have been the best thing he ever did for himself.
Now living in South Carolina, he can’t be further removed from the lifestyle of your typical Wall Streeter. And he’d have it no other way, as he’s convinced Wall Street took at least 10 years off of his life expectancy.
As Jared says, his stress levels are now “basically zero.”
Milton Marmanides does the hard work that traders don’t have the time to do. He sifts through the firehose of headlines, news releases, data points, and social media to cut through the noise and deliver only the market-moving information active traders need to make smarter decisions.
And in his nearly 25 years in the business, first as a trader, and now as a market data provider, he’s seen a lot.
They are only losses if we don’t learn something from the experience.
When traders woke up on Monday, August 5th to the VIX at 65 and the Nasdaq index down 5% overnight, they didn’t need a cup of coffee to snap into high alert.
The easy first question to ask was: “What happened?”
If there’s one thing Anne-Marie Baiynd learned after making the transition from a business owner to a trader, it’s that she’s no longer in charge.
The market, unlike her employees, doesn’t do what she asks it to do.
She needed to learn to give up control. And it wasn’t easy.
In fact, it was so hard that she almost lost all of the hard-earned money she had salted away from years of successfully running her business. To say this would be stressful for a family and a marriage would be an understatement.
When Michael Nauss first sat down at a trading desk, his computer had a keyboard and a screen. But no mouse.
And his screen displayed an order book. But no charts.
Thus began his career as a scalper working the order book, who paid no attention at all to trends or technical analysis. He was simply trying to find spots to buy ahead of large buyers and flip the position out for a quick couple of ticks. Do this a couple hundred times per trading session and perhaps he’d have a successful day.
When you are chasing a wave, you can’t be anywhere else. You have to be present.
Similarly, you can’t be anywhere else when you are chasing trends. You have to be present.
Ian has worked hard to create the right mental and physical environments to increase his odds of presence. The places he’s lived would surely inspire envy in anyone who cherishes beautiful natural surroundings and ocean breezes: San Francisco, Hawaii, and the underrated Gulf Coast of Florida.
Ian said it best when we said: “Find what brings you joy, then do it!”
