{ "version": "1.0.0", "segments": [ { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "0.79999995", "endTime": "41.53", "body": "Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Line Your Own Pockets. Last week, we had an interview with Garrett from S and B Capital. And as per tradition in this in this podcast, we like to do kind of a little wrap up of takeaways, things that we've learned, you know, the conversation that we had, and I thought it was a great one. I had a I had a lot of fun with it. I always like listening to different traders and and what they look for, but more importantly, think, and and specifically this one, backgrounds of traders because it's never really what you expect, you know, when you go to school that the most successful traders and and their background." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "41.53", "endTime": "48.555", "body": "So, you know, I know you knew a lot of this already because you were buds, but what do you think of what do you think of the chat?" }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "49.035", "endTime": "66.15", "body": "I thought it was great. And I did like I said, or like you said, I do know Garrett pretty well. But there was that something that I had never heard before, and that was that his dad was a basketball coach and that he coached an NBA player." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "66.549995", "endTime": "68.235", "body": "Yeah. That's pretty it's a big deal." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "68.235", "endTime": "83.87", "body": "I was I was like, wow. Okay. That kinda changes things. And Yeah. I I've been kind of obsessed with, you know, the process of getting good at something." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "84.35", "endTime": "116.06", "body": "Mhmm. We're doing it with trading, but I've you know, looking back on my life, I've tried to be good at lots of things. So and and I think there's there's a lot of overlap between somebody who had a had a dad as a coach of a basketball, you know, player and and teams. Growing up in that environment, I bet he picked up all sorts of things that he probably doesn't even realize at this point. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "116.06", "endTime": "130.695", "body": "But, yeah, I mean, being around top performers in whatever the field, you may think it has nothing to do with trading, but there's a lot of overlap there that you can learn from and and apply to your trading even though the the domains are, like, completely different." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "131.735", "endTime": "157.475", "body": "Well, I would say even definitely true for process. But even if you just ignore that, you say, you know, the the process is is too different to matter, which I I wouldn't agree with. But I think it just difference with attitudes, difference with that's gonna be the biggest thing. You look at somebody who is a a top performer in anything, you can just kind of already guess the attitude that they don't have. Right?" }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "157.55501", "endTime": "176.795", "body": "It's never someone else's fault. It's never, you know, it's not the ref or the in the market maker or whatever voodoo, whatever. There's there's never a I'm gonna blame someone else, and then there's never a I don't know if I can do this kinda attitude. Right? Top performers and everything have a I'll figure it out." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "176.795", "endTime": "201.94", "body": "You know, I'll figure out a way to to make it work. You know, they've got that's that different attitude. So, yeah, at the very least, I think being exposed to that and just seeing a lot of people out there with those kind of attitude on things, that's gonna help you, you'd imagine, just whatever you're doing. If say, oh, well, if I just adopt that same attitude regardless of what it is, that I will figure it out eventually, then, you know, away you go. Right?" }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "202.02", "endTime": "218.19", "body": "Yeah. There there's a really good book on this that I read years ago called the art of learning. It's by Josh. I think it's Josh Weitzkin. He was a chess player, a very good chess player." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "218.19", "endTime": "238.77501", "body": "And then he completely changed gears and and became the best in the world at this martial arts thing, like, from scratch. And he wrote a book about it. It was really interesting, but there's just lots of takeaways. And I love that kind of book that's not about trading at all, but it's everything about trading." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "238.935", "endTime": "239.41501", "body": "Yep." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "239.41501", "endTime": "277.21", "body": "And there's just so much you can learn from other people trying to be the best in the world at something. And so I was reminded this. So when I first met Garrett after Bella put me in touch with him, You know, we had I was up in New York a couple different times and met up with him, and we got to know each other. And I was coaching him through some systematic trading stuff. And at the time, I was just becoming familiar with this other domain because of my wife." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "277.28998", "endTime": "291.325", "body": "My wife, I've mentioned her on the podcast. She's kind of my secret weapon. She was in the Olympics. She was a runner professional runner for years and years. And she is an intense person." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "291.405", "endTime": "317.505", "body": "And since she retired running, she's started doing art. And when she does something, she goes crazy hardcore down into it. So she's been on this in this rabbit hole of art, studying artists, doing art herself for for a long time. So when we would make these trips to New York, every time we would go to MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art. Mhmm." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "317.505", "endTime": "323.42502", "body": "And up until that point, I said, okay. Yeah. Art. I I get it. It's kind of fun to look at." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "323.825", "endTime": "358.78", "body": "But she really opened my eyes to understanding how art was being created, like the artist behind it, what their story was, what they were going through, how they came up with their process, how it was different than other people around them at the time, influenced by others. But it's it's very similar to trading in that you can sort of copy other people, kinda be a cover band. Right? You're gonna have a ceiling if you're gonna be be be cover band. But to really get good, you have to make it your own." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "358.78", "endTime": "405.45502", "body": "You have to have your take on trading. And it's the same thing with these artists that were operating in this period where they were sort of borrowing from each other but making you know, having these huge breakthroughs on their own and having success from that. And to hear the story behind this, it was it was kind of fascinating. And it's not anything I would have ever understood or even known to look for if my wife hadn't kind of introduced me to this. So I so now, like, anything any other domain like this, I'm always on the lookout for, okay, who is the best in the world at this thing or during their time was the best in the world?" }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "406.015", "endTime": "414.62003", "body": "And what can I pick up from that? Like, what can I learn from that kind of person to apply to trading and just life in general?" }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "415.98", "endTime": "448.64", "body": "And I like your I like your cover band analysis because it's like if, even for a cover band, the coolest ones are doing the same kind of thing where they have you know, maybe they're playing the same song, but they have their own kind of twist on it in some way, shape, or form, you know, as well. Right? It's like I was actually just funny enough, before I started this, Weezer. I'm not sure if the band Weezer Yeah. I guess as a a cover of Africa by Toda." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "449.01498", "endTime": "474.34", "body": "And I that was in my ear. I was like, that's a cool because they put the same song and you put your own kind of spin on it. And it's the same thing with trading where if you can look at someone and not necessarily copy what they do, but look at how they do it and and what kind of oh, you know, they're looking at stocks in play or they're looking for momentum thrusts or whatever it is. And now let me go in and start to put my own little twist on it. You can you can do that." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "474.34", "endTime": "506.525", "body": "You can take know, you there's no need, I find, in a lot of cases, to completely reinvent the wheel. A lot of the market mechanics and phenomenon that exist with mean reversion or or momentum trading or something, they're just they just exist. They're just kinda out there. And then if you take that and and you kinda go back and and put your own spin on it in a way that makes sense, that helps with that confidence thing that we talk about for when the drawdowns happen and all that. So I find that ability might be really interested in musicians because that's how most musicians learn." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "506.525", "endTime": "533.53503", "body": "They don't go to, like, a crazy fancy university to learn music or whatever. They watch someone play and and maybe get some instruction on how to do it, and they spend most of their time kinda looking at how, you know, other people other people work and listening to you'll never hear a musician like a guitarist being like, yeah. I've never heard Hendrix or Clapton or or any of these things. Right? Just they're gonna listen to the greats and and pick things up and then hopefully make that and and kinda mash that into their own thing." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "533.695", "endTime": "557.82", "body": "Yeah. So that reminds me so I guess probably a couple years ago now, I wrote a message to the my mailing list about this particular band called Palmyra. I'd just seen them in the local music place here that's called the Cat's Cradle. It's been here forever. It's been a really well known music venue." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "558.885", "endTime": "575.16", "body": "And my wife isn't really into music. We went and watched this band called Palmyra. And I was in there. I was like, man, these guys are pretty good. And they started telling their story of what what they've been doing." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "575.16", "endTime": "609.82", "body": "And this this kinda blew me away. They said they had been on the road doing shows for four years, living on the road Wow. Just going to these venues day after day after day, night after night, playing and getting better. I mean, can you imagine four years being on the road and just playing, getting audience feedback every single night, understanding what's working, what's not working? And by the time they came here, their stuff was so tight." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "609.82", "endTime": "627.115", "body": "Like, you could tell that they had spent so much effort and so much work on this that they were it was just polished and different than other bands we'd seen there. I mean, it was just next level what they had been able to do. But it's no secret. Like, they've been on the road for four years." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "628.51996", "endTime": "661.94", "body": "Yeah. Well, that's I forgot what there's one of the one of the books out there that explained the same thing with the Beatles that they had spent so much time playing for free. And and before anyone knew who they were, they'd spent, you know, like, ten years or something playing, like, three concerts a day in in, like, little dive bars and whatever. And then, you know, it's just one of those things that you can't escape when you want to get good at something. I don't think there's any way around it with even with technology or or whatever it is that you end up, you know, to relate it to our world." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "662.5", "endTime": "699.03", "body": "You you backtest, and then you run the backtest, and then you start trading the strategy, and hopefully, it makes some money right off the bat. That's great, but probably not. And then from there, you just have to go, and and our thing is just doing that kind of process over and over again of of idea to to back test, to to live trading, and and back and back and forth. And what you what you remember and what I do sometimes is you go back to those, like, original tests that you had if you got them saved somewhere and look at them and go, man, that's trash. Because you don't really realize everything that you've learned along the way." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "699.11005", "endTime": "720.72", "body": "And it seems like it's regardless of what you do, that's kind of the that's the path that you have to take. Unfortunately, you know, there's, you know, mentorship and and learning from others and and some amount of copying, the in the good way will will certainly help along the way. But at the end of the day, yeah, it's just from, you know, beating your head against the wall enough times that that things work." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "721.51996", "endTime": "760.575", "body": "Yeah. I think trying to imitate somebody else is gonna work maybe for maybe not even in the medium term, maybe in the short term. But, yeah, you really have to make it your own. And I think part of it is you have to do that because otherwise, you're just following somebody else, and you don't really have a way to come up with the ideas yourself. That's and you're gonna have to do that because if you don't have that, then there's gonna come a time where your strategy is gonna stop working or stop working as well as it was." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "761.055", "endTime": "779.5", "body": "You're gonna find yourself in a drawdown, and then you're gonna be at a dead end, which I know how that feels. It it sucks because you've for the time that comes around, you've already sort of you you've already kind of identified as a trick fully identified as a trader. Hey. This is what I do." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "779.5", "endTime": "779.89996", "body": "Mhmm." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "779.89996", "endTime": "802.5", "body": "And then when that's when it stops working and you don't have you're at a dead end, you don't really have a way to create new ideas, man, that that's like the world is ending. Because it it it wrestles with your, you know, your identity of yourself, which is really a hard thing to have to go through." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "803.54", "endTime": "837.805", "body": "Well and that would be another thing, I guess, when we're you know, as we're drawing the comparison between elite performers and anything in traders. I think that's one thing that's probably a little bit different in which there's not as much resetting, I think, that happens in in the rest of the world as there is in trading. Like, there's a there are worlds, and there are traders out there. Especially discretionary traders, I think, suffer this more than anything where they have a thing that they do. They have a setup that works, and then like you mentioned, they become a professional trader and everything is great." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "838.045", "endTime": "876.51", "body": "And then something changes in the market and it, right, tanks back down, and then they have to they have to start again where if you're really good, you know, you're practicing the guitar, you're just gonna get better and better barring, you know, getting hit by a bus or, you know, in a coma or something like that. Like, you're just you know, you could give someone who was really good at guitar ten years ago and hasn't touched it, you could put a guitar in their hand and give them a month and they'd be right back where they were. Where especially discretionary traders don't have that, right, don't have that up and down, up and down the way that traders do. And, you know, we talk about it all the time. The way we deal with it is the never stop working." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "876.51", "endTime": "899.755", "body": "Right? They always were always looking at the new idea and the new system and the new whatever so that when that one dies or drops off or performs less good, it's fine. Right? We've got a bunch other to cover it. But most a lot of traders, I think, that we know have been through that when, you know, they day trade it for a while, and then there was some change in the market that made it so that particular style didn't work anymore." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "899.83496", "endTime": "911.44", "body": "I'm thinking, like, specifically HFTs and things like that. And then all of a sudden, there there's people that had to start from scratch and made their way back and people who just never never figured it out again." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "911.51996", "endTime": "925.255", "body": "Yeah. And the way you described it is actually pretty optimistic. So so here and here's what I mean. So you said, you know, you you start trading a strategy and then it tails off. Right?" }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "925.41504", "endTime": "938.31006", "body": "Yep. That's usually not what happens. It's usually way harder than that because it's sort of but it doesn't nosedive. It Mhmm. The the drawdowns maybe become a little bit more frequent." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "939.03", "endTime": "949.36505", "body": "Maybe they're a little bit deeper than they were before. It's not like there's gonna be some test you can run to say, okay. Yeah. It's, quote, unquote, stopped working. I can tell." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "949.60504", "endTime": "958.885", "body": "You're always gonna be at the point where there's this judgment call to make. Okay. Is this has this stopped working? Is it Yeah. When do I move on?" }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "958.885", "endTime": "981.04504", "body": "It's never gonna be a clear choice, which makes it even more difficult to make that decision. Right? So it's always gonna feel like you're always gonna feel like, oh, okay. It's not quite there's still something there. And to really give up on the strategy that has, I mean, given you so much profits over so many years, it's a really difficult decision to make." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "981.525", "endTime": "993.9", "body": "But it becomes a lot easier when you have other ideas and other strategies to go to and fall back on. Know, any given strategy is not as important if if you have multiple." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "994.86", "endTime": "1014.745", "body": "Yeah. It's it's it's way easier to it's a way easier question to answer when you are still already profitable. Right? That's when when people ask me that, which I'm sure you get all the time, and I think that's, like, the number one question from system trades system traders, when do I know when to when to kill it? Right?" }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "1015.32", "endTime": "1037.875", "body": "And I always start with, is that your only strategy? Because it just makes it a completely different answer to the equation. If you're like, no. You know, I'm I'm still making good money, but this one's just, you know, dragging down those profits a little bit. It's like, well, you got all the time in the world to, you know, figure it out to to give it some time, to scale down, to do do whatever." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "1038.115", "endTime": "1065.395", "body": "But if you have gotten to the point where it is your only it's the only thing you do is how you feed your kids and all of a sudden it stops working, That is a completely different, potential mindset. So, you know, it's it's that was a a big difference. I was when you were, talking there that I noticed is that when you're getting good at something, sports or whatever, it's usually linear. For traders, it's not often the case. It's sometimes a more of like a business." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "1065.395", "endTime": "1089.3451", "body": "You hear these stories of, like, entrepreneurs. And, you know, they started a business, and that business went well, and then it failed. And they started another one, it went well, and then it failed. And then eventually, they, you know, they get big enough that you're you're hearing them talk on on podcasts or whatever. But there's a lot of ups and downs along the way, and I think that's a little bit more correlated to kind of what we do than some of these other ones where your your skill is getting better." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "1089.3451", "endTime": "1130.08", "body": "And I think that actually screws with a lot of people because especially the people who try to go down the discretionary trader route, they think that just more and more screen time is gonna just be a linear progression up that that that most traders, successful traders, just sit down and look at a screen and know if stock is gonna go up or down. Based off that, I think that's what a lot of people kinda think happens because that's how it happens in a lot. If I go to the gym every day, my, you know, bench press should get better. But with trading, it's not. It's like you figure out a strategy, you run it, it's up to the kind of winds of fate whether or not that continues or degrades or it gets better or whatever it is." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "1130.72", "endTime": "1139.8401", "body": "So you have to focus on kinda, I guess, the process side of what these performers do and not so much the outcome side of of what a lot of these performers do." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "1140.6749", "endTime": "1152.515", "body": "Yeah. So yeah. It's a good point. The so it reminds me, my daughter is just bought a house. She's getting ready to close later this month." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "1153.0901", "endTime": "1163.81", "body": "Kinda near us. Yeah. So she she's excited about it. We're excited about it. And so she's figuring out what furniture she's gonna have in her new place." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "1165.65", "endTime": "1212.3599", "body": "And one of the things she's she sort of jokes with me about is that she is buying her first house younger than I bought my first house. She's fucking funny with that. But so I there was a period in my life, teenage years, where I was doing a lot of woodworking. And I've made some furniture that, you know, I have in my house now, some of my daughters have in their house, and there's another piece that I've I'm giving to her for to use in her new place. And as I was going back and looking at some of this furniture that I made, there was it was probably eight months or a year of me being pretty intense into this activity." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "1213.08", "endTime": "1227.375", "body": "And the improvements I would make between pieces were really dramatic improvements. Right? I could see, okay, here's one of the earlier pieces I made. Pretty good. And then the next piece I made, okay." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "1227.375", "endTime": "1239.1349", "body": "Wow. That's a lot more that's a lot better. It's a lot more polished. So you could when you're improving at that rate, man, it's really fun and it's very satisfying. But you're right." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "1239.1349", "endTime": "1284.9249", "body": "With trading, a lot of times you can put a lot of work into it, and the payoff might not may not be for quite some time. So you do there there's a little bit of faith involved where, okay, I'm working on my process now. That's what I'm working. In fact, there's a guy that I'm working with now at SMB. He's in he's not making as much money as he made last year, but he is so deep and working hard on his process, getting that dialed in that I know he's gonna come out of that, but it's hard to do because in the meantime, he's not making as much money as he knows he could." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "1285.405", "endTime": "1300.33", "body": "So he's he's a bit scattered in in what he's working on. But I keep telling him, you know, the the more you work on your process now, the the better off you're gonna be in months and, you know, a year from now." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "1301.8501", "endTime": "1316.835", "body": "Yeah. That's the and that's the main takeaway. Right? Is that right? Kind of related, I guess, to the whole, you know, music sports thing, but we we never know the outcome of anything in in what we do." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "1316.835", "endTime": "1327.075", "body": "Like, you you never you know, I'm looking down. I've got five trades I've taken on today. No idea what's gonna happen with them. And you can't focus on that. Right?" }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "1327.075", "endTime": "1370.0199", "body": "You have to just focus on on the process and just kind of, you know, like you mentioned, faith in in that that process is going to evolve over time. And that's, I guess, a lot of the same, you know, if you're getting up every morning and you're going to basketball court and you're putting in, you know, two hours before everyone else and you've got your drills and whatever that you run, you're not gonna see any benefit of that. And even if, like, meant you were coaching this guy, you know, coach tells you to go do this, you might not even really understand why. You just have to have some faith that, right, that he's telling you to, you know, practice these drills for some reason. And at some point, six months or a year from now, it will kinda click and it will make sense that that's what you ended up doing." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "1370.34", "endTime": "1390.4501", "body": "And that's the same with trading. You know, we we did this whole series on small account, right, and how, you know, to be realistic with expectations, everything. The main can takeaway was just get started now. And, you know, if you're someone out there and you're you're listening to this and you're like, well, where do I get started in trading? It's like that's where I would focus is the process." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "1390.4501", "endTime": "1399.89", "body": "Like, what are you gonna you know, how are you gonna come up with ideas? How are you gonna test them? Right? How when you start trading, how are you gonna implement them? Are you gonna be the guy hitting the buttons or not?" }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "1399.89", "endTime": "1426.63", "body": "Like, that kind of thing. And get that whole framework sorted in a way that you kind of know internally isn't gonna help you forever. And especially if you have a small account or no account at all, you can be assured it's not gonna help you for a long time. Because until you get your account large enough that, you know, a decent percentage gain will will make a living for you. You're just kinda, you know, just you're you're you're playing theory crafting." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "1426.63", "endTime": "1449.9501", "body": "But it it's the time to do it because, you know, process is everything. And and it's from that's the one thing I think I think everyone can agree on from the entrepreneur to the musician to the the trader to whatever. It's you just continue to do the same boring thing that no one cares about day in and day out. And then eventually, you know, years later, you go, I'm making a bunch of money. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "1449.9501", "endTime": "1450.75", "body": "That's cool." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "1450.8301", "endTime": "1481.56", "body": "Yeah. Yeah. So one other thing that to take away from the the from the podcast with Garrett, He's and this can help a lot of traders, you know, when you have a group of people to interact with and share ideas with and, you know, collaborate with. So I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you a story again about my wife. So she was a really good runner." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "1481.56", "endTime": "1500.6749", "body": "And when I first met her, I thought I was a good runner. And I I was a good runner. Right? And then one time, I I saw her do a workout. She was on her own doing a workout, like, I I think at night." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "1500.6749", "endTime": "1528.705", "body": "It was probably summertime at night. And I saw her coming around the track, And I thought I worked hard. But in that one moment, seeing her run down the track in a workout, working I mean, it was completely obvious that to me that she was working way harder than I had ever worked before. Like, I mean, in just one moment, I could see that. And it was kind of a watershed moment for me." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "1528.705", "endTime": "1556.9099", "body": "Like, I I thought I was working hard enough, but in that moment, I was like, well, I'm not working hard enough. And that's pretty obvious right now just by looking at this. You can have these moments in these collaborations you have with other traders. And that's a big part of what makes SMB so great is that they have these collaborations amongst traders themselves. You know, I see it every month." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "1556.9099", "endTime": "1593.64", "body": "I do this they invite me to come on to the Bionic Trader Show, and I go do and present something each month. So I get to interact with a lot of the traders there and in that program. And you just, you know, you just experience things in a way that you would never experience on your own. And all these traders are coming from, you know, from different experiences, different mindsets, different perspectives. And to share that in one place is just extremely valuable." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "1594.52", "endTime": "1634.965", "body": "Well, and if you if you're listening to this as a trader and you haven't just sat down with a bunch of traders, like, you have to at least one time because it's I always wonder if when dentists go to, like, dentist conventions, they just sit there and talk about teeth all the time. I I probably, maybe a little bit, but, you know, you go to and I've been to a lot of events with other traders, and it is just all the time. It's like they're finally excited to to be able to talk to someone. You know, SMB might be a little different because they're surrounded all the time. But I tell you, my wife does not give one crap about the the the new system I'm working on or or the data source I'm trying to import to do whatever." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "1635.2051", "endTime": "1658.005", "body": "But you sit down. I've done some of these, you know, portfolio events with these guys at All Star Charts, and it's basically just he brings in. He just calls everyone he knows that lives in an area who's a big trader, and and they all just sit and and drink and and chat. And every bit of the conversation, there's like maybe one minute about sports, and then the rest of it is, right, I'm working on this. Have you noticed this thing?" }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "1658.005", "endTime": "1679.66", "body": "Isn't this thing cool? And you get more ideas from that than anything else. And then the other thing I think you get too is motivation from seeing other people kinda nipping at your heels. And I think this is, know, you we were talking to the new trader before, but we're talking to the experienced trader now. Maybe the guy who's already making couple $100 a year trading." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "1679.8201", "endTime": "1711.0701", "body": "Well, if you go and you hang out with some traders who haven't gotten profitable yet, I I always find it amazing kick in the butt because you realize how hard they're working and the things that they're thinking about in order to get over that hump. Because like with most things, like, going back to the guitar thing, if you see someone play a guitar who's been doing it forever, it seems effortless. And sometimes in trading, it feels effortless when you do especially us quants. We're not hitting buttons every day to buy and sell stocks. Right?" }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "1711.0701", "endTime": "1723.1951", "body": "So the if things are working and they're working well, it is very easy to get kinda lulled into because, hey. I just woke up, and I turned on my computer, and I sat back down. I'm up a grand. Congratulations. Good for me." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "1723.6901", "endTime": "1737.53", "body": "But if you go and you see the trader who's not quite there yet and what he's doing to kinda catch up to you, you go, oh, shit. They're hustling hard. Maybe I should get my ass back to work or else, you know, this guy's gonna come take my lunch at some point." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "1738.4149", "endTime": "1774.9451", "body": "Yeah. I think there's I I think you have to have a mindset where you can actually learn from that person. And, I mean, that I I see I saw this firsthand when I coached high school cross country. And there were, of course, a wide range of abilities of runners on the cross country team. But when you have a central mission to win the state championship, which we did six or seven times, that helps everybody focus." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "1774.9451", "endTime": "1827.8049", "body": "Everybody knows their role on the team. And it was striking how even the slowest guys on the team, girls on the team, could basically push from the back by people being inspired by how much they were improving even though they were still, you know, way far back from being able to contribute. Seeing that seeing how hard they were working and the progress they were making, their attitude about it, they could push from the back, and it made a better team. And everybody on the team was improved, coaches, runners, everything, by focusing on the people in the back. There's there was always something to learn and to to be inspired by everybody on the team." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "1829.005", "endTime": "1876.4999", "body": "Yeah. So, you know, I I guess the the main thing to look out for, and and I would go back and and we'll probably link it the trusted trader group area Yep. Is, you know, we're not talking that it has to be a physical group, but there's a lot of communities out there from, you know, just hanging out in someone's livestream, and there's chat going on there or, you know, the forms and Reddits and Twitter if you can if you can get through a lot of the a lot of the crap there. But, there's lots of places you can do that, and that's great for, you know, idea sharing. But, yeah, I always just like to hang out with traders just to remind myself how how hard, you know, you you have to work in the beginning, especially, and you should be doing that at least in that way." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "1876.8999", "endTime": "1910.1699", "body": "And that just means your process better be honed a little bit better than theirs because you've been doing it for longer, and you've had some success with it, and and have that as kind of that motivation for man. And like you like you mentioned, there's ideas that come you never know. And that's the cool thing I found in my kind of journey as a systematic trader is you just never know when you get that kind of light bulb, like, that shower thought moment of, oh, shit. I should really test this. Knowing that most of the time, it's probably not gonna be anything, but sometimes it will." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "1910.33", "endTime": "1935.6499", "body": "And, yeah, that that might come from the new trader. It might come from someone who has an idea that, you know, because they aren't jaded by or or maybe they're not even, like, you know, educated by some of the the the wrong education out there, and they just have this more, like, childlike imagination, I guess, about things that could or could not work, and they might think of something that you just doesn't make any sense to you at all, but it's the way to go." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "1936.37", "endTime": "1965.8601", "body": "Yeah. Totally. You you mentioned dentists, which reminded me. I I do know a dentist, and I do know how they get together and talk. So the he has a peer group where he'll bring, you know, challenging cases or, you know, problem patients or, you know, ideas that he has through his practice, and he'll bounce it off the people in his peer group." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "1965.8601", "endTime": "1980.0651", "body": "And I suspect that's a very, very valuable, way to get feedback for him. I mean, once you get to the top of some field, it's kinda hard to get that kind of feedback from real people." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "1980.84", "endTime": "2015.8701", "body": "And it's like, the second you said that, my brain went, that sounds like the most boring shit imaginable. But if if he were to tune in to this podcast about us, like, how to get the data into our system the most efficiently, He probably said that's the most boring shit imaginable. So, you know, it just went as soon as you have a passion for something, regardless of what it is, it ends up being way more interesting to do that thing than to because I'd look at that man. Imagine sitting around a bunch of dentists talking about this tooth was twisted or something like that. But, yeah, it's it's you know, you don't get to the top of anything without passion for it." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "2015.8701", "endTime": "2024.1901", "body": "So it just means that they have a a different thing that they're passionate about that, thankfully, I don't have to be passionate about at all." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "2024.5901", "endTime": "2042.71", "body": "Yeah. You know, I've I've worked with a lot of groups of, you know, coach high school cross country. So I I've seen how different collaborative groups work well and what it takes for a group to work well. You know, not all of them work. Mhmm." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "2043.11", "endTime": "2077.2202", "body": "So I don't have an announcement yet, but I am sort of piecing something together that I think would work really well for a a trading group. And it's it's gonna be my own kind of personal stamp on this well, you know, what I've learned from all different types of groups, not just trading groups, but creating a collaborative group that can work together in a in a very productive and useful way. So no announcement now, but things are in the works." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "2077.62", "endTime": "2104.47", "body": "Well, I think that's a that's a great place to kinda tease people and and and wrap it up. But, yeah, I just I've you know, my main takeaways again, then we'll then we'll we'll go over yours was just, I I loved people that are successful in trading that didn't study boring MBA finance kind of stuff. They learned how to learn. Right? They learned how to build a process and then practice that process." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "2105.155", "endTime": "2118.7551", "body": "And then just through, like, raw passion, said, screw it. I'm gonna be a trader. And I remember him saying that where he's like he's like, I didn't know how I was gonna do it. I didn't even know how you even get hired as a trader. It was just something that he was interested in." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "2118.7551", "endTime": "2144.635", "body": "So he said, screw it. I'm gonna I'm gonna figure it out. And I think that's the main mentality over over anything is that kind of ownership of I'm going to figure it out, and then you just you just keep going from there. Because, you know, there is world, and I I bet you there is. There's the some of the most successful traders in the world never worked at a firm and never did any they saved money somehow through some other way, and they built up a big enough account." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "2144.635", "endTime": "2155.11", "body": "You'll never hear them. Right? They got a million dollar account. They're making 40% a year. They're making a great income, and you just will never once hear them say a word ever." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "2155.35", "endTime": "2183.2603", "body": "And just knowing that that happened so much that people without any kind of training or whatever go after it, and then just focusing on the the process to to kinda shout out the noise and and make all that happen. That was that was, I think, my my favorite part of it is just hearing that same story over and over and over again. People coming from programming or or sports or whatever it is, And then just landing on trading is, oh, this is something I'm passionate about. So I just kinda went went on and on my own." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "2183.82", "endTime": "2209.27", "body": "Yeah. I was I was struck by how he came, like, how he came on board. The I know I know firsthand that the internship program at SMB is very, very competitive, very difficult to get in. They get I mean, he told me sometime Bella told me just one time how many applications they get. It's something crazy, and they can only take just a handful." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "2209.27", "endTime": "2210.47", "body": "It was really nuts." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "2210.79", "endTime": "2211.1099", "body": "Mhmm." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "2211.1099", "endTime": "2235.32", "body": "So it seems like just to hear at the the time that he came on there and the the background he had, you I mean, they had to have it was just like a you know, he wasn't a quant. He wasn't Yeah. Didn't major in, you know, physics in college as I recall. You wouldn't look at him and say, man, traitor. Right?" }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "2235.32", "endTime": "2249.475", "body": "But he had this interest. He had this passion about it, and he didn't quite like, he could sell some pieces were there, but he didn't like, it wouldn't it wasn't polished, but you could tell he had a pieces there to be able to turn into what he is today." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "2250.1948", "endTime": "2260.1948", "body": "Yeah. So figure it out, I guess, the best way to put it right. Do the passion, focus on the process, all that stuff we talked about. But, yeah, great interview. I'm excited for more." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "2260.1948", "endTime": "2284.015", "body": "I'm sure, like, all the time, we're we're coming up with ideas of people to bring on and and all that just to break up the monotony of of dealing with the two of us talking about forcing data and the things. Sometimes, I guess, it's good to tell stories as opposed to go, you know, go super super nerdy and practical. But I had a great time. I hope to have him on and then other people from SMB as well. And I know you're you're well connected there, so I'm sure we'll get something on soon." }, { "speaker": "Michael", "startTime": "2284.015", "endTime": "2285.9348", "body": "But as always, I'm Michael Nauss." }, { "speaker": "Dave", "startTime": "2286.0742", "endTime": "2289.3542", "body": "And I'm Dave Mabe. Talk to you next week on Line Your Own Pockets." } ] }