Tom Sosnoff joins The Wall Street Coach Podcast to discuss trading, entrepreneurship, and how he lives his bliss by doing what he loves everyday.
Now considered a top trader and businessman, Tom got his start as a floor trader at the CBOE. But trading is just one of Tom’s great skills, as he went on to co-found thinkorswim, which was sold in 2009 to TD Ameritrade for approximately $606M. Since then, Tom left the company to start tastytrade, which was recently acquire by IG Group for over $1 billion. Tom continues to trade and host live shows for tastytrade everyday.
In this episode we dig into some of the incredibly unique perspectives that Tom has on risk taking and long term investing. As he explains, he believes that we’ve become far too risk averse as a society and would benefit from not being so afraid of risk in general.
He also has a controversial take on trading psychology, which we get into with Tom – but in the end, I believe we both agree – the market is a place that you need to leave your emotions at the door.
If you’re a serious trader, I encourage you to really listen to Tom’s words. Tom thinks differently and sees opportunities everywhere he looks. He takes risks and he trusts himself. We could all benefit from living a little more like him.
Jawad Mian on Independent Thinking, Spiritual Clarity, and Filtering Noise in Markets
Jawad Mian on Independent Thinking, Spiritual Clarity, and Filtering Noise in Markets
Jawad Mian joins Kim to discuss his book Stray Reflections, his approach to markets, and the role spirituality plays in helping him find clarity. As a macro thinker with a global client base, Jawad brings a different kind of market conversation: less fixation on short-term noise and more attention to truth, self-knowledge, and independent thought.
The value of this episode is not just in the market commentary. It is in the way Jawad connects identity, values, and investing decisions. He talks about neutrality, confidence without ego, faith, and how to keep your process intact when the surrounding world gets loud or unstable.
The Trader Positioning Index (TPI) is a 15-minute clinical-grade assessment that measures 70+ indicators of your decision-making under pressure – and delivers a 35+ page personalised report with a custom action roadmap. Learn more about the TPI ->
Jawad Mian is the founder of Stray Reflections, a global macro research and trading advisory focused on major investment themes. His work is known for independence, intellectual clarity, and a willingness to challenge conventional thinking. In this episode, he brings that same perspective into a discussion about markets, identity, and how to come back to center.
Key insights from this episode
An unconventional background can be an edge. Jawad argues that being outside standard market conditioning can help investors think more independently and see value where others do not.
Neutrality is not passivity. It is the ability to stay centered enough to think clearly rather than react impulsively.
Knowing yourself matters as much as knowing markets. The better you understand your own motives, the harder it is for noise and ego to pull you off process.
Faith, values, and morals are not separate from investing. They shape how you interpret risk, opportunity, and what kind of life your money is meant to support.
Confidence and humility have to coexist. Independent thinking works best when it is paired with openness to being wrong.
54:20 – Hormone disruptors 55:15 – Naturally creating estrogen and testosterone in relationships 58:15 – Burning off adrenaline
John Gray on Balancing Hormones
John Gray joins Kim and Lucas to discuss the importance of properly balancing hormones in your body for optimal mental and physical performance. Gray dives into how imbalances of estrogen and testosterone in both men and women can impact their moods, appearance, and sexual drive. This episode also touches on how traders can be susceptible to becoming addicted to stimulation. Gray explains how elevated levels of adrenaline in the body can cause lasting damage and also touches on the dangers of taking testosterone supplements.
Jane Gallina on Dark Pools, Crypto, and Moving with the Market
Jane Gallina aka Airplane Jane joins Kim and Lucas to discuss how her trading has transformed by following dark pool prints, her insights around crypto, and how she adapts to new information in order to move with the market. As the author of ‘#FMJ Trust Transition Trade: How Successful Traders Said It, Did It and Lived It’ a book dedicated to women in trading, Jane has become a leading voice in the female trading community.
In this conversation Jane dives into how her experience as a market participant has helped her profit and avoid major drawdowns by keeping a close eye on major dollar volume moves created by dark pools entering and leaving the market. But it’s not just dark pools that Jane relies on – she also brings attention to the fact that the markets and people have patterns, and by recognizing these patterns she’s able to step in at the right time to catch big profits.
Over the past few years Jane has become extremely curious about cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. Jane offers her opinion about the future of country currencies transitioning completely to digital and how she spotted and analyzed a 81-trillion dollar volume creation, transferring, and burning of $USDC on the blockchain using etherscan. Armed with this information, Jane believes that it is just a matter of time before all world currencies shift to blockchain.
Above all, Jane’s curiosity and open-mind drives her to keep searching for new ways to learn and profit from the markets. Jane’s constant desire to get a peek behind the curtain is what has led to much of her success and her passion for understanding dark pools, cryptocurrencies, and why the market moves.
Kathy Donnelly on Growth Stock Leaders, Patience, and Preserving Mental Capital
Kathy Donnelly on Growth Stock Leaders, Patience, and Preserving Mental Capital
Kathy Donnelly joins Kim and Lucas to discuss how she identifies growth stock leaders and why patience matters far more than most traders want to admit. Built on years of studying past winners and on the William O’Neil tradition, Kathy’s work focuses on the kind of stocks that can be held for outsized moves while keeping downside tightly controlled.
What makes this episode stand out is the emphasis on mental capital, not just money. Kathy talks through how she thinks during corrections, how she practices patience, and how investors can avoid wasting emotional energy on the wrong setups. It is a useful episode for anyone who wants to think beyond entries and start protecting attention, conviction, and psychological bandwidth.
The Trader Positioning Index (TPI) is a 15-minute clinical-grade assessment that measures 70+ indicators of your decision-making under pressure – and delivers a 35+ page personalised report with a custom action roadmap. Learn more about the TPI ->
Kathy Donnelly is an investor and coauthor of The Lifecycle Trade. Her work focuses on identifying young, high-potential growth stocks and managing positions in a way that allows for large upside without taking reckless downside risk. In this episode, she brings that framework into a practical discussion of patience, corrections, and how to focus on what really matters.
Key insights from this episode
Finding growth leaders in a weak market is possible, but it requires selectivity and patience rather than constant action.
Mental Capital Preservation matters. Protecting your attention and emotional clarity is just as important as protecting cash.
Corrections should not automatically trigger panic. Kathy emphasizes waiting, observing, and staying aligned with a broader plan instead of reacting to every shakeout.
FOMO is often a patience problem. The more clearly traders know what they are looking for, the less likely they are to chase noise.
Position trading requires knowing what you really want to focus on, in the market and outside it. The quality of your process is tied to the quality of your broader priorities.
Episode chapters
0:25 – Introducing Kathy Donnelly and The Lifecycle Trade
3:20 – The Fives Stages of Burnout 13:00 – Ways to Tend to Burnout and Nourish Your Soul 19:45 – How the Needs of Others and the World at Large Impact You 21:10 – Finding What Works for You 24:00 – Symptoms (Emotional Exhaustion, Compassion Fatigue, Placing Blame, Prolong Feelings of Depression and Anxiety, Reduced Sense of Accomplishment) 37:25 – How We Use the Positioning Index to Identify Signs of Burnout and Lack of Self-Care 40:00 – How Self-Care Can Compound 41:50 – Is Burnout a Blind Spot for You?
Burnout
Kim and Lucas dive into the all too common phenomenon of burnout. There are many warning signs along the way, but most people don’t recognize the symptoms in themselves until they’re emotionally, mentally, and physically debilitated.
Kim shares her recent experience with overwhelm that went unchecked that landed her down and out with her back giving out on her. It was a shocking experience that forced her to stop everything. As Kim recounts, the warning signs were there along the way, but she felt like she needed to push through.
When you’re experiencing burnout it can feel like you’re at the end of your rope. This can lead you to react in ways that you know aren’t in your best interest. For traders, this can unfortunately turn into blowing up your account. The sooner you can notice the warning signs like reduced select of accomplishment, emotional exhaustion, placing blame, or any of the other tells in yourself, the better you can protect yourself and your trading account.
One of the most difficult aspects of being a professional trader is defining and developing your own work-life balance. When there’s no one that tells you when it’s time to clock-in and clock-out, it can lead to too much time at the desk. So it’s up to you to create a supreme sense of self-awareness in order to recognize when it’s time to put in the extra hours and when it’s time to take a step back.
Adventure athlete and leadership coach Jason Caldwell joins Kim and Lucas to discuss his book Navigating the Impossible and his world record experiences rowing across oceans. In this interview Jason breakdown how fighting through storms, both literal and figurative, have shaped the way he approaches communication, relationships, and emotional wellbeing.
Though rowing a boat across the Atlantic Ocean is drastically different than trading equities, Jason draws the comparison of how trading and rowing can both be emotionally taxing and lead to poor decisions under acute stress. In this conversation, Jason underscores the importance of creating a detailed plan or mission statement while in a stable and neutral state of mind before setting out on any journey that will be physically, psychologically, or emotionally exhausting.
Jason has take the lessons he’s learned firsthand to help others achieve their personal goal as a leadership coach.
Frank Casey on Bernie Madoff, Due Diligence, and the Danger of Easy Returns
Frank Casey on Bernie Madoff, Due Diligence, and the Danger of Easy Returns
Frank Casey joins Kim and Lucas to discuss how his background in options and financial analysis helped him recognize the fraud behind Bernie Madoff’s operation. What makes the conversation valuable for traders is not just the story itself, but the psychological pattern underneath it: the temptation to believe in smooth, easy, consistently profitable outcomes without asking enough hard questions.
Casey is candid that his motives were not purely noble at the start. He wanted to compete for clients who had been drawn into Madoff’s orbit, and he could see that no legitimate manager could match those suspiciously clean returns. But the more he studied the situation, the more obvious it became that this was bigger than one man’s book of business. For traders and investors, the lesson is timeless: if something looks impossible but emotionally appealing, that is exactly when skepticism matters most.
The Trader Positioning Index (TPI) is a 15-minute clinical-grade assessment that measures 70+ indicators of your decision-making under pressure – and delivers a 35+ page personalised report with a custom action roadmap. Learn more about the TPI ->
Frank Casey is an options expert and market professional whose analytical work helped expose Bernie Madoff’s fraud. In this episode, he explains how his experience in markets made the warning signs hard to ignore and why investor psychology often prevents people from seeing obvious risk when the returns feel too good to question.
Key insights from this episode
Consistent returns without believable drawdowns should trigger suspicion, not admiration. That kind of smoothness is often the exact thing investors want emotionally, which is why it becomes so dangerous.
People ignore red flags when greed and relief are involved. Casey’s Madoff story becomes a broader lesson in how smart people can become willfully blind if the payoff feels easy enough.
Due diligence is not optional. Traders and investors need verification habits that go beyond hope, storytelling, and trust in appearances.
Markets reward skepticism more than fantasy. If your process depends on believing impossible things, the real risk may be psychological before it is financial.
Protecting capital often starts with asking uncomfortable questions early instead of explaining them away later.
Episode chapters
The current source material for this page does not include a full original chapter list, so none are added here.
Professional big wave surfer Shane Dorian joins Kim and Lucas to discuss riding big waves on the ocean and chasing big returns in stocks. Shane describes similarities between trading stocks and surfing, including patience, timing, and prioritizing risk management.
Following the CANSLIM system, created by William O’Neil, Shane identifies as a swing/position trader and has seen massive upside in his trading for over a decade. Shane breaks down a few recent trades that he’s taken, including what he describes as a “life changing trade” on RIOT in late-2020.
Lisa Rangel, CEO and Founder of Chameleon Resumes, joins Kim and Lucas to discuss staying prepared for new professional opportunities.
Lisa’s unique view on getting and staying prepared includes keeping tabs on your social presence, updating your resume, and a refreshing take networking.
