In this episode of The Trader's Journey, Anthony sits down with Max Ganik, Senior Trader at SMB Capital, to discuss his path into professional stock trading.

Max was introduced to markets at an early age, started trading options as a teenager, and eventually chose prop trading over the traditional sales & trading route after graduating from the University of Michigan.

Max walks us through his first year on the desk in 2020, the wild momentum markets that shaped his early edge, and how he evolved from small-cap scalper to options-focused large-cap and idea trader. He breaks down his framework for grading his trades, overcoming drawdowns, how he thinks about risk tiers, and much more.

In this episode of The Trader's Journey, Anthony sits down with Dave Mabe – computer scientist, trader, and former CTO of Trade Ideas – to unpack how backtesting and automation can transform a "good idea" into a rules-based, data-backed trading system.

Dave shares his path from journaling trades and thinking like an engineer, to running formal backtests, stress-testing strategies, and eventually automating execution. Whether you're a discretionary trader curious about data, or already running systems and looking to avoid curve-fitting disasters, this episode gives you a blueprint for turning ideas into robust strategies.

In this episode of The Trader's Journey, Anthony Nieto speaks with Dr. Brett Steenbarger, the world's leading trading psychologist, performance coach to hedge funds and proprietary firms, and author of landmark books including The Psychology of Trading and The Daily Trading Coach.

Dr. Steenbarger shares how curiosity, entrepreneurship, mentoring, and new technologies can help shape trader success — and why every trader already has the "seed" of success inside them.