Oct. 19, 2026

#159: Market Wizard Lance Breitstein: Not Impossible, Just Improbable

Show Notes

This week Steve Goldstein and Mark Randall are joined by Lance Breitstein, one of the traders featured in Jack Schwager’s Market Wizards: The Next Generation.

Lance first read the Market Wizards series as a student, and years later he became one of the traders in it. Before that, though, he spent two years at Trillium Trading losing money, including a whole month when he lost every single day, and had the head of HR come down to ask what was going wrong. He talks openly about nearly quitting, setting himself a six-month “stop loss” on his career, and then breaking through to months where he made a year’s salary in a week.

This isn’t an episode about secret indicators. It’s about the human side of trading: what it really takes to make it, why most people never do, and why, for those with realistic expectations and a powerful reason to keep going, it can still be one of the most rewarding careers there is.

In this episode:

The three pillars of performance: natural talent, how hard you work, and how effective those hours are
Why hard work means something very different to most people, and the trap of doing the “comfortable” work
Finding your powerful why, the reason that keeps you going when every sign says quit
Why retail success rates fall well below 1% once influencers and funded-trader programmes get involved
Delayed gratification, and why trading’s learning curve is better than most performance careers
“Reality is undefeated”: making career decisions on expected value
How sleep, drinking and lifestyle show up directly in your P&L

About Lance Breitstein

Lance Breitstein is a professional trader and educator with more than 15 years of experience in the markets. He became one of Trillium Trading’s top performers, setting the firm’s all-time annual P&L record with roughly $17 million in profits in 2020, and has generated more than $100 million in verified trading profits over his career. Lance was recently featured in Jack Schwager’s Market Wizards: The Next Generation.

Find Lance

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.