Denise Shull

I recently connected with Denise Shull, the intenationally recognized leader in market, investing, and trading psychology. A renowned author, speaker, and frequent media contributor, Denise is a celebrated performance coach who specializes in working with hedge funds, Olympic athletes, and other high-octane professionals at the top of their respective fields.

An expert in resolving mental blocks and optimizing the X-factor of human performance, Denise is known by many as the inspiration for the “Dr. Wendy Rhoades” character from “Billions” on Showtime.

Since 2004, Denise has led The ReThink Group, an elite team of risk performance and strategy advisors who guide their clients to make optimal decisions within the context of their craft – professional investing, trading, sports, arts, and entrepreneurship. Under Denise’s leadership, the team offers The Shull Method, a signature consulting and coaching framework, leveraging the latest neuroscience and psychological research into perception and judgment. The ReThink Group’s clients span four continents and over ten countries.

Denise has keynoted for UBS, Credit Suisse, MIT’s Sloan Fellows, Harvard Business School, and the US Ski and Snowboard Association. A sought-after speaker, Denise has traveled the globe to teach how confidence, conviction, intuition, instinct, and even fear work together to inform the best risk decisions and to support the most productive teams. Her 2012 book, Market Mind Games, published by McGraw Hill, has been called “the Rosetta Stone of Trading Psychology.” Her next book, tentatively titled The Feelings

You’re Not Supposed to Have, is expected in 2024.

How did you get into the work that you do?

That’s actually a good question. In some ways, it seems random. I was at IBM, getting promoted, and slated to take a leave of absence to go to Stanford B School when I realized I didn’t want to sell computers when I was 40. I quit, went to Aspen for a season, and landed myself in Chicago to get a Masters at either Chicago or Northwestern. As I was finishing my research, a trader guy I was dating persuaded me to hang with him and his trader friends in one of the first upstairs trading offices (i.e. off the trading floor). Soon, I ditched the Ph.D., traded fulltime, and moved to NYC to run a trading desk. Then someone wanted to publish my MA thesis. In rewriting it, I found out that emotions are required in all decisions. This was radical. I started talking about it and it took on a life of its own.

What was one of the most satisfying work experiences? The most frustrating? What did you learn from each?

The most satisfying is the same over and over – a client comes to see themselves more accurately through a true understanding and acceptance of their emotions and in turn starts to become more of who they are capable of being. The most frustrating probably is the opposite – someone who hires me but is psychologically defended against really understanding their feelings.

The thing I learned many times is to judge their openness and calibrate my questions to move each one forward.

As most of our readers are women, what do you think is the biggest emotional blockage that keeps women from achieving their goals? (i.e.…Imposter syndrome, confidence, courage)?

Not understanding how to use their frustration, anger, and aggression in a way that’s effective – feeling guilty, bowing to the pressure to be positive.

You consulted on “Billions.” How do you feel your work was represented in the hit series?

This is a loaded topic and in some ways, the most frustrating work experience.

There are certain moments where the show borrows Wendy, Axe, or Taylor’s words from my Twitter feed or my book, “Market Mind Games,” so those moments are quite good. They are, however, subtle and the average viewer won’t get it. Rath- er they have an overriding impression of Wendy being conflicted over power versus the quality of her work. entered the cannabis world in 2014, working for a variety of companies in her career prior to founding Commons. She also serves as a member of the board of directors for Akerna Corp., Ceres Acquisition Corp., and the Last Prisoner Project.

What would you like to share about your background?

Anyone can make it to the next level with the right understanding of themselves.

What type of clients do you currently work with?

I am a risk and decision consultant working with Olympic and pro athletes, investing clients (hedge funders, traders, bankers), and individuals across the entertainment, healthcare, and art world.

How can readers contact you?

Readers can contact me via my website – https://therethinkgroup.net. You can also find me on Twitter @DeniseKShull, where I am pretty active.

Jacqueline Bennett is Chief Growth Officer at Commons and Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Highlands Venture Partners. She is a crusader for unlocking possibilities through community building, product innovation and provocative conversation. She invests in and advises teams building companies in emerging categories including cannabis and psychedelics with a focus on supporting women and minorities. Jacqueline is a Committee Member at Council for Federal Cannabis Regulation (CFCR), Council Member at NationSwell, and Advisory Board Member at Last Prisoner Project, NOVRA Capital and VITAL Card.

Tahira and Jacqueline sat down with us to share more information on why they entered lung cancer, as happens with a lot of families who are going through that experience. My mother started looking for alternative treatments and kept coming across cannabis in her late night Google searches and this was 2013, so there wasn’t a lot out there. My family is in Ohio and so it certainly was not one of the early legal markets either. So just the awareness that kind of came to us was the lack of availability and the understanding that there was so much information out there about how cannabis could really help people. But all we knew was the illegal stigma side of it. I was really surprised by what I started to learn, especially on the racial justice side. That was just something that I felt like was a hidden element of the industry, that a whole different narrative was shared with us at that time. There was so much more opportunity, but the same people who really paved the path for cannabis and legalization and the opportunities that came from the power of the plant were also being left out of the industry. And the more that the market became available, the less people seemed to understand it. There’s just a big gap in education and understanding and so we wanted to create something that would real- ly focus on access, on education and financial opportunity for a wider range of people.

Jacqueline: I worked with a lot of early stage disruptive brands who are now not early stage. So it would be companies that were doing things differently in their categories, whether it was Rent the Runway, or Peloton, or Sweetgreen, just kind of taking a category and doing something differently. And it gave me a good appreciation for why things worked, why they didn’t work. I found I just had this sort of fascination for emerging markets, anything emerging. I came across cannabis through that, and through my role at J.P. Morgan, ended up moving into the industry. And then seeing that there was a lot of interesting discoveries around the endocannabinoid system and how that related to the female reproductive system, and that we were seeing sort of parallel movement and advancement in products formulations that can actually improve the life and life cycle of a woman and sort of take away that normalization of pain.

What is your model?

Our approach is a little different. We have Ambassadors and customers. Customers buy directly from the website, and Ambassadors are our advocates who can also earn commission by selling products and/or building a team, while receiving exclusive discounts and educational resources. We wanted to create a real community and a way for people to earn additional income sharing products that actually help people.

What did you learn on the way? What was something surprising or uplifting? We have learned so much from our Ambassadors and customers -- that so many people struggle with sleep, pain, anxiety and are desperate to find solutions. People are also needing and wanting additional ways to earn income. Commons allows for both! The testimonials we receive are incredibly validating and uplifting, reminding us on our toughest days that we’re on the right track and as long as we stick to our mission of democratizing access to health and wellness products and the opportunity to participate in the cannabinoid industry.