My entire life and career were changed by a single phone call. No doubt, it was God shining His light down on me. I went to a non-target school (LIU) for undergrad. I was completely obsessed with trading. I blew up a few hundred bucks early on in college, but eventually stumbled across a niche strategy that took me from $1,200 to $58,000. At the time, I felt like a millionaire lol. Right out of college, I started applying to trading firms, no internships, no network, no real guidance. It was a grind. I spent months firing off emails and applications for junior trader roles. Occasionally, I’d get a call from a recruiter, but I mainly never made it to an actual interview. It got so bad that I started standing outside trading firms with my resume and “track record” in hand. I’d wait for PMs to leave around 4:30, trying to match their face to a LinkedIn profile. If I spotted them, I’d walk up, introduce myself, and hand them my track record with my resume. Most were polite (some were not lol), said they’d pass it along to HR, but it almost always went nowhere. Then one day, I saw a job post for a junior trader role. The listing was 10 minutes or so old. This time, it had something different: a phone number. I said, “fuck it,” and called. An older guy picked up, kept cutting off my intro, yelling, “I can’t hear you! Where are you?!” After my third attempt, he just said, “Meet me at the Starbucks in Southampton. Wednesday. Noon.” I showed up in a tie. And as God as my witness this interview lasted about six hours. We talked about trading, market structure, war stories, and what he was trying to build. I had no idea who this man was, but I knew I wanted to learn how to trade professionally. I wanted a real seat with real risk. Turns out, that man was Robert Kanter, a derivatives legend from the CBOE pit. Founder and first president of the CBOE Market Maker Association. Four decades of double-digit returns. He launched and ran ETG in the ’90s. A true volatility icon, semi-retired in the Hamptons, just looking to play the game again, for the love of it. I ended up working for Bob. It was brutally hard, but everything I know about trading options came from that experience. To this day, I’m forever grateful I picked up the phone and made that call. If he hadn’t answered (God’s grace), my life would’ve taken a completely different path.