"When it's all said and done, it's people who grow a business."
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Meet Dan Passarelli, an options expert who started his career as a “runner” on the trading floor in Chicago and worked his way up to become one of the biggest traders in his trading pit. He later found his passion for teaching and helping others take control of their financial future by empowering them with option trading skills and techniques.
In 2008, he founded Market Taker Mentoring, an education and training company focused on leveling the playing field between “Options Pros and Regular Joes” by sharing the knowledge of how to use options as instruments of risk management and how to trade them effectively and responsibly.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Dan Passarelli: I’ve been in the options space for 30 years. I started out on the trading floor in Chicago as a “runner” making $9,000 a year. Fast forward a few years and ended up as one of the biggest traders in my trading pit.
Then in 2005, the exchange asked me to teach classes for them. Long story short, I found that was my calling and my way to give back to the trading community.
In 2008, I started Market Taker Mentoring to help individuals take control of their financial future by empowering them with option trading skills and techniques.
If you were in an elevator with Warren Buffet, how would you describe your company, your services or products? What makes your company different from others? What is your company’s biggest strength?
Dan Passarelli: Well that sure would be interesting, seeing as we mainly focus on option trading.
I would say something like, “We help every day people level the playing field between “Options Pros and Regular Joes” by using options, an instrument that can be used just as successfully whether you are on Wall Street in New York, or Main Street Iowa.
It’s with a great sense of pride we share the knowledge of how to use these instruments of risk management and how to trade them effectively and responsibly.”
Back story: Warren Buffett has gone on record calling derivatives–of which options are one–financial weapons of mass destruction. That said, Warren Buffett also has famously used derivatives to make some managed risk, calculated investments that massively helped build his fortune. I think he’d maybe smile at my kidding (I hope!)
That said, that truly is our passion–the people we serve. Our student traders are our biggest strength. We embrace our community.
What advice do you wish you received when you started your business journey and what do you intend on improving in the next quarter?
Dan Passarelli: I certainly wish someone early on pointed out the difference between being good at something and being good at running a business of that something.
I’ve become an avid reader on business books since then and will be going forward. Books that helped me transcend the mindset from “working in my business” to “working on my business” were “The E-Myth Revisited” and “Traction” off the top of my head.
Online business keeps on surging higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for the year to come and how are you capitalizing on the tidal wave?
Dan Passarelli: We’ve always been a (mostly) online business since Day 1. I wouldn’t know how to be in an office anymore. In fact, last year, we hired a VP of Marketing in June 2022, and I finally met him in person in December of 2022.
We’re on Zoom together every day. Our business runs efficiently that way. That said, we also do a few in-person classes a year, and that makes them really special.
Christopher Hitchens, an American journalist, is quoted as saying that “everyone has a book in them” Have you written a book? If so, please share with us details about it. If you haven’t, what book would you like to write and how would you like it to benefit the readers?
Dan Passarelli: I have. I’ve written 2 books in fact, and have been a part of a few others (interviewed or provided a chapter). My “Known-For” book is “Trading Option Greeks”. It’s sort of the definitive source for knowledge on the trading metric for options traders known as “The Greeks.”
My other book is “The Market Taker’s Edge.“ I actually have another book “in me”. But I can still feel what that time commitment is like. I’m hoping this is the year I bite the bullet and crank it out.
2020, 2021, 2022 threw a lot of curve balls into businesses on a global scale. Based on the experience gleaned in the past years, how can businesses thrive in 2023? What lessons have you learned and what advice would you share?
Dan Passarelli: That’s the funny thing about being in the trading business. Trading, especially option trading, is all about risk management. And in the markets, as in life, the idea that anything can happen is a real one.
It’s embedded in any option trader’s psyche. This once-in-a-hundred-year pandemic is what’s known as a “Black Swan” event. It was a curveball for everyone. But these are the sorts of things that, in hindsight, we should quickly accept is not out of the normal, you know, once a hundred years passes and such.
Rare things happen rarely, but that means they do happen. I think this upheaval caused by the pandemic can be a great lesson for anyone–especially business owners–that anything can happen, and when they do, you have to adapt.
On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?
Dan Passarelli: Ooh. Tough one. Can I pick 2? They’re both about as opposite as you can get: Numbers and People.
A strict management over your numbers simplifies everything and makes it easier to see the big picture. As they say, “What is measured is improved”. All businesses run better when you’re good at the numbers. And I do focus on them. But, hey. Having it as a “superpower”, now that would be something that could make a business unstoppable.
And managing people. When it’s all said and done, it’s people who grow a business. And if all we cared about was the numbers, the people who grow the business would leave.
We’ve built a small, but tight-knit community among our key staff, as well as our customers. I think maybe the superpower I’d like to have is to master that balance of numbers and human interaction. Talk about wearing different hats…
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Dan Passarelli for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Dan Passarelli or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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