Billions’ Psychologist on People’s Misconception About Success

For some of Denise Shull’s clients, being in a slump might mean losing millions of dollars of other people’s money. Shull is the founder of the ReThink Group, a performance coaching group that specializes in clients on Wall Street. She’s also one of the inspirations for Wendy Rhoades, the in-house psychiatrist at the fictional hedge fund at the center of Showtime’s hit show “Billions.” Shull studied the neuropsychology of unconscious thought at the University of Chicago and spent 15 years as an equities trader. They are two worlds she combined when she started ReThink in 2003, putting her own spin on the niche market of Wall Street performance coaching, a path paved by the late psychiatrist Ari Kiev, who was employed by Steve Cohen’s hedge fund SAC Capital.