From Dorm Room to Trading Floor: How Market Psychology Reveals the Mindset Secrets Every Entrepreneur Needs with Anmol Singh

Intro: [00:00:00] After generating over a million dollars in sales and selling one of her businesses with a single email, your host Katherine Thompson, takes an unconventional approach to marketing and sales. So if you are ready to tap into a more powerful way to be seen, heard, and a Sought after Entrepreneur in your industry without having to spend endless hours marketing your business and chasing clients, you are in the right place.

Be The Sought After Entrepreneur Podcast is here to help you ditch the cookie cutter one size fits all approach to marketing, and use your unique energy to effortlessly attract the most aligned clients when you do this. You can spend less time marketing your business and more time doing your soul work and enjoying the richness of your life.

Welcome to Be The Sought After Entrepreneur Podcast, and here's your host, Kathryn Thompson. 

kathryn thompson: Hey, hey. I am super stoked to have anal sing on [00:01:00] the show today to share a really unique story that I know all of you are going to really resonate with. So without further ado, I'm just gonna turn it over to you anal to share with our listeners who you are, what you do.

Guest: Perfect. Thanks for having me. Looking forward to chatting with you. Uh, so I trade the stock market for a living. Uh, that's kind of how I started back in when I was 18 years old, and I've been doing that ever since. So. Started off with the stock market and then I got into coaching, so coaching, uh, traders, investors, people who are wanting to build wealth, uh, via the stock market.

And then, uh, that turned into writing a book because, you know, one of the things I learned is like trading is like the biggest personal development course you'll ever take. You know, like the p and l your account swinging, like you're, it really takes a lot of emotional control and I found myself helping the traders more so like with the emotional psychology part.

Uh, and that's what parlayed into writing my book, uh, prepping for Success, uh, 10 keys for Making It, uh, which is all about the things that I learned in my journey. And, uh, yeah, apart from the book, I have other business [00:02:00] ventures. I advise clients, uh, as an advisor for hedge fund clients, as well as I have some Airbnb, uh, portfolio as well.

kathryn thompson: So. Cool. So cool. And there's so much I want to dive into here. Uh, 'cause I know that a lot of my listeners are, obviously they're all entrepreneurs and just to be able to sort of diversify even. Where their, where their revenue's coming in from. But I want to dive into, and it's funny that you say the thing about the personal development, 'cause I always say that having your own business as an Entrepreneur, personal brand is like personal develop on steroids, but trading the stock market and watching everything fluctuate, I'm sure it's, it's a whole other, whole other ball game.

But um, so how did you get into it? 

Guest: I got into it, like I was in college in my dorm room, you know, typical introvert on my Xbox all the time. And I was wondering, okay, what can I do from my computer where I don't have to talk to people, I don't have to deal office politics, like what can I actually do? And in college, like I joined like a lot of clubs and societies, like, you know, really I.

Trying to get outta my [00:03:00] introverted shell. And I noticed that, you know, there was somebody, I think that this guy in my dorm, he mentioned, Hey, do you know about the stock market? I was like, no. But it's kind of fascinating and I think, uh, why stocks go up and down, who decides that? And we became really curious.

I. So then we, uh, opened the Trading and investing club in our college, and we would just meet up a, you know, started with a group of three people, then grew like 10 and 20 and 30. And we started that club where we'd meet once a week and just talk about maybe a book we read or what we learned about the stock market.

Just trying to like piece things together. And I mean, now, several years later, it's a thriving club in society and college that still runs till date. And, uh, we started that. So that's how the seeds were planted. And then we would just talk about what, what we watched on CNBC or a book we read. And then I started like, you know, really researching into it and, uh, became a freelance article writer for like Yahoo Finance and, uh, some other companies in my college.

And, uh, they were paying not much like they were paying a 500 or $1,500 in article. As a college student, I was like, I'm gonna write 10 of them. You know, I'm just gonna write article after article. And that's how I initially [00:04:00] collected the money, uh, to even start like getting into trading myself. But, uh, my research was pretty good that, you know, they said, okay, we want you to write for us.

Uh, but at that time, I didn't really have enough of my own money saved to trade or invest, but I collected that money through that. And then, I mean, now here we are. 

kathryn thompson: Yeah. So in terms of trading, then, like you, I wanna talk about the money piece of it is like, what do people need? Because from you, you kind of started from scratch, right?

You didn't have the, you just didn't have the investments to invest. Started to pool your money together through the jobs that you had and then was able to invest. Like what do people need to have to start investing? 

Guest: I think to start investing, you don't need to have anything really, like anybody can start investing like today.

'cause whatever job you have existing where whether you have a business, you should always be investing, let's say 10%. Off whatever your income is automatically into the stock market. So that's different from trading. So trading is where we're buying and selling active stocks. We're trying [00:05:00] to time the market.

It's much more involved. Uh, whereas investing is something that everybody should be doing because if you do that and the market, let's say, gives you 10%, you know, annualized return. Then basically your money's gonna double, double every 6.8 years. So just by investing, not even timing the market, not even looking at it.

So I think to get started with investing, all you need is a current source of income, whether it's from your job or your business. Uh, you need to have a brokerage account, which you can open with any broker online. These is so easy. You can do it on your phone and you can set up auto transfers. And I think that's a great way to do it, like not try to time the market because there's always gonna be something keeping away.

Us away from investing in the market. Oh, there's the tariffs. Oh, market's down. We're not gonna invest. And now look at it. We're right back up again. Oh, there's COVID. We don't wanna put on the money in the market. And we're like way higher than where we were in COVID. Oh, there's a war. There's always gonna be something to dissuade you from investing.

But if you realize that just the normal market cycles, and if you get comfortable just by investing every single month or every single week, whatever frequency you choose, your money's gonna double every 6.78 years. And that's without doing [00:06:00] anything. Yeah. And then when it comes to trading, same thing. You need a brokerage account.

Well, you typically need to have some substantial savings for a trading. Uh, if you want to get into short term day trading, you need at least $25,000, at least in the us not so much in other countries, but it's a US law to have $25,000. Uh, but if you wanna do what we call swing trading, where we buy a stock, maybe today, we hold it for a few weeks or maybe a month or so.

Then again, you could do that with anything you have. Uh, but you do need an open mind. You need a willingness to learn. Uh, this is pretty much, it's like another job. You gotta learn the skills, but I think a lot of people end up gambling rather than trading. They read something online or somebody told them a tip, you know, or everybody's buying the stock, so now I'm gonna jump in.

That's, you know, basically the same as a casino. And, uh, you might as well go to a casino at least it's more fun that way. Losing money. Yeah. 

kathryn thompson: So, so just in terms of the, the gambling piece of it, right? Like you, we, I wanna dive into that because I do think there's probably a fear there. I mean, I know there's a fear there with, I.

Well, investing in general, [00:07:00] people pulling their money out when things start to crash a bit and go down, right? When we always say like, hold it. Don't, don't take out your long-term investments because tariffs came in and now we're seeing a crash. Right? But with the trading, there's probably a whole other mindset game with the trading piece of it.

Then there is long-term investments, which is very different. 

Guest: Oh, absolutely, because investing doesn't require any work really. You just have to have a discipline to automatically invest and you don't need to do anything. With trading, it's, uh, very different because in trading we'd go, we might have large sums of money in like one or two like core positions.

Uh, so we can't just hold it and hope for it to come back up. Right? Because it might, it might come back up, but it might take years or two years to come back up. So there's also opportunity cost. Yeah, what that capital is doing. So in trading you have to be very good at like getting in and out, and you have to be very disciplined.

So if you say, okay, I buy the stock at a hundred dollars per share. If it goes down to 95, I'm gonna get out and take my loss. And B actually be able to get out when it goes to 95 rather than holding it, oh, I think it's gonna come back up, or [00:08:00] let me buy more shares. You know, maybe it'll come back up. But that's the same thing as hope.

And hope is not a strategy. Uh, so we're trading emotional control is really important because, uh, of the large sums of money, uh, and the ability to get in and out. And same way on the upside too. You might buy a stock, let's say a hundred dollars a share, and you say, okay, if it goes to 120, that's my target to take my profit.

And it goes to one 20, but then greed kicks in. I think it's gonna go to one 30. Yeah. And then you never sell it. So it's like the maybes, I think like all those things ruin a trader's career. Uh, a trader needs to be very disciplined. Okay. This is kind of like, you know, it's similar to running a business.

If you have a shop, you know, in your, uh, you're, let's say you're on a retail store and you're selling an item for. $25 retail price, unless the customer comes to buy it at 25, you have to sell it. You're not gonna be like, I can you pay 30, you know? Yeah, yeah. You can't do that. So I think same thing with trading.

You have to be disciplined in terms of what your plan really is. 

kathryn thompson: Yeah. So is, and then in terms of the, what I what? What's been the sort of the scariest moment for you? 

Guest: I think [00:09:00] scariest. Um, I wouldn't say anything is scary at the moment just because I've come to a point where I'm like, I have automation in my, uh, trading platform.

So if it goes to my predefined loss limit, it's automatically exited. So then all my losses are the same. So there's no surprise. But early on, I had many surprises in my career, uh, when I wasn't mentally disciplined, I wasn't prepared, or I was like, you know, you are losing on a trade, but you're like. You know, you kind of like revenge trading.

Yeah. Uh, next one, I'm gonna get it all back. I'm gonna put double the money in and you make all these mistakes and you learn your lessons the hard way. Uh, but I think those are the mistakes that every trader makes. It's very normal to have. That is just that not having it be a regular part of your trading, you know, having it happen.

Maybe one out of like 50 trades or something. 

kathryn thompson: Yeah. And then was, was that what kind of steered you into sort of like the mental discipline, the emotional side of things? Like to get, like how did you get into that part of it? 

Guest: Yeah, totally. I think for me, I was always, even as a kid growing up, like I was always into like [00:10:00] personal development.

'cause you know, growing up, like I, I didn't, I felt like I didn't belong. I felt like I didn't fit in or, you know, being an introvert, you're always like, why am I, you know, why can I cannot connect with people? So it was always like part of my journey to, like, I was reading Paul a Colo at like 16 or 70, you know, studying NLP and hypnosis at like 16 years old.

So it's like, um, it was always as a way of improving myself. Yeah. Uh, but then when I came in trading, I discovered a whole different side of me that I didn't know existed. You know, the greed, the fear of like the lack of discipline, lack of accountability because you know, growing up your parents are telling you what to do.

Then you go to school, your teachers are telling you what to do. Then you go to college, your professors are telling you what to do. Then you go get a job. Your manager, supervisors telling you what to do. As an Entrepreneur, as a trader, nobody's gonna tell you what to do. You have to tell yourself what to do.

So if you're, say you're gonna get out of the stock. Then you better be getting out, right? Like if you say I'm gonna hold the stock till my target, but then you end up getting out before your target 'cause you're fearful. What if it comes down, have a little bit of profit there, lemme take a small little profit [00:11:00] and then you watch it go up to your target, like, why did I not hold it?

So like all those things come into play and uh, you know, really have to work on the emotional discipline, the ability to almost be robotic, right? I call it robotic indifference in trading, where your only loyalty is to your trading plan that you've created and you just have to follow the odds and the numbers.

Kind of like a casino. You know, you go to a casino, we're trying to be the casino rather than the player in the casino. You know, if you go to a casino and you win a million dollars, they're not gonna mine. They're gonna give you the money. In fact, they're gonna say, here's some free drinks. Here's a free stay.

Keep playing. Yes. Because you know, you play in the end, they're gonna come out ahead. So same thing with trading. I don't know what I'm gonna make on the next trade. Right? And not LV trade's gonna win. Maybe 50% win. 60%, 50% don't win. But the key is when I win, I wanna make sure the winner's bigger than my average loser.

Uh, and if I just do that, then it's, uh, basically just a numbers game at that point. 

kathryn thompson: Yeah. I love that whole analogy of like, just becoming almost like a, a robot, right? Not allowing the, not that we wanna be robots [00:12:00] necessarily, but like, but, but I think in entrepreneurship and personal brands and, and all of that, I think the same is true.

Right? A lots of, well, lots of my clients I see make those deep emotional. Kneejerk reactions, right? So when they're running their Facebook ads and they're, they've got a set budget, and then they're not seeing the results in the timeframe that they want. And so then they get those kneejerk reactions, well, we should change it.

We should tweak it, we should, whatever. And I'm always like, no, we just have to hold it. Based on sort of the plan and the same, I mean, I, I think too, what you're dealing with is obviously money, which there's a lot of conditioning around money, and there's a lot of fear around money. And obviously we need money to live in a modern society and, and pay for houses and all the things.

So, so there's, there's a deep, deep, um, fear around that and losing that. Um, is there any other, like, do you see. Sort of patterns of mindset stuff that you see with other traders like that they, that they make, that like goes [00:13:00] against their, this robotic sense that we need to have in order to, to stay the course.

Guest: I mean, I think you make a great point. Like money is like a, such a eyeopener. 'cause you know, I had a, I have a lot of my clients are very successful people. 'cause to come into trading, you have to have some level of success in your prior business or your job. And you know, they're like ex CEOs of companies.

They are doctors, lawyers, like really successful people. But when they come into the market. They're almost like little kids, like, completely ignore. I'm like, what are you doing? Like, you wouldn't do that in your job. And like, why are you gambling o over into the stock market shows you a very different side of them.

Uh, 'cause that's very, um. It's not a skill that's natural to us, you know? 'cause you're coming from a job environment. Again, everybody's telling you what to do. Here's your job list for the day. Here's your to-do list for the day. And you come into trading. It's just you and the computer. There's literally nobody gonna tell you anything.

And uh, so it brings a different side of you when there's no, I. Like accountability, right? Because, uh, every, nobody's looking over your shoulder. It's so easy to make a mistake. Close your laptop. [00:14:00] Nobody will ever find out the stupid things you've done. Yeah, right. Nobody looking over your shoulder. I think that's thing like I've learned is hardest one to coach people is the self-accountability.

Uh, but then the characteristics of people who make, uh, good traders have been like ex pilots or ex poker players for the reason that poker players are very, they know the concept of risk. You gotta be in it to win it. You know when to hold it. No, when to fold it, right. Pilots, no matter, there might be 10 thousands of, you know, flight time, they might have, they have a lot of experience flying for 10 years.

But even though, no matter how experienced they are, every single time a pilot is gonna go through the checklist every single time. A good trader will always go through the checklist rather than trading on emotion or based on feel. Uh, so I think those are really important aspects, not just the trading, but also entrepreneurship.

'cause running your own business, your clients, you know, nobody's gonna tell them what to do. That's why you need coaches like yourself, and you need people involved that can guide you in the right direction and maybe check up on you, you know, how you proceeding along with things. So those are really important.

I think the best analogy I would say is like, you gotta [00:15:00] be like ai, right? Like if you give a job to ai. Uh, AI is not gonna be like, oh, or if I'm not good enough, I don't think I can do it. No. AI is just gonna do if then, if this, then that. Right? Yeah. So trading is the same way. If this happens to this market or the stock, then you do this.

If this happens, then you do that rather than saying, oh, why did it happen? So you gotta be like AI basically. 

kathryn thompson: Yeah. Yeah. And that's such a great analogy, right? Because, and I joke about this with clients too and and whatnot. I'm like. I have this relationship with AI now because I just tell it. I say, this is, this is what's going on, this is what's happening, and it just shoots right back to me.

A very matter of fact thing, like there's no, it's not emotionally of invested in what I'm sharing with it. So it's like, do this, do this, do this, do this. Right? And of course you can. You can listen to it or not listen to it, but. Again, I think the self-accountability piece is so huge and I think a, I know a lot of my clients and a lot of my listeners that they might not even recognize that right now in [00:16:00] terms of like the self-accountability, no one's going to save you and your business and all of that, and the emotional decisions.

That I see often that get made are the ones that are so detrimental to business. Not that we don't want to be emotional, it's just we make these knee jerk reactions based on fear really. Right. 

Guest: Yeah. And the emotion control is like huge. But uh, don't use this as relationship advice. Yeah. That's what my, that's what my ex told me.

She's like, she's like, why are you always so calm? Like you never come back with anything. I'm just like, that's how I'm trained. Yeah. She's like, you know, you can share anything, but you're just like always centered and calm and. You know, it didn't, uh, you shouldn't like that very much. 

kathryn thompson: Interesting, interesting.

Because you would think you would want sort of a grounded calm, not a lot of things sort of ruffle your feathers. I often yeah. Might, will say that to me. You're so, you're, you're cool as a cucumber. And I'm like, I. Interesting because I, 'cause I can get quite worked up [00:17:00] and, but I can ground myself very quickly as well.

Um, but I also know not to make knee jerk reactions, so I'm always like, okay, I'm just gonna hold it for a second and just, and just wait. Yeah. The mindset is huge, I think in, in business and trading, dealing with money in, in any way, shape or form. And so in terms of your coaching then, so do you coach people how to become traders or are you working with already existing traders?

Coaching them through sort of the mindset stuff of it, or both? 

Guest: Yeah, I would say like two, three different ways of working. Uh, so one of them, yeah, they're like people who've never traded. Yeah. You know, they're brand new. Uh, so then typically those people go through our, you know, online curriculum programs, courses that have already been created if you're brand new.

Yeah, because otherwise it's not cost effective to hire me to coach you the course. Just watch it, right? Yeah. So like that's one way. The others are people who have already been trading. Either they've gone through the courses or they've maybe done other stuff in from somewhere else and they've already in the market.

So that's a majority of them. Majority of the people, I would say, are not brand new. They have, you know, been around the block if tried a few things and now [00:18:00] they're finally, you know, here. And then they, uh, coach them through like they're building the career and actually becoming profitable. And then there's third type is like the institutional clients, like the hedge fund managers and stuff with them.

I only work on psychology. They don't need to learn how to trade. They're way better than I am or even at that. Uh, but the emotional control, like the, I dunno if you watch the TV show Billions, right? So, and the TV show Billions. There's this girl, Wendy Rose, she's like the psychologist for like hedge fund managers.

So like that's a lot of the work that I do is like, okay. You're risking billions of dollars. Like how do we stay emotionally stable? How do we stay centered? How do we focus on what's next? Right? Like the, the process rather than the outcome of what happened with the markets or whatever. How do we take control rather than, you know, putting it on the market circumstances.

So, so yeah, there's typically three types of ways, uh, of working with me. 

kathryn thompson: Yeah. Cool. And the psychology piece I think is the key. The piece that I think is super cool. I mean, the trading stuff is too, but I think the psychology, 'cause I think like the. Again, like you said, is, is the mindset and being able to, you know, [00:19:00] hold your nerve in a lot of ways.

But when you talk about the emotional controls, are there like some easy sort of like tips or like a process that you actually follow? 

Guest: I think majority of that, at least for traders, it starts with like, okay, we, we have to create a plan, right? Like, what is the plan? When do we know when we're gonna, we're gonna get in, when do we know when we're gonna get out?

How many positions at one time would you have? How much money off your overall account are you risking in one trade? I. Uh, like first setting the parameters of the strategy. Yeah. So then so that we can become the casino. So it's not about winning on the next trade, it's about, okay, what happens if a sample size of 20 trades?

So like with your Facebook ads, it's not about how the ad did today, like how did the ad do over like a sample size of three months or different creatives or different copy. So I think it's, uh, kind of testing a lot of that. Then running it through models to make sure how that strategy would've worked over the last five years, 10 years.

And then once we know that, okay, this strategy is sure to work over the long enough timeframe, then how do we get [00:20:00] yourself as an individual to actually just do this? Take your emotions out, take what you think is gonna happen in the markets, uh, tariffs gonna happen, ignore all of that, and just following these statistics that it's laid out.

So a lot of the work to do is to how to get yourself to be emotionally not only confident in the plan. Be able to execute without mistakes and not letting your emotions sway you off the plan that we've already decided and we've tracked and tested over time. So I think, uh, yeah, so those are kind of the biggest parameters, and it all really starts with what we've been talking about, the, the self accountability, uh, and having support structures in place of like, uh, you know, this is a, a little bit of an extreme example.

Yeah. But like I had this, uh, you know, client of mine. He is like this typical conservative, uh, you know, Catholic. And it is really important to him. Like you could tell that his values are really important to him, but for some reason in trading, he kept breaking his trading plan. Like, he kept always deviating from it.

And I was like, okay, what consequence can we put in place to ensure you don't do that again? And we tried a bunch of different things. You know, you put $50 in a [00:21:00] jar if you make a mistake or you know, or do something. And he still kept making the mistakes. I was like, okay, dive into his values and realized to him like, you know, his conservative values is, you know, pro-life values.

All those things really important to him. Yeah. So sir, okay, next time you break your plan, you're gonna donate. You know, a thousand dollars to, let's say Planned Parenthood or an abort clinic. Wow. He never broke his plan ever again. 'cause we found something that pinched him more than his money. And then, so we try to tie the values into the consequence system so that the consequence is meaningful so that you don't end up making the mistake.

And he hasn't made that mistake since. So I think, uh, you gotta dig deep and see what somebody really values and then try to tie a consequence with that thing. 

kathryn thompson: Yeah, I love that like hack because I think it's because like you said, he kept doing it, but the value, what actually matters to you, right.

Because I think the reason why, from a psychological perspective is why we, why we aren't self-accountable, why we do break the rules, why we veer [00:22:00] off track is because there's nothing consequential keeping us from actually doing it. It's, it's easier to veer off track. Plus, I think the bigger things come out that we don't even realize that we have there, like the, the fears, the shadows, the greed.

The, the wanting to beat the market, all the things. And if anyone's gone to a casino, right? We've all experienced that. Where you go and you put 20 bucks in a slot machine or you sit down at a blackjack table and it's like, man, I lost, I'll just do 20 more dollars. Okay, I'll just do another 20 more dollars.

I'm gonna get this back in this $20. Before you know it, you're thousands of dollars in the hole or whatever. And it's like, shit, the casino won. 

Guest: Yep. That's so true. And in trading, it's like the biggest thing too, because. You know, it's sort of $20. It could be millions of dollars, and, uh. The other thing is like, it's so easy, right?

Like you don't follow your plan and there's no like boss or supervisor or doing a meeting with you as an Entrepreneur. [00:23:00] You know, if you said, oh, I'm gonna do this podcast, or if I'm going to put up this sort of content on my social media, and if you don't, well nobody's gonna call you out on it. The result is just our dreams not being achieved, right?

And, but there's nobody calling you out on that, so that's why. The consequence system needs to be tied to the value, but then it also needs to be tied into sort of like a peer pressure. Like you gotta all your friends know who believe the same way that you donated that money, right? Like all those things public.

Yeah. You post it, you have to post it on your ex account or a Twitter account and then like tying those things, you know, you gives them certain ability of, okay, I I can't do that. Right? Yeah. Uh, so then, uh, you end up following your plan and in the end, in so doing, you achieve your results. 

kathryn thompson: Yeah. What is your thought on, so when I, whenever I'm setting budgets or helping people set budgets for their Facebook ads, right?

I always say like, you've gotta, in order to create the capacity to invest, right? Whether it's $10 a day, a hundred dollars a day, a thousand dollars a day, whatever it is, there has to be a comfort zone for my [00:24:00] clients to be willing to lose that $10 a day. What do you, what's your thought process on that?

Like in terms of. The comfort, like being comfortable investing whatever you're investing, but also creating the capacity and the safety to invest. Knowing that the $25,000 or the million dollars or whatever is something that you could lose, I. 

Guest: Yeah, I mean, uh, you know, that's part of the game. First of all, it's business, so you gotta be in it to win it, right?

If you're never in it, you're never gonna win it. Simple as that. So your business is where it's at now. So if you don't invest, well, it's likely gonna stay the same, right? Or maybe even get worse actually over time. So you have to be willing to invest. Uh, but then same thing when it comes to, let's say Facebook ads or something like that.

You can't just look at what's happening with it right now, right? It has to have a sample size. So, and the sample size needs to be over a course of few days, few weeks, few months. Right. And then it also needs to have, you know, different copy, different variations, different images, different creatives, different videos to see is video working better?

[00:25:00] Or you know, is the images working better? So you have to have like, kind of like the, like an AI approach if this, then that. And then you monitor the results over time. Uh, and you have to just be in the mindset of, okay, I'm, I'm finding something that's potentially gonna work, right? But then also just not relying on that, but like supplementing it with other stuff like organic, you know, content and stuff like that too.

But you just have to have the mindset of your investing in your business. And otherwise, if you don't, like, what other options do you have? How to grow it. Now, if you have other options, great, do those. But if you, you're like, you can't think of anything to grow your business and you're like, okay, ads is something I haven't been doing, then you have to be willing to do it.

Uh, and you know, most people wrongly assume that if they don't invest in the business, the business is just gonna stagnate and stay the same. But no, it's actually gonna go down eventually. Yeah. Because what you're doing eventually will run stale. So to grow the business, you have to be, uh, willing to take a, take a longer term approach.

Don't things, you know, don't judge things too quickly. And also don't judge your Facebook ads on just one ad. Uh, 'cause you know, you might think, oh, this ad didn't work well. Oh, Facebook ads is, you know, a scam. Yeah. It's not gonna [00:26:00] work. Yeah, well, maybe you'd be surprised. Maybe a different creative brings a different result.

Like, for, for me, longest time I thought I need to be in video and yeah, I'm gonna post video ads. And then we looked at the data and I'm like, wow, there's just a static image is working. It's not even my face on it. That's working way better. So take my ego out of the way of me be wanting to be on video.

Run the static ad. So, and you, you find it's almost like finding a winning funnel. Finding a winning ad. Like you gotta be willing to test a few different things. So, so start, you know, three to five ads or whatever, smaller budgets, see what's winning at the end, turn the ones off, and then scale the other ones.

kathryn thompson: Yeah, that's, I, you know, it's so interesting 'cause it's, it's, I think it's the short term we're so fixated on the short term gains versus long-term, the long-term wins or the long-term potential of whether it's ads, trading, whatever. Right. And that's why I think that there also is that mindset shift of like, you can't look at the one singular ad you ran and [00:27:00] then make the decision because it didn't work the way you wanted it to.

Right. That ads don't work or ads are a scam or they're a waste of money or whatever. Right? It's kind of like if you were to trade something and you lost some money on it or whatever, it'd be like, well, I'm never trading again. 'cause it's, yeah. Or you watch your investments go down, your long-term investments go down because of tariffs or whatever, COVID, whatever else is going on and, and you're like, we're investing stupid.

Why do we invest? We just lose our money. Well, no, it's gonna come back up. 

Guest: The mindset pieces are same across, you know, your business. My business, it's like in my business it'll be like, imo, just gimme the next stock pick. I'm like, it's not about that. Next stock pick, it's about a series of stock picks, right?

So it's like, same thing with ads too. And then even if it trading, I could have the best idea. Due diligence is done, research is perfect, everything's great, and it could still not work, right? Yeah. Then I gotta dig deep and say, okay, where did I drop the ball? Did I risk too much money? Did I risk not enough?

Like, try to look into that. So in ads, uh, [00:28:00] you know, a terminology, it'll be like, Hey, maybe your ad was actually perfect. Maybe the funnel that you're sending them to is not a great funnel. So it's not converting. Right? Yeah. Maybe it's not mobile optimized. Like, so there's not just the ad, there's so many other things.

What about the follow-up emails that they're getting after they've opted in? Like, so, so many things come into play, so you gotta like almost be, again, emotional. Uh, not emotional at all, and just look at, okay, ad like valued everything and see. Where the puzzle is being broken. Yeah, and same thing with trading as well.

We do as well. Okay. This trade didn't work. Everything looked perfect. Okay. What could have caused it? Okay, maybe it's the market, maybe it's the Japanese bonds selling off because of the markets are going up, so like so many different factors can come into play. So you have to be like robotic and just look at data rather than, um, you know, what your patients are telling you.

kathryn thompson: I, yeah, I think we have, you know, it's interesting, every time I have a guest on the show, regardless of what industry they're in or what they do, or what their expertise are, there's so many parallels, which is like. You'll have to go back and listen to this over again because there's [00:29:00] so much goodness here in terms of the trading side of things for sure.

But then also just like the mindset and the psychological pieces and the data aspect of it, like really getting good with your numbers. Especially if you're investing money, but even if you're just investing time, like who wants to just post on social media for the sake of posting on social media and not getting the results you want?

So I think that's a big takeaway is like this is about getting results. Whether you're trading, investing, you're in business, whatever it is, it's like you want to get results for the effort that you're putting in. 

Guest: Absolutely. And be able to monitor. Like what you're doing. Yeah. Uh, measuring your results and seeing is it improving over time or is it, are you just kidding yourself?

Right. So it's like you gotta be looking at it and be willing to say, okay, this isn't working. Let me try something new. Rather than just trying the same thing for like 10 years. Like I, I saw this with, uh, one of my own, uh, you know, clients, uh, who was a, who was a good friend of mine. And, uh, so he wanted to start a [00:30:00] supplement company and, you know, he started the supplement company and we're talking about like the stuff that he would need to do to get it up to a level.

And then he's like, yeah, but you know, I'm posting content every day. You know, I'm doing everything you told me to do. It's just not working. I'm, I'm, and I'm looking at his content as just like. Photos of his supplement. I'm like, what's that gonna do for anybody? Yeah, you can post that every day for a hundred years.

It's not gonna do anything. Like, why don't you talk about the benefits of the ingredients, like so many other things come into play. So it's a lot of people convince themselves, no, but I tried Facebook ads. No, but I've tried it. I'm like, no, you didn't try it. Yeah, you just put it up and hope it works. Yeah.

So you know, you gotta look at the data and optimize and tweak it. 

kathryn thompson: Yeah, it's so true. It's so true. And I think it's just also proof, right? Like you, you tried video and it was like, well, our static ones were actually performing way better. Where like I can look at a client and it's like, well, they actually perform way better on video than they do in static and vice versa.

Like simple quotes for me have always done simple quotes or carousel posts have always done way better than like reels and stuff like [00:31:00] that. Sure. Could I go in and try different variations and, and all those sorts of things? Absolutely. Right. I think, and then ev, everything changes. The algorithm will change, all the things will start to change.

And like you said, like you can sit there stagnant and just. Hope for the best, but eventually it's gonna go down, right? The market's gonna change your industry, buying patterns are gonna change. All of it's gonna change, and you've gotta learn to like ride those ebbs and flows. In sort of that grounded, stable, non reactive place.

Yeah. 

Guest: Yeah. And that's the hardest thing to coach is like the non reactiveness of things. Uh, and just looking at, you know, okay, what, what do I need to do? Like, ca what kind of like what Carol Direct talks about in her book mindset is like, no, focusing on what's happening or what's not working. Well, okay, what are we gonna do about it?

So I, I use that in my team meetings all the time. If, uh, and, and my team knows now they come to me with a problem. It's gotta be accompanied by three potential ways you could solve [00:32:00] it, otherwise, don't come to me. So now they know, okay, hey, this isn't going well, but here's three ways we could do about it.

And then I can just look over and say, okay, pick point number two. Try that. Or rather than they coming up with problems and we need to do that in our own. Uh, ourselves too is like, when stuff's not going well, then looking at, okay, what are we, three things we can do to fix it? Or what are we gonna do about it?

Rather than sitting there and dwelling on what's not working. Uh, 'cause then you just manifest more of that. 

kathryn thompson: Yeah. This is such a nugget of gold. Anybody that's listening right now is a nugget of gold. Because, because I think a lot of entrepreneurs come with that. It's not working. Mm-hmm. Like, my thing isn't working, this isn't working.

I'm not making enough money. I don't have enough clients. Whatever it is. But there's a gateway that you've just invited people into. It's like, okay, you have a problem. Great. How are you gonna solve it? Yeah. As an Entrepreneur, that's your job is to solve 

Guest: it. And I, I use that same thing, you know, as an introvert.

Just like, uh, you know, growing up I playing video games and Xbox all the time. So I just think about, okay, [00:33:00] you know, we're getting problems. Great. That means the video game's getting tougher, that means I crossed another level, right? Yeah. But I'm in the new level of the video game. Things are gonna get tougher again.

Okay, now what if I go that way in the game? What if like, so I think that gaming thing has actually helped me a lot in my. You know, my career now. 'cause I always think about, okay, that didn't work. I went there. The guy, the bad guy in the game shocked me. Okay, what if I try to go this way around him? Like, so you start thinking in, you know, problem, solution, awareness rather than, uh, you know, just sticking in the problem all the time.

kathryn thompson: Yeah. And the gaming, I, it is just, it's just a game. Yeah. Like entrepreneurship trade, right? It's just, you're just playing the game. And so it's like how resourceful, how creative are you to like win the game? 

Guest: Right. A hundred percent. Yeah. And if you don't like the game, pick another game, you know? Yeah, 

kathryn thompson: exactly.

Exactly. And I think sometimes that's the problem, right? I think sometimes with entrepreneurs that can be the problem when they're really stuck in, this isn't working, what was me? All the things. It's like, well, let's get back to your values and what really matters. 'cause like. What, what [00:34:00] actually matters to you.

And oftentimes I'll uncover that they're doing things that they actually don't value or they, that aren't bringing them closer to their definition of success, whatever that looks like. And then it's like rerouting. It's like, okay, well then let's stop playing the game you're playing. Let's just. Reinvent another game.

Yeah, 

Guest: yeah, yeah. They gotta play the game that you're actually curious about. I think that's the biggest thing. You, you might not like it, but like as long as you're curious about like a game or anything you're doing in life, then you're gonna find a way. 'cause curiosity will feed on, okay, I wanna learn more.

Why did this happen? Why did that happen? And then you can keep going, but if you don't, A don't enjoy and you're not curious about learning more. Uh, then that's a very tough road to eventually leads to burnout and eventually you giving up and trading the same way. If you come in it for the wrong reasons of, okay, I just wanna make a lot of money, then you, but, but you don't actually like it, you're not curious about learning more about the markets, then you're gonna give up on the first sign of weakness.

Whereas if you are curious, but maybe you're not good at it yet, but the curiosity will eventually get you to a level where you're gonna get good enough to be [00:35:00] able to do it. 

kathryn thompson: Yeah. Yeah, so true. The curiosity piece is like the, is the, the juice behind it. All right? It's like if you're not curious about it and it doesn't interest you.

Then yeah, you will give up at the first sign of weakness or you'll, it'll, it definitely will lead to, to burnout. Well, it's been so amazing chatting with you. I know that we could probably chat about so much more. Is there anything that you wanna share with our listeners here before we wrap up? 

Guest: Yeah, I, I'd love to give you a listeners a free copy of my book.

Yeah. Uh, so they can just go to, go, go un my name, net. So just go out on mold.net and just cover shipping and then I will ship out the book to them regardless of where they are in the world. Um, and yeah, I'd love to give listeners a copy of that. That book has nothing to do with trading, nothing to do with investing.

It's purely a mindset success book that I've written based on things that I've learned in my journey. And I wrote this book originally for myself, okay, what are the things that I need to do in my own life to achieve the level of [00:36:00] success? And then I went out and applied everything I wrote, and then I just saw the drastically how things improved.

So I finally put it in the book format, uh, that people can get access to. 

kathryn thompson: Amazing, amazing. And we'll link that up in the show notes, um, so that it's really easy, accessible to everybody listening. Where can they find you if they want to find you? 

Guest: Um, I'm most active on Instagram and x uh, my username on both of those is a weird one, but it's, uh, at delta D-E-L-T-A-N-I-N-E-T-Y.

So Delta 90, but 90 is spelled out. Yeah. Don't ask me why I had it, like when Instagram launched. So I mean, I haven't changed it since, so now I'm stuck with it. Uh, but yeah, that's the username there. And then, uh, my website, unmold.net. And then if trading is something anybody's interested in, they could just go to live traders.com.

kathryn thompson: Amazing. Amazing. And we'll link up again, all of that stuff in the show notes so you guys can easily, um, access that. It's been such a pleasure having you on the show. So many nuggets of gold here, uh, mindset wise, uh, a view [00:37:00] into trading and what that is and a bit of your story. So that's been amazing. So I appreciate having you on the show.

Guest: Thanks for having me. It was great chatting with you. 

kathryn thompson: Amazing. Thank 

intro: you. Thanks for listening. We'll see you right back here next time. You can also find us on social media at creatively owned and online@creativelyowned.com. Until next time, keep showing up as your authentic self.