Be Bold, Make Waves with Laura Kåmark

Helping Women Achieve Financial Freedom Through Day Trading with Erin Thompson of Invite Money Into Your Life

• Laura Kåmark • Episode 81

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Meet Erin:

Erin Thompson, a Financial Freedom Architect and mother of five, blends her engineering background and personal finance expertise to craft wealth and financial independence blueprints for her clients. Having navigated significant credit card debt twice, Erin guides complete newcomers on how to find ways to bring in online income that are best suited for their personalities and life situations in order to get out of debt, and start investing in the stock market for long-term growth. 

She balances homeschooling with running three successful businesses and aims to retire her husband by 40, with her favorite income stream being safe day trading. Erin is incredibly passionate about empowering middle and lower-class individuals, particularly women, to harness the stock market's potential for wealth accumulation. 

Her empowering message is that financial freedom is within reach, no matter your starting point, and she's committed to guiding others on their journey to financial independence.

Links & Resources:


Grab my free resource, How To Get More Sales From Your Email List On Autopilot at laurakamark.com/email

Ready to take back your time with sales funnels and evergreen systems
that sell on your behalf.  Let's hop on a call and see if working together is a fit.

Laura Kåmark [00:00:00]:
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Be Bold Make Waves podcast. If you're looking for strategy, systems, list building, and marketing tips to help grow and scale your business with ease, then you are in the right place. I'm your host, Laura Kåmark, an email marketing and tech strategist who works with coaches and consultants who love their work, but not the tech. Join me for conversation packed with actionable insights, strategies, and systems to help you take control of your tech and simplify your business. Let's go ahead and dive in to this week's episode. Hello, and welcome to this week's show. For those of you who don't already know me, I'm Laura Kåmark.

Laura Kåmark [00:00:42]:
Email marketing strategy, systems, and setups for coaches and consultants who love their work, but not their tech. I'm really excited about my guest today, Erin Thompson. Erin is a financial freedom architect and mother of 5, woah, who blends her engineering background and personal finance expertise to craft wealth and financial independence blueprints for her clients. Having navigated significant credit card debt twice, Erin guides complete newcomers on how to find ways to bring in online income that are best suit suited for their personalities and life situations in order to get out of debt and start investing in the stock market for long term growth. She balances homeschooling while running 3 successful businesses and aims to retire her husband by 40, with her favorite income stream being safe day trading. Erin is incredibly passionate about empowering middle and lower class individuals, particularly women, to harness the stock market's potential for wealth accumulation. Her empowering message is the financial is that financial freedom is within reach no matter your starting point, and she's committed to guiding others on their journey to financial independence. Erin, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Laura Kåmark [00:01:58]:
Can you tell our listeners a little bit about how you got into day trading?

Erin Thompson [00:02:03]:
Actually, it was right before the pandemic. I was looking for ways to start bringing in money online, and I found this way that I was gonna do. And then my husband found day trading, and he was like, I actually think that you would really like this because we're both super introverts. And, it's just it really taps into the strengths of an introvert, like the quiet reflection and analyzing things. It is much better suited to introverts than I ever would have dreamed, like and so I tried it, and I absolutely fell in love. And now I I actually like to teach other women how to do it that way because it's like I think the statistic is over 90% of day traders are men, which is crazy to me. Now I will say that day trading, if you look up statistics about how many people are successful with it, it's the statistics are not great, but I think it's because you get a lot of the guys who are like, I'm gonna get a Lamborghini, bro, and they, like, gamble it all on one trade, and then they lose everything. So the success rate doesn't look great on paper, but there is absolutely a way to do, like, sort of, like, slow and steady wins the race to accumulate small gains over time.

Erin Thompson [00:03:26]:
Before you know it, those small gains are, like, medium sized gains, and then those become large gains because the the processes that you use to make, like, $1,000 a day are the same that you're using to make, like, $10 a day or $30 a day when you're starting out. You're just learning those processes, and then you ramp it up over time as you get good at it. And, yeah, it can be a really, really great future. So I wanna introduce that to women because we are so sadly underrepresented in the day trading community.

Laura Kåmark [00:03:59]:
Yeah. I mean, I've heard day trading over the years, and I'm always like, oh, that's like a man thing that men do, and I don't even know what it is. I've seen different women talk about it. I'm like, I don't even understand. Like, how do you even start? So when you have someone who is first starting out, like, what what do they even do? Like, what's the first step?

Erin Thompson [00:04:17]:
So, really, the first step is just kind of learning what the heck you're looking for and what it all is because there's, like, a lingo that goes along with it. So I actually have a course where people can get into it and learn kind of the lay of the land. What is all the lingo? What does all this mean? But, really, like, the day in, day out, what do you, like, do? You are looking for certain patterns. So if you're, like, really good at puzzles or just any kind of pattern recognition, that's basically what you're doing. Every morning, you run what's called a scanner. And so it's scouring the whole stock market for stacks that are doing the things that you're looking for. And then when one of these stacks that are doing the thing actually does the pattern, they're like, oh, hey. And then now you know based on the pattern where to get in, roughly where to get out, and you're able to make a quick profit.

Erin Thompson [00:05:08]:
Sometimes I'm only in a stock for, like, a minute or 2, so it's crazy.

Laura Kåmark [00:05:14]:
That's wild. So, basically, it becomes like a habit. Like, first thing you do in the morning is you log in and then check what's happening. Is that kinda

Erin Thompson [00:05:21]:
the

Laura Kåmark [00:05:21]:
the flow there?

Erin Thompson [00:05:22]:
Exactly. And I I love it. My time frame hasn't been working out quite as well lately. What I used to do is the market opens at 9:30 EST. So I would get, like, around 9 AM. I would, like, start doing that research, and then the market opens at 9:30. And then between 9:30 and 9:45 is really volatile and kinda crazy. So sometimes you can have good luck, but for beginners, I always recommend not to trade during that time because it's just wild.

Erin Thompson [00:05:50]:
And a lot of times you'll get in on something thinking it's about to go huge, and then it just falls apart. And then you are like so, what I would do is, like, really between 9:45 and 10 AM, I would trade. And I would make my little bit of money for the day, and then I had an alarm that went off on my phone at 10. It's like, okay. Time to switch gears and go homeschool the kids now, and then I would go homeschool the kids.

Laura Kåmark [00:06:14]:
Oh, that's oh, I love it. It's crazy.

Erin Thompson [00:06:16]:
I know. It was awesome. Then, really, like, from 9 to 10 was the all the time that I was spending on it, which was amazing.

Laura Kåmark [00:06:24]:
Yeah. My husband during the pandemic started kinda playing around and get putting some money in stocks. I remember trying to log in and be like, I don't understand, like, what to do. I don't even know. Like, this is so outside of my comfort zone of understanding and trying to like, just I I'm trying to even think what company we were using. I feel like it was a DT Ameritrade, which later converted to something else. But I could

Erin Thompson [00:06:48]:
be Yeah. Schwab, I think, bought them.

Laura Kåmark [00:06:52]:
That sounds that sounds right.

Erin Thompson [00:06:53]:
Yeah. Because I I had TD Ameritrade, and then, yeah, Schwab bought them over. I think it was just last year. So

Laura Kåmark [00:06:59]:
So just I mean, for a while, he was in there. He was, like, messing around with stuff, moving stuff around, and then he got to the point where it just life got busy again because we were no longer in pandemic mode. And I don't even know what's happening in there because I haven't logged in in many, many years at this point.

Erin Thompson [00:07:16]:
Yeah. I just did a training in my group, last week. I have a Facebook group called invite money into your life, and I did a training last week about how day trading or investing either way. Like, really, it could be as easy as online shopping. Like, in terms of once you know what you wanna buy, you just go in there and you say, I wanna buy this. I wanna buy this many of this, and then you just buy it. And when you're ready to sell, you go into your portfolio and you bring up all the things that you have bought, and you say this one. I wanna sell that.

Erin Thompson [00:07:44]:
And you tell it how many to sell, and you're you're out. And then it it takes your money 3 days to settle. But after that, you can withdraw your money, do, like, a bank to bank transfer to your own bank. And, yeah, it's a great it's kind of like a savings account in that way, which I love about it. It's more liquid money that you can get to faster than some other places that you can park your money to try to help you make money.

Laura Kåmark [00:08:08]:
Is there, like, a certain amount that you need to have to start out with day trading? Because, again, something that's always been maybe a myth that I think is, like, day trading. Oh, I have to have, like, $10,000 to, like, throw into this market, and who knows what's gonna happen to it.

Erin Thompson [00:08:23]:
So years ago, I will say there were a lot of firms out there where you needed, like, 10,000 or even a1000 to open an account, but there are so many brokers. After Robinhood came out, that was really the best thing for all of us. Because once Robinhood came on the scene, they had $0 commissions, which means every trade you make, you don't have to pay a commission to anybody. And they had, like, no account minimums and no, like, minimum amount that you can trade or invest. So because of that, all the other people started following suit realizing they were losing business to Robinhood. So just about any brokerage that you have heard of, like, the big ones, like, E Trade, which just got bought out by Morgan Stanley and TD Ameritrade or Schwab now. Those big ones, they all have $0 account minimums and, like, $0 trade or investment minimum. So you could open an account and put $5 in there.

Erin Thompson [00:09:19]:
And if you see something that you like the looks of and it's, you know, less than $5 a share, then you could buy a share or more if it's, you know, a cheaper stock. But but, yeah, there's that's the nice thing about nowadays is there's because back when I started looking into investing, I mean, it used to be, like, a $20 commission per transaction. So if you were going to do a trade, you would have a $20 commission on the front end and the back end. You really needed to make sure you were gonna make at least $40 on it. Otherwise, it was gonna be a losing venture. So it's so nice now that they have those $0 commissions.

Laura Kåmark [00:10:00]:
Oh, that's good to know. So if someone was just starting out so, like, someone in the audience is listening, they're like, oh, this sounds really interesting. Is there an amount that you would recommend to start out with? Like, I know you're saying you could start with as little as 5, but, I mean, that might take a little while to see a return on that. Or is there an an amount that when you're working with clients that you would say, like, this is where I would recommend

Erin Thompson [00:10:22]:
just starting out? Typically, I recommend like, you really don't want to go much more than, like, a1000, just because when you're starting, that's the time when you're gonna make all the mistakes. Right? You're gonna do all the screw ups, and so you don't want to have a huge amount of money in there to mess up with. So like we talked about at the beginning a little bit, slow and steady wins the race. So I really recommend starting small and getting the feel for what you're doing, only buying, like, one share of something, and then see what happens. And if it goes well, great. You know, always be journaling and documenting what's going well and what's not going well and then trying to get a little bit better the next day. And yeah. So starting out, it it takes a little while to kinda get the hang of it, not because looking for the patterns is hard.

Erin Thompson [00:11:13]:
Truthfully, the hard part is yourself, like, rationalizing and justifying, like, oh, I don't know. Maybe it'll do this or like, getting over your own internal thoughts is the hardest part, honestly. But I think that's why women are so much better suited because we have that, like, women's intuition and we listen to ourselves, you know, and and a lot of men are, like, they shut out the emotions or they shut down or they they're, like, so trained the way that society has raised us all to, like, ignore that voice. And so I feel like they tend to run into more trouble than we as women do because we listen to that inner voice.

Laura Kåmark [00:11:58]:
Oh, I love that.

Erin Thompson [00:11:59]:
That's another reason I wanna get women into it more.

Laura Kåmark [00:12:01]:
Yeah. Absolutely. And that's why when I heard what you did, I was like, oh, I have to have you on the show. Like, this is fascinating. What other tools are you using? Like, you mentioned that there's a scanner that you run. Like, is that a is that a tool within, like, Schwab, or is that something that's, like, a separate app that you subscribe to or something like that? What other tools do you recommend to have? There

Erin Thompson [00:12:23]:
there are both. There are standard within, like, the standard Schwab platform and the E Trade Morgan Stanley platform. They're the one that I use, is really good, and it has, like, an amazing breaking news feature. So I actually do pay for that. I don't even use that platform to trade, but it just like, all the goodies that come with it, the ability to do research on that platform is really just kinda above and beyond what's in the standard scanners. So I really like that platform. But, yeah, other like, you can still do what you need to do with your free platform. So that's the other nice thing is it doesn't really take a lot of upfront money to get started.

Laura Kåmark [00:13:10]:
Oh, I love that so much. What, what other tips do you have for someone? So, okay, someone's listening. They're like, okay. This sounds fascinating. I'm gonna go do this. I'm gonna go open up, you know, an account with Schwab or someone else that we mentioned, and I have my $1,000. I'm gonna go put that in and just start looking around and see something and just make you know, buy a share here or share there of some things and just start logging in every morning and see what's working? Or what what what do we do?

Erin Thompson [00:13:43]:
Yeah. So the biggest, the biggest advice because I have a safe money framework. Because that's the thing. If you just get in there and you're buying things, especially if you're using all of your account money, then chances are you're gonna have one bad trade, and it you're gonna lose all of your money, and it happens to so many people. What I've always tried to do because when you have like, in your account, I mentioned that it takes 3 days for the funds to settle. So what I try to do is within my safe money framework is never use more than a third of your account per day. That way, it's sort of like a rolling that 3 days that you always have a third of your account to trade with because you're never using all of it. So that's one way that you can, you know, use the less of your money than you have, to start small, but also to keep yourself safe so that you're never losing it all because you're not ever trading with it all.

Laura Kåmark [00:14:40]:
Is there a certain point where, like okay. So you put in $1,000, I don't know, month or so goes by, and you're up to $5,000. At that point, do you is there a certain point where you would suggest, like, go ahead and pull out either 4,000 so you're back to that same starting point? Or do you keep reinvesting it? Or how like, what's is there a strategy there?

Erin Thompson [00:15:06]:
So one of the strategies that I really like to teach people is keeping your money in the account. Because I know a lot of the women I work with, they are looking for ways to bring in more money. And so day trading, it just takes a little while to get to that point because you do wanna leave your money in the account till you get to a certain point. And the point that I would like to get to is where you're making $1,000 a day because there's about 20 trading days in a month. Now you're not gonna win every day, but, you know, now we're getting into the, like, almost 20 k a month just from trading. And you might think that you have to have a lot of money in your account to make $1,000 a day, but the strategies that I'm teaching, you're you're trying to go for singles. Right? Like, about a 10% or less gain. So, really, with an account that's in the, like, 30 to $45,000 range, if you are using a third of your account every day, that's, like, 10 to $15,000 and you're making about 10%, there's your 1,000 to $1500.

Erin Thompson [00:16:08]:
And, And, again, you're not gonna win every day, but if you got in a rhythm where you were really good and consistently seeing profits, you as you go, you keep scaling that up until you get to that point where you can trade with $1,000 a day because you have that much in your account. And then you can I mean, you can keep growing? There are people that get to, like, make 1,000,000 of dollars from trading. Or there's lots of people that are like, that's nice, but I don't need that, like, thing. Like, I don't need to be a millionaire. You know what I mean? So they're really happy just making, like, $20 a month from trading.

Laura Kåmark [00:16:47]:
Oh, this is I like, I have so many, like, things going through my brain right now. It's fascinating to me because, again, it's something I've always heard about. I never fully understood it. There's people I've heard about, like, oh, what does he do? Oh, he's a day trader. I'm like, I don't know what that means. Like, when someone is a day trader as, like, their profession and they work for a company, is that different than, like, I do day trading as something fun on the side? What I know

Erin Thompson [00:17:15]:
so there are some firms out there. I've I've heard of it more with, like, options trading, which is a a whole different animal. But, there are firms who will employ people to do options trades for them, and then you make a cut of your winnings, essentially. But they allow you to, like, trade with huge amounts of money. So, you know, if you're making a trade where you're investing $60,000 or whatever, you're gonna make a pretty good, upside on that, and then you get a cut of that. And you didn't have to put up all the upfront cash, which is nice. So so that is a possibility. I don't do that.

Erin Thompson [00:17:52]:
I just trade for myself. And I will tell you the very first time I did it, it's weird because you go to make the trade and you're like, this just feels like I should have some kind of a degree or something to be able to do this. I can't believe that I can just go and buy and sell things like this, but you absolutely can. There's no no degree, no, like, certification or anything like that required to do it. To be considered like a full time day trader, the IRS has some, like, things that you need to meet to be considered a full time day trader. But you don't have to meet those in order to do it. You can absolutely just dabble whenever you get a chance.

Laura Kåmark [00:18:38]:
Oh, I love this. So I like about it.

Erin Thompson [00:18:40]:
It's so flexible.

Laura Kåmark [00:18:41]:
I wanna talk a little bit about you mentioned you have a course on this. And so is what what format is the course? Is it a self study? Is it a do it along with me? Is there office hours? Like, how do how does that work?

Erin Thompson [00:18:54]:
So I have it's sort of a beginner course, which is self study. And then I have another sort of level where you get the beginner course and you get a more in-depth course so you can really start getting good at it. And that comes with weekly live trainings where I'm I'm here. I'm like, I can answer any of your questions. It's kind of ask me anything format, and we're going over, like, here's all the stacks that really took off and went today. We're kinda reverse engineering. Like, this is when we can see it's it started to do the thing. Right? And so now we know to look for that more in the future as we keep going and talking about what patterns are working really well.

Erin Thompson [00:19:35]:
I mentioned that my, like, 9:45 to 10 o'clock time slot is not working very well. So talking about that, keeping people kind of with their finger on the pulse of what's going on with the market so that they can get even better, even faster.

Laura Kåmark [00:19:48]:
Oh, I love that. So I wanna switch gears a little bit, and I'm totally gonna link that up in the show notes for all our listeners. So if anyone is like, I want that in my life, go grab that, and work with Erin because, Erin, this is just fascinating, and I love it. I wanna talk a little bit. I'm totally a tech person. I know you know this about me. I wanna talk a little bit about the tech behind your business. So in terms of running, like, your course and your website and all that, what tech platforms do you use?

Erin Thompson [00:20:18]:
So I use, that's like a branded version of go high level. When I was first getting into everything, I saw, like, just all of the things, you know, in the columns where you compare. It it was like, man, I can just do everything with this. So my email stuff is through there, my CRM, my websites, my funnels, everything is through this it's the branded version of go high level.

Laura Kåmark [00:20:43]:
Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. It's definitely one that we've had a lot of conversations on the podcast about. We've had a number of different go high level experts, come in and talk, which I can link those up in the show notes as well. What would you say I wanna talk a little bit about mindset because that's always fun. What were some of your fears and doubts you had when you were going into starting with day trading?

Erin Thompson [00:21:06]:
Probably the biggest fear is, like, am I going to lose all of my money? And the doubt would be, like, can this happen for me too? Like, I I see in my the different communities that I'm in, people are having success, but will I have success? You know? So and I think that probably resonates with everyone because you you hear these things happening for other people, and it's like, well, that's great, but that's them. Like, I'm me. Will that really happen for me too? You know? So that's probably one of the big mindset pieces I've struggled with.

Laura Kåmark [00:21:39]:
I can relate to that so much. I feel like I have been doing this online business for so long, and I and I see other people, which I always I'm like, stop. Stop looking. Stop comparing. Comparisonitis is, like, the root of all badness. But there is. You just you can't do it. And comparing myself, I'm like, why am I not further along? Why am I not hitting these, like, income goals? And then reminding myself, I'm also I started building this business when I was a new mother.

Laura Kåmark [00:22:07]:
I'd had this little newborn at home and trying to figure out, like, I'm no longer in corporate. I was laid off when I was pregnant, from my corporate my super secure corporate job. Yeah. And so it was a big change because I never planned on being home with this little baby. And so trying to do that and then build a business and figure out this whole online business world that we're in. And my kids just got to the point where they're in school full time, you know, well, during during school season school year.

Erin Thompson [00:22:36]:
Yeah.

Laura Kåmark [00:22:36]:
Not during summer. And then, like, now we have an after school care program. And so I finally last year was really my first year of I have Monday through Friday to work on my business. Whereas, again, the comparisonitis of, like, people who maybe, you know, don't have kids or a family, and they're just able to work as much as possible. Like, on the weekends, I don't I haven't touched you know, today's Monday when we're recording. I didn't touch my computer all weekend. It's got turned off on Friday and, like, that I'm in mom mode all weekend long. So it's I can definitely relate to the comparison.

Laura Kåmark [00:23:10]:
It is like that's the part.

Erin Thompson [00:23:11]:
I I love the the quote comparison is the beep of joy because whenever I find myself comparing to other people I was recently in a coaching program, and, there was a lot of, like, gosh. I've been doing this for 2 years. I just thought I would be further along by now. And the coach was like, but why? Like, you're on your journey. Like, you're learning all the things that you need to learn, and that was really, really wise, I thought. And so I've been trying to, like, put the blinders on and not compare myself to other people. And even in like, we're in a coaching program, and I feel like I'm sort of the new kid on the block in terms of my business is, like, younger than a lot of the other women in the group, I feel like. So trying not to compare myself to all of you as well is difficult, but but I totally agree.

Laura Kåmark [00:24:03]:
And I think the interesting thing is I find that everyone's doing that same thing. They're all comparing them where they are in their journey to everyone else in the room because we all also don't know the background that everyone else is going through in the struggles. Like, what do we see? We see what is shared in in the groups, you know, in calls together. We see what's on social media, but we don't really know what's happening behind the scenes and really what the bottom line truly does look like.

Erin Thompson [00:24:28]:
Right. Exactly.

Laura Kåmark [00:24:31]:
So I love that. What would you say so I'm a big fan of celebration. I love celebrating with cheese because I just love cheese as everyone who follows me on Instagram knows. I'm a big fan of celebrating our wins, any win. Big wins, like, just taking action to go forward. What is something we could celebrate that you're really proud of? That you have overcome something and something that you're just like, oh, you know, go me. A little pat on the back.

Erin Thompson [00:25:01]:
I I agree with you. Celebrating all of the things is really good. It, like, puts you in that more abundance mindset mode, and so kudos. I mean, you should be celebrating all the things. I struggle because I feel like I'm one of those people where I get to the point where I wanted to be, and then it's like, no. But I didn't or I now I still gotta, you know and so I don't celebrate as much as I should, but, I am proud of myself for for getting the course launched. And I had a event last year, and I kind of like, my business has sort of because we just moved into this house. And as you know, moving is super stressful.

Erin Thompson [00:25:45]:
So things sort of, like, took a pause for a moment, and then I was, like, going on this existential crisis. Crisis. What am I doing with my business? So I'm really proud of myself for not giving up and for staying the course and just sort of reframing, recentering, figuring out, like, what's important and reprioritizing based on that, but not giving up still going forward because, yeah, I've just I've gotten to that weird spot with my business. And like you said, you feel like it's I've been doing this for a while, and why don't I have this or that or whatever. So wanted to give up a few times, but I'm proud that I did not, and I'm still going with it.

Laura Kåmark [00:26:35]:
I love that. And if I had a nickel for every time I want to burn down my business, I'd have a whole lot of nickels.

Erin Thompson [00:26:41]:
Yeah. I hear you. I hear you.

Laura Kåmark [00:26:45]:
They actually say it's interesting because, we had Tiffany on the podcast many, many months ago, maybe a year or so ago. I will link her episode up in the show notes, and she's a certified period coach. And so she actually has a whole, like I find now that when I have friends come to me and they're like, I wanna burn it down. I'm like, where are you in your cycle tracking? Because are you in, I wanna burn it all down week? Because there is a week every woman has, no matter what we're doing, it's if, you know, if we're based on moon cycles or menstrual cycles or whatever, there will be a month. That we or not a month. I'm sorry. A week. Every month where we want to burn it all down, and that is normal.

Erin Thompson [00:27:25]:
Yes. I I totally I had a friend, and she used to like, 3 months out of or 3 weeks out of the month, she would, like, absolutely love her boyfriend at the time. Now they're married. But 1 week out of the month, she was like, I just

Laura Kåmark [00:27:39]:
what am I doing with

Erin Thompson [00:27:39]:
him? So literally every month, she was contemplating breaking up with him, and it was always, like, the week before her period. So we we would have

Laura Kåmark [00:27:47]:
a good laugh about that.

Erin Thompson [00:27:48]:
But, yeah, I totally totally agree that yeah. And it was, like, right when all of this stuff kicked off with the move and everything, it was that week right here. So I was like, is that why I'm, like, considering burning it all down and walking away? Like, I just don't know. I don't know what's going on.

Laura Kåmark [00:28:06]:
Yeah. I had a friend who wanted to make a big change. I'm like, I want you to sit on it and just think about it and come back to me in a week. If you still feel like making this big change, then we can talk. But if not, I just sit, marinate in that feeling, and let's just put a pin in it and just keep moving forward. She came back. She's like, no. I still really wanna do this, and it's been 3 weeks.

Laura Kåmark [00:28:25]:
I'm like, okay. Then I give you permission to go burn that piece of your business down, but just leave the rest whole and steady as it is, please.

Erin Thompson [00:28:33]:
Yeah. That's very smart. Sage advice.

Laura Kåmark [00:28:37]:
What would you say that you're doing that's being very bold in the industry? Something that others in the day trading teaching world aren't really doing or the coaching world of day trading?

Erin Thompson [00:28:50]:
Well, as we talked about, most of the teaching of day trading is men. There are only, like, 2 other women out there who are even actually, 3 other women that are teaching any kind of trading at all, that I know of. So I would say that the way that I'm being bold is we all sort of there's different styles of trading, and the men tend to it's less teaching, and it's more talking. Like, the the programs that I have been in, the men really love the sound of their own voice, and so they want to tell you all the things, and none of it helps you. Right? The one guy is like, I have 500,000,000 hours of webinars you can watch, which is great, except it'll be, like, a 2 hour webinar, and he's just talking about himself and his life the whole time. And you get, like, 10 minutes of wisdom that you can actually use to learn. And I'm like, this is such a waste of time. I can't I can't do this.

Erin Thompson [00:30:05]:
So I try to be very kind of bold into the point and, like, there's no fluff. I think it's still fun because I have, like, an upbeat kind of personality, but I am absolutely all the women that have gone through my program are like, I love that you did not sugarcoat anything. Like, you, right up front, were like, you should expect this and, like, know these things going in, and they really, really loved how, like, transparent I am and how honest I am. Because I I think a lot of times in this industry, there are people where it's like those who can't do teach. So they they're saying all these things, and you don't even really know how successful that they are. So I I think that I'm very bold and that I am so transparent, and, like, I just could not imagine doing this without full integrity. Yeah. So yeah.

Erin Thompson [00:31:06]:
Actually, like, getting to the point in teaching people and just being transparent and honest and and open with people. I like that. Deserve that.

Laura Kåmark [00:31:15]:
I find just even as someone who is fully self taught in, like, a techy website world, When I first was getting into it and trying to find answers to questions, going into forums, it was very male dominated. And a lot of times, people are very unkind when you ask a question, and they're like, how do you not know this? You call yourself a web designer? Like, what? And it it was mean. There was a lot I got very scared to post things in groups because a lot of times I'd post and I'd quickly go and delete it because people were so unkind. And so that's something as I've grown my business. Like, when I talk to clients, even just on discovery calls, when I ask them the questions of, like, do you know where your website is hosted? And I always say, it is okay to answer. I do not know. There is no shame. There is no judgment.

Laura Kåmark [00:31:58]:
Like, it's just a question, and it's okay. If you don't know, we will figure it out. And that's something that I know has set me apart from a lot of other people in the tech world is it's okay to not know because you really why would you know?

Erin Thompson [00:32:12]:
Yeah.

Laura Kåmark [00:32:14]:
And so it's, yeah, it's definitely not something that it's something that's very different in a male dominated field. It has kindness and compassion that women can bring to an industry. So I love that you're doing that and being that's your way of being bold. I love that so much.

Erin Thompson [00:32:30]:
Thank you.

Laura Kåmark [00:32:32]:
So I want to know so you have 5 children, which I have 2, and that feels like a whole bunch. Anytime I hear someone has 5, I'm like, that's a whole hand of children. Like, that's a lot. How how do you manage life life, a home? Three businesses with 5 children, and you homeschool. You're incredible. Thank you.

Erin Thompson [00:32:59]:
Do you sleep? I do. I do. Well, it's taking some, like, trial and error to figure out a schedule group for us. I try to and this is where I've been terrible since the move, like, waking up early. Because my kids, like, they I don't put them to bed early because they don't have to get up early for school. Right? So they just kinda stay up until we go to sleep. But I used to get up early in the mornings, and I would try to get as much for my business done before everybody woke up and made cereal and the rest of breakfast and all of those fun things. And like I said, I would at a certain point, I have to break away from that or have my bigger kids kinda help the littler kids with, you know, finishing up breakfast and things.

Erin Thompson [00:33:49]:
And then I would switch gears to, okay. Now I need to day trade. And then I had an alarm that went off. Like, okay. Now it's time for school. And just scheduling any calls like this or, you know, call new clients, doing the homeschooling around that, I'm, like, maybe too flexible, some people say. Because I love like, I can make whatever work around everybody else kinda thing. So, generally, you know, if I have a call, then we're doing what school we can before that.

Erin Thompson [00:34:20]:
And then afterward, we'll finish up and get the rest of the school done. So I love the flexibility that homeschooling allows us for that. And then, really, when they're done with school, I should be better about, like, going to play with them and things like that. But sometimes I'll tend to, like, switch gears back to trying to get more work done just so that I can get to the place that I wanna be. And like I said, since this move, I haven't even been waking up early. It's been terrible. So I really need to get back on track and, like, back to my schedule because it was magic when it was, like, really clicking. And we instituted for homeschooling, about halfway through last year.

Erin Thompson [00:34:59]:
It's checklist. And it was like, you have to do, like, 15 minutes on the spelling app and then, you know, do all your language arts and all your science and like, they do math with me, but they do the other subjects on their own. And, like, different little like, they they do Babble, the language app. Like, one of them is learning Italian, and the other 2 are doing Spanish. And so, like, they have these little things on this checklist, and it has been a godsend because when they get done with the checklist, they can earn more tablet time and, like, to do things that they wanna do. So they're kinda busy, and they're all, like, round robining with, like, the laptop and working with mom and doing the tablet stuff to get through their checklist, and they're, like, excited to get through the checklist. Because then when they're done, now they can do their sort of preferred activity. So that was a huge game changer for us.

Erin Thompson [00:35:49]:
And, yeah, all the while with the big three, then I have the little 2, a 3 year old and a 4 year old, which was more challenging when they were a little younger. It's getting easier every every day because they're just a little bit older. That helps a lot.

Laura Kåmark [00:36:04]:
Yeah. Mine are 6 and 8. And with the 8 year old, things are getting a little easier. Like, she can make her own bagel. Like, this is life changing. Like, she can go get a bagel, toast it, and get the cream cheese out. You know? Yeah. It's like plastic serrated knife things that are, like, from Amazon that are, like, kids cutting knife things.

Laura Kåmark [00:36:23]:
I don't know. They work. They cut things. Like, she cut an apple in half the other day

Erin Thompson [00:36:28]:
Nice.

Laura Kåmark [00:36:28]:
With this, like, not gonna sever any skin knife. I don't understand how it works. But, yeah, it's I'm like, there's a light at the end of the tunnel because

Erin Thompson [00:36:41]:
There is.

Laura Kåmark [00:36:42]:
It's the kneading. All the kneading is it it can be hard. You know?

Erin Thompson [00:36:46]:
Yeah. I I kind of told my husband because my little my 4 year old, like, he's gonna be kind of ready to start doing school stuff next year. So I'm like, oh, I really need to take this year and make it count because next year, I'm gonna have 4 that I'm doing school stuff with. It's gonna get intense. So I need to get things set up so that I have that wonderful time freedom where I can spend that time with the kids and not feel that's one place I struggle is I always feel like I should be doing something productive. Right? And that's why, like, they'll get done with school, and I feel like I have to shift gears back to work because I need to be doing something productive. So that's one thing I'm really trying to work on for myself is, like, why do I always feel like I need to be productive? And what are some more positive things I can be thinking and doing? And how can I schedule in breaks for myself and things like that? Because, yeah, I'm not a machine.

Laura Kåmark [00:37:43]:
It's so hard. I had a friend, an I have accountability partner, and we talk on Voxer every day. And she was in a place where she was like, I'm not getting anything done. I feel like I should. She was shooting all over herself, and I'm like, you gotta stop shooting all over yourself. Stop it. I said here I said, I have something that what I try to do is when I'm starting to feel like like, what did I do all day? I didn't do anything, but I was sitting at my desk and I was doing stuff, but what did I actually accomplish? I started making a list. And I use a little check the little green checkbox emoji, and it can be as like, I got the kids to the bus on time.

Erin Thompson [00:38:14]:
Yeah.

Laura Kåmark [00:38:15]:
That's a celebration. That's like a win. I, you know, I went out and walked the dog on the beach. That's another win. You know, I'm I remembered to, like, feed myself a good breakfast. Like, that's a win. Any little thing that I accomplished, like, that could be, like, as big or as little as possible. And I started making those lists.

Laura Kåmark [00:38:34]:
And then now if if I if I remember to make the list because I type it up and then I'll send it out, I send it to my business coach, I send it to my accountability mastermind, and I send it to my accountability partner. So I have 3 different people that I will try. But again, I don't always do it every day, but I'll send off, like, here's all the things I did accomplish. Because sometimes when I look at my work to do list, I'm like, what did I get done? Because I didn't seem to, like, cross off some of these bigger items, but I know I did a lot of little things.

Erin Thompson [00:39:00]:
Yeah. But that's great. And I'm gonna I'm gonna seal that because there was a point in time where my husband's like, you I feel like you spend a lot of time in this room, like, but what what are we like, what things are actually, like, crossing the finish line? And I'm like, I don't know.

Laura Kåmark [00:39:17]:
I know I did something.

Erin Thompson [00:39:19]:
He like, he would work from home for a few days in a row. And he's like, I totally get it. You you can't get off. It's not like it's just so many millions of little disruptions all throughout the day that, like, how can you get anything across the finish line? And I'm like, thank you. Thank you. But I love that. So, like, actually, this is what I accomplished just to help celebrate because that is such a much better headspace to be in than shooting all over ourselves for sure.

Laura Kåmark [00:39:44]:
Exactly. Oh my gosh. I'd love it. I could sit and talk to you all day. I do have we're getting close to our time. And I have one final question that I ask everyone who comes on the show, and that is what is one piece of advice you would give to someone who is growing and scaling their business

Erin Thompson [00:40:17]:
I think we've talked about it a little bit in terms of not comparing yourself to others. But I think at the root of that, it's, like, believing in yourself and, like, trusting your instincts for what because there's everybody has their system. Right? And so they're just gonna teach you their system, but that might not be what you need. So, like, listening to your your inner intuition and your gut and following what feels right to you, I feel like is going to get you where you want to be much faster by, like, following what feels good, following what feels right, believing in yourself the whole way, and not comparing yourself to others because you're not on their path. You're on your path. You know what I mean? I think that would be the biggest thing that's gonna help you get to where you need to go. I don't know about faster because maybe your timeline's not meant to be faster, but it will help you get to, like, a really fulfilled place in your business.

Laura Kåmark [00:41:13]:
I love that so much. Erin, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Can you tell our listeners where they can find you, come hang out with you, your free Facebook group, all the things?

Erin Thompson [00:41:23]:
Yes. So my website is invite money into your life. My Facebook group is, like, facebook slash groups slash invite money into your life, and I'm on all the other social platforms. I think I'm invite money with Erin on, like, Instagram and TikTok. And if you want to hear more about day trading, you can go to my website, invite money into your life.comforward/ register for webinar. It's actually register dash for dash webinar. So that might be easier to, like, see in the show notes and click from that. But, yeah, that is where you can go if you want to catch my webinar and learn a little bit more about day trading and whether it would be a good fit for you or not.

Erin Thompson [00:42:08]:
And then if you are curious at all, like, there's a button, underneath it to click to get on a call with me. I would love to chat if you are, you know, not quite sure if it's a good fit or if you have more questions. Like, Laura said, we could talk about this all day, and I would love to talk about it with you and answer your questions. So feel free to set something up. I'd love to chat.

Laura Kåmark [00:42:29]:
Wonderful. I will link all that up in the show notes. Thank you so much. This was such a fun and informative episode.

Erin Thompson [00:42:35]:
Thank you. It was really, really fun getting to talk with you.

Laura Kåmark [00:42:39]:
Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. Be sure to check out the show notes at laurakamark.com/podcast. And if you're ready to get more sales without more work, save time so you can focus on the work that you do love, and automate and simplify the back end of your business, grab my free resource, how to get more sales from your email list on autopilot. Head on over to laurakamark.com/email. And don't forget to follow the show and leave a review in your favorite podcast app. It helps get this show in front of other business owners who want to grow and scale with ease. Thanks again for listening. I'll see you in the next episode.

Laura Kåmark [00:43:21]:
Bye now.