Marni Melrose  0:01  

All right, so today I have Marina Villa Toro, and she comes from one of our other speakers who is also a day trader. And she works with people who are mainly just getting started. So, why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself?

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Get to know Marina

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Marina  0:21  

Okay. Hi, everybody. Thanks so much for having me Marni. I'm Marina Villatoro or a lot of people know me as Marina, the trader chick. I am originally a refugee from the Soviet Union but raised in the United States. I have now been an expat living in Central America for almost 20 years. So, very international, I guess. I have begun my online entrepreneur journey almost 12 years ago, when I first began a travel website, which talked mainly about my family and my travels. We lived first in Costa Rica. Now we live in Antigua, Guatemala. So, it became my main business for a very long time and after a little while, when you've given all you can to a business, you either take it in one direction, or you do something different and I've always wanted to do day trading. I decided this was the time for me to really immerse myself in day trading. About eight years ago is when I fully jumped into the world of day trading and learning how to day trade and now I have been a day trader and a day trading educator for over four years, but day trading for eight years in total.

Marni Melrose  1:47  

Awesome. You've also done some TEDx recently, right?

Marina  1:51  

So, I teach in my kids' school, they go to a really progressive type of school, but even progressive schools don't have the full modern education that I believe in and I started teaching entrepreneurship for a kids' course. And two years ago, I became a TEDx organizer. I built a TEDx. But I'm one of the only TEDx organizers in the world that actually did it with kids, teens, specifically, with the class that I teach the entrepreneurship for kids' class. That was our final project. So, two years ago, we built a TEDx all around social entrepreneurship and what it is, and we had awesome speakers. We were one of the only TEDx in the world that did it outside. In this gorgeous farm. I think there's only one other TEDx that is outdoors, which is a big challenge, but it was great. It worked out. Everything was perfect.

Marni Melrose  2:55  

That's awesome. So, tell us in your business. How do you get clear on the things that you want to do? What helps you with clarity? And how can you share that with our attendees today?

Marina on clarity

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Marina  3:12  

Clarity is-- I think it's King. We can wake up and we have all these ideas and we want to do everything but unless we get super crazy laser clear, you're not going to do a single thing. I am very multi-passionate as you could hear, I have many different businesses. But, unless I sit down and really focus on what I'm going to do that specific day, for whatever that big project can be, it won't get done. Usually I do that with to do lists. I know that sounds kind of cliché, and pretty much everybody says, they do that, but honestly, they work. They really work. You could do many sorts of to-do lists. I could have my main to-do list for certain projects within one of my businesses, but then I have to totally break it down and even then, I could break it down into even more tiny little steps. And that's the only way I will get it done, one at a time. So, that's been really helpful. That's actually the only way I could do anything period, is to really, really break it down and get it done. I read in one book, sometimes the unfinished projects way more on you then when you're finished, and we have a tendency to have so many projects, but they're unfinished, and all they do is weigh us down. So, it's really important to get it done. That's a challenge sometimes, but that's how I work with it, just breaking it down and finishing it and then moving on to the next one.

Marni Melrose  4:59  

That's awesome.  Well, we'll talk later about EntireTask, because I think that's going to be a good fit for you.  Tell us about willpower and power. For instance, as you know, in business, things aren't always perfect every day, right? Sometimes things really suck. How do you find the power to continue on or to power through something that's really difficult?

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Marina on power

Marina  5:35  

That could be a real challenge. It's like those ups and downs, right? Well, it's really important for me that I have it written down, my big picture. The reason I'm even doing this and what I wanted to do and sometimes you just don't even want to get out of bed, but I have this rule, I don't want to say that we follow to the tee, but it's called the five minute rule. You get to feel sorry for yourself, you get to feel like shit for five minutes. But then guess what? It's time to move on. Because if you keep on feeling bad, you're just going to go in the wrong direction. Obviously, it's not five minutes, sometimes it could last a couple of hours. Sure. On a hole, that helps.

Marni Melrose  6:30  

It's kind of like the show must go on. Right. Get over it.

Marina  6:35  

Yeah, you totally have the right to feel sorry for yourself. And yeah, it sucks. Sometimes it really sucks. But what are you going to do? You can't stay in that sucky mode. You could either fix it or give up and giving up is not an option.  I mean if you do then that's a whole other story, right?

Marni Melrose  7:02  

That's awesome. So, share with us also the structures that you put in place to help you follow through, so you've got your list and now you've got your power and you're ready to go. You know where you're going. You know what you're doing. You've got the strength to do it. What helps you to actually follow through on those things that you commit to.

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Marina on follow-through

Marina  7:30  

So, it's taken me a really long time to, I don't know if it was resistance or maybe not really finding the right fit but I have been hiring some people to help work with me not just  like the VA I have that you know, those assistance. But for instance, I have an affiliate manager that helps set me up with many different summit's and presentations that are in my field, which I didn't even know existed. I met her, I don't want to say serendipity, but it was kind of a serendipity type of a thing, right. There's no coincidences but she was like a gift to me and that really just took me in a whole new direction with my business and then I just recently hired a business coach, but it's a very one on one business coach.

I mean, I meet with her several times a week she's totally changed my life. She really helps keep me on track and not because she tells me what to do because I know what needs to be done but I will find ways to go around it because of stuff that I don't really enjoy, but have to do. So, she helps me with it, and I have to say like, it's changed my life. I have only been working with her for two months, and just that commitment that I work with her. I told her I'm going to suck her dry we literally talk five, six times a week. I tell her now I don't know what my life is going to be like without her so my goal is to make money so I can keep on hiring her over and over again.

Yeah, that's really helpful. I know that some people can't afford that but there are accountability groups.  I had a lot of accountability partners, when you put money in the works, it doesn't have to be a lot, you just feel more committed. You have to show up because then you're really like a total loser, right? You're paying all this money and not even doing the work and it's all about you.

So, I have to say that that's been huge. Working with affiliate manager has been really helping me and now with my business coach, and this is just the beginning. So, as much as much as I build, the further I'll be able to go but also working with like the building of the TEDx. Every possible element you could possibly imagine had to be put together and working with people that had their specialties really helps.

So, you could do that for your business hire people that are specializing in certain parts of your business that is not your strength you can focus on your strengths. That's something that I recognize really makes a difference. You hear about it all the time. Work with rock stars and blah, blah, blah. But until you do it, you don't really get to understand how important it really can be.

Marni Melrose  10:40  

No, absolutely. I'm with you. 100%. I have three coaches, and they're not inexpensive.

Marina  10:49  

And they really help they really make a difference.

Marni Melrose  10:52  

Absolutely. Absolutely. They've taken me to a place that, I never even thought that I would be. I am 100% in agreement with you there. So, that's awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that Marina. Now, why don't you tell us about the free gift that you have for our people who are listening here today too.

Marina  11:16  

Okay, so I obviously day trade. The reason why I even became a day trading educator was I recognized that nobody at all was talking to beginners. Nobody talks to beginners, every Academy every educator, I feel like I have spent thousands of dollars on my day trading education and you name I've done it all. Every time I feel like I'm entering a strange new academy and new trade room, it's like a musician that says, "Hey, I want to learn how to play the flute," and instead of starting from the very first place, sitting down to learning the notes, you get into these academies and thrown into the symphonic pit and say, "all right, it's time keep up," and you don't even know where the notes are. I find that that's a really huge problem on many levels, right?

First of all, you don't, sometimes people just don't even understand what's going on. And they need to start at the super beginning. Another thing you might spend all this money and realize, wait, this isn't even for me, another one. And this is the worst of them. All. People get into these academies, trade rooms, and they don't really understand what's going on but if the moderator says that these are good trades, then they must be and then they're getting in live, and it's kind of like starting to drive a car without ever knowing how to even turn it on, you're going to crash, right? If you accidentally turn it on, you're going to crash. What I recognized was when I was starting, nobody was helping me. I was asking all these questions in the beginning and everybody was blowing it off as if though I was born with that information and we're not. After losing too much money, coming back and just realizing that I never fully understood the basics and went to learn the basics that changed everything for me. That's why I specialize in helping total beginners a lot of people who maybe want to try it but they're so scared because it's risky or they don't understand. I help them get over it. I've literally I've mastered the art of simplifying it. Anybody can learn to trade, I could teach anyone and it's really amazing as a side thing, because you can only really fully trade for about an hour and a half. I don't even think to do two hours per day. It's just too much of a mental, physical activity. So, after you learn your strategy and understand how to do it, you only need is an hour and a half, and it's a fantastic side thing for entrepreneurs or mothers or fathers. Somebody who just wants to do it on the side or if you're a traveler, you don't need that much time to learn. I'm focused on helping complete beginners and I could take you from zero to almost pro trader. So, that's my specialty. And I have a freebie helping - starting complete beginners. It's a free mini course called simplifying day trading. You can find that on my website, thetraderchick.com

Marni Melrose  14:26  

We're going to put a link down below here, so you won't have to hunt around for it. It'll be right there. Thank you so much for coming on the summit today. I thought that, some of the stuff that you shared was really, really cool. Thank you so much.

Marina  14:47  

Thanks, everybody.

Marni Melrose  14:48  

You bet. Bye bye bye.