~ Hello to my new friends!
About me:
I've had an entrepreneurial mindset all my life it seems. (I didn't actually realize this though!) And since getting "let go" seven years ago from a "stable" position as an IS Director with a healthy salary, I've been doing everything I can do for personal and professional development. I didn't have skills cold-calling and selling, so I got a license to sell insurance and hacked it out for 18 months. Now I've got those skills. (I also have the chargebacks on my credit report now, because nobody followed up on my clients with customer service after I had left.) I hacked my way through web development and also promoted myself as a computer specialist for the one-off home visits to hook computers up to printers, security cameras, and internet connections. I landed a client who provided a regular stream of income for a few months, but when that crapped out I was back to polishing my resume, and joining job-sites, and once again responding to hundreds of craigslist ads in a month. When I find a good fit for me (and there have been several), it's when the interviewer is the owner of the company and I have a similar mindset, and I have all the right answers. But I don't get the courtesy of... "No. We decided on some other plan/candidate" and so I settle for the silence as their answer.
Unemployable.
I'm qualified to be the leader of a team, or the manager of a company, or a business consultant to some degree, but I'm not qualified to be a guru. (I'd hire the gurus.)
Speaking of gurus, I used to say that I'm in the "kiyosaki camp" for how I think in business: Own your own corporation. Build a business. Invest in cash-flowing income properties. Four green houses leads to one red hotel.
I learned some very valuable points from the "double-dad" (as MJ likes to say). And I always thought Suze was bunk, and other "gurus" sounded just like my divorced doctor dad, who was broke at 50, after stocks sank in the 90s. And I don't think he's that nextdoor millionaire just yet, despite performing those extra surgeries to pay off his debt and avoid bankruptcy. But he did buy a lake home, he travels some, and lives an enjoyable and quiet life. (Within his means!) ... and I'd like to have just a fraction of that security/solace when I'm his age. But not for the high price he's paid. We haven't spoken in many years, though I've tried my best.
Yep, that's my family.
My ex wreaks havoc on everyone I care about. She effectively teaches my sons the price of everything and the value of nothing. A real money-chasing Sidewalker. I presume she's still got that "paper" realtor/broker license, so she can do "viewings" or whatever...
The rest of my family are ALL slow-laners. There seems to be no way around that. My joblessness has been a point of shame for everyone. (And myself.) It's very hard for them to understand that when I did have a consistent employer for six years, or three, I was an excellent employee and a hard worker. It wasn't the lack of a degree that got me fired, and it wasn't the acquiring of the wrong degree that made me "un-promotable". It was the damn business decision. With the exception of the actions and influence of that damned short-sighted and selfish president of one of the companies I worked for, I can say that I might have fired me too, based on the "middle management is unnecessary" idea of cutting costs in a business that isn't as profitable as it could be. Yeah, I tend to improve an office to the point of not needing me any more, where I hire an assistant for myself so I can do more important things, and the assistant then does what I was originally hired to do because I found more value in the expansion of my own duties. This is where the toxin is frequently injected into a system of don't-do-more-than-you-must-if-you-wish-to-remain-employed, and sharing of information ceases in the name of job security.
My girlfriend is my biggest supporter and fan. She's not quite fast-lane material, but she helps with my sanity because she's so different from all these Sidewalkers and Slowlaners in my family. She supports me financially too. We get by.
But the shame of relying on others to get my own immediate needs met must end. I can continue to scour craigslist every day for a gig or two to pay a bill. And I can continue to go out of my way to hope for a part- or full-time position trading my time for money. (I would surely welcome the financial relief at this point. Is that so bad?)
After my last gig, where I fabricated a database to solve a problem for one client (the only client at the time), I was determined to make a business out of my experience. She was the model client, and I had found a niche to fill. So I began writing a business plan. I had the Operations section locked down. I had roles defined. I know exactly how to scale it from being "just me" to being "I'm on the board of directors while my business system sends me checks".
No marketing. No sales. No who-you-know contacts.
This awesome client of mine was a celebrity, and I can still make this business work, but I don't have a single contact in the realm of the famous people in the world. Once she stiffed me on the last invoice, I knew I was completely cut off from having connections to that world. Her promises were as shallow as her beauty. I would not be meeting her friend who also needs this fantastic solution I provided her over the last ten months. I would not be making headway into star-filled agencies to provide value-added services for their publicity departments. We would not be starting a partnership in the reputation management business for famous people. We would not be cleaning up the Internet from bad press and unfavorable images.
I was (am!) determined to figure out how to get this business off the ground on my own. As I began to educate myself on various subjects via youtube and a wealth of subscriptions and articles across the web, I found MJ's five-minute videos. The next day I joined this forum and ordered his book. There's just not time enough in a day to absorb this material. But one thing stuck out:
Take action.
My Business Plan was sitting on my desk, and all twelve prior iterations of it, under the clutter of dust and paperwork. I had been diligently working on it as a habit. Slowly building on what I'd written, and knowing that it's the PROCESS of writing the Plan that was the most valuable thing. So I wrote the sections that I understood well. I wrote parts of the sections that I knew something about. And I wrote questions seeking answers for the sections of the Business Plan that I knew very little about: The Marketing Section. And now the Plan was under the clutter of piling bills, and grocery lists. Hashtag-fail.
I may have appeared to just be sitting on my arse but the reality is that I was taking action by educating myself about the Marketing section of my Plan, and the Financials as well. But this was the wheel-spinning that I learned not to do when I finally found the Fastlaners solution. I devoured the information from the Community here, and from the information in the book. And I took ACTION between chapters.
I found the article and sales funnel video created by Ryan Deiss of digitalmarketer. BOOM!
I already owned a new domain, and it didn't really matter what it was called, because it was just a landing page now. I had been dabbling in Drupal, so I put a site together in a few days. I didn't know how to collect emails just yet, but I had recently learned about Gary Halbert, and put my inspiration hat on to put some copy out there for it. Subsequently, I've added the block on the site where I can collect a list of emails. I promised to send a free-something, so I'll still need to write that How-To that I've claimed is so incredibly valuable.
Now that I've got my site up to a level that's functional (yet still ugly!), I'm going to continue tweaking it until I see results. I have much learning to do before that happens though.
I began to feel the void.
Stuck among the slowlaners in my life, I joined a couple entrepreneur-type Meetups. But they reeked of Chamber-of-Commerce-meets-Toastmasters. So I busted out the visa and paid for one month as the organizer of a new Meetup. "Entrepreneurs (not WANTrepreneurs) for Action!" Nobody joined the group yet (it's been two days). But I will not miss the meeting tomorrow. I'll find something to do, find someone to talk to, read some stuff, write some code, sketch some plans. Drink my Iced Blended at 2pm in the afternoon by myself, or with my gf. Why at 2pm on a weekday? Because this is NOT FOR SLOWLANERS. That's why.
I'm not one.
That is why I'm UNEMPLOYABLE.
Thanks All,
~ Jeff
About me:
I've had an entrepreneurial mindset all my life it seems. (I didn't actually realize this though!) And since getting "let go" seven years ago from a "stable" position as an IS Director with a healthy salary, I've been doing everything I can do for personal and professional development. I didn't have skills cold-calling and selling, so I got a license to sell insurance and hacked it out for 18 months. Now I've got those skills. (I also have the chargebacks on my credit report now, because nobody followed up on my clients with customer service after I had left.) I hacked my way through web development and also promoted myself as a computer specialist for the one-off home visits to hook computers up to printers, security cameras, and internet connections. I landed a client who provided a regular stream of income for a few months, but when that crapped out I was back to polishing my resume, and joining job-sites, and once again responding to hundreds of craigslist ads in a month. When I find a good fit for me (and there have been several), it's when the interviewer is the owner of the company and I have a similar mindset, and I have all the right answers. But I don't get the courtesy of... "No. We decided on some other plan/candidate" and so I settle for the silence as their answer.
Unemployable.
I'm qualified to be the leader of a team, or the manager of a company, or a business consultant to some degree, but I'm not qualified to be a guru. (I'd hire the gurus.)
Speaking of gurus, I used to say that I'm in the "kiyosaki camp" for how I think in business: Own your own corporation. Build a business. Invest in cash-flowing income properties. Four green houses leads to one red hotel.
I learned some very valuable points from the "double-dad" (as MJ likes to say). And I always thought Suze was bunk, and other "gurus" sounded just like my divorced doctor dad, who was broke at 50, after stocks sank in the 90s. And I don't think he's that nextdoor millionaire just yet, despite performing those extra surgeries to pay off his debt and avoid bankruptcy. But he did buy a lake home, he travels some, and lives an enjoyable and quiet life. (Within his means!) ... and I'd like to have just a fraction of that security/solace when I'm his age. But not for the high price he's paid. We haven't spoken in many years, though I've tried my best.
Yep, that's my family.
My ex wreaks havoc on everyone I care about. She effectively teaches my sons the price of everything and the value of nothing. A real money-chasing Sidewalker. I presume she's still got that "paper" realtor/broker license, so she can do "viewings" or whatever...
The rest of my family are ALL slow-laners. There seems to be no way around that. My joblessness has been a point of shame for everyone. (And myself.) It's very hard for them to understand that when I did have a consistent employer for six years, or three, I was an excellent employee and a hard worker. It wasn't the lack of a degree that got me fired, and it wasn't the acquiring of the wrong degree that made me "un-promotable". It was the damn business decision. With the exception of the actions and influence of that damned short-sighted and selfish president of one of the companies I worked for, I can say that I might have fired me too, based on the "middle management is unnecessary" idea of cutting costs in a business that isn't as profitable as it could be. Yeah, I tend to improve an office to the point of not needing me any more, where I hire an assistant for myself so I can do more important things, and the assistant then does what I was originally hired to do because I found more value in the expansion of my own duties. This is where the toxin is frequently injected into a system of don't-do-more-than-you-must-if-you-wish-to-remain-employed, and sharing of information ceases in the name of job security.
My girlfriend is my biggest supporter and fan. She's not quite fast-lane material, but she helps with my sanity because she's so different from all these Sidewalkers and Slowlaners in my family. She supports me financially too. We get by.
But the shame of relying on others to get my own immediate needs met must end. I can continue to scour craigslist every day for a gig or two to pay a bill. And I can continue to go out of my way to hope for a part- or full-time position trading my time for money. (I would surely welcome the financial relief at this point. Is that so bad?)
After my last gig, where I fabricated a database to solve a problem for one client (the only client at the time), I was determined to make a business out of my experience. She was the model client, and I had found a niche to fill. So I began writing a business plan. I had the Operations section locked down. I had roles defined. I know exactly how to scale it from being "just me" to being "I'm on the board of directors while my business system sends me checks".
No marketing. No sales. No who-you-know contacts.
This awesome client of mine was a celebrity, and I can still make this business work, but I don't have a single contact in the realm of the famous people in the world. Once she stiffed me on the last invoice, I knew I was completely cut off from having connections to that world. Her promises were as shallow as her beauty. I would not be meeting her friend who also needs this fantastic solution I provided her over the last ten months. I would not be making headway into star-filled agencies to provide value-added services for their publicity departments. We would not be starting a partnership in the reputation management business for famous people. We would not be cleaning up the Internet from bad press and unfavorable images.
I was (am!) determined to figure out how to get this business off the ground on my own. As I began to educate myself on various subjects via youtube and a wealth of subscriptions and articles across the web, I found MJ's five-minute videos. The next day I joined this forum and ordered his book. There's just not time enough in a day to absorb this material. But one thing stuck out:
Take action.
My Business Plan was sitting on my desk, and all twelve prior iterations of it, under the clutter of dust and paperwork. I had been diligently working on it as a habit. Slowly building on what I'd written, and knowing that it's the PROCESS of writing the Plan that was the most valuable thing. So I wrote the sections that I understood well. I wrote parts of the sections that I knew something about. And I wrote questions seeking answers for the sections of the Business Plan that I knew very little about: The Marketing Section. And now the Plan was under the clutter of piling bills, and grocery lists. Hashtag-fail.
I may have appeared to just be sitting on my arse but the reality is that I was taking action by educating myself about the Marketing section of my Plan, and the Financials as well. But this was the wheel-spinning that I learned not to do when I finally found the Fastlaners solution. I devoured the information from the Community here, and from the information in the book. And I took ACTION between chapters.
I found the article and sales funnel video created by Ryan Deiss of digitalmarketer. BOOM!
I already owned a new domain, and it didn't really matter what it was called, because it was just a landing page now. I had been dabbling in Drupal, so I put a site together in a few days. I didn't know how to collect emails just yet, but I had recently learned about Gary Halbert, and put my inspiration hat on to put some copy out there for it. Subsequently, I've added the block on the site where I can collect a list of emails. I promised to send a free-something, so I'll still need to write that How-To that I've claimed is so incredibly valuable.
Now that I've got my site up to a level that's functional (yet still ugly!), I'm going to continue tweaking it until I see results. I have much learning to do before that happens though.
I began to feel the void.
Stuck among the slowlaners in my life, I joined a couple entrepreneur-type Meetups. But they reeked of Chamber-of-Commerce-meets-Toastmasters. So I busted out the visa and paid for one month as the organizer of a new Meetup. "Entrepreneurs (not WANTrepreneurs) for Action!" Nobody joined the group yet (it's been two days). But I will not miss the meeting tomorrow. I'll find something to do, find someone to talk to, read some stuff, write some code, sketch some plans. Drink my Iced Blended at 2pm in the afternoon by myself, or with my gf. Why at 2pm on a weekday? Because this is NOT FOR SLOWLANERS. That's why.
I'm not one.
That is why I'm UNEMPLOYABLE.
Thanks All,
~ Jeff
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