I must say that "The Millionare Fastlane" has inspired me to do great things since reading it in September. I am a relatively recent (2009) university graduate who has had a hell of a time finding meaningful work, or even work at all, and decided it was time to take things into my own hands.

I went from making less that 1000 dollars a month to making an average of 5000. I've been living a much more comfortable (though nowhere near rich) life for the past four months, but I've realized that I've made a huge mistake and I'm hitting a brick wall.

I made the number one mistake MJ warned against in the book: I traded my time for money. Being in the position I was, I needed the cash so working 12-hour days every single day of every week didn't bother me; in fact it felt great. I was so pumped that I could earn what seemed like so much money on my own. But now, I've realized I've hit my income cap. I simply can't earn more than what I'm earning, and because I'm so busy I'm dead tired, becoming depressed, and am unable to work on the "fastlane" aspect of any of my ideas.

My original plan was to get a "day job" (check) to pay the bills and give me health insurance, teach on the side (check), and then start a music publishing and product design business to fill holes in the music field that I have identified. About a month ago I was about to trademark a logo, incorporate, and release my first products (on a very small scale), and thought I could cancel the day job within the year.

However, I've hit a dead end. The first few months I was very motivated in working towards my goal, but in some ways I've been too successful. My day job wants to promote me to sales manager (which will only be an incremental pay increase, and more responsibilities), and teaching every night so late is taking its tole on my body, mind, and relationships.

I can't just scrap my music customers, I'd rather quit the day job... but justifying this to myself is incredibly hard without a solid backup plan, but planning my backup plan is impossible while I'm working like a dog.

I don't know how I wound up in this mess, but it feels terrible. I went from feeling time-wealthy and money-poor a year ago, to feeling money-comfortable and time-poor now. Honestly, at this point... I prefered the time to the money, but life was harder then in some ways too.

Sorry for the long post... Any ideas, though? I'm stuck.