300 kph
A Reason NOT To Hate on Jobs
A reoccurring theme in this forum is a general distaste for a slow lane job. Young kids are often encouraged here to adopt a "Fastlane" mindset. People's enthusiasm for MJ's epic book leads us to want to evangelize the essence of MJ's message. It's not wrong, but...
I propose that almost EVERYONE should start out working for someone else.
Reason #1 - Free Education
I began working in my young teens. As a 15 year old, I saw guys working at the same donut shop that I worked at that were twice my age. When I was 17, I was managing people twice my age. It started me wondering why some people OWN the donut shop, and why some 30 year old guys found themselves WORKING in the donut shop. This was a life lesson nobody could tell me. At 15, I wasn't going to listen to anyone. I had to see this first hand. I had to decide not to be the 30 year old guy working in the donut shop, being managed by a 17 year old kid.
Rounding 20, I was the smartest guy in the room (you could have just asked me, I would have told you.) I was the youngest corporate buyer in the history of a large retailer. I was underpaid, overworked, working for assholes at times, and learning. I learned about good bosses and bad bosses. I learned through trial and error how to motivate people, and what actions demotivated people. I learned about P&L's, marketing (the real world stuff that the college professors don't know) and consumer response. I learned about regulatory agencies, customer relations, and strategy. I didn't know it at the time, but I was studying. I had no idea how much I didn't know.
I then moved to Bentonville, Arkansas, and went to work for the world's largest retailer. It was then that my eyes were opened up to the free education I was receiving. I was studying from the industry giants, I was getting paid to do things like attend Dale Carnegie classes, and I was using someone else's LARGE checkbook to experiment. I was being trained the best practices in the world from a company who knew it ALL, and they were paying me while I was getting this education.
Reason # 2 - You have to know how bad the game SUCKS before you can change the game.
Can you imagine attempting to be a Grand Master of Chess without ever studying the fundamentals? Without having someone better than you beat you? Sure, it could happen, if you were a prodigy. Most of us aren't. Most of us have to learn fundamentals. Most of us have to get checkmated before we learn how to defend, and then eventually how to go on offense.
Think about it. One of the whole premises of the Millionaire Fastlane is that the game is rigged against the masses. Traditional advice doesn't create wealth. You can't get rich as a salary man generally, working to make someone else money. How would you even understand the depth of what MJ is talking about unless you worked in some shit, dead end job with a salary ceiling? I propose that one of the ONLY ways that you can become motivated enough to become a true free agent is if you have the experience of the opposite end of the spectrum.
Sure, there are exceptions. You can point to Michael Dell, who started from his dorm room. My counter punch would be that for the most part, we're not all Michael Dell. For those 1-in-a-thousand kids, go for it... but if you were like Michael Dell, you wouldn't need my encouragement to do so. Most of us need the school of hard knocks to kick us in the junk until we puke. It is then that you are able to pick yourself up off the mat, resolve to take your destiny into your own hands, and become something bigger than the W-2 job you didn't really like anyway.
So, let's not be so quick to discourage people from attending the school of hard knocks. A free education, followed by the inevitable kick in the balls (sorry ladies for the crude analogy, but I bet you can sympathize with the sentiment) will then lead them to the Millionaire Fastlane.
135 kph
35 kph
Phenomenal post. You will find no better motivation than a slowlane, miserable 9-5 job pushing you towards the fastlane. That's the point you get desperate and start thinking there HAS to be another way. It's my personal driving force, and I would never have had the motivation that I currently have without the slowlane job. Once my fastlane income matches my slowlane income, that is my freedom day.
There's no motivation like desperation.
145 kph
I think this is interesting. However, I have a question about a problem I've been having.
My problem has been that the candidates that the people are looking for are simply not what I can offer. I'm turning nineteen in a few weeks but even menial positions want 5+ years of experience. It seems that the employers simply do not want to take the time and money to educate their workers and would prefer someone like the person who had the position before, but for much cheaper. Like, for a receptionist position they want someone with 3+ years of receptionist experience. If you're a receptionist for 3+ years, you're probably doing something wrong, yet that's what they want! Is this a legitimate problem or am I simply not trying hard enough? The last interview I had, I got rejected mid-interview when I admitted that I had no prior work experience (literally, the guy told me to leave)!
If you have employees, what kind of people are YOU looking for? (This is an open-ended question for pretty much anyone who has hired someone in the past few years)
300 kph
Great thread. Rep ++
This is a great point.Originally Posted by Vigilante
Do you want to become a real estate investor but have no money or knowledge?
Go work, for free if needed, at a Real Estate office. Learn, learn, learn.
You don't know about marketing?
Intern for a marketing company.
You can do this for pretty much industry (maybe not medicine though or other advanced scientific-related industries).
This has got to be an awesome experience.... where is the "I am jealous" icon here?
300 kph
Well, how bad do you want it?
Offer you will work for free for three months.
Call it a great internship opportunity.
And once you get one opportunity, make sure you work your ass off providing value and learning everything you can.
Worst case scenario? They let you go after three months, and you learnt a lot.
Other potential scenario? Somebody leaves and they offer you the position, so you now get paid to do the job and keep learning.
MAKE SURE YOU apply to intern at a company that is related to the industry you are going after, or at least the position is close to what you want to learn about.
300 kph
My 18 year old son is working tying boats up at a dock. He can learn how to run a business, how to schedule employees, what a good employee looks like, how to sell, how to manage, and how to hustle. It's a job that will never lead to a career, but the life lessons he will take with him will help him. He doesn't need a career right now... he needs an education. I really don't care where he works at this stage of the game for him. I could give him a job and pay him 4x what he's making... but I couldn't help him learn what he needs to learn from "working for the man." Cast a wide net.
By the way, the current economy in the United States has made jobs scarce for teens into young twenties. People who are way overqualified are taking jobs that typically are reserved for your age group. That's not going to loosen up until the economy recovers, which is not on the immediate horizon. The only encouragement I have for you is to keep looking, double down your efforts, and keep fighting until you DO get a job.
It's an employers market right now. For every job posting, there are hundreds of applicants, many of whom are overqualified. Don't lose hope... maintain your determination, and then when you get the job... be the best employee they EVER had and you will never have to worry again about being unemployable.
300 kph
A+ advice. If you're not working anyway, and can survive for a few months, why not roll the dice in this way? Talk about blowing someone away.... that would be a proposal they could not refuse. Action fakers would never consider doing this.
300 kph
Thanks. I wish I could say this was something I came up with, but...
My cousin sent an email with her resume to the head of the company she wanted to to work for.
She was still living at home with the parents.
She told the CEO how great she thought the company was and offered to work for free while learning from them.
The guy did not reply... at least not immediately.
Three weeks later, he emailed her. His assistant was leaving. He could not offer her the job she wanted and prepared for (designer) but could get started as his assistant if she was OK with it.
And he told her nobody would work for free there, so she would get a decent salary to start.
She basically bypassed the whole selection and hiring process. Jumped to the top of the list.
Today she's got the position she was really looking forward to get. And she knows the CEO personally. And he knows about her.
And when he wants somebody passionate to work on a specific project, who do you think the CEO calls to get it going?
300 kph
Admin
Epic post. Working a job also allows you to see a first hand perspective about how "others" run a business.
Many times I'd say "Wow, I would never run things that way!"
I remember when I was delivering pizza for a local pizza joint, the owner was always complaining about how bad Monday sales were.
I told him to why not run a "Monday Night Football" promotion -- some kind of incentive to coincide with the big football game to encourage more sales on a dismal night. My argument, "SPorts and Pizza go hand in hand!" (Right?)
He didn't listen (why should he listen to an 18 year old kid?). After I gave him the idea, he retorted with "When you own your own pizza place, you can do that." (Basically, it was his version of "take your idea and get lost").
Today, I wouldn't doubt he's still running that same pizza joint 7 days a week for $60K/year.
55 kph
I totally agree 100% with the OP!
Jobs are stepping stones into the big wide world that teach people valuable skills and provide experience that cannot be bought or learned any other way.
They provide the fuel to strive to do better and become fastlane for those who want it bad enough!
Jobs also provide a means of financing a business venture that might otherwise be impossible to do without funds.
145 kph
That's some good stuff. Thanks! I'll try to get a temporary position doing, well, anything. I'm only in the country for another month.
Anyway, I tend to agree: I did do a volunteer position for two years at a martial arts school. Every instructor at the school except the top three instructors and the girl at the front desk was a volunteer: we all did it for zero pay (in fact, we paid to attend the school!) and we all learned a lot. Not just about running a dojang but about running a business. We saw the inner workings of the business (none of the financials, of course: the grandmaster and his outsourced CPA and attorney were the only ones who ever saw the financials), we set up the events and we even put the school together for him. We do all the work for free! But it was a great education and it taught us not only about management but about marketing as well: we'd hand out fliers and go to schools and perform choreographed stuff. We'd get plenty of sign-ups this way.
Can't learn this stuff in school.
105 kph
For what it's worth.....
I'm sitting in a cubical of my slowlane job right now. I'm taking a break from building my own start-up as I write this post. I'm doing this all from the comfort of my cubical, while being paid.
That is an advantage of some jobs. If you find the right job then you can actually get paid to build your start-up. It's not a foolproof plan. I get interrupted a lot, and I run the risk of pissing a co-worker off and getting fired, but at least I have a paycheck coming in. And yes, I did purposely pick a slow job for this reason.
I guess that you can say that I am manipulating the slowlane so I can make money in effort to try to get into the fastlane ASAP. At times I feel like I am going about 60mph in a school zone.
But nothing beats making money while getting to work on a start-up. I get to sit back and do work when it comes in as fast as possible, then get right back to my own work. I take all of my money from work and re-invest back into myself. That's the key. I don't have a 401K, I'm done with college and I don't plan on getting my masters and doctorate until I am rich...I stash the cash and put it back into myself, my business, and new potential opportunities.
..so I think a slowlane job is bad and good. It just depends on what we want to get out of it.
The only downside that I see to working is that I think I could get things done faster, I would be happier, and I could spend more time teaching myself about programming and things of that nature.
When you are vying for a job you are in sales. You are selling your services. You need to figure out your unique marketing pitch to get the job. You need to do everything you can to find out what the company needs and how you could fit in.
I wrote a blog post about getting a job a while ago. Maybe some of it can help you.
Get a Job! | Greg Brister
JohnP, This is my exact situation. My slowlane job has a good amount of downtime, some days are slower than others so it is a little tricky to know how much time I'll have to dedicate to a Fastlane Business on a given day. I'm in the very early stages, reading a lot and absorbing knowledge, experimenting with websites and programming, still trying to figure out what exactly to pursue. May I ask what kind of business you are doing? The big issue I see is that I'm restricted to my desk most of the day, so the only businesses that can be done this way are ones that are internet / programming based and if I discover a need that does not fit this category then I may just have to quit or find a different way to work it.
210 kph
Awesome post. I notice most of the younger crowd in the forum are looking to jump right in the fastlane feet first. You really need to do it one foot at a time. Learn a little about life and about what it's like working in the real world. Not only is it a great learning experience, but you will get to know what it feels like to be an employee. This will, hopefully, help you immensely when you run a company of your own. Happy employees usually equal a Happy owner.
I've couldn't count how many jobs I've had since I was 13. One thing that I learned is how to treat employees and how not to treat employees. This is important because an angry, disgruntled employee usually will only put in a small % of effort to get the job done. They also might not treat your customers the right way or may have other negative effects on your business. A happy employee usually goes out of their way to get their tasks done and most will go above and beyond.
I've experienced this many times myself, as an employee, and as an owner. Not to mention family and friends who either complain about their job or praise their job.
That's awesome. How was your experience with the Dale Carnegie Classes? I was looking to try them out. I love Dale Carnegie. Been reading a lot of his material over the last few months.
105 kph
I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one in this situation. That is exactly how my job is. Some days I have just about a full 8 hours to do what I want, then some days I don't. I work for the state, so that explains a lot right there.
My first is a social platform for higher edu. It's based around user engagement (not the next FB), but probably the way FB should have been. It has nothing to do with my slowlane job.May I ask what kind of business you are doing?
My second one is an iphone app. Again, this one has nothing to do with my job. BUT I got the idea at work. I have found that the slowlane is full of opportunity for new ideas. People go to work bitching about problems in their life. They are finding all sorts of million dollar needs that can easily be filled. And that is how I came up with my second idea. Someone started complaining about something.
I'm restricted to my desk most of the day, so the only businesses that can be done this way are ones that are internet / programming based and if I discover a need that does not fit this category then I may just have to quit or find a different way to work it.
Yep, same for me. I have called out sick to go promote to people. I have used a lot of excuses. I think that you can still manage to get out there and promote a product if you work 40 hours per week. You may have to call out "sick", but that is the risk that you take when jumping from one lane to the next. In Fastlane book, MJ presents a stat - I don't know the exact quote from the top of my head but it's something like- you have a 1/6 chance of becoming a millionaire in the slowlane over 30-40 years, and you have a 1-7 chance of becoming a multi-millionaire in the fastlane within a very short period of time. So i think that calling out sick and lying is worth the risk (for me). And I apologize if I was wrong with that stat
JohnP, This is my exact situation. My slowlane job has a good amount of downtime, some days are slower than others so it is a little tricky to know how much time I'll have to dedicate to a Fastlane Business on a given day. I'm in the very early stages, reading a lot and absorbing knowledge, experimenting with websites and programming, still trying to figure out what exactly to pursue. May I ask what kind of business you are doing? The big issue I see is that I'm restricted to my desk most of the day, so the only businesses that can be done this way are ones that are internet / programming based and if I discover a need that does not fit this category then I may just have to quit or find a different way to work it.
That is awesome. People at my work complain sometimes too and I'm trying to always be alert of what they are complaining about and keep a list going for fastlane business ideas, one extra reason to not hate on jobs, you'll be exposed to the average worker and can learn any needs or complaints they have. I'm in the I.T. department at my job, friends and family say I should do that as a business, the whole PC repair / house call thing, I'm trying to figure out if I could scale it big enough though and meet all the N-E-C-S-T requirements. It's good to know that other people are pursuing things different from their job. Thanks a lot for all your answers and insight.
25 kph
Great post. I actually made the decision to be an entrep after "suffering" so much in the corp world. There are just a lot of things that aren't under you control if you're an employee. (insulting yearly salary increase, moving to a different location, schedule etc). These things pushed me to get out of my comfort zone and start taking risks. I would've never made that decision if I wasn't so pissed of at the system. And it also gave me a perspective on how big companies run things which I think is a plus when you're trying to grow your own business
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