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PureA

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This forum truly holds a wealth of knowledge. I ask you to kindly post your favourite post so others may reap the benefits.

Mine:
Omg zen******* just told me that I rock. I wasn’t planning on posting here for a few days because I’m super busy running the ice cream machines, but I just had to respond to his post and drop more ice cream on the floor. I’m here to serve all of you and help you shift your mindset so here is some additional ice cream.

We here at the ice cream shop operate by a different set of beliefs from most others. This goes a bit deeper than the CENTS formula. Our beliefs are in no way original…we found them while sailing the Pacific Ocean when we stumbled upon an underwater city called Oceania, where many Dolphins are swimming around. They didn’t realize it at the time during our conversations, but we were secretly reading in between the lines to dissect the deeper meaning behind why the Dolphins were successful. We found that the only thing that separated the Dolphins from all the other creatures in Oceania was their mindset. I took some notes and locked them in a treasure chest to be brought with me back to Candy Land. I never intended to share such notes, as they contain the deepest secrets of the Dolphin…but I asked him how I could repay him for what he’d done for me and he told me to share the ice cream with others.

This is what we believe in the ice cream shop…

We truly believe in our hearts that we have the ability to achieve anything that we put our minds to, therefore we demand persistent daily action towards achieving such goals. We are deeply rooted in reality and do not mentally masturbate. We threw all of the excuses in the trash can. A few bums found the list of excuses in the trash and started using them, but that’s their choice.

We realize that whatever dominating thoughts inside of us will eventually manifest itself outward into physical reality. We must never let the negative gremlins in Candy Land allow their comments to dominate our thoughts. If this happens, it’s game over.

We believe that a true ice cream shop cannot last long term unless it offers honest and fair ice cream to the people. Therefore, all of our transactions must benefit EVERYONE involved. There is no selfishness in the ice cream shop.

We convince others to serve us ice cream because we will FIRST serve them, with zero attachment to our personal gain. We get them to believe in us because we believe in them first.

We are very conscious of our health. We have a big focus on cardio and weightlifting, thanks to PatrickP. Online we eat lots of ice cream and take shots of tequila every 15 minutes, but in the real world we don't take any ice cream because sweets spike our insulin. Spiked insulin is what causes diabetes and make us feel tired. We need high energy within ourselves to run the ice cream shops. Good health is vital.

We believe that the real price of achieving mountains of ice cream is hard work. There are no shortcuts in Candy Land. There are bicycles, cars, and skateboards to get you to your location faster, but there are no shortcuts.

Lastly, it was never about the ice cream. It’s about loving people and removing the pains from their lives at a massive scale. The ice cream and alcohol is simply a byproduct of the value the ice cream shops bring to Candy Land.

Shift your mindset. Work hard. Expect more from yourself.

I think my biggest mindset shift was when I realized that I was my own biggest obstacle.

Master yourself. Master your fears, your bad habits, your insecurities.

Dude...that's the crazy thing about entrepreneurship. After you're done mentally masturbating over inspirational quotes and you finally start taking action, all of the insecurities and fears that you hide from will come to the surface. That's where the real warrior either comes through or retreats back into mental masturbation mode.

In business, you alone are responsible for your results. There's nothing to hide behind...you can't blame your boss, the economy, whatever. You are responsible and you are your own greatest obstacle.

Try to speed through the mental masturbation phase fast and get the ice cream asap. You'll like the person you become.

Come learn the moves so you can dance with us at the ice cream shop. We got better music than MTV and Coachella...dude, why doesn't MTV play music anymore btw? That's pretty whack.
 
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GSF

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#1: Accept Reality: There Are No Shortcuts. Real Change Requires a Real Process.

Let’s first get the uncomfortable shit out of the way.

Anything worthwhile in life will require a worthwhile effort. There are no shortcuts. There are NO silver bullets, NO magic pills, and NO secret sauces. If you’re still trolling the internet looking for this stuff, move along. You’ve got the wrong forum, the wrong article, and the wrong author.

So lets start with the old guru mantra “take action!

We say it a lot around here: Take action! Take action!

While action is important, action isn’t what creates change.

Taking action, by itself, is just an event that produces little, if any results. In fact, “taking action” is right behind “do what you love” as one of the biggest guru hoaxes ever perpetrated on the self-improvement industry.

Blasphemy?

Here’s why.

“Taking action” is merely a micro-task to a process, and a process is what precedes real change.

What’s a process? A process is a systematized series of focused actions. A process is repeated. A process is “taking action X 1000" and making adjustments along the way.

Once a process is established it then becomes a habit, which then integrates the process into your mind as automatic, instinctual, and almost subconscious. It actually becomes woven into your existence. The result is a lifestyle which ultimately creates the change you want. The change isn’t fleeting or short-lived, but permanent. Short-cuts are short for a reason— they don’t last.

Unfortunately, most people leverage “taking action” into some sort of mental masturbation trick designed to give us a fleeting "feel good" moment. It’s a temporary exercise orchestrated to fool yourself into thinking that you are doing something, when in actuality, you’re just painting lipstick on the pig. You’re committed to the idea of change, but not committed to the process of change.

Hit the gym the first week of January. See all those people? They’re committed to the idea of change (which are just fleeting thoughts) but not committed to the process (which is the focused action). By February, 95% of them will be gone.

View attachment 6828

You see, going to the gym constitutes “taking action”. However, if you never return, will anything really change? Not a damn thing except for that moment of “feel good” which is now, long gone.

Want to eat better and shed a few pounds? Great— for lunch you have steamed halibut and broccoli. Awesome choice. Healthy and nutritious, a perfect decision for your goals. Unfortunately, for dinner you’re back at the old double-bacon cheeseburger with fries. Again, absolutely nothing has changed despite “taking action.”

Ever hear someone say “I’m on a diet?” What they’re really saying is this:

I am NOT committed to permanent change.
I am NOT committed to the process.
I am NOT committed to a transformation from action, to habit.

The word diet implicitly means FAIL. Diets are event-driven based on “taking action” — but the word implies temporary, which implies failure of process.

Diets die and only succeed when they become lifestyles, making the diet, no diet at all— but a simple way of living.

You see, your lifestyle is what produces the real change you seek. That’s how you make a difference in your life. No pill, no diet, and no book can give you the “secret” — the secret lies within yourself, your process, and your expectations of that process.

Focused action > Committed and Repeated > Habit > Lifestyle.



#2: Identify What You Want

What exactly do you want?

Envision yourself time-shifting 1 year into the future at a New Years Eve party. Envision yourself celebrating the year that was, the year that changed EVERYTHING. Take a moment and reflect on the accomplishments you are celebrating in this moment.

Do you want to lose 60 pounds and did it? Did you eat better and got your cholesterol down to 180? Did you enter a fitness competition and placed in the top three? Did you start a new business and doubled your income? Quit your job? Met your soulmate? Complete a full length novel?

Identify EXACTLY what you want to feel in this moment and envision yourself there.

If you don't know where you want to go, you don't know the road that will get you there.



#3: Apply Mathematics To That End Goal, If Possible

Now that you’ve envisioned how awesome your new year will be, attach a numerical figure to your goal.

If “lose weight” is the goal, this would translate into “Lose 25 pounds” or “Get to 15% bodyfat”. Likewise, if your goal is to “start a business” you would need to identify a numerical number, say sales, profits, or # of customers.

The mathematics of the change is crucially important as subjective milestones cannot be measured, and often are action-fakes for real progress.

For example, if “start a business” is the goal, what measure identifies meeting the goal? The moment you get business cards? Or a fancy logo? The moment you launch the website?

While these milestones are apart of the process, they are merely circle-jerking action-fakes designed to make us think that we’ve accomplished a goal, when the real goal should be a sustainable mathematical momentum that keeps us moving toward habitual and addictive producing results.

If it cannot be sustained, it isn’t real — it isn’t habit and it isn’t lifestyle.



#4: Segment The End Goal Into It’s Daily “Take-Action” Step

After you isolate what you want to achieve and quantified it, break down that achievement into it’s core “take action” component, or what I call “the daily target”. What daily routine will get you there?

For example, if you objective is to write a novel, your daily target could be to write 500 words everyday, or a minimum of 2 hours. If your objective is 12% body fat and six-pack abs, your daily target would be to either workout and/or eat no more than 2,000 calories. The important thing here is to isolate the micro-task that builds the process.

If your goal cannot be measured, use a daily accounting instead. For example, on my attached spreadsheet I have an end goal as “education” — I want to expand my knowledge. In order create change in this area, I will strive to learn something new everyday. Doing so completes the task.



#5: Identify What Threatens The Daily Target.

In other words, you need to identify what IS NOT working. What can and will threaten your daily target? There’s that old adage: The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing while expecting different results. In other words, the choices you made this YEAR resulted in the CONSEQUENCES you have NOW.

In order to hit the daily targets you’ve set, you’ve got to identify exactly WHAT will stop you from achieving them. Why have you failed for the last 10 years? What things do you need to stop doing to make this happen THIS YEAR? Success is more about what you need to STOP doing versus START doing.
  • Are you spending 5 hours a day on Facebook playing the latest and greatest game?
  • Are you jumping from one idea to the next with no focused action or plan?
  • Does your ego require an expensive BMW? Which then requires you to maintain your 60 hour a week soul-sucking corporate job?
  • Are you giving into false narratives (I have no money! I have no skills! I'm not a morning person!) that preclude you from making a change?
In order to tackle the hardest part of process, which is “committed and repeated”, you have to dig down into your life and expose everything that is thwarting process.

It all boils down to one thing: Your choices.


"Greatness is a lot of small things done daily."

What are you choosing instead? What bad habits are stealing your time and derailing your progress?

The bottomline is, if you don’t have what you want, its because of one reason only: You’re simply not making the required sacrifice. You are choosing actions not correlated to your goal.



#6: Target Threats By Identifying Where the Battles Are Won and Lost.

Most people fight their wars on the wrong battlefield, resulting in loss after loss. If you only knew WHERE and HOW to fight, you would have a fighting chance to create the change you want.

For example, if you want to lose fifty pounds, you have to first identify where the battle is won and lost.

Most people think the battle is won at the refrigerator. As you open up the door, the battle begins:

  • “OMG, don’t eat that ice cream! Pick something else!
  • “Oooh, look at the cheesecake! Should I eat a few bites? No don’t!
  • “Mmmm, I would love an ice cold Pepsi right about now… but I shouldn’t.
  • “Don’t eat that block of cheese! OMG I can’t stand it!
  • “No, don’t grab that gallon of ice cream! Oh, just a little dish won’t hurt…
Sorry champ, but you’ve already lost.

The war you’re fighting isn’t fought at the refrigerator, its fought at the grocery store. The moment you put this crap in your shopping cart, is the moment you’ve lost the war. You’re fighting a war with sticks and stones while your enemy has an AR-15.

Been spending hours watching mindless reality television? The battle you need to fight isn’t on the couch with the remote control, it’s on the telephone. Pick up the phone and cancel the freaking cable TV.



#6) Attack bad habits with inconvenience and/or pain.

Once you identify the battlegrounds, your bad habits are now ripe for attack.

How do you attack them?

By leveraging your natural human instinct which is to seek the path of least resistance. In other words, make your bad habits a royal pain in the a$$ to continue. Make them invasive. Inconvenient.

In our refrigerator example, if you’ve won the war at the grocery store, you now have attached inconvenience to the bad habit. If you want ice cream, you’ve got to hop in your car, drive to the store, troll the grocery aisle, buy it, and drive home. Not super complicated, but certainly not super convenient.

If you’re trying to stop playing video games, pack up your XBOX console and sell it. Or throw it in the attic. Now if you want to play, you’ve got to climb a ceiling ladder and crawl through a dusty attic to unpack it, wire it up, and play.

Again, not very convenient.



#7) Reward Daily “Action-Taking” Accomplishments with a Physical Cue.

I don’t know what it is, but I’ve learned that crossing-off line-items on my to-do list is addictive.

It feels good.

I love seeing that “X” being marked off as it gives me a sense of reward. If you can do the same with your daily “action taking” we can encourage process and habit changing behavior to take place.

I’ve attached a spreadsheet that can help us accomplish this. It also outlines this entire exercise in procedural change.

Going back to our “lose weight” example, your daily ritual should include a visit to the gym and a better diet. Each day this is done successfully, mark down its accomplishment in a journal or a spreadsheet. On my spreadsheet, it’s achievement is marked by an X.

The objective of the spreadsheet is to create a mental map of your “action taking” so it eventually forms a process.

The goal is to get vertical with the X’s as much as possible for each goal target. If you target ONE X MINIMUM for each day for each row, you will experience KAIZEN, or constant improvement.

Over the course of thirty days, you will see noticeable results.

In a year, you won’t recognize yourself!!!

Optimally, you want to create columns of Xs on consecutive days for each objective. The minimum goal should be at least one X on each day— this means you are improving yourself every single day. To get started, I suggest a simply 30-day challenge, or baby steps, a 10-day challenge.

Pick a goal, line up some “X”s and see how to goes for you.

On my spreadsheet, I have several categories. Each are designed to improve my life in a different facet. This challenge also exposed an interesting "false narrative" in my life ... The last 2 weeks, I've been getting up at 4:15AM and hitting the gym. While the early days were a struggle, I'm to the point now where I discovered that "I'm not a morning person" was simply a narrative I told myself so I didn't have to exert the discipline to get up.

So, who wants to change their life in the next 30 days?

:)

KAIZEN: Japanese for "improvement" or "change for the best", refers to philosophy or practices that focus upon continuous improvement of processes.
 

MJ DeMarco

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Here are just a few I've bookmarked... surely flying low under the radar from most...

A lesson I learned in 2014.

I used to sell a product that was a me-too product.

When comparing it to the competition, there were a few (small) things different about it, but I wasn’t truly providing any value.

One question really got me. “Why do you exist in the marketplace? If you didn’t exist what would happen?” For me it was simple, customers would buy another similar product from someone just like me and be just as satisfied.

“Do you provide anything significant that other products in the niche don’t?”

In truth, for me, the answer was no.

I was chasing money, and in the end, it wasn’t worth it.

With that product, my best month was mid five figures and I averaged mid five figures a month over the year.

I started selling a new line of products 3 months ago and I have already eclipsed all of my previous best sales marks - best day, best week, best month, etc.

And that’s why I can confidently say my previous money chasing was not worth it.

In 3 months I got to a place my previous business never got.

Obviously, there was a ton of process in the months leading up to the last three, I traveled thousands of miles, met some awesome people who have helped me immensely and put in thousands of hours of work. It’s not easy and won't happen over night, but IT IS WORTH IT.

In 2015, the sky’s the limit. My resolution, provide more value.

So, why do you exist in the marketplace?


For me, this forum and the friends I've developed from it, have destroyed my previous way of thinking and mindset. I'm still surprised at how much your mindset contributes to the success of anything.

When I first got on this forum, I read every thread, every reply, and those from the beginning of forum time. I learned a lot but only what my mindset could process and understand.

Once my mindset got destroyed and rebuilt, it was really like I swallowed the matrix pill. I go back and look at the SAME POST that I read before the mindset change & POOF, it's new information everywhere. Everything I didn't understand or couldn't see before, is now available. My brain can now decode and utilize it.

I believe as I go further down this journey and my way of thinking constantly improves, I'll be able to go back and look at the same post once again and there will be new knowledge there for me to absorb that my brain couldn't process before.

In my case, the more knowledge I absorb, the easier starting a business gets (Makes me more comfortable to risk more time, money, etc..)
and more experience = more likely to succeed
 

IceCreamKid

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This post by SteveO 7 years ago literally altered the direction of my life because it was the first time that I was exposed to a process that I knew could be replicated over and over again. It was the first thing that planted the seed in my mind that a regular guy like myself could one day become free. That's truly all I ever wanted. Freedom.

I actually never told him how much that post impacted me. I know of one other guy who got into real estate because of that post, but I'm sure there are others also who never spoke about it.

It's a story of planning, perseverance, guts, and grit. Process. Process. Process.

I did not have an understanding of what was needed to succeed for most of my life. The eye-opener for me was a subordinate at work. About 11 years ago, I was sitting down with him to talk about how to improve his work performance. He mentioned to me that he would quit if I took the fun out of his job.

The conversation quickly changed.

It turned out that he owned some apartment buildings and did not need his work income. I asked him numerous times over the next few months about how to get started. His answer was always the same, "Just go buy them". Not helpful but I got the idea.

I went to the local bookstore and purchased the book "How to Buy and Sell Apartment Buildings". It was full of all the information that I needed to get started. I would go home from work and work understanding demographics, pulling census data, digging deep into all the financials associated with apartments.

In 1997, I pulled the trigger!

My early life was not one that had any kind of direction. Our family moved a lot and I went to many different schools. My parents divorced when I was early in high school and our family was delegated to the welfare roles. My mother had fairly severe mental conditions and had no idea what any of children were doing. I ran wild and left high school after the 10th grade.

The future seemed so clear to me. I joined the Marines at the age of 17 which my parents were happy to sign for. My thoughts were focused on a big career in construction when I got out. The $6/hour on a jack hammer sounded good to me.

I did get a job as a landscaper and after a failed run at starting my own company, switched to plumbing. It seemed like a decent car was always out of my reach so I took a job as a mechanic in order to learn how to keep my own vehicle running.

I was married at the age of 19 and had my first daughter shortly after.
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My mother-in-law worked at Hewlett-Packard and helped land me a job in the assembly department on the graveyard shift. The pay was half of what I made in construction but I viewed it as a better future. I started an education in the technical field so I could work up the ladder.

I eventually landed a job as a technician in the research and development department and then moved on to management. After 16 years of service at HP, my eyes were opened.

I still did my job but no longer put in extra hours. Nor did I give work my full attention anymore. I would get home and work on my plan for hours.

The plan was simple enough; determine the location that fit the criteria as outlined in the book that was poised for appreciation. I concluded at the time that my location in San Diego fit the profile!

My quest was frequently tempered as most of the agents that I talked to said that I wasn't ready. Lack of funds will give that impression.

I found an agent that said she wanted to work in the apartment field but had no experience. She offered that we could learn together.

I got a long list of 3-8 unit buildings together and ran all around the city looking. I found a nice 5 unit that was walking distance from the beach with an ocean view. My wife (now ex), would not come on board with the purchase and I had to let it go. I told her soon after that I was going to invest with, or without her. Soon after, I found a 4-plex in Carlsbad, CA. that fit my criteria. After a lengthy negotiation I purchased it for 180K with a 10% seller carryback on a note. In order to get the money I had to max out a credit line, and take a 3rd mortgage on my house.

Within a year I refinanced and paid off the credit line and 3rd. So I was basically had all my initial investment back. At year 2, I sold the property and exchanged it into another property with some other investors. I had 30% of a 46 unit property in Riverside, CA.

It was at this time that the plan for exiting my job came in to view. The plan was centered around how much money was needed to live on. The stock market was fairly high at this time and I had some money in my retirement account. I got a 21 unit property under contract in Palm Springs but needed to cash out my retirement to get it.

It only took 2.5 years of investing in apartments for me to exit my job for good. What a day that was. I walked in and looked at my BOSS and asked "How much time do you need to replace me?".
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I stayed around until one week before the apartment deal closed.

I was now spending my days doing whatever was desired. My wife was still resistant to the whole idea but decided she wanted to quit her job too. We lived near the beach but decided to sell the home and move to Arizona. It was the only way we could reduce the expenses to a livable level.

I spent the next few years wheeling and dealing and refining my process. One of the biggest changes that I made was to start buying poor perfoming assets to get a better deal. This would frequently put us into negative cashflow situations although the networth was rising rapidly. All of this proved to be too much for my wife and we parted company. Although she had an extreme distaste for the apartments, she was happy to take half of them.
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My process is still very similar in that I look for locations that are set to have improving apartment fundamentals and still look for the mismanaged properties. With the help of some great connections and aggressive moves on my part, I now have over 600 units. Each of my buildings are over 100 units in size as I feel that is the way to have some efficiency in management.

For many years, I would hire managers to work on the properties. This was a difficult undertaking and absorbed too much time. I now use professional management for everything and my quality of life has improved as a result. It has also allowed me to focus on the purchase and disposition side of the business.

I am married again and my wife is a real estate contract attorney.
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We actually work together on deals at this point. It really helps to have a supportive spouse that is in allignment with your objectives.

My networth is approaching the big 10M. Most of the cashflow still ends up back into new deals (it is a disease
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).

I have been on RE forums for a number of years giving advice freely. My objectives are not as noble as that sounds though. I have made many connections as a result and have helped myself and others to profit nicely. It is a good trade off for me.
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I have recently begun putting investor money into deals with a strong team of professionals at the helm. It is a great opportunity to leverage off of years of experience.

In summary, It took a lot of years to get on the right road. I wish that I had started a lot sooner. The saving grace was having a plan and process for success. I am sometimes amazed with the slowlane approach that many people take without looking deep into the future, especially with all the information that is before them. Or, the fact that they are willing to settle for retirement with a few houses to rent. Planning....
 
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Vigilante

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You'll have to be an INSIDERS to view mine. It's the introductory thread from @Likwid24 and the start of the progress thread on The Paintbrush Cover, which is part of the true forum history. A success story, birthed and born with a front row seat to all forum INSIDERS.

https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/co...-progress-thread-the-paint-brush-cover.30969/

If you don't have an INSIDERS subscription, do yourself a favor and invest in your future by accessing this life changing thread.
 
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SteveO

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This post by SteveO 7 years ago literally altered the direction of my life because it was the first time that I was exposed to a process that I knew could be replicated over and over again. It was the first thing that planted the seed in my mind that a regular guy like myself could one day become free. That's truly all I ever wanted. Freedom.

Thanks ICK. This is coming from the guy with hundreds of epic and motivational posts. :hurray:
 

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Mine is from a thread by @JasonR - I don't have the link but I do have the text saved.

So, you want to build an internet business? After going through what I did in the past 6-7 months, here's what I've learned.

1. Pick a LARGE market. I don't like super-niche markets.

2. Don't reinvent the wheel. You don't have to.

3. F*ck SEO. See #4

4. Utilize paid traffic to grow your business. Display advertising is how many of the big boys and big hitters grow super FAST. See those banner ads on Facebook and all over the web? Yah, they work.

5. Here's a secret. It took me a long time to learn this. Do you want to be able to infinitely scale a business? With paid traffic, you'll need an Average Order Value OR Lifetime Customer Value of $60-100. If you can squeeze $60+ out of a customer, you should be able to buy traffic ANYWHERE. There are multiple ways of doing this.

5b. Build a funnel, not an e-commerce store. I lost about $2k and 2 months learning this the hard way. Read this article.

6. Money. You may think it's hard to get. It's NOT. It's fine to bootstrap (and what I did to start). Go get some high limit credit cards (Amex Plum, etc.) that you can use for ad spend. DON'T be stupid with this money. It will help you grow and scale. Once you have a system where you can prove that for every $1.00 you put in, you get $1.40 back, getting money is easy.

7. Fail fast. The faster you fail, the faster you can succeed. The key is, go as FAST as you can. I've seen people try for 2 years because they're too afraid to fail.

8. Everything in life worth getting is a process. A great business, a great girlfriend/wife, losing weight, building muscle, building your real estate portfolio. These are ALL processes, and there is no magic pill or secret that will shortcut your PROCESS.
 

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Some one pinged me recently and here is my reply, I thought I would share it since I had a blast writing it.
Enjoy


Background a 17 yr old asked if I could mentor him....
here is my response.




so, your in high school. great. you want some real quick advice? dont got to collage. that's just my experienced opinion. Go start a business instead. You will learn more, faster.

your young yet, so to be honest, I usually wait until someone is in their mid 20's to begin mentoring them.

why?

because at your age, you dont even know what you dont know. and I have tried mentoring younger guys, but really, they are so busy trying to tell me how the world works, they they dont seem to have time to listen to what I have done, and what I know.

So, I let them talk, and several years later they apologize and ask again.

what you need at your age is a coach. someone who can kick your a$$ a little bit, and can help you focus. not really a mentor.

a coach can say, you want to do biz? go do this and this and this. let me know how it goes.

mentoring is a whole nother level.

the people I mentor are people who

1. are ready for a mentor,
2. have a burning desire to succeed, (and will probably succeed even with out my help)
3. are in the industry or sector that I am already in.
4. have a symbiotic relationship, with what ever I am doing at the time, adding value to me and my time. (example, if im buying apartments, then the people I mentor are usually in real estate, if im selling shit online, then they are online focused, if i am investing in companies then they have the resources to do so as well, or know others who can)


now, good on you for contacting me. most people are just to chicken shit to reach out to someone they want to meet with. dont know why. but there ya have it.


so what I'm going to do for you is give you some advice. then, you can come back to me and let me know what advice you took, and more importantly what advice you didn't take, and why.

if there is a synergy, well, maybe we can chat from time to time. but to be honest, I get alot of people pinging me asking for the short cut.

so here is the short cuts. funnypart is, few people actually believe it, or use it. :)


short cut.

Skip collage. go start a business. any business. fail at it. start another.

if you want to learn, (and you need to on a damm near daily basis) look up classes, or weekend workshops for what ever skill or info you are looking for

learn to be discerning about people who you learn from. find them. track them down, ask high quality questions and then act on it.

DO IT. what ever needs to be done, dont think about it, dont worry forever about it. just do it. regardless whatothers say. failure is the best lesson, and 1 good failure is worth 10,000 opinions from other people. F*ck em. they are not you, so get over whatever they say. they just dont know.

Take action. every day, towards your goals. get out of the chair get off the couch. get it done.

if you have an xbox, a ps3 or if you do pc games. Kill it for the next few years. seriously give that shit away. and read instead.

Discover your why. why the hell do you want to work that hard to make money? its 2-10x harder than a job. why work so hard? if you dont have a good why. your F*cked. find it. and use it as leverage on yourself to get shit done.

if you need someone to kick your a$$ to get shit done. pay them.
Give 10 checks for 100 bucks each to someone, and then promise to get it done, or they get to cash the check. believe me, that has worked foryears.

Do it. get shit done.

dont be a pussy. stop being afraid. quit dicking around. what the hell are you afraid of? GO. DO IT.

Do things that scare the shit out of yourself. do massive things. make big plans and then push past them.

you will learn on the way. you dont need to know everything right now. you just need to find someone who needs something, and go get it for them.

you are seriously not too good to make coffee, fetch things, or do shit work. that's part of the price you pay of not having money get over yourself.

Help people for free. help those that are in a position to pay you well, and do it for free. it will come back to you in ways you never would have imagined. seriously.

leap, and the net will appear. sometimes the net will look alot like the ground. that's ok, its there tobreak your fall. :)

you will fail, you will suck, and it will take a while for that shit to stop happening on a regular basis. TRUST THAT THIS IS TRUE and life will be easier for you. (the upside is, at some point you stop sucking, and start really shining! )

ignore your friends. they will go out and get jobs, get nicer cars. go out partying, and shit like that. the parties they do now, will be epic for them later, when all they have is the memory of the parties, and the mortgages they pay. while you will be able to party for the rest of your life, with no mortgage, if you just learn to not suck :)

they say it takes 10,000 hrs
to really master something. focus on that, and F*cking master something. and no, its not call of duty or the latest assassins creed.

learn to network with the best and brightest people in the world, and you will have all the resources you ever need only a phone call away.

Hire people smarter than you, and fire yourself as fast as possible

make your "list" of must haveskills then focus on getting them. take a class, take a weekend seminar, watch youtube vids on the topic, look up open source education, and learn stuff. Learn how to learn. you will never be behind if you do that.

ok, good luck, and have at it. when you get out of school ping me again, see where your at, and we may chat then.

Z

Love it!
 
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So I just had to share this...sort of a personal achievement thing.

Fast forward 3-4 years ago, I was working a job, and I had a vision of how I wanted my life to be. Well, a slice of that vision came through yesterday.

So, I wake up late yesterday (yes, we put in work on weekends), because we were out the night before, and brought home some company. We switch bars, and there's a line, so I'm like..F*ck this, and gave the bouncer some cash to skip the line. Long story short, we convince the golf club driver to drive us the extra distance to our apartment.

So, I wake up, and I tell the girl I had brought home, shit, stay here, I have to check my ads (she probably had no clue what I was talking about). Check ads, ok cool, still making money, go back to my room. I open the door, and she's half naked, in skimpy underwear, looking out my patio window. I didn't realize how nice of an a$$ she had. I just smiled.

I smiled because I had envisioned something like this 4 years before. I wanted to be in a place where I could make money, without being completely dependent on my time. I literally envisioned a half naked girl looking out my patio window four years before, and being able to stay in bed a little extra longer without worrying about it. Only instead of our 3rd story pool view, in my vision it was the ocean. I'm like holy shit, a sliver of my dream is coming true.

So we go to breakfast, I drop her off, and come back and hang out with @TheTruth at the pool and talk to the girls down there for a bit. Come back, and realized I was still making money, even though I had not worked on my business all day. It hit me, I was starting to live my dream.

After you have just a taste of this sort of life, you can't go back to a job.

@JasonR
 

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Another nice cautionary tale from the archives...

https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/CENTS-a-tale-about-control.48682/

A few weeks back my friend just launched his brand new venture.

He had teamed up with a rockstar developer, himself a designer/developer to build
a product that was to fill the gap of google removing alerts for RSS.

The alarm bells went off in my mind - he was building a service based on top of Google's
platform, they had no control!

Not only that but what he was doing violated their TOS.

So 2 months of intense work after his 9-5 with his co-founder and they built a lovely product.

The design was flawless, 500 people had signed up for the launch.

The launch date approached and an email blast had been sent out to notify hopeful users of the product 1 day before hand.

On the launch day I got an email saying the product had been shut down, shutdown because google had just re-implemented alerts for rss on their launch day.

It's a shame he didn't read MJ's book, which I had suggested months earlier - he read the 37signals app launch book instead.

I feel so lucky to have stumbled upon TMF , all this wisdom and 100x more compiled into one lucid volume.

Thanks MJ.
 
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Here are my favorite posts.The stars align for me after reading these and the money started rolling in :)

Regarding lowball offers : know exactly what you are looking for. Don't be afraid to make 10-20 ridiculous offers before someone says yes. What do you care? If you didn't get at least one "you are an a**hole" response, you are probably not going deep enough. You are looking for the person who has to sell. You're not in this to find your new BFF. Donald Trump once said he makes 99 insulting real estate offers, looking for the 1 that will say yes.

...to all you guys flipping small stuff on CL out there for "fun and profit": scale up. If you can sell one, you can sell 10. If you can sell 10, you can sell a hundred.
 
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MJ DeMarco

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Another recent one...

Hey, cool!

I wrote a blog post about this not more than a week ago, dealing with fear and anxiety.

http://aberrantly.com/2015/05/29/your-brain-is-dumb-this-is-why/

TLDR -- Your fear center, the Amygdala, isn't hard wired to deal with the rapid technology advancements over the past 100 years. In the stone age, the amygdala was a valuable tool. Nowadays, its more of a hindrance than anything else. Which is stupid, because stakes are so F*cking low nowadays.

  1. There are 7 Billion people in the world. If you make a bad impression on 10 of them, it won't matter. You won't see those people ever again.
  2. I'm developing a course and book on the art of extroversion, and without getting too much into the minutae of self esteem, absolutely EVERYONE puts stock in what the populous at large thinks. In a world where Kim Kardashian is popular, and last time I checked American Idol was getting more votes than our National Elections, I pose this question to you: why do you F*cking care what these morons think? WHY? This makes me so F*cking mad.... sorry, lol.
  3. Something I tell my students to do is make a conscious decision to not give a shit about what other people are doing. Look at your Facebook feed, look at your Twitter Feed, and Instagram feed. Look at the trending stories. Here are some of the top ones from today:
    Dennis Rodman: Former NBA Player Says He Would Go on a Date With Caitlyn Jenner
    Ted 2: 2nd Red Band Trailer Released for Upcoming Comedy Film Sequel
    Somerset, Pennsylvania: Man Set Up Fake DUI Checkpoint While Intoxicated, Police Say
    Look at those dumb stories. Just look at how dumb people are. This is what people care about -- this is what is trending, and what the masses are talking about. And you care about what they think? I'm just going to let that hang awkwardly in the air. No, you know what, I'm going to repeat it: YOU CARE ABOUT WHAT THEY THINK?
  4. You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. If you achieve too much success, these people will get worried. Why? Because of #2 above -- people care about what people around them care about. So... if you are doing good in a business you have started yourself, are seeing your bank account steadily increase and are loving what you do, people will see that as a threat, and sabotage it. Even your friends will do this. Don't let them.

https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/co...eal-with-fear-of-criticism.60637/#post-463713
 
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William

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Soooooo many. Too many to pick a favorite.

Anything by anyone with high rep.

Here's two though:

One from @Vigilante

You've read too many books. You talk in too many platitudes. Stop F*cking talking and start taking action. This is your 400th post on here. WTF? 400 posts? You posted this like a noob. You're too easy on yourself.
Shit or get off the pot. Stop talking about it.

Either subscribe to your current life, or change it. Nobody gives a shit. You want your legacy to be that of a fast food worker? Fine. History will forget you.

But posting this thread is in and of itself an action fake. You are the type of guy that I would meet with, and then never meet with again. I have met you 100 times, with 100 different faces. Almost all of those 100 are still...exactly...where you are at today.

One from JackEdwards

I would move to Hawaii, cause I would rather be broke in Hawaii than broke in Texas.


Actually, I can tell you exactly what I would do, as I have lost everything, or better yet spent everything I had.

In the 90's I made millions and millions of dollars, being young and stupid I also spent millions and millions of dollars. $300 dollar lunches and dinners everyday, (yes I was the guy who took everyone to lunch) big house, ferrari in the garage, $225 t-shirts, lets not even talk about the money I blew gambling and a few private jets I chartered. I spent crazy money. woke up at 30, broke. Great 10 year run. After all that I ended up with a paid off very small rental house and a few old junky cars. and 200k in tax bills.

I didnt have the heart to tell people I was just a loser and lost it all so I told people I had a drug problem, it is amazing how understanding people are when you have a drug problem they say "well you over it now" etc.. But really I didn't have a drug problem, just a lazy loser problem. (this last part was a joke.)

I went from a new 5k sq ft home to 70's style 1,400 sq footer with dry rot. (yes my appliances were yellow.)I went from driving a newer Ferrari and a new Porsche to a 92 civic with 140k miles on it, I went from wearing 300 dollar jeans to wearing 18 dollar jeans from J.C. Penny's (the nice ones would not fit anymore.) I went from always carrying $5k in flash money on me, to trying to figure out who can convert the change I had saved over the years

Took a year off, sat around, watched cable, Anyone else ever hear this line before, Deshawn, you are the father? Got so bored out of my mind, grew a beard, gained 40 pounds, I was really mad at the world, I was always thinking if I just had my "eating out" money back, I would be a millionaire. ( I am probably not kidding). Over and over in my head I kept saying how could I do this to myself?

I sat there and thought about it and thought about it, I got to do something I got to make a change. I said to myself this is not me. I am not this guy. I am going to get off my lazy fat a$$, and get to work, I am going to figure something out. I am going to start calling all my old contacts and get back in the game.

Well oddly, Once you stop looking and once you stop blaming, ideas appear, someone I had not talked to for a year, gave me a little idea, I opened a little retail store, and within 4 months had 4 stores, turning about $300k a month in sales. That was 10 years ago now.

That whole 18 month episode made me a much better person, I learned so many things. I learned what not to do.

So my piece of advise to most of the young people who start making a lot of money, save some of it. Now I know you are saying that would never happen to me. I said the same thing for 10 years, and yes It can happen to you.
 

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Tristan2k0

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These posts truly are priceless for a young dumb kid like me. College/School seems ridiculous when you can easily access invaluable knowledge such as this thread. I can't thank you guys enough for participating and posting

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
 

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These posts truly are priceless for a young dumb kid like me. College/School seems ridiculous when you can easily access invaluable knowledge such as this thread. I can't thank you guys enough for participating and posting

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don't call yourself dumb, identity is a self fulfilling prophecy
 

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don't call yourself dumb, identity is a self fulfilling prophecy
Well I know I'm not "dumb", but compared to most of the fastlaners on this forum I am Haha. That is why I read and learn all that I can so I can attain all the wisdom that is shared.
 
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Well I know I'm not "dumb", but compared to most of the fastlaners on this forum I am Haha. That is why I read and learn all that I can so I can attain all the wisdom that is shared.
So you admit that you don't know everything and you still have to learn.

That's pretty smart in my eyes.
 

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I can't point to a single post, but I will point to these two threads and individuals:

Vigilante - https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/co...rs-addicted-to-passive-income-deposits.35694/
Biophase - https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/ask-me-about-ecommerce.38312/

Something in the way they spoke got me off my a$$ after spending the 10+ years after high school pretending I would 'one day' get something done. Something in those threads did something that consuming years of motivational blogs, entrepreneurship stories, testimonials, books, etc... never did for me. Something they said, or how they said it, sparked something inside me that made me say "F*ck this, why not me too?"

I can't even pinpoint what it was, so I have no specific post, but those first steps I took lead to me quitting my job 1.5 years ago and I'm still happily self employed today. I'm still learning, still growing, and maybe it's a little slower than I could be, but my two children certainly aren't complaining about all the extra time they get to spend with dad.
 
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Tristan2k0

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So you admit that you don't know everything and you still have to learn.

That's pretty smart in my eyes.
I appreciate it, the way I see it most of guys have years and years of failures and successes (Experience) and I have very little. So it would be absolutely foolish of me to not learn from all of the experience you guys have gained through the years. Saves me a lot of stress and headache! I still have so much to learn, I can't wait to finally start living on the fast lane.
- Anyways I wont pollute this thread anymore, Ill share with you guys one of my favorite forum posts. It practically describes what I have exactly done with my life, and to read it coming from someone else gave me chills! Post by Roli - Thank you!
Read more books, watch less TV, stay away from mindless internet sites like Buzzfeed and Facebook. Wake up early, meditate, exercise, start writing down ideas that pop into your head in the notebook (real or electronic) that you are going to start carrying around everywhere with you.

Keep visiting sites like this one, start sourcing courses for stuff you might be interested in, use social media for networking and building contacts, not for watching cat videos.

Then one day; probably while taking a shower or a walk BOOM your happiest thought will come flooding into your mind like a raging river bursting a dam, flooding your brain; drowning out all other thoughts. Hopefully by then all the action you've taken to improve yourself will translate into action to implement your idea, otherwise the idea will be worthless.

You may fail, in fact you probably will, but as MJ says failure is the sweat of success, so you'll get back up and do it all over again, do this steadily for the next few years and you'll either be in or well on your way to, the fastlane.

As far as passion is concerned you'll get passionate about anything you're good at and/or you genuinely enjoy, I'm passionate about the kids game Connect 4, I can beat anyone in the world and I'll put serious amounts of money on series of game. Problem is nobody is mental enough to share that passion, therefore if I followed that passion it wouldn't do squat for me.

I'm passionate about golf, but I'm never going to be a golfer, I'm passionate about quantum physics but I'll (probably) never publish a breakthrough theory. I could go on, but I think you get the point. Screw passion, people often mistake passion for enthusiasm which you have done in your post.

If I paid you $500 an hour for flicking beans into a tin cup for 8 hours a day you would muster extreme enthusiasm for the job and even though it was mindless repetitive work, you'd get enthusiastic about it because each day you'd be clearing 4 grand. Heck you'd even start telling your friends about this sweet gig you've got for flicking beans into a cup. They in turn would also get enthusiastic about it, begging you to get them a job in the bean flicking industry seeing as you were well on your way to being Chief Bean Flicker and you were already clearing $1,000,000 p/a

But of course you would never ever truly be passionate about flicking beans into a cup, because passion is linked to limbicly (is that a word?) charged emotions such as love, hate, anger, empathy. Take the money away and your sense of achievement would evaporate instantly and thoughts along the lines of "what the F*ck am I doing?" Would be swirling around in your brain.

Passions are for hobbies and interests and for the rare few that are good enough to elevate that hobby to a job that pays millions. For the rest of us we have to use enthusiasm to keep us going, money is a good way to be enthusiastic but there are other ways and that is your (rather enviable) journey to begin.

Buenos Suerte
 
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Quite frankly, any post on this website. There is always something to contribute in every post, and that's what's great about this place.
 

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Andy Black

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Bump.

Any new favourites?
 

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