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Have you had your "FTE"? (Or Was it an FTM?!)

DesignerOne.

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Had a major FTE two summers ago, My old man was killed in a car accident at the age of 49, Sure he worked but he loved it.

He was smart enough to have a lot of income coming in different ways but required a lot of maintenance and he also worked a lot. He had started working towards passive income though but it was too late.

The point is that he left our family with basically nothing except a expensive property that cost thousands to upkeep every month and a ton of junk. This was not fair to my mother, who had essentially her other half taken away from her.

I don't hold it against him and no one expects to pass away at that age, but there was no will, or no back up plan. That led me to realize if I have a family, or anyone that relies on me, to make sure that never happens to them.

This led me to having options open and focus way more on school (I partied and had fun a lot but then really buckled down).

While staying focused on school I realized more and more as I neared my graduation last december that a JOB was not the answer, plus there's a marginally low rate for people like me who ride the short bus to get hired ;) .

My brother then nudged me once more to read TMF , and that was an absolute wake up call.

I had a another FTE just a month ago. A woman I deemed to be lovely and had believed she had my back, and i thought we were going to go the distance, ended things with me for some bullshit reason then a couple days later went against that reason. This led me to really buckle down even more on my goals. During this whole time I just got a knee operation again and now I can also really focus on my health.

They're Speed bumps.

Looking forward to starting on my master's this fall which is not a expedition to get a job, but a means to an end, for me to build my entrepreneur skills and to continue the grind towards the fastlane.
 
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It didn't happen all in one for me. There are some crystal clear F*ck This Events. But my progress along the path, as marked by them, relapsed and remitted a few times. Until it crystallised for good. And now, finally, I know that my arrival at Unscription is inevitable. All I have to do now is keep walking the path.

2014. I was at the pinnacle of my career. I'd doubled my salary and tripled my income in just over a year. I was going places, respected, and no longer had to watch my bank balance in the last week before payday. Yet, every success was met with a realisation: I might have earned a cool commission cheque, but now I'm back at square one all over again - back to the same exact grind as the day before, the month before, the year before. I worked for an unethical company. And I didn't own those client relationships - my employer did. Even though their only real contribution to my success or the development of those relationships was arbitrage - paying me money now (in the form of a salary) so they could keep most of it later (as revenues). Oh, and a computer, a phone, and some back office stuff you could outsource for pennies on the dollar anyway.

So imagine my delight when my best client (awesome peeps who I'm still in touch with to this day) called me up with a proposal. They'd like to start a new company, and they'd like me to be the CEO. They'd double my salary yet again. They'd give me 40% equity. Support with marketing, operations, finance. And a six figure annual budget to fuel explosive growth.

Fast forward a few months. I'm waiting on them to finalise the offer. I'm also waiting on a £15,000 commission cheque, payment of which will hopefully mark resignation day.

Mere days before it comes due, my boss, who was once also my "friend", texts me to ask if we can have a "catch up" in the pub the next morning.

Hmm.

In the morning, he says come straight there, don't bother going to the office first.

Hmm.

I turn up and he's there with the CEO - who's based at HQ over 100 miles away. They ask me several accusatory questions as to whether I'm "betraying the company" and "considering starting a competitive business with one of OUR clients". Of course not!

Then they produce a folder full of emails between me and my client/future investor, screenshotted straight out of my Gmail account. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. They even produced a full print out of the business plan, again stolen from my emails.

Then they took my keys, fired me for "gross misconduct", tried to steal my personal phone for "evidence" (which they'd remote-wiped a couple days beforehand, but at the time I thought it was a bug).

They refused to let me back into the office to get my stuff, and never returned half of it.

Aaannd...I was going to use most of that commission cheque to pay off credit card bills I'd run up in anticipation of said commission cheque coming in. Bills I've only recently finished paying off.

F*ck this!

They filed a spurious lawsuit against both me and my would-be investor.

My ex-boss - the same guy I once helped move into his new apartment - phoned round every firm in town, telling lies about me to try and ruin my reputation. (Ironically, a few offers of employment came out of that!). He called me from withheld numbers multiple times in the middle of the night just to piss me off. When I got a new job, he called up my new boss to suggest that he should fire me immediately.

Noone else at the company ever spoke to me again. A person who I thought was a good friend pretended she couldn't hear anything when I called, and then hung up.

F*ck you!

Joke's on my ex-boss though - this is an ego-driven fool so obsessed with his own narcissism and grandiosity that he'll happily spearhead a multi-million pound expansion of someone else's company in exchange for a £50k salary and a small bonus - earning less money than I was as his underling. So long as he gets a cool job title, kudos, and a bunch of yes-men to boss around.

I filed against them for my unpaid commission and notice pay. They put in an absurd counterclaim for nearly £350,000 in various invented "damages". Yes, they wanted to go after me for sharing "confidential information" (like, oooh, how my commission structure worked. Apparently the irony of including a confidential business plan stolen from confidential emails in their claim was lost in translation.)

A year later, and after much stress, anger and losing the will to live on my part, I settled a week before court for a mere £2,500 (their original settlement offer was for me to pay THEM £3,000 - WTF?). I couldn't afford a lawyer, so I fought it all myself. If their lawyer is to be believed, they spent £40,000 on legal fees - seemingly out of spite and viciousness than any kind of business sense.

Speaking of their lawyer, I sensed his incongruence and unease whenever we spoke on the phone. The sociopathic behaviour required of him in order to represent his sociopathic client clearly ate away at his soul. Another victim of the SCRIPT.

I also had the police involved, regarding my emails and my phone. Sadly, although they could prove illegal access of my emails (from an office I'd never visited), they couldn't prove WHO did it. So they couldn't do anything. I thought that was going to nail them with that.

To this day, I have no idea how they got into my Gmail. They must have been planning for weeks, and installed a keylogger on my PC.

And my would-be investor? The board got scared and signed an agreement not to go into business with, or have any business-related contact with, me for 18 months. So that was that.

(Blessing in disguise, really - this was in the oil industry, which crashed and burned mere months later.)

After I got fired, I freelanced briefly. I'd read TMF by this point. I was over the concept of "jobs", but still, I was directionless. I freelanced for the briefest of moments. I enjoyed my newfound freedom of working from home, yet also lacked the self-discipline to do so effectively. I found it lonely. And I had no money and an expensive apartment to rent.

Within the month, I'd walked back into the arms of the J.O.B. life. This time I had some semblance of awareness. I went through to final interviews with two companies. One of them was a fledgling recruitment agency with a mostly-absentee owner, outsourcing the construction of his would-be Fastlane empire to mugs like me. They wanted me to build a division for them from scratch. They'd give me a modest payrise, a better commission structure, and autonomy.

But would they give me equity? No.

So why should I build your business for you?

The other was less money. But it lured me with promises of a higher, more esteemed end of the market. A true consulting firm. I'd be out on the road. I'd have a shiny new company car. I'd learn something new, that wasn't just the same old. The office was 2 minutes walk from my front door. So I glossed over the numerous red flags and went to work.

Within days, the novelty had worn off. Behind all the promises, the expectations, and the selling of a dream, what I had was shit. What I'd joined was a glorified pyramid scheme.

What they really hired me for was to be a glorified telemarketer doing one of the hardest and most soul-destroying sales jobs on the planet. Hundreds of calls a week, a few leads per month. And any assignments I did win? Why, my new boss would get to do all the fun stuff! Consulting, writing the brief, travelling around the country/world interviewing executives in hotel rooms, managing the client, closing the offer. And my new boss would also get two thirds of the total commission!

If I managed to hit virtually impossible targets consistently over a period of consecutive months, why, I'd get the esteemed privilege of being able to do what I was already more than capable of anyway!

All this while appointed Directors on six figure salaries basically sat around and did nothing all day, no questions asked. One of them even charged a client for a two week trip to Dubai to interview candidates who he only ever interviewed over the phone. He just wanted a free holiday. Nothing ever happened about that.

At least after work I got to drown my sorrows and bitch about the company with the other inmates, who'd by now become very attached to their prison cells.

Sigh. A month later I joined the forum.

I sincerely tried to improve the company. I pointed out that, if your entire business would go under in just a few months if everyone stopped making cold calls, something is wrong.

I ran data from the CRM that showed 90% of the assignments they'd won in the past year had come from repeat clients, the old boys' network, and referrals. Almost none of them from the incessant cold calls that were tedious beyond belief.

I offered to create and execute an inbound marketing strategy for them - at my same salary and without the commission potential. Apparently, marketing is a waste of time and they would never pay me "so much money" to do that. But paying me to make pointless cold calls trying to find C-level buyers of a USP-less service from a brand-less company with no social proof at over-inflated prices with a 30-year old business model apparently is worth paying for. Got it.

In a later meeting, I asked about marketing again. And in return I got yelled at and threatened with being fired on the spot if I ever mentioned it again.

F*ck this! F*ck you!

I literally wanted to tell her to go F*ck herself and walk out the door then and there. But, I had no money and thus, no options.

That was the event for me. The event that made me say - I've had enough of this bullshit.

Still, all the components had not quite fallen into place. Soon after, I quit and went back to freelancing. Getting home after resigning was one of the happiest days of my life!

This time, I knew I would never be lured by the promise of a "job" again. this time, I started to develop the self-discipline necessary to work from home.

What I should have done was continue to do that whilst hustling to build a Fastlane venture on the side. Instead, I took the "easy" option and co-founded a business that didn't make sense or meet the commandments, in an industry I was sick of, where I didn't actually own anything of it. And, it definitely didn't have the potential for Productocracy. THAT, I can see clearly now. So...ultimately, it ended up looking a lot like a free range job.

So now it's mid-2017. I'm back to freelancing. Only, this time I'm freelancing as a recruiter, a sales rep, a content manager & webinar host, and - randomly, now as a copywriter and creator of sales funnels. I just won a $1000 project off the back of an old Upwork profile I threw up way back when I was in the depths of despair and then never touched (thanks, @SinisterLex!).

And despite having WAY too much on my plate, I still manage to find 25-30 hours a week to invest in incubating my future Productocracy. When I was freelancing on easy street as just a recruiter, I couldn't even make the time to put together any other income streams.

Why?

Meaning and purpose.

Before, the fire had been stoked, but it still needed to be fed. Now? The fire is raging, and there's no going back. All the pieces of the puzzle have come together for me, and shown me what I DON'T want. What I WON'T accept. That there IS no other way.

It's not about discipline. Or motivation. Or willpower. It's about having a WHY so strong, nothing can stop you. I see that now. I don't need willpower because all I can think about is business. I don't want to do anything else.

Moral of the story? If you can't find the motivation, can't find the willpower, can't find the discipline, you just don't care enough yet. But maybe you will soon.

It took me three years to go from interest to true, uncompromising commitment. Three whole years. It truly is a journey. And most of it's in your head.

The second moral of the story?

F*ck this.
 
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gatorgus

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My FTE happened last year after I, through some hard and ingenuity, landed a $300k a year account for the company I work for. I am a Senior Manager and have no responsibility for sales, but the company has long touted rewarding those who go above and beyond and find new business. Not only was I not rewarded for my achievement, I wasn't even given a thank you by the owner of the company. Eff this. Related to this event, I can no longer work for spoiled second generation owners who are more interested in everything else than running the business. In fact, I don't want to work for anyone else, period. A regular job doesn't carry meaning for me anymore. I want to make a difference and make people's lives better in some way, not help make other, unappreciative people richer in jobs that have no real upside or meaning. Lastly, on a closing note, I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I'm also way smarter than the owners of our company, and dog gonnit I deserve to be paid like it.
 
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MJ DeMarco

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I wasn't even given a thank you by the owner of the company. Eff this. Related to this event, I can no longer work for spoiled second generation owners who are more interested in everything else than running the business.

When you're gifted something with no anchor to the hardship or process required to make that gift happen, you're more likely to take the gift for granted. This is not surprising. Thanks for posting your story, infuriating to hear.
 

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My FTE happened last year after I, through some hard and ingenuity, landed a $300k a year account for the company I work for. I am a Senior Manager and have no responsibility for sales, but the company has long touted rewarding those who go above and beyond and find new business. Not only was I not rewarded for my achievement, I wasn't even given a thank you by the owner of the company. Eff this. Related to this event, I can no longer work for spoiled second generation owners who are more interested in everything else than running the business. In fact, I don't want to work for anyone else, period. A regular job doesn't carry meaning for me anymore. I want to make a difference and make people's lives better in some way, not help make other, unappreciative people richer in jobs that have no real upside or meaning. Lastly, on a closing note, I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I'm also way smarter than the owners of our company, and dog gonnit I deserve to be paid like it.

Ouch.

I've never understood that mindset. I'm grateful for all the good services I receive, even when they cost me a lot of money. And should I ever find myself with a team of people working hard to make me tons of money, I'll be eternally grateful for them, too.

Being a good customer (inclusive of being a good employer) is lost on so many people these days. Or maybe it always was. I can only speculate about that.
 

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I've actually had 2 in my life.

I always wanted to be a lawyer, the law was my passion, and I dreamt with having my own law firm. I started my career as a lawyer working for a big law firm to get experience and learn and I actually liked the law itself but the lifestyle.... 100 hour work weeks and all nighters were not unusual and it was almost impossible to have a life outside of work. I started with enthusiasm but day after day I started to feel more miserable.

My first FTE happened few years ago when after two weeks working 16 hours per day, one Saturday I worked for 22hours straight to finish a big deal, it was the day before Christmas eve and I remember spending Christmas with my family like a zombie and that they reality hit me, I was a slave and I could not stand it anymore, my biggest passion turned into a prison. Also, I looked at my options in that path: either I enslaved my life because even if you own your firm you can't separate it from time or I went corporate and became a 9to5 for the rest of my life doing boring work.

That day I decided to switch paths, but I didn't know anything about business (or so I thought at that time) and I took the determination to study an MBA in the Mecca of entrepreneurship: the US. Long story short I managed to go to one of the schools of my choice with scholarship and there I learned a lot and also started my first venture.

While the majority of my classmates were partying, my business partners and I were working on our venture and, even with the long hours, I loved every minute of it, made plenty of mistakes and failures and learned from each way more than in the classes. I was working at a similar pace in it than in the firm but it felt different this time.
Despite I was loving it, unfortunately the only option to stay in the US legally was to get a job in corporate America so I decided to stay in the US and I fooled myself with bullshit to rejoin the SCRIPTED.
I was comfortable enough in my gold jail until my second FTE happenned. Everyday the job became more boring and I was buried in burocratical crap, the nail was there. But it was the day where they didn't allow me to take a vacation day to go to my best friend's wedding (who was marrying in my country). That day that my closest friends spend celebrating that life event while I was locked in my cubicle got me thinking again and made me realized that despite better hours and a higher paycheck I was still a slave.
To thrive, I need to be passionate, I need the adrenaline of the unknown and also the challenge and the constant learning. the only place where I truly found those was in entrepreneurship.
It is hard to explain but at least for me the sacrifice feels no longer like sacrifice, I actually enjoy the process no matter how hard it is.

In conclusion, the script kept flirting with me but after a one night stand with it (or two in my case), I decided to say: ok that was fun (not really) but F*ck you, I am not marrying you!
 
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So this is an open call for everyone to share their "FTE" story, otherwise known as their "F*ck This Event."

A "F*ck this event" is an incident in your life that pushes you over the ledge of a SCRIPTED existence. It is a pejorative "I've had it!" or a "I can't live like this!" moment that screams it's time for you to change.

Interest moves to commitment. Thinking moves to action. Desire moves to obsession.

I described mine in both books -- getting stranded in a limousine on the side of the road in a blizzard.

What event in your life screamed to your soul, "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!"?

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UNSCRIPTED: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship by MJ DeMarco, international best-selling author of The Millionaire Fastlane

My FTE just happened last night (6/20/17). I was terminated from my employer for accidentally taking the pit keys home with me. I'm a Pit boss at one of the local casinos here in Mississippi. I'm a day one employee with a great work record and ethics. The keys were "controlled" and opened everything on the casino floor.

The alarm system that was supposed to go off, after passing a certain point, did not work. I blame myself for not doing what I was supposed to do every night. Termination was an excessive reaction.

I will have to return to the workforce because bills keep coming and my wife love's "stability" (she's a slowlaner). I must pay for the choices I've made in the past.

I won't have enough runway to learn and freelance/consult 100%, but as soon as I can, I will not have an employer. I will not be terminated again! I will not put the fate of my lifestyle in someone else's hands.

I have yet to out process to get my final check and 401k. Until I get all this together, I'll continue to learn front end web development and build polestar.tv
 

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I was terminated from my employer for accidentally taking the pit keys home with me.

Yikes. Do they need to change all the locks now? Sorry to hear they didn't make an exception.

Now the big question is, will the wife be open to a new way of life that doesn't involve a paycheck?
 

pbellot

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Yikes. Do they need to change all the locks now? Sorry to hear they didn't make an exception.

Now the big question is, will the wife be open to a new way of life that doesn't involve a paycheck?

I don't know if they need to re-key all the locks. It would cost the company $10k+.

As for my wife, she loves the stability of a paycheck. I'm going to work my butt off to avoid doing that!
 
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ApeRunner

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My FTE came in 2005. I was employed as a programmer in an automobile company. Worked there for only 18 months. Was 25 years old back then. I hated:
  • Spending 2 hours daily on traffic.
  • Not being able to work from home, even though I could since I was a programmer.
  • People giving me the stink-eye when I arrived 15 min. late.
  • Being victim of hearing all kind of mediocre-"the office" like gossip and bullshit.
  • Being treated like a 2nd class citizen from seniors and VP's (I worked at the HQ office).
  • Going to "work" half day on Saturdays while being hungover.
But my event came AFTER my boss resigned (he left for a better job). Me and my team where gravitating the office BOSS LESS. Our productivity fell like 80%. Nobody said nothing. We all knew where not working. Just faking. Just enjoying payment for light tasks WHILE spending our time there. It was a joke. I couldn't take it any more. There came my F*ck This event. And my entrepreneurial life began.
 

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My FTE just happened last night (6/20/17). I was terminated from my employer for accidentally taking the pit keys home with me. I'm a Pit boss at one of the local casinos here in Mississippi. I'm a day one employee with a great work record and ethics. The keys were "controlled" and opened everything on the casino floor.

The alarm system that was supposed to go off, after passing a certain point, did not work. I blame myself for not doing what I was supposed to do every night. Termination was an excessive reaction.

I will have to return to the workforce because bills keep coming and my wife love's "stability" (she's a slowlaner). I must pay for the choices I've made in the past.

I won't have enough runway to learn and freelance/consult 100%, but as soon as I can, I will not have an employer. I will not be terminated again! I will not put the fate of my lifestyle in someone else's hands.

I have yet to out process to get my final check and 401k. Until I get all this together, I'll continue to learn front end web development and build polestar.tv

Good luck and keep us posted. I am not quite in the same boat but just had a FTE today so I feel like I am on this journey with you. I wrote a post about it and my boss just reamed me out. If you ever need an accountability partner don't be afraid to PM me if you need someone to motivate you.
 

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My FTE happened last September.

The long story. tldr; at the bottom

My wife and I moved to a house behind her parents about 4 years ago. I get along great with my mother and father-in-law. Most days were like the movies, they would be over here eating and happy or we would be over there doing the same. While I hated my slowlane job (inventory management at a steel mill), it payed the bills and we were comfortable. This cycle continued for a couple years until I had to have a major orthopedic operation that forced me from my job.

While the operation was a smashing success, it started the "oh shit what am I going to do now" phase of my life. I have a degree in psychology with a minor in sociology. Employers weren't knocking at my door with my degree in underwater basket weaving. I knew that I wanted to pursue business, as I had previously owned and operated a couple service based businesses in the past. At this point though, it was about me and how much money I could make. The "I" was strong and I was hopelessly and utterly confused in life. I could not physically work like I had previously done and I couldn't use my degree without going further into debt for more education. My life was one giant question mark.

This brings us to about two years ago.

Then the perfect storm of F*ckery happened. My wife's sister and her husband were going through the divorce of the century. She was an alcoholic and he was a complete douche-bag. Neither of them was capable of taking care of themselves, let alone the 4 kids they had. In steps my mother-in-law. She assumed complete responsibility of the kids (which was the right thing to do). But, it completely f*cked up my family. My wife was constantly stressed with the burden of helping and our daughter was not getting the right amount of attention.

In steps my wife's other sister and her husband to save us. While we were fine financially, we were F*cked mentally. We were sick of the bullshit and I was still completely confused on which direction to go in life. If Dave Ramsey need a poster family, they would fit the bill. My brother-in-law touted retirement, a good job for 40 years, and penny pinching. They also happened to own a small motel in the middle of nowhere with their house attached. If your still reading, you can probably guess what happened.

This brings us to March of last year. I talked myself into moving my family 6 hours away from our current location under the premise that I would work on a business venture while we recouped from the stress of the past year. I left a nice house, a neighborhood that I loved, and our family. They said that there weren't any conditions for living with them, just help out where we could.

We moved into a motel room. Even writing this is emotional. This was easily one of the worst decisions of my life.

This really started my FTE.

The first couple weeks, everything was good. I worked on a business that I had started before we left and it was slowly growing. I was excited to be going down a different path and pursuing a business again.

Things would only go downhill from there. I would talk with my brother-in-law about my plans to grow the business while we were there, but it fell on deaf ears. After the first month, he started asking me multiple times daily, if I was going to get a job. We would talk over and over about finding a career in something that I enjoyed. I was still mind F*cked and couldn't think for myself at this point. After awhile I eventually gave in and was following the script. I applied for a sales job and got the position. It didn't matter that the job was 2 1/2 hours away from my family, I was happy to be part of the script or so I thought.

Fast forward to last September and I was seriously contemplating suicide. I was working 70+ hours a week plus another 10-16 hours of commute time to reach my quotas. On top of that, my work was changing our payouts and quota for the worse. I would leave before my daughter woke up and come home after she was asleep. I never saw my wife and literally started to hate the family we were living with. It was bad! I mean really bad! I kept on drudging through though, this was the dream right!? Living in a motel room and away from my family 80-90 hours a week!

I can't remember the day before, but I will always remember the morning that I took control of my life. Unlike others stories, it was a beautiful sun filled morning without a cloud in the sky. I woke up and cursed my alarm clock. I was literally physically sick about the thought of driving the hour and 10 minutes down a desolate strip of highway. I had to force myself to put on clothes and drive to the office. I remember waving to the guy we were living with as I drove to hell. He had a good slowlane job working for a state agency. He managed his schedule and usually didn't leave until 9 or 10 o'clock after breakfast with his kids. I hated him in that moment, but I kept driving.

I F*cking snapped shortly down the road. I was living in a motel room with my wife and daughter, I worked at a job that I absolutely hated, I disliked the people I was around, I wasn't moving any closer to my goals, and I lived in a place that had population closer to Antarctica than anywhere I had ever lived.

I realized in that moment that I had put myself in that position. All of my past decisions led to this moment. It didn't matter what my past decisions were, I could now change my surroundings, job, or anything else I wanted in life. I had a choice and I could choose to change. I immediately called my wife and told her I was quitting and we were moving. I walked into my bosses office and quit that day. It took a couple weeks, but we moved.

I haven't worked in a traditional job since. I will do whatever it takes to not go back to that dark place of hopelessness. Since then I have grown our business from 1k in sales to 4-6k in sales per month, moved someone across the country, and done countless menial side jobs to make extra income. We don't have a lot of extra money, at times we barely have enough, but I am in control of my destiny. I am finding ways of adding value to peoples lives, how value vouchers are obtained, and why CENTS are so important. I am working towards my dream life.

tldr; Moved from our hometown to a motel room with my family, got a shitty job, thought about suicide, quit the shitty job and took control of my life.
 
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MortimerFox

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I don't know if I've had an FTE really. My whole life at the moment is one big long FTE.

In my early twenties and late thirties (1996-2007) I was 'following my passion' by trying to make it as a musician, playing drums for various bands.

I had a series of shit jobs just to pay the rent, door-to-door sales, retail sales, data entry, telephone helpdesk operator, CAD technician, etc. I didn't care about them, I was just focussed on whatever band I was playing in at the time and I either got made redundant, or rage-quit them after taking too much shit. If only TMF had been available at that time, it would have saved me a lot of time and pain. I guess I was so hypnotised by societal conditioning that I didn't even know that there was an alterative to the 9-5, otherwise I'd have started earlier.

As a musician, I was also a big weed-head, as everybody in the business seemed to be. People say it doesn't have any negative effects, but I tell you, it does. I reduces your self esteem, produces self-doubt and makes you massively paranoid. It got so bad for me that when I was 26, I had to go to a psychologist. I couldn't get to sleep at night because I'd convinced myself that I was going to die in my sleep. Instead of trying to fix my head, he basically told me there was nothing he could do about it and told me to read 'Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway' by Susan Jeffers. At first, I thought 'what F*ck is this?' but anyway I read it and it started the ball rolling on my interest in self-improvement.

I quit weed at 30 and quit bands at 32, then at 33 (in 2008) the recession hit big in the UK and I got made redundant from my job. I wasn't able to get another one, no matter how hard I tried, the country and the economy was THAT F*cked. Thinking back on it now, that would have been an ideal time start up an internet business, but I had no idea that this was even a possibility! In the end, my girlfriend at the time told me I should go back to university to become a programmer, so I did. It was nine months between getting redundant and starting my course, which might have been ample time for me to start a business. D:

About a month before my final exams in 2011, I started to get pain in my private parts and went to the doctor, who said she could feel lump when she examined me. So, I went to the hospital for ultrasound and the guy said that he couldn't see anything cancerous. But I didn't believe him, because it was still hurting. Between getting the initial examination from the doctor and going to the hospital was about two months, because the healthcare in this country is rubbish. Whenever I've got a problem, I try to read up about it as much as possible to try and find a solution. I'd read about all sorts of people who'd said they'd cured themselves of cancer by natural means, so I thought I'd try one of them. I settled on the Budwig diet, because the ingredients were simple, Cottage Cheese and Cold-Pressed Flax-Seed Oil mixed together. It's a hideously disgusting mixture, but I ate it every single day for five years. A couple of weeks after eating it, the pain reduced to a tingle and then went away. A year in, I experimented by stopping eating the mixture and the tingling came back, so I resumed.

At the same time, because I was still into self development, I remembered reading in a book that to decide what you should spend your life doing, you should imagine that you only have six months left to live and ask yourself what you'd prefer to spend that time doing. Now I actually found myself in that situation, so I really thought hard about it and my answer was 'to F*ck as many hot women as I could'. Previous to that I'd been a disaster with women, so I decided to learn how to get good at attracting and seducing women. Four years later I'd moved to London and was teaching guys to do it. Only a handful of famous guys in that industry make enough to be able to do it full-time, so I had to continue my 9-5 as a computer programmer.

To be honest, I was just glad that I was able to survive cancer for that many years by using an alternative therapy. Then, in early 2015, I read TMF and joined this forum. I noticed that all of the big pickup-artists that I looked up to and respected were able to live their lifestyles 24-7 by writing and selling books and courses, so I decided to write my own book. That didn't do that well, but I still sell a few copies per month. I decided that if I could publish more books and scale it, I'd eventually be able to make enough money to live off the proceeds and continue to 'follow my dream'.

Here's the kicker. At the beginning of 2016, I was having a conversation with my personal trainer and she was trying to find out if I had any allergies to types of food. She worked through a list and eventually told me that she thought I was allergic to dairy products and asked me to stop eating cheese to see if it would help. After I told her I couldn't stop eating cheese, she asked why and I had to tell her that I was living with cancer and it was keeping me alive. She was concerned, so she told me that I had to go my doctor and get a diagnosis. I'd already been through this, but I agreed anyway.

I went to the doctor and he told me there was definitely something weird with my private parts after his examination, so he sent me to the hospital for another ultrasound scan. The results were negative. I asked for a second opinion. Negative. I asked for a third opinion. Negative again. I was overjoyed, but at the same time, mystified. Did I really cure myself of cancer using the Budwig Diet or did I never actually have cancer at all and I was just kidding myself?
 
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GMSI7D

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I immediately called my wife and told her I was quitting and we were moving. I walked into my bosses office and quit that day. It took a couple weeks, but we moved.

tldr; Moved from our hometown to a motel room with my family, got a shitty job, thought about suicide, quit the shitty job and took control of my life.


This is incredible like many stories here.

All of you guys have unbelievable stories.

My F*ck this event is nothing compared to you so i won't tell it .

it would seem ridiculous like a child complaining about stupid things.


You guys are warriors.


.
 

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I finally had my FTE.

Looking at my sales forecast after they radically changed our territory and reporting methods, seeing that my projected commission for the quarter is $0.00. Instead of the usual 5 figure bonus.

It came when after I showed my manager and regional director reports showing a whole hospital was missing from my numbers.

When I showed them my goals were improperly calculated.

When I showed them the system wasn't giving me credit for 3 of my top clients.

And they told me that nothing was wrong. And maybe I wouldn't be in this pickle if I made a few more calls each day and did an educational dinner.

It came when I looked around our national meeting and I was 1 of only about 25 people out of 600 that had been with the company longer than 1 year.

I'm done being a cog in someone else's machine.
 
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Good luck and keep us posted. I am not quite in the same boat but just had a FTE today so I feel like I am on this journey with you. I wrote a post about it and my boss just reamed me out. If you ever need an accountability partner don't be afraid to PM me if you need someone to motivate you.

Thank you, @Maxboost. I appreciate it. It's harder on my wife than it is on me. I have a few options but I like the one that I can control (knuckle down on web development). I'll keep you updated. Maybe starting a progress thread will help.
 

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I did not experience an FTE moment. It was always difficult to take direction from a perceived superior. But I was always fairly comfortable with the direction.

I started off poor so even being able to pay rent felt good.

When someone that I knew told me they did not need a job anymore, the focus and direction changed. The job shackles were dropped two years later. No stress, no fuss.
 

G-Man

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And they told me that nothing was wrong. And maybe I wouldn't be in this pickle if I made a few more calls each day and did an educational dinner.

You know you're screwed when a 5 figure bonus disappears and they say it's because you're not making enough phone calls. My guess is you have a supervisor that doesn't like seeing his salesmen make more than him.

I started off poor so even being able to pay rent felt good.

@SteveO I always like your often 180 other direction take on things. You might be the most positive dude on the internet.
 
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Sean Kaye

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A couple years ago, I was working in this place where I was the CIO for our global business.

It was hard, we had businesses in Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East, so with the clock and the different days people work due to culture, I was largely getting contacted about shit 24/7, every single day. It was just nonsense like, "Approve this", "Confirm that" and always something was urgent and being escalated by some jackanape with a title who felt self-important.

My boss had changed in January of that year. We hired a new COO and I was now reporting to her. I was on holiday when she first started and I took time away from my family to do a video conference with her. Halfway through the call I explained that maybe, since she was new, we should work together to find a replacement for my role so that she could start with a clean slate and pick her own staff. She wouldn't have a bar of it.

In February, she was required to present to the board about our cloud strategy that I'd spent a year working on with our CEO. It was going to be a train wreck because I knew she wasn't technical and she didn't even understand the basic concepts.

After the board meeting, the CEO rang me at home and said I should have prepped my boss better or flown to China and done the presentation myself - somehow it had become my fault that he'd hired a COO that oversaw IT and didn't understand it.

April rolled around and it was budget season. It was a full on gong show. Our CEO was retiring and his successor was pretty much a fool. Quite literally during the the budget process he called me at lunch, told me about this "innovation strategy" he had and asked me to tell him what it would cost to build it out. When I told him he couldn't afford it, he responded with, "Imagine we had a meth lab and money was no object."

You can't use meth lab accounting in your budgets.

By the end of May we were finalizing our budgets for board sign-off, I completed mine and then went on holidays for a week. Before I'd left I'd said to my boss again, "Look, I think we need to discuss my exit strategy, this last six months have been tiring and I found the budgeting cycle ridiculous."

Again, she asked me to stay as she felt we were "partners" in the company's "digital transformation" - god, I hate that phrase.

While I was on leave, I came down with the worst flu. Then on the Tuesday our outgoing CEO and our CFO asked me to give them an hour, two at most by video conference from my vacation house to wrap up some budget issues. I said sure, my wife didn't care and her and my son would just go for a walk around the property.

That two hour call turned into ten hours - I literally was on the video conference until 7pm. I didn't even stop for lunch.

The next day comes and I'm really sick now. At 4:30pm my boss sends me an email asking me to write her an overview of what was discussed the day before at the budget marathon meeting because she wasn't involved. She also wanted an update to a spreadsheet and she needed it by 7pm because she had a call with our London office where it would be discussed.

I turned off my phone, ignored her email and just slept.

I went back to work the next week and my boss had flown in from Melbourne to Sydney for some meetings and she sent me a text on her way in from the airport that she'd had a cancellation for her 9:30am meeting and did I want to catch up.

She rolls up to the meeting room a few minutes late and the first thing she said to me was, "I was pretty disappointed you didn't reply to my email last Thursday, I know you were sick and on holidays, but I really needed that info for my meeting."

This was my FTE.

I picked up my notepad and pen, told her it had been a pleasure, walked back to my desk, packed up a few of my things and left. My staff just looked at me a bit confused as I gathered a few personal effects and told my secretary that she could send me the rest next week.

I was in an Uber on the way home and my phone rings, it's my now ex-Boss, "Where did you go?"

I told her I was on my way home.

"Is everything ok at home? When will you be back? I want to catch up about a few things but I'm in Sydney tomorrow too if that's better."

I laughed out loud, "No, you misunderstand. I'm not coming back, I'm done now. Bye."

My wife was a bit surprised when I came home and she laughed as I explained it to her. We went out for breakfast and did some shopping.

While I was shopping, I got 19 calls and text messages from our CEO, the incoming CEO, the CFO, my staff, board members... I just ignored them all and deleted the texts and voicemails without listening to them.

The next day, my ex-Boss turned up at my house. LOL!

I explained I wasn't going back and I'd decided to take the rest of the year off to work on some of our online businesses before I'd decide what my next moves were. She offered me three months pay to be "on call" for her, limited to one hour per day - that was free money because I knew I wouldn't answer her calls.

It was early June and my intention was to do as I said, just take six or eight months off and relax. I wanted to start a new online venture out of interest, so this was a good excuse.

Two days in, a guy I used to work with calls me on the phone and offers me a job. It was a pretty different role for me and the more we talked about it, the better it sounded. I took four months off, wrote a book and then started the new job all fresh.

The FTE was awesome because it shocked me out of a bad situation - I wasn't trapped by money or anything, it was like Stockholm Syndrome, it's almost impossible to explain why I stayed.

Anyway, the new online business got formulated and largely built during the four months off, I launched it in early 2016 and it is great, I enjoy it and it's doing really well. Plus I still like the new job, so it's been winning all the way around.
 

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My dad worked his butt off and never enjoyed life before becoming paralyzed and basically a shell of himself.

My boss also let me know that Corp ABC did not give a fck that I had to go home at a reasonable time to take care of my paralyzed father.

I am talking about not being able to bathe and shit by himself type of paralyzed. 8:30AM - 6PM seemed reasonable...but nope.

My manager pushed me out and sent me to another "lower tier" group within the company. Talk about getting kicked while you are down.

This was coming from a manager that never had sick parents and was basically a spoiled fck. No empathy whatsoever.

Even though I contributed so much in the years beforehand.

Did I mention that co-workers can be like people from Game of Thrones?

They smile in front of you, but the one that you least expect wants to stab you in the eye so he or she can get a $4,000 increase next year.
 
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ZF Lee

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This is incredible like many stories here.

All of you guys have unbelievable stories.

My F*ck this event is nothing compared to you so i won't tell it .

it would seem ridiculous like a child complaining about stupid things.


You guys are warriors.


.
I'm with you, @GMSI7D
We are witnessing the very struggle of humanity here...against the villainy of the SCRIPT.
I don't know why people still detest entrepreneurship....it's the very pursuit of human liberty and value.
Some of these posts have me itching to blow my entire rep bank.
@MJ DeMarco , how in the hell did you write UNSCRIPTED so poignantly and passionately to bring forth such conviction? You are tempting me to go for INSIDERS to check your writing thread. :/

EDIT: Just tell your story anyway..we started out as kids biologically in the first place.
 
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GMSI7D

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I'm with you, @GMSI7D
We are witnessing the very struggle of humanity here...against the villainy of the SCRIPT.
I don't know why people still detest entrepreneurship....it's the very pursuit of human liberty and value.
Some of these posts have me itching to blow my entire rep bank.
@MJ DeMarco , how in the hell did you write UNSCRIPTED so poignantly and passionately to bring forth such conviction? You are tempting me to go for INSIDERS to check your writing thread. :/

EDIT: Just tell your story anyway..we started out as kids biologically in the first place.



absolutely


a FTE is a moment of conviction


i haven't had a real FTE like guys here

my FTE looks like a process instead of an event : 13 years that i spent in total humiliation

this 13 years humiliation process forged strong values , maybe dangerous values, who knows ?


when enough is enough, we can't accept stupidity anymore. this is definitive





that's why i am fond of Dan Pena's outburst

he can't accept stupidity

pena.jpg
 

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Thank you, @Maxboost. I appreciate it. It's harder on my wife than it is on me. I have a few options but I like the one that I can control (knuckle down on web development). I'll keep you updated. Maybe starting a progress thread will help.
My dad worked his butt off and never enjoyed life before becoming paralyzed and basically a shell of himself.

My boss also let me know that Corp ABC did not give a fck that I had to go home at a reasonable time to take care of my paralyzed father.

I am talking about not being able to bathe and shit by himself type of paralyzed. 8:30AM - 6PM seemed reasonable...but nope.

My manager pushed me out and sent me to another "lower tier" group within the company. Talk about getting kicked while you are down.

This was coming from a manager that never had sick parents and was basically a spoiled fck. No empathy whatsoever.

Even though I contributed so much in the years beforehand.

Did I mention that co-workers can be like people from Game of Thrones?

They smile in front of you, but the one that you least expect wants to stab you in the eye so he or she can get a $4,000 increase next year.

Co-workers living the script WILL throw you under the bus so they can afford to buy cable next month. I use this as extra motivation to get the hell out of my corp gig.
 

GMSI7D

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MY F*ck this event is happenning right now as i am writing

i woke up this morning

looked at my life

i realized in a moment of light that i am a loser

and i am fooling myself that i will succeed one day by reading this forum

this is extremely painful




i will be 41 in september and the odds are that i will never achieve what i want




so i have to make a choice right now :

1) i leave this forum. i burn my success material and i accept my poor life

so i have peace of mind for the rest of my life



2) or i keep exposing myself to the success of others whith feeling of pain and humiliation

until i can't stand anymore this situation



and i take revenge on other people






 
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amp0193

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Anyway, the new online business got formulated and largely built during the four months off, I launched it in early 2016 and it is great, I enjoy it and it's doing really well. Plus I still like the new job, so it's been winning all the way around.

I enjoy reading your posts, you're a good story teller.

That post was giving me anxiety. I was rooting for you in my head while reading it... I'm glad it had a happy ending.
 

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I can't put it on one event...consider it "An unfortunate series of F*ck You Events"

-my boss making multiple references to me being on "my [his] time"
-my boss constantly self-labeling himself as cheap; his big brag was a one-time $400 dinner in Vegas for a 4-member team that finally didn't involve a food court or Subway (we are a nutrition company btw) - which he was sure to brag about to each of our team members and mention multiple times after the conference. A new employee had suggested a round of drinks - which at Vegas prices shocked my boss. The boss gave subtle digs to the employee for 2 months following the dinner (while also bragging about him treating us). I was the 5th employee left out of the Vegas trip...to cut costs because it would mean a 3rd room even though I head education for the company and the intent of the conference was to evaluate product packaging for a new line. I was the 5th wheel left out...so I found it comical when he was bragging about the one-time $400 dinner with a 5 person team in a company making $2.5 mil a year. It also turned into a one-night trip for a 3 day conference for those that went....great...4.5 hour drive for one night in vegas, a $400 dinner you get to feel guilty about for 2 months, and a nice 4.5 hour drive home the next day with Subway sandwiches in hand for the car. Thanks boss! Guess you won't pay the $5k to get that last batch of samples tested so we can get a single product launched either!

-We spend 50K on trade shows a year that make us a trackable 3-5x return in 3-4 years. I have a system of evaluating trade shows - cutting out poor performers, adding new ones to consider...basically out of 12 we keep 8, cut out 4 and add 4 consistently. We get 100% of money back in 1-1.25 years - backed by sales data. He still sees it as spending 50K, cuts out trade shows for 2 years...costing the company 150K to 250K income added each year. Maybe you'll spend another 6 months finding a new bottler like last year when all you needed to do was take a flight to oversee the first batch (as 3 people independently suggested to you) and the problem would have been avoided in the first place.

-"I think we should launch 10 products" - no one can name more than 4 products that we're ready to "launch"....at least $300K in R&D on a new product line, and not 1 product ready for launch. Opportunity cost is greater. Let's spray and pray baby! Double down...heck Vegas is just a drive away!

-"We all need to be in the office X days of the week from here forward". Me and one other co-worker remain the only ones to ever be there. I have a 45 minute commute one-way, everyone else is 5-15 minutes away. With the open time it creates I work on my own business.

-I design, create, test and implement a CRM program that earns 65% open rate, I trigger and answer 125 customer issues per month and 12 15-30minute one-on-one scheduled trainings. I triggered a measureable $341,000 (does not account for referrals, word of mouth, etc) in added annual sales out of a group of 3000 customers based on average order data & creation of new leads from cold prospecting techniques and post-conference follow-up.

-I also designed it, managed it and automated it completely by myself using simple tools like trello, canned responses, Boomerang for gmail. I manually discovered the exact ordering data as to when reorders are triggered and ran statistical analysis out to 3 standard deviations as to when to send various triggers for ordering, product education and more. I influence my process with books by Dan Kennedy, Claude Hopkins, Perry Marshall, Ramit Sethi, Jay Abraham, & key topics like cold calling, surveying customers, getting referrals etc.

-Fast Foward.....I get the program taken away by a competitive & jealous colleague because I had too informal language in an email "I wanted to find out what's up" (which was getting responses because it sounded human, and was going to alter the wording to "You didn't order, how come?", and was testing customer deactivation sequence that had proved successful for those not ordering). Either way the project was given to the other employee more or less because he whined for it. I head education for the company. Since the transfer, I have had 0 trainings, 0 email responses, and new open rates are at 15%. My RESPONSE rate with my system was 15% (open rate >65%) meaning I was identifying specific issues that I was able to resolve & actively adapting templates that didn't work. My boss liked the idea of fancier software over actual trackable results. (more money, less results). I was in the process of transitioning to a more robust software program at the time of the project transfer - the project was transferred to the jealous colleague.

-The final straw (wrapped in seemingly generous packaging)? My boss bragging to us about how he gave us all 3% raises. "My accountant was telling me to give you 2%, but I made sure we stuck with 3% for you guys." Yeah, 3% annual raises will get me financially free real quick ;-).

It's nice, but btw, how are you liking that $500K the company earned thanks to my projects that you have effectively cancelled?
yeah seems small because I have a decent salary and benefit package, but after reading Millioniare Fastlane and Unscripted ...it was an FTE for me.

-The silver lining? I took the skills and the CRM sequences and applied it to my own e-commerce business on the side. Also, when we cancelled the CRM software, we received a reactivation offer for 50% off the pro version of the software. I used the reactivation promotion for my personal business - cutting down my own overhead. Without the trade shows, I don't have the stress/wear & tear of travel; and my added effort to follow-up on leads, personalize messages, and adapt sequences is now applied to my own leads and customers. Now I frame different projects that the whining coworker is now fully responsible for - he is newer than me and still hopeful for some semblance of future performance-based pay/bonuses that will never come in anything more than a linear 3% fashion. I'll still get my 3% raises, but my future is no longer dependent on it.

As I write this....In 3 months, the side income increased from $600/month to a current pace of $1950/month and on pace to potentially double that at least by the end of the year as I add auto-ship functionalities, upsells, new content, updated flows, and targeted promotions....-on top of my current salary and benefits that come out to a "true" 105K.

I now expect 130K this year, and as much as 150K+ in 2018. I am then taking that extra income and it is all entirely savings that are either being reinvested in the business or being added to my "5% paycheck income", or paying down my mortgage (4.375%).

Once my "paycheck income" surpasses my fixed expenses....I can have the option of quitting the salaried job to continue growing the ecommerce & consulting. I have turned my boss' stupidity & lack of basic business sense into my own exit strategy - and I can learn and hone skills on his time - apply the lessons to my business on my time....Ultimately, my goal is to buy time itself back with debt-free, income-producing assets. Game on!
 
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As I write this....In 3 months, the side income increased from $600/month to a current pace of $1950/month and on pace to potentially double that at least by the end of the year as I add auto-ship functionalities, upsells, new content, updated flows, and targeted promotions....-on top of my current salary and benefits that come out to a "true" 105K.

I now expect 130K this year, and as much as 150K+ in 2018. I am then taking that extra income and it is all entirely savings that are either being reinvested in the business or being added to my "5% paycheck income", or paying down my mortgage (4.375%).

Once my "paycheck income" surpasses my fixed expenses....I can have the option of quitting the salaried job to continue growing the ecommerce & consulting. I have turned my boss' stupidity & lack of basic business sense into my own exit strategy - and I can learn and hone skills on his time - apply the lessons to my business on my time....Ultimately, my goal is to buy time itself back with debt-free, income-producing assets. Game on!

Nice plan and execution underway! Congrats.
 

Waspy

Float like a butterfly
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Not sure it's my FTE. But sure has kicked me into overdrive.

I'm really sick of my slowlane job at the moment. So I thought "I'll take a week off and make some serious progress on my fastlane" you know for a bit of re-motivation.

Approach my boss.

"Sorry, no availability until November"

I have voluntarily put myself in prison.

Someone has the entire control over my time, where I have to be, and when.

F*ck This.
 

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