The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

Do we have to struggle and learn things the hard way?

Anything related to matters of the mind

AndrewNC

Limitless
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
433%
Nov 14, 2011
2,486
10,752
You know that old saying...?

The grandpa on his front porch, lecturing his teenage grandson, "Listen kid, back in my day, I used to have to walk to work every day. 15 miles there. 15 miles back. Uphill in both directions."

"Grandpa, it's called innovation. We have cars now." the young boy says, as he gets behind the wheel of his new Tesla.

In the past, we had to struggle with things that many of our customers no longer have to deal with. Everything from preventative medicine, vaccines, camera tripods, all the way to reaching in your pocket and grabbing a cell phone so you don't have to send a telegraph across the Atlantic.

But what about us as business owners?

One of the most common things that holds a lot of the newer guys and gals back is Shiny Object Syndrome. Most of us on the boards here know that we should commit to something and follow through all the way until the end, there are countless posts about it here, books on the topic, articles on outlets like Forever Jobless, FoundR, etc.

When my earlier mentors gave me that piece of advice to focus on one thing: I didn't listen.

I had to struggle, learn things the hard way; and ultimately learn my lesson from my failures.

Now, after navigating that problem for many years, I fully understand the reasoning for that lesson and I still see people making the same mistake.

The reason why I'm typing this right now is because I'm putting together a guide to help people take control of their emotional state. I decided to do this after an email came in for my business and someone told me that they saw the information I posted about the topic before, and they kind of brushed it off not really thinking twice about it.

And then something happened in their lives where they ran out of all other options and said, "I guess it's time to give this a try."

Before I faced some serious stress in my business life, I remember watching a video by Julien from RSD talk about emotional balance/spiritual stuff on his YouTube channel and I laughed at it.

In both instances, we are walking down a path, and many people point at the obstacle up ahead and say it's there.

Yet we continue to walk and walk and walk, until we fall down into the deep dark pit, and face the ultimate pain by not navigating around that obstacle.

If I only listened to my mentor's advice about actually avoiding the shiny object syndrome, walking around the path through a route, or learned the techniques in that YouTube video, I would have avoided that problem all together. Instead, I spent many months in doctors offices from stress, and I spent many years bouncing around between different ideas.

In the same instance, I know the person I referenced above could avoid certain emotional problems with the preventative medicine.

I was thinking this because I notice most people reach out to me for this after they fall into the pit, the same way you don't call up and schedule a visit with your doctor until you're sick.

But then something interesting happened...

I was at a craft brewery the other day on a date with a woman who is a real estate developer, and she asked about what I do.

During the conversation, I realized that the core of my business and the services I offer were based off of my stupidity by not avoiding the obstacles.

I fell into that deep dark pit, and I had to fight and claw my way out of it, leaving me more equipped to handle any emotional struggles that come up...because I faced that rough experience. If it wasn't for falling face-first into the struggle, I wouldn't be where I am today.

Naturally, like most of us, I find problems and I want to help others avoid them and get through them.

That's the basis for your business as well.

Do we have to face the struggle?

On one hand, some might say it's part of our soul's evolution and our personal transformation as business owners...that it's just a required evolutionary step that we must go through in life.

But on the other hand, the story with the grandpa and the teenage boy comes to mind...

Just because the older generations struggled in the past (and had some kind of weird thing where they had uphill walks in both directions), doesn't innovation remove the struggles so others don't have to face the same pain we did?

This is a philosophical question more than anything.
  1. Do we have to struggle and face the pain to make us stronger? or
  2. Can the struggles be removed so we can flow much easier?
My thoughts are that it's the second one.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Vilox

Silver Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
783%
Sep 12, 2016
76
595
33
Germany
While I agree that technology has made most aspects of our lives more convenient, I disagree with the conclusion you've come to.

First, I'd make a distinction between physical and psychological struggle. While the former is certainly declining thanks to technology, the latter is about to become one of the biggest problems of society; because they're inversely correlated. Just think about it. Most people living in America and Central Europe live better lives than most kings in human history. Yet people aren't happy. Why is that? It's because we don't struggle like our ancestors did.

Don't have a job? No problem! Let the government take care of you! Move back in with your parents! Now you have all day to think about that guy from school who just returned from a month-long vacation and just bought a new car. How unfair! But you don't appreciate for a minute that you have a roof over your head and food on the table. You don't appreciate having a toilet with a working flush because you never had to take a dump alongside 30 other people in the streets. I mean, there are children in Africa who can't go to school because they have to walk 20 miles daily to a piss-pot of a well, just to carry 70 pounds of cholera-infected water back to their families. And you have the audacity to get upset about the fact that someone just cut you off in traffic? Go F*ck yourself.

I realize that other people's problems don't diminish your own. That being said, the 'problems' of today's society are a complete joke. It's an unfortunate part of human nature to always want what we don't have. We are never content with the way things are. If I gave you all you think you need to be happy right now, you still wouldn't be. You might experience euphoria for a day. Probably for a week. Maybe for a month. But eventually your shiny new car that was supposed to bring you status and respect just becomes 'your car'. And not even a year will pass before you want another one. Some people might not want a car. Some want a house, others want a loving relationship, not realizing that happiness cannot be bought. It has to be earned. And that's not possible in a life without struggle.

What I'm trying to say is this: There's a relation between the lowest lows you've experienced and the intensity of the highs you can achieve. Taking struggle out of our lives completely - assuming there was a way - is just about the worst idea I can think of. Instead, embrace the pain. Welcome it. It's a catalyst for growth. Say 'hello' to the attractive girl on the street. Make that cold-call. Climb a mountain. Break yourself, both physically and emotionally. You'll be dead in 80 years anyway, and in 200 not even your descendants will remember you. Make the most out of the time you've been given. You'll be a better person and the end of it, and, more importantly: you'll be happy. That's what they mean when they say 'it's the journey, not the destination'.

Instead of removing struggle from our lives, we should consciously add to it. Pain in life is unavoidable, but suffering is optional.
 
Last edited:

AfterWind

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
209%
Jul 23, 2017
76
159
26
Romania
Sometimes it helps reading about something that you're 50% convinced about. After reading it, you might be 60% convinced about it ("yeah, this makes sense", "it's logical" etc.). But when it comes to learning from mistakes it goes something like: "I'm 0% convinced this will work", you do the opposite, fail miserably, learn why you failed, "I'm now 100% convinced the this will work better now because the opposite just didn't work at all."

See the difference? In one case you learn why this works and in other, you learn why that doesn't work.
 

JustJoshing

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
196%
Sep 7, 2016
24
47
34
Traveling
Natural_stress-releave-1.jpg
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

Latest Posts

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top