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A Note for People Seriously Struggling

Velocke

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I always find it's important to remember that simple and easy are not necessarily the same thing. A formula for weight loss (calories in < calories out) is very simple, but damned difficult in practice because of all the factors that weigh on its execution. I recently lost weight with a diet that was very simple in concept, but still a bitch to stick to at times, haha.
This is actually related to one of the things I really liked about TMF /Unscripted : that they acknowledge that get rich QUICK and get rich EASY are not the same. People always think quick = easy and vice versa, but they do not always go together. Get rich quick can happen, but it will still be a lot of work.
 
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NanoDrake

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You're looking for actual tangible steps to follow? If it was that easy, don't you think everyone else would be following them?

****

Your screen name is GOGETTER. So go get it.

@Vigilante , your reply kicked me in the face, thank you dearly for bringing your spirit in here, it is really a gift to us all
 
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GuestU56895

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Nah bruh... Clearly, Rocky did it in one day... Look at his training vs Drago. One DAY!



Full man beard... in ONE DAY!!!

I have to call BS on Rocky! He didn't do it in a day...it was 4 min 13 sec my friend. Now if I change my mindset and focus on the process maybe I could get lucky and look like Rocky in maybe 8 min 25 sec?
 
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GuestU56895

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Also to seriously comment. I agree with everyone here:

mindset is a big part of it, but it is a multi layer cyclical relationship... i.e....I have noticed when I try to make changes, my mind set helps me to take action, but the actions and the results help to alter my mindset to keep moving forward. Change is very difficult, but a journey is really a collection of steps and stumbling, does not mean failure, it only give us the choice of getting up and which direction to keep going.
Also, my mindset can royally F me too. Moving forward can be scary, and my mind tries to get me to go back to what is comfortable. As for the wait loss thing, it can be hit with other options than diet, excercised (calories eaten vs calories burned). This is thinking like a victim: Weightloss can be effected by sleep, stress, fluid intake... there is also the mindset of instead of focusing burning calories to just make your self stronger and your body will metabolize more ( just like building wealth to solve money problems)

To quote my wife" It doesn't matter how you think or feel...it is how you act." I always fight her on that, but lucky guess... she is always right.

I have over six figures in student loans as well. I have worked almost every job out there for minimum wage or slightly above, because the economy didn't NEED me to have a degree. The jobs that required a degree were horrible and paid the bills but also stole my soul. I have to agree though I too have been a victim for over 10+ years from college that no one will give me a job, why won't my family help me...yadda yadda yadda... but after reading MJ's book, the mud has been wiped from my eyes that it is my choice to live my life and the results of that are because of me not anyone else. I don't feel like the debt hurts me anymore. I know I will be able to conquer it in a way that I am yet to discover.

Keep going... and thank you for the post. Nice to know I am not alone.
 
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LiveFire

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Jason,

Thank you for recommending the reading of The Miracle Morning. Just ordered this. I will message you.

Read The Miracle Morning, it helped me.

The guy was in way more debt than you and turned his life around.

His struggles make mine look nonexistent.
 

biophase

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I may make a separate post about this, but I was just doing my taxes and went to look back at 10 years ago. I decide to post this to show that it's a slow grind at first and can then blow up. It' all about sticking to it.

You can tell me that it's not about mindset all you want, but would you have stuck with your business the first 2 years?

These are my AGI's from 2006 to 2010. The dates on the forms are a year later because you do 2006 taxes in 2007.

To give you perspective, I started my first online business in 2007. So look at my first 4 years in business, $18k, $6k, $50k, then $187k.

In 2010, I took a consulting gig that paid me about $100k so the AGI is not true to just ecommerce, so subtract $100k from that number.

2007.png
 

Vigilante

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I may make a separate post about this, but I was just doing my taxes and went to look back at 10 years ago. I decide to post this to show that it's a slow grind at first and can then blow up. It' all about sticking to it.

You can tell me that it's not about mindset all you want, but would you have stuck with your business the first 2 years?

These are my AGI's from 2006 to 2010. The dates on the forms are a year later because you do 2006 taxes in 2007.

To give you perspective, I started my first online business in 2007. So look at my first 4 years in business, $18k, $6k, $50k, then $187k.

In 2010, I took a consulting gig that paid me about $100k so the AGI is not true to just ecommerce, so subtract $100k from that number.

View attachment 19710

You got lucky.
 
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GoGetter24

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To Not-much-of-a-go-getter
You got lucky.
I'll never cease to stir the pot if I think good can come out of it. It's always a test of the mettle of a community by whether criticism is met by rebuttal and valuable content (such as biophase's post above about speed), or purposeful misinterpretation of intent and mockery. Usually 90% of the time it's the latter; so glad to see this place is holding integrity well (except the crypto areas, but that's a whole different kettle of fish).

"Decide that this time it's going to be different".
"... just like last time".
This is the kind of fluff platitude that gets made into a gif and posted on reddit for 100k upvotes. It's worth nothing.

You don't simply decide this time is going to be different, you invest large amounts of effort to test if it's going to be different. Otherwise if you fail, you'll have to say "but I decided it would be different..." and you lose self-credibility. If you recognize the power law of return, and are prepared for that, you avoid falsely self-ascribing failure in cases where your actions were not determinably at fault -- something that would just cause demotivation.
 

Vigilante

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I'll never cease to stir the pot if I think good can come out of it. It's always a test of the mettle of a community by whether criticism is met by rebuttal and valuable content (such as biophase's post above about speed), or purposeful misinterpretation of intent and mockery. Usually 90% of the time it's the latter; so glad to see this place is holding integrity well (except the crypto areas, but that's a whole different kettle of fish).


"... just like last time".
This is the kind of fluff platitude that gets made into a gif and posted on reddit for 100k upvotes. It's worth nothing.

You don't simply decide this time is going to be different, you invest large amounts of effort to test if it's going to be different. Otherwise if you fail, you'll have to say "but I decided it would be different..." and you lose self-credibility. If you recognize the power law of return, and are prepared for that, you avoid falsely self-ascribing failure in cases where your actions were not determinably at fault -- something that would just cause demotivation.

You speak in vague terms. Teach by example, not hyperbole. Help us to understand what you've experienced from what you draw the wisdom of how to succeed. Give us a specific actionable road map from your history. If you can, let's hear it. If you can't, you're full of s***. If you've been to the top of the mountain you can tell other people how to get there. If you haven't, everything you're talking about about how people succeed or fail is based on nothing but your own unexperienced intuition which on the surface looks to be about 99% incorrect with a couple of nuggets of truth that you've learn from others and added to your cynical entrepreneurial worldview. Enlighten us with actual tangible examples. That's what we're here for. If you don't have any, then it might be more prudent to shut up and listen.

If you could also share with us examples of businesses that failed despite all of the actions taken that were correct. Success and failure is self-determined, not caused by external forces. Even in the example where I lost my company by a hostile takeover it was because of actions I took that were errant and actions I didn't take that I could have... There was no boogie man out there in the universe dooming me to failure despite my best efforts. Life doesn't owe you s***. The Law of Attraction will never beat success or failure determined by building a business that follows the principles of CENTS.

I think you've read too many business books and not built any businesses. I've concluded that you don't know the subject matter from first-hand experience about which you speak.

However, in your defense you would make an excellent professor of Entrepreneurship. Perhaps Academia might be your true calling. You could equip other people to be smarter than people that have actually done it.

Or, simply choose to ignore the challenge and continue on with your soliloquy.
 
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IGP

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You speak in vague terms. Teach by example, not hyperbole. Help us to understand what you've experienced from what you draw the wisdom of how to succeed. Give us a specific actionable road map from your history. If you can, let's hear it. If you can't, you're full of s***. If you've been to the top of the mountain you can tell other people how to get there. If you haven't, everything you're talking about about how people succeed or fail is based on nothing but your own unexperienced intuition which on the surface looks to be about 99% incorrect with a couple of nuggets of truth that you've learn from others and added to your cynical entrepreneurial worldview. Enlighten us with actual tangible examples. That's what we're here for. If you don't have any, then it might be more prudent to shut up and listen.

If you could also share with us examples of businesses that failed despite all of the actions taken that were correct. Success and failure is self-determined, not caused by external forces. Even in the example where I lost my company by a hostile takeover it was because of actions I took that were errant and actions I didn't take that I could have... There was no boogie man out there in the universe dooming me to failure despite my best efforts. Life doesn't owe you s***. The Law of Attraction will never beat success or failure determined by building a business that follows the principles of CENTS.

I think you've read too many business books and not built any businesses. I've concluded that you don't know the subject matter from first-hand experience about which you speak.

However, in your defense you would make an excellent professor of Entrepreneurship. Perhaps Academia might be your true calling. You could equip other people to be smarter than people that have actually done it.

Or, simply choose to ignore the challenge and continue on with your soliloquy.

Agreed! I see a lot regurgitation and pontificating of ideas taken from books, most of which many of us have read. However, there doesn't seem to be real world knowledge other than some cynicism that has resulted from maybe a few failed attempts at business?

Instead of always focusing on the negatives, I would love to hear about his success.

Lets re-frame this story!
 

Vigilante

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Agreed! I see a lot regurgitation and pontificating of ideas taken from books, most of which many of us have read. However, there doesn't seem to be real world knowledge other than some cynicism that has resulted from maybe a few failed attempts at business?

Instead of always focusing on the negatives, I would love to hear about his success.

Lets re-frame this story!
He's either
 

ZCP

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Check out his intro thread.....

@GoGetter24 maybe update your intro thread and then create a progress thread for something you are pursuing?
 
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GoGetter24

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I'll just ignore the typical ad hominems and pile-on bits. Unfortunately it happens at all internet communities (although this one is the least so far, except the crypto threads). Those intolerable of criticism, cynicism and questioning the party line like that merely warn others about the nature of their advice. It doesn't bother me, and I'll never keep my mouth shut when I think an idea needs interrogating, no matter who or how many people rage at it. What is the nature of declaring the truth and then going ad hominem at anyone who dares question it?

Re: real-world advice: I already gave a form of advice on this topic: the set of questions I put in #23, which someone struggling (or someone who wants to help them) could use to analyze their situation.

The power law I keep mentioning is derived from real world business attempts, successes and failures. The power law is absolutely critical for people to understand, because it's truly fundamental, especially to a former student/employee (which follows more linear return curves). Proceeding in business without understanding what "1 in 10 businesses make it" actually means and what the repercussions of that are, is part of the reason so few people make it. That doesn't mean they shouldn't go into business, but they should do so informed by it.

Here are some tips I would give to a seriously struggling person, without any other information about them:
  • If you have no capital, trying to jump the huge gap from employer to customers is foolish. If you are unemployed, it's even more foolish*. You should start with clients first. Salary/wage -> Fees -> Profits. Contracting offers much more room to modify your active/passive income-targeting work balance. It also teaches you much of the new areas you'll need to know for passive income business: marketing, managing finances, outsourcing work, legal stuff, etc.
  • Therefore, first and foremost you need to work on your marketable skill. You need to work on having that skill, being known to have that skill, and being able to get clients needing your work in that skill. As long as you can get clients, you can pay bills (and without going back to a job), no matter what happens to your passive-income pursuits.
  • The more specific your skill, the better. Being a generalist causes more stress, lower ability to differentiate, more difficulty in increasing your skills, and as a result: lower effective hourly rate. It's basically contrary to the sociological principle of division of labour. You always want to aim to be the best at some narrow thing that has demand; but recognize you'll have to start more general until you discover and hone in on that best specific.
  • Minimize your living costs, beyond what you even think you need to. Right down to the bare minimum. Smaller / more remote apartment, less eating out, no luxuries. Your ability to pursue passive income business (or build up your contracting), is dependent on one primary thing: work hours you can manage at $0 pay. Part of that is mindset, part of that is your living costs and client income (or savings), and part of it is obtaining good solid procedural advice from good sources in the area you're targeting (so you don't spin your wheels).
  • Recognizing that business, especially product-based (passive), follows a power law curve:
    • It is better to have partners than try to do it yourself. Sure, everyone wants to be a sole proprietor, 100% equity, no chance of disputes, lack of control, or other problems that can come with partners **. But observe what percent of the big names started with no partners. Google, Facebook, PayPal, Apple, Oracle, Microsoft. Dividends divide linearly across partners, but exponentially against the market. 200 units of work per month in a single business is far more effective for market return than 100 + 100 units across two businesses.
    • Always focus on one thing at a time. Never, ever, spread yourself out (you can spread capital, labour out later when you have it). Complete and ship one thing, before going on to the next one. The only exception to this is "orthogonal work": different work exhausts you in different ways, so it may be that having a 2nd different type of project concurrently allows you to work more in total.
    • Expect to execute 10 concepts to get a 50% chance of winning. Look at a graph of a power-law curve, and imagine your products randomly scattering around it. Each concept must be fully researched, tested if possible, and executed fully; and you must still expect that to just be a dice roll and have another concept ready to move on to next. You should factor this into your time horizons, work estimates, psychological preparation, and how much time/capital you invest in each play.
    • Be very careful of the target market (applies both to client & customer work). If the type of customer in a market is cheap / has little money, or the customer base is so small and the supply is ample already, it can be very hard to see it until you're 5 or more products in. You should research the target market 10 times more than you research a product idea you bring to it. Not just what they want: but how many of them there are, and especially: how much they're ready to pay. Looking for signs of cheapness, not respecting how much a type of work/service costs, evidence of good products/suppliers or skilled contractors disappearing, etc. The more cheapness there appears to be in a market, the larger it must be and the larger you must be (in capacity, economies of scale etc); always aim for higher margins.
    • You can bypass a lot of these problems with capital. If you can buy an existing business, you've just bypassed the business survival rate. Discovering and buying a well valued business "fixer upper" is an easier way of succeeding than a start-up -- simply because it's already making profit, so it's yours to screw up, rather than grinding away at making a breakthrough (you can also help buy it with bank financing against its existing assets). Freelancer.com had its origin like this. You can also use the capital to spray it over the power-law curve, looking for something that grips (same principle as venture capitalists).
So there's a few. There is nothing pessimistic about pointing out reality and odds.

* The primary reason you hear about guys who pull that off is because it's such an incredible, low-odds achievement. You'll never hear about the 100 guys who tried just as hard as him and ended up ruined, but you'll hear dozens of voices who falsely accuse those who bring up that fact of "just giving up" or "not wanting it enough" or "thinking it's all just luck", for their bravado pleasure.
** Everyone also wants to have no employees: it's just a website in a box somewhere. Aim only for that, and read about the 1 in 100 who pulled that off, and you're reducing your chances of getting rich completely unnecessarily.
 

MJ DeMarco

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Mindset and motivation are two different things. You are describing motivation.

Could you elaborate on how different both are from each other?

I look at mindset as the seed.

Motivation is fertilizer.

Motivation is fleeting. And fertilizer by itself is meaningless.

Mindset is transcendent.

As long as that seed is there, it gnaws. It grows. And it breaks through.

Motivation can only serve as periodic growth that might make that seed grow faster.
 

Iammelissamoore

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At the end of the day, we're not here for you. We're here for the kids I met at the Fast Lane Tampa meetup, who are grinding, finding their way, and at varying degrees of success. We're here for the person who comes here looking for an oasis in their personal desert. We're here for the people who read the book and want to see if the names within are real or fictional. We're here to help people looking for help. We're here to help each other.

We're not here to debate you on whether or not you can climb, if you're content to sit at the foot of the mountain and tell other people why they shouldn't climb. Don't climb then. You represent the majority.

...and THIS is why ya'll are definitely my tribe of Greats, because when the rest of the world is singing the blind-sided zombie song, and I'm feeling like a crazy person because I'm recognising something absolutely different, ya'll recognise it too, and we can discuss it, act on it and prove to ourselves that, even though we may stand in the minority, we make absolute sense about the choices we make, and YES, 404profound, you are totally correct, we are only victims to that which we give power over us, every aspect of life's outcomes are based on choices, and we at least hold the power to create the lives we desire; this forum helps drive that point home every-living-day!
 
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Dubidu

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I might be the perfect one to comment because unlike everyone else I've ever known in my life.... I've never had any debt. I've never even applied for a credit card. But I think if I had any debt at all whether it was $110 or $110k, while both would scare me, there is no way I'd let it rule MY life! I'd just make a plan and $x amount goes to debt each month.... end of story. No matter if you fail or succeed in the future, do NOT let debt rule your life! If you succeed, get it paid off, if you fail just keep on keepin on and pay $x amount every month. <<<<< This is for the people that this post was made for, the strugglers. >>>>> Just do what you can do and let it go. No need to lose sleep or be in a bad mood or be depressed. It's ok. Do you know what happens if a credit card doesn't get their payment? NOTHING!!! If they call harassing you tell them they do not get another penny until they call you back and treat you nice. If they don't call back and treat you nice..... F them, pay them LAST. YOU have the upper hand. YOU have control of YOUR money and YOU have control of who gets paid each month. Guess what happens if the credit card company never gets paid? NOTHING! You might get a bad credit score, so what. That's better than worrying about paying them. In the case of the OP, I'd pay off the student loans first and if the credit card companies don't like it.... so what? Are they going to take you off their Christmas card list? Do you know the best way to not worry about creditor calls? Only answer calls from people that their names pop up on your phone. If a phone number comes up with no name.... don't answer it and erase the message without listening to it. No need for all that stress. Even in debt live the most stress free life you can.

I came to this thread because I was feeling low: I've taken action over the last couple of weeks and no-one has replied and am unclear what to do next. I called two universities (basically Ivy League equivalent in Europe; one is my alma mater and I was research assistant to a professor at the other). The proposal was to work together on this idea - shout out to @LateBloomer for the suggestion :) - neither has replied! It's only been 10 days and it's exam season here so I don't know if that's the reason for the delay but the proposal was a sound one and my email was simply suggesting a quick meeting to discuss!

Anyway, I agree with this - I come from a very humble background and money was an issue. Debt was also to be avoided at all costs; I still carry that mentality with me and it's even affected my approach to business/producing my own idea - I want to do it alone and sell to someone; if I can at all help it I don't want an external investor because I would be 'indebted' to them (this is different to 'I'll have to give away equity'). However, the original poster should speak to the companies (student debt I imagine is broadly non-negotiable) but the stuff he got into debt to buy that was unnecessary - those companies. It is ALWAYS worth speaking to them - be nice, negotiate terms (e.g. lower interest, waiver of late payment charges etc.). It's good practice for stuff you'd have to negotiate for your own business further down the line anyway. On the very rare occasion that I suffered a late payment charge with Amex for example, I always called and they always refunded the late payment charge and interest! Seriously, at that level of debt, every little "negotiating down" will help - I'm sure there is a tonne of advice for free on the internet about strategies to manage your debt/consolidated to relief the stress as much as possible whilst being realistic about what you have to do. Good luck!
 

ZF Lee

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I look at mindset as the seed.

Motivation is fertilizer.

Motivation is fleeting. And fertilizer by itself is meaningless.

Mindset is transcendent.

As long as that seed is there, it gnaws. It grows. And it breaks through.

Motivation can only serve as periodic growth that might make that seed grow faster.
'.....faith the size of a mustard seed....'

OHHH NOW I KNOW WHY HE SAID THAT.

Thanks, MJ and Get Right. Sometimes those two phrases get popped in together so many times that I myself get mixed up.
 

splok

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But there is definitely room for helpful procedure between "just have a good mindset" and "follow my easy 10 step plan and you'll get rich".

The reason I bring this up is that you don't get to see the statistics on those seriously struggling who drop off and end up in the gutter as a result of advice like "just fix your mindset and good will come to you". You never see the shadows of the logins that never happen again because of that. You can have the best mindset in the world, but if you fry yourself and still don't get enough money to eat, it's over.

For every Sylvester Stallone, there's 9 others who tried just as hard and stayed homeless. People forget that.

I realize that you're a troll, but I wanted to reply to this for the potential benefit of anyone who stumbles across this and thinks you have a point.

First, you're right. There is a middle ground, and MJ's books are about the best explanation of it that you're ever going to get. You're literally at the best place on the internet for exactly the thing you're asking for!

Second, you're right again. People need to understand power curves and confirmation bias.

Third, it doesn't matter that you're right. All of the advice you're complaining about is still the right advice.

You're looking for guarantees where there are only probabilities. Anyone who knows enough to bring up power curves knows enough to know that there are zero guarantees, only changes in probability. You can do everything right and still have everything go wrong, and vice versa. No set of actions can guarantee a specific outcome. All you can do is change the probabilities. Spending 40 hours per week playing basketball for 10 years doesn't guarantee you a spot in the NBA, but it damned sure makes it more likely than the guy who's done nothing but watch SportsCenter for 10 years.

Same with everything else in life. The more you invest your attention, action, and effort into a certain path, the more likely you are to progress down that path. You can argue that leverage you have on the probability lever keeps the path from being worthwhile of course, but you're on the wrong forum for that. This is where you come after you've made the decision.

If you actively follow the advice from MJ's books and the epic posters here on the forum, you have massively improved your probability of success, and that's as much of a guarantee as you can ever hope to get.
 
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MidwestLandlord

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    • It is better to have partners than try to do it yourself. Sure, everyone wants to be a sole proprietor, 100% equity, no chance of disputes, lack of control, or other problems that can come with partners **. But observe what percent of the big names started with no partners. Google, Facebook, PayPal, Apple, Oracle, Microsoft. Dividends divide linearly across partners, but exponentially against the market. 200 units of work per month in a single business is far more effective for market return than 100 + 100 units across two businesses.
You seem to like odds, probability, and statistics...so I'll chime in here.

The latest research shows that business partnerships have a 70% failure rate.

Compare that to the overall business failure rate (which includes partnerships), of 50% in 5 years and 70% in 10 years...and you have the exact same probability of success.

Wasn't Amazon started by one person? Ebay? IBM? E*Trade? GoDaddy? Dell? EDS? Wrigley?

THIS is exactly why you are hearing so much about mindset.

There literally are no "rules" to entrepreneurship other than the law and your own personal code of conduct.

Here's my mindset about statistics:

7 out of 10 businesses fail?

I DON'T CARE.

I'll repeat that.

I. DO. NOT. CARE.

Why?

Because everything in my life is MY fault.

If my business fails (and I just had one that failed and dropped my net worth 75%+), it isn't because 7 out of 10 businesses failed...it's because *I* did something that made it fail.

I either screwed up and made bad decisions, or I didn't put in the effort required, or I picked a business that didn't have the possibility of succeeding to begin with.

All of that is mindset. All of it.

Here's another way my mindset works:

What if my current business fails?

Again,

I DON'T CARE.

Why?

Because I can always start another one.

I care deeply about my ultimate goal of maintaining my autonomy and freedom, but I could care less if any one specific pursuit fails to get me there.

Every time I improve my mindset I improve my life/business.

I can't say the same about specific steps I take to get there though.
 

ZF Lee

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You seem to like odds, probability, and statistics...so I'll chime in here.

The latest research shows that business partnerships have a 70% failure rate.

Compare that to the overall business failure rate (which includes partnerships), of 50% in 5 years and 70% in 10 years...and you have the exact same probability of success.

Wasn't Amazon started by one person? Ebay? IBM? E*Trade? GoDaddy? Dell? EDS? Wrigley?

THIS is exactly why you are hearing so much about mindset.

There literally are no "rules" to entrepreneurship other than the law and your own personal code of conduct.

Here's my mindset about statistics:

7 out of 10 businesses fail?

I DON'T CARE.

I'll repeat that.

I. DO. NOT. CARE.

Why?

Because everything in my life is MY fault.

If my business fails (and I just had one that failed and dropped my net worth 75%+), it isn't because 7 out of 10 businesses failed...it's because *I* did something that made it fail.

I either screwed up and made bad decisions, or I didn't put in the effort required, or I picked a business that didn't have the possibility of succeeding to begin with.

All of that is mindset. All of it.

Here's another way my mindset works:

What if my current business fails?

Again,

I DON'T CARE.

Why?

Because I can always start another one.

I care deeply about my ultimate goal of maintaining my autonomy and freedom, but I could care less if any one specific pursuit fails to get me there.

Every time I improve my mindset I improve my life/business.

I can't say the same about specific steps I take to get there though.
Speaking of statistics, my econometrics lecturer used to something REPEATEDLY many times during lectures.

He said, 'Just because you can get a conclusion from a sample out a a statistical study of an entire POPULATION, it doesn't mean that the result will always represent the population.'

That is to say that, every statistical result shouted from the rooftops, such as the 90% business failure rate and others, has a DEGREE OF UNCERTAINTY to it.

How much uncertainty? It depends on the grounds of the study...which is always different.

For instance, examining the business success rate today would have me a very different sampling of business people from that of the 1960s, because of differences in technology, mindset, economic policies and education.

Leap onto any blog screaming, '90% of businesses fail' or '10% of businesses only last for 5 years'. Not all that you see and read about is 100% correct. Who knows if the bloggers just nickpicked some numbers out of thin air? Faked survey results? Deployed flawed statistical tools?

And bear in mind that statistics are driven by MASS DATA, which involves studying the mindset of the majority. Last time I checked, usually the majority didn't exactly make the finest decisions.

My lecturer told us to ask these questions instead:

1. What story can the statistics tell us? What's going on behind there? (e.g. were the statistics biased against a certain mindset falsity or assumption?)
2. What can we do about it?

With all these uncertainties floating about, I would like to make my decisions based on my own grounds and merits, rather than from fear and influence of mass thinking. Statistics are not silver bullets to divine truth, if you can call it.
 
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MidwestLandlord

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That is to say that, every statistical result shouted from the rooftops, such as the 90% business failure rate and others, has a DEGREE OF UNCERTAINTY to it.

Exactly.

Here's a thing that isn't often talked about with the business failure statistic.

Why those businesses were closed.

I closed a business in May. Not because it failed, but because it made me the money I wished to make, so I got out. Sold the assets off and closed the business (an LLC)

I owned it for 4 years.

That would make it part of the 50% in 5 years "failure" rate, even though it was successful.
 

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Exactly.

Here's a thing that isn't often talked about with the business failure statistic.

Why those businesses were closed.

I closed a business in May. Not because it failed, but because it made me the money I wished to make, so I got out. Sold the assets off and closed the business (an LLC)

I owned it for 4 years.

That would make it part of the 50% in 5 years "failure" rate, even though it was successful.
Benchmarks.

What is the line between red or blue? Success or failure?

Turns out that it depends.

I had a recent group project examining poverty in Timor-Leste. Great project to learn all about statistics. The conventional benchmarks that determined which family was poor, was just a bunch of mathematical mumbo-jumbo put together.

I thought about changing critical values that served as benchmarks, since I didn't like the conventional one.

Then a peer of mine said, 'No need to! The tutors said it was fine to stick to it!'

So I stuck to it. Peer pressure hahaha.
But that is the sad truth behind the judgement of benchmarks. The pressure of some organization or governing body ensured that the benchmarks stayed stagnant.

I think MJ did discuss some statistics issues, concerning the relationship between income and getting loans for student degrees, in UNSCRIPTED . I didn't really get the full picture of that until I got a crack lecturer for my econometrics class.
 

Vigilante

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You seem to like odds, probability, and statistics...so I'll chime in here.

The latest research shows that business partnerships have a 70% failure rate.

Compare that to the overall business failure rate (which includes partnerships), of 50% in 5 years and 70% in 10 years...and you have the exact same probability of success.

Wasn't Amazon started by one person? Ebay? IBM? E*Trade? GoDaddy? Dell? EDS? Wrigley?

THIS is exactly why you are hearing so much about mindset.

There literally are no "rules" to entrepreneurship other than the law and your own personal code of conduct.

Here's my mindset about statistics:

7 out of 10 businesses fail?

I DON'T CARE.

I'll repeat that.

I. DO. NOT. CARE.

Why?

Because everything in my life is MY fault.

If my business fails (and I just had one that failed and dropped my net worth 75%+), it isn't because 7 out of 10 businesses failed...it's because *I* did something that made it fail.

I either screwed up and made bad decisions, or I didn't put in the effort required, or I picked a business that didn't have the possibility of succeeding to begin with.

All of that is mindset. All of it.

Here's another way my mindset works:

What if my current business fails?

Again,

I DON'T CARE.

Why?

Because I can always start another one.

I care deeply about my ultimate goal of maintaining my autonomy and freedom, but I could care less if any one specific pursuit fails to get me there.

Every time I improve my mindset I improve my life/business.

I can't say the same about specific steps I take to get there though.

Step 1. Print this out
Step 2. Go to the drugstore and buy a cheap glass frame
Step 3. Put this in the frame, and set it on your desk. On the wall is too easy. Has to be on your desk.
Step 4. Read and re-read this. When you need encouragement, read it again. When shit is hard, read it again. When dumb shits post statistics that bring you down, read it again. When people tell you what can't be done, read it again. Then, read it again.
Ste5 5. Re-do step 4.

@MJ DeMarco featured post.
 
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GoGetter24

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I DON'T CARE.
You do care how long it takes, and at what cost, to get there though, right? You don't care if you get rich in 2 years or 12?

Wasn't Amazon started by one person? Ebay? IBM? E*Trade? GoDaddy? Dell? EDS? Wrigley?
I didn't say that can't be done, I was suggesting the odds are lower.

Ebay: Omidyar brought on Skoll very shortly after starting (less than 12 months later), and they both became billionaires when it sold, so I'm calling that a partnership.

IBM: The 'founder' was a financier who lead the amalgamation of a group of other companies together. I wouldn't call that founding, that's more M&A stuff, but still indicative of the mentioned rule: buying an existing company (or companies), bypasses the business failure rate.

E*Trade: No, founded by 2 partners.

Wrigley: took too long to be considered a valuable example.

GoDaddy, Amazon, Dell, EDS: Yes.

Keep in mind that "70% of business partnerships fail" (taking that statistic on faith) is not the same as "70% of businesses fail". A business can succeed, make money, and then the partners drift apart in vision, leading to selling the company, or buying each other out, etc. I don't call that a failure if they made decent money from it. There's a great book on this: "How I Sold My Business: A Personal Diary", where the guy ended up hating his partners' guts to the extent where he couldn't be in the same room as them, and no one would buy the other out, so he managed to offload it to the actual employees of the firm in a form of internal buy-out. But as he pointed out: he was getting $1000/day throughout the whole thing, despite the dysfunction and him not being in the office.

I recognize that the ideal scenario for getting as rich as possible, will full control, is to own 100% equity in something that you manage to get to take off. I'm just saying the chance of getting it to take off is higher if you have good partners. You can move twice as fast or more than alone, you're dividing the labour, etc, all which gives you better odds of striking the blade of the power law curve.

Of course we're all going to keep trying until we make a play that succeeds. But there's no romance in struggling. It's no value to me to have 20 stories of struggle under my belt. Only the result matters. If I can get rich within 3 years instead of 6 years by paying attention to the rules, I'd rather do that.

As a sidenote, I try to go it alone myself too (for a variety of reasons), but I recognize it would be better to have a good partner or two to accelerate things.
 
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You do care how long it takes, and at what cost, to get there though, right? You don't care if you get rich in 2 years or 12?


I didn't say that can't be done, I was suggesting the odds are lower.

Ebay: Omidyar brought on Skoll very shortly after starting (less than 12 months later), and they both became billionaires when it sold, so I'm calling that a partnership.

IBM: The 'founder' was a financier who lead the amalgamation of a group of other companies together. I wouldn't call that founding, that's more M&A stuff, but still indicative of the mentioned rule: buying an existing company (or companies), bypasses the business failure rate.

E*Trade: No, founded by 2 partners.

Wrigley: took too long to be considered a valuable example.

GoDaddy, Amazon, Dell, EDS: Yes.

Keep in mind that "70% of business partnerships fail" (taking that statistic on faith) is not the same as "70% of businesses fail". A business can succeed, make money, and then the partners drift apart in vision, leading to selling the company, or buying each other out, etc. I don't call that a failure if they made decent money from it. There's a great book on this: "How I Sold My Business: A Personal Diary", where the guy ended up hating his partners' guts to the extent where he couldn't be in the same room as them, and no one would buy the other out, so he managed to offload it to the actual employees of the firm in a form of internal buy-out. But as he pointed out: he was getting $1000/day throughout the whole thing, despite the dysfunction and him not being in the office.

I recognize that the ideal scenario for getting as rich as possible, will full control, is to own 100% equity in something that you manage to get to take off. I'm just saying the chance of getting it to take off is higher if you have good partners. You can move twice as fast or more than alone, you're dividing the labour, etc, all which gives you better odds of striking the blade of the power law curve.

Of course we're all going to keep trying until we make a play that succeeds. But there's no romance in struggling. It's no value to me to have 20 stories of struggle under my belt. Only the result matters. If I can get rich within 3 years instead of 6 years by paying attention to the rules, I'd rather do that.

As a sidenote, I try to go it alone myself too (for a variety of reasons), but I recognize it would be better to have a good partner or two to accelerate things.

If you spent half as much time working on your business that you do disputing posts on this forum, you would be a resounding success!

That much I know for sure.
 

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If you spent half as much time working on your business that you do disputing posts on this forum
That's fair. I'll put it down now.

I was debating this topic to clear up my own thoughts on this question. When you criticize and question things, you bring out people's best arguments: or their worst if you're onto something. For instance, I was on the fence about getting involved in cryptocurrency, so I raised the debate in that thread, and due to the way they responded, took that as a "do not buy". And here: some guys are bringing out good points about mindset and odds, which I'm taking on board.

But the fact a staff member has called me a dumb shit, and is deliberately falsely interpreted my posts as trying to demotivate people and tell them "it can't be done" (despite all the points I made about improving the odds of getting it done), tells me that maybe this isn't the right place to have civil debates. So forget about it.
 
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That's fair. I'll put it down now.

I was debating this topic to clear up my own thoughts on this question. When you criticize and question things, you bring out people's best arguments: or their worst if you're onto something. For instance, I was on the fence about getting involved in cryptocurrency, so I raised the debate in that thread, and due to the way they responded, took that as a "do not buy". And here: some guys are bringing out good points about mindset and odds, which I'm taking on board.

But the fact a staff member has called me a dumb sh*t, and is deliberately falsely interpreted my posts as trying to demotivate people and tell them "it can't be done" (despite all the points I made about improving the odds of getting it done), tells me that maybe this isn't the right place to have civil debates. So forget about it.

Please tell us all about this great business you have going where you have drawn these great statistical results from.

Until then I'll continue listening to people like @Vigilante & @MidwestLandlord whos opinions carry weight as they have been there and done that.

Also, I'd rather be out there striking for home runs than sitting on the bench passing comments.
 

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You do care how long it takes, and at what cost, to get there though, right? You don't care if you get rich in 2 years or 12?

You're shifting topics here. I said I don't care about statistics because I don't care what others have done as a group. (individuals I care about...groups of people generalized into a statistic? Not so much)

Not sure what that has to do with your new questions here.

But, I'll answer.

Of course I care how long it takes to make my goals in life.

But my goal isn't to "get rich" (been there, done that. I was "rich" by most people's definition by age 25)

My goal is autonomy and freedom, money is just a means to that end.

My goal is to build a business that allows me to keep the autonomy and freedom I already have, and also increase my wealth to pay for continuing freedom and autonomy in my old age. (I'm 36, but I've seen enough to realize that old age/doctors/medical bills will very quickly erode my autonomy unless I can pay to remain in control)

My next goal will be to maintain my current goal, while building a legacy (I have an idea of what that will look like, but I don't care to share it)

So the business steps I take are more concerned with divorcing my time from the process than anything else.

As for other costs, I greatly enjoy the process and struggle of business (quite addicted to it), so no, I don't really care.
 

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