So. Introductions.
In all honesty, this is going to be hard to write for this audience because while reading TMF and Unscripted I had to resist the temptation to bang my head against a wall a few times. I'm a 42 year old guy from Belgium and I have only recently "seen the light".
I've never been a sidewalker, always reading books, going to seminars and teaching myself things like digital marketing, bit of coding, some photoshop etc.. From 1999 to 2016 I was a full-on wage slave and during this entire time I've been complaining to people around me about the jobs I was in.
I was saying things like "I can't work for a boss", "I don't respect authority" and as someone who already as a child had an acute sense of our time on this earth being limited - i managed to be basically unhappy about my working situation this entire time. "Why am I doing this while I'm going to be dead soon".
What kept me in those jobs is that the last job from 2011 to 2016 , was very cool. It was performing fraud investigations, this brought me all over the world - chasing money trails - seeing all kinds of crazy situations. Catching bad guys, accompanying police while they're literally kicking some company's door in. Doing "stress tests" at an airport, walking through TSA with a big a$$ knife in my luggage and one strapped on my back. Pretending to be a pilot and trying to sneak through security. But while this all was very cool, i had a boss who was micromanaging me, to the point of absurdity. For example, he demanded that all male personnel would sit while peeing (i'm not kidding- he came knocking on the stall door to ask you if you did that) or he would freak out if the toilet rolls were hung backwards. Or he would go to my trash can to see if I didn't print anything in color and then threw it out, for which he would berate me, stuff like that. I could write a book on that dude.
All this time I was planning an exit strategy. But my problem is low self-esteem. "If I go it alone, what would I do". "I have nothing to offer the world". "I'm a generalist, not a specialist, and nobody is paying generalists for their skills".
I started doing things on the side since 2005, because no job was ever able to hold my attention. I worked for a few hours and then I would work on my ventures. But I half-assed things and was still firmly in the slowlane mindset. I just did those things to have something of my own. I didn't know what I wanted. I wanted to be a writer, a journalist, a sommelier, a public speaker, ... all I knew is I didn't want to have a boss.
Let's see, in 2005 i started a wine business. Gave tastings, hauled crates, built a website with webshop. I remember being scared out of my mind when someone actually ordered, because I hadn't thought about shipping. So i quickly shut down the webshop. Margins were so low i just quit that business.
Then I started an online magazine, a lot of work. Minimal readership and no business model behind it. Started and shut it down three times in a row. I wanted to "write", i was an "artist" but did not think about money at all. I started a film magazine, only to realise nobody wanted to read my crappy reviews.
In 2008 i started to get serious about playing poker - spent all my time learning the game and spending lots and lots of time at this illusion. Beyond a 1800$ finish in the PokerStars Sunday Million I lost a full year in time and a bunch of money.
In 2009 i started daytrading - another form of gambling, if you will. I managed to build up my meagre 5K to 130K buying and selling options. Then I received a letter from the SEC I was identified amongst one of the world's 2000 institutes or individuals that qualified as a "large trader". I had to file all kinds of paperwork. I flipped out and instead of keeping that 130K i went long AAPL calls with my entire cash reserve. I was like, I'm quitting this, let's go all or nothing. I ended up with 18K and probably lost a few years of my life stressing out about the SEC mailing and calling an unsuspecting Belgian dude.
Next up I started a website that was going to copy brainpickings.org - a bit the same but more for a male audience. Once again A LOT OF WORK - writing for hours every day. Added a donation button to the site - added some Amazon links. Learned about Facebook ads - drove traffic to my website. But didn't think about why I wanted that. Then my website got hacked and I didn't have a backup. Rebuilt the site - then added Amazon affiliation. Made the first three sales and then Amazon swooped in to say my application was rejected.
Then I was going to start a digital forensics firm, this time more calculated. Really studied the market, couldn't see a business model.
In the meantime, life was happening. Got married, three kids, bought a house. You know, the script was being deployed. And I needed the money so I kept going.
It has to be said that I'm lucky that my wife is going at it as well. She owns 20% of a software company with 50 employees, has an MBA from a top school, invests in real-estate etc. She's not joking around and supports me in what I'm doing.
It wasn't until 2016, when two older gentlemen I knew started their own cybersecurity services business asked me to come work for them. So I gave up my job and incorporated. Now i'm a freelancer, worked for a full year and got 700$ a day (before tax). But I'm still trading away my time for money. But still , reading books , following free courses and growing.
Then there were two books that really made me think. In The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb he states that whores, cooks, consultants and cafe owners are idiots because they have to perform the same service every single day to get paid. Better to write a book, so you work one time and then your book can be multiplied without cost. That really hit home. Then I read Robert Kiyosaki's cashflow quadrant which quickly squashed my good feelings about finally "not having a boss". I was still sitting at the wrong side of the equation.
I finally started to see my ventures as business systems. And I'm daily trying to build automated business systems. My two latest ventures is I've now become a partner in that cybersecurity business and I can invoice half of the margin of every consultant we outsource. And I also run a website that is a collection of reading lists and book summaries (bit the result of my own research) - monetized by Amazon affiliates (this time I am approved). I also created a course on Udemy. Zero sales , but put it on free and now have 2000 students and rave reviews. There is some potential there.
So of course now reading MJ's books - I can already see where i'm violating the CENTS principles. The road has already been long and eventful and I have so much more to go. The thing is nobody is giving me tough love, it's like everyone around me is waiting for me to fail again.
In all those years, it's only the last year that i started thinking about what value I can give the world instead of "I don't want to have a boss". It's probably not a coincidence that things now finally have started moving in the right direction.
Looking forward to learning a lot here and giving back. God know I made many mistakes.
In all honesty, this is going to be hard to write for this audience because while reading TMF and Unscripted I had to resist the temptation to bang my head against a wall a few times. I'm a 42 year old guy from Belgium and I have only recently "seen the light".
I've never been a sidewalker, always reading books, going to seminars and teaching myself things like digital marketing, bit of coding, some photoshop etc.. From 1999 to 2016 I was a full-on wage slave and during this entire time I've been complaining to people around me about the jobs I was in.
I was saying things like "I can't work for a boss", "I don't respect authority" and as someone who already as a child had an acute sense of our time on this earth being limited - i managed to be basically unhappy about my working situation this entire time. "Why am I doing this while I'm going to be dead soon".
What kept me in those jobs is that the last job from 2011 to 2016 , was very cool. It was performing fraud investigations, this brought me all over the world - chasing money trails - seeing all kinds of crazy situations. Catching bad guys, accompanying police while they're literally kicking some company's door in. Doing "stress tests" at an airport, walking through TSA with a big a$$ knife in my luggage and one strapped on my back. Pretending to be a pilot and trying to sneak through security. But while this all was very cool, i had a boss who was micromanaging me, to the point of absurdity. For example, he demanded that all male personnel would sit while peeing (i'm not kidding- he came knocking on the stall door to ask you if you did that) or he would freak out if the toilet rolls were hung backwards. Or he would go to my trash can to see if I didn't print anything in color and then threw it out, for which he would berate me, stuff like that. I could write a book on that dude.
All this time I was planning an exit strategy. But my problem is low self-esteem. "If I go it alone, what would I do". "I have nothing to offer the world". "I'm a generalist, not a specialist, and nobody is paying generalists for their skills".
I started doing things on the side since 2005, because no job was ever able to hold my attention. I worked for a few hours and then I would work on my ventures. But I half-assed things and was still firmly in the slowlane mindset. I just did those things to have something of my own. I didn't know what I wanted. I wanted to be a writer, a journalist, a sommelier, a public speaker, ... all I knew is I didn't want to have a boss.
Let's see, in 2005 i started a wine business. Gave tastings, hauled crates, built a website with webshop. I remember being scared out of my mind when someone actually ordered, because I hadn't thought about shipping. So i quickly shut down the webshop. Margins were so low i just quit that business.
Then I started an online magazine, a lot of work. Minimal readership and no business model behind it. Started and shut it down three times in a row. I wanted to "write", i was an "artist" but did not think about money at all. I started a film magazine, only to realise nobody wanted to read my crappy reviews.
In 2008 i started to get serious about playing poker - spent all my time learning the game and spending lots and lots of time at this illusion. Beyond a 1800$ finish in the PokerStars Sunday Million I lost a full year in time and a bunch of money.
In 2009 i started daytrading - another form of gambling, if you will. I managed to build up my meagre 5K to 130K buying and selling options. Then I received a letter from the SEC I was identified amongst one of the world's 2000 institutes or individuals that qualified as a "large trader". I had to file all kinds of paperwork. I flipped out and instead of keeping that 130K i went long AAPL calls with my entire cash reserve. I was like, I'm quitting this, let's go all or nothing. I ended up with 18K and probably lost a few years of my life stressing out about the SEC mailing and calling an unsuspecting Belgian dude.
Next up I started a website that was going to copy brainpickings.org - a bit the same but more for a male audience. Once again A LOT OF WORK - writing for hours every day. Added a donation button to the site - added some Amazon links. Learned about Facebook ads - drove traffic to my website. But didn't think about why I wanted that. Then my website got hacked and I didn't have a backup. Rebuilt the site - then added Amazon affiliation. Made the first three sales and then Amazon swooped in to say my application was rejected.
Then I was going to start a digital forensics firm, this time more calculated. Really studied the market, couldn't see a business model.
In the meantime, life was happening. Got married, three kids, bought a house. You know, the script was being deployed. And I needed the money so I kept going.
It has to be said that I'm lucky that my wife is going at it as well. She owns 20% of a software company with 50 employees, has an MBA from a top school, invests in real-estate etc. She's not joking around and supports me in what I'm doing.
It wasn't until 2016, when two older gentlemen I knew started their own cybersecurity services business asked me to come work for them. So I gave up my job and incorporated. Now i'm a freelancer, worked for a full year and got 700$ a day (before tax). But I'm still trading away my time for money. But still , reading books , following free courses and growing.
Then there were two books that really made me think. In The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb he states that whores, cooks, consultants and cafe owners are idiots because they have to perform the same service every single day to get paid. Better to write a book, so you work one time and then your book can be multiplied without cost. That really hit home. Then I read Robert Kiyosaki's cashflow quadrant which quickly squashed my good feelings about finally "not having a boss". I was still sitting at the wrong side of the equation.
I finally started to see my ventures as business systems. And I'm daily trying to build automated business systems. My two latest ventures is I've now become a partner in that cybersecurity business and I can invoice half of the margin of every consultant we outsource. And I also run a website that is a collection of reading lists and book summaries (bit the result of my own research) - monetized by Amazon affiliates (this time I am approved). I also created a course on Udemy. Zero sales , but put it on free and now have 2000 students and rave reviews. There is some potential there.
So of course now reading MJ's books - I can already see where i'm violating the CENTS principles. The road has already been long and eventful and I have so much more to go. The thing is nobody is giving me tough love, it's like everyone around me is waiting for me to fail again.
In all those years, it's only the last year that i started thinking about what value I can give the world instead of "I don't want to have a boss". It's probably not a coincidence that things now finally have started moving in the right direction.
Looking forward to learning a lot here and giving back. God know I made many mistakes.
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