A Note for People Seriously Struggling

[GoGetter24]

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.

 

[Fox]

I have taken to asking "What does the @Fox


I have taken to asking "what does the @Fox say?" because if I can figure that out (or read it from him directly) I can usually find the right answer.

Ha someone is going to quote that crazy music video now.

I get where is he coming from cause when you are starting you want proof/stats etc but it ultimately is pointless. I still get that sometimes but (as others has said already) it will come down to mindset either way. If you are someone who will hit it first time or 100th time you still need the mindset to keep going and make it happen.

I always think of the guy who created "Dollar Shave Club". He got his first 1,000 customers going door to door selling his product. Thats not 1,000 doors > its 1,000 sales. Imagine the brutal rejection that required. That is the mindset you need.

 

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[minivanman]

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.

 

[GoGetter24]

It’s simple.

No, those are not the same things. There is only one way to get six pack abs: lower body fat percentage by caloric deficit and exercise your muscles. It's an actual simple, very high probability process -- it's very hard not to get abs if your bf% is 8% and you've been gymning for 6 months or more.

Saying making money is simple is having your cake and eating it too. It's history written by the winners. It's "why can't you just do it like me? huh?".

There are millions of different ways to proceed, and millions of ways that will fail, and there is not one way that will fix anyone's situation regardless of what it is. 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. And that number isn't going to be brought down by the successful saying "it was just mindset". But tangibles could.

 

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[IGP]

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!

 

[ZF Lee]

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]

Ha someone is going to quote that crazy music video now.

I get where is he coming from cause when you are starting you want proof/stats etc but it ultimately is pointless. I still get that sometimes but (as others has said already) it will come down to mindset either way. If you are someone who will hit it first time or 100th time you still need the mindset to keep going and make it happen.

I always think of the guy who created "Dollar Shave Club". He got his first 1,000 customers going door to door selling his product. Thats not 1,000 doors > its 1,000 sales. Imagine the brutal rejection that required. That is the mindset you need.

My son recently put himself into a position where he has no option but to succeed. It doesn't mean he won't struggle... but taking a page from Kyosaki (who he hasn't read and I generally don't quote) he's put himself into a scenario where he has a nut to cover and has to figure out how to make it happen. Standing still isn't a great option.

There's a great line from the Jerry McGuire movie, when he is copying off his manifesto at kinkos (with apologies to the ladies here for the course language) :

 

[Fastlane Liam]

Dam man thats tough. I can't even imagine how hard it is with 6 Figure Debt.
Lets focus on what will free you - your business idea,
How is it? How close are you to firing the feedback loop and getting sales?
I have no idea what it is, but if you're ever stuck make sure to consider hiring freelancers. You can get alot done at very reasonable rates. I always use them to act quickly and work through stuff and Im not good at.

 

[GoGetter24]

Skip forward to 25:30 and then listen through the end.

I don't get why advice on these matters is so often fluffy and abstract. Even that Dan Lok guy says "your first million is just mindset". And Tony Robbins said he got the money to buy a castle simply by buying it, because "then he had to make the money". What?

It is not just about mindset. It is about actual tangible steps. "You have to want it" and other platitudes are not enough to succeed by. And neither is hard work. The idea that people can fix a million dollar debt by just wanting it hard enough simply doesn't help.

The only hint I heard in there was "I had my Rolodex", which implies you somehow leveraged existing contacts and relationships to start digging yourself out of the hole, by calling them one at a time with some business proposition. Is that correct? In which case you didn't have zero, you had the accumulated investment of that network.

For someone who's been whacked back down to zero, what immediate tangible non-mindset-themed steps should they take to get back up?

 

[GoGetter24]

What your mindset basically says is that there's only one "lucky" Stallone on 10 people.

No I'm not saying it's luck. The whole reason mentorship, for instance, is incredibly effective, is because direction is critical.

Do that everyday for 6 months (just like your gym example)

For most people, if you bust your a$$ 16 hours a day on a business idea, you will end up burned out and broke. You will only screen through those with the constitution required to work that quantity (who are few and far between, not because they "don't want it enough" but because of flesh-and-blood limits), and those who strike the blade of the power-law curve (about 1 in 10). The rest you won't hear from, and therefore cannot defend themselves against charges of "just not wanting it enough".

All I'm saying is that there needs to be a middle ground between the linear curve of the job (slowlane) and the observation-bias, power-law ignored, "you've just got to unplug, and want it enough" world of self-congratulatory business bravado.

The self-serving attitude of successful businessmen that the 90% drop-off rate is purely due to inferior attitude has to stop. I'm glad guys like Thiel have noted that and try to help without judgement (e.g. pointing out that more partners in the business is worth it as long as they're like-minded, because the linear equity division curve is overpowered by the power-law return curve).

Allow me to have a go, and feel free to critique:

To those struggling, what would you rate your personal margin in percent? I.e. if you minimize your costs and worked enough in your current money now situation, how many work hours per week are you capable of, while keeping below burnout? Can you honestly confirm you've gone past that level and actually burned out?

What is the average interest rate on your debts?

Is there any way you can leverage that worthless college degree, even if (in the case of humanities) you have to join the hordes of Americans teaching English in Korea (for the same reason)?

What is your fastlane target market? What's the return curve on it? (you can get this by, for example, finding marketplace sites that divulge sales numbers). Do you know how much a dice roll costs to enter that market? (e.g. 200 personal hours, or 100 hours + $5000 capital). How many dice rolls does it take to bring your chance of striking the blade of the curve above 50%? Can you do that many rolls before you run out of having enough money to eat?

Yes? (different tack). No? Then put it down. Do you have a marketable skill? (No, job: different tack). What rate can you command? How much work can you command at that rate? How can you increase that?

Etc.

There is room for way more rigor in this than mindset fluff. Mindset fluff gets people to say "Yeaauhhh!! I'm gonnna do it!!!!" and feel that for 40 to 50 minutes, and that's it. You need the meat with the potatoes.

 

[GoGetter24]

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.

 

[Iammelissamoore]

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]

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!

 

[JordanK]

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.

 

[WJK]

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!

Keep that mindset. No debt & living close the bone will keep you out of the poor house.

 

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[masterneme]

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.

According to some statistics the chances of getting pregnant are even lower than that, yet here we are...

 

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[Vigilante]

I have taken to asking "What does the @Fox

Little late to this thread.

I never cared about "starting business stats". If you look at anything else in life you most likely failed your a$$ off before you had any success too:
- riding a bike
- cooking a meal
- talking to girls
- driving a car
- creating good relationships

"70% of people burn their first meal" < who cares. Maybe it works first time, maybe it doesn't, but if you want to learn to cook you just keep going till you got it.

Same with business. Some people have it click first time and some don't. It doesn't matter > start again and keep going. No debates, statistics, or forum responses are going to change that.

The only reason the starting business stats get used is people like to justify why they gave up or why they didn't even start. You would never use those type of stats for one of the 1000 crucial life skills you already have mastered. Its only when the stakes are higher that people want something to fall back on.

I really don't get your replies @GoGetter24. There are 100s of super detailed execution threads on here. There are also some excellent mindset and motivational threads. You will need both.

While you are debating the fine details someone else is taking action and getting results.

I have taken to asking "what does the @Fox say?" because if I can figure that out (or read it from him directly) I can usually find the right answer.

 

[LynetteP]

However, in your defense you would make an excellent professor of Entrepreneurship. Perhaps Academia might be your true calling.

LOL- but I can tell you right now he couldn't get that job at the business school at UT-Austin! They only give it to real entrepreneurs, even back when I was there.

I hope one day he realizes how patient everyone was with him on this thread, and if he actually listens, is someday in a position to extend the same kindness to others.

 

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[Deleted50669]

Dam man thats tough. I can't even imagine how hard it is with 6 Figure Debt.
Lets focus on what will free you - your business idea,
How is it? How close are you to firing the feedback loop and getting sales?
I have no idea what it is, but if you're ever stuck make sure to consider hiring freelancers. You can get alot done at very reasonable rates. I always use them to act quickly and work through stuff and Im not good at.

Thanks for the rep and reply!

I am fortunate to make a very good income in the meantime until I'm self-employed, to the debt is manageable. As far as the product, I've been purposely quiet about it because I want to avoid outside speculation about its potential. I have hired freelancers for graphic design so far, which has worked out quite well. Most of the product I have the means to produce very well, it will just take me some time. Later this year I will need to seek legal support to craft the terms of use, obtain trademarks, incorporate, etc. I will be sure to post a detailed account of everything once it launches.

 

[biophase]

For every Sylvester Stallone, there's 9 others who tried just as hard and stayed homeless. People forget that. And that number isn't going to be brought down by the successful saying "it was just mindset". But tangibles could.

Do you really think he followed a step by step? I don't understand your analogy here because he probably is a great example of "it was just mindset".

 

[splok]

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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[FastNAwesome]

I’m deciding to be in the fastlane.

Doesn't it feel great to re-claim responsibility for your life/situation, and with it, the power to change it as well?

Nothing to add to lots of great advice here.

Just want to wish you much luck in your endeavors. It really starts with the mindset, and with the decision. Own your life. And shape it how you want.

At one point, I was -$1,200,000 with no income. I fixed it. You're starting out +1,090,000 better than I was.

Always a bucket of cold water and a great reality check.

Although things are going well, this always shakes me up, and moves me to do better and more.

Thanks for sharing that story. I love that podcast.

 

[Guest92dX]

@404profound

You'll get there. Interestingly, today I read something that said most millionaires started in debt, bankrupt, destitute, etc.

You said it yourself. You're creating a revolutionary product.

 

[juba.hadjal]

I was doing some reflection today about where I am and where I’m headed. These two places are very, very different.

I never talk about this with close friends, let alone almost complete strangers. Between student loans and credit card debt I’ve got 110k racked up. Yes, six figures of almost entirely unjustified debt.

Scary, right? I know some people with more, but not many, unless they have a mortgage or a business loan.

But here’s the thing; it doesn’t bother me any more. I used to have crippling anxiety, losing sleep and having restricted confidence with women. I used to be on a date and feel like I was wasting the girl’s time because I knew she would ultimately run from my financial troubles. I was allowing the debt to poison every aspect of my life. It made decisions for me. It became one of the largest parts of my identity.

MJ’s books got my proverbial ship (because lord knows I don’t have the real one yet) sailing in the right direction. But that wasn’t enough. For the impact of his powerful words to take hold I had to actively pursue inner change. This involved looking at my own inner beliefs and understanding why I’m living my life like a victim. What I ultimately discovered was that I was living as though I was a victim to the world. I was not. The world only allows people to become victims if they choose to do so - I was a victim to my own decisions. This is a critical distinction. I decided that college was a great choice with the information I had, even though it wasn’t. I decided the things I bought on credit were “necessary”, even though they weren’t. In aggregate, I made a collection of decisions that showed I alone decided to be a sidewalker.

So what’s different now?

I’m deciding to be in the fastlane. The world is not going to tell me whether or not I can do this. I’m deciding that I will do this. Now that this life decision is made (and make no mistake, this is a LIFE drcision), it makes a lot of other decisions very easy; where I spend my money, where I spend my time, and who I do and do not listen to. I embarked on this shift about two years ago, and I’m just now seeing a business idea begin to come to fruition. On the outside I’m still the same debt-ridden desk jocky with a predictably mediocre existence. But in private, when I lock myself in my room and do the real work, I am a millionaire butterfly in its cocoon. I am grinding 20x harder than I do at my job to learn and bring a revolutionary product to life. No person, family or otherwise, will disrupt this. I’ve detached friends and family members who exerted even an ounce of negative energy towards me, and I don’t need them back.

To thosevwho feel like victims, stop telling yourself a shitty story and wake up. You are only a victim to your own ignorance and lack of will. If you live in a free country, there are no excuses. It is simply about what you believe, and what you’re willing to do.

“It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”

- William Ernest Henley

Hello there, I can't relate about debt but I can understand your struggles. I live in france and we have another relation to debt and consumption.

Life is all about the choices we make. I chose to be a victime as well, finding exuses and not taking action. Mental masturbation is really tough. I now 29, married and I have two children.

My situation is shitty and we live out 1200€ a month. The moment you feel your dreams are getting away is frightening. I failed at three businesses and I keep bragging about my dreams to become a millionaire to people who don't want that for me.

The saddest thing that motivate me the most is making my mother happy and see her again. Almost 5 years now, and I am starting to feel ashamed to return to my country to see my family.

We will make it buddy get a gripp and be patient.

 

[ZF Lee]

I don't get why advice on these matters is so often fluffy and abstract. Even that Dan Lok guy says "your first million is just mindset". And Tony Robbins said he got the money to buy a castle simply by buying it, because "then he had to make the money". What?

It is not just about mindset. It is about actual tangible steps. "You have to want it" and other platitudes are not enough to succeed by. And neither is hard work. The idea that people can fix a million dollar debt by just wanting it hard enough simply doesn't help.

The only hint I heard in there was "I had my Rolodex", which implies you somehow leveraged existing contacts and relationships to start digging yourself out of the hole, by calling them one at a time with some business proposition. Is that correct? In which case you didn't have zero, you had the accumulated investment of that network.

A lot of actual monetary and business stuff can be confidential.
Even when I talk on some of my Upwork dealings, I don't specifically say X and Y. I try to put out an approach that can be applied in a variety of situations and WHY I used that approach, as opposed to other options.

The WHY leads to the HOW because it gives the ingredients.

On the Rolodex hint, I don't think the networking approach can be quantified strictly in monetary terms at all. But that doesn't mean it is not important.

Leveraging contacts do work a lot as the easiest customers to sell to are those who know you can be trusted for help. Trust is pretty much what drives money into your pocket. Simply put, customers that trust you, pay you money.

I myself have used this approach a few times to land myself in places I would never usually go to. I ended up helping out at a Model United Nations event just because an old friend recommended me. I had to work alongside with strangers, but it didn't matter. I could help.

 

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[Deleted50669]

At one point, I was -$1,200,000 with no income. I fixed it. You're starting out +1,090,000 better than I was.

"In life, you either need inspiration or desperation." - Tony Robbins

That is frightening, definitely puts it in perspective.

 

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[NanoDrake]

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

 

[GuestU56895]

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?

 

[GuestU56895]

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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[go giver]

Seriously? You don’t get it because you don’t get it. Tangible steps are easy but if you don’t have the mindset you won’t take the steps.

mindset and tangible action have equal importance.

 

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