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Depressed by wasted time with 0 accomplishment

Raphd

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Hey Everyone,

After 8 years of waking up two hours earlier everyday and reading 100’s of business books and listening to hours and hours of podcasts without mentioning the multiple thousands of dollars I’ve spent on courses which I have absolutely nothing to show for except for multiple given up affiliate marketing sites, a failed Amazon FBA business and a huge amount of worthless busywork including multiple ideas that I just dabbed into until I found a new shiny object.

All this while supporting my wife and our beautiful 3.5-year-old son with a job which requires me to work long hours and be on the road 50% of the time and sometimes not coming home for 3 weeks.

Thank God for the blog comment that mentioned MJ DeMarco’s book which leads me into purchasing the TMF and thereafter Unscripted through which I was lead to this forum.

What’s wrong with me guys? Even after reading the books which I loved because they gave me something to do that felt good during these two early hours in the morning I am still completely lost. I’ve went back and reread chapter 35 as someone suggested hoping my creative juices would come up with an idea that would fit the commandment of cents...but now I am just surfing the forum reading one post after the other. Back to my old self-wasting time with busy work instead of executing something.

My greatest fear is to die with the regret of never starting and creating something meanigful in this world and even greater not giving my son the example that he doesn’t need to follow the disheartening path of spending years and crippeling amounts of money in an education system that will not guarantee him a sucessful life. Kids have it tough now how will it be 20 years from now?

Sorry for my rant guys I am just frustraded with myself and to be honest a bit depressed that after all of this I still have absolutely nothing to show for and I am still at the usual point. This quote comes to mind for some reason:

“Insanity: doing the samething over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein”

I am grateful to be part of this forum and hope to receive the kick in the a$$ I need to get finally something going on.

N
 
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AgainstAllOdds

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but now I am just surfing the forum reading one post after the other. Back to my old self-wasting time with busy work instead of executing something.

Stop Reading.

Write out 5 ideas.

Make sure they all create value.

Get market feedback on those ideas.

Choose 1 and pursue it.

Make a progress thread if you want guidance.
 

sparechange

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Davejemmolly

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There is no such thing as a bad idea... if you can't think of something truly revolutionary, just try to remember your last 5 interactions that you paid for something and had a negative reaction.

If you've had that issue, you can bet others have too. Is this an opportunity to create value in this space? Can you do it better to reduce that pain point? If you think you can, that's a good a starting point as any!
 
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BrineStein

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Hey Everyone,

After 8 years of waking up two hours earlier everyday and reading 100’s of business books and listening to hours and hours of podcasts without mentioning the multiple thousands of dollars I’ve spent on courses which I have absolutely nothing to show for except for multiple given up affiliate marketing sites, a failed Amazon FBA business and a huge amount of worthless busywork including multiple ideas that I just dabbed into until I found a new shiny object.

All this while supporting my wife and our beautiful 3.5-year-old son with a job which requires me to work long hours and be on the road 50% of the time and sometimes not coming home for 3 weeks.

Thank God for the blog comment that mentioned MJ DeMarco’s book which leads me into purchasing the TMF and thereafter Unscripted through which I was lead to this forum.

What’s wrong with me guys? Even after reading the books which I loved because they gave me something to do that felt good during these two early hours in the morning I am still completely lost. I’ve went back and reread chapter 35 as someone suggested hoping my creative juices would come up with an idea that would fit the commandment of cents...but now I am just surfing the forum reading one post after the other. Back to my old self-wasting time with busy work instead of executing something.

My greatest fear is to die with the regret of never starting and creating something meanigful in this world and even greater not giving my son the example that he doesn’t need to follow the disheartening path of spending years and crippeling amounts of money in an education system that will not guarantee him a sucessful life. Kids have it tough now how will it be 20 years from now?

Sorry for my rant guys I am just frustraded with myself and to be honest a bit depressed that after all of this I still have absolutely nothing to show for and I am still at the usual point. This quote comes to mind for some reason:

“Insanity: doing the samething over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein”

I am grateful to be part of this forum and hope to receive the kick in the a$$ I need to get finally something going on.

N
I couldn't relate to this post more.
 

Bekit

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After 8 years of waking up two hours earlier everyday and reading 100’s of business books and listening to hours and hours of podcasts without mentioning the multiple thousands of dollars I’ve spent on courses which I have absolutely nothing to show for except for multiple given up affiliate marketing sites, a failed Amazon FBA business and a huge amount of worthless busywork including multiple ideas that I just dabbed into until I found a new shiny object.

All this while supporting my wife and our beautiful 3.5-year-old son with a job which requires me to work long hours and be on the road 50% of the time and sometimes not coming home for 3 weeks.

Just a quick reframe for this... what I see is the opposite of this title thread.
  • You have worked long hours to support your wife and son.
  • Despite your full-time work, frequent travel, and family commitments, you have found the time to invest in your lifelong learning.
  • You've read hundreds of business books and dozens of hours of podcasts.
  • You've enrolled in courses to further your education and learning.
  • You've spent 8 years waking up two hours earlier every day. That has built discipline...not everyone would have done the same.
  • You've tried taking action... You built affiliate marketing sites, an Amazon FBA business, and a huge amount of other tasks.
All of that is going to count.

Yes, you need to stop it with shiny object syndrome. Yes, you need to focus. Yes, you need to throw all of that energy, drive, and heart into ONE thing that WORKS.

But building a business is hard, and when you finally bring your first successful business to life, you're going to tap into all of the learning, all of the books, all of the podcasts, all of the discipline, and all of the learning takeaways from failed ventures.

Sure the time feels wasted to you...but zero accomplishment? nah.

Have you read Getting to Plan B by John Mullins and Randy Komisar? The premise of the book is that ALL the successful businesses had to pivot from their initial idea (Plan A) into the thing that the market actually wanted (Plan B, or C, or D, or E). So what you need to do is get to that Plan B as quickly as possible. You've tried a bunch of Plan A's and they haven't stuck. That doesn't mean you are a failure and have zero accomplishment. It just means that Plan B is still around the corner.

Running a business is hard. If it was that easy, then EVERY purchaser of an online course or a business book would be able to do it. Not so fast... only those who persevere through obstacles precisely like the ones you're describing are the ones who make it.

Keep going. Your breakthrough is on its way.
 

Overdrive

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Raphd, welcome to the forum. I can relate to almost everything you said in your intro. I've also been imprisoned in the slow lane for way too long with not much to show for it. I even remember discovering the self-help book genre (Jack Canfield's Success Principles, Think and grow rich, etc) as far back as twelve years ago, but with nothing really changing in my life.

About three months ago I've made the decision to start again on my journey of entrepreneurship, this time with the help of TMF and Unscripted and MJ as my mentor (through his books and this forum). Looking back on the past 3 months, I believe I'm off to a promising start, having a clear goal in front of me now for a business I'm pursuing.

Here are a few tips that have helped me get started:

1. Start using a notebook (some call it a success journal) and start recording in it all your thoughts, ideas, plans and goals related to becoming successful. Use it for brainstorming. Write in it every day and review it often (for example whenever you have some spare time waiting at the doctor's office, on the bus, etc). I use a pencil and eraser for this, so I can make edits easily.

2. Spend some time formulating a goal that you want to achieve. I think for people in a similar situation like ours it would involve a way to reach financial freedom, namely through entrepreneurship. This goal can be rough at the beginning, but you can work on clarifying and tweaking it every day, especially once you have found a biz idea worth pursuing. Try to make your goal sound not totally unrealistic, but believable to you personally (so don't start with a goal like becoming a billionaire within five years, etc, perhaps making a five-figure monthly income through a Fastlane business is more suitable, that's basically what I use).

3. Write down your goal in your notebook every day first thing in the morning. Even if you've got nothing else in your notebook but the same goal written down on every page, this will get your brain thinking in the right direction and will lead to more and more entries in your notebook and eventually lead to the right action on a consistent basis. So don't skip a day doing this.

4. To get you started on suitable biz ideas, you need to brainstorm every day, by yourself first (using your notebook), but also attend meetups regularly where you meet with like-minded people to solve problems. Also seek out individuals you may know who are entrepreneurs and potential role models and talk to them, ask them about how their biz works, etc. I found this method very effective to get new ideas or to validate ideas.

5. Keep working on attaining an entrepreneurial mindset. That's actually the most important thing. Start with MJ's books and YT channel and watch his videos every day, also keep rereading key portions of his books and write down your takeaways in your notebook. You've really got to consciously brainwash yourself on a consistent basis for weeks and months. There is at least one other mentor on YT I could recommend that I believe is compatible with MJ's teachings and that can help you develop an entrepreneurial mindset, but I suggest to just stay with MJ's materials for the time being.

The above are the things that have helped me personally get on the right track. But I'm still at the beginning of my journey myself, so I basically know nothing, lol. hope more experienced forum members will chime in with their advice. I wish you the best of luck!
 
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LiveEntrepreneur

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Hey Everyone,

After 8 years of waking up two hours earlier everyday and reading 100’s of business books and listening to hours and hours of podcasts without mentioning the multiple thousands of dollars I’ve spent on courses which I have absolutely nothing to show for except for multiple given up affiliate marketing sites, a failed Amazon FBA business and a huge amount of worthless busywork including multiple ideas that I just dabbed into until I found a new shiny object.

All this while supporting my wife and our beautiful 3.5-year-old son with a job which requires me to work long hours and be on the road 50% of the time and sometimes not coming home for 3 weeks.

Thank God for the blog comment that mentioned MJ DeMarco’s book which leads me into purchasing the TMF and thereafter Unscripted through which I was lead to this forum.

What’s wrong with me guys? Even after reading the books which I loved because they gave me something to do that felt good during these two early hours in the morning I am still completely lost. I’ve went back and reread chapter 35 as someone suggested hoping my creative juices would come up with an idea that would fit the commandment of cents...but now I am just surfing the forum reading one post after the other. Back to my old self-wasting time with busy work instead of executing something.

My greatest fear is to die with the regret of never starting and creating something meanigful in this world and even greater not giving my son the example that he doesn’t need to follow the disheartening path of spending years and crippeling amounts of money in an education system that will not guarantee him a sucessful life. Kids have it tough now how will it be 20 years from now?

Sorry for my rant guys I am just frustraded with myself and to be honest a bit depressed that after all of this I still have absolutely nothing to show for and I am still at the usual point. This quote comes to mind for some reason:

“Insanity: doing the samething over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein”

I am grateful to be part of this forum and hope to receive the kick in the a$$ I need to get finally something going on.

N
I feel ya man, infact holy shit this was me not too long ago. It feels like shit when you look back and you think to yourself "Look at all the time I wasted", I used to think the same and sort of do in a way but it's all perspective in a way. You could look at it as time wasted or as a lesson to be learnt. Remember whatever you are trying to achieve you will not win all the time you will make a ton of mistakes and you will feel like you failed. This I believe is part of the journey, a baby can't walk successfully on the first attempt he/she must fall down numerous times before they are able to walk succesfully.

Easier said than done I know, but it's just good to know. One thing if you like check out my thread here that I made a while back it I had struggles similar to yours, the responses changed my life. Maybe you can relate to it and it just might change yours.

One thing, that Eienstein quote you posted I myself think of that quite a lot because I have done the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. And I still sorta do it, it's a bad habit which I'm trying to break but anyways... One thing that seems to be helping is to take action. For example I sucked at learning I just overanalyzed everything, looked up tutorials, watched videos. Can you guess what the problem was? Pretty much everything what I just said. I didn't take real action which was implementing the information I learn't.

Having massive struggles finding the way to becoming rich

One last thing, it sounds like you don't have much motivation or you don't have the right motivation that pushes you forward. When I changed my motivation to wanting to help people instead of making money, and when I changed my purpose to helping people and changing the way I look at business, I had a moment of realization. Use this motivation, you will feel great. I don't know if money is your motivation but if it is try changing it to helping people. But really do read my thread above I really think it will help you.

Actually one last thing sorry, you actually haven't wasted time. All the stuff you listed there like:

  • Working long hours
  • You've read lots of books that have given you great knowledge that has put you ahead of others
  • You've taken courses that have enhanced your skills
  • You have also built some businesses

This is all experience! You can apply all this, to your next business.

You will figure it out, you got this. Good luck on your journey.
 
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Sampath

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Hey Everyone,

After 8 years of waking up two hours earlier everyday and reading 100’s of business books and listening to hours and hours of podcasts without mentioning the multiple thousands of dollars I’ve spent on courses which I have absolutely nothing to show for except for multiple given up affiliate marketing sites, a failed Amazon FBA business and a huge amount of worthless busywork including multiple ideas that I just dabbed into until I found a new shiny object.

All this while supporting my wife and our beautiful 3.5-year-old son with a job which requires me to work long hours and be on the road 50% of the time and sometimes not coming home for 3 weeks.

Thank God for the blog comment that mentioned MJ DeMarco’s book which leads me into purchasing the TMF and thereafter Unscripted through which I was lead to this forum.

What’s wrong with me guys? Even after reading the books which I loved because they gave me something to do that felt good during these two early hours in the morning I am still completely lost. I’ve went back and reread chapter 35 as someone suggested hoping my creative juices would come up with an idea that would fit the commandment of cents...but now I am just surfing the forum reading one post after the other. Back to my old self-wasting time with busy work instead of executing something.

My greatest fear is to die with the regret of never starting and creating something meanigful in this world and even greater not giving my son the example that he doesn’t need to follow the disheartening path of spending years and crippeling amounts of money in an education system that will not guarantee him a sucessful life. Kids have it tough now how will it be 20 years from now?

Sorry for my rant guys I am just frustraded with myself and to be honest a bit depressed that after all of this I still have absolutely nothing to show for and I am still at the usual point. This quote comes to mind for some reason:

“Insanity: doing the samething over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein”

I am grateful to be part of this forum and hope to receive the kick in the a$$ I need to get finally something going on.

N
Hey There
Don't lose hope.
Hang in there.
Yes, I understand, though you spent lot of money and did not achieve what you expected, but you have learnt an expensive lesson I guess. What I see, is, it is just like Gym workout. If you have done the workouts the wrong way, now you know what went wrong and to change the direction. Even I have taken some of these mis-steps in the past.

Can you list down few things below?
FOR THE MOMENT, STOP THINKING ABOUT MONEY : Record your answers for below:
1) What have you tried?
2a) What are your skills?
2b) Identify your underlying talents/skills (what are you good at)?
2c) What problem(s) can you solve in the marketplace?
3) What did you succeed/learn with each project that you attempted?
4) What overall lesson did you learn?
5) Did you take actions at all?
6) Just reading books does not get you a degree (you got to take the exam) same way- just by buying courses and putting it on the shelf does not make you money. You got to apply the. No doubt it is hard; nobody said life is easy.
7) Stop jumping from one-shiny thing to another in the HOPE of making money.
8) Going fast and/or doing lot of activities means nothing compared to going in the appropriate direction even if pace is slow.
9) You can't change what you have done, but you can learn from it and change the direction. Most of us in this forum would have hit this stage some time.
Hope it helps.
Reach out in the forum, if you need help.
Most of all BE ACCOUNTABLE.
 

Tommo

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Just a quick reframe for this... what I see is the opposite of this title thread.
  • You have worked long hours to support your wife and son.
  • Despite your full-time work, frequent travel, and family commitments, you have found the time to invest in your lifelong learning.
  • You've read hundreds of business books and dozens of hours of podcasts.
  • You've enrolled in courses to further your education and learning.
  • You've spent 8 years waking up two hours earlier every day. That has built discipline...not everyone would have done the same.
  • You've tried taking action... You built affiliate marketing sites, an Amazon FBA business, and a huge amount of other tasks.
All of that is going to count.

Yes, you need to stop it with shiny object syndrome. Yes, you need to focus. Yes, you need to throw all of that energy, drive, and heart into ONE thing that WORKS.

But building a business is hard, and when you finally bring your first successful business to life, you're going to tap into all of the learning, all of the books, all of the podcasts, all of the discipline, and all of the learning takeaways from failed ventures.

Sure the time feels wasted to you...but zero accomplishment? nah.

Have you read Getting to Plan B by John Mullins and Randy Komisar? The premise of the book is that ALL the successful businesses had to pivot from their initial idea (Plan A) into the thing that the market actually wanted (Plan B, or C, or D, or E). So what you need to do is get to that Plan B as quickly as possible. You've tried a bunch of Plan A's and they haven't stuck. That doesn't mean you are a failure and have zero accomplishment. It just means that Plan B is still around the corner.

Running a business is hard. If it was that easy, then EVERY purchaser of an online course or a business book would be able to do it. Not so fast... only those who persevere through obstacles precisely like the ones you're describing are the ones who make it.

Keep going. Your breakthrough is on its way.
That is an awesome reply, stopped me in my tracks from saying the wrong thing. Great stuff Bekit. Also a kick in the arse for me.
 

Jeff Noel

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Just a quick reframe for this... what I see is the opposite of this title thread.
  • You have worked long hours to support your wife and son.
  • Despite your full-time work, frequent travel, and family commitments, you have found the time to invest in your lifelong learning.
  • You've read hundreds of business books and dozens of hours of podcasts.
  • You've enrolled in courses to further your education and learning.
  • You've spent 8 years waking up two hours earlier every day. That has built discipline...not everyone would have done the same.
  • You've tried taking action... You built affiliate marketing sites, an Amazon FBA business, and a huge amount of other tasks.
All of that is going to count.

Yes, you need to stop it with shiny object syndrome. Yes, you need to focus. Yes, you need to throw all of that energy, drive, and heart into ONE thing that WORKS.

But building a business is hard, and when you finally bring your first successful business to life, you're going to tap into all of the learning, all of the books, all of the podcasts, all of the discipline, and all of the learning takeaways from failed ventures.

Sure the time feels wasted to you...but zero accomplishment? nah.

Have you read Getting to Plan B by John Mullins and Randy Komisar? The premise of the book is that ALL the successful businesses had to pivot from their initial idea (Plan A) into the thing that the market actually wanted (Plan B, or C, or D, or E). So what you need to do is get to that Plan B as quickly as possible. You've tried a bunch of Plan A's and they haven't stuck. That doesn't mean you are a failure and have zero accomplishment. It just means that Plan B is still around the corner.

Running a business is hard. If it was that easy, then EVERY purchaser of an online course or a business book would be able to do it. Not so fast... only those who persevere through obstacles precisely like the ones you're describing are the ones who make it.

Keep going. Your breakthrough is on its way.


This post shows how skewed our thoughts can be when we're deeply involved into something, compared to objectively looking at it from an external point of view.

Take a step back, assess what you have achieved so far (which is a lot of things). Take your time to answer people above me, there's a few asking really good questions !
Don't be so hard on yourself. Take ownership of your actions, yes, but be proud of your failures and the experience they helped you earn along the way.

Edit: Welcome to the forum too !
 
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Raphd

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Stop Reading.

Write out 5 ideas.

Make sure they all create value.

Get market feedback on those ideas.

Choose 1 and pursue it.

Make a progress thread if you want guidance.

Thank you for the feedback, the progress thread is really a good idea to help me be accountable and provide me guidance where needed. Time for me to enter the idea think tank.
 

Raphd

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There is no such thing as a bad idea... if you can't think of something truly revolutionary, just try to remember your last 5 interactions that you paid for something and had a negative reaction.

If you've had that issue, you can bet others have too. Is this an opportunity to create value in this space? Can you do it better to reduce that pain point? If you think you can, that's a good a starting point as any!

Thank you for your insight, I think this is one of the big mental change that I need to accomplish. Need to stop chasing quick money and more trying to solve a problem and improving something.
 

Raphd

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Just a quick reframe for this... what I see is the opposite of this title thread.
  • You have worked long hours to support your wife and son.
  • Despite your full-time work, frequent travel, and family commitments, you have found the time to invest in your lifelong learning.
  • You've read hundreds of business books and dozens of hours of podcasts.
  • You've enrolled in courses to further your education and learning.
  • You've spent 8 years waking up two hours earlier every day. That has built discipline...not everyone would have done the same.
  • You've tried taking action... You built affiliate marketing sites, an Amazon FBA business, and a huge amount of other tasks.
All of that is going to count.

Yes, you need to stop it with shiny object syndrome. Yes, you need to focus. Yes, you need to throw all of that energy, drive, and heart into ONE thing that WORKS.

But building a business is hard, and when you finally bring your first successful business to life, you're going to tap into all of the learning, all of the books, all of the podcasts, all of the discipline, and all of the learning takeaways from failed ventures.

Sure the time feels wasted to you...but zero accomplishment? nah.

Have you read Getting to Plan B by John Mullins and Randy Komisar? The premise of the book is that ALL the successful businesses had to pivot from their initial idea (Plan A) into the thing that the market actually wanted (Plan B, or C, or D, or E). So what you need to do is get to that Plan B as quickly as possible. You've tried a bunch of Plan A's and they haven't stuck. That doesn't mean you are a failure and have zero accomplishment. It just means that Plan B is still around the corner.

Running a business is hard. If it was that easy, then EVERY purchaser of an online course or a business book would be able to do it. Not so fast... only those who persevere through obstacles precisely like the ones you're describing are the ones who make it.

Keep going. Your breakthrough is on its way.

Thank you very much Bekit for the encouraging words and the positive perspective on my accomplishment. Seeing it from your perspective my view might be a bit negative and I need not dwell in the past.

Thank you for the book recommendation I think for the time being I will stop adding books to my collections and start taking action and learn things that are related to the tasks I need to accomplish.
 
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Raphd

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Raphd, welcome to the forum. I can relate to almost everything you said in your intro. I've also been imprisoned in the slow lane for way too long with not much to show for it. I even remember discovering the self-help book genre (Jack Canfield's Success Principles, Think and grow rich, etc) as far back as twelve years ago, but with nothing really changing in my life.

About three months ago I've made the decision to start again on my journey of entrepreneurship, this time with the help of TMF and Unscripted and MJ as my mentor (through his books and this forum). Looking back on the past 3 months, I believe I'm off to a promising start, having a clear goal in front of me now for a business I'm pursuing.

Here are a few tips that have helped me get started:

1. Start using a notebook (some call it a success journal) and start recording in it all your thoughts, ideas, plans and goals related to becoming successful. Use it for brainstorming. Write in it every day and review it often (for example whenever you have some spare time waiting at the doctor's office, on the bus, etc). I use a pencil and eraser for this, so I can make edits easily.

2. Spend some time formulating a goal that you want to achieve. I think for people in a similar situation like ours it would involve a way to reach financial freedom, namely through entrepreneurship. This goal can be rough at the beginning, but you can work on clarifying and tweaking it every day, especially once you have found a biz idea worth pursuing. Try to make your goal sound not totally unrealistic, but believable to you personally (so don't start with a goal like becoming a billionaire within five years, etc, perhaps making a five-figure monthly income through a Fastlane business is more suitable, that's basically what I use).

3. Write down your goal in your notebook every day first thing in the morning. Even if you've got nothing else in your notebook but the same goal written down on every page, this will get your brain thinking in the right direction and will lead to more and more entries in your notebook and eventually lead to the right action on a consistent basis. So don't skip a day doing this.

4. To get you started on suitable biz ideas, you need to brainstorm every day, by yourself first (using your notebook), but also attend meetups regularly where you meet with like-minded people to solve problems. Also seek out individuals you may know who are entrepreneurs and potential role models and talk to them, ask them about how their biz works, etc. I found this method very effective to get new ideas or to validate ideas.

5. Keep working on attaining an entrepreneurial mindset. That's actually the most important thing. Start with MJ's books and YT channel and watch his videos every day, also keep rereading key portions of his books and write down your takeaways in your notebook. You've really got to consciously brainwash yourself on a consistent basis for weeks and months. There is at least one other mentor on YT I could recommend that I believe is compatible with MJ's teachings and that can help you develop an entrepreneurial mindset, but I suggest to just stay with MJ's materials for the time being.

The above are the things that have helped me personally get on the right track. But I'm still at the beginning of my journey myself, so I basically know nothing, lol. hope more experienced forum members will chime in with their advice. I wish you the best of luck!

Thanks alot Overdrive! Those are very good tips and some I have been applying on an off but the one I have been doing regularly is keeping a journal of my goals and tracking progress and ideas but I just tend to jump from one shiny object to the other this is probably cause I was chasing the money instead of trying to create value.
 
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TheGuy

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Hey Everyone,

After 8 years of waking up two hours earlier everyday and reading 100’s of business books and listening to hours and hours of podcasts without mentioning the multiple thousands of dollars I’ve spent on courses which I have absolutely nothing to show for except for multiple given up affiliate marketing sites, a failed Amazon FBA business and a huge amount of worthless busywork including multiple ideas that I just dabbed into until I found a new shiny object.

All this while supporting my wife and our beautiful 3.5-year-old son with a job which requires me to work long hours and be on the road 50% of the time and sometimes not coming home for 3 weeks.

Thank God for the blog comment that mentioned MJ DeMarco’s book which leads me into purchasing the TMF and thereafter Unscripted through which I was lead to this forum.

What’s wrong with me guys? Even after reading the books which I loved because they gave me something to do that felt good during these two early hours in the morning I am still completely lost. I’ve went back and reread chapter 35 as someone suggested hoping my creative juices would come up with an idea that would fit the commandment of cents...but now I am just surfing the forum reading one post after the other. Back to my old self-wasting time with busy work instead of executing something.

My greatest fear is to die with the regret of never starting and creating something meanigful in this world and even greater not giving my son the example that he doesn’t need to follow the disheartening path of spending years and crippeling amounts of money in an education system that will not guarantee him a sucessful life. Kids have it tough now how will it be 20 years from now?

Sorry for my rant guys I am just frustraded with myself and to be honest a bit depressed that after all of this I still have absolutely nothing to show for and I am still at the usual point. This quote comes to mind for some reason:

“Insanity: doing the samething over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein”

I am grateful to be part of this forum and hope to receive the kick in the a$$ I need to get finally something going on.

N
First off. Keep the faith.

Have you had time to write out your good habits vs. your bad habits and try to manipulate that list? In the book "Good to Great" they talk about the power of the fly wheel.

"Picture a huge, heavy flywheel—a massive metal disk mounted horizontally on an axle, about 30 feet in diameter, 2 feet thick, and weighing about 5,000 pounds. Now imagine that your task is to get the flywheel rotating on the axle as fast and long as possible.

Pushing with great effort, you get the flywheel to inch forward, moving almost imperceptibly at first. You keep pushing and, after two or three hours of persistent effort, you get the flywheel to complete one entire turn.

You keep pushing, and the flywheel begins to move a bit faster, and with continued great effort, you move it around a second rotation. You keep pushing in a consistent direction. Three turns ... four ... five ... six ... the flywheel builds up speed ... seven ... eight ... you keep pushing ... nine ... ten ... it builds momentum ... eleven ... twelve ... moving faster with each turn … twenty … thirty … fifty … a hundred.

Then, at some point—breakthrough! The momentum of the thing kicks in your favor, hurling the flywheel forward, turn after turn ... whoosh! ... its own heavy weight working for you. You're pushing no harder than during the first rotation, but the flywheel goes faster and faster. Each turn of the flywheel builds upon work done earlier, compounding your investment of effort. A thousand times faster, then ten thousand, then a hundred thousand. The huge heavy disk flies forward, with almost unstoppable momentum.

Now suppose someone came along and asked, "What was the one big push that caused this thing to go so fast?"

You wouldn't be able to answer; it’s just a nonsensical question. Was it the first push? The second? The fifth? The hundredth? No! It was all of them added together in an overall accumulation of effort applied in a consistent direction. Some pushes may have been bigger than others, but any single heave—no matter how large—reflects a small fraction of the entire cumulative effect upon the flywheel."

So I say keep the faith because your Big "Mo" (momentum) is probably right around the corner.

Also, to the definition of insane. Habit is process. We develop our habits so they are automatic. To develop them, we must do the same thing over and over. And, in the end, the results DO change. Just make sure you are choosing the right habits.

Hope this helps.
 

Laughingman21

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I sympathise as I’ve been doing the early mornings, 9-5, young family etc thing for a number it years and still haven’t made it to the fastlane.

Every time I’m feeling demotivated, I ask myself two simple questions:

  1. If I quit, will I achieve my dreams?
  2. Am I a better role model to my kids by giving up or persevering through tough times.
Answering those very quickly gets me back on track.
 
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Raphd

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Almantas

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Dude, drop me a message. I was in a much, much, muuuuuch deeper mental hole just a while ago. I am not in a position to brag about anything, but am pretty sure I could help you out if you let me to do so.
 

amp0193

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Stop waking up 2 hours early. You could probably use the extra sleep (assuming you're getting less than 8 hours).

Might help you think more clearly about what you need to do.
 
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Raphd

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I feel ya man, infact holy sh*t this was me not too long ago. It feels like sh*t when you look back and you think to yourself "Look at all the time I wasted", I used to think the same and sort of do in a way but it's all perspective in a way. You could look at it as time wasted or as a lesson to be learnt. Remember whatever you are trying to achieve you will not win all the time you will make a ton of mistakes and you will feel like you failed. This I believe is part of the journey, a baby can't walk successfully on the first attempt he/she must fall down numerous times before they are able to walk succesfully.

Easier said than done I know, but it's just good to know. One thing if you like check out my thread here that I made a while back it I had struggles similar to yours, the responses changed my life. Maybe you can relate to it and it just might change yours.

One thing, that Eienstein quote you posted I myself think of that quite a lot because I have done the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. And I still sorta do it, it's a bad habit which I'm trying to break but anyways... One thing that seems to be helping is to take action. For example I sucked at learning I just overanalyzed everything, looked up tutorials, watched videos. Can you guess what the problem was? Pretty much everything what I just said. I didn't take real action which was implementing the information I learn't.

Having massive struggles finding the way to becoming rich

One last thing, it sounds like you don't have much motivation or you don't have the right motivation that pushes you forward. When I changed my motivation to wanting to help people instead of making money, and when I changed my purpose to helping people and changing the way I look at business, I had a moment of realization. Use this motivation, you will feel great. I don't know if money is your motivation but if it is try changing it to helping people. But really do read my thread above I really think it will help you.

Actually one last thing sorry, you actually haven't wasted time. All the stuff you listed there like:

  • Working long hours
  • You've read lots of books that have given you great knowledge that has put you ahead of others
  • You've taken courses that have enhanced your skills
  • You have also built some businesses

This is all experience! You can apply all this, to your next business.

You will figure it out, you got this. Good luck on your journey.

LiveEntrepreneur I've just read your 6 pages thread and I got to say WOW. You must have gotten quite a wake-up call and kick in the a$$. That thread is loaded with golden nuggets that I will use to analyze my own motives and try to understand if my block is my selfish reasons. How are you getting along now? Have you started something?
 

Raphd

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Hey There
Don't lose hope.
Hang in there.
Yes, I understand, though you spent lot of money and did not achieve what you expected, but you have learnt an expensive lesson I guess. What I see, is, it is just like Gym workout. If you have done the workouts the wrong way, now you know what went wrong and to change the direction. Even I have taken some of these mis-steps in the past.

Can you list down few things below?
FOR THE MOMENT, STOP THINKING ABOUT MONEY : Record your answers for below:
1) What have you tried?
2a) What are your skills?
2b) Identify your underlying talents/skills (what are you good at)?
2c) What problem(s) can you solve in the marketplace?
3) What did you succeed/learn with each project that you attempted?
4) What overall lesson did you learn?
5) Did you take actions at all?
6) Just reading books does not get you a degree (you got to take the exam) same way- just by buying courses and putting it on the shelf does not make you money. You got to apply the. No doubt it is hard; nobody said life is easy.
7) Stop jumping from one-shiny thing to another in the HOPE of making money.
8) Going fast and/or doing lot of activities means nothing compared to going in the appropriate direction even if pace is slow.
9) You can't change what you have done, but you can learn from it and change the direction. Most of us in this forum would have hit this stage some time.
Hope it helps.
Reach out in the forum, if you need help.
Most of all BE ACCOUNTABLE.

Thanks Sampath for the words of encouragement. This weekend my wife and child will be out of the house so will take the time to go through all these questions and really start analyzing and understanding what I have been doing wrong and how I can change it based on the feedback I've been getting and the many questions and come back next week with some kind of plan/mission. Will for sure share it this forum to get your feedback!
 

Raphd

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This post shows how skewed our thoughts can be when we're deeply involved into something, compared to objectively looking at it from an external point of view.

Take a step back, assess what you have achieved so far (which is a lot of things). Take your time to answer people above me, there's a few asking really good questions !
Don't be so hard on yourself. Take ownership of your actions, yes, but be proud of your failures and the experience they helped you earn along the way.

Edit: Welcome to the forum too !

Thank you Jeff Noel for the Welcome, this is by far the most welcoming and helpful forum I have ever joined so far and I have joined many. I agree there a lot of good questions that I need to take the time to answer which I've decided to dedicate this coming weekend to do so- Will also listen to the "Acres of Diamond" story which hopefully will also help me look into myself and not always elsewhere or the next shiny object.
 
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Raphd

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First off. Keep the faith.

Have you had time to write out your good habits vs. your bad habits and try to manipulate that list? In the book "Good to Great" they talk about the power of the fly wheel.

"Picture a huge, heavy flywheel—a massive metal disk mounted horizontally on an axle, about 30 feet in diameter, 2 feet thick, and weighing about 5,000 pounds. Now imagine that your task is to get the flywheel rotating on the axle as fast and long as possible.

Pushing with great effort, you get the flywheel to inch forward, moving almost imperceptibly at first. You keep pushing and, after two or three hours of persistent effort, you get the flywheel to complete one entire turn.

You keep pushing, and the flywheel begins to move a bit faster, and with continued great effort, you move it around a second rotation. You keep pushing in a consistent direction. Three turns ... four ... five ... six ... the flywheel builds up speed ... seven ... eight ... you keep pushing ... nine ... ten ... it builds momentum ... eleven ... twelve ... moving faster with each turn … twenty … thirty … fifty … a hundred.

Then, at some point—breakthrough! The momentum of the thing kicks in your favor, hurling the flywheel forward, turn after turn ... whoosh! ... its own heavy weight working for you. You're pushing no harder than during the first rotation, but the flywheel goes faster and faster. Each turn of the flywheel builds upon work done earlier, compounding your investment of effort. A thousand times faster, then ten thousand, then a hundred thousand. The huge heavy disk flies forward, with almost unstoppable momentum.

Now suppose someone came along and asked, "What was the one big push that caused this thing to go so fast?"

You wouldn't be able to answer; it’s just a nonsensical question. Was it the first push? The second? The fifth? The hundredth? No! It was all of them added together in an overall accumulation of effort applied in a consistent direction. Some pushes may have been bigger than others, but any single heave—no matter how large—reflects a small fraction of the entire cumulative effect upon the flywheel."

So I say keep the faith because your Big "Mo" (momentum) is probably right around the corner.

Also, to the definition of insane. Habit is process. We develop our habits so they are automatic. To develop them, we must do the same thing over and over. And, in the end, the results DO change. Just make sure you are choosing the right habits.

Hope this helps.

Thank you TheGuy! Writing down by good vs my bad habits and analyzing it is a really good idea and something I have never done before and could be immensely helpful.

Thanks to you I will from now on have a different perspective when I see Einstein's quote regarding insanity. When creating a habit you need to repeat the same thing over and over so that it becomes embedded in your daily routine and the one I need to start working on is taking ACTION!
 

Raphd

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I sympathise as I’ve been doing the early mornings, 9-5, young family etc thing for a number it years and still haven’t made it to the fastlane.

Every time I’m feeling demotivated, I ask myself two simple questions:

  1. If I quit, will I achieve my dreams?
  2. Am I a better role model to my kids by giving up or persevering through tough times.
Answering those very quickly gets me back on track.

Laughingman21 that solution is beautiful. Love those questions and they are so relevant to my situation and my fears. Thanks Man! Will add them to my morning routine.
 

Raphd

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Stop waking up 2 hours early. You could probably use the extra sleep (assuming you're getting less than 8 hours).

Might help you think more clearly about what you need to do.

Amp0193 you are probably right, I have been averaging about 5-6 hours of toss and turning sleep for the last 4 years. Just need to figure out where I can fit the extra time I need to work on my Fastlane. Being a family man the only time I have is early in the morning before heading to the gym/work.
 
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Raphd

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Dude, drop me a message. I was in a much, much, muuuuuch deeper mental hole just a while ago. I am not in a position to brag about anything, but am pretty sure I could help you out if you let me to do so.
Done and thanks for this.
 

Sampath

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Thanks Sampath for the words of encouragement. This weekend my wife and child will be out of the house so will take the time to go through all these questions and really start analyzing and understanding what I have been doing wrong and how I can change it based on the feedback I've been getting and the many questions and come back next week with some kind of plan/mission. Will for sure share it this forum to get your feedback!
My pleasure, to help wherever I can be of value. I am in similar situation, but taking baby steps.
 

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