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Desire but no direction

azsno

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I have always had a a desire to be wealthy (who hasn't), but like most, no direction or even an idea how to get there other than the slowlane. At this point, I'm 100 pages in, and have said yep that's me page after page of slowlane description. I'm about $250k in debt (student loans, cars, etc.), have a MBA, a wasted year of law school, and an even more worthless BS in political science, and unfortunately all I see at this moment is taking a corporate slave job if I wan't more than I currently make.

When I made $12/hour that wasn't enough to justify my time, but then I made $24/hour, and that still wasn't enough. I currently make $30/hour, and I still feel my time is worth more. I hope to change this as I progress and learn!
 
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ThirtyOne

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Welcome to the forum. Here's the thing: entrepreneurship isn't for everybody.

However, if you want to do it, keep grinding until you can't. There are a bunch of ideas on this forum (peruse them to open up your mind).

Also, start taking action. Make notes of pain points you could solve in your life.

I have to believe that the "no direction" problem is a result of little to no action, because as a river in nature, once an entrepreneur starts moving, it has to go somewhere. It may not be "the" direction, but it'll be "a" direction and ultimately will lead to "the" direction.

Remember, ditch the event mindset ("I haven't found my thing yet!") and embrace the process mindset ("Let me do these things today that get me closer to a thing").


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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azsno

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Welcome to the forum. Here's the thing: entrepreneurship isn't for everybody.

However, if you want to do it, keep grinding until you can't. There are a bunch of ideas on this forum (peruse them to open up your mind).

Also, start taking action. Make notes of pain points you could solve in your life.

I have to believe that the "no direction" problem is a result of little to no action, because as a river in nature, once an entrepreneur starts moving, it has to go somewhere. It may not be "the" direction, but it'll be "a" direction and ultimately will lead to "the" direction.

Remember, ditch the event mindset ("I haven't found my thing yet!") and embrace the process mindset ("Let me do these things today that get me closer to a thing").


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Exactly! I have many ideas and desires, but fear seems to be the main obstacle. Did I mention I am a factory trained Harley Davidson Tech as well, with dreams of opening my own shop, but the fear of failure have stifled many of these.
 
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MJ DeMarco

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I'm about $250k in debt

Holy crap. Now that's what I call a deep
Did I mention I am a factory trained Harley Davidson Tech as well, with dreams of opening my own shop

You realize that this is just another trade for time? Instead of an employer paying you $25/hour, a customer will pay you $35/hour.

Unless you can't get away from that trade, nothing in your financial situation will really change quickly.

Welcome to the forum.
 

RogueInnovation

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I agree with mj
I make about 60 -200 an hour from my clients, no way any employer pays me that, but I need it because of the sheer work I do
It isn't a point of conflict with clients because we ALWAYS achieve the goal we set out to achieve beforehand
If you can DELIVER the goods
No one will make a fuss unless they are cheap and want to rummage through bargain bins for stuff that isn't there

Start out by doing some independent work that you schedule to get completed on the weekends
 

Alexo

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I have always had a a desire to be wealthy (who hasn't), but like most, no direction or even an idea how to get there other than the slowlane. At this point, I'm 100 pages in, and have said yep that's me page after page of slowlane description. I'm about $250k in debt (student loans, cars, etc.), have a MBA, a wasted year of law school, and an even more worthless BS in political science, and unfortunately all I see at this moment is taking a corporate slave job if I wan't more than I currently make.

When I made $12/hour that wasn't enough to justify my time, but then I made $24/hour, and that still wasn't enough. I currently make $30/hour, and I still feel my time is worth more. I hope to change this as I progress and learn!

This sucks but work with what you have, you can't change what you have done before but you can change what you do now - focus on that! I would just work, read and get smarter every day and grind it out, you will eventually get out of debt and be on the plus side.

I am currently working at a slow lane job and trying to develop/build a product to sell. It's hard, it means long hours, but i also find it fun and well worth it. What would life be like if everything was easy?
 
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I have always had a a desire to be wealthy (who hasn't), but like most, no direction or even an idea how to get there other than the slowlane. At this point, I'm 100 pages in, and have said yep that's me page after page of slowlane description. I'm about $250k in debt (student loans, cars, etc.), have a MBA, a wasted year of law school, and an even more worthless BS in political science, and unfortunately all I see at this moment is taking a corporate slave job if I wan't more than I currently make.

When I made $12/hour that wasn't enough to justify my time, but then I made $24/hour, and that still wasn't enough. I currently make $30/hour, and I still feel my time is worth more. I hope to change this as I progress and learn!

Welcome!

There was a great thread from a longtime member who was in a ton of debt, but I can't find it for OP. All I remember is the dude's avatar is an easter bunny. Reps to anyone that can find and link it.
 

MidwestLandlord

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azsno

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Holy crap. Now that's what I call a deep


You realize that this is just another trade for time? Instead of an employer paying you $25/hour, a customer will pay you $35/hour.

Unless you can't get away from that trade, nothing in your financial situation will really change quickly.

Welcome to the forum.

Makes total sense, and mimics the franchise model referenced in your book. (Although obvious, a light bulb just went off!) I'll keep reading....
 
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Tina70k

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Exactly! I have many ideas and desires, but fear seems to be the main obstacle. Did I mention I am a factory trained Harley Davidson Tech as well, with dreams of opening my own shop, but the fear of failure have stifled many of these.
I have no idea what the market value of a Harley Davidson Tech is, but I assume there are a lot of biker heads out there that would pay for your skills. Do you know enough to be able to teach someone else about it, and therefore have apprentices working for you? In the UK the government pay and subsidies businesses to take on young people as apprentices, maybe the US does something similar. Also does are the HD tech skills transferable to other motorcycle brands? A franchise could be a good model if opening a shop is what you want to do. Although as @MJ DeMarco says you wouldn't want to trade your time for money so would want to spend time working on the business (training people, building systems), rather than in the business.
 

azsno

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I have no idea what the market value of a Harley Davidson Tech is, but I assume there are a lot of biker heads out there that would pay for your skills. Do you know enough to be able to teach someone else about it, and therefore have apprentices working for you? In the UK the government pay and subsidies businesses to take on young people as apprentices, maybe the US does something similar. Also does are the HD tech skills transferable to other motorcycle brands? A franchise could be a good model if opening a shop is what you want to do. Although as @MJ DeMarco says you wouldn't want to trade your time for money so would want to spend time working on the business (training people, building systems), rather than in the business.

In the US, unless you own the shop you don't make anything. I received this training and worked at a dealership when custom bikes were all the rage, and West Coast Choppers sold $250k motorcycles. This boat is long gone, so I have put this skills on the back burner, only using them to help friends and fix my own bikes.

I currently work as a nurse, and can generally make my own schedule, where I usually take summers off as my wife is a teacher, and we travel, but that will need to be put on hold so that I can get a handle on this debt.

I am considering multifamily real estate as a project, but my wife is stuck in the midset of owning her own home first...she is stuck on the sidewalk.
 

azsno

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At his point I'm 150 pages in and have received a revelation far beyond anything I have realized in the past 20 years. I currently have a blog that isn't gaining any traction, nor is it maintained for that matter, related to business. I may have a MBA, a drive, and desire for business, but I honestly have no practical experience, or anything to offer other than spreadsheets I create, or tips learned along the way. However, I do have a decade of experience related to travel and contract nursing in just about every setting. I'm on track to become a nursing home administrator for my slow-lane, which will double my current salary, but like MJ has said time and time again, this is still a slow-lane trade off. With that being said, I plan on switching my blog to a format I'm more familiar with, and taking my 3300 Twitter followers with me (This number dropped from over 5000 when I stopped the follow for follow nonsense, and abandoned the political BS for my own sanity). Thought?
 
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jon.a

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At his point I'm 150 pages in and have received a revelation far beyond anything I have realized in the past 20 years. I currently have a blog that isn't gaining any traction, nor is it maintained for that matter, related to business. I may have a MBA, a drive, and desire for business, but I honestly have no practical experience, or anything to offer other than spreadsheets I create, or tips learned along the way. However, I do have a decade of experience related to travel and contract nursing in just about every setting. I'm on track to become a nursing home administrator for my slow-lane, which will double my current salary, but like MJ has said time and time again, this is still a slow-lane trade off. With that being said, I plan on switching my blog to a format I'm more familiar with, and taking my 3300 Twitter followers with me (This number dropped from over 5000 when I stopped the follow for follow nonsense, and abandoned the political BS for my own sanity). Thought?
If you can score the job and NOT raise your standard of living, you'll be driving faster.
 
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azsno

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I've you can score the job and NOT raise your standard of living, you'll be driving faster.

Thanks for the feedback! I hope to do just that! I know many say this, but can't or refuse to resist the urge when extra cash starts rolling in!
 

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Thanks for the feedback! I hope to do just that! I know many say this, but can't or refuse to resist the urge when extra cash starts rolling in!

At his point I'm 150 pages in and have received a revelation far beyond anything I have realized in the past 20 years. I currently have a blog that isn't gaining any traction, nor is it maintained for that matter, related to business. I may have a MBA, a drive, and desire for business, but I honestly have no practical experience, or anything to offer other than spreadsheets I create, or tips learned along the way. However, I do have a decade of experience related to travel and contract nursing in just about every setting. I'm on track to become a nursing home administrator for my slow-lane, which will double my current salary, but like MJ has said time and time again, this is still a slow-lane trade off. With that being said, I plan on switching my blog to a format I'm more familiar with, and taking my 3300 Twitter followers with me (This number dropped from over 5000 when I stopped the follow for follow nonsense, and abandoned the political BS for my own sanity). Thought?
Find @V8Bill and read his free book.
 
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azsno

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Holy crap. Now that's what I call a deep

Just reached the "F*ck It" part of Unscripted ...I'm deep, but I hope to eventually crawl out of the hole. The majority of my debt, unfortunately, is from Student Loans! ($176K) But hey its not the end of the world, just the end of my paid education seeking sidewalk mentality world.
 

Process

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Just reached the "F*ck It" part of Unscripted ...I'm deep, but I hope to eventually crawl out of the hole. The majority of my debt, unfortunately, is from Student Loans! ($176K) But hey its not the end of the world, just the end of my paid education seeking sidewalk mentality world.

Eeesh 176k! You can climb out of it. You just need one tiny shift. Let me explain...

Anyhow, it is not clear you are one hundred percent all in. When you hit your FTE, there is no more hopefully. Rationalizing and excuses become unacceptable. If it is a true FTE, it will be like putting the maximum distance between you and Uncle Yoseph's gulag camp.

For example, my FTE was realizing no one in the world cared...

I was soaking wet - elbows deep in filthy dishwater washing dishes day after day - yet I was still asked to take out the garbage in the middle of a hail storm - by the some 17 yr. old manager who was busy groping some ratfaced pizza guy in the back office.

The cycle HAD to change or I'd go completely berserk. There was no more time for h3h3 videos, toking with burnout "friends", or browsing memes on reddit. Every action and every lesson became about getting any positive results as directly as possible. The problems in front of me became all that is.

It is easy to commit to once you see everything through the purified lens of: towards FTE or away from FTE. I don't know why, but only action that is executed with everything you've works. The world will steadily open up. The way people are taught to live is basically throwing good after bad. Once you realize that, the sacrifice is not very big. And thus the cycle begins to reverse...

Welcome to the forum and good luck. Hope this helps.

PS: Check out the Hustles, Freelancing, Bootstrapping subforum to change your life now.
 

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Use your knowledge if the motorcycle industry and maybe try to sell some products, perhaps even start your own brand, helmets , jackets boots gloves pants tyres oils whatever. I know in the racing industry people blow through tyres like nothing, something people do is sell off scrub tyres after a race and give them to noobs that can't ride and are better off with broken in tyres, you could possibly try flipping those? Dno throwing random ideas out here. Look into doing private garage work for motorcycle customers,? Won't make you a millionaire but I'm sure you won't complain with a few hundred bucks a month extra. I myself need a mechanic to work on my bike as I have the knowledge of a 2 year old. Would rather pay a private mechanic half the price than get ripped off at the frigging dealer
 
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sparechange

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Also I spent a bunch of money to a pro racer to prep my bike for track days . $500 for some fake body to remove street plastics
 

azsno

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Use your knowledge if the motorcycle industry and maybe try to sell some products, perhaps even start your own brand, helmets , jackets boots gloves pants tyres oils whatever. I know in the racing industry people blow through tyres like nothing, something people do is sell off scrub tyres after a race and give them to noobs that can't ride and are better off with broken in tyres, you could possibly try flipping those? Dno throwing random ideas out here. Look into doing private garage work for motorcycle customers,? Won't make you a millionaire but I'm sure you won't complain with a few hundred bucks a month extra. I myself need a mechanic to work on my bike as I have the knowledge of a 2 year old. Would rather pay a private mechanic half the price than get ripped off at the frigging dealer

Thanks for the feedback! I'm actually considering flipping bikes. I'm in the process of researching this area as I have lived in Phoenix for the last decade, and its a completely different market! There were summers where I couldn't find work and paid bills buying and selling used auto parts. Hopefully I can do the same in NC, but this area seems stuck on the sidewalk. There are two types of people in this area, either work in tech or health care, and drive a new BMW, or poor as could be...but have a brand new cell phone.

The tire idea is great, something I never thought of! Thanks!
 
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azsno

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Eeesh 176k! You can climb out of it. You just need one tiny shift. Let me explain...

Anyhow, it is not clear you are one hundred percent all in. When you hit your FTE, there is no more hopefully. Rationalizing and excuses become unacceptable. If it is a true FTE, it will be like putting the maximum distance between you and Uncle Yoseph's gulag camp.

For example, my FTE was realizing no one in the world cared...

I was soaking wet - elbows deep in filthy dishwater washing dishes day after day - yet I was still asked to take out the garbage in the middle of a hail storm - by the some 17 yr. old manager who was busy groping some ratfaced pizza guy in the back office.

The cycle HAD to change or I'd go completely berserk. There was no more time for h3h3 videos, toking with burnout "friends", or browsing memes on reddit. Every action and every lesson became about getting any positive results as directly as possible. The problems in front of me became all that is.

It is easy to commit to once you see everything through the purified lens of: towards FTE or away from FTE. I don't know why, but only action that is executed with everything you've works. The world will steadily open up. The way people are taught to live is basically throwing good after bad. Once you realize that, the sacrifice is not very big. And thus the cycle begins to reverse...

Welcome to the forum and good luck. Hope this helps.

PS: Check out the Hustles, Freelancing, Bootstrapping subforum to change your life now.

I think you are correct once I look at my situation, I'm not to the point I feel I can quit and go full entrepreneur because of the responsibilities I have. When I was wasting my time and money in Law School (for the year I was there before I realized the field is oversaturated and I could make more money/have more free time/and be happier doing something else) there were weeks when I only had $20, and needed to make it stretch a week or two, and even then all I wanted was to be able to pay my bills and buy groceries.

I feel different this time, as I have a different perspective of things. I have a slowlane job, that I will move into soon, doubling my current salary, and plan to use the extra to pay down this debt/start a business. I've started a blog, selling skills online, but I have yet to make a sale yet I feel that if I promoted this, I may be able to. Right now...I'm making excuses...realized as I typed this. Time for a change...
 

Carol Jones

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Exactly! I have many ideas and desires, but fear seems to be the main obstacle. Did I mention I am a factory trained Harley Davidson Tech as well, with dreams of opening my own shop, but the fear of failure have stifled many of these.

G'day @azsno from rural Australia,

Everyone is afraid of failing. Every.One. It's the biggest fear that holds us back from achieving our goals.

Yet everyone who is successful. Has failed. At least once.

And everyone who is successful has a wardrobe full of mistakes they had to overcome to get to where they wanted to be.

So you're halfway to success. You're afraid of failing. So you can cross that off your list of 'To Do's' that is the journey to somewhere. You've done that one.

On to the next thing on the list of 'To Do's that is the journey to somewhere.

Start learning about how you can make your dream of opening your own Harley Davidson shop a reality.

Start making plans today.

Just start talking to people who have done it. More than one shop. Several. Because at least one will be negative. And try to talk you out of it. Or you talk yourself out of it because of that one negative person.

Ring these shops up and ask if you can talk to them about why they've done it. How they've done it. What were their setbacks. What were their triumphs.

Start. A. Conversation.

You have no idea how far along that conversation will take you. You could wind up with a completely different blueprint. But you have to start somewhere.

Next. Find yourself an accountability partner who can keep tabs on you. To make sure you're keeping up to speed. If no one else volunteers. I'll put my hand up. It's just that I'm in rural Australia. And there's a big time gap. Just a few hours a day where we can be in touch. But there's this forum. Skype. Email. I can ring overseas via Skype. We can talk one to one.

What you need to do is get past the inertia that fear of failure induces. And start doing.

Real failure is NOT DOING.

Failure because you're doing something is not failure. It's a learning experience. I have a whole wardrobe full of those. And because of those mistakes. Failures. Whatever you want to call it. I have a better. And stronger. Business than I started out with.

So the challenge is.

When will you start?

As of this minute. You're no longer alone in this journey.

So. When can we get together to make sure you make a start? If no one else puts up their hand.

This is a chess game. And the next move is yours. ~Carol❤
 

Nigel B

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In the UK the government pay and subsidies businesses to take on young people as apprentices, maybe the US does something similar.
Sadly most of the US is nowhere near as enlightened as the renewed UK gov't focus on vocational training - which also means entrepreneurs get subsidized labor as they provide valuable training. There is a real alternative to college for those who were never going to benefit from it anyway.
 
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Nigel B

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I'm not to the point I feel I can quit and go full entrepreneur because of the responsibilities I have.
Been there, but as MJ points out, and all of us know the 'security' of that employment is a false god - it can be taken away any time. You should never quit, until you can afford to - but you have to find the spirit to build something.

A lot of focus is around your skill, not the market you know a lot about. MJ and others will tell you product is the key. I am assuming the online product you reference is i some way related to maintaining Harleys ?? Had you considered whether there's anything out there you know lots of owners would love to have - but it's just not available. Or perhaps there's something they all do have- but it sucks ??? No idea what as I've never even sat on a Harley - but I know that crowd spend a whole lot on merchandise and accessories.

Good luck, and welcome of course.
 

I Am I Said

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There's always something, not that I have got there yet. A co-worker told me his brother stocks carbon-fiber trim parts for Kawasaki bikes in his garage, sells them online, making mid-6 figures with no employees. Took him 10 years to get there but worth the journey.
 

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