Fear and Action-Faking in Entrepreneurship-- a 19 year old's guide to askholing.

[GuestUser4aMPs1]

@LordPhenny I don't understand how you're not scared shitless about being broke and homeless?
If this doesn't motivate you to work harder, I don't know what will. Maybe a rock-bottom "F*ck this Event (FTE)."

3 months ago I couldn't pay my rent.
Had to borrow money from a friend. Most embarrassing point of my life.
But, he had his money back and then some in a week.
Why?
Because I was backed into a corner.
I had no choice but to make something work.

It's clear that you haven't hit that point. yet

But you will.

And based on your actions (or lack thererof),
you will only make the pain of hitting rock-bottom worse.

Is that what you want?

 

[Joe Cassandra]

Day 17 5/20/17

Big Items for Tomorrow:
-add 9 more products to my site (w/end goal of somewhere around 45 total products on the site, currently at 9)
-continue optimizing my site for more conversions
-optimize Google Adwords for more conversions and lower costs

You're only 19, which is fine because you have time. But, it sounds like you live a pretty cushy life. There's obviously no urgency anywhere. At 19, I didn't even know what 'starting a business' was. I wanted to be a CFO for some Fortune-500 company because I thought that's what 'success' was. It wasn't until I sat down in my cubicle on Day 1 of my first accounting job out of college (age 23), that I realized i made a big mistake.

I then wasted 4 more years 'playing business' like you're doing right now.

There's plenty of peeps here older than 19 nagging at you not because you're doing everything wrong (it's part of learning) but because many (including myself) wished we found this forum and how to work for ourselves at a MUCH earlier age. Sure, you can become an entrepreneur at any age, but wouldn't you want freedom by the time you're 40 than 80?

------------------
Ok, you have these same 'BIG' items every f&$%# day. They are obviously NOT BIG ITEMS. Big items are...umm...CLOSE THE PROSPECT I'M TALKING TO AT 2PM THIS AFTERNOON.

To make any sales, you need urgency. To sell yourself on the fastlane (and I'm not there yet, but self-employed at least), you need to create urgency ASAP. ​

Getting a crappy job would be the first step to show you what will happen. Getting an accountable partner would be next. One where you put money on the line: "Jack, if I don't do X by June 30, you can cash this check."

-went to bed at 7AM

Quote from How I Met Your Mother: "Nothing good happens after 2am."

If you were actually working, okay. Still, working late into the night isn't good as it probably takes 2x as long to do things. Mornings are proven to be the best time to get things done quick.

So if you're up late partying, watching TV or porn, that's your first goal over any business stuff. Get rid of it.​

When your body is tired, your 'impulse' side of your brain kicks in leading to junk food, obesity and other unhealthy pleasure activities.

Make this your priority first or else the rest will never work.

 

[G-Man]

Where did I say I'm leaving because I want validation and am afraid of the truth, bud? I've said the opposite on many occasions. I should've done this in my original post, I don't know why I didn't, but I'll lay out point by point why I left.

Why my Journey Thread Left Fastlane and Moved to Black Hat World
1. You guys don't know anything about dropshipping. Still nobody has told me "yeah, I do dropshipping for a living and what you're doing is too little work for dropshipping." Just a bunch of people who THINK that what I'm doing for dropshipping is too little work and are giving me useless and redundant advice/labeling me a "action faker" for working 6-8 hours a day. I'm sick of replying to the same old criticisms that help nobody like a broken record because people don't understand dropshipping. It's a waste of my time and yours.

2. You're not ready to engage in rational discourse. I've posed questions and tried to have a reasonable discussion only to be met with unreasonableness. And this is a perfect example right here. Saying that I'm leaving because I'm "afraid of the truth" is laughable and just proves my point that you guys are not ready to engage in rational discourse. All you had to do was read me saying the contrary many times. But for some reason, F*ck that Lordphenny's afraid of the truth! Don't just believe my words, believe my actions. If I was afraid of the truth I wouldn't have made another journey thread on Black Hat World. I'm leaving because I want the truth, not just a bunch of people who think they know it with no actual background in the subject matter. But OBVIOUSLY I'M SO AFRAID OF THE TRUTH! "Help! Please please, I'm weak and sensitive PLEASE protect me from the truth! Help me, I must leave Fastlane because some random people I don't know online tell me the truth and are TOTALLY not just clueless about dropshipping! I will also move my thread to Black Hat World and subject myself to the same ridicule by people who actually know dropshipping! But BECAUSE they know dropshipping, THEY WON'T TELL ME THE TRUTH WHICH I LIKE!" Ridiculous, use your heads here.

3. The Beginning of My Thread was a Trainwreck and made terrible first Impressions- all of you went in here seeing me working 1.5 hours a day, doing practically nothing, taking days off like I had all the time in the world, waking up at 4PM on a daily basis. And with some help from you guys, I was able to change and actually get some really great days. The first impression stuck and even when I was working long days I was given no credit for it and labeled and action faker. I couldn't shake the first impressions and still continued to get inane comments regarding my daily schedule 3 weeks ago that were tiresome.


There were some people who did engage with me rationally and look beyond first impressions, to them thank you. I think I've given you all a fair explanation and now you can reply all you want with your silly comments with slivers of truth and a majority of mischaracterizations/mistruths.

Given that you're 19, broke and not homeless, I'm thinking living with the parents still, right? That's fine. I did too. Of course, I went work every day.

I have a little brother that didn't wake up until the afternoon every day. My dad sent him to an entrepreneurship program called MCRD San Diego that taught him to wake up every day and get shit done. Something to think about.

 

[Waspy]

From what I understand Aliexpress dropshipping is illegal

"I've been financially sane once before through crime, but now I have no choice but to do it legally this time."

He's a hard nose criminal. You think he cares about taxes and import duties? He is basically a mob boss.

 

[amp0193]

Yeah I read about the giving value element to it in the summaries I skimmed. That's just Basic 2017 Business Success 101, give value. Great and crucial concept, just rehashing of shit I know and have read before.

What value are you giving by drop-shipping from Aliexpress?

 

[The-J]

which makes dropshipping the perfect option in the initial stages of building an ecommerce store/brand.

How the F*ck would you know lmao

 

[GuestUser4aMPs1]

Lord PHENNY... as in Phenibut.

That's hilarious.

If you think this thread is a trainwreck, you should see his reddit.
All of which comprises of...

• Asking if you could snort Phenibut
• Getting high on Phenibut and chilling with Greek Anarchists
• Bragging about being the first person on TV under the influence of Phenny (OP has 10/10 punchable face and is sweating profusely, can confirm)

This reminds me of something MJ spoke about before:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuOsqUFbAe8&ab_channel=FastlaneMJ


Just look at his conveyor belt.

What is OP feeding into his life?

Is it any wonder that OP has bad sleep patterns / work habits / lazy / arrogant?
OP's good intentions to work and build a business doesn't matter when he's feeding himself drugs.

(In which case all other advice is null until you clean up your act).

 

[BradD]

Per OP's request, OP's forum account has been deleted.

My weekend is officially ruined.. where else will I go for my source of motivation this week?

 

[Nicoknowsbest]

-a social media marketing company
-shopify dropshipping store

You need a plan.

First step of that plan?

Decide.

Focus.

Do one thing.

Do only this one thing.

Focus, take action and watch the magic happen.

 

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[Contrarian]

I have quite a bit of time and money saved up that this isn't necessary, I'd rather atleast try to develop my long term projects while I have the safety net of savings than jump into a short term panic artificially (AKA a job). My parents are going to completely cut my rent off in a few months when I let them know I'm not going to college so worse comes to worse, yes a job will be gotten but I have quite a few contingency plans even before than happening.

OK. I gathered you don't need the money right now, else you wouldn't be making the choices you're making.

What you do need is discipline. When you're forced to become disciplined, that's exactly what you'll do. When it's ingrained in you, it'll be easier to keep the habit. There's nothing forcing you to be disciplined right now.

When you have to pay the bills and you have to make your sales figures to make the rent? You'll find a way.

I'm making my primary goal just to work more hours on business in a day. I've averaged 1.6 hours of business work per day since I started recording a few days ago. This is absolutely inexcusable and pathetic and no wonder I'm getting nowhere. I want to start off with a daily hour count that I know 100% I should be able to achieve (4+ hours for 4 days) and then I'll eventually make more goals to gradually get my hour count higher and higher until I'm working 8+ hours a day on business on all my work days consistently.

This is one of the most absurd things I've read here in a while.

It's as simple as making a decision.

Do you want to work - or don't you?

Do you want to spend your time productively - or not?

So work. Be productive.

Or don't. Get up in the evening and watch TV all night until circumstances force you to change your ways.

Either one of those choices is going to make you happier and cause you less mental anguish than this half-in, half-out bullshit.

Who will you choose to BE, from this day forward?

 

[MJ DeMarco]

MJ, cut the kid some slack. He's been up and at it since 4pm.

You know sometimes I feel a tinge of guilt when I drop the kid-gloves and try to smack some sense into aspiring entrepreneurs.

But then the OP would post again and tell us how much progress he's made while watching CNN for 6 hours after coming home from Costco.

 

[Waspy]

Love the new title. This thread is now genuinely notable imo.

We have so many INCREADIBLE threads, one that reminds users how NOT to do it is mention worthy I feel.

Edit: On that note. This guy just made an update saying he woke up at 7:30AM and went to bed at 4:30AM. He did 5hours of work on his business.

He did a 21 hour day! F*cking machine all of a sudden! No idea what he did with 16 of those hours, but you know, it's dropshipping. Runs itself brah.

 

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[AllenCrawley]

Man, how did I miss this train wreck of a thread?! LOL.

You are dropshipping from Aliexpress, which people here don't touch because it is a flawed and dangerous business model.

@LordPhenny, Here's another reason its a flawed and dangerous business model. From what I understand Aliexpress dropshipping is illegal because it's bypassing import/export duties. US Customs won't stand for this much longer. I hear they have already started cracking down on it. I believe they can even go back like 3 years of your transactions and enforce a penalty.

 

[GuestUser091]

This thread reminds me of another recent trainwreck...

Notable! - Best new car research website! (How NOT to ask/take advice)

At the end of the day, we want entrepreneurs to succeed. Our terseness is not because we are haters, it's because we hate seeing others make the same mistakes 200,000 other dreampreneurs made before them.

Yeah that guy clearly should've done basic market research. I made that same rookie entrepreneur mistake of not doing market research too and spent 2 F*cking precious years of my life on a disaster project that had no market but I thought there was a market because "myself and friends + family like it!" ... led to nowhere and you see me selling it to my friend in the beginning of this thread. Funny how he flat out admits it halfway through his thread that "no I didn't do any market research, BUT I'm a car guy and I like it." *facepalm*

I do see parallels between his thread and my thread of 95% disagreement and 5% lukewarmness in the comments. It's obvious to me he's F*cking up and getting criticism for it. I don't think I'm F*cking up now but I'm definitely getting an equal or greater amount of criticism. But perhaps I am F*cking up and I will have to consider your comments to not be the whichride4you guy who is blissfully ignorant of his errors, but not for long once he learns that market research is necessary the hard way like I did and many entrepreneurs before him.

I will give my earnest effort to heed everyone's advice here and not learn it the hard way. Parts of it may be valid, other parts invalid. If I label valid advice as invalid and make more blunders, F*ck it, nobody's fault but mine and I will have to learn the hard way.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

but at the end of the day we all need employees in this world.

At this stage, he couldn't handle an employee work load ... getting up at 6AM, 2 hours of traffic, 9 hours of work...

If he thinks his "woke up at 1pm and did 2 hours of research" is hard... he's gonna have a rough life ahead of him, at least after the parents kick him out.

 

[ZCP]

I invested the time to read this train wreck........ Did I get rewarded? Absolutely!

1. I really missed the forum. Been too busy to put time in here. Threads like this let me know I need to budget some time...... Even if just for laughs.
2. I feel SO much better about only putting in 12 hours a day on my businesses.

My two boys just completed a deal to acquire another vending route that will make them $210 / month for ~1 day of work per month. They are 14 and 11 and do more per day than OP.

(+Rep to anyone that will PM me in 6 months if this wrecked train pulls a Thomas and finds a way to get back on track)

 

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[JordanK]

Stop counting the amount of hours you are sitting in front of the computer screen. Instead just list the 5 biggest goals of the day and how many of them you managed to accomplish.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

-woke up at 11PM (6/14)
-going to bed now at 7:56PM

This is not normal in human physiology to only stay awake for 8 hours. You're either flat out lazy or you have some health issues (which u probably should test for) - in that case, it would explain some of the unproductivity.

He makes 10k/mo doing affiliate SEO.

Does your brother work the same schedule as you? Why won't he mentor you?

 

[Spicymemer45]

@LordPhenny

I can't understand if you're a combination of nature and nurture to make you this lazy. What the F*ck are you talking about? Launching three products a day? That'd be great if you weren't launching them into a marketing shit hole that won't reach far beyond your doorstep.

I dare say this, shower, go outside, talk to someone.

That needs to be your new goal.​

 

[Sully1994]

So glad I canceled Netflix

 

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[SquatchMan]

We just learned an important lesson on why you should NOT use the same username across multiple platforms.

 

[Contrarian]

I don't understand the point of this thread. The first post looked promising, but your diary since reads like a comedy sketch.

What the hell are you doing with your life, @LordPhenny? Waking up at 4PM, dabbling with some crap for an hour or two and then watching TV into the early hours? Sounds like what I used to do when I was 15. Only I wasn't trying to convince myself I was building a business.

Seems to me you should (shock, horror) go get a job. Preferably in sales, or something similar that's going to condition you with tough daily discipline. When you have the basic habits of succeeding at life down, maybe you can come back in a year or two and write another progress thread that isn't driven by instant gratification-seeking nonsense.

</toughlove>

 

[Ika]

I respect your courage to keep posting despite knowing what comments will roll in. Keep it going.
And look back at it in a few month and smile about how far you've come.

First:
You need to fix your sleeping cyle.
Pick one time to go to wake up and one to go to bed. Now use these times every single day.
Start small - if you wake up at 5pm every day it's unlikely you will be able to wake up at 6am for longer than 1 week.
Just pick a time for this week.
Next week, go to bed 1 hour earlier and wake up 1 hour earlier.
Repeat until you've reached a time you are comfortable with.

Second:
You need to fix your work.
Are you sure you are working focused for 5h? Or are you inventing tasks to hit that 5h mark?
What is the one thing that will move your business forward the most? What will eliminate other tasks and make others really easy?
Do that the first thing in the morning after your morning routine (an ice cold shower helps).
From what I've read, adding 15 new products won't help if you haven't sold any of the exsisting 10.
Creating Graphics, Contents etc might now help that much either.
Just start running Ads. Keep going. If you suck at it, use the profits to hire a professional to fix the money leaking holes. Or ask someone starting out on the fastlane forum.
Don't focus on making 100€/day.
Focus on making 100€ at all.
It will force you to be more focused and faster.

 

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[AndrewNC]

Waiting for the next...$8 per month marketing company.

 

[Argue]

"...optimize dropshipping site"

Me:

How does this make money?
Dude, you're talking so much

Your posts are about eating, shitting, and sleeping. That's a waste of life kid. You're worse then my dog lmao.

You're not about that fastlane life. Fastlane individuals don't talk about it, they be about it. F*ck posting on a forum, just make a f'ing sale.

Go from 0 to 1. Then keep working up.

Nobody gives a f** about your sleep schedule kid. lol. Go dropship fidget spinners or something. Stop talking horse shit here.

P.S. this kid is a troll. Don't feed the troll!
@LordPhenny after 4PM:

 

[Sully1994]

So I've gotten pretty far into The Millionaire Fastlane and I actually like it more than I'd expected. I'd like to give this forum another chance and achieve goal I set out to do on my 19th birthday. Albeit, trying out a bit of a different posting rhythm.

Let me respond to myself and what I said on May 24th about why I left:
1. "You guys don't know anything about dropshipping." -- My response: I don't really care. My work ethic is the bigger problem than my lack of ecommerce knowledge (for now) and I should be thankful for you guys pointing it out.
2. "You're not ready to engage in rational discourse." -- My response: I don't know why I thought that because a forum is prettier looking than a youtube comment section that it'd be any level above it in discourse. The internet is the internet. I expect to continue to get needlessly flamed regardless of what I do and that's ok.
3. "The Beginning of My Thread was a Trainwreck and made terrible first Impressions." -- My response: About the same as above. I'm not really going to go out of my way to correct bad first impressions. You guys can play the negative narrative and have fun with it. There's some legitamacy to parts of the negative narrative but some of it's so absurd it's funny. If you're not already aware of the prevailing narrative about me, here's a crash course. I'm everything you can possibly hate. I'm a stubborn, know it all 19 year old who wakes up 4PM every single day, works 1.5 hours a day, takes 6 days off a week, watches CNN for 4 hours each and every day, makes $8/mo working 12 hours/mo, makes chili for 5 hours every day, spends 2 hours at Costco every day, does crime 10 hours a day and is a tough guy for doing so, uses the word "ageism" so I'm very politically correct even though I voted for Trump but wait.. F*ck me because I voted for Trump. See, I'm just everything you can possibly hate and there's no way to spin it. Hitler, Mao, and Satan all in one package.

Some updates since I've been gone:

• sold my dropshipping store I spent May working on for $350. The niche was fidget toys. I saw the Google trends going down and the fad fizzling out so I decided to sell ASAP. The fidget toy/spinner fad is fizzling out I believe because kids are getting out of school. Whatever, it was a good first start into product sourcing ecommerce.
• started up a new dropshipping store for general ecommerce. Really looking to find a the right niche I can build out into and make a long term project. The general dropshipping store will allow me to find it.

In Closing
Someone suggested earlier to not post daily. I think I'm going to implement this suggestion and start out by posting on here every two days and see how that goes. Might need to spread it out more, who knows. Whatever, I'm going to take this thread to its completion by success of financial independence or thread death by landfill/ban. I'll expect to get flamed more with funny gifs of stickmen doing pullups while typing with their feet but I don't really care. I'll be listening to you regardless as well as will the people who read this thread who are interested in achieving financial independence in their own right and seeing the struggles, both real and psychological, in achieving it. Let's re-begin... starting tomorrow with my two day post.

Many people here want to see you succeed, Don't lose sight of that. That being said, also remember this: people want to be entertained. Lord knows I've visited this thread for it. If you're going to post a progress thread, make it interesting and engaging. I know you can write, so it's clearly not outside your capability.

If I posted a bland daily list of things I was doing to "advance my business", this forum would forcibly separate my jaw and take a steaming shit into my mouth. And I would deserve it - because that list would serve no one on this forum except me. People ( even entrepreneurs) want to be inspired, educated and entertained - not read grocery lists.

People don't care what we do on a day to day basis . They care about what we can do for them. So ask yourself, what can you do for your customers? What can you do for the people of this forum? Forget financial independence. Forget how can I marginally scale up to making "x" dollars a day?

Focus on others, and you will be blown away at how quickly things change for you .

Keep fighting!

 

[amp0193]

What value are you giving by drop-shipping from Aliexpress?

Selling people stuff they otherwise would never know about.

sold my dropshipping store... The niche was fidget toys.

I lost it when I read this.

Really? Fidget Toys is something that people would otherwise never know about?


In your next shop, niche down and stay away from the trends that everyone and their grandma is well aware of.

Be a leader, not a follower.

 

[Mr.Chaos]

Lol, and in a few words what would my sin be?

The Last 8 Pages of this Thread.

 

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[The-J]

For now, if you give a shit, you can continue following my journey to financial independence with the same username on Black Hat World.

Proof that OP doesn't actually care about providing value but just wants to make the easiest money possible

 

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[G-Man]

Darn, a money chasing troll is leaving because he hasn't been validated making $8 for the last 8 months ... how will we survive?

Well, we survive only until 4pm when the OP wakes up.

Glad I didn't spend any time in this thread convincing "4pm boy" that his dropshipping empire is dead on arrival.

Not surprised he threw out an "ism" as well -- racism! Ageism! Sexism! This is what happens when your education comes from CNN and liberal arts colleges.

MJ, cut the kid some slack. He's been up and at it since 4pm.

 

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