Hi everyone! Jarbas, from Brazil. I'm 34, happily married and father of a one year old boy.
When I was a boy myself I wanted to invent something and even built some homemade prototypes of automation solutions and electrical appliances. But I grew up in a context in which higher education meant upward social mobility and was indoctrinated to study hard and get a good job (not my parents's fault at all), which I did. At age 23 I was a young mid-level executive in finance at a multinational industrial company, which meant I was significantly ahead of my peers at the time. I used that oportunity to travel as much as I could in my free time and got to know about 20 countries. But my entrepreneurial dreams as a boy were suffocated by the corporate environment. I no longer wanted to invent anything.
Some time later, I was offered a better job position if I accepted to expatriate to somewhere in Europe or in Asia. At the sime time, my father was diagnosed with brain cancer and given one year to live. I chose to stay with him, as I have always valued family. But I had other reasons not to go, including the feeling that accepting expatriation would mean social isolation (I've always been an introvert) and the feeling that if I ever wanted to own a business I had to meet my potential business partners early in life, not later.
My dad had a small business in formwork rental for construction, with three lifelong partners in their fifties. I had never worked with him, but I tried to replace him while he was in treatment since my mother and younger brother relied on income from that business to live. For one year I played my father's role in the business and kept the corporate job, but his partners had a very different mindset, lots of parallel agendas and never really accepted my presence. My family eventually sold the stake in the business to them for much less than it was worth.
When dad passed away two years later, I decided to quit the corporate job and move to Santa Catarina, southern Brazil. That was 8 years ago and was a great decision in many aspects of my life, but I'm not yet a fastlaner. I didn't know what to do at the time, so I didn't do anything different. I started advising small local companies in M&A transactions, as I had done some as an executive. The company I used to work for hired me as their legal representative in Brazil, which guaranteed recurring revenue. But that was still selling my time. So I hired a small team to work for me, only to realize I couldn't replicate complex skills and knowledge easily. In parallel I started acquiring distressed properties and flipping them for a profit. Nice, but not scalable when using own capital only (in Brazil interest rates are in the mid teens). More recently I acquired a small solar power plant to sell electicity (the pursue of "passive income").
To summarize, I have three companies on paper (M&A advisory, Real Estate, Solar Power), they are all generating modest profits but none of them lives whithout me, none of them is growing, and I am proud of none of them. I have nothing to complain about: no debt keeping me awake at night, some financial investments, life is ok. But I have nothing to be proud of, nothing to be passionate about. And this is what led me to read The Millionaire Fastlane and eventually brought me here.
Looking forward to learning from the community and finding my way to the fastlane.
@MJ DeMarco thanks for the valuable knowledge you shared in the book and best wishes for 2025!
When I was a boy myself I wanted to invent something and even built some homemade prototypes of automation solutions and electrical appliances. But I grew up in a context in which higher education meant upward social mobility and was indoctrinated to study hard and get a good job (not my parents's fault at all), which I did. At age 23 I was a young mid-level executive in finance at a multinational industrial company, which meant I was significantly ahead of my peers at the time. I used that oportunity to travel as much as I could in my free time and got to know about 20 countries. But my entrepreneurial dreams as a boy were suffocated by the corporate environment. I no longer wanted to invent anything.
Some time later, I was offered a better job position if I accepted to expatriate to somewhere in Europe or in Asia. At the sime time, my father was diagnosed with brain cancer and given one year to live. I chose to stay with him, as I have always valued family. But I had other reasons not to go, including the feeling that accepting expatriation would mean social isolation (I've always been an introvert) and the feeling that if I ever wanted to own a business I had to meet my potential business partners early in life, not later.
My dad had a small business in formwork rental for construction, with three lifelong partners in their fifties. I had never worked with him, but I tried to replace him while he was in treatment since my mother and younger brother relied on income from that business to live. For one year I played my father's role in the business and kept the corporate job, but his partners had a very different mindset, lots of parallel agendas and never really accepted my presence. My family eventually sold the stake in the business to them for much less than it was worth.
When dad passed away two years later, I decided to quit the corporate job and move to Santa Catarina, southern Brazil. That was 8 years ago and was a great decision in many aspects of my life, but I'm not yet a fastlaner. I didn't know what to do at the time, so I didn't do anything different. I started advising small local companies in M&A transactions, as I had done some as an executive. The company I used to work for hired me as their legal representative in Brazil, which guaranteed recurring revenue. But that was still selling my time. So I hired a small team to work for me, only to realize I couldn't replicate complex skills and knowledge easily. In parallel I started acquiring distressed properties and flipping them for a profit. Nice, but not scalable when using own capital only (in Brazil interest rates are in the mid teens). More recently I acquired a small solar power plant to sell electicity (the pursue of "passive income").
To summarize, I have three companies on paper (M&A advisory, Real Estate, Solar Power), they are all generating modest profits but none of them lives whithout me, none of them is growing, and I am proud of none of them. I have nothing to complain about: no debt keeping me awake at night, some financial investments, life is ok. But I have nothing to be proud of, nothing to be passionate about. And this is what led me to read The Millionaire Fastlane and eventually brought me here.
Looking forward to learning from the community and finding my way to the fastlane.
@MJ DeMarco thanks for the valuable knowledge you shared in the book and best wishes for 2025!
Dislike ads? Become a Fastlane member:
Subscribe today and surround yourself with winners and millionaire mentors, not those broke friends who only want to drink beer and play video games. :-)
Access Restricted: Unlock 1,000,000+ Posts
Stop Peeking Through the Keyhole.
Open the Door.
You hit a wall because the best advice isn't free—it's earned. Since 2007, MJ DeMarco has been active here daily (99.9% active rate), building a war room for entrepreneurs who refuse to settle for mediocrity.
- Active Daily: Life-changing content posted dozens of times every day. No dead threads.
- MJ's Inner Circle: Direct access to the author of The Millionaire Fastlane.
- Vetted Network: Connect with founders scaling to 7 and 8 figures.
- Proven Roadmaps: Strategy over motivation. Execution over "hustle porn."
"SCALED TO 6-FIGURE MONTHS"
"Tips and advice here saved me from huge mistakes, others allowed me to scale my business to 6-figure months."— User MitchC
"INSANE QUALITY OF PEOPLE"
"The number of high quality people I've met from this forum has been insane. All of it predicated on building real value."— User Richard Peck
"You are the average of the five people you surround yourself with."
Are you surrounding yourself with success?
