Hello Fastlaners!
I’ve been lurking on this forum for a couple years now. I figured it was finally time to introduce myself.
First I want to thank you MJ for writing down your experiences into two books that have changed countless lives, mine included.
I thought a great way to introduce myself would be to share my FTE with the forum.
My FTE:
Eight years ago I was fresh out of college. I didn't want to get a regular job so I decided it was time to start my own business. I loved programming websites so I thought I would create a web development company. I went from business to business selling my services. Some even signed up. I thought I had made it. I was in business for real now.
Things quickly went downhill from there. I had over promised and under charged. I couldn’t keep up with expectations. The only way to keep paying bills was to sell more websites. But spending all day trying to sell websites meant that I couldn’t do the work I had promised people.
I burned out fast. I started losing clients and the business started failing. Rather than reflecting on my failure I picked up the next idea I had and started pushing forward.
I decided I was going to start a magazine. I went all around the city selling ads to local businesses. People were buying ads. I was making money. The only problem was I needed that money to pay my bills.
I sold enough ads to put the magazine together. I found a company to print and ship the magazine. The only issue was I couldn’t afford to print or ship the magazine.
I sold everything I owned, including my car to come up with the money and I shipped the magazine. It was a failure. Barely any of the businesses received any customers from the advertisements. Only two customers even signed up for the next issue.
I was now beyond broke and I had no income. I purchased a POS car for $200.00 to get around. By this time It had been two years of constant failure. Every month barely coming up with the money to eat let alone pay my bills. I was behind on every bill. I had no money and I was running out of ideas to make money.
I had 20.00 to my name. I decided I would travel to the city and try to sell something. A website, a magazine ad, it didn’t matter. I needed to make money. I put 10.00 of gas in my new rust bucket of a car and headed to the city. I was going to sell something to someone that day.
I spent all day going from business to business trying to make a sale. At the end of the day I had no sale and only 10.00 to my name.
As I drove home I felt nothing but disgust. How did I get to this point. This wasn’t how things were supposed to work. I had to go home and face my wife for another day knowing I had accomplished nothing that day but spend half of the little money we had.
Driving down the highway in utter depression I heard an explosion. The front tire of my rust bucket blew out. At that moment I made yet another terrible decision. I couldn’t afford a tire let alone a tow. I decided to just keep driving. I was 20 miles from home. Cars were honking. They were following me with hazards. People passed me yelling. I just kept driving. Sparks were flying from the bottom of the car. The flap of rubber that used to be a tire flew off the car onto the highway. I was now driving on the rim. The sound of metal on the highway haunts me to this day.
About two miles from my house a cop pulled behind me and turned on his lights. I thought Oh my god this is it! My life is over! Rather then pull over I doubled down and kept on driving. I drove two more miles on the rim with a cop behind me. As I pulled into the driveway the cop jumped out of his car and started yelling at me. I got out of my car with my hands up and just started talking. I told the cop everything that had happened to me and why I didn’t stop. For some reason, I’ll never understand why, he stopped yelling. He gave me a huge lecture about how insanely idiotic my actions were and how I could have killed someone. After explaining to me the gravity of my actions: driving with no tire and running from the police he left me there standing in the driveway. No ticket. No warning. He got in his car and left.
I stood there in the driveway. I was half relieved I wasn’t on my way to jail but half wishing he would have just taken me in. I had nothing. My car was broken. I was about to get kicked out of my house for not paying rent. I had bills piling up. This was the bottom of the bottom.
I couldn’t understand it. I worked so hard every day trying to make money. I just started crying. I probably stood there for over an hour in tears. I had sold everything I owned. I went into debt thousands chasing money. I literally could not afford to continue. I had no transportation and just enough money for a couple days of food. It was all over.
That was my FTE. It wasn’t that I hated working for someone else. It wasn’t that I hated my job. My FTE was that I had put myself and my family in a position where we could not survive. I thought that if I just tried hard enough it would work out. If I just sold enough ads or websites I would make money. I had read about all of these success stories and it seemed so simple.
At that moment I realized that my entire thought process was screwed up. I had been going about this in the worst way. I had risked everything on a dream and failed miserably.
I didn’t know how I was ever going to crawl out of that situation. I promised myself at that moment I would never put myself and my family in this situation ever again.
That night I decided I had to get a job. I called my sister and told her my story. She sent me a few hundred dollars to get my car fixed and to help us out while I looked for work.
I found work within a couple days. I got caught up on my debt. The rest is history.
Fast forward to now.
Today I own a successful web development company. I have a team of full time employees and a bunch of amazing clients. I call the business successful not because I never have to work again. On the contrary, I work a lot. I'm successful because I get to build awesome applications for amazing people and I make more money than I ever dreamed possible.
Of course my goals are ever moving and after achieving this level of success I have even bigger dreams.
What happened in those six years is a books worth of events. This post is just a chapter of the story.
The details of those next six years doesn’t really matter. What matters is that I changed my attitude from making money to helping people. Once I realized that the goal is not to make money but to help as many people as you can the world changed for me.
Before I could help anyone I had to take care of myself first. If I couldn’t help myself I was not in any position to help others.
I wanted to share this FTE with everyone. Hopefully it might resonate with one of you and help in your current situation.
If I knew then what I know now I would not have made the same mistakes. But then I would not have experienced such a life changing FTE. An event that I think about every single day. A FTE that has driven me to this level of success and will continue to drive me to achieve greater and greater goals.
It’s nice to meet all of you and I look forward to learning and mentoring on this forum
- Mark
I’ve been lurking on this forum for a couple years now. I figured it was finally time to introduce myself.
First I want to thank you MJ for writing down your experiences into two books that have changed countless lives, mine included.
I thought a great way to introduce myself would be to share my FTE with the forum.
My FTE:
Eight years ago I was fresh out of college. I didn't want to get a regular job so I decided it was time to start my own business. I loved programming websites so I thought I would create a web development company. I went from business to business selling my services. Some even signed up. I thought I had made it. I was in business for real now.
Things quickly went downhill from there. I had over promised and under charged. I couldn’t keep up with expectations. The only way to keep paying bills was to sell more websites. But spending all day trying to sell websites meant that I couldn’t do the work I had promised people.
I burned out fast. I started losing clients and the business started failing. Rather than reflecting on my failure I picked up the next idea I had and started pushing forward.
I decided I was going to start a magazine. I went all around the city selling ads to local businesses. People were buying ads. I was making money. The only problem was I needed that money to pay my bills.
I sold enough ads to put the magazine together. I found a company to print and ship the magazine. The only issue was I couldn’t afford to print or ship the magazine.
I sold everything I owned, including my car to come up with the money and I shipped the magazine. It was a failure. Barely any of the businesses received any customers from the advertisements. Only two customers even signed up for the next issue.
I was now beyond broke and I had no income. I purchased a POS car for $200.00 to get around. By this time It had been two years of constant failure. Every month barely coming up with the money to eat let alone pay my bills. I was behind on every bill. I had no money and I was running out of ideas to make money.
I had 20.00 to my name. I decided I would travel to the city and try to sell something. A website, a magazine ad, it didn’t matter. I needed to make money. I put 10.00 of gas in my new rust bucket of a car and headed to the city. I was going to sell something to someone that day.
I spent all day going from business to business trying to make a sale. At the end of the day I had no sale and only 10.00 to my name.
As I drove home I felt nothing but disgust. How did I get to this point. This wasn’t how things were supposed to work. I had to go home and face my wife for another day knowing I had accomplished nothing that day but spend half of the little money we had.
Driving down the highway in utter depression I heard an explosion. The front tire of my rust bucket blew out. At that moment I made yet another terrible decision. I couldn’t afford a tire let alone a tow. I decided to just keep driving. I was 20 miles from home. Cars were honking. They were following me with hazards. People passed me yelling. I just kept driving. Sparks were flying from the bottom of the car. The flap of rubber that used to be a tire flew off the car onto the highway. I was now driving on the rim. The sound of metal on the highway haunts me to this day.
About two miles from my house a cop pulled behind me and turned on his lights. I thought Oh my god this is it! My life is over! Rather then pull over I doubled down and kept on driving. I drove two more miles on the rim with a cop behind me. As I pulled into the driveway the cop jumped out of his car and started yelling at me. I got out of my car with my hands up and just started talking. I told the cop everything that had happened to me and why I didn’t stop. For some reason, I’ll never understand why, he stopped yelling. He gave me a huge lecture about how insanely idiotic my actions were and how I could have killed someone. After explaining to me the gravity of my actions: driving with no tire and running from the police he left me there standing in the driveway. No ticket. No warning. He got in his car and left.
I stood there in the driveway. I was half relieved I wasn’t on my way to jail but half wishing he would have just taken me in. I had nothing. My car was broken. I was about to get kicked out of my house for not paying rent. I had bills piling up. This was the bottom of the bottom.
I couldn’t understand it. I worked so hard every day trying to make money. I just started crying. I probably stood there for over an hour in tears. I had sold everything I owned. I went into debt thousands chasing money. I literally could not afford to continue. I had no transportation and just enough money for a couple days of food. It was all over.
That was my FTE. It wasn’t that I hated working for someone else. It wasn’t that I hated my job. My FTE was that I had put myself and my family in a position where we could not survive. I thought that if I just tried hard enough it would work out. If I just sold enough ads or websites I would make money. I had read about all of these success stories and it seemed so simple.
At that moment I realized that my entire thought process was screwed up. I had been going about this in the worst way. I had risked everything on a dream and failed miserably.
I didn’t know how I was ever going to crawl out of that situation. I promised myself at that moment I would never put myself and my family in this situation ever again.
That night I decided I had to get a job. I called my sister and told her my story. She sent me a few hundred dollars to get my car fixed and to help us out while I looked for work.
I found work within a couple days. I got caught up on my debt. The rest is history.
Fast forward to now.
Today I own a successful web development company. I have a team of full time employees and a bunch of amazing clients. I call the business successful not because I never have to work again. On the contrary, I work a lot. I'm successful because I get to build awesome applications for amazing people and I make more money than I ever dreamed possible.
Of course my goals are ever moving and after achieving this level of success I have even bigger dreams.
What happened in those six years is a books worth of events. This post is just a chapter of the story.
The details of those next six years doesn’t really matter. What matters is that I changed my attitude from making money to helping people. Once I realized that the goal is not to make money but to help as many people as you can the world changed for me.
Before I could help anyone I had to take care of myself first. If I couldn’t help myself I was not in any position to help others.
I wanted to share this FTE with everyone. Hopefully it might resonate with one of you and help in your current situation.
If I knew then what I know now I would not have made the same mistakes. But then I would not have experienced such a life changing FTE. An event that I think about every single day. A FTE that has driven me to this level of success and will continue to drive me to achieve greater and greater goals.
It’s nice to meet all of you and I look forward to learning and mentoring on this forum
- Mark
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