I feel lost and high school is giving me PTSD. For real.

[Runum]

Hey there. If you visit my profile and read my introduction thread you may know I already struggled a lot with school and played with the thought of skipping high school. My situation worsened, never thought it even could.

I am in 13th grade (yup German school system is weird) and my performance at school progressively dropped. I used to have the best grades from elementary school to class 10, but since 2 years my grades got so bad. I honestly used to be very stupid. Got brainwashed by those TikTok Gurus (yup... I literally skipped exams and school, what I literally never did in my whole life) because I just felt so hopeless. I understood nothing and got lazy, I used my phone a lot and didn't listen or engage in the lessons. I had zero motivation. I wanted to drop out as fast as possible. Finally be free. Work for myself, being independent and making big money.

Now, at the end of the 12th year I woke up and realised it is extremely serious. Because you know, all my grades are counting for the last exam and my high school diploma. The pressure is almost unbearable, coming from all sides, my family, my future. As the German school system is quite shit, we rarely did a lot of tests and exams before, but now we get tons of homework, tests and we need to write 4 great exams in one semester - and we were not prepared and it feels like getting hit by a train. It is so emotionally draining and the stress is excruciating. I already f-ed up 2 tests this week - an E- in Maths and a D- in Biology. I learned hours.

I understand that I may sound like a crybaby, but I don't really care. I'd rather ask here for help than to a therapist that is either saying "uh-huh I understand how u feel" or "Oh man, here are some pills to make you feel better" and gets paid after that.

Now, what would you do in my Situation?

I want to have a Plan B. What should I do if my grades aren't getting better and I won't get the diploma or- a bad one? (a bad grade on the diploma is worth nothing so it's basically the same thing). Should I do apprenticeship? Important note - I don't want to live the 9 to 5 hell. I want to be financially independent. I was born to own a business, not to work my a- up for minimum wage.

I would be very thankful to anyone out there wanting to help me out.

Greetings from Germany y'all.

You may be 18 now but you still have a lot of growing up to do. You were given some ideas in your intro 4 months ago. I assume you have been out of school for the summer, what did you do with those ideas?

Sure school sucks and the work is a grind. It is so bad that it is affecting you emotionally. However, you are asking for the same process from forum members. You want instructions, a syllabus, or step by step guide to create a multi-million dollar business. I understand that is the only process you know. But, you were given ideas and not much was done with them. Creating a business is a different kind of grind and it sucks sometimes. You have to walk before you run. What is stopping you from taking your first business steps now and staying in school? You have to create a way to make your first dollar before you can make millions.

Have your read this thread? I do wish you well.

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[Johnny boy]

Thank you so much for answering, but as my mom always says... "Today you need diploma. Where do you get money from? No one will take you without a diploma... that's all that counts. And when you drop out of school, you'll have no good source of income! What will you do if your idea doesn't work out! You need a backup!"

okay listen to your mommy little boy. make mommy so happy for her little bestest boy. mommy knows best.

 

[Mikkel]

Honestly, from reading this thread I just see a bunch of excuses. You either want to make change or you don't. Maybe you're not ready for it, and that is fine. Not everyone is an entrepreneur. But the idea that Germany and their laws and beurocracy are so much harder is ridiculous.

If you can't get through a bit of red tape which 10s of thousands of people in your country have already done, then you would stand no change of starting a business in the most business friendly country in the world.

Starting a business is about solving people's problems. That usually means you will have to solve many problems before you can help others. Think of the beurocratic red tape in Germany as your entrance exam into the business world. If you can figure it out, you will be admitted into the school of business, and that is only the beginning.

Do what you want, I suggest finishing High School. You're basically almost there and you are no where close to being a successful entrepreneur.

While you finish your last year of school, start taking massive action on a business. Get a real feel for business.

 

[piano]

What are you going to do?
Drop out even though you only have like 10 months left? 10 months out of 13 years in total?

Even if you applied to drop out, you'd still sit there until christmas (Your christmas present will be having dropped out of school, think about that).

So really, you'd only save yourself around 7 months...
Also, you still have plenty of time to turn things around.
And you definitely don't NEED a perfect score. 3.0 is ok although I'd research more about it myself if you ever planned to do something STEM-like or medicin.

And what do I mean by all of this?
If you decide to finish school, why worry then? Just get to work.
Remove junk food, lack of sleep, porn, social media, drugs and whatever else might hinder you.
See this as your Endspurt.

What do you gain if you get perfect grades?

A good college?

And then?

A "good" job?

Okay you worked so hard, everything worked out, and now what? You make 100k a year?

That's less than $400 a day.

You can do that as a high school droppout.

Don't worry bro

He probably won't even make 60k a year.

However that's irrelevant for now anyways.

How do you know that he is even capable of creating a business from the ground up?
90% of people who come here leave within the next 3 months anyways because they can't bring themselves to take action.
Then, you have to consider the cultural and legal differences between Germany and the USA, which are big.

Don't get me wrong, I myself plan to drop out (and get the Realschulabschluss; "secondary school diploma") and I'm going to make it.
However the OP? He has nothing to show for yet.

So go finish high school @sofyan15 .
Who knows, the entrepreneur lifestyle might not even be for you (which is okay if you're not betraying yourself).

Oh, OP just replied to your text:

Thank you so much for answering, but as my mom always says... "Today you need diploma. Where do you get money from? No one will take you without a diploma... that's all that counts. And when you drop out of school, you'll have no good source of income! What will you do if your idea doesn't work out! You need a backup!"

Do you think he can live up to your masculine expectations?

(I'm not saying he can't, but right now OP seems very confused which is a questionable state/time to go all-in imo)

 

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[Andy Black]

@MJ DeMarco has a thread for teenagers somewhere. Please look it up.

He says to finish school. I agree.

 

[perchboy]

Well I suppose ur american, as piano already mentioned, the laws are way harder. German bureaucracy and so on. So the business thing is made hard. You need to declare EVERYTHING you do, even affiliate marketing. And it takes a ton of time.

I do invest a lot of time but school is not schooling.

lmao

@piano is probably shaking his head at this.

 

[Spenny]

Honestly, from reading this thread, I see a bunch of excuses. You either want to make a change, or you don't. Maybe you're not ready for it, and that is fine. Not everyone is an entrepreneur. But the idea that Germany and their laws and bureaucracy are much more complicated is ridiculous.

Exactly right. It's not an annoyance; it's an opportunity to have a barrier to starting. @piano is living proof you can do this.

A side note for school - it's not complicated. If I can go from being a D student to an A/A* student in 1.5 years - anyone can. You find out people are lazy and don't even do the bare minimum for study - they don't understand the concepts. People far more intelligent than me did worse. There are parallels in business, too.

I'm afraid I have to disagree that the education route is useless; you're using that to justify being below average. It's perspective.

Take your wooden house analogy. Whether it be business, fitness, study, or any skill - you're ripping down the old house and making a new one. You're improving.

My point is, you're not getting away from it by binning school. I'm not telling you to do school - do business, but if you don't even have the discipline to:

• Shut up
• Sit down for many hours and learn
• Ask the right questions
• Create working systems
• Be disciplined with time
• Not get distracted

Are you even going to get anywhere?

 

[MJ DeMarco]

70+ years ago storming Omaha Beach and having bullets fly by your head while watching your friends die gave teens PTSD.

Today, high school gives teens PTSD.

You should first stop mislabeling uncomfortable situations you don't like as a form of PTSD. Discomfort is a normal part of life, and certainly part of the entrepreneurial process.

Instead of "high school is giving me PTSD" reframe it to "High school is forcing me to grow and endure discomfort."

Perspective and narrative is everything.

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You can also deploy some simple mantras...

Here I endure pain today, so I can enjoy gain tomorrow.

 

[Nightwolf]

Okay so you want to be free and don't want to work 9 to 5. What skills do you have? What value can you provide?

You want to drop out because you are bad at school or hate it. Guess what, in business you will have to do a lot of things that are you are bad at and hate doing. You will have to do them either way.

Find/create a study system that works for you. You might sit at your desk for hours but the effective time spent learning might only be a few minutes.

And your mom's right. You will fail in business. How will you finance all those ideas? Borrow from your parents?

It's your final year anyway, just study smart and get good grades, consider it a learning experience for your future business ventures

 

[Johnny boy]

What do you gain if you get perfect grades?

A good college?

And then?

A "good" job?

Okay you worked so hard, everything worked out, and now what? You make 100k a year?

That's less than $400 a day.

You can do that as a high school droppout.

Don't worry bro

 

[Mind:Life]

The reason you need to complete school and get your degree is not to please your mom or the value of the piece of paper. It’s to prove to yourself that you can do it.

There will always be problems and challenges in everything you do for the rest of your life. The way you handle this one will Set the pattern for the rest of your life.

So no matter how difficult it is, and no matter how much you don’t want to do it, and all the reasons why you shouldn’t and don’t need to do it it’s time to make a decision to complete your schooling and set your life on a path that you will never regret.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

As I said in another thread, if I gave you 1M Euros to stop scrolling social media for 1 year, you would. You'd do it, and without issue.

The power is within you, question is, what purpose will drive you to access that power?

1M Euro's was enough.

What else would be?

 

[sofyan15]

Hey there. If you visit my profile and read my introduction thread you may know I already struggled a lot with school and played with the thought of skipping high school. My situation worsened, never thought it even could.

I am in 13th grade (yup German school system is weird) and my performance at school progressively dropped. I used to have the best grades from elementary school to class 10, but since 2 years my grades got so bad. I honestly used to be very stupid. Got brainwashed by those TikTok Gurus (yup... I literally skipped exams and school, what I literally never did in my whole life) because I just felt so hopeless. I understood nothing and got lazy, I used my phone a lot and didn't listen or engage in the lessons. I had zero motivation. I wanted to drop out as fast as possible. Finally be free. Work for myself, being independent and making big money.

Now, at the end of the 12th year I woke up and realised it is extremely serious. Because you know, all my grades are counting for the last exam and my high school diploma. The pressure is almost unbearable, coming from all sides, my family, my future. As the German school system is quite shit, we rarely did a lot of tests and exams before, but now we get tons of homework, tests and we need to write 4 great exams in one semester - and we were not prepared and it feels like getting hit by a train. It is so emotionally draining and the stress is excruciating. I already f-ed up 2 tests this week - an E- in Maths and a D- in Biology. I learned hours.

I understand that I may sound like a crybaby, but I don't really care. I'd rather ask here for help than to a therapist that is either saying "uh-huh I understand how u feel" or "Oh man, here are some pills to make you feel better" and gets paid after that.

Now, what would you do in my Situation?

I want to have a Plan B. What should I do if my grades aren't getting better and I won't get the diploma or- a bad one? (a bad grade on the diploma is worth nothing so it's basically the same thing). Should I do apprenticeship? Important note - I don't want to live the 9 to 5 hell. I want to be financially independent. I was born to own a business, not to work my a- up for minimum wage.

I would be very thankful to anyone out there wanting to help me out.

Greetings from Germany y'all.

 

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[sofyan15]

What are you going to do?
Drop out even though you only have like 10 months left? 10 months out of 13 years in total?

Even if you applied to drop out, you'd still sit there until christmas (Your christmas present will be having dropped out of school, think about that).

So really, you'd only save yourself around 7 months...
Also, you still have plenty of time to turn things around.
And you definitely don't NEED a perfect score. 3.0 is ok although I'd research more about it myself if you ever planned to do something STEM-like or medicin.

And what do I mean by all of this?
If you decide to finish school, why worry then? Just get to work.
Remove junk food, lack of sleep, porn, social media, drugs and whatever else might hinder you.
See this as your Endspurt.

He probably won't even make 60k a year.

However that's irrelevant for now anyways.

How do you know that he is even capable of creating a business from the ground up?
90% of people who come here leave within the next 3 months anyways because they can't bring themselves to take action.
Then, you have to consider the cultural and legal differences between Germany and the USA, which are big.

Don't get me wrong, I myself plan to drop out (and get the Realschulabschluss; "secondary school diploma") and I'm going to make it.
However the OP? He has nothing to show for yet.

So go finish high school @sofyan15 .
Who knows, the entrepreneur lifestyle might not even be for you (which is okay if you're not betraying yourself).

Oh, OP just replied to your text:

Do you think he can live up to your masculine expectations?

(I'm not saying he can't, but right now OP seems very confused which is a questionable state/time to go all-in imo)

Who do you mean by he ? (E.g) "He won't even make 60k a year" or "Do you think he can live up to your masculine expectations?" and what does OP mean?

 

[perchboy]

Thank you so much for answering, but as my mom always says... "Today you need diploma. Where do you get money from? No one will take you without a diploma... that's all that counts. And when you drop out of school, you'll have no good source of income! What will you do if your idea doesn't work out! You need a backup!"

Is your mom living the life that you want to live?

 

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[perchboy]

Absolutely not.

Then why would you take her advice?

You’re talking a big game about how school is pointless but you’re doing nish about it.

Grow some balls, stop complaining, and start doing.

Whether you’re in school or not you can still make money.

 

[sofyan15]

EXECUTION - Scaling a window cleaning company

It's been a while since I posted so I'll start this project here to provide value and mayhaps even some entertainment to the people here. Currently I have a big periode of action faking (or rather action avoiding) behind me, which was preceded by a failure. This failure can be observed in an...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

I am from germany and this a thread of my window cleaning business with which (and some ebay reselling) I managed to make a bit more than 1k take home in a few months. I am in also in grade 13 but its pretty chill for me (10 Punkte druchschnitt gerade).

If I can do it you can do it too, but you need to stop standing in your own way. If you want to get some advice and accountability, you can join the weekly fastlane videocall.
Just look up "Fastlane Call Megathread" and you will find info on the call this week on the last page.

Thank you a lot bro.

By the way, what would you recommend to "learn." because it is said a lot that you should learn, educate yourself. What do you think is meant?

I guess it's

social skills
how to sell
how to lead
hard skills?

 

[StrikingViper69]

Get rid of your phone (or get a dumbphone), get rid of social media and 100% focus your life on studying for these exams.

If you used to get good grades, you know you're smart.

Yes you f'ed up, but, if you work like a Korean you can probably catch up and do fine at the exams.

But you're going to have to work for it.

Then worry about job/business afterwards.

 

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[Runum]

Well, I can't do nothing more than agree to you & to you all. Yes, I am trying to look for excuses to make myself feel better and hell nah it doesn't change anything. I procrastinate. And I admit it. I just don't have that big bro figure anymore.

When you used to use excuses, do you also had the feeling of being totally ridiculous and stupid? That's what I feel like when I list all those excuses.

Good on you for accepting and agreeing with the observations.
You are in total control of your situation and are accepting responsibility for the hole you are in.
Now, what is going to change? Or, are you wasting our time?

 

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[sofyan15]

Good on you for accepting and agreeing with the observations.
You are in total control of your situation and are accepting responsibility for the hole you are in.
Now, what is going to change? Or, are you wasting our time?

Well, I deleted TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram and I have zero contact to girls, I cut toxic people off. Boom, Sleep schedule fixed. No more "one more TikTok it's just 30 seconds... Oh, it is 1 AM!" and "Imma just answer real quick" which ends into texting/calling till dawn. Next thing, fitness. I am currently working on this. I still watch too much YouTube, I guess to compensate that I stopped TikTok. Social media is devilish. At least I turn in my homework and participate way more in School lessons.

 

[DragoonDB]

Risk identification and minimization. That's the simple way to look at this whole thing (and for some of the responders as well).

1. Do you have a reliable, sufficient income stream to focus on now? (I'll answer this for you and most people that would ask this question in school - NO). If not, you need to complete school.
2. You graduate. Do you have a reliable, sufficient income stream to focus on now? If not, you find a job.
3. You have a job. Do you have a reliable, sufficient income stream to focus on now? If not, you keep your job.

You can work a side gig and grow your skills, and there may be a point where you pursue the side gig and make it full time.

Feelings are NOT a consideration. It doesn't matter if you don't like school. And it doesn't matter if you don't like a job. If you do not have an alternative, you work the appropriate next step.

Most of the people on here won't become multi-millionaire business owners (which may be a newsflash to some). And if you hold your breath on getting a job, working hard in a job, or investing because "I'm not doing that slowlane stuff" with your nose turned up - you'll find yourself holding onto a dream and no cash because you had an arrogant attitude.

Work the next best step always. Grow from there.

 

[Spenny]

I have ADHD (and no I am not trying to look for excuses) and it ended like that because of the natural low occurrence of Dopamine in my brain which is the reason it is tough to have motivation.

I do see the problem, but you can overcome it. I have moderate dyslexia; my two highest subjects were English Language and English Literature, with grades A* distinction (grade 9 in the UK grade system). Find a way of mastering your condition.

And motivation doesn't exist - discipline and doing what's right is real.

Edit: to give percentage perspectives, that is being in the top 2% of candidates in both forms of English.

If I would have listened to myself say "I'm dyslexic" I would have given up on myself long ago.

 

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[sofyan15]

As I said in another thread, if I gave you 1M Euros to stop scrolling social media for 1 year, you would. You'd do it, and without issue.

The power is within you, question is, what purpose will drive you to access that power?

1M Euro's was enough.

What else would be?

Well, my purpose is my family. Thanking them for what they made possible for me. My mom that never gave up on me going to a normal school no matter what the doctors said (He won't be able to do it, he is autistic AND he has ADHD...). My siblings always taking care of me, my sister buying me gifts all the time, my amazing dad. And of course, my sisters husband. I want to buy him his dream car. I don't care about the materialistic things. I want to have private insurance for everyone in my family and retire everyone that I love.

PS: I am amazed that even though you don't need to and probably don't have time, you still answer personally in my forum. I mean you already made it. My respect to you. Amazing work.

 

[sofyan15]

E

I do see the problem, but you can overcome it. I have moderate dyslexia; my two highest subjects were English Language and English Literature, with grades A* distinction (grade 9 in the UK grade system). Find a way of mastering your condition.

And motivation doesn't exist - discipline and doing what's right is real.

Edit: to give percentage perspectives, that is being in the top 2% of candidates in both forms of English.

If I would have listened to myself say "I'm dyslexic" I would have given up on myself long ago.

Exactly! You're a king fr.

 

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[sofyan15]

What do you gain if you get perfect grades?

A good college?

And then?

A "good" job?

Okay you worked so hard, everything worked out, and now what? You make 100k a year?

That's less than $400 a day.

You can do that as a high school droppout.

Don't worry bro

Thank you so much for answering, but as my mom always says... "Today you need diploma. Where do you get money from? No one will take you without a diploma... that's all that counts. And when you drop out of school, you'll have no good source of income! What will you do if your idea doesn't work out! You need a backup!"

 

[sofyan15]

Okay so you want to be free and don't want to work 9 to 5. What skills do you have? What value can you provide?

You want to drop out because you are bad at school or hate it. Guess what, in business you will have to do a lot of things that are you are bad at and hate doing. You will have to do them either way.

Find/create a study system that works for you. You might sit at your desk for hours but the effective time spent learning might only be a few minutes.

And your mom's right. You will fail in business. How will you finance all those ideas? Borrow from your parents?

It's your final year anyway, just study smart and get good grades, consider it a learning experience for your future business ventures

You want me to be honest? School is basically like gathering wood to build a house and then burn it down because the house should be made out of stone. The only thing you learn is how to build a house. That's with 90% of stuff that is useless and never needed anymore in your life. Look with a business it is totally different - you have a purpose and you do the hard work and discipline yourself because it is what you are made for. Because you have a goal. But school just teachers almost nothing. Uni is good tho.

 

[sofyan15]

Is your mom living the life that you want to live?

Absolutely not.

 

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[piano]

Who do you mean by he ? (E.g) "He won't even make 60k a year" or "Do you think he can live up to your masculine expectations?" and what does OP mean?

"He won't even make 60k a year"

In the USA people see 60k a year as average.
And for Germany, 60k a year is actually a really high salary.
To get a 60k per year job is quite hard.

"Do you think he can live up to your masculine expectations?"

By that I mean whether Johnny boy thinks that you can drop out of school and earn 100k a year.

what does OP mean?

Why don't you look it up? But regardless, it basically means "Original Poster" iirc, so basically the thread starter, you.

 

[Nightwolf]

You want me to be honest? School is basically like gathering wood to build a house and then burn it down because the house should be made out of stone. The only thing you learn is how to build a house. That's with 90% of stuff that is useless and never needed anymore in your life. Look with a business it is totally different - you have a purpose and you do the hard work and discipline yourself because it is what you are made for. Because you have a goal. But school just teachers almost nothing. Uni is good tho.

Okay let's see. Say you learn trigonometry in math. You wonder you are never going to ever need it again, so it's dumb to learn it. Sure you might not use the trigo formulae but you for sure are going to use the problem solving skills it provided you with. Everything you learn in school hit different parts of your brain training you to be a better entrepreneur.

I mean, even I agree memorizing useless things are pointless but even that increases your brains memory recall abilities.

And you say University is good. How are you going to get in with bad grades? And if you can't even handle basic stress of studies, you sure as hell can't handle the stress of running a business.

And why not discipline yourself in school itself instead of waiting to start a business as you say?

 

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[sofyan15]

In the USA people see 60k a year as average.
And for Germany, 60k a year is actually a really high salary.
To get a 60k per year job is quite hard.

By that I mean whether Johnny boy thinks that you can drop out of school and earn 100k a year.

Why don't you look it up? But regardless, it basically means "Original Poster" iirc, so basically the thread starter, you.

If you want me to be honest, I couldn't care less about Abitur (Diploma for the others) because it is just a sheep of papers with some numbers that are not defining you as a person. I 100% do it for my family, not because I want it. Well, if you have Middle Eastern parents, you know what I'm talking about.