I will log every day on my journey from <$1000 to $1M+ from 17 to 19

[Jerma]

When I read your posts, I can't help but ask myself, why are you in such a hurry? $1M+ from 17yrs/o to 19yrs/o is a bold goal. I mean, it's a good goal to shoot for if you have the right mindset, which I'm not sure you have. Otherwise, you are just setting yourself up for failure.

The optimalism ideal is not a distant shore to be reached but a distant star that guides us and can never be reached. As Carl Rogers pointed out, ‘The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination.' - Tal Ben-Shahar

Don't beat yourself up if you are having a few bad days. You'll have plenty of those if you want to get to 1M+. Your first business will most likely fail (That's the reality sorry). People aren't going to believe in you. Your friends won't understand. You'll have bad days. You'll make mistakes. Things are going to take way more time than you expect. But so what? You need to do it anyway. You win, or you learn. When I feel like shit, I remind myself that my situation isn't too serious. The important part is that I'm moving in the right direction everday. This last sentence might be unpopular on this forum but sometimes the right direction is to take a day off and recover.

 

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[RicardoGrande]

Just to jump in on the earlier discussion on freemium and scale...

Don't know if you've seen it, but there was a buzz about buying and flipping chrome extension businesses.
You could either buy and revitalize an existing one, or purchase an existing free extension and then pay wall it (booooooo).
It looks like you're sticking with your long-term plan, but if you have 1000 quid that's burning down every day and want some momentum, taking a small risk with something like that may be up your alley due to it's small biz-end scale but potentially large target market (chrome extension store).

 

[krypticsilver]

When I read your posts, I can't help but ask myself, why are you in such a hurry? $1M+ from 17yrs/o to 19yrs/o is a bold goal. I mean, it's a good goal to shoot for if you have the right mindset, which I'm not sure you have. Otherwise, you are just setting yourself up for failure.

Don't beat yourself up if you are having a few bad days. You'll have plenty of those if you want to get to 1M+. Your first business will most likely fail (That's the reality sorry). People aren't going to believe in you. Your friends won't understand. You'll have bad days. You'll make mistakes. Things are going to take way more time than you expect. But so what? You need to do it anyway. You win, or you learn. When I feel like shit, I remind myself that my situation isn't too serious. The important part is that I'm moving in the right direction everday. This last sentence might be unpopular on this forum but sometimes the right direction is to take a day off and recover.

Absolutely a good question, I definitely understand that the goal is kinda ridiculous, but I'd really like to shoot for it and see what happens and I feel very prepared to put in all the effort I think it will require. I think I just really wanted to undertake and adventure that excites me and would really push me. Also interesting is that contrary to what I hear people saying a lot, most people around me seem quite supportive of my ideas to be honest, might just be because I'm younger and they don't want to "break the news" to me, maybe not. There are a lot of people around me who appear to be behaving differently to the general expectations of "society". I have another friend who also subscribes to the "Fastlane" way of thinking, so that's not too bad either in all honesty.

If my business fails, big deal. Even if I'm dead broke and have to work a low paying job to support myself I'll still have more creature comforts than kings did 300 years ago. I think it also may be difficult to gauge whether I have the right mindset or not from just these posts, I suppose only time will tell. If I don't have the right mindset, then I'd definitely want to build it anyway so it's kind of a paradox. I'm not really sure what the "right" mindset is either to be honest, I mean I feel very motivated to work hard on this now while it's still very low risk as I completely despise the idea of having a mortgage and being forced to spend my most valuable asset(time) and energy somewhere that I have limited choice over. I've definitely put lots of effort into other things before as well like school and exercise. What do you think the right mindset is?

Yeah, I'm sort of just taking a bit of a break at the moment tbh also. Thanks for responding, your thoughts are appreciated.

 

[krypticsilver]

Just to jump in on the earlier discussion on freemium and scale...

Don't know if you've seen it, but there was a buzz about buying and flipping chrome extension businesses.
You could either buy and revitalize an existing one, or purchase an existing free extension and then pay wall it (booooooo).
It looks like you're sticking with your long-term plan, but if you have 1000 quid that's burning down every day and want some momentum, taking a small risk with something like that may be up your alley due to it's small biz-end scale but potentially large target market (chrome extension store).

Hmm. I'm sort of getting the feeling that this might violate the commandment of need tbh, it seems like it could be a get rich easy scheme(I'm not certain though). I think I'd rather just play to my strengths and keep working on this project for the time being. If I had experience in chrome extensions before and was more interested I'd check it out for sure though.

I wouldn't say that the money I have is "burning" down every day either seeing as it's invested into mixed high yield dividend and diversified growth stocks(I want to invest some of it in crypto but the accounts you can open are limited at this age).

 

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[krypticsilver]

Who would compile and moderate it? Paid employees? Have you considered setting up a market where anyone could compile these summaries, get paid for each download, and a rating system could be the quality control? Perhaps you can charge by the book rather than a flat monthly fee, or have both options. Setting up a market like that might be a chicken and egg problem, but I'd imagine it would be very expensive getting enough material from paid employees to justify anyone paying $20/month or so.

For every major book out there, you can buy a summary version that some rando wrote for just a few bucks (Example: Amazon.com: [KEY SUMMARY] The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime (Top Rated 30-min Series) eBook : Woods, Chris: Kindle Store). Would this be different?

I have been considering launching the database of ideas separately as an open source project that has an API that anyone can use and get access to, then develop their own products separately if they want. This would make the project controlled similarly to Wikipedia, I like this solution as it makes the quality of the ideas tend towards perfection. Alternatively I could spend time personally and potentially hire others to help.

Yep, I'm def going to make a feature where people can add their own ideas. It also seems like a great ideas as you mention to have ratings for them and have some sort of algorithm that decide which ones to recommend(like YouTube).

I think the price I can charge depends a lot on who I'm targeting to and how specific I'm targeting them, when the potential benefits are explained I don't think $20 seems unreasonable personally.

I do also think that the example you mentioned is very different in the following ways:
- There is no revision system so unless your actively going back to the book and re-reading then it is likely you will forget things, the app ideally solves this through active recall methods in the app and notifications/widgets outside
- The content is still relatively bloated/spread out IMO and doesn't cut down to just what you need to know, allowing the information to be consumed in seconds.
- You would have to buy a book summary for many, many books compared to compete with one subscription of the app for potentially 10s of 1000s of books with the app(are you really going to buy a summary for the best books on everything?)
- Ideas in the app can be accessed in seconds reliably and will have a convenient way for storing them, whereas summary books might take longer, especially as the structure and organisation may vary between books
- There is no way of knowing that what you're reading works with summary books, books can get good ratings because they seem like they're useful or are entertaining, the app works on giving ideas ratings after they've been used after a pre-determined time-frame, ensuring that they work.
- The content in the books is only sorted by the book or the point of it, meaning that content will be repeated if you have multiple book summaries, in the app there will be no duplicate information and just the linking between ideas.
- Like you said also, a "rando" wrote it, there is no system of trust or guarantee that what you get will work, the review feature of the ideas in the app should help with this

I hope this clears things up, but if not I might have a hard time explaining this to potential customers :/ I'm obvs also very biased in this and have a lot of emotional investment since I've worked so much on it so I might not be seeing things as clearly as I could be.

 

[Jerma]

Hey, today was Saturday and I didn't really do much. I think I have a lot of mental barriers(anxiety, depression, social issues and focus issues potentially, due to a bad RNG childhood) to get through before I can start doing all the more mentally intensive stuff that I want to do

Today sucked pretty hard to be honest.

Damn, today sucked, feeling depressed sucks :| Didn't do much honestly; all the more reason to double down on my efforts and really pull this out of the bag. If I manage to really get a grip on this situation I can guarantee that it will feel awesome just because of how bad things are now.

What do you think the right mindset is?

I explained what the right mindset is. It just seems to me that you are on like, what? day 5? A third of your post talks about how you are straight-up miserable. That makes me concerned about your mindset. Suppose you compare your present situation with your goal situation or your perfect imaginary self with your current self. That leads to depression (I suspect you are doing this, but ultimately I don't know). On the other hand, comparing your current self to your past self leads to enjoying the process of improving a little each day. You need to learn to enjoy the grind!

Also interesting is that contrary to what I hear people saying a lot, most people around me seem quite supportive of my ideas to be honest, might just be because I'm younger and they don't want to "break the news"

Probably because your friends haven't given up on their dreams (yet). Maybe the adults in your life think you'll grow out of it.. OR you have great people around you and that's great.

 

[krypticsilver]

I explained what the right mindset is. It just seems to me that you are on like, what? day 5? A third of your post talks about how you are straight-up miserable. That makes me concerned about your mindset. Suppose you compare your present situation with your goal situation or your perfect imaginary self with your current self. That leads to depression (I suspect you are doing this, but ultimately I don't know). On the other hand, comparing your current self to your past self leads to enjoying the process of improving a little each day.


Probably because your friends haven't given up on their dreams (yet). Maybe the adults in your life think you'll grow out of it.. OR you have great people around you and that's great.

You definitely made some good points however I think misery and the Entrepreneurial mindset are not mutually exclusive and I can fix the misery part and just be left with the rest which seems cool. You are probably right about the comparison thing as well tbh.

Yeah I think most people in my life actually are great people which I'm super lucky to have.

 

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[Jerma]

You definitely made some good points however I think misery and the Entrepreneurial mindset are not mutually exclusive and I can fix the misery part and just be left with the rest which seems cool. You are probably right about the comparison thing as well tbh.

Yeah! That's great. You can totally do that. Me telling you that I think your mindset needs some work isn't a condemnation or a final judgement. If something isn't working for you, you should change it. I'm sure you can do it.

 

[Tubs]

I have been considering launching the database of ideas separately as an open source project that has an API that anyone can use and get access to, then develop their own products separately if they want. This would make the project controlled similarly to Wikipedia, I like this solution as it makes the quality of the ideas tend towards perfection. Alternatively I could spend time personally and potentially hire others to help.

Yep, I'm def going to make a feature where people can add their own ideas. It also seems like a great ideas as you mention to have ratings for them and have some sort of algorithm that decide which ones to recommend(like YouTube).

I think the price I can charge depends a lot on who I'm targeting to and how specific I'm targeting them, when the potential benefits are explained I don't think $20 seems unreasonable personally.

I do also think that the example you mentioned is very different in the following ways:
- There is no revision system so unless your actively going back to the book and re-reading then it is likely you will forget things, the app ideally solves this through active recall methods in the app and notifications/widgets outside
- The content is still relatively bloated/spread out IMO and doesn't cut down to just what you need to know, allowing the information to be consumed in seconds.
- You would have to buy a book summary for many, many books compared to compete with one subscription of the app for potentially 10s of 1000s of books with the app(are you really going to buy a summary for the best books on everything?)
- Ideas in the app can be accessed in seconds reliably and will have a convenient way for storing them, whereas summary books might take longer, especially as the structure and organisation may vary between books
- There is no way of knowing that what you're reading works with summary books, books can get good ratings because they seem like they're useful or are entertaining, the app works on giving ideas ratings after they've been used after a pre-determined time-frame, ensuring that they work.
- The content in the books is only sorted by the book or the point of it, meaning that content will be repeated if you have multiple book summaries, in the app there will be no duplicate information and just the linking between ideas.
- Like you said also, a "rando" wrote it, there is no system of trust or guarantee that what you get will work, the review feature of the ideas in the app should help with this

I hope this clears things up, but if not I might have a hard time explaining this to potential customers :/ I'm obvs also very biased in this and have a lot of emotional investment since I've worked so much on it so I might not be seeing things as clearly as I could be.

It's a decent idea for an app to maybe grow your coding skills with, but I can't really see it working as a business.
Book summaries are easily found on youtube and on the rest of the web for free. You would have to make it very appealing to compete with all the free information already out there.

I'm not sure if you're having an app compile the summaries, or if you're planning to have people write them. Having an code do it sounds very hard. To distill a book down to its key points in a way that makes sense sounds like it would require some crazy smart AI.

You say there's no big competitor in this specific market. But when I look into it I found this
Best Places to Find Book Summaries

To me it feels like a very hard to execute business model, and for someone brand new to the game I'd recommend going for something more realistic to start with. I certainly wasted a fair share of my time(years) with huge ideas that I never managed to get off the ground cause they would require tons of upfront work as well as thousands of users to become profitable.

I only finally started gaining some moderate traction recently when I decided to work with more a more traditional business model.

That's just my two cents though.

 

[krypticsilver]

It's a decent idea for an app to maybe grow your coding skills with, but I can't really see it working as a business.
Book summaries are easily found on youtube and on the rest of the web for free. You would have to make it very appealing to compete with all the free information already out there.

I'm not sure if you're having an app compile the summaries, or if you're planning to have people write them. Having an code do it sounds very hard. To distill a book down to its key points in a way that makes sense sounds like it would require some crazy smart AI.

You say there's no big competitor in this specific market. But when I look into it I found this
Best Places to Find Book Summaries

To me it feels like a very hard to execute business model, and for someone brand new to the game I'd recommend going for something more realistic to start with. I certainly wasted a fair share of my time(years) with huge ideas that I never managed to get off the ground cause they would require tons of upfront work as well as thousands of users to become profitable.

I only finally started gaining some moderate traction recently when I decided to work with more a more traditional business model.

That's just my two cents though.

I'm working on a website that should provide more clarity.

 

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[krypticsilver]

Day 6 | Balance: $1045.55

Today was a lot better in most areas and I think I got a lot done. I definitely worked a lot on my mindset and getting myself into the right mind space for this kind of work. I'd say I worked for 5 hours on the website today and managed to do lots of other stuff like looking at getting a job.

However, I feel I've underestimated a lot how much work it is going to take to set it up, and there's quite a lot I still need to do. I've done a lot of the payment stuff and hooked it up to a domain name now, all I need is more product explanation.

I feel like I'm not explaining well enough what the product does or how it works to be honest, so I might just have to wait until I finish the website and then I'll share it. The product is not meant to replace book summaries.

It would also be good to hear from some people that have made successful businesses(especially SAAS, internet and other software related products) as well to see what they think.

Tomorrow I think I'll just work more on the website and try and get more done. I've also broken back over the $1000 threshold and am excited to see how much father I can go.

All the best.

 

[krypticsilver]

Day 7 | Balance: $1,043.99

Hmm basically just worked on the website more and looked in to some taxes stuff.

Tommorow I'd really like to finish the UI Designs for the explanation of the product.

I'd like to get some pre-orders by the end of this week as well.

 

[krypticsilver]

Day 8 | Balance: $1,045.47

Decent day overall. I think I mainly worked on my mindset and how I'm going to approach this problem most of all. I didn't manage to get the UI designs done like I wanted unfortunately, however I did apply to like 6 more jobs which was pretty fun. I think I'm quite intimidated by all the software and stuff that I need to actually make the UI's, so tomorrow I'm just going to set a goal for opening up the program. I'm also going to try and add individual buttons for PayPal/card on the website as well as that looks manageable.

I'm also thinking about going back to the $3.50 pricing. I will only need to get 35,000 paying customers for 12 months to get to the $1M mark. I'm also having fun reading $100M offers and I think that even if I apply 50% of what he mentions in the book I should be good. It's honestly such a good book and makes a lot of sense, definitely recommend to anyone wanting to read something about marketing.

 

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[Jerma]

Day 8 | Balance: $1,045.47

Decent day overall. I think I mainly worked on my mindset and how I'm going to approach this problem most of all. I didn't manage to get the UI designs done like I wanted unfortunately, however I did apply to like 6 more jobs which was pretty fun. I think I'm quite intimidated by all the software and stuff that I need to actually make the UI's, so tomorrow I'm just going to set a goal for opening up the program. I'm also going to try and add individual buttons for PayPal/card on the website as well as that looks manageable.

I'm also thinking about going back to the $3.50 pricing. I will only need to get 35,000 paying customers for 12 months to get to the $1M mark. I'm also having fun reading $100M offers and I think that even if I apply 50% of what he mentions in the book I should be good. It's honestly such a good book and makes a lot of sense, definitely recommend to anyone wanting to read something about marketing.

Cool man. You probably will need ads if you have a low price (or VC money). Having a high price is OP imo, which Alex Hormozi also often talks about. I could elaborate on that, but that's not really worth it at this stage.

I thought about your post yesterday, and I remembered this website/app Optimize . They sold something similar to your idea for 250$/year. Now it's free, and they upsell people into their higher ticket offering instead. You should check it out.

 

[krypticsilver]

Day 9 | Balance: $1,032.85

I honestly didn't get a whole lot done today, not even the small goals. I had to do a university open day sort of thing(lol) as well which took up a lot of time. Did do exercise for about an hour though and definitely worked on my mindset/mental health for a 3-4 hours overall which I'm really happy about. I definitely get a lot of analysis paralysis when it comes to doing literally anything or any decision which can be quite tiring so I'm really trying to work that.

The path that I'm taking to try and get to the $1M mark is sort of unintuitive and I have to solve other issues first before I can get there but I'm pretty sure that I will get there.

Tomorrow I just gotta open the website editor.

 

[krypticsilver]

Day 9 | Balance: $986.59

I literally did the exact same thing as yesterday. I did accomplish the goal and would like to do the same thing tomorrow but open a menu or something as well.

 

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[krypticsilver]

Day 10 | Balance: $991.57

Literally the exact same as yesterday but slightly worse. I'm doing the small goals things but with not much actual intention to carry on. I guess I'll try the same thing, to open the website again but I'll do it at least 3 times, so I have the opportunity to think about what I want to do and then start doing it.

 

[krypticsilver]

Day 11 | Balance: $992.52

I.
Did.
Nothing.

Really lacking motivation recently. I did at least do about 4 hours of work for someone. Just not really where I want to be right now.

 

[Harbourmaster]

This thread makes me smile like no other. GO @krypticsilver GO!

 

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[Jeannen]

Day 11 | Balance: $992.52

I.
Did.
Nothing.

Really lacking motivation recently. I did at least do about 4 hours of work for someone. Just not really where I want to be right now.

Some days suck. Some days suck so much that you will probably want to curl under your bed, cry and stop everything.
But when you have zero motivation, discipline will do the job. Your worst enemy is yourself. Learn to control yourself, as hard as it is.

Don't waste your time coding the whole thing before seeing if people are interested. Make a prototype on Figma. Make a landing page. Contact people, see their interest, collect leads and develop the product based on their feedback

I feel like I'm not explaining well enough what the product does or how it works to be honest, so I might just have to wait until I finish the website and then I'll share it. The product is not meant to replace book summaries.

Here are some resources about copywriting:

• Scientific Advertising - Claude Hopkins
• Ogilvy on Advertising - David Ogilvy
• Cashvertising - Drew Eric Whitman
• The Theory and Practice of Selling the AGA cooker - David Ogilvy
• Breakthrough Advertising - Eugene Schwartz
• The Ultimate Sales Letter - Dan Kennedy

You can find some of those for free online (DM me if you want copies). Bold ones are the one I think would be priority in your situation.

 

[Edgar King]

Day 11 | Balance: $992.52

I.
Did.
Nothing.

Really lacking motivation recently. I did at least do about 4 hours of work for someone. Just not really where I want to be right now.

If you want to be brimming with motivation, perhaps revisit your why, and stick them where you can see them everyday.

Start with your why. Then a goal. Then a plan so you're sure you're always sailing in the right direction.

Why do you want to do this? To travel? For your family? For your growth? Write out a strong why, and you'll keep sailing even in the harshest winter.

What SMART goal do you want to be the outcome from this? 1 million dollars? Make sure your why and goal align.

Plan? You could write out a high level roadmap of what needs to be done based on others who've already succeeded your goal. It can even be an outline. It's just so you know what you need to do to get to where you want to be. And you need to make sure it's mathematically supporting your goal.

Act. Act on your plans, and make sure your day to day actions align with them. This way, you know for sure you're going where you want to go.

Finally, you could cut a little back for a while to make achieving your goal more sustainable. Take care of your health, mental and all.

 

[krypticsilver]

Some days suck. Some days suck so much that you will probably want to curl under your bed, cry and stop everything.
But when you have zero motivation, discipline will do the job. Your worst enemy is yourself. Learn to control yourself, as hard as it is.

Don't waste your time coding the whole thing before seeing if people are interested. Make a prototype on Figma. Make a landing page. Contact people, see their interest, collect leads and develop the product based on their feedback



Here are some resources about copywriting:

• Scientific Advertising - Claude Hopkins
• Ogilvy on Advertising - David Ogilvy
• Cashvertising - Drew Eric Whitman
• The Theory and Practice of Selling the AGA cooker - David Ogilvy
• Breakthrough Advertising - Eugene Schwartz
• The Ultimate Sales Letter - Dan Kennedy

You can find some of those for free online (DM me if you want copies). Bold ones are the one I think would be priority in your situation.

Thanks for your advice and help <3 Yeah, I'm just using a website builder and collecting leads and stuff.

 

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[krypticsilver]

If you want to be brimming with motivation, perhaps revisit your why, and stick them where you can see them everyday.

Start with your why. Then a goal. Then a plan so you're sure you're always sailing in the right direction.

Why do you want to do this? To travel? For your family? For your growth? Write out a strong why, and you'll keep sailing even in the harshest winter.

What SMART goal do you want to be the outcome from this? 1 million dollars? Make sure your why and goal align.

Plan? You could write out a high level roadmap of what needs to be done based on others who've already succeeded your goal. It can even be an outline. It's just so you know what you need to do to get to where you want to be. And you need to make sure it's mathematically supporting your goal.

Act. Act on your plans, and make sure your day to day actions align with them. This way, you know for sure you're going where you want to go.

Finally, you could cut a little back for a while to make achieving your goal more sustainable. Take care of your health, mental and all.

Thank you. I think I will make a roadmap, I've made a few before and never really stuck to them but I think that's because they weren't realistic enough.

 

[krypticsilver]

This thread makes me smile like no other. GO @krypticsilver GO!

Thank you! I really want to get there!

 

[krypticsilver]

Day 12 | Balance: $992.52

Another day where I feel like I could've done more in terms of execution. The main thing I'm happy about however is the work I put into my mindset. I spent a bit of time journaling and thinking about all the stuff I want to do and have done and have come to the conclusion that most of my problems are caused by hidden extremely low self esteem which seems really obvious now but was very hard to discover, so I need to work on fixing that. I learned a few practices and spend some time practicing those and I'm happy to say that I feel at least 3x better and more relaxed today than I have in a few months. I think moving forward I want to keep doing that and might also see someone about it as well, as it seems very likely that it will be the thing that holds me back the most from achieving my goals.

Tomorrow I'd like to do the same sort of stuff, and also try and make a few more figma designs for the product, but the minimum goal is just to open figma up. I'm also working for about 5 hours, so I think I'm ironically going to get more done, just because when I have too much time I don't really know what to do with it, even if I plan everything out. I find that having scheduled things that you HAVE to do really makes you more disciplined with your time.

I feel like I really start fixing these problems I can do well as I've read a lot of books, watched a lot of videos and listened to a lot of interviews so I know what I want and what I need to do, I can feel the need to grind.

 

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[Sega Saph]

Man, I have read almost every posts in the thread and you know... I have some indefinite feelings about it. It looks like I waste my time but I got a lot of value from it. I can see the things which I must not do in term of doing anything.
So, thank YOU so much for this. Wish you a good luck and of course - NEVER GIVE UP! You are so lucky, boy. Fix your mental problems and you going to be okay.

 

[krypticsilver]

Man, I have read almost every posts in the thread and you know... I have some indefinite feelings about it. It looks like I waste my time but I got a lot of value from it. I can see the things which I must not do in term of doing anything.
So, thank YOU so much for this. Wish you a good luck and of course - NEVER GIVE UP! You are so lucky, boy. Fix your mental problems and you going to be okay.

Thanks dude, means a lot. I'm glad the thread helped you. I'm definitely gonna do it, and your gonna see me do it. <3

 

[Jerma]

I also like the thread. You remind me of my past self. I also got some bad childhood RNG, and I used to struggle a lot with my neurotic tendencies (anxiety, panic attacks, alexithymia, depression, low self-esteem, etc, etc). You also seem obsessed with knowledge and learning like me. Are you also somewhat of a perfectionist?

A significant difference between us is that I only got serious about my mental health and business in the past four years (I'm 31 now). So I'm a little envious of you for that. I think that's great for you.

During my 20's, I was chasing after a cushy big tech job instead ( FAANG - Facebook/Amazon/Apple/Netflix/Google ). When I finally achieved my goal, I had a complete mental breakdown. I had been running away from myself by grinding on this big goal for years, and once I got it, everything caught up with me. That's why I advise against focusing too much on the goal. The journey is far more important, but that's a lesson I had to learn for myself. Maybe you need to learn it too, maybe not. Without getting too philosophical, everybody has their own lessons to learn in their life. Sometimes they even need to learn it multiple times.

I feel like I really start fixing these problems I can do well as I've read a lot of books, watched a lot of videos and listened to a lot of interviews so I know what I want and what I need to do, I can feel the need to grind.

This might not resonate with you, but I'm putting it out there. Maybe it will help someone. One thing I wish I had learned sooner is that the real transformational experiences aren't in books, videos or interviews. There is some real value to those things, and they can motivate you in the short term, but it's like trying to cook a recipe with half of the ingredients.

To illustrate what I mean, during my 20's, I read a few self-help books. I knew about the platitude: "It's about the journey, not the destination," but that knowledge was inert for me. It had no impact. It was just a proposition that I knew about, among many others. That same line has a deep meaning now because I'm different now. I had an insight, and now it's a different type of knowledge for me. It's participatory knowledge instead of propositional knowledge.

One problem is that you can't really transmit participatory knowledge. You can try to translate it into propositional knowledge, but the meaning is lost in translation. Another problem is that it's easy to get "stuck" in always being in a propositional mode and always seeking more and more of it. Thinking it's going to solve your problems (half the time, it won't). School is mostly to blame for this IMO because they force students to learn and regurgitate propositions for years.

How does any of this help? I'll take the example of low self-esteem because you are working on that. I have been there too, and I have made a lot of progress there. Once I learned that I had low self-esteem, I did the usual and read a lot about it. I learned that low self-esteem boils down to having a harsh inner critic and negative self-talk. I quickly realized that knowing this changed absolutely nothing for me. So then I asked myself, "how can I experience high self-esteem"? I found those affirmations online, listening to them before bed for a few days. I don't think affirmations are like "the way to go" or are special. I was running an experiment instead of just filling my head with propositions, and trying to understand everything. And it worked; I got a few powerful insights that actually transformed me and boosted my self-esteem. I could tell you those insights, but they would just be propositions for you... but now I'm just repeating myself.

Hopes this helps

Keep it up

 

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[krypticsilver]

I also like the thread. You remind me of my past self. I also got some bad childhood RNG, and I used to struggle a lot with my neurotic tendencies (anxiety, panic attacks, alexithymia, depression, low self-esteem, etc, etc). You also seem obsessed with knowledge and learning like me. Are you also somewhat of a perfectionist?

A significant difference between us is that I only got serious about my mental health and business in the past four years (I'm 31 now). So I'm a little envious of you for that. I think that's great for you.

During my 20's, I was chasing after a cushy big tech job instead ( FAANG - Facebook/Amazon/Apple/Netflix/Google ). When I finally achieved my goal, I had a complete mental breakdown. I had been running away from myself by grinding on this big goal for years, and once I got it, everything caught up with me. That's why I advise against focusing too much on the goal. The journey is far more important, but that's a lesson I had to learn for myself. Maybe you need to learn it too, maybe not. Without getting too philosophical, everybody has their own lessons to learn in their life. Sometimes they even need to learn it multiple times.



This might not resonate with you, but I'm putting it out there. Maybe it will help someone. One thing I wish I had learned sooner is that the real transformational experiences aren't in books, videos or interviews. There is some real value to those things, and they can motivate you in the short term, but it's like trying to cook a recipe with half of the ingredients.

To illustrate what I mean, during my 20's, I read a few self-help books. I knew about the platitude: "It's about the journey, not the destination," but that knowledge was inert for me. It had no impact. It was just a proposition that I knew about, among many others. That same line has a deep meaning now because I'm different now. I had an insight, and now it's a different type of knowledge for me. It's participatory knowledge instead of propositional knowledge.

One problem is that you can't really transmit participatory knowledge. You can try to translate it into propositional knowledge, but the meaning is lost in translation. Another problem is that it's easy to get "stuck" in always being in a propositional mode and always seeking more and more of it. Thinking it's going to solve your problems (half the time, it won't). School is mostly to blame for this IMO because they force students to learn and regurgitate propositions for years.

How does any of this help? I'll take the example of low self-esteem because you are working on that. I have been there too, and I have made a lot of progress there. Once I learned that I had low self-esteem, I did the usual and read a lot about it. I learned that low self-esteem boils down to having a harsh inner critic and negative self-talk. I quickly realized that knowing this changed absolutely nothing for me. So then I asked myself, "how can I experience high self-esteem"? I found those affirmations online, listening to them before bed for a few days. I don't think affirmations are like "the way to go" or are special. I was running an experiment instead of just filling my head with propositions, and trying to understand everything. And it worked; I got a few powerful insights that actually transformed me and boosted my self-esteem. I could tell you those insights, but they would just be propositions for you... but now I'm just repeating myself.

Hopes this helps

Keep it up

Are you also somewhat of a perfectionist?

Definitely. It's 100% my least favourite and most problematic symptom of having low self-esteem for me as I can apply it to literally everything and it just devours time and energy. I do like having big goals and being ambitious to push myself to high standards, so I think when I do improve my self esteem significantly I'd like to preserve that, but in a way that functions based of trying to be the best I can, rather than feeling guilty and shameful for not being what other/I think is good enough.

That same line has a deep meaning now because I'm different now. I had an insight, and now it's a different type of knowledge for me. It's participatory knowledge instead of propositional knowledge

I think I understand what you mean. There is definitely a big difference between just knowing something intellectually and actually identifying with it and automatically incorporating it into how you interact with the world without much thinking. I'd say that when something is, as you say "participatory" you get more of a feeling about something in a certain way and it is more emotional(for me at least). I think it might also link to how we try and just copy what works instead of understanding why it works and the deeper reasons for that.

For instance, I know that trying to achieve perfection is a trap, that it doesn't really exist etc etc, this does kind of help but I still find myself thinking in perfectionistic ways, so I think what really needs to happen is for me to fix my low self esteem which causes me to be extremely harsh on myself, causing me to feel bad whenever I make mistakes.

An example I've heard(from propositional knowledge sources XD) is that if someone wants to become more spiritual, they might think "what do spiritual people do? Oh, they aren't materialistic. Maybe I should get rid of some of my possessions." Instead of actually looking at WHY people who are spiritual don't have possessions - meditation, introspection, etc. I.e. a top down rather than bottom up approach.

That's why I advise against focusing too much on the goal. The journey is far more important

Yeah, I think I do understand this one somewhat participatorily and I definitely feel the pressure to get to my goal of $1M, but I feel that right now the motivation is coming from the wrong place.

Thank you so much for this post, I think that hearing from someone who has been in a similar situation but has progressed from it and has some hindsight is invaluable and I hope that there are other people that can relate to this somewhat and get value from it.

 

[krypticsilver]

It looks like I waste my time but I got a lot of value from it.

Also really happy to hear this, I'm hoping that this will be a journey of many people.