Terry Ouzounelli
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Confession: I never used to read books in my life. Ever! Well, that's why I was poor af I guess lol
I was born (and still live) in a very poor country and thus had terrible poison pens regarding money. And when I say poor, I don't mean the American poor: ''we have only one car and live in a two-floor house blah blah''... I'm not going to get into any more details about what poor means to us.
Besides that, I was a very good rat and followed the script step by step! That led me to get a ''good'' job (and a high-paying one for my country's standards). I was in that job for almost 10 years and I can say that my life was quite comfortable. I traveled twice a year, went clubbing twice a week and even dine at some nice restaurants a few times a month. However, as I was young, stupid, full of poison pens, with zero financial education, I used to live paycheck to paycheck and I thought that was normal. Actually, all of my friends were jealous and often told me how lucky I was that I had a job.
However, as time went by and as I was getting older, I started to feel miserable. I felt unfulfilled. I was a walking zombie. I executed my 9-5 job like a robot. I had learned everything about that job and I did it completely mechanically. I couldn't understand what was wrong. Everything seemed to be totally fine. My job, my health, my family. I literally had no problems. At least problems that other people (and even myself) could see.
I used to get the train to go to work and wake up at 6:30 am. But the job was relatively close to my house, so I didn't waste much time. I needed 30' minutes to go to work and 30' to get back home.
I don't remember my thoughts exactly, but I will never forget that feeling. Every day that I was getting back from work, while I was walking down the street, I felt extremely miserable. A negative feeling was filling up my chest. It was suffocating. Like I couldn't breathe. I was unhappy. I was feeling like a loser.
That was around December 2018. I started to search for ways to make money online, following a lot of Youtubers, taking some courses etc.
It was then when I started my first ''business'' on Amazon FBA. I made a few bucks, but nothing sustainable. At the same time, I tried a lot of other side hustles, like affiliate marketing, dropshipping, etc. Most of them failed.
Then, I had a brilliant idea. My country was completely uneducated, I mean financially. Spending hundreds of hours watching Youtube videos about entrepreneurship, reading business blogs and taking courses, I started to think differently and had a new mindset.
My idea was to teach all of these valuable things that I was learning to people from my country, in my native language. I started a Youtube channel and a blog, which surprisingly went very well! I realized that people were interested in this topic and followed me easily. I quickly got over 10K subscribers and much traffic on my website. At the same time, I made several courses, teaching people about entrepreneurship and businesses. I made my first sale four months later and then it went like a snowball effect. I kept selling courses and the more courses that I made, the more videos that I was doing the more I'd sell.
Until today, three years after I started this business, I have spent zero dollars on marketing and still make money. I rarely upload videos too. But I keep selling. In all of these three years, hundreds of emails and DMs from students or followers thanked me for opening their eyes and were telling me how much I've helped them think in a different way. I guess all of these are signs of productocracy, right?
However, I was still in my 9-5 job. In 2020 in the summer, I was transferred from that job to another one, that was far away from my house. I needed 1,5 hours to go to the job and 1,5 hours to get back from the job + 8 hours in the job, I was losing 11 hours from working on my business. Now I had to wake up at 5:50 am. Plus, the circumstances were worse there. I had to learn new stuff, new skills and execute difficult tasks, which I did not want to do! I didn't even want to listen. I didn't want to learn the new job. However, I was patient and stayed on the job for a few months.
Until that time, my business was doing good, but it was generating the same amount of money as my salary, sometimes 2x or even 3x my salary, but still it wasn't enough for me to take a huge risk and quit my job in such an unstable geopolitical environment and an unemployment rate of 16% that my country has.
In November 2020, my income exploded. I witnessed the asymmetric returns that Mr. DeMarco is talking about. My income was 5x my salary that month and the next month it got 7x and even 8x my income. My jaw dropped.
The business demanded more time from me (I still hadn't hired any employees or anything, I was doing everything by myself) and I was starting to have no time at all. I didn't even have time to reply to the customers' emails. Then, I realized that it was time for me to take a break. I was still afraid to quit my job, but I had another alternative. I could ask for a six-month off period, without getting paid and then I should get back to work. That's what I did. It is every employee's right and I was waiting for the approval. I needed these six months to grow my business and think about what I was going to do with my life.
However, on 4th January 2021, I was denied the six-month period off. They said no. That was my FTE. It was Monday. I quit the same day.
After I quit my job, I started working like crazy. Sometimes I didn't eat or sleep. I was working like 16-18 hours a day, but I needed to get ahead. I had lost valuable time.
However, my income started to decrease month by month.
Then I thought that it was time to expand my business. My TAM was 10 million people. My English is very good. So why the heck didn't I deal with the TUM (total unreachable market)?
I started the same process in English and it is still too early for results but I'm working on my new business every day (keeping the old one at the same time). The competition is insane out there, but there's a huge difference between reaching 10 million people and 7 billion people. It's a horizontal scale that I had to make.
The first book that I read by Mr. DeMarco was the Unscripted : Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship a couple of months ago and I was literally mind-blown! I immediately ordered the Millionaire Fastlane and I was all in! Now I just finished reading the Great Rat Race Escape and I ended up in tears.
That book was incredible. It described my life and my journey for the last three years. I am a pescatarian since I was 15 years old btw and I stopped eating dairy products the last two years. I am not a vegetarian neither a vegan. I guess there is no such definition to describe my dietary habits lol.
Anyway, that book is really awesome. Mr. DeMarco is known as a business writer, but in the storytelling parts, he nailed it! I mean this man is very talented. I am going to read every single book that he publishes from now on and I will be the first to order!
Thank you so much, Mr. DeMarco for helping me. Every time that I struggled or got let down, I read your books again and again.
Everything is possible.
If I made it, then anybody can.
I was born (and still live) in a very poor country and thus had terrible poison pens regarding money. And when I say poor, I don't mean the American poor: ''we have only one car and live in a two-floor house blah blah''... I'm not going to get into any more details about what poor means to us.
Besides that, I was a very good rat and followed the script step by step! That led me to get a ''good'' job (and a high-paying one for my country's standards). I was in that job for almost 10 years and I can say that my life was quite comfortable. I traveled twice a year, went clubbing twice a week and even dine at some nice restaurants a few times a month. However, as I was young, stupid, full of poison pens, with zero financial education, I used to live paycheck to paycheck and I thought that was normal. Actually, all of my friends were jealous and often told me how lucky I was that I had a job.
However, as time went by and as I was getting older, I started to feel miserable. I felt unfulfilled. I was a walking zombie. I executed my 9-5 job like a robot. I had learned everything about that job and I did it completely mechanically. I couldn't understand what was wrong. Everything seemed to be totally fine. My job, my health, my family. I literally had no problems. At least problems that other people (and even myself) could see.
I used to get the train to go to work and wake up at 6:30 am. But the job was relatively close to my house, so I didn't waste much time. I needed 30' minutes to go to work and 30' to get back home.
I don't remember my thoughts exactly, but I will never forget that feeling. Every day that I was getting back from work, while I was walking down the street, I felt extremely miserable. A negative feeling was filling up my chest. It was suffocating. Like I couldn't breathe. I was unhappy. I was feeling like a loser.
That was around December 2018. I started to search for ways to make money online, following a lot of Youtubers, taking some courses etc.
It was then when I started my first ''business'' on Amazon FBA. I made a few bucks, but nothing sustainable. At the same time, I tried a lot of other side hustles, like affiliate marketing, dropshipping, etc. Most of them failed.
Then, I had a brilliant idea. My country was completely uneducated, I mean financially. Spending hundreds of hours watching Youtube videos about entrepreneurship, reading business blogs and taking courses, I started to think differently and had a new mindset.
My idea was to teach all of these valuable things that I was learning to people from my country, in my native language. I started a Youtube channel and a blog, which surprisingly went very well! I realized that people were interested in this topic and followed me easily. I quickly got over 10K subscribers and much traffic on my website. At the same time, I made several courses, teaching people about entrepreneurship and businesses. I made my first sale four months later and then it went like a snowball effect. I kept selling courses and the more courses that I made, the more videos that I was doing the more I'd sell.
Until today, three years after I started this business, I have spent zero dollars on marketing and still make money. I rarely upload videos too. But I keep selling. In all of these three years, hundreds of emails and DMs from students or followers thanked me for opening their eyes and were telling me how much I've helped them think in a different way. I guess all of these are signs of productocracy, right?
However, I was still in my 9-5 job. In 2020 in the summer, I was transferred from that job to another one, that was far away from my house. I needed 1,5 hours to go to the job and 1,5 hours to get back from the job + 8 hours in the job, I was losing 11 hours from working on my business. Now I had to wake up at 5:50 am. Plus, the circumstances were worse there. I had to learn new stuff, new skills and execute difficult tasks, which I did not want to do! I didn't even want to listen. I didn't want to learn the new job. However, I was patient and stayed on the job for a few months.
Until that time, my business was doing good, but it was generating the same amount of money as my salary, sometimes 2x or even 3x my salary, but still it wasn't enough for me to take a huge risk and quit my job in such an unstable geopolitical environment and an unemployment rate of 16% that my country has.
In November 2020, my income exploded. I witnessed the asymmetric returns that Mr. DeMarco is talking about. My income was 5x my salary that month and the next month it got 7x and even 8x my income. My jaw dropped.
The business demanded more time from me (I still hadn't hired any employees or anything, I was doing everything by myself) and I was starting to have no time at all. I didn't even have time to reply to the customers' emails. Then, I realized that it was time for me to take a break. I was still afraid to quit my job, but I had another alternative. I could ask for a six-month off period, without getting paid and then I should get back to work. That's what I did. It is every employee's right and I was waiting for the approval. I needed these six months to grow my business and think about what I was going to do with my life.
However, on 4th January 2021, I was denied the six-month period off. They said no. That was my FTE. It was Monday. I quit the same day.
After I quit my job, I started working like crazy. Sometimes I didn't eat or sleep. I was working like 16-18 hours a day, but I needed to get ahead. I had lost valuable time.
However, my income started to decrease month by month.
Then I thought that it was time to expand my business. My TAM was 10 million people. My English is very good. So why the heck didn't I deal with the TUM (total unreachable market)?
I started the same process in English and it is still too early for results but I'm working on my new business every day (keeping the old one at the same time). The competition is insane out there, but there's a huge difference between reaching 10 million people and 7 billion people. It's a horizontal scale that I had to make.
The first book that I read by Mr. DeMarco was the Unscripted : Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship a couple of months ago and I was literally mind-blown! I immediately ordered the Millionaire Fastlane and I was all in! Now I just finished reading the Great Rat Race Escape and I ended up in tears.
That book was incredible. It described my life and my journey for the last three years. I am a pescatarian since I was 15 years old btw and I stopped eating dairy products the last two years. I am not a vegetarian neither a vegan. I guess there is no such definition to describe my dietary habits lol.
Anyway, that book is really awesome. Mr. DeMarco is known as a business writer, but in the storytelling parts, he nailed it! I mean this man is very talented. I am going to read every single book that he publishes from now on and I will be the first to order!
Thank you so much, Mr. DeMarco for helping me. Every time that I struggled or got let down, I read your books again and again.
Everything is possible.
If I made it, then anybody can.
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