Lots of new faces here since I was active. What's your why?

[Kak]

My why comes from a place of thankfulness.

I am blessed with the propensity to conduct business. I can't even believe that just taking all of this one day at a time has allowed me to be a part of the things I am.

This is what I was made for. Anything less than the perpetual exiting my comfort zone in support of continuous advancement is not living up to what I believe is my full potential.

Benjamin Franklin said most people die at 25, We just don't bury them until they are 70.

Solomon in the book of Proverbs said without vision, the people perish.

We all know someone that has tossed vision away for television and alcohol. Tossed ambition away for what is comfortable. Young people in their 30s and 40s giving up. The people who won't even look for a better job let alone start a business. The people who never leave their home country their entire lives. A safe existence that lands them in a subsudized nursing home waiting a few miserable years to fully die. We are surrounded by death. Death of potential. Death of what could have been.

We are all born and subsequently led into a purpose. We have skills and interests. We are all different. I believe that we all have something to give that is bigger than us. To do this we have to keep pushing the envelope. Keep saying YES. Make your comfort zone a lot bigger. Thankfulness proceeds use not complacency.

In the process, at least in terms of business, I will have provided value to countless customers, income to countless employees, returns to investors and partners, and donations to countless charitable causes. Finally, I can sow into the next generation and build people up to do the same. Building something bigger than them.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

One word: Freedom.

Freedom from bosses...
Freedom from government...
Freedom from media indoctrination...
Freedom from financial strait jackets...
Freedom to pursue what's important to me, not what society says should be important.

Nice to see you Greg!

 

[Runum]

Way back when my why was my kid and raising her. We invested in real estate and had a small business. The kid grew up, the investments paid for her education. She has since moved to Hollywood and is actively pursuing her dream. Even though we had some bumps in the road, overall our strategies and planning worked.

Now I am in a different phase in my life and we travel a lot more often and explore more places. Still doing REI and redirecting business interests. Also reading Unscripted .

I am always curious about why others get involved in entrepreneurship. What is your why?

 

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[Vigilante]

Way back when my why was my kid and raising her. We invested in real estate and had a small business. The kid grew up, the investments paid for her education. She has since moved to Hollywood and is actively pursuing her dream. Even though we had some bumps in the road, overall our strategies and planning worked.

Now I am in a different phase in my life and we travel a lot more often and explore more places. Still doing REI and redirecting business interests. Also reading Unscripted .

I am always curious about why others get involved in entrepreneurship. What is your why?

Did you know that @Runum has accomplished more than most of us on this forum ever will?

Let me tell you how. Let it be a light to influence your "why."

@Runum picked the path less traveled. His impact is incalculable. The ripple effect of his "why" is immeasurable by you and I because we can count the immediate circle, but not the future generations. Not the mothers and fathers and grandparents and siblings and children and children's children to the 7th generation after us.

You see, Runum owned houses. Runum owned product businesses. Runum was an entrepreneur before I was. Runum understands how to make yourself unscripted .

But Runum's why runs deeper than his modesty. You see, he selected to do what you and I haven't. He went intentionally into the fire to bring people out of it. Runum is a school teacher, but not just an ordinary (extraordinary) school teacher. He picked the hardest school he could find. He picked the toughest, roughest school he could find. He picked the one most ordinary teachers might have passed on. And he did it intentionally. Part of his "why" is to reach the least of us. The hard cases. The underserved. The undervalued.

Day after day as the calendar clicks by he pours himself into them. He teaches them. He molds them, and he gives them hope. He wears crazy Hawaiian shirts because it brings them a smile, and when they smile he knows he can win. The kids love him, and he invests in their futures.

When people come here asking who has the largest bank account, they might just skip by Runum, and they'd be making a fatal decision, because Runum is worth more than me and MJ and most of the "famous" posters here combined. You're just counting wrong. You are counting dollars. Runum's investment has been in something different, and his success outpaces mine by a factor of 100:1.

You want to learn about scale? Try counting the scaling affect of changing the next generation. Impact incalculable. One life saved from the garbage heap is worth more than all the products I will ever sell combined.

I am proud to know a glimpse of his story, and thrilled that he has chosen to come back here for part of his next chapter. Everyone that reads this at a minimum should have him on their "follow" list and listen to what he says.

 

[Vigilante]

 

[MTF]

This might sound like I'm lazy and perhaps I am, but the main current reason (the past one was different) why I can't imagine any other lifestyle than Fastlane is because I love to have an open schedule.

I absolutely abhor when my day is filled with activities. I hate running from one place to another or attending one task after another. One of the worst types of stress for me is the stress of being in a hurry.

I absolutely love that I can live more slowly than the average Joe. I'm yet to learn how to truly slow down and savor every moment, but I'm slowly (ha, see what I did there!) getting closer to it.

The most beautiful thing about it is that when you learn how to live more peacefully, the simplest pleasures mean the world to you. You can actually notice them and appreciate them as a key contributor to your happiness and fulfillment instead of constantly seeking new stimuli just to feel alive (note that I have nothing against those who do it, some people need high energy and constant stress to feel good).

I do work, but I like to work on my own terms, early in the morning, and usually no more than 2-3 hours of solid, focused work worth more than 8 hours of pretending to work. Sometimes I have busier days, but I try my best not to have more than two such days in a row as they have a big negative impact on my mental health.

Fastlane allows me to live more slowly, be more relaxed, and I like to think that even if on a very small scale, I can perhaps transmit some of these feelings to the world around me.

 

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[ManlyMansNegator]

We are gifted a few decades in our life.... a few measly decades.

The question isn't why I , or anyone else for that matter, wouldn't work hard to escape the societal prison we find ourselves in.

No, the question is why wouldn't we.

 

[GPM]

To spend time with my family, and do all the things with them that humans should do. I have been amazingly lucky to be home every single day with my daughter, who is now almost 8 months old. I look at the other parents who were in our maternity classes together, and the dads spend almost no time with their child due to their demanding jobs, and they are terrified to do anything of any real responsibility with them.

I get to spend all day with my daughter, and it has been amazing. She has no idea, this is just going to be normal for her as she grows up. I wouldn't trade this for anything. I have been to every single doctors appointment, every checkup, every adventure. I have missed nothing. As she grows, I don't want to miss anything either.

We were at a friends house and he is a paramedic, he went and grabbed his work belt to show me and his little boy, who is almost 3, almost started to cry and says "Don't go work daddy!!". I don't EVER want this to be me.

Oh, and being able to eventually live anywhere in the world I want, drive any car I want, fly in any plane I want, go on any boat I want, and eat anything I want, at any time that I want, will also be a nice touch.

 

[Bekit]

My why actually started with dentistry.

My husband has a few broken teeth and a few missing teeth, gum disease, bone loss, etc. In other words, he needs a LOT of dental work.

All I wanted to do was be able to afford to get my husband's teeth fixed.

I think that was the stimulus that freed me from thinking that I should just be content with the money we had. I realized, "This is a legitimate thing for me to pursue, and if I can't afford it, then I need to raise my income. I am an intelligent, creative adult, I have a brain, and I have choices. So what do I need to do to make more money so we can afford this?"

Still haven't gotten there...

But after that kicked my brain into gear, wondering, "How can I make it so I can afford this," I later 10x'd my goals. Instead of just saying, "I need to raise an extra $15k for dental work," I'm looking at how I can create a system that will raise an extra $15k/month.

 

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[Andy Black]

To spend time with my family, and do all the things with them that humans should do. I have been amazingly lucky to be home every single day with my daughter, who is now almost 8 months old. I look at the other parents who were in our maternity classes together, and the dads spend almost no time with their child due to their demanding jobs, and they are terrified to do anything of any real responsibility with them.

I get to spend all day with my daughter, and it has been amazing. She has no idea, this is just going to be normal for her as she grows up. I wouldn't trade this for anything. I have been to every single doctors appointment, every checkup, every adventure. I have missed nothing. As she grows, I don't want to miss anything either.

We were at a friends house and he is a paramedic, he went and grabbed his work belt to show me and his little boy, who is almost 3, almost started to cry and says "Don't go work daddy!!". I don't EVER want this to be me.

Oh, and being able to eventually live anywhere in the world I want, drive any car I want, fly in any plane I want, go on any boat I want, and eat anything I want, at any time that I want, will also be a nice touch.

I hear you. I’ve been to all of our kids Irish Dance exhibitions on St Patrick’s Day in their primary school. I do the school runs in the morning, and the homework’s and dinners with them when they get home at 2:30pm.

I play outside with them till the cars come home just after 5pm and we go indoors because the road gets too busy.

I’ve taken all three of my sons to hurling camp this week, and been there early to watch each of them before it finishes at 2pm.

I’m less interested in building a massive fortune to leave them, than making sure they grow up UNSCRIPTED .


Don’t get me wrong... I absolutely love this game of business. I love the struggle. I love the process. I love trying to get over, around, or straight through the problems in front of me.

I love that I’m building the business I want, how I want - and that I’m not following anyone else’s blueprint. (I don’t take orders well... haha.)

There’s so much cool stuff I want to do in my business: create and sell courses online, teach digital marketing to local youngsters and get them helping local businesses, build some plugins and launch some SaaS products, grow a paid email newsletter, write some books maybe?, get my head round Facebook and YouTube channels, maybe even Udemy, build info-seeker funnels for stuff where I am not the subject matter expert, etc, etc, etc.

I get paid to do all this cool stuff? Pinch me quick.

I even enjoy the constant struggle to overcome procrastination, perfectionism, and shiny object syndrome - and keep chip chipping away ... every single day.

But at the end of the day, I have to be the man I want my sons to grow up to be.

I have to become fully unscripted .

I have to figure all this stuff out, otherwise I leave it up to my sons to do so.

 

[Luke Anderson]

I love this question because I take great pride in the fact that I am sitting here answering it.

My why is no small thing.

My whole life I haven't ever had the privilege or luxury of being in a position where I could worry about helping anyone but myself. I've been trying to survive the whole time and I got sick of it. I got sick of it some time back, but now I am ready to do something about it.

To best explain it I have to share a bit of my life story, so bare with me.

I was born to an alcoholic father, a damaged man who only acts out of self interest. My mother who mostly raised my sister and I, has battled with depression this whole time, resulting in days at a time where she couldn't get out of bed while my sister and I went to school hungry.

Just as I had reached high school at the age of 12, my Mum got a new partner. A couple of years later we all moved in together in a nearby neighborhood. This stabilized life for some time, enough for me to get through High School.

The year I completed high school my sister was molested by the very man who took us in. The night it happened we ran through the street in our pajamas to my girlfriend's house at the time for help. When we arrived her father answered the door to let us in and we called the police from there. As a result of all that, my Mum took my sister and moved town, leaving me at 17 to start looking after myself.

After this event, it gave my girlfriend the courage to confide in me that her father (the one who had answered the door that night) had molested her and her sister when they were much younger. I then supported her through that situation which really took its toll.

Finally, 4 years later, at 21 years old it was all wrapped up and I could start to get on with my life. I got an apprenticeship as an electrician and begun working. I had been bricklaying and concreting while everything else was unfolding, but now I was going to get a qualification. Unfortunately, all of the repressed issues from my life leading up to that point were beginning to catch up with me because I finally had time to catch my breath.

I ended up splitting up with my girlfriend and living out of my car while going to work. I would pretend to everyone that I was doing fine and all was well. At work I would tell my bosses I had to buy my lunch, so I would drive around the corner and sit there for half an hour before coming back because I had no money. I spent it all on petrol and drinking on the weekend to run from my issues.

One day I decided I would actually go and get something to eat for lunch. McDonald's was running a promotion at the time. A double beef and cheese was only $1. So I went to the car park and got out, opened the doors and started rummaging through all the rubbish to try find a dollar. It was a couple of 20 cent pieces and the rest were 5 and 10 cent coins. It came to 95 cents.

Now I knew dam well that I could bullshit my way out of that last 5 cents to the checkout worker, but that 5 cents was a tipping point. It was the straw that broke the camels back. I broke down. I couldn't move. It felt as if I was being punished by god for merely existing for 22 years and I couldn't take it anymore.

After a bit, I pulled myself together and I decided to go back to work hungry and use that as motivation to do something about it.

Unfortunately, my mental vulnerability mixed with a willing to do whatever it took to start thriving rather than constantly just trying to survive culminated in me making a poor choice. I went down the path of crime. I started selling ecstasy.

Becoming an ecstasy dealer ticked a lot of boxes for me at the time. Before that, I was a nobody and a nothing that lacked everything apart from insecurity. Being a dealer gave me validation from girls that previously wouldn't have noticed me. All of a sudden there were guys lining up to shake my hand and buy me a drink. I didn't have to worry about lines to get into clubs or how much money I had. I felt like a king.

This went on for a few years, but as it always goes with the going up, there is always the coming down.

Little did I know that I had become the focus point of an undercover operation over a period of 5 months. I was charged with trafficking a large commercial quantity of MDMA and ended up getting a sentence of 4 years and 6 months with a minimum to serve of 2 years and 9 months before I was eligible for parole.

On December 13th last year I completed that 2 years and 9 months which is 1,002 days. In that time I read a fair few books, 2 of which were millionaire fastlane and Unscripted . Another very notable book that helped me change my way of thinking was "Man's Search for Meaning" by Dr. Viktor Frankl. The best lesson learnt from that book was the power of taking responsibility of your actions and concentrating on what you can do rather than trying to influence external factors.

I used that 1,002 days to instill good habits and beliefs in myself that have sent me on a trajectory i never would have had the chance of heading on had I not ended up where I was. It really was the best thing that happened to me.

I am now signed up to mentor other prisoners who are reintegrating back into the community and looking to start public speaking to share my story and hopefully help others learn from my mistakes.

I am still only 28 and I am moving into the world of business now, which is incredibly exciting for me.

It feels great to get all this out, but I guess I need to be able to summarize my why in the future, so here it goes:

My why is to empower myself with the resources and ability to give others the wisdom and resources to be able to act in the best interest of themselves and their community as a whole.

Wish me luck! (but between you and I, I'm going to make my own!)

 

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[Guest921Y]

Hi there!

My backstory is that I was married, and mainly spent the last 11ish years raising my kids.

I have dabbled a little bit as a makeup consultant and have appeared in a few really small commercials. But just here and there. Nothing sustainable or big $.

Went through a divorce last year, and now at the point where my kids are starting to get older, spending more time with sports and friends, and I need a new challenge.

Financially, I’m comfortable from the settlement but it won’t last forever. I have no desire to do the 9-5 thing. I believe I was meant for more. A lot more! So here I am!

Nice to meet you as well!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[BlackMagician]

I 'was' always a Dreamer. Being a kid, i vision many things.
Creating a Remote controlled Skates.
Building something through which we can walk on Air.
Seeing a similar age kids who not able to have foods, i thought of growing up and earning loads of money to help them.

I even built things as a kid.
Created poison for rat using roadside plants.
Created low cost Bow & Arrow with aim function.
Flew a small kid bus with motors.

Visioned to have a library of mine. Every day, me, sitting on a rocking chair under a sunset and reading books to learn and explore the world of history, science, philosophy, mystery, universe, magic, religion, anything else. To understand what am i, why am i born, why is this world, what's the purpose, why pain, why happiness.

I visioned to be an inventor. To be known as someone who made a good impact in this world.

Then around 2009 i learned about INTERNET. I was 16 old. It was MAGIC for me. A real one. I explored. I become fascinated. My craving became big. My vision became bigger.
My dreams got possibilities. I started learning.
I learned about Google.
I thought of creating something to compete with google.(don't laugh)

Then i entered College. Computer Science. To make my dream reality. But...
Something happened.
Something started creeping inside me. SCRIPT.
Something started leaving me. My Visions.
Something was dying. My Dreams/Me.

I became lost. My thoughts became something which was not mine. And I knew that. I felt that. But was not able to change.

Then i graduated. I joined a job. 2 months. That's all it took for me to understand. This is not my life. This is not what i want. But. As usual, i was not able do anything.

my WHY, is bringing back my REAL self. To bring back my visions, my dreams. To get the freedom and control to dare to think to compete with google, even if it's joke.

Benjamin Franklin said most people die at 25, We just don't bury them until they are 70.

Solomon in the book of Proverbs said without vision, the people perish.

I died before 25. I am 25 now. And 25 will be the age i will be awakened.

I was Unscripted . Now again want to be Unscripted .

my WHY to get my REAL ME and achieve Freedom.

Story Ends...

 

[Kak]

Glad to have you back here @Runum

Fun fact: Runum was the first forum member I ever met in person! Awesome guy!

He convinced me to go to Beer and Pancakes in Phoenix. Which was the name of the unofficial summit at the time.

Another fun fact... at that time... 8 years ago or so... meeting someone from an internet forum was outside of my comfort zone.

 

[Deleted50669]

My why has many layers, but the strongest is that my single driver of happiness is autonomy. Having someone tell me what to do gives me anxiety (literally, I'm now medicated for it because it was giving me chest pain). My singular focus is creating an offering that gives me freedom.

 

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[Ecom man]

My why has changed multiple times over the last 10 or so years that I’ve been an entrepreneur. My why used to be to have enough money to pay the bills. That’s why I started, I had to have some more income or go and get another job.

Then my why changed to being able to work less hours at a job and more hours at home so I could see my wife and new baby more often.

5-7 years ago (don’t remember exactly lol) I quit my last “normal” job and my why became to try and build an empire.

3 years ago I moved cross country to Arizona. I hired someone to run the day to day operations of the business not long after and my why became enjoying this beautiful state with my little kids and my wife. I decided I didn’t want an empire business right now. I want to work a few hours a week and spend the rest of the time by the pool!

Every day when my oldest gets home from school at 2:30 we all go swimming. During the summertime we all hop in the pool at least 2 times a day if not 3...

My “why” for the foreseeable future is to be able to spend as much time as possible with my family. When they grow up... maybe I’ll build that empire.

 

[Primeperiwinkle]

Thank you for asking this. It’s so easy to get bogged down with the hard middle stuff and forget about the end goal.

My why is to have more time with my kids, to homeschool them if possible. It seems counterintuitive because owning a business takes up a crapload of time but.. at least it’s time spent moving towards that goal.

Since joining the forum I’ve tripled my income at my small service-based business and started a new online marketing venture, learning at night and on the weekends. I have one client so far.

On one hand, I feel like such a pos for not moving faster.. on the other, at least I HAVE been going forward. Anyhoo.. welcome back to the forum dude. It’s always encouraging to have the heavy hitters care about the newbies.

 

[socaldude]

I do remember your username back when you were a moderator. Good to see you back.

Hard to believe I joined this forum 7 years ago when I was 20.

My "why" is freedom from jobs, bosses and poverty.

I want to master the game of business and economics so I can be generous to other people.

I believe business and economics is governed by first principles that can be learned and taught and which can be used to arrive at complex insights and opportunities that are worth taking a "bet" or "gamble" on.

As we all know, it's a cold heartless economic system out there. Nothing is free and generosity is rare. You have to strive to be valuable to a market. I want to master that game then turn around and be generous.

I did not start to make money until I started reassessing the principles in my mind causing wrong decisions and insights in business. One of the reasons failure is important because it sparks the reassessment of principles in your mind.

 

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[Runum]

Wow......a member from ancient times......2007. Was still in my mid-20s back then, about to quit my job to go to a crappy art school.

LOL. I imagine some of our members were in elementary or middle school when this forum began. It is cool to see it has grown from where it began but that first year of fastlane posts were magical. I learned so much from all these new friends on the interwebs back in the dark ages.

 

[mdivljina]

My why is financial independence, I'm 19 years old and I just don't see myself in literally a traffic slowlane at 7:30 in the morning. I've been caught up in it a few times since I got to get my college classes at 8:00 and to me that's just disgusting. When I graduate in 2.5 years I want to have a viable business that's going to allow me to sleep through a traffic rut and grab a coffee at the center of Zagreb, Croatia without any hassles in the traffic. Silly isn't it? But definitely keeps me going!

 

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[Timmy C]

Thankless jobs.
I hate Being told what to do.
I hate being Underappreciated and being a cog .
No control over my future, I mean really you dont have any in the slowlane, well thats been my experience.
Freedom from trading 5 for 2.

A whole bunch of freedom really and I find it more Interesting.

 

[ZCP]

I change lives every day. My why is the freedom to be able to do that.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Agree with all of these except the 2nd one.

I'm not suggesting not to pay taxes, licenses and all other government BS.

They are necessary evils. Do what is required and that is it.

I view the government like the dentist: the more you take care of your teeth, floss, and brush, the less you need to you see him.

We all know someone that has tossed vision away for television and alcohol. Tossed ambition away for what is comfortable. Young people in their 30s and 40s giving up. The people who won't even look for a better job let alone start a business. The people who never leave their home country their entire lives. A safe existence that lands them in a subsudized nursing home waiting a few miserable years to fully die. We are surrounded by death. Death of potential. Death of what could have been.

Well said, featured post+!

 

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[ZF Lee]

Way back when my why was my kid and raising her. We invested in real estate and had a small business. The kid grew up, the investments paid for her education. She has since moved to Hollywood and is actively pursuing her dream. Even though we had some bumps in the road, overall our strategies and planning worked.

Now I am in a different phase in my life and we travel a lot more often and explore more places. Still doing REI and redirecting business interests. Also reading Unscripted .

I am always curious about why others get involved in entrepreneurship. What is your why?

Great to see you!

I was wondering where you went.

Still remember my first year around here, when I was running around posting shit like a wantrapreneur.
You told me to lay off the posting and do something better.

Took me some time, but I did.
I'm now working on freelancing, with plenty of projects to write for and markets to learn about.

Really appreciate the time you took to call me out.

As for my why?

Back then, I just wanted to find a way to help me get rich quickly, to take myself and my girl out of the blasted system of education and jobs.

Now, I have come to understand that Fastlane and UNSCRIPTION is simply a bigger picture of how jobs and education are run. It's not that having a 9-5 or a college degree are evil. It's just that they are means to supply enterprises with the talent it needs to produce great products and services.

If I and my girl want more that the system can't give, we need to make our own business systems, and do some things differently than the regular folks. And that needs learning and improvements.

In other words, I'm in the Fastlane to prioritise learning and improvement over just taking the money and running away from the SCRIPT lol. I also hope to impart what I picked up to my girl, as I'm tired of hearing about the boy practices of 'laying em chicks' and some other Sidewalk dating rubbish. I need to provide value to my girl, that changes her life.

 

[John F.]

One word: Freedom.

Freedom from bosses...
Freedom from government...
Freedom from media indoctrination...
Freedom from financial strait jackets...
Freedom to pursue what's important to me, not what society says should be important.

All of this, plus some.

I am building a business focused on fighting aging. I don't want to make people immortal. I want to help them, and myself, live healthier for longer. I saw too many loved ones suffer through the final decades of their lives not being able to enjoy the things they really wanted to. I want to fix that.

Aging well can solve many social issues. Reducing the cost of healthcare for older people alone will dramatically impact our society in an extremely positive way. I want to be a part of that.

 

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[jesseissorude]

I've been thinking about this thread for a while now. It's hard to put my why into words, but here goes:

No one is guaranteed another day.

• An ex-girlfriend of mine was diagnosed with cervical cancer 4 days ago (she's only 25).
• A friend of mine died of cervical cancer 2 years ago at 24. She was a famous musician that participated in a lot of charity work with children. Then boom... after diagnosis, she was dead within 9 months.
  
• My uncle worked hard and saved all his life. A year after retirement he began to show symptoms of Parkinson's Disease. In 3 short years, his quality of life has deteriorated massively. (He went out golfing with my dad this past weekend and collapsed on the course.)
• My girlfriend's mom just retired earlier this year. 2 weeks ago she finds out her kidneys may be shutting down.
• I could go on

Meanwhile, if I died today (at 36), I think my last thoughts would be "Well, that was a waste."
I'm proud of the charity work I've done, but other than that all I have are regrets of opportunities missed.

I've worked fairly hard all my life, saving like crazy for retirement. But after a couple layoffs, I have only 11k in Roth IRA.
I've come up with some great ideas/systems/designs that added value for my employers. But after leaving those companies, I have no assets of my own.
I've scrimped and saved on luxuries because I value the security of a hefty savings account. But after my most recent layoff, I'm eating rice and beans out of necessity instead of thriftiness.

I feel like I've done everything "right", but I ultimately have nothing to show for it.

My why:
Cultivate ultimate freedom.

• Life is absurd. I want to have freedom to treat it as such. I want to run a business like an art project if I want to. With FU money, no one can tell me that I'm making silly decisions, because I will have proven that I am an expert at creating value.
• I only get one body. I want to find out what mine can do. I won't let my life choices be limited by a body that I've neglected. ("Hiking up, then paragliding off the Alps? Sorry, I ate Captain D's for 20 years. Pass.")
• I only get one mind. I want to have ultimate focus and intellect at the snap of a finger. I won't focus it on consuming only entertainment, or finding outrage porn on cable news. I will be a lifelong learner.
• I want to have no guilt about spending on things/experiences that make me truly happy. If money is tight, it closes off so many of life's opportunities to me. Right now, I can't spend a dime on anything that's not helping me build income, and it really sucks to live like that.
  Further, I won't buy shit just to impress others. I'll spend for me.
• Help people less fortunate than I am. People living at the margins of society (elderly, poor, sick, uneducated, abused, etc) have less opportunities than I do. Yes, a portion of them have dug themselves into that hole, but there is a segment of the country wants to believe it's ALL those people's fault they live that way. I've been fortunate enough to have been shown another path, and I'm duty-bound to go back and help lead others.

I want to distill my "why" down into a motto or something... but like I said, I'm having trouble fully articulating it.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk

Thanks to @Runum for making this thread. Good idea!

 

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[Jeff Noel]

Hi,

My why is simple and rather large:
To live.

I believe the "sidewalk" people are not living their life. I feel empty inside when I go to work from nine to five to earn my weeks of vacations. It's depressing, yet some people never question that lifestyle.

I want to live and I want to live fully. Not just watch people that made it with envy, jealousy and hatred like everyone else seems to be doing.

You cannot live if you do not have a purpose, and my purpose certainly isn't to get that promotion or to retire after 35 years of shitty mental conditions, even though I'm in a golden cage right now.

 

[Xeon]

Wow......a member from ancient times......2007. Was still in my mid-20s back then, about to quit my job to go to a crappy art school.

My Why........to make enough money so that I can solve many of life's problems, and to provide for my parents, earn enough to attract women......

 

[MakeItHappen]

My why is twofold.
1. I want to provide financial security for my family. For now that's my parents and siblings.
2. I want to have the freedome to life where I want how I want and money plays a big part in that.

Ultimately I guess for most people there why's will shift or change a little bit throughout there lifes, but money as a resource to fulfill/help with your why's is a constant.

 

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[Andy Black]

I don’t have a why - it’s just in me!

Personally, I always have to be working, selling, hustling, grinding. I don’t have a reason for it. I’m very comfortable financially but my genetics tell me to keep moving.

If you’re not working on something, you’re working on nothing which means you’re living on what you already made - that’s not good!

I suspect I’m like this too. When our kids are all grown up and when I’ve FU money in the bank, I’ll still be moving.

I like doing stuff. I like helping people. There’s always more people in the world that can be helped. There’s always more kids being scripted who could be helped.

It’s like the old coach down at the hurling camp I was at this week. He’s apparently been saying for years that he’ll retire next year. I see how much he loves coaching the littlest kids. I also imagine he thinks about the little kids to come, and how he wants them to get the best start.