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Vigilante
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If I could give you my OWN takeaways on my own story :
- Life is going to be messy. Expect problems. Not to the degree I have created them (God willing) but remember that drawing of the straight line towards a Lambo v. a messy crooked line? The path is seldom the manicured path you read about in the success books. There's a reason there's only a few hundred success books on the market at any given time.
- Drive hard, but on the big things, take your time. I allowed an external locus of control dictate the speed at which I made decisions, and I made bad decisions in haste. Slow down. If the deal is good enough, it can survive the extra time you need.
- Own it. Every single path I have taken, I have chosen. I have put myself into precarious positions. Sometimes that causes tremendous break through, so I am not afraid of doing that and I will do it again. I am about to do it again. Complacency and safety doesn't produce break through.
- Get great legal advice. Pay what you need to pay. Remember the phrase surround yourself with people that are smarter than you? I just negotiated the sale of a client's business, and his legal counsel was an imbecile (like mine.) Only by the grace of God did he walk out the door with a $2m check.
- Get cash upfront. I have watched @biophase sell a company or two for cash. For some reason, I have a tendency to give away my companies for a promise, and for a bunch more work. F*ck these workout agreements. The second company literally tried to F*ck me out of a second payment just to see what would happen. The client whose business I just sold? One wire transfer and OUT. Done. Game over. Cash in the bank.
- People suck. People on this forum suck (some, not all). People you might consider friends? Chances are, when the shit hits the fan, they suck. The people I chose to sell my first company to? Wow they were really terrible. I don't believe in the inherent goodness of people. I believe in the inherent goodness of God, but none of us are God. There's no such thing as trust when it comes to business deals. You have no friends. Take a protectionism posture. You know everyone wants a piece of you. Your job is to take care of you.
- When the shit hits the fan, clear your head. Wait until emotions subside. Lets say you get fired tomorrow. Relax. Go to the beach. Chill. Exercise. Decompress. The world can wait a couple days.
- As you may have seen above, there's a biblical example of the 7 years of harvest followed by the 7 years of famine. I can't tell you how much money I have poured through in my life. More than many of you have made. I have made a lot, and spent a lot. The 7 years of famine almost ALWAYS follow the 7 years of harvest.
- In my second exit, I screwed up what Mark Cuban did well. I missed the parlay. If you don't know what a parlay is, look it up. I will write about that some other time. In short, I should have taken the money from that deal and rolled it into an even bigger deal. Mr. Wonderful talks about his money being little soldiers that he sends out to turn into more soldiers. When you DO have a windfall, large or small, take it and turn it into something bigger.
- I concur with @Kak that solopreneurship (what a lot of us did 10 years ago here at the forum) is not really scaleable in Capitalism. Capitalism and The Millionaire Fastlane require scale, and it's tough to scale if you are not working on things that are bigger than you. Separating your time from your income requires a revenue system that needs to work 24-7, and on a scale to affect thousands. If I am a logo designer, I can't possibly design enough logos to get rich. However, I can employ 15 designers (thus the agency v. freelancer discussion elsewhere on the forum). Scale. This ties back to my businesses. My first one was me, an absentee "partner" with a few connections, a legal assistant, a couple of clericals and tons of subcontractors. My second business was literally just me until it sold.
- Never give up.
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