Progress? Metal working business

[Fordfarmer123]

Been a long time since I have posted on this forum.
My mother passed away from cancer so I took a high paying welding job to support my wife and I.
I'm currently working 48 hours for my JOB and my good friend owns a 20,000sqft machine shop he offered to let me 2,000SQFT of unused space.
Well I landed my first contract (SMALL) and my friend is going through a divorce and doesn't have the time to get his cars out of the space he said I could use.
So I am left with a contract with a deadline that I took thinking I could use this space..

(Action) Instead of bothering my friend whom has enough on his shoulders, I cleaned everything out of my little 10x20 garage and built a layout table, wired in a 220v outlet and fabricated some tooling to fulfill this contract.
I have been working 14 hour days 7 days a week between my business and my JOB and I have been doing little side jobs for some time now. This is the first bigger money job I have gotten into. I plan on using the revenue for savings to live on when I leave my job one day and go into the business fulltime. I'm to the point now where I am tapped out timewise and cant take on more work if it was thrown at me and I'm starting to feel the effect of hard work all the time. I know my metal working business isn't (Fastlane) its lacking scale and being the subcontractor someone else has control. However MJ said on a post that its not wrong to still take ACTION if you don't have any Fastlane ideas maybe it will open a door to opportunity I'm not seeing at the moment. There are many multimillion dollar company's in this industry in just my area.

Anyways thanks for reading hope all is well with everyone out there.
Does anyone else work hours like this on there start ups?
how do you deal with the long hours and stress?

 

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[TheKingOfMadrid]

Firstly, major respect for pushing through the pain barriers to achieve your dreams. You're a great example of what can be accomplished with willpower and determination. Many people have weeks and months of free time and accomplish none of their ambition.

From a business point of view it seems pertinent to continue to push on through this period as you say that the money from this first big money job could provide savings for when you quit your job, but more than this it will on reflection be a flag in the sand that tells you you can take high ticket jobs and complete them successfully. If you could find a way to then pivot from this and branch into getting more contract work you could find yourself working far less hours for higher pay allowing you to focus on your fastlane ideas.

You're already learning so much from a business sense too and it will all pay major gains in time.

As for how you deal with the long hours and stress this differs for everyone.

When I started both of my businesses I locked myself away and did nothing else for months at a time but this is easy because I know there is an end goal in sight. I also learned to enjoy pushing my tolerance threshold because I've learned the growth is always worth it. It was very different from welding though which takes a whole different toll on the body,

Practical things you can try are;

Meditation for centering the mind and bringing yourself home.

Mindfulness for reducing the stress of the job/

Flow state work to help the hours slip by

Writing a business plan with weekly objectives that you can meet so you feel progress

Offer to teach welding at a college, select the best welder, teach them and then make them work on your contracts whilst you take a cut - rinse and repeat until you have an agency

And don't forget to laugh and be playful - that's my number 1 tip. Stress begets stress which has an effect on your entire physiology and makes work even harder in the long run.

Hope you & your wife have a great Christmas and crush 2021!

 

[Tourmaline]

Can you hire employees? Can you create a system to train said employees?

Are you focusing on making products for a niche?

If not, can you do so?

And once you have a niche down, can you replicate for other niches?

Anything can be Fastlane.