Random Chat, Thoughts, Posts, and/or Rants Thread

[Antifragile]

A thought: books that are least useful to you are the ones you'd find the easiest to read.

(but not all "hard to read" books are useful either...)

Stay with me on this:

• If you know nothing of the topic, it'll be a hard read.
• If you know everything on the topic, it'll be easy to read but you already know the topic.
• The most entertaining stories only give you a top of the trees view point
• Getting into the forest, diving deeper, is by definition harder.
• A textbook that forces you to do a case-study is hard to read.
• A YouTube guru selling you his "course" that guarantees you sales in 3 hours is typically fraud.

If you find yourself looking for book summaries and unwilling to read the whole book because "it's too hard" or "it takes too long"... remember the tradeoff you are making. You are paying the price with your inability to capitalize on the application of knowledge! You can't apply what you barely know. Only dreamers think that deep, meaningful and highly profitable work happens on a "motivation". Instead, it takes discipline. This is why discipline = freedom.

The first year I got a job in Real Estate industry, I accidentally discovered this truth. I managed to get the job I was unqualified to do and before losing it, I had to learn - FAST. I needed technical knowledge, not the "guru" bullshit that wouldn't fly at a large and successful sophisticated business. The only "shortcut" I could see was to get textbooks! Quick search yielded a few results, I bought them fast, and then spent every single available hour reading, highlighting and trying to re-create Excel sheets to understand the concepts at a deeper level. Having gone through post-secondary education already, most people like me would have thought "yeah, finally done studying", and for me it became the opposite.

That was a long while ago and what prompted me to post this is the fact that I just bought another very dry textbook for almost $300 (which is a crazy price, when you think about it, but it's a textbook and authors do whatever they want, this includes taxes and shipping). I am genuinely both excited and frustrated at the same time. Frustrated that now I have to go deep into this book to find a few more nuggets to make me more competitive in our business. Excited because I know only two ways that can happen:
1) books we read
2) people we meet

If you are young and reading this, congratulations! Understanding this can make you a fortune.


P.S. For those who got @MJ DeMarco books on audio, this concept applies. My advice is to get the book and read it, highlight 10% of what you found most surprising, it's likely useful. Then apply what you learned. I imagine it being 10x harder to do that while listening to an audio book. While I do that too, I never do it with books that I want to later use for business.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

You're never too old to go Fastlane...

 

[GPM]

So I posted a while back on here about being pissed about having my rent increase by 25% to $2500/month for that crappy little bungalow I was in. Well I started looking for comps right away, send some to the landlord, they came back with "$2500 is already a great deal and the lowest we will go, if we put it on the open market it will be $2800".

So I thanked them for their house and my family will be moving on. Rent increase day was February 1st. I looked for new places everyday as it is a tight and crappy market here. Exactly two weeks ago I signed a lease on a new place for $2500/month. So same price as what I would be paying at the old place.

There are some startling differences between these two places. I was previously in a bungalow with original insulation and windows (horrible insulation), a insanely small yard that had 3 foot drops on 2 sides due to a lowered parking pad in the back with no protective fence (I have toddlers who can literally just crash off it into bricks below). The house was about 1100sq ft with a developed basement that had incredibly low ceilings. I would be ducking under door frames to not hit my head. While helping me clean for the move out my mom couldn't believe how badly that house was falling apart and didn't know how we stayed so long. 4.5 years. It was a classic example of "lipstick on a pig".

The new house is 2250sq ft above grade, and a fully developed basement. Double attached garage, 4 houses down from a park for kids, and a very nice neighborhood. This place is a mansion compared to where we were, and it's a straight swap in price.

Moving was pretty interesting as I had a maximum of 11 days to pack, clean and get out of there, but I made it work! I am beyond pumped for how much nicer this place is. My family is going to enjoy this place infinitely more than the old one.

 

[Fox]

Years ago, when I lived in Ukraine, I visited Chernobyl. As part of the tour, you stop on the way at the Duga radar installation. It was an extremely large secret radar system used by the Soviets. About 150 meters / 500 feet tall off the ground.

This creates an obvious problem - how can you have a secret radar base that you can see like 10km away. So what they did was they called it a "kids summer camp" and they put a big cartoon bear on the entrance. Of course, if you were a local and asked too many questions about this obvious BS story - you were taken away to disappear somewhere.

I remember thinking, "Wow, it must have been wild to live in a time when everything was such an obvious lie or total propaganda". Yet here we are in 2024 and we see even high levels of propaganda every day in most mainstream news sources.

They expect you not to question the most obvious facts you can observe around you. And instead "simply skip breakfast" or some other nonsense. Being able to just see reality as it is is probably one of the most overlooked skills right now.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” ― George Orwell, 1984

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Been thinking about hiring a house cleaner.

Recently received a direct mail advertisement from a cleaning company.

The ad was effective enough to get me interested to investigate the company, perhaps calling and hiring.

As I wrote in Unscripted , "advertising" more than likely indicates a productocracy doesn't exist and the company NEEDS advertising to survive.

I want to do business with productocracies, not marketers.

In my investigation at Yelp and other places, this company pretty much had the worst online reviews of all the cleaning companies.

As I wrote in Unscripted and explored via the productocracy concept, if your company can't survive without advertising, you're running a marketing company.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

You are right that I’m seeing this from my own perspective.

I have no problem with quitting something you don’t want to do and do something else that makes you happy.

What bothers me through the way I see it is:

A guy was complaining here that he was miserable and almost broke because he started selling door 2 door so he could build another project that he quit almost being a lawyer for.
So he could have gone through with it, take the money from there and put it in his project. Why the extra drama if he’s going to be miserable either way he might as well be paid more.

that’s all I wanted to say

Sounds very similar to my experience. I graduated at the top of my class and refused to get a job. Instead I got low paying unskilled jobs and no one understood why. After a few years I started to get depressed because my vision and identity wasn’t matching my results. My friends all around me were buying townhouses and cars and I felt even more depressed.

Eventually I turned the ship around. Now I’m sure all those friends I had back in those days are still miserably working in their jobs with still enjoying their mediocre townhouses and mid-sized sedans. Their life hasn’t changed but 5%, mine has changed 10000%…. all because I refused to follow the rote Script where your life is planned and predictable.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

My Failure Today:


MJ: I think I'll buy this water fountain to create a relaxing zen effect in my library.

[--- Buys it and gets it running in the library ---]

MJ: Hmm... this doesn't sound like zen, more like me urinating in a toilet.
Stepson: "Hey, that sounds like a leaky toilet."
Wife: [Furrows brow] -- "That sounds like I'm in a public restroom and a woman in the stall is peeing."

Needless to say, I boxed it up and returned it.

 

[Kak]

Just a friendly reminder that an alarming number of people wanted to muzzle you, lock you in your home, and jam needles in your arm by force a few short years ago…

Voices for freedom, like mine, were dismissed and shamed. We. Were. Right.

The tyrants want to pretend like that didn’t happen.

I remember. It was exactly the people you’d expect.

 

[BizyDad]

Closing in on a million, likely this week... who will be 1M? Droopynips!?
View attachment 49692

The countdown continues...




Will @Kak finally agree to have droops on the radio show?!?!

Will Elon Musk finally comment?!?!

Will @theag decide to be less aggressive?

Will @Lex DeVille accept Jesus?

Will @Andy Black say something cold and heartless?

Will @Raoul Duke say something totally serious?

Will @heavy_industry announce his latest project?

Will @BellaPippin become a paragon of courage?

Will some rando teenager ask a truly insightful question with their very first post?

Will @MJ DeMarco announce his newest book idea? Or a summit date?!?!

Stay tuned. Anything is possible on THE FASTLANE FORUM.

 

[Fox]

 

[theag]

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Meta launches new features for Facebook Groups to improve communication between members, strengthen communities, and give admins more ways to customize the look and feel.

In addition, the company shares its vision for the future of communities on Facebook, which brings features from Groups and Pages together in one place.

Here’s an overview of everything that was announced at the recent Facebook Communities Summit.

LOL, give me a FN break.

When FB pages came out years ago, I worked my butt off and grew the page to 150K subscribers only to have FB change the rules so the group is now worthless. I post there and it is shown to 50 people.

F*ck FB. F*ck their groups. And F*ck whatever they do, as they will only change the rules to force you into paying. And if your content doesn't meet their Ministry of Truth's guidelines, you'll be censored to.

Not buying it. F*ck FB, I won't waste my time building ANYTHING there.

Fool me once...

 

[Guest-5ty5s4]

 

[Antifragile]

I've got a question about something that's been confusing me a bit.

The advice I keep getting, constantly, whenever I talk to someone successful..

is something along the lines of "if you're going to focus on an idea, focus on something that you're gonna dedicate a decade of your life to"

But I'm having trouble understanding..

What if the idea is bad?

I don't really get what that means.

Does this mean I should only try a handful of ideas in my lifetime?

What if you dedicate to 5 different ideas for 5 decades and none of them work?

I understand the concept of testing ideas..

But I don't really understand dedicating yourself for 10 years unless you've actually got something going.. Do you just.. Decide that this idea you choose will be the one you work on for the next 10 years?

I think I know the answer, but I'd like to hear it from you guys.

Thanks

Example:

IDEA: I want to become an expert in real estate. (Budget time? 10 years +)

JOURNEY:
What is real estate? Am I going to be a realtor sales guy? A financier? A developer? A leader running a public REIT? What part of real estate? Commercial or residential? Commercial what? Commercial industrial or retail or multifamily or office? Which area? Which city? Or am I going to be a graphic designer launching a $100MM company to help developers do better renderings? Is that now a software company? Yes. Still in real estate? Yes.

In short: start wide and narrow your focus over a decade.

Hope this helps.

 

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[Raedrum]

@MJ DeMarco if you see this, I want you to know that this is the most essential, life-changing lesson that your books and TFF community have taught me:




The very sensation of knowing you can (and must) learn, work, test, and improve yourself, anytime and freely, if you know what you want

This is true existence

 

[GuestUser4aMPs1]

In February, I told the GF "You keep talking about XYZ biz you want to start, when are you actually going to do something about it?!" and boom, a month later a new biz is born.

After being out of the entrepreneur game for a couple years, It's been a lot of fun coaching from the sidelines and seeing this slowly blossom. Of all things, doing freaking picnics for couples has turned into a great business for us...and it continues to pick up steam.

Ladies of the forum: Enjoy. Start one in your area!

 

[MJ DeMarco]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1645434341483241473

View: https://twitter.com/Nicolascole77/status/1645434341483241473?s=20

 

[Kak]

 

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[Antifragile]

vulnerable post

I’m wondering if anyone here running a business has found a mindset or perspective shift to separate your emotions from the rise and falls in business?

It literally affects my mood.

Things are going well in the business, I feel good.

Things are going bad, I feel bad.

I feel that it shouldn’t be this way, and it gets very stressful to the point where I can’t think sometimes.

Does anyone have advice on dealing with this “entrepreneurial anxiety”?

Mike,

It’s normal at the beginning. Because you haven’t earned the scar tissue on your brain for the roller-coaster of entrepreneurship.

• Omg, it’s going to be epic!
• Oh shit, this isn’t working at all.
• Wait, I got it, it’s going to be epic.
• f*cked up, that’s the end of this one
• No, wait, I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before. That solves the problem - we are soooo back!

Sound familiar?

All of that is 100% normal.

As time goes on, you become immune. Why? Because you train your brain to know that no matter the setback, you’ll find a solution even if it’s not visible to you at that time.

Once you have enough success stories in your own life, you will know with 100% certainty that it’ll all work out. Setbacks won’t phase you. You can just look back over your life and remind yourself how you've been through this or worse before.

(edit insert) The point here is that even if something fails within the current business, you are becoming stronger regardless. You are iterating and it'll workout overall in life. Meaning that even the worst possible news, like business is done... you'll be able to take the skills and knowledge to the next one and do it 10x better, faster! There is simply no scenario where the "bad news" is actually bad, you are doing things that are improving YOU. How can that be bad? Keep that in mind.

When in doubt - zoom out. Look at your life history, I bet you have plenty of evidence that says "you'll be more than just fine, this too shall pass".

Big wins won't feel so big either, you won't celebrate early. You'll have the experience of being humbled. Things may be going well, but you may choose to not focus on it at all, as you'll know with 100% certainty that something is going to go off the rails and you'll need your mental energy to solve the next problem.

Martial arts teaches that when faced against a force, don't push against it - redirect it to some other productive goal.

Same with business and life.

 

[Matt Sun]

I did it guys, I escaped commie Argentina and i'm now living by the beach, my business still makes sells, independent of my time and location. I still want so much more but feels amazing to realize the vision I had. Time to enjoy and keep bulding...

 

[mikecarlooch]

It happens. Honesty is best policy. Just tell them. True leaders like when you take responsibility.

If I have an important guest on my show, I record it 3x simultaneously.

The primary recording is in my DAW, another time on my interface straight to SD card, and another in Zoom.

I have never even needed a backup since I started doing that. Go figure.

Thanks Kyle. That was a tough one to send, but I did it.

 

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[Fox]

Having a kid is like time travel.

Yesterday we had the kid - and today it is four months later.

It has gone so fast but I will try be more active now.

Hope you are all well!

 

[Lyzmin]

I read this question last week from a blog I follow.

This week I turned it around, how can I help someone around me connecting to a opportunity they seek?

Last Friday, I heard my personal trainer talking about how she needs to leave her apartment before the end of the month. She lives in Amsterdam as well and finding space here is tough.. She's been searching for months without any success. I told her I would like to help her (she's a really great person, besides a great trainer).

I called a buddy after our session Friday and called in a favor. He promised me to make a call. Within five hours they set her up with a real-estate owner (I vouched for her). Today she had a sighting in a nice part of Amsterdam. They signed on the spot. Next week she will move in and is so grateful.

One simple phone call for me.
A game changer for her.

2023 so far is great. Moments like this make it even greater.

Also a shoutout to @BizyDad. Since your reframing of 'who are you helping to get rich?', my perspective has grown. The more I'm focussing on helping others, more things come my way.

Now it's focussing on finding the right RPA CTO and keep growing into a Fastlane person.

 

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[GPM]

Just set this up.... My home gym before was in a short roofed cave. This is going to be awesome.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-much-will-you-need-to-retire-americas-magic-number-surges-to-1-46-million-cbbfe7f4

Up a whopping 54% since 2020.



All those stock market gains the FIRE people love raving about is a wash in terms of inflation and purchasing power.

This is WHY "saving $XXX a month" is a losing game.

Start a business and go for asymmetric income, the only way to defeat the money printer, is to print your own.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Facebook and Instagram have been down for a bit ... and I can almost feel the world is already a better place.

 

[WillHurtDontCare]

hey teenage and early 20s fastlaners - here's a tip for you:

You think that your lives are WAY more dramatic than they really are.

That breakup that you're still whining over? You'll forget them in a few years, or as soon as you date someone hotter.

The embarrassment over spending hundred / thousands / tens of thousands on a business venture? You'll forget about that when you find a venture that succeeds.

Getting fired from a job, getting fired by a client, etc - you will laugh about this in a few months because there are always more jobs, more clients, and more opportunities.

The main reason that any of this seems so intense is simply because you lack experience with it. When you go through this stuff (good and bad) again and again, it impacts you less and less.

And what is the point of this rant? The point is to relentlessly charge towards your goals regardless of how you feel. You'll find out later that your feelings are often annoying distractions from your goals at best and absolute saboteurs at worst.

Don't get caught up in feeling good or bad - the only thing that matters is constantly executing toward your long term goals.

 

[Fox]

I recently joined a high ticket coaching program for Youtube with a lot of 1 million+ sub channels.
What is crazy is how every single little thing is tracked, improved and perfected.

We just did the first of two full sessions (2 hours) on just the Thumbnails.

What is really cool about this is how they outperform everyone with 1000 different 1% gains.
What looks like luck on the outside is a detailed system to maximise every possible tiny element.

Also, a lot of it is patterns. Seeing what worked for others in the past, finding out why, adjusting it, and tweaking it to make it a little better.

 

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[MitchC]

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

More like a crossroads.

I shall re-iterate... there are (3) groups here.

This forum has three distinct groups.

1. I have no money and don't know where to start <-- freelancing, hustles, "thousandaire fastlane" might appeal to them.
2. I have a small business that I'd like to make Fastlane, but aren't interested in employing 50 people and being the next Jeff Bezos. I just want to be FREE. I don't need no Lambo!
3. I have a business and would like to blow it up huge. Perhaps, become the next 9 figure millionaire, or better, billionaire. I'm starting a global enterprise.

Groups 1 and 2 are probably the dominant group, namely because, my message is for new entrepreneurs. Asking someone with ZERO money and ZERO business experience (or even corporate management experience) to start a $25M business with no experience is a bit of a reach.

These people need to be guided in, kinda like you needed guiding 8 years ago when your first jump at business was designing websites. Perhaps the forum can be re-categorized for each group -- hence, segregating the topics based on everyone's personal vision of "Fastlane". I for one, have no interest in freelancing or side hustles, but I think that content is awesome here because it gets people into their first baby steps.

Fastlane, as well as CENTS, is always up to interpretation for each reader and what they want for the life. I try to respect that ... not everyone wants the Lambos -- and I imagine right now in the world, a lot of people would just take financial freedom in a shed, far away from the current insanity.