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

[Antifragile]

View attachment bd9297a94ced7607d92d162dc8164f59080a55a4.mov

 

[GPM]

Quit coffee a week ago to try and improve sleep. Did a 2.5 hour hike this morning.

Wide awake at midnight still lol. Fml

Try Ashwagandha and Magnesium close to bed time. Those two have been life changers for me.

On a side note my daughter is sitting on my shoulders and brushing my hair right now. Man I love my kids.

 

[BizyDad]

Thanks, my guy! I love the positive attitude u mfs have. Unfortunately this is also a problem. Cause I spend what I feel like the majority of the day either on this forum, reading some book about stoicism or doin other "productive" shit and feel like a$$, cause I have made even a sliver of progress in anything - still in the same spot I was at the start of the day and when I'm not spending most of the day on these things that are supposedly making me "achieve my goal", I feel like I'm mindlessly wasting time - each second that I don't think about business is a second I'm loosing towards achieving my goals.

Just seems to me that no matter what I do, its always a lose-lose situation, cause I have no progress to show myself, let alone someone else...

Have you been here before? WTF did you do to get out, my man?!

Well, let's see...

By the time I was 34 I had achieved my childhood career goal of running a "wall street type shop" for a year. Only a year and I needed a change.

Around that time I got a girlfriend who then started a business. I married the girl. I eventually took over the business. Neither the marriage or the business "succeeded". Lol.

AND

Around the same time, I also got a job. I added a marketing department, worked my way into ownership, now I run the company.

AND

Last year I bought a client's business in partnership with his son.

So far every business idea I started myself hasn't gone very far. Hoping to change that soon, but until then I keep helping other people's ideas get better and better.

The truth is I have spend an inordinate amount of my time on this earth daydreaming and researching running businesses and frankly, a lot of that time has paid off in my current role. Time well spent if you ask me.

But I am what I call "a late bloomer", so hopefully your light bulbs go off faster than mine did.

 

[Kak]

There's bucket lists; things you want experience before you die...
And dumpster lists; things you want to avoid throughout your entire life. Burning man is on my dumpster list.

We need a dumpster list thread!

-Sleeping on an air mattress. Never again.

-Ever staying in a hostel.

-Getting vaxinated for anything.

-Living in the city.

-Buying another Mercedes.

 

[Kak]

Attend a fastlane summit

It might be a conflict if it’s on @MJ DeMarco s dumpster list.

They’re a pain in the a$$ for him.

 

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[Antifragile]

Love this story:

Sahil Bloom on LinkedIn: This Stanford business school experiment will blow your mind... In 2009… | 932 comments

This Stanford business school experiment will blow your mind... In 2009, a Stanford business professor named Tina Seelig split her class into groups and… | 932 comments on LinkedIn

www.linkedin.com

Ask and answer questions that expose and vet underlying assumptions and logic.

• What's the real problem you are trying to solve?
• What's your hypothesis? Why?
• What are your core assumptions? Why?
• What evidence do you have?
• What are your core options?
• What alternatives exist?

This takes time, but it's an essential exercise when facing a problem with the potential for non-linear rewards.

Andy, I love the asymmetry of thinking different. These examples explain perfectly why some people make a killing and it looks like magic from the outside. Asymmetric thinking for asymmetric returns. Love it.

 

[Kak]

I exchanged DMs with a member where he said “in spite of us butting heads in the past…” and for the life of me I can’t remember that we did that or what it was about. Same happened with the ex-member theChosen1 - he’d be mad at something I said and I wound not remember us even “fighting”.

I’m blessed with a selective memory. I only remember things that I find useful and forget almost everything else.

View attachment 51223

Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting it to hurt the other person.

I too get over things quickly.

I actually think our first interaction was you telling me I don’t know what communism is, when I called someone a communist.

 

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[GPM]

That’s because it’s not about clean energy. They’re about less energy. It’s an anti-human cult.

WE are the carbon that they want to reduce.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Man WTF is wrong with people. I am trying to buy a 16" proper bike for my daughter for her birthday (no coaster back pedal brake). A few days ago I went to meet someone. Turns out they couldn't find the bike so I could not buy it. It is still posted online for sale...

Just this morning I drove 40km across the whole city to get this cool Norco kids bike with 16" wheels. I get there and its a 20" wheel bike so it is for a kid 2x my daughters size. Big waste of time.

How hard is it to not be an idiot when posting this stuff?

We have to cancel orders all the time because people don't even know how to enter in their basic address.

If my shipping service can't verify your address, we're not sending a book.

Not worth dealing with the BS, customer service inquiries, the "we didn't get it! Send another one! Refund!"

Ill pass.

If you can't figure out how to enter your own home address, you likely won't be a good entrepreneur.

I'd rather lose the sale than risk having to deal with it later.

 

[Matt Sun]

Today I'm amazed that I can have a world class spanish guitar player give me a 40 minute long lesson and talking to me like i'm her friend standing there, giving insightful tips and exercises plus teaching me the piece I wanted to learn, plus telling me how to learn it / having access of a top performer's inner thinking about it. All for free. Crazy times.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSJCXF829Wo&t=533s

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Today I'm amazed that I can have a world class spanish guitar player give me a 40 minute long lesson and talking to me like i'm her friend standing there, giving insightful tips and exercises plus teaching me the piece I wanted to learn, plus telling me how to learn it / having access of a top performer's inner thinking about it. All for free. Crazy times.

And just think, this is amongst many thousands of disciplines. The world's knowledge is at your fingertips.

Who wants it?

COME AND GET IT!

 

[Raedrum]

I just took a job again in order to sustain my life and my business (might make a thread about that)

First effect: I don't need no more to make sales at all cost, so I'm way less pushy, more generous and I'm sure this will help me to make sales that really count in the future

 

[Jrjohnny]

I saw a post on here earlier about stretching and how it improves sleep quality.

I used to take like an hour to fall asleep, because I just kept tossing and turning and still had extra energy.

I started exercising for about an hour and a half, and meditating for 10 minutes, which lowered it down to 30 minutes

But my quality of sleep wasn’t that good, I still was awake for an hour and a half (waking up in the middle of the night)

I realized I’d wake up because my muscles were so tense.

I was averaging 7 hours and 40 minutes of sleep.

I started stretching for 10 minutes, and meditating for ten minutes combined (godsend combo)

I’d fall asleep in about 20 minutes, sometimes 15 or even 10 minutes.

My new sleep average is about 8 hours and 20 minutes, today I got 8 hours and 40 minutes.

Which is equal to about 100% ROI on sleep, 400-600% ROI on time taken to fall asleep.

Which in my world, could translate to easily a 1500% return on working, focus, attitude, decision making and gym performance

 

[Lyzmin]

PSA: Beware of "tag team" spam... this is when 2 accounts under the same IP use the forum for reputation management. This seems to become common this year.

User 1: Who is Joe Schmo and is he legit?
User 2: Joe Schmo is awesome! (followed by long advertorial)

Both users are working together, often under the same IP, or under the same rep firm, or hired by the subject doing reputation management.

When found, both users are banned and the content removed.

Love how you keep this a forum of quality MJ.
Thank you!

 

[monnffffiiiiiii]

This article tells the story of two Belgian friends who built the earplug brand Loop into $44 million in revenue.

Two childhood friends wanted better, cooler earplugs—their startup brought in $44 million last year

Loop Earplugs' Belgian co-founders made a bet that people would be willing to pay a small premium for a more stylish product. So far, they've been right.

www.cnbc.com

1. Problem: earplugs look ugly. They made nice-looking ones.
2. Desert of desertion: they didn't know anything about earplugs and spent two years making the product, investing EACH 40k of their own money. Idk about the US but in Belgium IT'S A LOT OF MONEY.
3. They finally found "the right recipe", got into an accelerator, and the rest is history.

I knew the brand but didn't know they were Belgians so nice!

 

[biophase]

Experts…

JOE.ie on Instagram: "You couldn't make this up Charlie and his friends dug a hole on Portmarnock beach last week which caught the attention of a local resident who thought it had an astronomical background which led to their hole making the nation

2M likes, 32K comments - joe.ie on September 14, 2023: "You couldn't make this up Charlie and his friends dug a hole on Portmarnock beach last week which caught the attention of a local r..."

www.instagram.com

 

[msufan]

OK, Ballie. Why is the earth round? Enlighten us.

I'm sure others can be more scientific, but people have sailed around the world, flown around the world, and we have photos/video of the Earth from space.

Here's a link if you really want to read more: Fighting flat-Earth theory – Physics World

Just to take the thread beyond this one issue, though: to others who see this exchange, this really demonstrates how sometimes contrarianism can be way, way off track. Hopefully I'm just being trolled here, but the seriousness of this issue remains. People see stuff online and believe it, no matter how absurd. This is a terrifying issue, especially as deep-fakes and AI threaten to make it even worse.

I'm old enough to remember when we thought "Web 2.0" and the democratization of information would make the world a better place. Now we realize the signal is lost amid the noise when the voice of the misguided zealot gets equal footing to the voice of the expert.

 

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[JordanK]

Very random observation recently.

I have noticed a bunch of people dropping out of college or going straight from secondary (high) school into construction.

Maybe not a big deal in the US but Ireland has the 3rd highest - third level education achievement in the world. Our whole country is like a Silicon Valley with all of the biggest tech companies in the world.

Minimum wage here is 11.70 euro per hour. 18 year olds are now being offered 18.50+ starting with no experience to work on sites.

I was very young during the Celtic Tiger years (lead up to 2008) but this reminds me of the stories from my dad. People dropping out of school, buying new clothes on a friday evening wearing them all weekend partying and then wearing them to work Monday because you are making so much money you don't care if they will be ruined.

To add on top of that we have one of the most severe housing crises in the world. Our government, funded by corporate taxes from every multinational in the world who set up bases here is now running a budget surplus of billions.

What should Ireland’s government do with a huge budget surplus?

The country’s economy has long been prone to manic mood swings

www.economist.com

The recent government budget announcements will give me basically free electricity until next summer, 1000 euro deducted from college fees, 750 euro renters tax credit/rebate per person, 14,000 tax free credit if I rent a room in my house. Mortgage interest relief for landlords. Bunch more stuff too that impact families etc. Nearly free public transport for me aged 25.

Budget 2024 - what we know so far

Welfare increases and tax cuts are among the Budget measures which the Cabinet is expected to sign off on this morning. Here's what we know so far.

www.rte.ie

I really disliked my country during the pandemic and really wanted to move to the US. I even took a trip to NYC recently. However, my own business has been expanding like crazy since the start of 2022 and the government seems to be putting its foot on the accelerator financially here too. In my list of items that I disliked about Ireland a lot of the problems are being wiped away by this government throwing this new cash into solving.

 

[Kak]

It terrifies me to think that you don't have the knowledge to figure out the shape of the earth.

We literally have human beings orbiting the earth at all times and have for over two decades now. Just check out the live stream from the International Space Station and you can see Earth from space for yourself.

For lots of people, even their internet depends on satellites orbiting earth (most notably Elon Musk's Starlink).

I need to get off the internet and touch some grass now. Yikes.

So there's zero chance that those humans "orbiting the planet" are in on the scam? Don't astronauts undergo massive psychological "training and testing" before they "make the cut?"

Only push this button if you're ready for the actual truth.

Spoiler

Relax. I don't actually believe the earth is flat. But it is damn funny to act like I do.

 

[S.Y.]

I went to a brunch with a small group of people closed to me on Oct 7. We parted ways at 1pm. The next morning, right after I completed a run, I got a call from my sister to tell me one of them passed away, a family friend. 42 years young.

Pretty successful dude. And since his passing, not one thing mentioned about his career or mojeyrary achievements. Everything has been about people: the relationships he had and the people he impacted.

At the end of the day, that is what matters.
It's been beautiful to see so many people come together at this Celebration of Life.

 

[Andy Black]

The UK is going this way. Government is making being a landlord a real PITA... and guess what... rents are skyrocketing everywhere...

Ireland did that. My wife and many other small landlords decided to get out. Now the housing and rental crisis is even bigger. Funny how making it harder to be a producer makes it harder for consumers.

 

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[MitchC]

Cool motivational Reddit post:

If not having a backbone was a person

No surprise they post on reddit

Who the F*ck picks an entire career because someone else told them to?

People ask all the time here about what to tell this person or that person when they question your choices to be an entrepreneur

It’s real easy to answer when you are committed and confident about your choice

Don’t be this guy and say okay boss I’ll get a job no more businesses because this is what will happen

 

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[KiwiEC]

Entrepreneurship is problem-solving. And your prefrontal cortex is your friend when it comes to problem-solving, critical thinking and decision making. What’s your DEFENSE to protect your prefrontal cortex from shrinking?

I stopped p*rn ages ago. It is now well known to damage prefrontal cortex.
Sources here.

Plus lacks of motivation, self esteem, etc.

Kind reminder to all Fastlaners: stop this sh*t NOW.

 

[loop101]

This guy has a great USP. Fit a queen-size bed in a light-weight truck camper that fits on short-bed trucks. Short-bed trucks have almost no truck-camper options, and lighter F150/Ram1500 trucks can't carry much. It's ready to camp in, no set-up time required. It's aluminum, so bears can't rip through it. He should do really well.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v8nf5d3cD0

 

[xShepherdx]

Just noticed that 33/60 of the best-selling items on Etsy are products that teach people how to sell on Etsy.

After accounting for promoted products, the numbers change to 33/40.

Not sure what they consider "best sellers" or how they're choosing to organize the best sellers list, but I thought it was interesting.

 

[Ing]

I'm the high bidder on 4 trucks and 7 excavators at a machinery auction. My wife thinks I'm kidding. I hope I win enough of them that we have to buy the house next door to store the extras... don't bid against me

I did the same in July with construction machines and some vans of a bankrupt construction company.

All my place and my garage were full of that shit!

The secret is making it your wife’s idea! So its better .

In the end, when she sees the money sprawling in, she ll ask, when you ll get the next!

 

[BlackMagician]

India's TOP founder story news portal recommended The Millionaire Fastlane as must read book.
@MJ DeMarco

https://yourstory.com/2023/11/7-books-millionaire-retirement-guide

 

[WillHurtDontCare]

I screwed up a big (well, relatively minor by this forum's standards - several grand per month + potential referrals) opportunity a few months ago, and here are some lessons.

So a few months ago I wanted to learn about machine learning, so I created a SaaS that used python + spacy + chat gpt to analyze customer reviews and find insights that could be used to improve the listings and advertisements, ultimately to improve revenue and drive down ad spend.

It took back seat to two other consulting projects that I was working on (because they actually pay my bills) and I ultimately killed it because I got too busy consulting.

So here's the screw up: I did manage to schedule some Zoom calls from messaging people on LinkedIn, including one guy who mentioned that he ran an agency that worked for an Amazon aggregator (companies that buy up Amazon businesses) that did around $200M in annual revenue. For whatever reason it never occurred to me to just ask him to introduce me as a consultant, which could have led to a decent retainer, possible referrals later, and actual direct expertise that would have been useful for developing that SaaS app (which I probably would have just charged like $50-200 a month for anyway). Even though I didn't have much experience with the tools at the time, I would have been able to figure it out, especially since I have friends who are data scientists.

So my lessons were:

1) There are opportunities that come up all of the time that you probably don't even realize. I should have just put my rinky dink SaaS app idea on pause and tried to pitch the consulting angle. It would have been more profitable and I would have learned faster. It's laughable in hindsight that I didn't think to do that.

2) If you're pitching a new idea to a new market, be open to the idea that someone might present you with a much better opportunity. Don't get so honed in on what you're doing that you couldn't jump to something better.

3) Building SaaS applications after direct consulting experience >>> building SaaS apps just because. If you're going into the SaaS game, I'd recommend trying consulting / job -> productized service -> product.

So I hope this saves someone some time and missed opportunities. It was a dumb mistake in hindsight, though, there are always endless opportunities, so I'm not worried.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Day 1 sold out in 6 minutes
Day 2 sold out in 8 minutes
Day 3 sold out in 20 minutes
Day 4 sold out in 1 hour
Day 5 sold out in 3 hours
Day 6 sold out in 12 hours
Day 7 sold out in 2 days

Wow, you must be passionate about blankets!

 

[WillHurtDontCare]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1726042775114703173

View: https://twitter.com/moonbeamdreams_/status/1726042775114703173