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Spent too much time learning about completely different topics.

AlexanderFRG

New Contributor
User Power
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100%
Jun 18, 2021
7
7
24
Germany
Hello there!

This is my first post in this forum, i'll try to keep it short.
I guess some of you were in the same place as me - I started multiple businesses, halfhearted to be honest, because an apparently better opportunity came around. Some made profits, some didn't. After failing three business (i'm only 22y/o) i put all my money in, i had to go back to a 9-5. Although I earn more than most people of my age
would dream of, it drives me crazy. 90% of my freedom i spent on learning about valuable topics necessary for a successful business and saved enough money to get going again. The thing is ... i spend so much time learning about different topics, figuring out what might work etc.. I am in the same position as before, just with a lot more knowledge and a lot moremature. I get more promising ideas for what to do every day, not able to make a decision. Even if i focus on getting forward in one project by learning the necessary skills, more ideas and ways of execution pop up on my mind, and I'm getting nowhere. Leading to the point to thinking that I'm too incompetent to get the work done. The only progress i see is that i accumulated enough knowledge that I've been able to help two of my friends' businesses get profitable, although they came out of nowhere, with no experience at all.
I honestly have no clue what to do now. What would You do if you were in my shoes ?

Greetings,
Alex

P.S.: Sorry for my english, I'm not a native speaker.
 
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MillionaireMummy

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Read Fastlane!
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Jul 14, 2017
3
1
UK
Hello there!

This is my first post in this forum, i'll try to keep it short.
I guess some of you were in the same place as me - I started multiple businesses, halfhearted to be honest, because an apparently better opportunity came around. Some made profits, some didn't. After failing three business (i'm only 22y/o) i put all my money in, i had to go back to a 9-5. Although I earn more than most people of my age
would dream of, it drives me crazy. 90% of my freedom i spent on learning about valuable topics necessary for a successful business and saved enough money to get going again. The thing is ... i spend so much time learning about different topics, figuring out what might work etc.. I am in the same position as before, just with a lot more knowledge and a lot moremature. I get more promising ideas for what to do every day, not able to make a decision. Even if i focus on getting forward in one project by learning the necessary skills, more ideas and ways of execution pop up on my mind, and I'm getting nowhere. Leading to the point to thinking that I'm too incompetent to get the work done. The only progress i see is that i accumulated enough knowledge that I've been able to help two of my friends' businesses get profitable, although they came out of nowhere, with no experience at all.
I honestly have no clue what to do now. What would You do if you were in my shoes ?

Greetings,
Alex

P.S.: Sorry for my english, I'm not a native speaker.
Hey, I'm new here too (although I joined ages ago but got distracted!)

I've been in the same position as you before many times, where I have learned something and then tried the business only for it to fizzle out and me moving on to the next thing, learning all i can and then trying the business only for it to fizzle out again, then me getting distracted by shiny object syndrome again.

One of the things i have found that has helped (instead of constantly getting frustrated with my lack of progress and focus) was to become self-aware. I have done lots of personality tests which all state that I am a good "starter" of projects and essentially rubbish at following through as I'm a big vision person as opposed to an executioner.

I initially took this as a negative but the more i have read around the subject the more i have come to terms with my personality. People like Richard Branson and Steve jobs were the same. It just means people like us need to hire other people around us who are good at execution and making up for our weaknesses.

Some people are great at taking a plan and working it, some people are good at creating the plan in the first place. I'm more of a strategy person, i can literally have a whole marketing strategy down step by step in a matter of minutes or a business plan drawn out step by step in a matter of minutes that's my super power so to speak.

I guess it's about knowing your strengths and delegating your weaknesses.

The second point I wanted to make was to understand the emotional cycle we go through when setting up a business (see image below).

I noticed that i would start a business venture up, it would run smoothly and even be profitable in most cases in the beginning, but then as soon as i would hit the valley of despair (3) i would find some new shiny object distraction and quit and move to the next business to start the cycle all over again only to hit 3 again.

When you understand this curve it makes so much sense when you are in a business and fall into this valley of dispair as you know all you need to do is push through and you'll enter the other side. But most of us when we don't know about these cycles just think that its the business and maybe if we move to something else it will work for us. So instead of pushing through we quit and move to something else.

I have done this so many times in the past 7 years, and only recently one of my coaches showed me this diagram and it all made sense. If i had only found this diagram before i would have been further on with so many of my business ventures as opposed to quitting prematurely.

I now have been growing a youtube channel and keeping this cycle in mind has allowed me to stick to it rather than constantly changing stuff.


Hope this helps.
 

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policebaton

Bronze Contributor
Speedway Pass
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Apr 3, 2017
107
147
31
florida
Hav
Hello there!

This is my first post in this forum, i'll try to keep it short.
I guess some of you were in the same place as me - I started multiple businesses, halfhearted to be honest, because an apparently better opportunity came around. Some made profits, some didn't. After failing three business (i'm only 22y/o) i put all my money in, i had to go back to a 9-5. Although I earn more than most people of my age
would dream of, it drives me crazy. 90% of my freedom i spent on learning about valuable topics necessary for a successful business and saved enough money to get going again. The thing is ... i spend so much time learning about different topics, figuring out what might work etc.. I am in the same position as before, just with a lot more knowledge and a lot moremature. I get more promising ideas for what to do every day, not able to make a decision. Even if i focus on getting forward in one project by learning the necessary skills, more ideas and ways of execution pop up on my mind, and I'm getting nowhere. Leading to the point to thinking that I'm too incompetent to get the work done. The only progress i see is that i accumulated enough knowledge that I've been able to help two of my friends' businesses get profitable, although they came out of nowhere, with no experience at all.
I honestly have no clue what to do now. What would You do if you were in my shoes ?

Greetings,
Alex

P.S.: Sorry for my english, I'm not a native speake
When you learned specific things, what do you mean? Like really specific on that product/market, but not much on the marketing/sales end of the equation?

If that's the case, maybe it's sales & marketing that you're missing. There's tons of info out there and without knowing it, businesses have a higher chance of failing. However, if you learn it while making your business, that knowledge transfers to sometimes high-paying sales jobs and/or to another business ventures. Are you learning things like:

- Digital marketing, click campaigns, lead funnels, etc?
- Making a huge net on your sales, whether through really good marketing, cold calls, other things?
- Email marketing, keeping newsletters
- Listening to your customers feedback, and getting good at moving them through a pipeline?
 

AlexanderFRG

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
100%
Jun 18, 2021
7
7
24
Germany
Hey, I'm new here too (although I joined ages ago but got distracted!)

I've been in the same position as you before many times, where I have learned something and then tried the business only for it to fizzle out and me moving on to the next thing, learning all i can and then trying the business only for it to fizzle out again, then me getting distracted by shiny object syndrome again.

One of the things i have found that has helped (instead of constantly getting frustrated with my lack of progress and focus) was to become self-aware. I have done lots of personality tests which all state that I am a good "starter" of projects and essentially rubbish at following through as I'm a big vision person as opposed to an executioner.

I initially took this as a negative but the more i have read around the subject the more i have come to terms with my personality. People like Richard Branson and Steve jobs were the same. It just means people like us need to hire other people around us who are good at execution and making up for our weaknesses.

Some people are great at taking a plan and working it, some people are good at creating the plan in the first place. I'm more of a strategy person, i can literally have a whole marketing strategy down step by step in a matter of minutes or a business plan drawn out step by step in a matter of minutes that's my super power so to speak.

I guess it's about knowing your strengths and delegating your weaknesses.

The second point I wanted to make was to understand the emotional cycle we go through when setting up a business (see image below).

I noticed that i would start a business venture up, it would run smoothly and even be profitable in most cases in the beginning, but then as soon as i would hit the valley of despair (3) i would find some new shiny object distraction and quit and move to the next business to start the cycle all over again only to hit 3 again.

When you understand this curve it makes so much sense when you are in a business and fall into this valley of dispair as you know all you need to do is push through and you'll enter the other side. But most of us when we don't know about these cycles just think that its the business and maybe if we move to something else it will work for us. So instead of pushing through we quit and move to something else.

I have done this so many times in the past 7 years, and only recently one of my coaches showed me this diagram and it all made sense. If i had only found this diagram before i would have been further on with so many of my business ventures as opposed to quitting prematurely.

I now have been growing a youtube channel and keeping this cycle in mind has allowed me to stick to it rather than constantly changing stuff.


Hope this helps.
Thanks a lot for your answer, i understand what you mean. And yes, i am and always was the planning guy, now that i think about it. The thing is that the projects gets more and more complex when progressing, until i can't even imagine getting profitable any more. The bulk of skills to learn always grows until it reaches a point it wouldn't be humanly possible to get that done in one lifetime. I hope you get what i mean.​
 
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Last edited:

AlexanderFRG

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
100%
Jun 18, 2021
7
7
24
Germany
Hav

When you learned specific things, what do you mean? Like really specific on that product/market, but not much on the marketing/sales end of the equation?

If that's the case, maybe it's sales & marketing that you're missing. There's tons of info out there and without knowing it, businesses have a higher chance of failing. However, if you learn it while making your business, that knowledge transfers to sometimes high-paying sales jobs and/or to another business ventures. Are you learning things like:

- Digital marketing, click campaigns, lead funnels, etc?
- Making a huge net on your sales, whether through really good marketing, cold calls, other things?
- Email marketing, keeping newsletters
- Listening to your customers feedback, and getting good at moving them through a pipeline?
Mostly i learned/learn things that were necessary to get started in the specific business, but also have value for other projects.
Some of them are:

-Marketing basics
-Marketing psychology and how it is developing as well es new trends
-Social Media Marketing
-direct distribution and cold calling

-Finance and tax basics
-contract law (especially in terms of real estate sales in germany)

-HTML, JavaScript, CSS
-SQL
-3D CAD
-Photo and Video editing

And some more niche-related topics, mostly concerning real estate.

One of my main problems is that when i start out, the project still seems manageable, with a decent, overviewable amount of skills to learn. But with time they get out of hand, and i realize the bulk of things to learn has gotten so enormous i would need three lifetimes to get halfway profitable.
 

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