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iraautemtempus

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Dec 7, 2018
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Hey everyone! My name is Roman, I'm 20 years old and currently studying IT at university.

While I know education is important, I've always been against the traditional path of going to school, getting good grades, getting a good job, saving up for retirement, and waiting for your investments to finally become reasonable by the time you're about to die.

But this is what I've been taught ever since I was young. My parents make very good money, but have followed this path. My father has started side businesses, but has not focused on them or taken them to where they can be because he has a job. He is a highly paid manager, and scared to leave because he does not want to put the family at risk. While he has a great life and has provided me with a fantastic childhood, he works probably 12 hours a day, 6 days a week....trapped in the rat race.

I always knew that this wasn't worth it to me. 6 figures wasn't worth my time slaving away for someone else. There had to be a different way!

When I was probably 14, I came across the 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss (I'm sure many of you are familiar with this). While a lot of the points in this book are different from MJ DeMarco's ideas, it was the original idea that freedom is possible that helped me realize I was right, there was a different path other than the rat race. And there are others out there that are doing it.

That's when I first became obsessed with the idea of a digital nomad. I wanted (and still do want) to travel everywhere and "barely work". So I pursued this.

During my freshman year of college, at 18, I started an eBay dropshipping business that made me about 2k over 3 months. I didn't do much research beforehand, so I had many issues starting up, but eventually it became profitable. But it was a lot of work and very low returns with ridiculous competition...so I gave up on it.

Then I decided to try freelancing my sophomore year of college. I learned copywriting in my spare time (when I wasn't stressing over my computer science major) and hopped on Upwork. I quickly rose through the ranks, and achieved a 100% job success rating with a "top rated" freelancer badge after 6 months. But I had only made just over 2k, plus it was a lot of work to find clients since I only did gigs...not to mention Upwork takes 20% of all your earnings! How crazy is that.

But I stuck with it because I enjoyed the freedom and thought I could scale it so that by the time I graduated, I could have a steady income copywriting.

Thankfully, probably 8 months in, my "lucky" break came. I say "lucky" because even though a lot of people consider me lucky (even I do really) I worked very hard for this opportunity to come to me. A guy reached out to me on Upwork, and offered me an interview to hop on his Ecommerce dropshipping team and write sales pages for their products. And he even offered to pay through Paypal instead of Upwork so that I wouldn't lose 20%.

He offered me a good amount of money to write the sales pages alone, and even better he offered me a percentage of the profits of each product I work on. I eventually got the job, and this was one of the best things to happen to me so far.

It's a lot of money for me, but not a lot of money at the same time. Took me about 6 months for any of my products to really take off, but now I've had a few week where I've made between 2k - 4k in that week from profits alone. However, this payment has been very sporadic...so it hasn't really been that much money. Under $20k in my pocket since I started 6 months ago. And there's a lot of issues with the business from their scaling methods, so every once in a while they have to shut everything down for a week or 2 to refresh and start over.

It's decent money for being 20 years old, and I'm semi happy. I work from my bed and make way more than any of my buddies. But it's a lot of work, and I know my income is limited, plus I'm at the mercy of whether or not the guy even wants my services anymore.

Anyway, I dropped out of the computer science program and switched to IT at an all online university instead since this job was going so well. I'm only at school because my parents want me to have a back up plan just in case. They're paying for it anyway, so sh*t, why not? If none of my hard work for self employment works out...at least I'll have a degree to fall back on in the mean time.

I'm back home now, and have been pondering a lot about other ways of creating wealth early. I dabbled with buying and selling really cheap websites, but that didn't really work out well...mostly because I don't have the cash in the first place to be making big purchases.

Still happy with my freelancing job, but unhappy with my limited potential and the fact that I'm not really in control of my own income, I continued the search for better sources of wealth. That's when I decided to get back into reading like I used to. I've read The Millionaire Next Door, The Millionaire Mind, the 4HWW...and I just finished Rich Dad Poor Dad recently. While I thought these books were great, they all gave the same long term "waiting game" financial advice (except for The 4HWW) that I knew wouldn't bring me the kind of wealth and freedom I wanted young. So I looked to see if there was anything else.

This is when I cam across The Millionaire Fastlane just a week ago. I was a little off put by the title, it just sounded like another get rich quick scheme. But as I looked at the Amazon reviews, it had a higher percentage of 5 star ratings than any of the wealth books I've ever seen. So I read some of the reviews, and saw some of the most promising praise about this book.

I decided to buy it and give it a shot. I'm now about 150 pages in...just got to the "Fastlane Section", and boy has it been eye opening. I just signed up to the forum yesterday as well and have read some awesome posts.

The book is amazing, I can't wait to finish. I also love the forum, and I'm looking forward to reading Unscripted as well. I'm so glad I've found a community of like minded people, and am hoping I can learn a lot, as well as contribute to the forum as much as I can.

I don't know where I'm going yet, but I feel like I've found the structure I need to set me on the right path. It's not about the money as much as it's about the freedom. But the money leads to freedom.

And I'm excited to get started! @MJ DeMarco
 
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MTEE1985

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Jun 12, 2018
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Hey everyone! My name is Roman, I'm 20 years old and currently studying IT at university.

While I know education is important, I've always been against the traditional path of going to school, getting good grades, getting a good job, saving up for retirement, and waiting for your investments to finally become reasonable by the time you're about to die.

But this is what I've been taught ever since I was young. My parents make very good money, but have followed this path. My father has started side businesses, but has not focused on them or taken them to where they can be because he has a job. He is a highly paid manager, and scared to leave because he does not want to put the family at risk. While he has a great life and has provided me with a fantastic childhood, he works probably 12 hours a day, 6 days a week....trapped in the rat race.

I always knew that this wasn't worth it to me. 6 figures wasn't worth my time slaving away for someone else. There had to be a different way!

When I was probably 14, I came across the 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss (I'm sure many of you are familiar with this). While a lot of the points in this book are different from MJ DeMarco's ideas, it was the original idea that freedom is possible that helped me realize I was right, there was a different path other than the rat race. And there are others out there that are doing it.

That's when I first became obsessed with the idea of a digital nomad. I wanted (and still do want) to travel everywhere and "barely work". So I pursued this.

During my freshman year of college, at 18, I started an eBay dropshipping business that made me about 2k over 3 months. I didn't do much research beforehand, so I had many issues starting up, but eventually it became profitable. But it was a lot of work and very low returns with ridiculous competition...so I gave up on it.

Then I decided to try freelancing my sophomore year of college. I learned copywriting in my spare time (when I wasn't stressing over my computer science major) and hopped on Upwork. I quickly rose through the ranks, and achieved a 100% job success rating with a "top rated" freelancer badge after 6 months. But I had only made just over 2k, plus it was a lot of work to find clients since I only did gigs...not to mention Upwork takes 20% of all your earnings! How crazy is that.

But I stuck with it because I enjoyed the freedom and thought I could scale it so that by the time I graduated, I could have a steady income copywriting.

Thankfully, probably 8 months in, my "lucky" break came. I say "lucky" because even though a lot of people consider me lucky (even I do really) I worked very hard for this opportunity to come to me. A guy reached out to me on Upwork, and offered me an interview to hop on his Ecommerce dropshipping team and write sales pages for their products. And he even offered to pay through Paypal instead of Upwork so that I wouldn't lose 20%.

He offered me a good amount of money to write the sales pages alone, and even better he offered me a percentage of the profits of each product I work on. I eventually got the job, and this was one of the best things to happen to me so far.

It's a lot of money for me, but not a lot of money at the same time. Took me about 6 months for any of my products to really take off, but now I've had a few week where I've made between 2k - 4k in that week from profits alone. However, this payment has been very sporadic...so it hasn't really been that much money. Under $20k in my pocket since I started 6 months ago. And there's a lot of issues with the business from their scaling methods, so every once in a while they have to shut everything down for a week or 2 to refresh and start over.

It's decent money for being 20 years old, and I'm semi happy. I work from my bed and make way more than any of my buddies. But it's a lot of work, and I know my income is limited, plus I'm at the mercy of whether or not the guy even wants my services anymore.

Anyway, I dropped out of the computer science program and switched to IT at an all online university instead since this job was going so well. I'm only at school because my parents want me to have a back up plan just in case. They're paying for it anyway, so sh*t, why not? If none of my hard work for self employment works out...at least I'll have a degree to fall back on in the mean time.

I'm back home now, and have been pondering a lot about other ways of creating wealth early. I dabbled with buying and selling really cheap websites, but that didn't really work out well...mostly because I don't have the cash in the first place to be making big purchases.

Still happy with my freelancing job, but unhappy with my limited potential and the fact that I'm not really in control of my own income, I continued the search for better sources of wealth. That's when I decided to get back into reading like I used to. I've read The Millionaire Next Door, The Millionaire Mind, the 4HWW...and I just finished Rich Dad Poor Dad recently. While I thought these books were great, they all gave the same long term "waiting game" financial advice (except for The 4HWW) that I knew wouldn't bring me the kind of wealth and freedom I wanted young. So I looked to see if there was anything else.

This is when I cam across The Millionaire Fastlane just a week ago. I was a little off put by the title, it just sounded like another get rich quick scheme. But as I looked at the Amazon reviews, it had a higher percentage of 5 star ratings than any of the wealth books I've ever seen. So I read some of the reviews, and saw some of the most promising praise about this book.

I decided to buy it and give it a shot. I'm now about 150 pages in...just got to the "Fastlane Section", and boy has it been eye opening. I just signed up to the forum yesterday as well and have read some awesome posts.

The book is amazing, I can't wait to finish. I also love the forum, and I'm looking forward to reading Unscripted as well. I'm so glad I've found a community of like minded people, and am hoping I can learn a lot, as well as contribute to the forum as much as I can.

I don't know where I'm going yet, but I feel like I've found the structure I need to set me on the right path. It's not about the money as much as it's about the freedom. But the money leads to freedom.

And I'm excited to get started! @MJ DeMarco

Awesome intro Roman and welcome to the forum!

100% right decision to finish that degree, if not as a back up plan but as a means to fund your business via a job after school.

What are your business interests? SaaS? E-Com?
 

iraautemtempus

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
350%
Dec 7, 2018
2
7
Awesome intro Roman and welcome to the forum!

100% right decision to finish that degree, if not as a back up plan but as a means to fund your business via a job after school.

What are your business interests? SaaS? E-Com?
Hi! Yeah, after a lot of thought the degree seems to be the right decision for those reasons. It's just the amount of time spent into that which I could spend into what I feel are more useful endeavors is quite frustrating, but oh well, only 2 more years!

As far as my business interests, I don't really like Ecomm too much. I work with Ecomm owners now, and it seems like quite a ridiculous amount of work for marginal returns. They make great money, but have been working 12 hour days non stop for the past 3 years (don't get me wrong, I know everything will take work though). They also run into a lot of issues all the time dealing with Facebook ad accounts getting shutdown and things like that. Dropshipping is really about the money and not about providing value to people, so I don't think it's sustainable long term...maybe I'm wrong though.

I do find SEO and social media management and related digital marketing areas interesting though. But I haven't done too many entrepreneurial things (been more focused on freelancing), but I am looking to transition into business ownership instead. So I'll have to look into more areas and educate myself for sure.
 

MJ DeMarco

I followed the science; all I found was money.
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Welcome my friend, appreciate the great background and intro. Hope the books continue to deliver value for ya, as well as the forum.
 
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