The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

Herve Switch

PARKED
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
0% - New User
Nov 7, 2019
2
0
Hi Everyone and @MJ DeMarco ,

I am Herve, and very new to the Fast Lane Forum.
I am an Entrepreneur, as well as currently working for an IT company (9-5) as a Project Manager...yay! ;)
I am in my early 30's and I have listened to TMF (twice now). A good friend of mine and work colleague had recommended the book - He said "knowing you, I know you will enjoy it...", and oh my... he was right! I sure did enjoy it, so much that I have listened to it back to back. I preferred the audio book (even though I bought the hard copy for my beautiful wife to read), since I had never been a great fan of reading books in my young age (what a shame!). Prior to my "3rd" attempt at listening to TMF again, I thought I would give a go and listen to Unscripted for a change. I equally loved it, and both books do compliment each other very well in their own perspectives. I did miss MJ's voice from TMF though, although the narrator from Unscripted did a brilliant job too.

How it all started...

I believe we (Entrepreneurs) often have an "awakening" or as I'd like to call it, a wake up call to entrepreneurship: The feeling that something about our day to day life isn't quite right; The "9-5 lifestyle" ; the "there must be more to life" feeling... Well, if MJ's wake up call was seeing a Lamborghini, mine was slightly different. I still remember mine like it was yesterday...it came to light about 11 months ago...late in life I feel, but it did come at last.
It was after a marvellous Christmas holiday with family abroad. We had a great time, fun and pleasure being all reunited. Partying, drinking, or like the Brits love to say it, chillaxing. Little did I know, 2.5 weeks had gone so fast, it was time for a quick reality check: back to the lovely cold of January, with less than nothing left in bank account after naïvely splashing all my end of year savings. I had to prepare for work in a few days, and I could smell the same old routine all over again. I couldn't wait for the end of the month already, although guess what? Every mid-month or so for the past decade, I couldn't wait for the end of the month... It was just insane. I asked myself a question that potentially changed my life since: "How will January 2020 be any different than now?" I was not prepared for history to repeat itself so I had to act and do something. I didn't know what yet, but something had to be done.

My Journey...

My Entrepreneur's journey had began. Google was my ultimate best friend. I searched everything a desperate person would (note the keywords): "Make money online"; "How can I make money fast?"; "Make money from zero", "Start a business online", "Become rich from nothing", and on and on... With every search came along the "targeting of the gurus" and it was everywhere. I have filtered out and ignored a great bunch, until one truly caught my eyes and ears. It was a different story! He was a self-made young millionaire, about 21 years old at the time. He was from France and had the opportunity to go study at Harvard University in the USA. He did attend the school, but "didn't quite enjoy it" he claimed. He wanted to be an entrepreneur, and for him, Harvard was not his calling. Wow! I froze.
I had asked myself over and over how many people on this earth would dream to get into that school, and yet, this young french kid is happily rejecting this marvellous offer... I was intrigued, and I had to know his story a little more. He was an entrepreneur, creating products and brands using drop shipping. This term was new to me then, not so much now.

The young entrepreneur's funnel was to create a bunch of followers, offering a free (although detailed enough) series of videos about drop shipping, and of course and attempt at a very expensing "webinar 2.0" for the continuity of his course. Sounds familiar? Although he never claimed that he would make me rich personally, I followed him closely as I was more intrigued about his journey, and his Havard school rejection motive. I took on the free course of course, but for his paid scheme, no thanks! I will pass. I will figure it out all by myself I said then.
It was the 7th of January 2019 when I watched my very first drop shipping training course. That day, all I had for breakfast, dinner and tea was 1 banana and about 4 litres of water the whole day. Yup, a sudden adrenaline from nowhere grabbed my soul, and I couldn't keep away from the computer. Videos after videos, coding and searching, and googling, and trying and trying...In 12 days, my store was live! Wow! I still remember how excited and scared I was on the first day! The joy, the hard work - it all paid off finally, I thought. For me I was done, but little did I know, it was the only the beginning. I had to make sales. The big slap followed. My very first sales came in on the 12 of February (twice as long as it took to create the store). In those long, everlasting days awaiting for this first "ching ching", I had lost all hope, multiple times. I felt like closing the store, making sure I wouldn't get charged for the first month of my store's subscription. But that very 1st sale gave me an unexplainable hope, so I carried on...

6 Months in...

OK - Let me fast forward a little now (6 months in) - Time went by and I was all over the place. I thought I knew it all and even opened 3 other stores in the process. Took an idea from my beautiful wife an implemented it; thought of an idea over night, implemented it and opened a store in 2 days. It was a mess. I still had the my 9-5 job, and my salary was partially fuelling the advertisement of my store campaigns. One day I was doing X, and the next Y and so on. I made a few sales here and there, but nothing really consistent or the profit margins were either slim or poor, if not losses. This had being going on for almost 7 months, but to me I wasn't losing money as such, but learning in the process, trying to figure out how I could become better, gathering data and testing what worked although testing for that long, uhmm not so sure now...Until the day my work colleague had recommended the book, yes "TMF" finally came my way. A simple message on Whatsapp with a Amazon link to TMF add to basket. He had also sent me a link of one of MJ's interview on Episode 257 with Jeremy Slate, available on Youtube. My friend said: "Listen to the interview first, it's about 45mins long and skip the first 4 mins as it's just an intro..."

When I finished listening to TMF book the very first time, I was extremely pleased to know that I was abnormal, or at least to know that I wasn't alone to feel the way I used to feel. I could identify myself in every words from the book, every sentences. I identified myself in the path, the journey, the feeling, the script! It was a complete WOW. But then, I also spotted the mistakes I used to make, and it's started from the very beginning with my approach to wealth (remember the words): "Make money online"; "How can I make money fast?"; "Make money from zero"... The Is, the me, the now.... From then, I changed my mindset and asked to myself: If I could rewind 7 months back, what would I do differently now that I know all of this? Sure I learnt a lot from this experience, but what did I really gain in those months?

After TMF...

I started to question everything after listening to TMF (and Unscripted ). For every issue I heard from anyone, I thought (in my own mind) of a potential solution for it. I began to realise how most people (not all) live in a society were we love to complain about things, but rather than thinking of providing solutions to our own complaints, we do nothing. How pathetic eh? Yet, I probably used to be in that very same circle. But it truly is odd to finally realise it for yourself.
It's like living in the Matrix, where I am also in my living room, sitting on my sofa outside of the matrix, seeing myself living this life in the movie. Not sure it that makes sense, but basically it's like watching a game being played on tv, but not only you are a player in the game, but also sitting on the bench at the same time watching yourself play and talking to yourself. My beautiful wife often asks me: Why is it that when I tell or ask you about something, you always answer by a "why do you think that is...?", "How best can we change..."? or "What if it was done this way..." lol, Perhaps I only try to return the question in order to understand that the answers to her own questions or complaints are already known even before asking them, but just not thinking in that "Solution" angle... Just like "great minds think alike". entrepreneurs' minds work the same way. You can't explain to a kid what a fire burn feels like if they never got burnt, let alone try to explain to a crazy person that they are crazy...
So after TMF I had to change or should I say "adjust" a little - I had closed down all my useless stores and I kept the only profitable one, and gave it some focus it needed. I had also realised that all the stores I had created back then were not really providing any real value. Sure some cool and nice products to have, but not really solving any real need or problems in our day to day. My approach was not particularly great. And then, something clicked. I found a real "need".

The awakening...

"Need more info", or "How can I do this", and "Oh, it's too hard"...Those were a few statements which I stumbled across often when I was being targeted and retarget by the Gurus. I knew what to think about their ads already, but I was mostly intrigued to find out what other thought about them too. So I read, and read, and gather their thinking. Some comments were fair while for the rest I thought to myself "Seriously?" Surely a 10 seconds google search wouldn't hurt or an hour or two max would lead you to the solution for this. I only thought this as I had already solved or encountered the same obstacles during my journey, so it may have sounded easy for me to say. But then again it was repetitive on a daily. X person, then Y, and the next, and the next... Was it really that complex to do? Was there a real need? Could I do something about it? I thought oh well, I'll give it a go...

I created a site and within 2 days. and I starting advertising already. There was no product to ship to anyone. My approach was "let me solve this for you, in no time"... After spending $50 in two days ($25 each day), which really was my data gathering phase, I secured my first lead, and that meant $300 straight for my secondary product/service. wow, it worked! I had two main products (or services) which I claimed I could delivery in less than 3 days and 7 days respectively. But for me, the "day" measure meant hours. So product 1 was 3 hours, and product 2 was 7 hours. I mainly used this metric based on still keeping my 9-5 and only doing my entrepreneur's work 1 hour every evening, I thought this could suit me just well, and I do not overcommit to myself. When my lead paid me a deposit of $150 prior to the work starting, woop woop! I knew this was secured now. so I spent 2.5 hours on it, and I got it done. I just had made a x6 ROI in no time, for the very first time. But then it got even juicier...

My lead had reviewed his product and loved it. He asked something that opened up a new door of opportunity - Would you consider maintaining my product. I replied "how so?" He said well, I don't really have time to look after it, so I will be happy to pay someone to do it. Before I shouted "How lazy!", I first thought " Opportunity!" so I sad - Yeah sure. I figured that what he had asked would take roughly 10 hours of work, but spread across a period of a month. so technically 10 hours in a month. I could easily set his maintenance plan in 4 hours, and allocate 1 or 2 hours each week if and were needed to total it to 10 hours. He believed that it was a day to day activity. Well it can be, if there is no automation of course. So I threw a number in the air, and said I will do it for $1000 a month. Very optimistic I know. But guess what, he said OKAY... so I froze!
What had just happened? for 3 hours of initial work plus a new 10 hours, I just secured $1300 in about 13 hours? Are you kidding me? I also set a deal to have a small 10% share of any profit made over a certain profit threshold (Smart). So it could be more?

That evening after hanging up the call with my client (not lead anymore), I walked around my kitchen table in circles for a good 20mins, thinking to myself what just happened:
- What if I could had to 2 clients now? what about 10? or 50? Could I handle a 1000s?
- Could I handle the workload? Surely not...
- Am I trading my time for money? I was again... so what could I do to fix it? How could I tweak it? or can I even? Yes, I could...
- Can I automate some of it? yes! or all of it? perhaps... Is it what I originally wanted to do? No, but who care if the destination is even sweeter?
- bl**dy hell!, can this work without me being in the middle...it potentially can...

Is the Fast Lane awakening finally?...

I had set myself goals and targets back in January of where I would like to be in a year time, but none of the 3 stores got me anywhere close to these goals. I was thinking of me, myself and I. How can I get this and that...me, me, me...In a week space of a week after providing some real value and answering to people's problems, money just followed...I didn't even have to ask for it. $1300 in 13 hours day may not seem like a huge deal to many people on here, but it sure was for me.

it's the 11th of November 2019 today and I drove to work this morning listening to TMF for the 3rd time (I know...). I have just got to work, and my boss has just walked in now. As he sat across me, guess what I say: To be continued...
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
Last edited:

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

More Intros...

Top