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Hello my dear fastlaners,
first of all: please excuse the length of my writing. A lot has accumulated inside of my head and I really have the need to put it all down. Feel free to skip it all, but be aware that this might be your best chance to get to know me... ;-)
I registered on this forum a few month ago, right after finishing MJs book. Until today I've only been lurking, trying to get some kind of overview. There's so much (awesome) information in here, I was immediately overwhelmed and intimidated.
Still, I love the straightforwardness and overall helpfulness of the fastlanes veterans posting here.
Hopefully I'll be able to give back at least as much value as I've already taken with me just from browsing through the threads. Also I'll do my best to behave. It's scary how the post quality from new members declined - that's even noticable for me who's just joined.
Right now I'm 33 years old and have been working as an IT-freelancer since late 1999. Even though I always planned to reach some stage of passive income, I never managed to focus enough to get mentionable results. Dividing myself between all the different freelance jobs I worked at any given time, took all my energy and motivation. Nothing was left to invest in MY own business ideas.
In the year 2006 I ended up in a relationship with a girl I had a short fling with during my teenage years. We met again after she crashed into my car that was parked on the side of the road. What a crazy coincidence I thought - not so sure about that now... We stayed in contact and things went serious pretty fast. We bought a house, moved in together and gone was every little bit of free time I might have had. Most of the days I ended up supporting her, fixing the things that went wrong in her everyday live and often giving up a lot of myself just to make her feel better. Not to get into too much detail, but my own mental health was on the line.
It took me until 2011 to slowly understand that. Today I know she's a complete psycho and probably a lost cause. That may sound harsh, but things were way more lopsided than I wanted to realize and I had to leave asap. I managed to break up with her but she kept the house and most of the money. Things I gladly left behind for keeping my sanity.
Beeing almost broke, I moved back to my parents place to heal. Luckily they've got lots of space and don't mind me being around. (I'm still living there now, I tried paying them at least some sort of rent, but they declined.)
First I tried to reducing my workload by ditching all customers but the most profitable ones. That didn't help. I was totally unhappy with my job and life, still unable to do anything besides the daily grind. The quality of my work went from good to worse, to bad to real shitty. Still managed to sell enough to cover the living expenses (not something I'm proud of).
This continued until january this year when I had my real eye-opener. After an exhausting argument with the largest client I had in which they tried to scam me for my money, I had enough. I quit my customers and cancelled all the contracts I had with them.
I never felt as free!
Freelancing can be hell and if you are doing it, I suggest you ditch it immediately.
This was about the time I picked up MJs book for the first time and I sucked it up in a mere two days. That was a real eye-opener. For some time I pretty much knew what I had to do but never was it presented to me in such a condensed format. I can not thank MJ enough and I'll at least have to invite him to dinner when I finally get on the fastlane myself.
Right now I'm enjoying zero income. I'm living from my savings which will probably get me through until late summer. That's not much time but I choose this path deliberately because I think a bit of pressure is necessary to get my butt on the move.
And that's my story so far. In short: I took some bad decisions in my life, had lots of excuses for not pursuing the dream and managed to hit a fair share of bumps on the way.
But that's the past. And what better way to advance in life than to fail, learn from your mistakes and try again?
Well, I'm REALLY starting to rant. Time to come to an end.
Thanks for letting me share.
-- Cedric
first of all: please excuse the length of my writing. A lot has accumulated inside of my head and I really have the need to put it all down. Feel free to skip it all, but be aware that this might be your best chance to get to know me... ;-)
I registered on this forum a few month ago, right after finishing MJs book. Until today I've only been lurking, trying to get some kind of overview. There's so much (awesome) information in here, I was immediately overwhelmed and intimidated.
Still, I love the straightforwardness and overall helpfulness of the fastlanes veterans posting here.
Hopefully I'll be able to give back at least as much value as I've already taken with me just from browsing through the threads. Also I'll do my best to behave. It's scary how the post quality from new members declined - that's even noticable for me who's just joined.
Right now I'm 33 years old and have been working as an IT-freelancer since late 1999. Even though I always planned to reach some stage of passive income, I never managed to focus enough to get mentionable results. Dividing myself between all the different freelance jobs I worked at any given time, took all my energy and motivation. Nothing was left to invest in MY own business ideas.
In the year 2006 I ended up in a relationship with a girl I had a short fling with during my teenage years. We met again after she crashed into my car that was parked on the side of the road. What a crazy coincidence I thought - not so sure about that now... We stayed in contact and things went serious pretty fast. We bought a house, moved in together and gone was every little bit of free time I might have had. Most of the days I ended up supporting her, fixing the things that went wrong in her everyday live and often giving up a lot of myself just to make her feel better. Not to get into too much detail, but my own mental health was on the line.
It took me until 2011 to slowly understand that. Today I know she's a complete psycho and probably a lost cause. That may sound harsh, but things were way more lopsided than I wanted to realize and I had to leave asap. I managed to break up with her but she kept the house and most of the money. Things I gladly left behind for keeping my sanity.
Beeing almost broke, I moved back to my parents place to heal. Luckily they've got lots of space and don't mind me being around. (I'm still living there now, I tried paying them at least some sort of rent, but they declined.)
First I tried to reducing my workload by ditching all customers but the most profitable ones. That didn't help. I was totally unhappy with my job and life, still unable to do anything besides the daily grind. The quality of my work went from good to worse, to bad to real shitty. Still managed to sell enough to cover the living expenses (not something I'm proud of).
This continued until january this year when I had my real eye-opener. After an exhausting argument with the largest client I had in which they tried to scam me for my money, I had enough. I quit my customers and cancelled all the contracts I had with them.
I never felt as free!
Freelancing can be hell and if you are doing it, I suggest you ditch it immediately.
This was about the time I picked up MJs book for the first time and I sucked it up in a mere two days. That was a real eye-opener. For some time I pretty much knew what I had to do but never was it presented to me in such a condensed format. I can not thank MJ enough and I'll at least have to invite him to dinner when I finally get on the fastlane myself.
Right now I'm enjoying zero income. I'm living from my savings which will probably get me through until late summer. That's not much time but I choose this path deliberately because I think a bit of pressure is necessary to get my butt on the move.
And that's my story so far. In short: I took some bad decisions in my life, had lots of excuses for not pursuing the dream and managed to hit a fair share of bumps on the way.
But that's the past. And what better way to advance in life than to fail, learn from your mistakes and try again?
Well, I'm REALLY starting to rant. Time to come to an end.
Thanks for letting me share.
-- Cedric
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