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@Metz, you can answer this one.
I'm not complaining. I'm being transparent about how I'm thinking. I acknowledge fully that such a frame of thinking is outlandish.
Not trying to bash you, but think about it. You don't know what you REALLY want right now.
Yeah, I have a ton of conflicting desires. I guess I'll stick to the program and see what my 25 year old self thinks about all of this. We'll see how I feel about it when I achieve Fastlane success I guess. Even if I'm not 100% happy with the outcome, I won't regret taking a path that frees from doing things I don't want to do. I'll accept the outcome that I get and make the best of it.
the worst thing your older self will feel is if you don't take some risk when you are young, healthy and have a ton of energy. Also you have lower risk compared to once you are settled down with kids. You can always get a job if you fail in business but its harder to start a business once you are in a steady paying job and have family commitments. Not impossible but harder. In the end you can be happy either way as long as you know the path you're taking and don't have false expectations. Example, there are so many teachers who love teaching and really don't care about getting rich. They are making a difference everyday so as long as they don't have false expectations about lifestyle and live within means, they are happy and fulfilled.
Bruh, assuming a $100 million exit wasn't phenomenal on its own, don't look at the outcome of this current cycle as the final outcome. You know what most entrepreneurs do when they make an exit with money that they can easily retire on? They go back and start new businesses. Because of that hunger, that need to develop, to bring value to people, and the dopamine that comes from those customers recognizing your value and just throwing money at you when you do a good job.
I always knew I wanted more in my life. My family life as a youth was tumultuous with abuse and lack of resources. We were white trash. Well, I was the step headed Mexican that took care of the house and siblings so I felt even more poor than them. I use to day dream about inventing something, designing clothes, becoming a celebrity or just plain being rich. I never had a plan. I was raised in a environment where we expected hand outs. Hell, we deserved them because others can afford it. Living off welfare and donations my whole life was embarrassing but I see now more than ever that it was truly embarrassing not because of the welfare part but because of my parents attitude toward it. As if the world owed them when they never worked hard for any type of advancement or improvement in their lives. It's disgusting because small parts of this entitlement has creeped into my life and I've been expecting something for nothing all these years.
You're one determined soul dude, keep hunting.
OKAY, NOW WE'RE COOKING. This we can work with.
So, hear me out, but I'd like to challenge you a little bit.
This "insatiable lust" you talk about.. we all feel it to some extent here. If we didn't feel it before reading TMF , we definitely felt it after. But speaking just for myself, you and I are a lot alike in that I want to be wealthy to the point of obsession. I want to buy a nice house in cash, have a nice car, even a yacht (and I'm not even that big into boats but having something dope like that where I can just zip up and down the west coast entertaining friends and just vibing, cool sign me up). I don't want to work for survival.. I want to make enough where I can "retire" and being smart enough that I can now work because I want to, not because I need to. I want money that makes money.. systems that no longer require my attention all the time, just making money. I can't tell you how excited I was the first morning I woke up to multiple orders on my e-commerce store because that was the first time experiencing getting paid while I was asleep. Not like waking up to a paycheck, but to transactions happening in real-time and I wasn't there for them yet still profiting off them. That was "oh geez, oh f*ck, I want more" moment for me. So I get that, I really do.
B U T.
If you wanna be a billionaire, you gotta make your first million. And before you make your first million, you gotta make your first thousand.. your first hundred, your first ten.. YOUR FIRST $1. When I started my LLC, my first client gave me a paper check that, when I deposited it, I took out two $1 bills. I framed the first one and it sits on my little "reflection nook" above my bookcase (I have a bunch of posters and momentos on there meant to remind me that it's the journey to our ideal self that matters much more than the destination, that I have a lot of power over the outcome of my life, affirming stuff like that); the second one, I gave to my client and thanked her for her faith in me because this was the first brick in the bastion of wealth I was using to get to where I wanna be.
Bruh, assuming a $100 million exit wasn't phenomenal on its own, don't look at the outcome of this current cycle as the final outcome. You know what most entrepreneurs do when they make an exit with money that they can easily retire on? They go back and start new businesses. Because of that hunger, that need to develop, to bring value to people, and the dopamine that comes from those customers recognizing your value and just throwing money at you when you do a good job.
But to keep that hunger from corrupting you -- becoming so hungry that you just chase money and will do anything to get it, even if it meant defrauding your customers, taking on crippling amounts of debt, doing a bunch of unethical, shady shit to get there -- you need to remember the importance of production vs. consumption, of giving first in order to get, in falling in love with the process. That last one is why entrepreneurs will never retire to do nothing for the rest of their lives because we're not built for that the way the scripted fantasize about. "Retirement" is crossing the line of "I don't have to work anymore if I don't want to" and I think it's safe to say that a lot of us really do love the process of working on a system, building shit, problem-solving, helping people. So much so that sitting still is painful if it's done for too long. Sure, the money's awesome when it comes flowing in -- but that's validation from our efforts trying to create. For me, I've always spurned the traditional "work until you're 65 and then retire" mentality. I'd much rather build up a nice nest egg while I'm young, take a year to dick around and do whatever, then come back and start my next project.
You mentioned wasted youth if we try to get to the fastlane. But even before I've "made it," so far in my life, I've:
And this is all just on the path to my current goal of getting to $10 million to my first "retirement" (nor is it the complete list). Tell me honestly that I wasted the earlier parts of my youth. Granted, I won't listen, but you can try. Could I have solely focused on my business this whole time? Sure, but that wasn't my sole priority.. perhaps it's slowed down my progression, but it was my decision to experience other things too at the time. I don't regret that.. but I also am certain enough to know that wealth is a "when" not "if" circumstance for me, especially with the momentum I'm building up again with a lot more wisdom and skill than my early 20s.
- Graduated with a degree that frankly I attained because I wanted the education, not because it'll help me with my work. Unless someone wants to explain how a B.S. in German History and Literature is gonna help me with my main business or my side hustle. I also graduated without any debt, something that haunts all my friends that partied and didn't work, taking out student loans and pissing them away to do so. Yeah, I worked full-time while being a full-time student but I don't have $50K+ in debt for a shiny piece of paper.
- Got my first-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. Trained for 2 hours for 3-4 days a week not including the time spent training outside of class. When I got my black belt, I had the highest score in a region of ten states in my "promotion class."
- Wrote and published my first book.
- Freelanced at 20, became self-employed at 22 (and in between that, had a gap year from school after my grandmother passed away which threw me into a deep depression, was stuck in a miserable job working in food service, and was like f*ck this, and fought hard to never be in that position again). I think I attributed that moment as my FTE.. with another reinforcing one at the end of 2018 when I struggled again.
- Moved from the Midwest to the Pacific Northwest-based on a coin flip. I knew I wanted a new adventure after college but couldn't decide if I wanted to move west out here or east to New England (both had a lot of aesthetic appeal to me as a writer). So I literally flipped a coin and let fate decide. Perhaps not the smartest way to invest one's future but I did it because I wanted to prove to myself that not only can I survive anywhere, but thrive too. Six years deep living in Washington state, ya boy's thriving. Not at all wealthy as he wants to be, but moving to some random place where I knew no one and didn't have the natural connections school and in-office work brings you in a state that's notoriously introverted (read: the Seattle freeze), I'm doing real good.
And if you think I'm gonna stop there.. lol. That's a no. Now, do I want to be a billionaire? Eh. Maybe for like a day, but if I get to that point, I want to set up some non-profits, reinvest in causes I believe in (I'm a slut for green tech), stuff like that. But I don't really think too much about it because I'm not even a millionaire yet. Yet being the operative term.
But back to you.
In your last post, it sounds like you're finally getting a bit of an understanding of what work needs to be done.. and in order to build the life you want to live, you need to get to work. You want it fast? Good. Start now and chisel out some time each day to work on your project AND work on yourself. You can have the best system in the world but if you're kinda just shuffling around, feeling shitty about yourself, your outlook, the lack of control you might have despite the much higher degree of it you possess compared to your scripted friends.. you're just setting up obstacles to make your path more difficult. There's no nobility in self-martyrdom.
The wealthy friends I have all have said the same thing: making your first million is hard af.. but making your second million is much easier. Making money, like anything else, is a skill. The more you practice that skill, the better you get at it. Just like something as inane as going to the grocery store. When you first become an adult and need to shop for yourself, you might just buy a bunch of junk food and whatever else you desire. But then you're like.. "Oh, I should probably buy some healthier stuff.." and then you realize you need to learn how to cook, how to meal-prep, how to store things to make them last longer, how to take advantage of sales to save money, what pans to buy, whether or not a chest freezer is a good investment. You learn by doing and the more you learn, the more you realize how little you know.. but the easier the task at hand becomes.
So you wanna be a billionaire? Make Elon and Jeff look like amateurs? By all means, do it. I'm honestly rooting for you because they could stand to have some competition. But you gotta make that first $1. And the only thing stopping you from doing that right now.. frankly, is you. And if it's you that's the obstacle.. well.. you're in control of that, big guy.
If you're hungry, go eat.
Shit buddy even if you made 100,000,000 you could still buy a yacht and a private jet. A yacht is only 4,000,000 and a jet is about the same amount. realistically you could do it with 20,000,000. Maybe not as comfortably but as long as you got a good money system going that's not out of the question.
You're right. Like I've said before, money just magnifies who you are and what you are. It's doesn't change your basic nature or mindset. If you're an unhappy creep before money, then with piles of cash you'll just be worse.
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