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Very lost and feel hopeless

Chng

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A lot of stuff has happened. I was flunking out of college, so my school put me on a mental health leave of absence. They also required that I sign a no trespass order, which I promptly violated by spending the night at a friend's place. I didn't know where else to go, but I wish that I had not done that. I have a court hearing next week and my lawyer said he would able to expunge my record (a misdemeanor for trespassing), which I'm very thankful about. Right now, I'm attending school mandated therapy.

I feel so lost because my entire life has changed and I don't know what to do. I honestly wish I tried harder in school, but right now there is nothing I can do but move forward and learn from my past mistakes. I could use some advice to help me figure out what to do.

Today, I found out that I was rejected from McDonalds. On the day of the interview, I showed up well dressed and I was sure I nailed the interview, but when I called the manager about my status, he told me there were no positions available. I'm very sure they saw that I had a misdemeanor under my name and decided that I was unfit to work at McDonalds. My hope was to work at McDonalds and make some money and spend the rest of my time learning some other skills for a fastlane business, but this rejection has been a severe blow to my self-esteem. I went to a prestigious engineering school only to flunk out and be put on a mental health leave for a year. I trespassed the university stupidly and got rejected from McDonalds.

My family has lost hope and faith in me. My mom is sad because all her friends' children are going to prestigious schools and are going to be working in well paying jobs whereas her son is on leave, has been arrested, and cannot get a job from McDonalds. My father believes that I'm nutjob and although he is very caring and supportive, I feel terrible. I know that I have made mistakes, but I want to learn from them and live a successful life. I believe I am 100% capable of a successful life and if I want to, I would be able to graduate from my difficult university with top marks this time. I would work my a$$ off in any kind of business. But, right now I don't know. I've been out of touch with friends for a long time. I've only talked to either my therapist or my family and I feel that this is making me feel worse.

Right now to improve my situation, I need to find a job. My local library has a job resource center that can refer applicants to jobs. I'm going to brush up my resume and go tomorrow for a job screening. This is my first goal: to secure a job.
Once I have a job, I'm going to work on copywriting. I've always had a fascination with persuasion and trying to convince people to buy something for their own benefit, and I feel that copywriting is a great way to do this. When I was in college, my goal had been to graduate and work in sales as a sales engineer for this reason.

However, copywriting is like sales in writing and allows you to connect with more people. I've pretty much completed the Gary Halbert 30 day challenge (read all the books, took notes and wrote the recommended sales letters by hand), but I feel really insecure about copywriting. How can I write good copy? It just feels so intimidating. I'm also in the process of taking Lex's 15 day copywriting challenge, but my answers to the homework assignments feel so shitty compared to the ones others have posted. I'm not going to give up and I'm going to keep writing more and start taking requests for beginner copy on UpWork (already made an account following Lex's UpWork Challenge), but I would like some advice on how I can improve, change my mindset, and not be a failure.

My third goal to keep in mind is to figure out something fast lane. I'll do that by continuing to read and learn and eventually I know that I will figure out something.
Wow, this was very cathartic for me. Just outlining my problems and what I want to do to improve my situation makes me feel much better. To be honest I wish I could talk to someone in a conversation that's not with my therapist or my family (I haven't told either of them how I feel right now), but posting this on the Fastlane Forum has been very helpful.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post. I would appreciate any advice to guide me through these troubling times.
 
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Stargazer

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You don't come across as a 'nutjob'

Can you get some sort of sales job where you live?

Direct Business to Consumer Sales eg Home Improvements tend to be more forgiving about non-related things like trespassing at your University as it is completely irrelevant.

Being results based it is more your attitude that would be the the main factor.

Dan
 

Silverfox148

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Do the below and this will give you a start:

1. Sit down and smile, I mean really smile, be thankful, come up with a list of 10 things you are thankful for.

2. Next , if you have not ate, go ahead and eat something, get some food in you.

3. You will need to address the situation with your parents at some point, you are putting way to much stress on yourself, and taking them into account way too much. You need to cut the umbilical cord and go your own way. A way to start this to start journaling about your childhood experiences with them.

4. Make a vow to yourself to only follow your interests/values and not those of anyone else for the rest of the life.

The problems you are having have their roots in your childhood.
 

Johnny boy

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You think you're screwed because you can't get a job. You know the funny part?

Even if you were a felon, you can run your own business.

You failed at school? Who cares? So did I. So did tons of other people. It's not real life. Real life is real life. School is fake. Based on what you've said, there's nothing to look down on you for.

Personally, I'm growing a lawn care business, and I wouldn't want to be doing anything else. But I guarantee you the one thing I'd be doing instead would be making money online in a foreign country, living on the beach for a few years.

You have freedom and you're hungry. You probably don't believe me but you're in a great position. You're young too. You're better off than most.

Your success will be determined by your self esteem. Do you want to be successful? Then raise the self esteem.

You need to believe that you're a high quality person, who deserves the money, who deserves success, who deserves the freedom, who deserves to be told yes when others are told no, who deserves happiness.

Most of what you think you cannot do, you can, and you can likely do much more. You just lack the knowledge of knowing how easy things really are if you're confident, and you set your mind to it.

I don't know what you want and what would make you happy but I know you're not where you want to be at all so I'll give you a suggestion that is probably a guaranteed improvement of where you are now, by a significant margin.

I suggest you first forget about "securing a job", hop on craigslist and find some quick work (via "gigs" section) and work your face off non-stop for a couple weeks tops.

I then suggest you use that money and build a website offering web design and/or marketing services and then advertise for it on craigslist in local metro areas throughout the US for $5 a post. You can do anything from building websites to just teaching business owners how to market their business better.

I then suggest you get customers, charge them thousands (you must do good work and actually help them), and save every penny.

I then suggest you hop on a plane ASAP and live in a cheap country like Thailand where you can live on the beach and spend $1000 a month and live comparably rich, and make much more than that only working a few hours a week.

I then suggest you get a little more efficient, work a little harder, and then travel a whole lot more, enjoying the next few years seeing the world, working out in the gym, dating pretty girls, smiling a whole lot more and laughing at all of the stupid people you knew who called you a loser because they all now have jobs they hate and no freedom.

If you're interested then I'd teach you for free. I made a thousand dollars within a few days of even having the idea. And the thousand dollars came from having a two hour conversation with someone with a business in a totally different state than me. No website, no social media management. I just consulted them for a couple hours and got paid. I shudder at the thought of working for 10 hours at McDonalds and getting a hundred something dollars or so after taxes. God....that sounds like hell. They did you a favor my friend.
 
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rogue synthetic

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My mom is sad because all her friends' children are going to prestigious schools and are going to be working in well paying jobs whereas her son is on leave, has been arrested, and cannot get a job from McDonalds.

You sound a lot more interesting and ambitious than any of these guys being good cogs in the factory like they were trained from birth.

I mean it's not like you shot a guy or got convicted of grand theft. If you can show up on time and produce decent work you can make your own way. Who cares what the low-paid hiring manager at a low-paid job thinks about you?
 

BlokeInProgress

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@Chng You have a planned, probably better than the others.

You have a story to tell, use that! Strive and be an inspiration to others. Imagine how much people you can inspire when you tell your story a year from now, how you went through the ups and downs and still made it...man that's powerful!

I wish you good luck and keep us posted.
 
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Andy Black

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Chng

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Thank you for the feedback guys! It's been really helpful to read all your replies. I'm going to follow your advice. My job screening went well at my local library and I'm going to interview with a customer service company. I'm in the process of writing a tailored cover letter to show the company that I'm a good fit regardless of my lack of experience in the field. I'm also thinking of making a linkedin account and reaching out to recruiters for sales jobs. If I make a kickass cover letter, they'll be bound to look more favorably on me.

Also @Johnny boy, your post was really inspirational. I applied to some gigs on craigslist and I'm interviewing with one tomorrow (I distribute flyers for 2 hours a week and get full access to a gym, pretty sweet deal). I've been reading some other posts on how to get started in web design and am gonna start drilling html, css, and js on codeacademy. Gonna also continue to improve my copywriting and hopefully I can launch a business focused on making great quality websites with good copy. I would like to be able to leave my family right now because it just hurts knowing that my parents believe I failed. I want to go somewhere else for a while and I think that web dev with good copy is the way to go.

So I'm going to start working on some short term gigs and hopefully get a job to get some extra money. At the same time, I'm going to learn how to build some kickass websites and write copy that sells.

PS. How do I DM? I can't find the start a conversation button anywhere.
 
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Dianne Cohen

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You think you're screwed because you can't get a job. You know the funny part?

Even if you were a felon, you can run your own business.

You failed at school? Who cares? So did I. So did tons of other people. It's not real life. Real life is real life. School is fake. Based on what you've said, there's nothing to look down on you for.

Personally, I'm growing a lawn care business, and I wouldn't want to be doing anything else. But I guarantee you the one thing I'd be doing instead would be making money online in a foreign country, living on the beach for a few years.

You have freedom and you're hungry. You probably don't believe me but you're in a great position. You're young too. You're better off than most.

Your success will be determined by your self esteem. Do you want to be successful? Then raise the self esteem.

You need to believe that you're a high quality person, who deserves the money, who deserves success, who deserves the freedom, who deserves to be told yes when others are told no, who deserves happiness.

Most of what you think you cannot do, you can, and you can likely do much more. You just lack the knowledge of knowing how easy things really are if you're confident, and you set your mind to it.

I don't know what you want and what would make you happy but I know you're not where you want to be at all so I'll give you a suggestion that is probably a guaranteed improvement of where you are now, by a significant margin.

I suggest you first forget about "securing a job", hop on craigslist and find some quick work (via "gigs" section) and work your face off non-stop for a couple weeks tops.

I then suggest you use that money and build a website offering web design and/or marketing services and then advertise for it on craigslist in local metro areas throughout the US for $5 a post. You can do anything from building websites to just teaching business owners how to market their business better.

I then suggest you get customers, charge them thousands (you must do good work and actually help them), and save every penny.

I then suggest you hop on a plane ASAP and live in a cheap country like Thailand where you can live on the beach and spend $1000 a month and live comparably rich, and make much more than that only working a few hours a week.

I then suggest you get a little more efficient, work a little harder, and then travel a whole lot more, enjoying the next few years seeing the world, working out in the gym, dating pretty girls, smiling a whole lot more and laughing at all of the stupid people you knew who called you a loser because they all now have jobs they hate and no freedom.

If you're interested then I'd teach you for free. I made a thousand dollars within a few days of even having the idea. And the thousand dollars came from having a two hour conversation with someone with a business in a totally different state than me. No website, no social media management. I just consulted them for a couple hours and got paid. I shudder at the thought of working for 10 hours at McDonalds and getting a hundred something dollars or so after taxes. God....that sounds like hell. They did you a favor my friend.
 

MJ DeMarco

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You don't sound like a nutjub.

You sound like you see the SCRIPT and don't want to comply.

Nothing wrong with a job to pay bills and support yourself.

Unscripting via Fastlane is all about the mind game. I was delivering pizza and was "Fastlane" because I knew the means to the end...

Even if you were a felon, you can run your own business.

+1 ... that's the beauty of entrepreneurship.

If you have something I desperately want, I probably won't care about your divorce, your petty theft record ten years ago, or any other histrionics.
 

Johnny boy

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Imagine how funny of a story you’ll be able to tell when you’re rich and you tell people McDonald’s rejected you.

Or you could let it affect your self esteem and stay down like everyone else.

And that is the difference between winners and losers. We all have our “rejected by McDonald’s” moments. There’s tons of things in my life that SHOULD have crushed my self esteem, like when I would say I would start a business or when I would say I’d be rich someday and every single person would tell me I’m delusional. Or when girls would laugh at me. I don’t know what inside of me made me stay so confident in all of those moments that there was 0 evidence that I would ever do anything. Not a single instance of success. Not a single victory. Not a single affirmation from anything external in my life. Just a whole lot of “I’m gonna make it because I said so”. Pretty delusional actually. I don’t know where I got it from.

Your mind creates reality. You can form your own reality in your own mind. Not imagining being rich and wishing it into existence like “the secret”, but your mind can do amazing things. There isn’t a greater high in the world than seeing your reality change because of the thousands of little choices you made years ago. All of the times you spent working and getting nothing in return, and pushing through again and again, and finally seeing results that make it all worth while. Nothing feels like that, I promise. You become addicted to it.

The books, the push ups, the business you started that took months to make any money when you worked every day on it, all of the times you pushed yourself and it changed your personality, all of the skills you learned that let you leverage them for good money now..everything. It all pays and it feels so good when it does. But we all start with “getting rejected from McDonald’s” and we all start with working hard and getting nothing. What do you do now? That’s the difference. But I promise it pays. It has to. It’s the law of cause and effect, just on a time delay. It all pays.
 
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The-J

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I got rejected from McDonalds, Staples (twice), a car dealership, a computer repair store, Best Buy, Games Workshop, Gamestop, and a few other stores that I can't remember.

Don't take rejections personally.

You have freedom and you're hungry. You probably don't believe me but you're in a great position. You're young too. You're better off than most.

+1 to this. No offense, but you could be homeless and not be worse off than you are. You're at rock bottom, the realistic worst case scenario. And you're OK!

Imagine knowing that you could be OK at rock bottom! You have nothing to lose. Risk means nothing. Your worst case scenario is here. You're a McDonalds reject and a school failure. You're (presumably) single. You live with mom and dad.

Literally anything you do is a step up, and you can take risks that people with bigger psychological barriers and attachments aren't willing to.

You're taking action, which is good. But, let me pose a question to you.

What could you do today (as soon as you read this) that would make everything else you want to do easier or irrelevant? Negative in the short term, life changing in the medium and long term.

Answer this question for yourself right now and see what you come up with. Then do that thing. Don't share it until you do it.
 

NMdad

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Action is the antidote.

And, don't worry about being rejected by McDonalds. Many years ago, I was rejected by AOL for an entry-level job--couldn't even get an interview. Within a year, I became one of the top tech support people at a software startup--despite having no formal tech training or background.

Like @Johnny boy alluded to: The times we take action even though we'd rather not or even though someone else tells us we'll fail, those are the exercise reps we need to keep repeating that'll make us stronger.
 

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