What has been GOOD about quarantine/corona for you?

[Bennett]

Lockdown has been amazing for me. I bought a fixer-upper investment property, moved into it and will have it fully renovated and rented by the time lockdown is over with a meaningful chunk of equity in it.

My day job work has been minimal and I've seriously enjoyed having more balance in life in relation to doing what I need to do for myself vs. the company I work for. I suspect many of us feel that to some degree.

 

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[Odysseus M Jones]

I am a music teacher/musician

Isn't Carlos Santana doing masterclasses online?
You may not be a household name, but online music lessons/courses are a thing and it could easily be scaled.

 

[violinista]

I spoke to someone last week who runs a brick and mortars music school. She was delighted 180 students decided to continue their lessons online.

These might interest you:
> "Build Your High Ground" & "Grow What You Know"
> (Radio Interview) Freedom, Motivation, & Grow What You Know

... you're totally right, Andy. I've been teaching music lessons online for almost a year at this point with great success and long term subscribers, and it is true that I've been getting more new students in the past month than normal that have booked lessons more months to come... you're right!! Heck, I've got random people commenting on my YouTube channel that I haven't posted on in two years all of sudden asking for tutorials of my covers in English and Spanish, which I speak both fluently... Ok, I need to just commit to teaching music, improving what already exists in terms of DIY strings help, and doing it in the most clear, accessible way possible. I can't teach lessons 24/7, but my videos can.

Thank you for your response. I will make the most of what I already know and build on it to be the best that can be found out there, and trust that more opportunities will present themselves along the way.

 

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[Sethamus]

I'll go first.

I think it has really speed up my priorities. Before this happened it always felt there was so much time and now I really feel you got to move fast towards exactly what you want in life. That things can change faster than you think and there won't always be an endless window of opportunity to get what you are after.

That might sound negative (maybe?) but it has been a really positive lesson for me.

The quarantine hasn’t really affected me because I came off a two week vacation and went straight to work for the past six weeks. However with the current economy and the slow down in my industry (oilfield). Your statement about time, opportunity, and moving faster rings true for me.

Isn't Carlos Santana doing masterclasses online?
You may not be a household name, but online music lessons/courses are a thing and it could easily be scaled.

Luckily for me my current renter started doing online teaching a year and a half ago. She has been able to make money during this and I’ve had no worries about her paying rent.

 

[becks22]

Well, I got married....
View attachment 32731
(I'm the one in the dress)

CONGRATS!! Reminds me that wonderful life changing events are still happening! My mom celebrated the big 70 in April (god she would disown me if I she knew I put her age on the Google as she says), a friend had her baby that I didn't get to meet yet, the son of a colleague picked his college after being named HS valedictorian (although there is no commencement) and I know quite a few other friends that have gotten good news during this time.

 

[minivanman]

The best thing that has happened is that my wife has been at home. I really hate it that she works but it makes her happy so I try to not bring it up. So I've enjoyed having her here and not stressed about work. She has had a few meetings online but not many. We are heading to the beach in Galveston tomorrow for a couple of days.

No haircut and no cafe's open so that has sucked. We did get to go dirt track racing last weekend. The Sheriff drove up, turned off his headlights, stepped out of his pickup, looked at the full bleachers, shook his head, got back in his pickup and drove off. Maybe he knows that Corona don't like the smell of methanol burning...... us dirt trackers ain't skeered of no Corona They did close 1 dirt track down for having too large of a crowd. It was in east Texas, luckily we were in Oklahoma.

 

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[tolmanmedia]

COVID really put me through the 5 stages of grief.

1. Denial and isolation
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

Generally in Quarter 1 of every year I will use the bulk of my personal income to plan & pay for all our travel for the entire year (we are usually gone 38-40 weekends out of 51). I had the entire year planned out, and then suddenly WHAM. All my plans were cancelled over the course of a few days. It was absolutely my fault - I should have seen the signs and been more careful.

Seeing my entire year's plans disappear plunged me into a depressed state. I denied that it would go on very long. Then I was angry at the government for doing this. Then I tried to flee to Taiwan (my wife is from there) in exchange for a better life. Then I just got sad and didn't want to leave the house.

When I finally got to the point of acceptance (which took around 5-6 weeks) I set some new goals. I decided to try to make so much money during the quarantine that I could re-book each trip 10x better and more luxuriously than I had before.

I started 5 new businesses since that time, 1 of them has already done over $70k in revenue. I have worked extremely hard to build, build, build while i'm stuck at home.

Now looking back at everything (well, as much as I can. We aren't fully through it yet) I'm actually grateful to the virus. Instead of traveling the world all summer, I started 5 new businesses that will hopefully allow me to "retire" by next year as we sell a few of them off.

 

[TonyStark]

Complete and total commitment to the things that matter to me the most.

 

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[Odysseus M Jones]

Especially nowadays. I've started thinking long term, with the shut downs and potential second waves, how it may affect the public schools with teachers scrambling to assemble more learning resources/prepackaged lessons ready to go, applicable to their subject matter, as well as being accessible to their students... It can't hurt to try and create great, high quality online resources.

Absolutely!
And another advantage for you is that your existing students can be a kind of focus group to validate/invalidate your business model
Depending on the age of your students no one is more honest and forthright than children.

Go for it!

I wish I'd done it when I was teaching phonics back in the noughties

C'est la vie

 

[Andy Black]

Well, I got married....
View attachment 32731
(I'm the one in the dress)

Beyond that, I've learned more about where my skills really lie. I'm actually BAD at daily management, mostly because I hate it so much. I ran into an old consulting client (one I had taken from dissolving the company to a $3M in revenue), and he reminded me of how changing his lead worker into management was critical for freeing up his time and energy. I can HIRE A MANAGER! Sheesh. Why did I think I had to do it all myself?

Not much else has changed here, except we couldn't do the Italian honeymoon yet, and the wedding was 11 people instead of 150. We'll do a huge wedding again when we can.

Wow. Congrats!

 

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[Devampre]

I suppose the best thing has been the money that I have saved and haven't spent on any frivolities. I am also going to schedule a 24 hour dopamine detox at the end of this week. So I am hoping to see some benefit out of that as well.

I suppose I've also been educating and applying myself on some things as well, but I haven't quite hit any remarkable milestones yet.

 

[Chapas]

I have so much more respect for Sweden after this virus. Actually allowing adults to make the correct decisions. I’ve always liked the Nordic countries in general but Sweden surprised me on a whole new level by not overreacting to this. Me and my family are really thinking about moving over there. Especially with the downfall of capitalism in the US with corporate bailouts to the extreme by one political group and another political group basically creating Tyranny in return for false security.

It warms my heart when I hear this from someone outside of Sweden. My family and most of my friends live in Denmark, so I have heard so much critique from them about the Swedish strategy. I guess most people just are biased about what they hear from their local media and supports their country's decision?

I live in a city of around 350,000 people (1.3 million people in my region). Everything has been open since the corona virus outbreak started. Schools, restaurants/bars, fitness clubs etc. In these 2+ months a total of 101 people have died in the region from corona (mostly people in elderly homes, god bless them). Every loss of life is terrible, but I cannot really explain the 'low numbers' here compared to the rest of the societies. I do not think these numbers would have been much improved if Sweden had closed down the whole society.

You should definitely consider moving here. Sweden and Denmark are amazing places, I can definitely vouch for both. Especially during the summer :-D

 

[mill0x]

Thanks for the great thread! Looked like a good opportunity to get active.

For me this period has been good in terms of business, and for building health and discipline through routine, and also studying new skills. I've been studying a lot and it feels great to have time for that. Though it feels like my personal life / long term goals are kind of "on pause", I'm doing my best to learn and work as much as I can to prepare for what's ahead.

On the business side, corona has actually been a good opportunity. In my industry (game development) the social isolation measures actually impacted positively. People are playing more games and kids need apps to use at home, so we're seeing a lot more new clients, which gave us a boost in revenue.

We spent last year investing in a good portfolio with different kinds of projects, so we've been able to attract clients especially from the US and Europe, so we get paid in USD/EUR, which is great considering my local currency is very devalued right now, so we're earning more than expected. So it feels good that our work is paying off, even if a lot of bad things are happening.

I've been learning a lot about scaling the team and letting other people assume tasks I usually did myself, give good feedback and keep the quality high. What's on my mind most of the time is how to best to invest our time, energy and money to grow, without losing control of the operations. Trying to use this time in isolation to find a good answer!

 

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[Charly]

I learned that I don't need as much "things" as I thought. I had too much stuff lying around which I haven't even touched during the last couple of weeks. So I sorted out a lot of it and I just feel lighter. It's a great feeling to get rid of some of your possessions.

 

[Andy Black]

I learned that I don't need as much "things" as I thought. I had too much stuff lying around which I haven't even touched during the last couple of weeks. So I sorted out a lot of it and I just feel lighter. It's a great feeling to get rid of some of your possessions.

@Fox has a thread where he’s doing this. Might be worth checking it out and adding your 2c to it.

 

[Trevor Kuntz]

I sell in US, but it's the same principle: Shopify is way more user friendly for both you and customers. I tried for years with WooCommerce but it just doesn't look as smooth as Shopify. I'd make the move much earlier if I knew this before. If you can afford it, go with Shopify.

Second this. Took me 6 years to transition to Shopify from BigCommerce but the difference is night-and-day and BigCommerce was actually more expensive than Shopify.

 

[Kak]

I suppose the best thing has been the money that I have saved and haven't spent on any frivolities.

THIS! It is incredible how much cheaper life is from home.

 

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[Kamillepaulino]

I like having the ability to spend time with my family and with myself. To take a break from the outside world/distractions and focus within. I have been reading a lot which is how I cam across The Millionaire Fastlane .

 

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[Bennett]

.

 

[Bruno Calisso]

This quarantine gave me precious time to sort out those small projects in wait, old to-do lists and above everything it gave me time to apply some digital minimalism, I got rid of lots of digital baggage that I didn't need and simplified my devices to make sure that I don't waste so much time on them.

The most important thing was the realization that I already suspected, life would be better If I worked just enough time to live free the rest of the year, or at least have more long stops like these to sort my things out. I even started cooking at home and gained some other skills. Could have never done it without this time away from the rat race.

Working just for the sake of working and getting a miserable wage is not an option, MJ is right.

I am young and can't see slaving myself for 40 years straight, no matter how high on the ladder or how much they pay, It'll never be enough to compensate the time I'm giving them.

 

[Longinus]

May I ask what about Shopify is leading to increasing conversions mainly? I'm building a WooCommerce store and also considered giving Shopify a try, but backed away because the implementation for Germany isn't that good yet.

Are you selling in the US exclusively, or also in Europe?

Thanks for your help.

I sell in US, but it's the same principle: Shopify is way more user friendly for both you and customers. I tried for years with WooCommerce but it just doesn't look as smooth as Shopify. I'd make the move much earlier if I knew this before. If you can afford it, go with Shopify.

 

[tylerwilkinson]

Overall it has been good.

1. Full time work is slower overall, but cars still need fixing. My income has not taken a real hit, and my work related stress level was mostly lower than usual. We are located in an upper middle income area, and more people working from home actually meant they were happier to leave their cars for bigger, more profitable, jobs. We had one kid opt out of work under the guise of "health/fear" because he would make more on unemployment. This is fine because it isn't busy enough to need him. Ideally he has a plan, but that's not my business. Whether or not he comes back is pretty inconsequential. Disclosure: I do not enjoy, nor have any long term attachment to, the field I am in.

2. My side work (trash) has gotten easier because I haven't lost any business, and there's less traffic into the city (Providence is a glorified small town), so I can take care of all the properties quickly AND at a better time of day. This was sweet. I cut my time expense in half. I was nervous about a rent strike causing trouble, that damn "Control" in CENTS is usually pretty solid with college rental being stable (see: subsidized!).

3. Remote work. My wife was on a high risk medication, so she was able to work from home while tapering off it. This was unknown territory, and proved to be a good experiment. Turns out we already had a great office area for her, AND cabin fever did NOT set in. One of those things you don't know until you try. She proved incredible value to the decision makers where she works, and still feels very empowered by knocking down that "do I have the discipline" barrier. This is exciting going forward.

4. I'm an adult in college. My spring course switched to "distance learning" when the colleges shut down. Let's just say the transition worked out in the favor of students. It wasn't a course I cared mush about the content, mainly the grade, and the work load dropped off quickly. Boom, easier A. If I was hoping to learn a lot in that class, I would have been upset.
My summer courses are now ALL from home, and this certainly is preferable for me. As teachers are forced by circumstance to adapt, it is a great time to crush "gen ed" classes. On the side of the classes I'm eager and excited about, I find I still get what I put into it. More so, even, because I've noticed smaller class sizes.

5. Money. My spending hasn't really gone down much, but I like what I've thrown money at. Less going out is great for an introvert/aspie(liberal use of the term, not medical). Rather than eating out, we have a stocked freezer. Rather than a $$$ dinner however many times a week, I have improved my cigar collection. My wife has virtually eliminated most of her spending, and is saving quite a bit. Cash up, debt down! We use a "mine, yours, ours" system with different accounts to preserve autonomy while the bulk of our money goes to the same place.

6. That's enough rambling. In summary it has been fine for me in most ways except "Libertarian Tyler doesn't like being told what to do", even if I don't go out much in the first place!

 

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[Charly]

@Fox has a thread where he’s doing this. Might be worth checking it out and adding your 2c to it.

Nice, thanks!

 

[Odysseus M Jones]

I would’ve slapped my girl in the face for having such bald tires

Who would slap the driver for not checking tyres?

Of course if one doesn't usually drive sports cars then checking tyre pressures, oil & coolant before every drive may not be second nature, although it should be even if they drive a Eurobox or whatever they're called.
Then again if someone can tailspin it in order to avoid a collision, that indicates advanced driving, which means they know the importance of tyres...

I won't even get into the near death experience despite no airbags deployed, no glass broken, not even a scratch.

On the same vein, several people are now bragging they had "Covid"

Maybe there's a T-shirt opportunity once this is all over?

Mine would be:

"I survived
SARS
Bird Flu
Swine Flu
Asian Financial Crisis
BREXIT (tbc)
Covid 19 (tbc)"

 

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[Hai]

Mentors that usually require to fly away at the other half of the globe and spend thousands for workshops are starting to do online sessions and private tutoring for a smaller price.

 

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[sonny_1080]

HOT! - EXECUTION - To Those Panicked/Discouraged by the PANDEMIC (or New to FLF)

Four months ago I graduated from college significantly depressed. My biggest life goal had been reached. It 's ALWAYS been my dream to be a successful entrepreneur. Somewhere along my scripted life I put it on the back-burner. It became something to dream about, smiling to myself thinking...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

 

[Knicks]

After the presentation of @AllenCrawley I decided to migrate my webshop from WooCommerce to Shopify and already seeing a increase of conversions.

And Tiger King obviously.

May I ask what about Shopify is leading to increasing conversions mainly? I'm building a WooCommerce store and also considered giving Shopify a try, but backed away because the implementation for Germany isn't that good yet.

Are you selling in the US exclusively, or also in Europe?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Knicks]

I sell in US, but it's the same principle: Shopify is way more user friendly for both you and customers. I tried for years with WooCommerce but it just doesn't look as smooth as Shopify. I'd make the move much earlier if I knew this before. If you can afford it, go with Shopify.

Perfect, will definitely try it out in the future. I thought it only got this popular because of all the dropshippers promoting it. But with so many people using it Shopify seems to do it exceptionally right, especially in regard to speed of implementation.

 

[Ritchie.]

I see the quarantine period as a gap year I never had,therefore I am taking the opportunity of developing my self and developing my skillset.

 

[Ing]

As my competition in my job stopped working several weeks, I could rise an amount of effective assignments now and for the future.

Sure I had preferred rising my fastline journey, but so May 2020 was my best job earning ever in my life.
Plus: i had time for biking, climbing ..., as the boring meetings faded nearly away completely.