Learn from my mistakes...I've made pretty much all of them...

[Greg Black]

I left corporate life in 2003 and started out on my entrepreneurial journey in 2005.

For the first 10 years I struggled to make any real progress, yes I always paid the bills, but that was about all.

I think it is fair to say that I'm not a natural entrepreneur and that I massively struggled with introversion, mindset, self doubt, fear of failure, procrastination etc etc etc.

It was about 2 years ago that things started to change for me, after all the mistakes I had made, things started to click and now I am happy to say that I'm well and truly in the fastlane.

I sure wish I had read this book (even though it probably wasn't written back then) when I was starting out, though I'm not convinced I would have been open to the ideas in the book at that stage.

I'm now thinking of writing a book about my experiences and what I have learnt along the way, what mistakes I've made and how even those that aren't natural entrepreneurs, or even complete introverts like me can succeed.

Is this something you think would be of value to you? If so what questions can I answer and what things would you like help with most?

If you reach out a post a question below, I will promise to write back my answer.

Cheers
Greg

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Jon L]

I could write this same exact sentence:

I think it is fair to say that I'm not a natural entrepreneur and that I massively struggled with introversion, mindset, self doubt, fear of failure, procrastination etc etc etc.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you overcame this

 

[MaxV]

Interesting post!
Good to hear you reached the Fastlane!

And thank you for the oppertunity to share your knowledge.

i´ve recently started working again. ( Had a short break due issues with my former
employer.)

I'm still in school and i've just entered my second year. (3 year coarse for housepainter.) Its an okayish job. But its not the dream i'm after.

I noticed that i had some pretty big motivational issues in my break. I did finished one of my 'To do list' objectives. (i'm a hobby dj/producer. With 2 big dreams. Either make it as a professional dj/producer or make it as a sound effect artist. i currently am producing sounds for a game just for fun to see how this goes.) But alot of negativity keeps popping in my head which leads to procastination (Fear of failure is my biggest struggle. I keep having alot of what if's and if i record a dj set and i pressure myself alot to make it as perfect as possible. Mistakes are out of the question. Atleast, in my head that is.)

I massively struggled with introversion, mindset, self doubt, fear of failure, procrastination etc etc etc.

I'm really curious how you dealt with this yourself! I keep making all kinds of weird excuses why it won't work (My age is the biggest one. i'm 24. and all kinds of kids of 16 are getting signed) I never gave up and i keep fooling around with music. (at the moment i've almost hit the 10 year mark when i first started out. and i've been serious with music for about 4 years.)

I just know i can get alot more out of myself than i do at the moment. But i need to figure out how to deal with procastination and selfdoubt effectively.

 

[Vigilante]

I left corporate life in 2003 and started out on my entrepreneurial journey in 2005.

For the first 10 years I struggled to make any real progress, yes I always paid the bills, but that was about all.

I think it is fair to say that I'm not a natural entrepreneur and that I massively struggled with introversion, mindset, self doubt, fear of failure, procrastination etc etc etc.

It was about 2 years ago that things started to change for me, after all the mistakes I had made, things started to click and now I am happy to say that I'm well and truly in the fastlane.

I sure wish I had read this book (even though it probably wasn't written back then) when I was starting out, though I'm not convinced I would have been open to the ideas in the book at that stage.

I'm now thinking of writing a book about my experiences and what I have learnt along the way, what mistakes I've made and how even those that aren't natural entrepreneurs, or even complete introverts like me can succeed.

Is this something you think would be of value to you? If so what questions can I answer and what things would you like help with most?

If you reach out a post a question below, I will promise to write back my answer.

Cheers
Greg

Welcome to the forum. Tell us about some of your wins and losses.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Green Destiny]

Welcome to the forum.

I'd like to know what, if anything, did you do differently in the last 2 years compared with the first 10? What was it that "clicked"? Thanks.

 

[AgainstAllOdds]

It was about 2 years ago that things started to change for me, after all the mistakes I had made, things started to click and now I am happy to say that I'm well and truly in the fastlane.

What does "truly in the fastlane" mean?

 

[Greg Black]

I could write this same exact sentence:


I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you overcame this

Hi Jon

Knowing yourself, understanding your strengths and weaknesses is critical. Just because something works for someone else, it doesn’t mean it will work for you. You need to tailor your approach and business model to suit you.

It is so easy to fall into the trap of seeing a post on a forum or an info marketing product where someone has had great success and jumping on it, only to fail or not follow through as it isn’t the right opportunity for you.

I fell into this trap time and time again as I tried to model people who were nothing like me.

I strongly believe that success stems from within you, within your mind, so understanding how your mind works is critical to getting through your roadblocks.

One great place to start is to complete this personality test. It is free, but isn’t a pop quiz type of thing it gives you some really in-depth insights as to how you operate. https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test

I’ve not found a cure for fear of failure, self-doubt etc, but there are tactics to overcome these impediments.

The first step is understanding yourself as outlined above.

Once you’ve done this is it much easier to know where you want to get to and what route is likely to work for you.

Don’t try to plan everything out in too much detail, you need a general idea of where you want to get to, but all journeys are winding and you may have to try many different things to get to where you want to be. Plus trying to plan too much in advance often leads to non-action.

One tactic I advocate is to visualise driving in fog. You know where you want to get to and you will get there, but you can’t see more than a few metres ahead, so you drive steadily, making small adjustments along the way.

Then there are daily rituals to ensure progress, being clear about what needs to be done that day and just ploughing on with them, before your mind can put up road blocks.

Make failure your friend. We are all so conditioned to avoid failure. If you view setbacks as learning experiences, things that make you stronger, it helps to pull the trigger on things that previously you may have not followed through on.

The other important thing is that success breeds success. So rather than aiming for a massive home run first off, going after smaller goals that can be built upon is a better way to go. Applying the fastlane ideas to this, so long as the thing you choose is scalable, it doesn't matter how small it is to start, as you can keep multiplying and reinforcing that success.

I hope this goes some way to answering that question...

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Greg Black]

Interesting post!
Good to hear you reached the Fastlane!

And thank you for the oppertunity to share your knowledge.

i´ve recently started working again. ( Had a short break due issues with my former
employer.)

I'm still in school and i've just entered my second year. (3 year coarse for housepainter.) Its an okayish job. But its not the dream i'm after.

I noticed that i had some pretty big motivational issues in my break. I did finished one of my 'To do list' objectives. (i'm a hobby dj/producer. With 2 big dreams. Either make it as a professional dj/producer or make it as a sound effect artist. i currently am producing sounds for a game just for fun to see how this goes.) But alot of negativity keeps popping in my head which leads to procastination (Fear of failure is my biggest struggle. I keep having alot of what if's and if i record a dj set and i pressure myself alot to make it as perfect as possible. Mistakes are out of the question. Atleast, in my head that is.)



I'm really curious how you dealt with this yourself! I keep making all kinds of weird excuses why it won't work (My age is the biggest one. i'm 24. and all kinds of kids of 16 are getting signed) I never gave up and i keep fooling around with music. (at the moment i've almost hit the 10 year mark when i first started out. and i've been serious with music for about 4 years.)

I just know i can get alot more out of myself than i do at the moment. But i need to figure out how to deal with procastination and selfdoubt effectively.

As soon as you understand that the world is just a construct in your mind, it makes it easier to cope. Your brain is only connected to the outside world through you senses, so everything that you perceive or the constructs that you have made are based on electrical impulses from your eyes, vibrations in your ears etc.

So the world and how you see it is completely made up in your head, you can re-write this programming.

I believe that the best way to start is to run two jobs in parallel. Keep doing your course for now, but commit an equal amount of time to your first love.

Some tactics to overcome fear of failure and perfectionism is to set yourself fake deadlines and specific tasks.

For example: Set yourself a challenging task that will move you forward. It could be creating a piece of music and sending it to a set number of important people, or posting it in public for feedback. Then set a deadline when this must be completed by. That way you must send it out whether it is perfect or not. If you keep doing this, you will start to rewire your mind and you will be comfortable with the process, it will be easier and easier, then you can push onto more extreme goals, plus if you keep reaching out with your work, something will come up. Opportunities will find you, once you start consistently make contacts, push out work etc.

Don't rely on motivation, rely on habit. Put a process in place to force you to do things, every day. It will then become a habit, which is far stronger than motivation.

 

[Greg Black]

Welcome to the forum. Tell us about some of your wins and losses.

So my biggest failure was buying a franchise when I first set out in 2005, I ended up losing over $60,000. I could write an essay on when to and when not to buy a franchise.

My first couple of ventures turned out to be little more than self employed jobs, no fastlane leverage at all. They left me burnt out and broke.

My biggest win so far is my current business which provides leverage and affords me to the time to take the summer off and choose when and where I work.

But I think my biggest win, was simply being bloody minded and persistent, I just keep going, learning, trying to understand myself and the world around me. When things started to click, it was like the scene in the matrix where Neo sees the green numbers and suddenly it becomes clear how things work and what you place in the world should be. That brings inner peace, which is priceless.

 

[Greg Black]

Welcome to the forum.

I'd like to know what, if anything, did you do differently in the last 2 years compared with the first 10? What was it that "clicked"? Thanks.

I thought about this long and hard, so that it is useful for others to follow.

There are practical things like continuous learning, setting up rituals to create habits etc.

But I truly think that the key is to truly understand yourself and your strengths and then working a project that is right for you and not something that is successful for someone else.

It's too easy to end up working on the wrong thing.

For me I think the root cause of the issues in the first 10 years was simply that I was working on the wrong things that end up putting you into a negative spiral. Frustration, unhappiness, poor feedback - leads to inaction, which leads to further poor feedback and procrastination etc etc etc.

As soon as I got everything aligned and started working on the right thing for me, everything started to fall into place.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Greg Black]

What does "truly in the fastlane" mean?

For me it means having a successful business that provides me with leverage and a semi passive income that surpasses my expenses.

 

[OldFaithful]

Hi, and welcome to the forum.

My biggest win so far is my current business which provides leverage and affords me to the time to take the summer off and choose when and where I work.

So...is your business a physical product, eCommerce site, software, online learning, or "eBusiness: other"??? I'm guessing that it has to do with the school system since you get your summer off. I'm certainly not asking for the name and how much $$ it makes you, just wondering if you might be in my field...physical products.

 

[Greg Black]

Hi, and welcome to the forum.



So...is your business a physical product, eCommerce site, software, online learning, or "eBusiness: other"??? I'm guessing that it has to do with the school system since you get your summer off. I'm certainly not asking for the name and how much $$ it makes you, just wondering if you might be in my field...physical products.

Thanks for the welcome! Yes my biggest income stream is from selling physical products. I still do a little bit of consultancy, but not a lot as it doesn't really float my boat. Over the next year I plan to create more income generating assets, the first will probably be online learning products as I've gained so much knowledge that I want to share and I think it will be rewarding. Whilst it is important to learn from the great entrepreneurs, sometimes what people need is to learn from someone who's walked the same path as them.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Bigguns50]

@Greg Black ... Very impressive 1st post !
Not just an introduction, but valuable insight and information.

Welcome.

 

[OldFaithful]

Yes my biggest income stream is from selling physical products.

Great! I look forward to any future threads that might reveal the lessons learned thru the process of getting your physical product up & running. Hint, hint.

I myself and am progressing slowly, but with purpose. I'm almost finished building my shop, and now to find the rest of the equipment I need...

 

[nradam123]

You know what @Greg Black ?
If you write a book I will read it. Awesome value here in the thread.

I might even review and break it down completely in my blog

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Bigguns50]

Protagonist.

I took the personality test you suggested @Greg Black. Very interesting. After reading and thinking about this for a few days, it makes sense that I've been successful in certain areas considering my personality. Now.....what to do with this knowledge. I definitely haven't taken full advantage of my strengths...seems a good place to start.

 

[Greg Black]

Great! I look forward to any future threads that might reveal the lessons learned thru the process of getting your physical product up & running. Hint, hint.

I myself and am progressing slowly, but with purpose. I'm almost finished building my shop, and now to find the rest of the equipment I need...

I am happy to share, maybe I'll write a post about it. Are you creating your own product(s) rather than selling existing brands?

 

[Greg Black]

You know what @Greg Black ?
If you write a book I will read it. Awesome value here in the thread.

I might even review and break it down completely in my blog

Hey thanks, I have started, it won't be a traditional book with one theme and lots of filler as I'm not a professional writer, but it will be packed full of all the things I've learnt along the way.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Greg Black]

Protagonist.

I took the personality test you suggested @Greg Black. Very interesting. After reading and thinking about this for a few days, it makes sense that I've been successful in certain areas considering my personality. Now.....what to do with this knowledge. I definitely haven't taken full advantage of my strengths...seems a good place to start.

Focus on your strengths for sure!

It's where your unfair advantage lies. It lies where your experience intersects with your strengths.

 

[OldFaithful]

Are you creating your own product(s) rather than selling existing brands?

Yes. I've found a need in a niche market making a custom product(s) for B2B sales. I worked in this industry previously, saw the opportunity and have begun setting up a small facility to design and produce. I'm working on this on the side, so I don't mention the specific product, my company name or anything else that might make it easy for a curious busybody at my current employer to discover that I have my own plans for the future.