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Hello everyone, here @m0ntilla21, from Malaga (Spain).
It's interesting.
I first met MJ DeMarco by reading "The Millionaire Fastlane " in 2018. I still remember the tremendous impact the book had on me in terms of mindset.
At that time, I even joined this forum for a few days... but I didn't even try to integrate (big mistake), and I never came back...
Until last week!
When I read an email from MJ mentioning something like "young people should shut down all social media." (Thanks @heavy_industry !)
MJ doesn't usually send emails, and that subject caught my attention because my biggest time and energy thief has always been getting distracted on YouTube.
The fact is, here I am, 5 years after reading TMFL.
These days I've read some threads on the forum, and I can clearly see that here are some extraordinary people with whom it would be great to share ideas and opinions.
So I'm going to start by sharing my story with you and, in the process, showing my journey to a six-figure business that doesn't require more than 2-3 hours of work per week (and you don't even have to do it yourself).
I'll try to summarize as much as possible (I suspect I will fail), and whoever is interested... can count on me to provide more information.
This was my journey:
1. Scripted life until I was 24 years old (1990 - 2014)
Until the age of 24, I lived a completely scripted life.
School > good grades > studied engineering at university > worked for one year as an engineer for someone else.
It's worth noting that I believe my mother gave me good self-esteem, and I've always thought that I have great potential to achieve whatever I wanted (this was one of the factors that later helped me make the decision along with my FTE).
You could consider that year working for someone else as my FTE. I'm not sure if it was a true and traumatic FTE that makes you never look back. But I do know one thing: they paid me 900€ per month for owning my life from Monday to Friday.
Deep down, I've always been an anarchist, always been one who doesn't follow the herd, and that year working for someone else (along with the positive image I had of myself) was more than enough to make the decision never to work for anyone else again.
I finished my one-year contract... and quit that job.
2. First turning point: my first mindset upgrade (The books that started opening my mind)
I don't remember the exact moment I read them, some were shortly after university, but I do remember the 4 books that opened my eyes.
They were:
The first two (1 and 2) are about emotional intelligence and dealing with others. An enormous problem that I reflected from having learned everything opposite to what is correct by observing my father.
The next two (3 and 4) are similar in terms of what resonated with me and what I had always felt: "I am not willing to sell my life to anyone. There MUST be another way".
With those 4 books, I had the tools I needed to try live an unscripted life forever.
3. Start of my true self-taught education on a massive scale (2015-2017)
From 2015 to 2019... was my true stage of training and growth.
While helping my brother with his architecture firm and living with him... I dedicated myself to consuming and implementing the best trainings I could find for free on the web.
I chose the ones that resonated with me the most, the ones that made me enjoy and wake up excited in the morning just to keep studying and applying (almost like in university, yes).
I literally spent 5-6 hours a day studying, taking notes, internalizing everything... and applying everything I could at the same time.
I had two major mentors:
Honestly, if I were to start over... I would save at least 1 year of time by focusing on the teachings of 1 or 2 mentors and applying them without constantly seeking and getting distracted by other shiny objects.
4.- Launching my online business and my first infoproducts (2017-2019)
From 2017 to 2019... I continued with my self-taught MASSIVE training.
But those were also fun years of implementation.
Looking back, I was earning exactly what my mind allowed me to, and what I believed was possible.
My scarcity mindset was sabotaging me.
5.- The second turning point: How I destroyed my scarcity mindset with a five-figure paid mentoring.
In January 2020, I attended an in-person event... where the grand finale was the sale of a €10,000 mentoring program.
During the event, I saw numerous success stories and testimonials. These were people who seemed just like me, with niches even stranger than mine... and they were making 5, 10, 50, or 100 times more money than I was.
I clearly remember the feeling of not understanding how it was possible.
Because I "knew a lot". I had been studying and learning from the best for years.
Moreover, the technical aspects of online marketing, launches, sales techniques, and everything else they explained at the event... I knew them all.
And yet... the fact was that these people were light years ahead of me.
"They must do something, know something, or have something... that I don't."
When the event was about to end, I had one night to decide whether or not to enter the €10,000 mentorship. The next day, the last day of the event, was the deadline for purchase.
I am stubborn. I wasn't sure. I refused to pay 10K to a guy I didn't even knew 2 days before.
When I arrived on the last day... I realized that 100 people had ALREADY BOUGHT the mentorship (conveniently, they were given a different colored lanyard to trigger social proof).
The math was easy: the mentor, the event speaker, had just made €1,000,000 in 3 days.
Right in front of my eyes.
"I have to learn from this guy," I thought.
€10,000 was practically all the savings I had set aside and didn't really need.
So I finally decided to pay.
My experience within that mentorship was quite interesting.
It took them about a month to start and begin delivering the content modules, online masterminds, etc.
But I took off like a rocket by myself, and 15 days after paying... I had already made €50,000 with my first webinar and one-on-one phone sales.
The only thing I needed was another piece lacking in my brain: paying.
Literally, giving a significant sum of MY money to ANOTHER person.
At the moment I paid €10K for training, I realized that I could also charge more for my own training.
So I simply added a few live sessions to my online course, improved it a bit, and raised the price from €1K to €5K.
I changed the name and started calling it "mentorship" instead of "online course."
And I sold 10 units.
In 2 weeks.
Without new content.
Without talking to the mentor.
Simply with a new mindset.
With a new mental horizon of what was possible.
It's worth mentioning that for me, considering that in the previous 2 years I hadn't exceeded €20,000 per year... it was something memorable.
6.- Ups and downs as an entrepreneur
From 2020 to 2022... I lived the roller coaster of being an entrepreneur.
I sabotaged myself several times (I loved reading @Fox post where he talks about experiencing something similar, "How Do You Stop Self Sabotaging For Good?").
I couldn't find something stable that was truly "Fastlane" and worked on autopilot.
I wasn't convinced about the idea of doing webinars to make money.
In fact, I never did another webinar. (That sound still F*ckING CRAZY when I think about it. It's like... "Hey, want another easy 50K?" "Nah, I'm good." If someone can give me an explanation for this... please go ahead. I do like money. I do like 50K easy. And yet I never did another webinar.)
I wasn't convinced about the idea of tying myself to my students/clients with live mentoring sessions. Even if they were just 2 hours a week.
I created and successfully launched other courses and annual mentorships... and even had a six-figure launch in 2021. (That's another story)
But it was more of the same.
Finally, I arrived at my new and last business model with this thought process:
In my case, architects.
Some simple maths:
10 clients at 2,000€/month per client make 20,000€/month.
Thats more that 200K per year.
Maintenance? Close to zero.
With the baggage I had acquired, doing that was really easy.
Attention! It's not all sunshine and rainbows because the agency model, at least in my case, also has some difficulties and problems when it comes to scaling.
Although I'll discuss it in another post. I've been writing this for about 2 hours already, and it's meant to be just my story. I guess a pretty long one.
Obviously, there are countless details and peculiarities that I've skipped, but you already have the big picture.
I'm going to try to summarize the conclusions, learnings, and turning points.
Summary, Conclusions, and Learnings (TL,DR):
And that's it guys.
I have always been more about action than words, more about "doing" than "showing" or "telling"
In fact, I have never used Facebook or Instagram for any of my businesses.
And, of course, I had never told my story in such detail.
But I hope these hours writing serve to inspire someone.
And I hope we keep reading each other for a long time.
Hugs to everyone.
PS: Feel free to ask about the details.
PS: If you've read this far, truly, thank you and congratulations. You have more patience than a saint.
It's interesting.
I first met MJ DeMarco by reading "The Millionaire Fastlane " in 2018. I still remember the tremendous impact the book had on me in terms of mindset.
At that time, I even joined this forum for a few days... but I didn't even try to integrate (big mistake), and I never came back...
Until last week!
When I read an email from MJ mentioning something like "young people should shut down all social media." (Thanks @heavy_industry !)
MJ doesn't usually send emails, and that subject caught my attention because my biggest time and energy thief has always been getting distracted on YouTube.
The fact is, here I am, 5 years after reading TMFL.
These days I've read some threads on the forum, and I can clearly see that here are some extraordinary people with whom it would be great to share ideas and opinions.
So I'm going to start by sharing my story with you and, in the process, showing my journey to a six-figure business that doesn't require more than 2-3 hours of work per week (and you don't even have to do it yourself).
I'll try to summarize as much as possible (I suspect I will fail), and whoever is interested... can count on me to provide more information.
This was my journey:
1. Scripted life until I was 24 years old (1990 - 2014)
Until the age of 24, I lived a completely scripted life.
School > good grades > studied engineering at university > worked for one year as an engineer for someone else.
It's worth noting that I believe my mother gave me good self-esteem, and I've always thought that I have great potential to achieve whatever I wanted (this was one of the factors that later helped me make the decision along with my FTE).
You could consider that year working for someone else as my FTE. I'm not sure if it was a true and traumatic FTE that makes you never look back. But I do know one thing: they paid me 900€ per month for owning my life from Monday to Friday.
Deep down, I've always been an anarchist, always been one who doesn't follow the herd, and that year working for someone else (along with the positive image I had of myself) was more than enough to make the decision never to work for anyone else again.
I finished my one-year contract... and quit that job.
2. First turning point: my first mindset upgrade (The books that started opening my mind)
I don't remember the exact moment I read them, some were shortly after university, but I do remember the 4 books that opened my eyes.
They were:
- "How to Win Friends and Influence People" - Dale Carnegie.
- "Emotional Intelligence" - Daniel Goleman.
- "Rich Dad's Cashflow Quadrant" - Robert Kiyosaki.
- "The Millionaire Fastlane " - MJ DeMarco.
The first two (1 and 2) are about emotional intelligence and dealing with others. An enormous problem that I reflected from having learned everything opposite to what is correct by observing my father.
The next two (3 and 4) are similar in terms of what resonated with me and what I had always felt: "I am not willing to sell my life to anyone. There MUST be another way".
With those 4 books, I had the tools I needed to try live an unscripted life forever.
3. Start of my true self-taught education on a massive scale (2015-2017)
From 2015 to 2019... was my true stage of training and growth.
While helping my brother with his architecture firm and living with him... I dedicated myself to consuming and implementing the best trainings I could find for free on the web.
I chose the ones that resonated with me the most, the ones that made me enjoy and wake up excited in the morning just to keep studying and applying (almost like in university, yes).
I literally spent 5-6 hours a day studying, taking notes, internalizing everything... and applying everything I could at the same time.
I had two major mentors:
- Ramit Sethi: Helped me launch and grow a blog + infoproducts.
- Eben Pagan: I learned countless things from him, from productivity to wealth mindset, copywriting, coaching, persuasion...
- Jeff Walker
- Jim Rohn
- Ryan Deiss
- Sam Ovens
- Brian Dean
- Brian Tracy
- Bryan Franklin
- Dan Kennedy
- Chris Luck
- Dan Lok
- Iman Gadzhi
Honestly, if I were to start over... I would save at least 1 year of time by focusing on the teachings of 1 or 2 mentors and applying them without constantly seeking and getting distracted by other shiny objects.
4.- Launching my online business and my first infoproducts (2017-2019)
From 2017 to 2019... I continued with my self-taught MASSIVE training.
But those were also fun years of implementation.
- I launched my blog.
- I hustled to grow my email list to 6,000 people in 6 months (SEO + Posting on Facebook Groups).
- I created and launched my first online courses (infoproducts).
- I sold them through email marketing.
- I hit a plateau.
Looking back, I was earning exactly what my mind allowed me to, and what I believed was possible.
My scarcity mindset was sabotaging me.
5.- The second turning point: How I destroyed my scarcity mindset with a five-figure paid mentoring.
In January 2020, I attended an in-person event... where the grand finale was the sale of a €10,000 mentoring program.
During the event, I saw numerous success stories and testimonials. These were people who seemed just like me, with niches even stranger than mine... and they were making 5, 10, 50, or 100 times more money than I was.
I clearly remember the feeling of not understanding how it was possible.
Because I "knew a lot". I had been studying and learning from the best for years.
Moreover, the technical aspects of online marketing, launches, sales techniques, and everything else they explained at the event... I knew them all.
And yet... the fact was that these people were light years ahead of me.
"They must do something, know something, or have something... that I don't."
When the event was about to end, I had one night to decide whether or not to enter the €10,000 mentorship. The next day, the last day of the event, was the deadline for purchase.
I am stubborn. I wasn't sure. I refused to pay 10K to a guy I didn't even knew 2 days before.
When I arrived on the last day... I realized that 100 people had ALREADY BOUGHT the mentorship (conveniently, they were given a different colored lanyard to trigger social proof).
The math was easy: the mentor, the event speaker, had just made €1,000,000 in 3 days.
Right in front of my eyes.
"I have to learn from this guy," I thought.
€10,000 was practically all the savings I had set aside and didn't really need.
So I finally decided to pay.
My experience within that mentorship was quite interesting.
It took them about a month to start and begin delivering the content modules, online masterminds, etc.
But I took off like a rocket by myself, and 15 days after paying... I had already made €50,000 with my first webinar and one-on-one phone sales.
The only thing I needed was another piece lacking in my brain: paying.
Literally, giving a significant sum of MY money to ANOTHER person.
At the moment I paid €10K for training, I realized that I could also charge more for my own training.
So I simply added a few live sessions to my online course, improved it a bit, and raised the price from €1K to €5K.
I changed the name and started calling it "mentorship" instead of "online course."
And I sold 10 units.
In 2 weeks.
Without new content.
Without talking to the mentor.
Simply with a new mindset.
With a new mental horizon of what was possible.
It's worth mentioning that for me, considering that in the previous 2 years I hadn't exceeded €20,000 per year... it was something memorable.
6.- Ups and downs as an entrepreneur
From 2020 to 2022... I lived the roller coaster of being an entrepreneur.
I sabotaged myself several times (I loved reading @Fox post where he talks about experiencing something similar, "How Do You Stop Self Sabotaging For Good?").
I couldn't find something stable that was truly "Fastlane" and worked on autopilot.
I wasn't convinced about the idea of doing webinars to make money.
In fact, I never did another webinar. (That sound still F*ckING CRAZY when I think about it. It's like... "Hey, want another easy 50K?" "Nah, I'm good." If someone can give me an explanation for this... please go ahead. I do like money. I do like 50K easy. And yet I never did another webinar.)
I wasn't convinced about the idea of tying myself to my students/clients with live mentoring sessions. Even if they were just 2 hours a week.
I created and successfully launched other courses and annual mentorships... and even had a six-figure launch in 2021. (That's another story)
But it was more of the same.
Finally, I arrived at my new and last business model with this thought process:
- All the students in my mentorship (architects) wanted more clients.
- In my mentorship, it took them 1 year or more to achieve that (the few who took action).
- I could give them what they were looking for in an afternoon (Build an online marketing funnel + Google ads that would get them clients on autopilot).
- It would take me one afternoon of work... and zero maintenance thanks to the stability of Google Ads.
- I could charge a high-ticket monthly fee.
In my case, architects.
Some simple maths:
10 clients at 2,000€/month per client make 20,000€/month.
Thats more that 200K per year.
Maintenance? Close to zero.
With the baggage I had acquired, doing that was really easy.
Attention! It's not all sunshine and rainbows because the agency model, at least in my case, also has some difficulties and problems when it comes to scaling.
Although I'll discuss it in another post. I've been writing this for about 2 hours already, and it's meant to be just my story. I guess a pretty long one.
Obviously, there are countless details and peculiarities that I've skipped, but you already have the big picture.
I'm going to try to summarize the conclusions, learnings, and turning points.
Summary, Conclusions, and Learnings (TL,DR):
- Even being anarchic and rebellious by nature, I followed 24 years of scripted life until I sold a year of my life working for someone else for 900€/month (My FTE).
- Several books helped me fill in some mindset and interpersonal skill gaps (I mention them in point 2).
- The real university began after university. Studying and, above all, applying the things that truly resonated with me.
- You don't need 50 mentors or online courses; it's better to focus on 1 or 2 good ones and take massive imperfect action. (Don't search for "how to" or "techniques for"; it's better to search for "WHO already has what you want to have" and then learn from that person and do the same. You'll achieve similar results).
- My limit was in my mindset; you'll never earn more than what you believe is possible. In my case, at first it was 1,500€ per month until the second turning point.
- Until I connected with people who were earning much more than me and, above all, until I paid 10,000€ of my own money, I didn't break my limiting beliefs about money and what I could earn. Still, I'm aware that I only climbed one step of an almost infinite staircase.
- In my case, entrepreneurship has been a kind of roller coaster due to my nonconformity character. Money wasn't a sufficient motivator; the only thing that has always mattered to me is 100% unconditional freedom.
- I discovered that providing the result my clients want QUICKLY, with a guarantee and with little or no maintenance needed... is a fastlane. In my case, it's a niche marketing agency.
And that's it guys.
I have always been more about action than words, more about "doing" than "showing" or "telling"
In fact, I have never used Facebook or Instagram for any of my businesses.
And, of course, I had never told my story in such detail.
But I hope these hours writing serve to inspire someone.
And I hope we keep reading each other for a long time.
Hugs to everyone.
PS: Feel free to ask about the details.
PS: If you've read this far, truly, thank you and congratulations. You have more patience than a saint.
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