And it's nice to meet all of you! I've been reading this forum for the past week and I've learned more than I've ever learned in my entire life when it comes to success and carving something out for yourself. I suppose I could tell you all a bit about me since I'm not too sure what else to talk about.
I grew up with a single mother on disability, I only met my father twice. But I was a happy kid, I had my grandmother and my grandfather and they both loved me enough to compensate for anything that was missing in my life, they took care of me by making sure we always had enough to eat, I always had clothes to wear, nice clothes at that and every weekend I would go to their house. I would watch movies, eat ice cream and candy play video games with my uncle and life was great. My grandparents owned a campground that my entire family went to during the summer and autumn, nearly every weekend.
I loved that camp more than anything else, we'd have fires every night and during the day my grandfather would take me out hunting, we'd go into this tree house he had set up in a swamp to hunt these huge birds. I can't remember what they were called, and I don't think we ever got one, but that's alright. I made the best of friends out there, people that are no longer around but we had so much fun, we did everything together. we went on boat rides on the lake, we'd go out into the river and go swimming at a place called tarzan island, a small island in the middle of the river with a huge tree leaning sideways jutting out into the middle of the river.
We built a ladder to get up there and we would jump off from the top, it was a good 20 foot drop and it was terrifying but damn it was it ever fun. I remember bringing my grandmother's dog out there with me once and it somehow managed to follow me up the tree, we both took a dive that day lol. Ol' rocky didn't take it so well though, clung to me the entire ride back, shaking the whole time. That dog would have followed me anywhere. Life continued on like this for a time and it was beautiful, I cherish these memories more than anything I have or ever will have.
When I was 8 or 10, I have a bit of a hard time connecting the dots these days when it comes to the past so I can't remember exactly when it happened, my grandfather had succumb to leukemia that he had contracted from working his whole life in a mine before safety equipment that would have saved him existed. He worked his whole life and made sure that I always had enough, that all his children and grandchildren had enough, he made sure we would still have enough even when he was gone by working himself to death. And when he died something in my mother changed, she started dating weird guys, she started drinking, she started doing drugs and everything just changed, I used to be so scared to come out of my bedroom that I would piss in empty bottles. I dreaded going out at night and coming back after 8pm to see them both sitting on the couch in our 1 bedroom apartment with 30 empty beer bottles sitting on the coffee table, when he hit my mother I did nothing. I just stayed in my room. One day I couldn't take it anymore and I called the police, and when they got there he was gone and she was furious with me for what I had done and that I told the police he drove off drunk out of his mind.
I spent my days roaming around and getting high, I stopped going to high school, hence the bad spelling and sentence structure, the only time anyone would see me there was when I went to unload dime bags of pot at the smokers section during lunch break. Then one day I met a girl, and we started dating, and I stopped going to home, to my mom's house, where things were always shit. Her mom would make us food everyday, I started going to high school again, with my girlfriend, and her mom would give me money so I could eat at lunch, her dad took me to wonderland for the first time in my life and gave me 200$ so I could have a good time because he knew I didn't have any money. For the first time in years I had hope, hope for a future, for a life beyond wallowing in horrible poverty where our income was 5000$ below the poverty line (lol to the people who believe anyone actually wants to be on welfare or disability). Everything was good, once again, until my girlfriend cheated on me with a 30 year old man. I found out when the police came to her house and asked to inspect her laptop. That destroyed me, I felt like I wasn't enough for her, and to shit everything went once again.
I moved to my grandmothers house. for 6 years, for 6 damn years from the age of 16 to 22 I did nothing, I stayed in a dark dirty room, I let myself gain 100 pounds. I isolated myself from my friends and lost everything that had ever mattered to me, the uncle I played video games when I was younger grew to hate the person I had become and he pulled me out of that room and threatened to break my jaw after pushing me onto the ground and telling me to leave and never come back. I was a wretch that could only pity itself for all the horrible shit that was done to me and all the horrible shit I've done to others, and I blamed the world for everything that had happened to me, I hated everything and everyone and had resigned myself to a shit existence where all you can do is fear death and long for it at the same time.
And it was my fault. It was all my fault, it wasn't my mom's fault for doing what she did, it wasn't my ex's fault either. It certainly wasn't my uncle, or any of my other family, it was my fault. I had done this to myself, everything that was wrong in my life was because of me and no one else. I let my hatred for others rule over me and reduce me to nothing. Here I learned that change starts with you, and you can't blame anyone else for the things that have happened to you, are happening to you, or will happen to you. Change starts with you, and the more you hate yourself and others, the worse off you will become. I now truly believe if you love yourself and everyone else around you and you work HARD towards your goal, all the while letting kindness and logic guide you, you can achieve anything you want.
Thank you for making this place MJ, I'm going to buy your book with the rest of my xbox money.
I apologize for butchering the English language, literally all of my education when it comes to English comes from the internet considering I only ever went to french schools.
I grew up with a single mother on disability, I only met my father twice. But I was a happy kid, I had my grandmother and my grandfather and they both loved me enough to compensate for anything that was missing in my life, they took care of me by making sure we always had enough to eat, I always had clothes to wear, nice clothes at that and every weekend I would go to their house. I would watch movies, eat ice cream and candy play video games with my uncle and life was great. My grandparents owned a campground that my entire family went to during the summer and autumn, nearly every weekend.
I loved that camp more than anything else, we'd have fires every night and during the day my grandfather would take me out hunting, we'd go into this tree house he had set up in a swamp to hunt these huge birds. I can't remember what they were called, and I don't think we ever got one, but that's alright. I made the best of friends out there, people that are no longer around but we had so much fun, we did everything together. we went on boat rides on the lake, we'd go out into the river and go swimming at a place called tarzan island, a small island in the middle of the river with a huge tree leaning sideways jutting out into the middle of the river.
We built a ladder to get up there and we would jump off from the top, it was a good 20 foot drop and it was terrifying but damn it was it ever fun. I remember bringing my grandmother's dog out there with me once and it somehow managed to follow me up the tree, we both took a dive that day lol. Ol' rocky didn't take it so well though, clung to me the entire ride back, shaking the whole time. That dog would have followed me anywhere. Life continued on like this for a time and it was beautiful, I cherish these memories more than anything I have or ever will have.
When I was 8 or 10, I have a bit of a hard time connecting the dots these days when it comes to the past so I can't remember exactly when it happened, my grandfather had succumb to leukemia that he had contracted from working his whole life in a mine before safety equipment that would have saved him existed. He worked his whole life and made sure that I always had enough, that all his children and grandchildren had enough, he made sure we would still have enough even when he was gone by working himself to death. And when he died something in my mother changed, she started dating weird guys, she started drinking, she started doing drugs and everything just changed, I used to be so scared to come out of my bedroom that I would piss in empty bottles. I dreaded going out at night and coming back after 8pm to see them both sitting on the couch in our 1 bedroom apartment with 30 empty beer bottles sitting on the coffee table, when he hit my mother I did nothing. I just stayed in my room. One day I couldn't take it anymore and I called the police, and when they got there he was gone and she was furious with me for what I had done and that I told the police he drove off drunk out of his mind.
I spent my days roaming around and getting high, I stopped going to high school, hence the bad spelling and sentence structure, the only time anyone would see me there was when I went to unload dime bags of pot at the smokers section during lunch break. Then one day I met a girl, and we started dating, and I stopped going to home, to my mom's house, where things were always shit. Her mom would make us food everyday, I started going to high school again, with my girlfriend, and her mom would give me money so I could eat at lunch, her dad took me to wonderland for the first time in my life and gave me 200$ so I could have a good time because he knew I didn't have any money. For the first time in years I had hope, hope for a future, for a life beyond wallowing in horrible poverty where our income was 5000$ below the poverty line (lol to the people who believe anyone actually wants to be on welfare or disability). Everything was good, once again, until my girlfriend cheated on me with a 30 year old man. I found out when the police came to her house and asked to inspect her laptop. That destroyed me, I felt like I wasn't enough for her, and to shit everything went once again.
I moved to my grandmothers house. for 6 years, for 6 damn years from the age of 16 to 22 I did nothing, I stayed in a dark dirty room, I let myself gain 100 pounds. I isolated myself from my friends and lost everything that had ever mattered to me, the uncle I played video games when I was younger grew to hate the person I had become and he pulled me out of that room and threatened to break my jaw after pushing me onto the ground and telling me to leave and never come back. I was a wretch that could only pity itself for all the horrible shit that was done to me and all the horrible shit I've done to others, and I blamed the world for everything that had happened to me, I hated everything and everyone and had resigned myself to a shit existence where all you can do is fear death and long for it at the same time.
And it was my fault. It was all my fault, it wasn't my mom's fault for doing what she did, it wasn't my ex's fault either. It certainly wasn't my uncle, or any of my other family, it was my fault. I had done this to myself, everything that was wrong in my life was because of me and no one else. I let my hatred for others rule over me and reduce me to nothing. Here I learned that change starts with you, and you can't blame anyone else for the things that have happened to you, are happening to you, or will happen to you. Change starts with you, and the more you hate yourself and others, the worse off you will become. I now truly believe if you love yourself and everyone else around you and you work HARD towards your goal, all the while letting kindness and logic guide you, you can achieve anything you want.
Thank you for making this place MJ, I'm going to buy your book with the rest of my xbox money.
I apologize for butchering the English language, literally all of my education when it comes to English comes from the internet considering I only ever went to french schools.
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