- Joined
- May 27, 2013
- Messages
- 96
Hi Everyone,
I want to formally introduce myself to the community and tell you my story. This is not a story of success, but it is my story so far. For better or worse, it is a story of process.
I'm a 23 year old graduate from a top college on the east coast with a double major in International Business and Marketing (I know). When I graduated college I deludedly believed that I was entitled to a job. I was a double major, they're going to roll out the red carpet! I had 3 internships under my belt already, they're going to be knocking down my door.
Boy was I wrong.
I couldn't get a job in my major anywhere, and even the "entry-level" jobs that people advertised on Monster and Craigslist needed 2-3 years of experience to be considered. I couldn't get hired because I didn't have enough experience, and I didn't have enough experience because I couldn't get hired. This vicious cycle of rejection after rejection led to desperation. My thinking changed. Now I wanted a job, ANY job; something so I wouldn't feel like a loser. Well. I was a magna cum laude double major graduate from an ivy. That's a little bit threatening to small business owners. Oh wait, I also minored in Japanese? Overqualified.
More quickly than it was built, the slowlane ego that I had spent four years crafting shattered. I watched one-by-one as my friends with connections started getting consulting/finance jobs. Deloitte, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch. They all got hired, then one-by-one, they dissapeared. Contact was reduced, life went on, and they became sucked into their work. I was alone and lost.
That's when the jealousy/comparison bug reared its ugly head.
Their 14 hour days seemed to me to be the promised land. I wanted it for myself. $60-70k/year starting salary before bonuses?! Are you kidding me!? I was still living at home with my parents, that seemed like the Holy Grail. They were making real money and had careers. They were big-shots. How could I get in, Where could I even go? Where do all the bigshots hang out? I got it...
Hollywood.
I was already well-versed on the industry and major players (much like MJ I'm a voracious reader) so I packed all my stuff into the Subaru and made the journey to La-La Land. I was hungry, determined to make it, and VERY foolish. I would have a job as an assistant within a week, within a month I would be a coordinator, Director in 3, VP in about a year, no that's too long, make that 6 months. Yeah, that sounds about right.
3 months and many "informational interviews" later I was still jobless. No don't worry, they said they would keep my resume on file.
I packed up all my stuff and moved back home. I signed up with a temp agency and settled for a job as an "admissions representative" for an infamously for-profit "university" in San Francisco (care to take any guesses?). I was a little bit hesitant but they were offering me $50k a year. Living the dream. This was my first exposure to a true slowlane job. Our job was to convince these kids who all had their own unique hopes and dreams to enroll in the college, aka collect their money. We were brainwashed to never let them say no, how to overcome any objections they might have, and how to get every penny we could out of them. This training program was cult-like and frankly very frightening. It was very uncomfortable. I found the way this "university" did business to be vile, disgusting, and offensive. This wasn't sales. This school wasn't benefiting them or adding value to their lives in any way. This was a fastlane business disguised as a school.
From the first day, I knew it wasn't going to work out. I looked around and saw the dead and listless faces of all the employees and it quickly became clear that there was no future here. My training group consisted of people much older than me, 27, 29, 29, 32, 38, etc. All of them came from different backgrounds and more-or-less took this job because they had no other options left. One of the guys was a recovering heroin addict and had been homeless, one had a kid, one was a burnout, one was someone who had made all the wrong decisions, etc. I clearly remember they they all had their own dreams and when I asked one of them why they weren't pursuing them she said "I can't. I need the money and stability".
I lasted all of two weeks.
Around that time I got a call completely out-of-the-blue from a college alumni who I had met up with a few times while in school. He mentioned that he ran into the CMO of a major Hollywood studio at a party who was looking for an assistant. My prayers had just been answered, I couldn't believe it. Within a week I was back in LA sitting in an Aeron chair. Hello corporate life, let's see what you're all about.
To say that I was trading my time for the possibility of two days of freedom is an understatement. Every waking moment of my time was accounted for. I had no freedom. For the next three months I woke up at 4:30 in the morning every day, drove 1.5 hours to travel the 15 miles to work in LA traffic, worked until 9 PM, got home at 10:30, ate dinner while answering the e-mails I couldn't when driving until 11:30, and was asleep by midnight. Rinse and repeat. Every. Single. Day. I also can't forget to mention the stress. I was getting constant pains in my side, I was constantly jittery and anxious, and every time my cell phone would vibrate with a new message I would have a miniature panic attack. The cost of all of this? $13/hour.
Being an assistant to a "powerful man", you learn a few things, mainly about your boss' life. My boss was making around $40k/month. For all intents and purposes he should be really well off right? Wrong. Not only was he broke, he was constantly in overdraft. He was stretched so thin between car payments, house payments, alimony, private school payments, clubs/societies, he had absolutely nothing to his name. One paycheck from bankruptcy, if his expenses weren't done on time, he would be over. He answered directly to the CEO who was constantly riding his a$$, he had to play internal office politics 24/7, and his job was constantly at risk. The second he stopped performing he would be out on the street. This is success? This is what happens when you've climbed the ladder and are at the peak of your game? Something is clearly wrong here. The final straw for me came when I met another assistant who had been at the company for 5 years. He was 32. He was a 32 year old assistant. I realized it was time to get out. There had to be a better system.
Freshly minted out of a job, I needed a few weeks to recover and plan my next move. By now, after my two job experiences, I realized that something was seriously wrong with the system. I wondered what all of the successful people I read about on a daily basis were doing. They certainly weren't chained to a desk. They all had financial freedom and they always seemed to be doing cool things. Cars, Women, Gumball Rallies, Hot Air Baloon Races, you name it. Their money was clearly divorced from time. They didn't look like my "slowlane success story" boss, and he was making a half a million a year. No, these guys looked happy. They looked like people with a mission, purpose, and goal that they were reaching. I wanted to be like these guys. Corporate life just didn't make sense.
Around this time I started seriously reading about and researching money, self-help, and entrepreneurship. I devoured every possible book, article, or website I could but somehow none of them seemed to be clicking. All these books did was offer general platitudes. "Trust in the system. Don't question, Believe. Recommit and reinvest." Wait, what? How does that make sense? These books are telling me to be a cog in a machine I'm already questioning and they're actually encouraging sheep mentality! I smelled bullshit so I continued searching and somehow, 1000s of mouse clicks later, I stumbled upon this forum. I kept seeing the name MJ thrown around and after a quick search I came across The Millionaire Fastlane.
All cliches aside, the book instantly clicked with me. It was a winner. It's direct, to the point, and honest. It completely opened my eyes to the possibility of life, the way these successful entrepreneurs think, and how to strategically approach business decisions. Suddenly the pieces of the puzzle fit together. I understood how the wealthier families at school actually got to where they were. They thought different, so they were different. It's as simple as that. I finished the book and certain things became instantly clear:
My degree will not do any work for me; its only purpose is social proof. I am the driver of my own wealth vehicle, nobody will do anything for me. I am not above anything, I am not entitled to anything. My credentials cannot be used as a crutch; the thought that because I have a degree I will be successful is simply wrong. My boss, the quintessential slowlane image of success, lives a miserable existence. The people with real freedom are the creators and producers: the family that owns the "university" in SF, the man who owns the studio in Hollywood. The corporate system never felt correct to me, and that's because it is not correct. It was put in place to facilitate the dreams of those producers. I don't want the slowlane life for myself. I want more, and now I know it's possible to get there.
So that brings us to today. I have traveled a very interesting road to get here and now that I am armed with this information it is completely up to me to use it. I'm 23 and I know certain things that my parents, my peers, my teachers, my mentors, and my colleagues don't. Let's see what I can do with it moving forward.
Thank you MJ for creating this community and writing TMF. I'm looking forward to contributing as much as I can, and learning from all of you guys and and your experiences. It's a great feeling that this community of like-minded thinkers exists and I am really excited to being a part of it. MJ, I hope one day we can have a great talk, I would love to pick your brain and learn more from you.
Feel free to e-mail me, PM, get in contact, etc.
Best,
- WT
I want to formally introduce myself to the community and tell you my story. This is not a story of success, but it is my story so far. For better or worse, it is a story of process.
I'm a 23 year old graduate from a top college on the east coast with a double major in International Business and Marketing (I know). When I graduated college I deludedly believed that I was entitled to a job. I was a double major, they're going to roll out the red carpet! I had 3 internships under my belt already, they're going to be knocking down my door.
Boy was I wrong.
I couldn't get a job in my major anywhere, and even the "entry-level" jobs that people advertised on Monster and Craigslist needed 2-3 years of experience to be considered. I couldn't get hired because I didn't have enough experience, and I didn't have enough experience because I couldn't get hired. This vicious cycle of rejection after rejection led to desperation. My thinking changed. Now I wanted a job, ANY job; something so I wouldn't feel like a loser. Well. I was a magna cum laude double major graduate from an ivy. That's a little bit threatening to small business owners. Oh wait, I also minored in Japanese? Overqualified.
More quickly than it was built, the slowlane ego that I had spent four years crafting shattered. I watched one-by-one as my friends with connections started getting consulting/finance jobs. Deloitte, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch. They all got hired, then one-by-one, they dissapeared. Contact was reduced, life went on, and they became sucked into their work. I was alone and lost.
That's when the jealousy/comparison bug reared its ugly head.
Their 14 hour days seemed to me to be the promised land. I wanted it for myself. $60-70k/year starting salary before bonuses?! Are you kidding me!? I was still living at home with my parents, that seemed like the Holy Grail. They were making real money and had careers. They were big-shots. How could I get in, Where could I even go? Where do all the bigshots hang out? I got it...
Hollywood.
I was already well-versed on the industry and major players (much like MJ I'm a voracious reader) so I packed all my stuff into the Subaru and made the journey to La-La Land. I was hungry, determined to make it, and VERY foolish. I would have a job as an assistant within a week, within a month I would be a coordinator, Director in 3, VP in about a year, no that's too long, make that 6 months. Yeah, that sounds about right.
3 months and many "informational interviews" later I was still jobless. No don't worry, they said they would keep my resume on file.
I packed up all my stuff and moved back home. I signed up with a temp agency and settled for a job as an "admissions representative" for an infamously for-profit "university" in San Francisco (care to take any guesses?). I was a little bit hesitant but they were offering me $50k a year. Living the dream. This was my first exposure to a true slowlane job. Our job was to convince these kids who all had their own unique hopes and dreams to enroll in the college, aka collect their money. We were brainwashed to never let them say no, how to overcome any objections they might have, and how to get every penny we could out of them. This training program was cult-like and frankly very frightening. It was very uncomfortable. I found the way this "university" did business to be vile, disgusting, and offensive. This wasn't sales. This school wasn't benefiting them or adding value to their lives in any way. This was a fastlane business disguised as a school.
From the first day, I knew it wasn't going to work out. I looked around and saw the dead and listless faces of all the employees and it quickly became clear that there was no future here. My training group consisted of people much older than me, 27, 29, 29, 32, 38, etc. All of them came from different backgrounds and more-or-less took this job because they had no other options left. One of the guys was a recovering heroin addict and had been homeless, one had a kid, one was a burnout, one was someone who had made all the wrong decisions, etc. I clearly remember they they all had their own dreams and when I asked one of them why they weren't pursuing them she said "I can't. I need the money and stability".
I lasted all of two weeks.
Around that time I got a call completely out-of-the-blue from a college alumni who I had met up with a few times while in school. He mentioned that he ran into the CMO of a major Hollywood studio at a party who was looking for an assistant. My prayers had just been answered, I couldn't believe it. Within a week I was back in LA sitting in an Aeron chair. Hello corporate life, let's see what you're all about.
To say that I was trading my time for the possibility of two days of freedom is an understatement. Every waking moment of my time was accounted for. I had no freedom. For the next three months I woke up at 4:30 in the morning every day, drove 1.5 hours to travel the 15 miles to work in LA traffic, worked until 9 PM, got home at 10:30, ate dinner while answering the e-mails I couldn't when driving until 11:30, and was asleep by midnight. Rinse and repeat. Every. Single. Day. I also can't forget to mention the stress. I was getting constant pains in my side, I was constantly jittery and anxious, and every time my cell phone would vibrate with a new message I would have a miniature panic attack. The cost of all of this? $13/hour.
Being an assistant to a "powerful man", you learn a few things, mainly about your boss' life. My boss was making around $40k/month. For all intents and purposes he should be really well off right? Wrong. Not only was he broke, he was constantly in overdraft. He was stretched so thin between car payments, house payments, alimony, private school payments, clubs/societies, he had absolutely nothing to his name. One paycheck from bankruptcy, if his expenses weren't done on time, he would be over. He answered directly to the CEO who was constantly riding his a$$, he had to play internal office politics 24/7, and his job was constantly at risk. The second he stopped performing he would be out on the street. This is success? This is what happens when you've climbed the ladder and are at the peak of your game? Something is clearly wrong here. The final straw for me came when I met another assistant who had been at the company for 5 years. He was 32. He was a 32 year old assistant. I realized it was time to get out. There had to be a better system.
Freshly minted out of a job, I needed a few weeks to recover and plan my next move. By now, after my two job experiences, I realized that something was seriously wrong with the system. I wondered what all of the successful people I read about on a daily basis were doing. They certainly weren't chained to a desk. They all had financial freedom and they always seemed to be doing cool things. Cars, Women, Gumball Rallies, Hot Air Baloon Races, you name it. Their money was clearly divorced from time. They didn't look like my "slowlane success story" boss, and he was making a half a million a year. No, these guys looked happy. They looked like people with a mission, purpose, and goal that they were reaching. I wanted to be like these guys. Corporate life just didn't make sense.
Around this time I started seriously reading about and researching money, self-help, and entrepreneurship. I devoured every possible book, article, or website I could but somehow none of them seemed to be clicking. All these books did was offer general platitudes. "Trust in the system. Don't question, Believe. Recommit and reinvest." Wait, what? How does that make sense? These books are telling me to be a cog in a machine I'm already questioning and they're actually encouraging sheep mentality! I smelled bullshit so I continued searching and somehow, 1000s of mouse clicks later, I stumbled upon this forum. I kept seeing the name MJ thrown around and after a quick search I came across The Millionaire Fastlane.
All cliches aside, the book instantly clicked with me. It was a winner. It's direct, to the point, and honest. It completely opened my eyes to the possibility of life, the way these successful entrepreneurs think, and how to strategically approach business decisions. Suddenly the pieces of the puzzle fit together. I understood how the wealthier families at school actually got to where they were. They thought different, so they were different. It's as simple as that. I finished the book and certain things became instantly clear:
My degree will not do any work for me; its only purpose is social proof. I am the driver of my own wealth vehicle, nobody will do anything for me. I am not above anything, I am not entitled to anything. My credentials cannot be used as a crutch; the thought that because I have a degree I will be successful is simply wrong. My boss, the quintessential slowlane image of success, lives a miserable existence. The people with real freedom are the creators and producers: the family that owns the "university" in SF, the man who owns the studio in Hollywood. The corporate system never felt correct to me, and that's because it is not correct. It was put in place to facilitate the dreams of those producers. I don't want the slowlane life for myself. I want more, and now I know it's possible to get there.
So that brings us to today. I have traveled a very interesting road to get here and now that I am armed with this information it is completely up to me to use it. I'm 23 and I know certain things that my parents, my peers, my teachers, my mentors, and my colleagues don't. Let's see what I can do with it moving forward.
Thank you MJ for creating this community and writing TMF. I'm looking forward to contributing as much as I can, and learning from all of you guys and and your experiences. It's a great feeling that this community of like-minded thinkers exists and I am really excited to being a part of it. MJ, I hope one day we can have a great talk, I would love to pick your brain and learn more from you.
Feel free to e-mail me, PM, get in contact, etc.
Best,
- WT
Dislike ads? Become a Fastlane member:
Subscribe today and surround yourself with winners and millionaire mentors, not those broke friends who only want to drink beer and play video games. :-)
Membership Required: Upgrade to Expose Nearly 1,000,000 Posts
Ready to Unleash the Millionaire Entrepreneur in You?
Become a member of the Fastlane Forum, the private community founded by best-selling author and multi-millionaire entrepreneur MJ DeMarco. Since 2007, MJ DeMarco has poured his heart and soul into the Fastlane Forum, helping entrepreneurs achieve reclaim their time, win their financial freedom, and live their best life.
With more than 39,000 posts packed with insights, strategies, and advice, you’re not just a member—you’re stepping into MJ’s inner-circl, a place where you’ll never be left alone.
Become a member and gain immediate access to...
- Active Community: Ever join a community only to find it DEAD? Not at Fastlane! As you can see from our home page, life-changing content is posted dozens of times daily.
- Exclusive Insights: Direct access to MJ DeMarco’s daily contributions and wisdom.
- Powerful Networking Opportunities: Connect with a diverse group of successful entrepreneurs who can offer mentorship, collaboration, and opportunities.
- Proven Strategies: Learn from the best in the business, with actionable advice and strategies that can accelerate your success.
"You are the average of the five people you surround yourself with the most..."
Who are you surrounding yourself with? Surround yourself with millionaire success. Join Fastlane today!
Join Today
