Are you pushing yourself??

[backbreaker]

I had a situtation take place that reminded me of some of the things that I have been through the last couple of years.

Just to let you know, this isn't a post about women, so if you are looking for women advice, move on, and stop reading now.

When I was little, well not little, like in high school, I wanted to work for myself. By the tiem I was a senior, I was already planning on starting my own business, not wanting to do it, planning it (you can't legally do anything until your 18). I saw all of the infomercials.. It looked great. Work when you want, be your own boss.. I mean, who DOESN'T WANT all of that right?

I lauged at people who worked for othe rpeople because they didn't "get it" I remember asking my business partner one day early on, why don't more people do this?

Let me let you in on a little secret about success, because honestly, I had alot of it. But it wasn't because of anything I
knew or things I learned.

Everytime I tell someone, and I am not one to gloat, but it does come up, that I run, or now Ran a computer company and I s tarted it myself, well, the first thing everyone asks me is how much money I Make.. The second question is always, without a doubt "how did you do it" or "what did you have to learn" or "how hard it is it running a company".

At first I used to try to answer their questions, but then after a while, ,I stopped. I didn't know the answers to thoose questions when I started my company, and to be honest, ,really honest... not anyone can do it, but it doesn't take a rocket scientest to run a company... It really doesn't.. espically not in this day in age. Espically when you have a CFO, COO, CSO and any other CO you can put together...

There are some skills that are required.. You have to be willing to work.. have to be willing to learn, have to be a people person at least to some extent, have to be able to explain yourself (very, very underated) and have to be able to work under pressure.. but hell there are policemen that can do all of that, honestly (no disrespect)


WHAT NO BOOK, PERSON, GUIDELINE, E BOOK, WHATEVER, PREPARED ME FOR, is for something you take for granted.

You say " I am willing to sacrafice.. I want it"... lol, no, you have to WANT IT. You have to be willing to do things that make you look like a complete fool at times to get what you want or to get there.

But that's not the point of thoose post, so let me move on.

What no one prepared me for, is for something I took for granted... 3 things... family, friends, and women.

In High School, i was an above average student that was on track to go to college, had a 3.5ish GPA and took all AP corses (execpt gym).. played basketball and baseball, pretty popular.. I was my mom's baby, ,kept a girlfriend, had a car, had friends, Ihad pretty much everything you could want being in high school.

but then change came... I decided I wasn't going to go to college (for more than one reason) and that I was going to start my own company... I stopped going out hanging out all of hte time because I was working all of the time... Slowly but shorely, things started to change.. I went from being my mom's baby to her kicking me out the house because I wouldn't go to school and I wasn't doing anything with my life all of the girls from high school eventaully moved on... my two best friends were the only ones who really stayed around, but even then, not anywhere near like it was in high school (but then again, they worked and went to the same school, I didn't do either one with them, even with that we saw each other usually 2 times a week).

Slowly, when I wasn't "rich in 6 months", my family started taking shots at me.. I didn't even get invited to thanksgiving one year , and when I showed up for christmas everyone asked when I was goign to go to school, called me fat (literarly, I had gained some weight becaause when you work 16-17 hour days, exercising isn't in the schedule) and said I needed to do something with my life.. no one even bothered to ask about what we were doing or how I was doing

When my mom kicked me out, I didn't have a place to stay and slept in my car for a week. I literarly made my grandma make me stay with her (I don't now why I had to, I mean, I had never done anything wrong to anyone, dont' do drugs, didn't go out, ,all I did was stay in my room and work)

One day her drunk BF came home and locked himself out the house, when I opened the door from him, after about 10 mintues, ,because I was in the shower and didn't know he had locked himself out, he grabbed a knife from the kitchen and came at me with it... I luckly my car keys were on the living room dresser, I grabbed them, made a b line for my car and sped up with him chasing me the entire time (in my shower robe)...

I called my mom and told her what happened (don't know why now) and she told her mom (my Grandma).. and get this... when I came home the next day, becuase I wasn't staying there that night... they had my clothes packed and told me to get out! Ovbiously, I did something to make her drunk crackhead boyfriend pissed off, and because of that, I wasn't welcome there anymore.

Luckily, me and my business partner were making SOME, not alot, but SOME money, so we got an apartment together, because he had some issues of his own. AT the time we didnt' know how we were going to afford it, ,but we did, and from that day, until we moved out, ,never missed a month, never even was late.

girls, lol, what girls? I didn't get a date, let alone any action from April 30th of 2001 until ... Mabye like July 2nd of 2004... right after my June 17th B-Day. Didn't talk on the phone to any girls.. no girls were interested in a loser

then one day, one magical day... I remember it like yesterday... I sat down and said tomyself I am tired of being broke... so I had to figure out to try to sell as many computers as possible, wiht a $300 a week marketing budget ... and you know what? I did just that. I submitted 25,000, yes 25,000 google adword submissions in one weekend.. imagine coming up with 25,000 diffeernt keywords for one product? My rationale was that so many people use google, I may not be able to bid on the big words, but I'll be damned if there is a small word like "P4 2.4GHz Mini super computer system PC" that I don't have a bid on. I woke that next tuesday morning morning... and... we just started selling computers... First 1 a day, then 2 a day.. by the end of march (this was march 6th) we were selling around 10 computers a day, which is better than 2-3 a week.

That's all our company needed, and I said it all along, all we need is a break. We grew almost every week for a year. by my 21st birthday, we making about $30k-40k a day.

But that's not the only thing.. now we were able to hire employees.. Meaning, I had time to do things besides work. I hit the gym.. went shopping for clothes... got a new car finally.. eventually moved out from with my business partner and got my own place...

I remember, the first girl to show me any type of attention in years worked at subway.. I was loosing weight and I could only eat subway.. because it was the closest thing to my house and I didn't know any foods to cook... I came in one day, and she kept looking at me... sexually.. She asked where my GF was at? I thought it was a joke, serously.. me, a GF? I mean, I was never UGLY, quite the contary, I knew I was good looking, even when I was overweight, I wasn't OVERWEIGHT, just cubby but still cute.. She was hideious.. probabyl a 2 out of 10.. but she asked for my phone number and I gave it to her, and we became good friends.. I made it known I wasn' tinterested in her like that, but at the same time, the fact that she showed me any attention did wonders for my morale, a 2 out of 10!

It wasn't long before the 6.5 out of 10 there, who I did think was cute, was hitting on me.

then I got my wardrobe together, because I owned was business clothes, and I remember I went to the mall the week before I turned 21 to get the stuff for my apartment.. curtains... lamps.. stuff like that... And EVERY Girl I saw was looking at me in that way... At least 4-5 women that helped me in different stores... I wasn't shy, but go 4 years without touching a girl.. it can get akward.

That's not the point, so let me stopped talking about women, let me just say, it got better from there on.

 

[backbreaker]

But guess who tried to come around after all of these years? my mom... "where have you been", and "why haven't you called"... *****, maybe it's because when I did call you, you never returned my calls when Ineeded you. My grandmom now called me just to see how I was doing... My dad never did really call me alot, but my dad was always the same dad, so I never had any beef with him, execpt for that I coudln't stay with him because his stepwife wouldn't let me (he got kicked out of the house by his wife ealier this year.. gues who he stayed with for 3 months... you guessed it... and didn't mind one bit, he didn't even have to ask)

So one day I just got fed up with it, and told my mom's side of my family they can kiss my ass, and I have bearly talked to them sense... they weren't there for me when I didn't need them, why should they be there now? I see my mom every once in a while, and the only reasno for that is because of Bri, my 5 year old sister, who just knows she has a big brother and has done nothing wrong... But I'll tell her to her face, she can kiss my ass


And my two best friends that were there though the rough times? my Ex said I would let them get away with murder, and I would. I said I had an apartment? Well, WE had an apartment, because they had keys, ate my food, watched my tv, had company over, stayed over until they damn well wanted to, unless Ihad something to do of course.. but like I told my EX GF, they EARNED that right. If we ever went to the mall and they would see something that they like? Get it. Whenever we would go out, I wouldn't LET them pay and still don't... and even though they know that they can get a free meal everytime we go out, we don't go out everynight... Well, one of my friends is in Arizona and will be back in March, but when he was here, they didn' ttry to live off me.

One of my friends has a Gf that stays in Virginia and she wanted to visit him for a month.. instead of them stayin with his mom and dad where he lived, I took my weight set out of the extra bedroom and told htem that they can stay with me for as long as they wanted (and we kicked it that month )

I look at my mom with love and hate at the same time... I hate her for making my life so much harder than it has to be, because I love my mom, she is my mom, you only get one, but no one should have to go though what I went though growing up. But at the same time, a lot of the things she did and didn’t do gave me the will to be who I am today… Anyone that knows me will tell you I am “older than my age”... My Ex is 25, ,will be 26 next week… when she told her family she was dating a 21 year old, they laughed.. Until they met me.. Then they couldn’t believe I was 21.. I was more “mature” than her 31 year old ex! Girls see us out (the three amigos, My two friends and I) and no one would ever guess I was the youngest.

So the message of this “sermon” is .. ‘how bad do you really want it?”…

Another, very, very quick story.. I personally know Joe Johnson… played on the same AAU basketball team growing up (he’s 2 years older than me), played at Central High, we played them, etc.. little rock isn’t that big, and every basketball player knows every other basketball player… it’s like a frat.

What people don’t know about Joe, is that when he was in the 9th grade, he was 5’8 and couldn’t dribble with his left hand ,and couldn’t shot.. Then, over 1 summer, he grew 6-7 inches, the following year, his sophomore year in high school, he spent day after day after day after night after night in the gym, at the park, honing his game. Shooting by himself.. He wasn’t even the best player on his high school team as a senior (he was considered to have the most POTENTIAL since he was now 6’6 and athletic) but a guy named Jared Hart, who was also a Parade All American, was considered to be a better, more polished player.

I mean, he made every All American list thinkable as a high school senior, but it wasn’t until the middle of his senior year that his game Really started to come together, the handles, the shot (and that didn’t come until he got at Arkansas, still really wasn’t a great shooter), the Defense. While all of the other basketball players were busy soaking up the glorious life of being a basketball player for one of the best teams in the country, as they were all 3 years he was there, he was as shy as could be (and still is, ever see him, go talk to him, cool as the sun, very soft spoken), and spent all of his time, litearrly ALL of it, in the gym.

I think it paid off for him.


So how bad do you really want it? When I got on my feet, and started going out, I had NO problems attracting women, because there was no way was I going to see them as being the prize after what I had been though.

Are you going to give up when your family, your own blood, turns against you, and they will more times than not.

Are you going to give up and be an ordinary Joe when women aren’t attracted to you or don’t want you?

When people call you a loser, are you going to cry and quit?

Something I learned is the path of success weeds out all of the pretenders. If you want to own a company because it’s “cool” and you get women, you’ll quit sooner rather than later.

I thought about quitting a couple of times.. I did quit, but not because I couldn’t take it.. I wanted to do something else and I cashed out.

When you make that plan, and things don’t go originally how you want them to, are you going to give up?

And yes, pretty much every girl that I wanted and wouldn’t give me the time of day, including the girl I that brought me to this site (who I am sleeping with now, but it’s a little different with her because she never did desert me, she was always there too, she just had a BF) came back, but I either brush them to the side, or I don’t take them seriously because they proved their worth to me a long time ago.

So, I will wrap this up, but I thought this was a very important message and not to many people have been though what I have been though… How bad do you want it, and what are you willing to sacrifice to get it?

 

[Jon341427]

good post and story to get an important point across.

with the 25,000 google word thing, does that mean you came up with 25,000 different words to bring up a link to your website? thats insane. i want to start my own business, but im still thinking of something people want/need.

 

[backbreaker]

yes, 25,000 freakin keywords.

wordtracker.com is a godsend... even with that it wasn't easy, took about a week to come up with that many

 

[Socialreject]

I think anyone who isn't born in a business family has a similar story. Although your story is a rough one. I never had it that rough, although i have to say i had a very hard time coping when i realized that my family didn't 'trust' me, didn't believe in me...

Noone did. Not even my LTR partner. Everyone in my world took sides in one camp and i was on the other. All under the guise of what's best for me ofcourse. They did try to make me feel guilty for bettering myself and sometimes they succeeded. But i didn't give up and it payed off in the end.

I come from a lower middle class family. Dad worked in construction, mom work in the canned fish flavoured food plant. Grand dad worked in a steel mill and grand mom was a knitster for about 15 years before she became a housewife. Naturally i was expected to either go the same way or get an education with option one bearing the favor.

Basically, i never had a proper education (catching up on that now though). I left school when i was 18 regardless of the fact that i didn't have my degree yet. I immediately took a job in construction. I grew weary of it very quickly and realized i didn't want to spend my life that way. I quit and started my own company. Also in computers. I made a fair living for a while but this business failed. The reason for it failing was that i simply did not have the experience in business yet but i did learn a couple lessons. Luckily i got off without getting burned financially (i saw it coming and let it die of natural causes).

This was the ultimate proof that everyone needed of the fact that i was a dreamer, hallucinating, I'd end up a bumb with a cola cup to beg coins, i'd end up sucking my parents tit forever, blahblahblah. After much whining and preaching i was still defiant and refused to get a job (employee job). I started another business, this time a franchise. It payed off slowly but again not as much as i had hoped. It didn't pay enough to allow to cut free and start a higher investment business. I had some financial problems at this stage and again proved to everyone i couldn't hack it. More whining and preaching followed almost up to a point where i unchained a huge fight in the family because i was under a lot of stress, snapped and told everyone to get the f*ck out of my life.

At this point everyone was pretty much blowing furious smoke in my face. Since i was still living with my mother, i made a decision to move out of the house, get away from the negative vibes and the constant harassment in the form of whining when I'm going to get a job and getting vacancies in the paper shoved in front of my nose for the next dead end job.

Looking back at it; Moving out wasn't the brightest idea ever since it set me up for more financial issues. On the other hand, things cooled down in the family again and that decision did eventually get me where i am now. Naturally i still got harassment in the form of vacancies in the paper. I got sick of it and added my financial state i put two and two together and took a job. I actually worked myself up pretty good in the two years i worked that job. I built up a reserve of cash and was already planning my next business.

Everyone was very happy with me at this point ofcourse, since i had finally decided to stop being a dead beat and accept my faith of living in the slums scraping for food like 'everyone' else

Reactions were mixed when i started another business in advertising. Some were in the form of 'oh no not again' and others were in the form of 'i give up'. I built my business and cut myself free from the cycle i had landed in. I had no life for 2 years and worked relentlessly. The last 8 months I've been taking my foot off the gas and the business is more or less on autopilot.

People have stopped whining now.. thank god. And now i am generally accepted as a good honest hard working person again. I guess they needed to know i would be OK and are now content to see that i am.

Right now I'm looking into more profitable avenues of business. I'm still planning on getting the big bucks so I'm not stopping here and i don't intend to ever stop. Even if everything i built up now goes belly up it's just more experience, more learnt lessons and i see no reason to give up.

People who have no sense of business and put their entire financial future (heck their entire future period) on a single company will never ever see the light in business. They will always assume it's dangerous and damaging. Leads to homeless guys etc. And they will always try to bring you down for whatever reason. Some of the reasons are concern, others are jealousy. Whatever the reason, i have found that it's beneficial to steer clear of these negative influences. My business only picked up once i moved out and got my own place. I wasn't being dragged down anymore and constantly harassed with cat in a bag deals for jobs.

It's very true that you have to really WANT it. Having people around you that drag you down will only interfere with your drive.

 

[backbreaker]

that's a very motivational story, ,and yes, I had it pretty bad looking back on it. My parents, basically my mom's whole side of the family, made things uncessarly difficult for me. They told me to shove it, so I did the same in return.

adversity will weed out who your real friends and who cares for you. All in all, I have 3 people left, and I will make sure I can do everything I can for them if need be.

 

[Socialreject]

Well...

I'm still on good terms with my family. I decided that i would just let old quarrels die since they never added up to much anyways. I kind of ignore the fact that they totally didn't believe in me in any way and needed to see proof first.

I guess it's hard to believe in your own flesh and blood when you have a conviction that anyone who ever earned more then he needs to pay bills is actually a superhuman, super smart, or something else super... or just a plain old criminal.

The two years i spent building my company i payed for with my LTR. Which ended during that period. Now i know that my next LTR will be with someone who supports me and doesn't try to drag me down with disbelief and contentless arguments like 'can't you just be happy with what you got'... Can't tell you howmany times i heard that. Basically YES i can, but is that an excuse not to ever try to get anything more? I don't think so

It just goes to show that some people cannot cope with being finacially insecure. They'd rather be pimped with pennies and dimes than take a risk. AFC style ^^

Tbh, i have to say that looking back at it, it was all about having balls to take a big risk. If you don't want soemthing enough you will not be willing to risk your left nut for it. For me that's what it took.

 

[backbreaker]

me getting a GF was the worst thing that happened to my company... not so much becasue of the GF, it WHO my gf was that was the problem... everything was a huge problem that took up my personal...and work at times....time

Always wanted to "talk"... I learned quick..she would just have to get pissed at me because people depended on me, and they don't give a damn if you wanted to "talk" or not.

 

[pimpfromdayone]

That's fuc-ked up you had such a horrible family man, but I suppose you're more than happy now right?
I know things sorta went downhill in that other thread, but I am still trying to figure out what I want to do in business. The computer idea was just awesome, I gotta hand it to you. Since you're already so successful, got anymore good ideas? The clothing thing just isn't going to work out for me, as I expected, but I know someone who is really good with computers (college educated in fact) so I might try that route as well.

 

[RedPill]

Something I learned is the path of success weeds out all of the pretenders.

adversity will weed out who your real friends and who cares for you.

Backbreaker, this is it man. The whole aspect of mental toughness is where everyone falls short. Right now I'm going through this monk-like period of self-improvement where all I do is work on my business, learn, and hit the gym. Next to zero social life. I'm not quite as taxed for time as you were in the early stages of your start-up, and my parents have been very supportive, letting me live with them now. But, in the last several years I've experienced a lot of adversity that really tested me. Without those experiences, I wouldn't be where I am today. And there's a long way to go. But dude, it totally disgusts me to see all the weakness of character that's around. People not willing to evolve. People closing their minds to new ideas. Most nauseating, people who are just plain lazy. Every month it seems, I run into someone I knew from high school who is working some crapass job, and all they do is whine about their lot in life. Slowly I've lost touch with so many people that used to be good friends because of our different paths. One of my best friends from high school called me this week and b1tched at me for not staying in touch all summer. And then he asked if I could get him a job. Go figure, just another weak person looking for the easy route.

Without writing out a long story here, I just want to say this thread contains some high quality advice about really wanting to succeed vs. paying lip service to success. It's too bad though that the people who likely could benefit the most from reading it will look over it and instead choose to engage in discussion about whether they should email some girl that said hi to them.

 

[Socialreject]

Yeah backbreaker had a good concept. Still i feel that it was his persistence and relentless effort that made his company...

I think the obvious point is not to get into anything you don't know much about. I'm considering real estate as a business to get into because i have field experience in this branch, plus my old man can pretty much tell me straight up if an estate has Merritt or not. I need to look at legal aspects more before i make a move though...

If you're European, dotcoms actually still are a good business to get into. I suppose in the US the market is pretty saturated by now, but in Europe it's still fairly profitable. A close friend of mine is in the business and is doing very well now after a hostile take-over of the company (the guy running the shots was a lazy nitwit).

Computers worked fairly well for me. But it's really all about finding the right suppliers (at least here it is). I ran a wholesale for about a year before i called it quits. All in all i think this branch needs a lot of businessknowhow and expertise to succeed. An old associate of mine if still in business and doing 'fair'. Hes not really struck gold just yet but hes been doing well for himself.

Software is also still a very good business. An acquaintance of mine programs medical databases for doctors and he is very successful, even though hes got basically no businessknowhow whatsoever. He had his company taken over once already, lol.

The most profitable businesses imho are always the ones where your invested money is increasing in value WITHOUT having to make sales to increase it's value. Leverage is key...

If there is one thing i've learned it's that your business basically starts dieing if it stops growing. There is always someone luring around the corner for your spot in the market and if they got a chance to outgrow you they WILL. I think this is a good reason why lazy or unmotivated business owners tend to get the short stick in the end. Thats also the reason why i'd like to get into another business asap.

 

[backbreaker]

Originally posted by pimpfromdayone
That's fuc-ked up you had such a horrible family man, but I suppose you're more than happy now right?
I know things sorta went downhill in that other thread, but I am still trying to figure out what I want to do in business. The computer idea was just awesome, I gotta hand it to you. Since you're already so successful, got anymore good ideas? The clothing thing just isn't going to work out for me, as I expected, but I know someone who is really good with computers (college educated in fact) so I might try that route as well.

I mean, make no mistake, this is all my mom's side of my family (my mom and dad divorced when I was 7)... my Dad's side of the family, ,besides my stepmom, whoose 5 years older than me (my dad is 45), is cool...

I have seen my mom's dad more than she has... I think 3 times, all 3 in the last year... I had never seen him before, and it turns out he was working on a new house that was being built across the street from my apartment. So I was jogging, and he calls out my name... how he knew it was me I have no idea, I had no idea who he was.

So we get to talking, and I invite him to lunch, so we go and grab some mexican food on his lunch break, and the issue of him running out on my mom, and her sister came up... He told me "your grandmom was too much for me, they don't get basic family concepts, and explained to me he didn't "run off" he left, and she said she didn't want him to see the kids... Irnonically we stayed in great touch with his mom until she did when I was younger, but never him.

I mean, i never was down, I hardely ever think about it.. something just happened over the weekend that reminded me of all of that.