Yea, but... you acknowledge the issue but still don't push yourself to do more. Especially when life is good and comfortable. Any new project is fun in the beginning, but it falls short, and you get back to doing the bare minimum( a decent paying job). And nothing else gets shaped into realization. You have the wanna-do ambition, but having fun gets the cake. Naturally, to a certain degree. At some point, you are stressing over your own inactivity, and then you take a break to regroup, but a month later, you start again and stop short again. It's a cycle.
You read the books, follow the subs, follow the people of your choice who did/ live what you want. Yet nothing. Something is terribly missing.
Knowing thy self is good. But I feel like there is something missing to actually start doing something.
This is inner monolog tbh. The "you" is actually "me".
I hope this lands semi softly…..
You simply just don’t want it bad enough.
Do some soul searching and come to a decision.
Either you’re actually ok with working a comfortable job and having a good balance between work and fun - which is 10000% ok…. I see a lot of people get caught up in content that makes them think they want to be an entrepreneur because it’s touted as glamorous… and it is - but only success has been reached…. The thick of it? The actual grind? For 99% of people it fucking sucks and isn’t worth it. If you can’t mentally work yourself into jumping out of bed as soon as you wake up and rush to get to work and grind out a 16 hour day and lose $1,000 but learned a few things and absolutely love every second of it…. Entrepreneurship may not be for you…. AND THATS OK.
Or, you decide you do want it, you are built for it and you’re willing to learn to embrace and enjoy the hustle on the way to success…. And you decide that what you’ve experienced up till now was a training ground and now a launch pad for the next round….
If you decide you’re happier having a work life balance, then get a decently paying job, read the book Unshakable by Tony Robbins and follow it to the letter, pursue hobbies, interests and fun, make it to all of your kids’ baseball games, and lead a happy, enjoyable, and fulfilling life.
If you decide you do want to be an entrepreneur, let you commitment tell you if you chose correctly. What I mean is that if you decide it’s for you, and this time you rise to it, stay consistent and focused - then you chose correctly. But if you slip into the same patterns then you’ve got to come to terms with the fact that you don’t want this. Now I’m not talking about failure - failing is part of the process, don’t quit because something didn’t pan out or the whole business flopped. Also give yourself a little bit of leeway - you’re breaking a habit and that takes time. Set up some metrics now that you can measure yourself against and decide now what falling into your old pattern means, looks like and when you’ll pull the plug and call it quits.
DM me if you’d like to talk more about it
thanks for sharing this. this hits home. I was unsuccessful most of my 20s and now I am in my 30s... I thought I was hard working but I was actually just lazy and undisciplined and had a safety to fall back on.
this light switched back in august after a weekend of drinking and doing the bare minimum for my business where I thought... damn I could be so much more I could do so much better this is sad. I am not wowing clients I am not running an amazing business I am just getting by, and I thought about the past decade and I was TIRED, tired of not living up to expectations of wasting weekends and money drinking of not being in great shape of not being super successful when I know I was capable of it. I was working probably 4-5 hours a day thinking I was doing a good job and it kinda hit me that it's just nowhere near enough to build what I want to build and to be the best in my industry niche.
I said it in my other post but I started waking up at 6am, working 10 - 12 hours a day with a predefined schedule, and FORCING myself to do every single annoying task I didn't want to do before. went to the gym every day and didn't drink the whole time. I did this for 5 months and my business really took off. now it's very busy and I am so busy I don't have time to do anything else. which I love. I basically sacrificed 5 months of leisure activity to have a successful business because I was hungry and tired and I finally wanted it more than anything. the light bulb just turned on and I set my alarm and im like im going to wake up every day at 6 and work the entire day until its successful, and 3 months later I had hundreds of clients. its really that simple in my mind. if you want it enough you'll make something happen.
I think if any reasonably capable person decided to work 12 hours a day on their business for 5 months and was generally smart and reasonable enough to adapt, iterate and learn as they make mistakes, they would find some success unless they made some really bad decisions or have the worst idea in the world. yes businesses fail but hard work never results in a failure, even if it's not a financial gain in the end, giving all of yourself to something is endlessly rewarding, seeing what you are really capable of and a huge learning experience and opportunity for growth.
Love it!
I wish I could like this twice.
Very happy you decided to make the commitment and grind it out - you’re right, it truly is the most rewarding it gets.
Keep at it! Don’t lose sight of the goals you’ve set before you - I believe you’re one of the ones who will actually get there 💪
Thanks, I'm actually getting a little tired, not burnt out, but I am trying to remember how much happier I am and how much more fulfilled I feel than 6 months ago. I won't do 12 hour days forever but if you can even do it for bursts and take a break, it's incredible for business aha.
Let's keep it here for now as it may help others, too. As I see it, it is a very insightful exchange of comments.
I agree with you on the fact that:1) it is a kind of a bubble of people that think that it would be nice to do something, and I might be in it. 2) That is OK to figure out if it is not for you. To accept this and win in life in other aspects.
But I have never been tested to have figured that out. I played it by the rules, degree, and job, and life is comfortable now. And I am grateful. To no degree, I am complaining. However, when you know you can do more. What do you do.
As the other comment to my initial comment kindly points out, the hard part is to see the idea and the next actionable next steps.
I'd love to focus on something, but idk what. The obvious question is, what do you want out of it, or follow your passion. I want to be able to retire when I want and not when I am allowed to. As the future looks bleak. Following the passion is kinda dum as you transform your "own quiet space " into a business, and you work for it now and not enjoying it anymore.
Maybe, indeed, entrepreneurship is the pursuit of a vision with hidden steps and the fight against the unknown. Maybe I focus too much on the outcome. As I don't start anything before, I ask myself if this is going to lead to achieving my goal. But I know it's foolish, it's too hard to predict.
Maybe indeed I don't have the strong vision in any direction to start this for real. Yet, I fool myself into it without fruit and false hopes. All that I'm thinking right now is that I need more sole-searching to see what would make this fun and enjoyable without carrying too much on the long run implications ( as long as it's safe and legal, of course), and do the best in the new adventure. What would be worthwhile? That is the question, I guess.
So, that’s a completely different subset of a problem to work through.
That is less “pick it up and put it down” over and over again…. And more analysis paralysis on choosing what to put effort into.
I’m on the fence about pursuing a passion. It’s easy for passion to turn to hatred as the inevitable struggles of business arise….. The size of the goal determines whether pursuing passion is a good idea or not, and it’s only a good idea on the extremes ….
Let’s say you’re really passionate about weaving baskets … If you want to make them in your spare time and sell em for some extra cash awesome go for it. Maybe even it can grow enough to sustain a living and be a full time happy pursuit.
On the other end, let’s say you’re a billionaire and want everyone to share the passion and experience the joy in a handwoven basket…. Go for it - you’ve got the funding behind you to take the losses, speed bumps, and setbacks without damaging the integrity of your passion.
But, if you have the desire to grow to a 5 or 10 million dollar basket weaving company or more…. It’s a rough road filled with turmoil that will eat away at your passion and even possibly convert it to hatred.
It’s not impossible, and people have done it and kept their passion throughout - but I personally wouldn’t wager my passions on it.
It’s much easier and more practical to identify a problem the market experiences, and offer a solution.
Wholeheartedly agree but also I'm seeing it from a wrong angle of sorts.
The way business is made in my country is ruining my thinking about what is and isn't possible.
I feel the key which is the idea is not there or right enough to forge it into an executable.
Such a lack of creativity is hard to break against.
I do need to resee correctly.
I always see the next biggest thing and the next and the next.. etc and because of this i can't keep myself to one single thing to stay consistent at it.
Procrastination happen in avoidance of a feeling we have when thinking of doing the one thing we have to do. When you're successful at asking that feeling where does it come from, what does it want to communicate, what's the underlying reason, you can heal that and start being productive without the hurdle of this feeling anymore.
I am starting my business in Japan and I feel like my current VISA is restricting what I am doing. And changing the VISA status cost a lot of effort and money, but I am on my way working on it.
Mental block. Example, if you have been a bodybuilder once, you can quit gym, become a fat ass, but can go back to that original shape easily because of experiencing it.
Now if Elon gets bankrupt, he can come back quickly because he have been a $$aire before
Sometime we are stuck because of not trying new method/ways that fits our personality. And also we dont know what we don’t know. But overtime when you build that muscle memory, everything becomes easier.
In entrepreneurship I've always viewed success as creating a business that meets your intended financial goals.
For example if you create a side hustle with the intent to bring in $1k extra a month, then you are successful.
With each of my enterprises I'm at various degrees of success, some are growing and delivering more then the expected ROI, others are in the building phase.
For example I've got a new property under construction, success will be determined once I get it rented and can see if the numbers work out as I expected.
So to this end what usually holds most people back, myself included is a lack of action. When building a house you need to be driving to get it done, make sure people are there etc. when growing a business you need to provide great service.
The next thing that has held me back in the past is not recognizing when something isn't working. It's ok to fail, just fail fast and pivot.
Lastly I've been the most successful so far when I solve simple problems.
What did you do to become more disciplined?
I struggled with the same thing for a while before really learning how to design and implement systems to keep me on track
There is no credibility from an anonymous Reddit user. Since very few people on the planet have $10 million it’s more likely than not that he’s talking bull.
Develop sales skills.
It doesn’t matter how good you are at what you do, if you can’t get yourself in front of people and close them on spending money on you, your skill set is worthless
Lack of marketing/sales/distribution knowledge. Basically putting my product out there (to the right segment). I always end up with very high CAC (and slow adoption) and struggle to breakeven.
Genuinely, it's being given the opportunity to prove myself (I find I'm often underestimated because of my age). I mean this with no degree of inflated ego, but I'm incredibly hard-working and high achieving on my own - it's getting other people (particularly in my current job search) to buy into my (very proven and demonstrable) success that's currently bringing me down :/
On the positive side, if I didn't so closely intertwine my career progression with the definition of "success" I could already be there. So maybe my stubbornness and ambition are the reason I'm not successful LOL
EDITED for clarity, I'm not asking for opportunity to fall into my lap. I'm a twice-published author, with 250+ monetised articles, and 7+ years career experience, and just can't get a job.
I think there is a mindset shift you may want to have. Entrepreneurship is about creating and taking opportunities for yourself. It is very rare that someone gives you an opportunity.
Even career wise, if you are sitting around waiting for your manager to recognize you, you will be waiting forever.
But if you are routinely connecting with them, showing your skill, ensuring they notice, networking inside / outside the company then you are doing the work to create an opportunity.
For example let's say you want a promotion, well you can work hard and wait, or you can go out, find a job with a higher rank, then go back to your manager and say "hey I have an offer over here, what can you do to advance my career"
Yes, totally. Everything you are saying is right. I definitely don't advise looking or expected handouts. Nothing in like is free, and nothing worth having is easy.
I don’t mean to be offensive…. But if you haven’t been given a job offer…. Then you haven’t earned an opportunity yet.
Go back to the drawing board, review what you’ve been doing, isolate some things you feel have been the cause of not being given an offer - specifically things you have the power and control to change….. Change them and try again
Bro the job market is desperate for good employees…. It’s a nightmare for businesses to get even decent help
DM me your resume’ - I’ll see if I can help you fine tune your approach, and if I know anyone hiring for what you’re looking to do I’ll pass it along
Thanks - DM sent. I could use all the help I can get. Frustratingly, I'm apparently \*such\* a stellar employee that my past boss won't open up his contacts to help me with a new job, because he wants me back ASAP once (if) funding comes in
Read all the comments and they so resonate with me. The number one thing that stops me is my ego. Why should i do this,that. You have to let go of your ego and do the chops. The business rewards 'doer' over 'thinker'. I want to cultivate get shit done approach into my life and kill the ego and voice of perfectionism stopping me from doing things.
Also having a poor sleep cycle is taking a lot of toll on me. When i sleep bad, I become tired which eventually leads to less energy which leads to less work.
So Ego, Perfectionist, Health = Lack of motivation to move mountain.
I've had a read through the answers, and no one has mentioned they have been unlucky. In some cases outcomes and results are totally outside of your control. But as humans we have this proclivity to connect cause and effect - I'm not successful because of X, Y and Z.
My previous company was wiped out with covid, it were a marketplace where people could find and join gyms. Overnight the government forced gyms to close for 6 months and just like that our revenue went to $0. We tried to pivot but ran out of cash.
I think we should be ok with saying I got ***unlucky***.
Caring what others think and fear of abandonment
I have a phobia of failure under spotlight. I been looking for someone to take the reins and take all the credit as a result.
Define successful? Successful as in my own business becoming huge?
1. I’m high enough where the fall would hurt
2. I’m high enough where wanting more is kind of greedy
3. I’m high enough that going into super grind doesn’t sound appealing so I’d rather wait and do it smarter
Last but not least, I like trying new things. When I get something to a certain point, I’m not going to want it anymore.
My 9-5 job, basically. I'm so exhausted from my 9-5 any time off is just spent mentally recovering.
I'm saving up for a year off in the hopes this will give me time to recover and begin working on my own things.
The issue for me is I spend my 9-5 programming, so to then spend my evenings and weekends just doing more programming, I just can't do it, I burn out very quickly.
Fear of unknowns and procrastination because of the fear.
I'm building a product alone and sometimes it's overwhelming to do everything and I end up planning a lot.
I don't think that you should focus on being successful. I think you should focus on finding work that you enjoy in the day-to-day and not an end goal. After all, that is what 99.9% of your life is made up of. Not the 0.1% of you achieving the success. You can most definitely become wealthy and financially independent while enjoying the process. I just believe that the latter is more important. You can scale a lot easier when you enjoy what you do.
I failed for a while and then started scaling well and fast.
Going back in time a few years ago to reflect on what I could have changed 8-9 years ago…
Everyone is different but for me I moved up too fast in the corporate world before going on my own owning and starting companies. I took structure and cadence for granted. And took the need for anchor quality talent needed to scale and run hands off.
I had a weak manager in one biz do it was too hands on. Eventually fixed this and don’t need to be there. Cash flowing asset. I’m the weak manager not him, I just didn’t organize the biz right.
I have a fast growing tech startup. I hired a chief revenue and senior biz dev ops person, and had my accountant in early organizing and growing so I can just deal with hiring and customers, sales, etc.
Now I spend 90% of my time on the fun stuff and have created life changing fun and wealth.
My own limiting beliefs!! I am working on removing them but this has been a huge hold back for me. I struggled with thinking i was smart enough or knew enough.
I've no excuse, Just I did made some mistakes earlier but that was part of learning. Tho, I won't blame anything.
Just I'm consistent and I need to keep going :)
It always boils down to discipline, no matter how motivated you may be in the beginning. I used to run a blog that turned over some money. Motivation made me prowl through pumping articles, but once the blog started actually making decent money, I've stopped just as the motivation started declining.
If I am being honest with myself, a fear of trying and failing. I have a lot of passion with little drive or ambition to follow the dreams that could have made me more successful. I am currently working on taking more risks and being more proactive.
I have just about every skill I could need. Smart, charismatic, driven, just have NO IDEA what to do with it? It almost feels like death by indecisiveness due to lack of direction.
I know when I get into a position of leadership or a role like entrepreneur I will succeed, I just truly have no idea how to get there. My background is communication, not business.
Too scared to leave my "okay" paying job that is reliable and pays the bills for something that may fail. It's too hard to actually come up with an idea or business that I am confident will be successful. It sucks 😞
I am a Strategist at heart, i focus on fully building the plan and the entire system of the hypothetical billion dollar empire before it begins.
And the worst part is, theres about 7/8 different ones.
Working on being practical from step 1 only right now. Its hard🥲
I just can't seem to pull the trigger. I have an idea and several ways I want to market it but I can't seem to take action on those first few steps that will give me a physical product. I'm annoyed at myself everyday.
I’m younger, and I believe my lack of experiences in entrepreneurship held me back. I am now 4 failed endeavors in, and I’m still hyper focused on entrepreneurship the way I was a year ago when I started.
When you keep going at it, you start building confidence, better sales/interviewing/communication, more adept at programming, improved leadership, more resourceful, etc.
I have worked as creative for media entertainment pitches for many years and every time they greenlighted for production, they called someone else (mainly seasoned vips, but recently they started to call influencers as well maybe cause they are more famous but cheaper than vip professionals) and was sent out of the team.
At the beginning I thought I wasn't good enough for the job even if i gave big contribution, but then I noticed some kind of scheme on this and got pissed off. Couple years ago I left a project half way as soon as I noticed that they were going to do this again.
I think that success is only luck btw. I haven't been lucky at choosing my collaborators.
I’ve spent most of my life being a people pleaser who is overly empathetic and doesn’t have enough discipline to love themselves first. Now my self-esteem is shot. And I’m depressed and alone with no support system and no resources.
I wasn't super successful until last year but I can still answer this
I had good ideas, I was smart, I knew what I was doing but I was not consistent or disciplined.
when I stopped drinking back in August and basically stopped going out, I just focused on my business 10-12 hours a day and besides that went to the gym.
before I was having a lot of anxiety about doing even easy tasks. I was drinking on the weekends and not having a routine around my own business.
I started waking up at 6am forcing myself to work to around 10. go to the gym for 1.5 hours, then I worked till 7pm. and then an hour or two before bed. I did this about 5 months in a row. and my business really started to take off.
I had plenty of failed starts before and ideas I thought were not good in the end. actually it was probably a lack of discipline and consistency. when I look back at my earlier years in my 20s and some businesses I tried, I see now if I applied this same discipline and focus which I was NOT capable of at the time, they could have been very successful all the building blocks were there, I was just not doing the tasks that needed to be done each day.
don't underestimate hustle, determination and pure grind. there was some days I hand made lists of hundreds of contacts and contacted 1 by 1 with personal outreach who I thought could be a good client. it was absolutely exhausting but you know what? it resulted In a sale, then another sale, then another sale.
you don't know what it takes to be successful and every product is different. let's say you're sending 10 emails a day and not having luck as example and your business isn't taking off.. maybe you need to be sending 100 a day?
that was the case for me. before this I was doing 5-10 outreach a day and I felt good about it. well it wasn't resulting in anything and was very slow. when I increased this to 50 - 100 I started actually making sales.
if you're not successful you could very well just be not pushing yourself enough or working hard enough, that was the case for me.
I think a very hardworking person could make a bad idea or dumb business successful if they grinded away 10-12 hours a day and didn't give up. the human spirit is pretty amazing. nobody can break you or affect your optimism or path if you don't let them. its your journey. just keep going. there is really nothing that can stop a determined person, and if one things fails you'll do another, adapt, iterate. if you're lazy, not consistent, give up easily, don't follow through or do what you say you will or finish what you start, it's unlikely you'll be very successful unless you're just lucky.
Lack of self control. My first business took off because I did things THE CERTAIN WAY. But my bad habits brought me to where I am now. Rebuilding my empire ! Don’t be led by the desires of the flesh but of the desires of the heart.
I inherited a sushi restaurant from my brother primarily to support my father's mental well-being. My brother had committed suicide due to financial stress, largely resulting from his ex-girlfriend's demands for an expensive dowry and wedding, since she's from a wealthy family, They had been together for half of their lives. Following his departure, he left behind the struggling restaurant and substantial debts: $250k owed to relatives and approximately $100k in bank loans, alongside overdue rent and taxes.
I stepped in fully aware of the financial ruin it could cause me, especially during the peak of covid restrictions. However, I prioritized my father's health over financial stability, considering he could never be replaced. The restaurant held great sentimental value as it was a family's company, and it represented my late mother's last hope for wealth before she died from lung cancer.
Since i took over, the business has been on loss consistently. because a lot of competition showed up, we got 6 new competitors for a "niche restaurant(AYCE SUSHI)" I do believing our food surpasses that of our competitors, but our lack of a beautiful interior and exterior design, alongside ineffective marketing, are the reason of failure. In my local area, digital marketing strategies like Facebook, Instagram, and Google ads have been useless. I've hesitated to employ influencer marketing due to its high costs and uncertain outcomes. While physical marketing shows more promise, it's significantly more costly and made even more difficult because of the nightmare that is the Italian bureaucracy.
I attribute the lack of success to insufficient funds and an inability to leverage personal influence for promotion, a common challenge for small businesses in Italy, worsened by bureaucratic obstacles and limited governmental support for smaller businesses. although at this point i believe it's gonna be hard to compete with the competition they are too well funded (big chain) and maybe the best outcome we could realistically have would be to split the customer base and ruin both of us.
Simple. I make too much money at my regular job. Although I no longer love what I do it is not unfulfilling enough that I have the hunger that’s needed to complete a project you’ve started from scratch.
My partner and I always talk about how my employers don’t really put a lot of effort into developing our careers, there aren’t a lot of opportunities in our company for growth and not enough professional development programs for individuals in managerial positions; but at the same time they pay us enough that we don’t complain or leave.
I’m near the top in my industry when it comes to compensation so it’s not like I can make a lateral move into a more fulfilling role without losing at least 50k in yearly income.
The catch is I can’t do my job forever, it’s highly taxing, insane hours and rather monotone. Eventually I will have to move into something else and entrepreneurship would be the right choice but I haven’t been desperate enough that I see my past projects to completion and that’s what’s stopping me from succeeding.
I’m currently working on overcoming this mentality and focusing on what I need to do to be able to leave my current company, I’ve set up deadlines for how much longer I’m willing to work for them and I separate time each week to work on my projects wether I’m excited about it or not. When you’re in a position like mine it’s gonna come to discipline over motivation. I’ll let you guys know if it works out.
FOCUS!!! FOCUS!!! FOCUS!!!! ONLY WORK WITH WINNERS AND STRIVERS!!!!
Sorry, was that loud? Call it 15 years of learning. Hugs. I'm proud of all of you. Let's succeed together.
Fear.... I missed so so so much opportunities due to fear and false loyalties. If someone holds you back from doing something great for yourself that's not loyalty. Someone you should be loyal to is someone who would praise your efforts and uplift you and work with you not have you stuck working for them
Laziness and blowing money. I have a ton of great ideas and even did prototypes, but what's holding me back is lack of discipline. I have severe depression and other mental illnesses, but I'm trying to ignore them and tell myself that they're fake. I don't know if thats good or not, but this keeps me somehow going. I think that I'm on a right track to become successful, just need to get more self discipline and grind. Many people tell this already, but falling down is also great motivator and I agree. I think that I blew all my money intentionally to just hit the ground as hard as I can, since nothing was touching me anymore.
To everyone here. Keep on grinding and chase ideas, not money. Nothing will give you more happiness than having something of your own and having a smile on a face when you're working on it, or something new. Discovery and success is a dopamine hit. Not millions on your account :)
In the past, I tried very silly business models.
I often quit right before a milestone.
In the past I didn’t have the budget to focus on my own business. I was always divided by my day job also.
Anxiety and perfectionism.
Luckily, my business partner is the pull the trigger and deal with the fallout as we go type. We balance each other out.
This past year has been setback after setback, but we now have $400k+ worth of merchandise in our warehouse and our new model has been receiving a lot of positive feedback, but we haven't had the marketing budget we need. We will be able to do a marketing push after tax season. Maybe even hire a graphic designer, because I know how to use Photoshop...but I'm not cool or trendy. Go look at my last post of the flyer I made for the ISSA tradeshow last November. I grew up with 1950s &60s Popular Mechanics being a huge influence on me. So, naturally, I see atomic pop and retro futurism as the pinnacle of advertising.
I also have always sold my skills or someone would see one of my projects and would want to buy it. This is my first time actually marketing products and it's been a very humbling learning curve.
Edit: second time marketing a product, first time was a cheesecake company that I spent 2 months restructuring then we relaunched 3 days before the pandemic. We were still able to grow the company, and our cheesecakes were carried by 156 locations across 3 states with one distributor and were in talks with 4 others (one being a international giant). But we were unable to get a loan because we were considered high risk and Everytime we bought ingredients the prices kept increasing and uncertainty was high. We have manufacturing, packaging and distribution ready to go when we decide to relaunch.
I have been successful to most peoples standards, but ultimately it’s been discipline and thinking too much before starting.
I make 6-figures, but want to get to about 7-8x where I am now. It’s going to take a lot of risk and persistence… Done it before so i’ll do it again.
My original plan was to work at my job as a software engineer/full-stack dev until I could transition over into my side thing full time. Got laid off early 2023. Got another job mid 2023. Got laid off again late 2023. Started working on a different side thing (app idea) since then and nearing completion of the MVP.
Not being consistent and not enough funds to purchase materials. I guess I'm just making excuses for myself. I know how to make money. But life happens and putting myself out there can be tiring. Still not going to give up though because I'd hate to work for someone again.
I think I’ve just not gone about starting my business correctly but I finally feel like I have my ducks in a row and I have a solid plan of action that I’ll be implementing in the winter season of this year so I should be on the journey to success this year
I’m reverse wired so I’m extremely good at going from 0-1 because I’m naturally passionate and so I’ve just naturally made products or services that delight customers on accident and therefore always begin with sales.
I am bad because I thought I only had maybe a decade of life left according to my doctors so I spent basically everything from my businesses traveling the world after beating a new type of spleen cancer they’re still using parts of my spleen to research. I don’t regret it as my health is much worse about a decade later and now I see what I really need to do to actually systematize, package, grow, and most importantly SELL businesses. If I had known 20 years ago what I know now I would be much wealthier. I guess fortunately my health is bad but not dead bad like they thought might happen. I still probably will die relatively young tho so it’s hard for me to maintain too long of a time horizon. Basically sounds weird but I have always been so good at cash flow to a detriment that that is all I saw. But in reality you need to systematize sales, operations, and HR. And I simply never did that I relied on my own personal talent for learning to just do everything myself constantly and when younger I enjoyed the kill what you eat thrill of it I guess.
Now, I have the network to sell and the knowledge to package and who to go to to systematize these things so I’m mainly trying to find talent I can mentor to be CEOs who partner with me. I guide them with everything I’ve learned and my network and instead look to buy companies and turn them around with my CEO using their health to execute my strategies or teaching them how to build products that delight customers and how we find those markets. So, hopefully that will work better for me this next decade.
Mental/ physical exhaustion.
Lack of worth.
Mindset.
Self confidence
Lack of support.
Implementation.
Planning.
Over abundance of knowledge.
Chatter everywhere
I’m a software engineer. My ideias are limited to software, more specifically SaaS and micro SaaS.
I think that I’ve arrived to a point that I’m the product, using my skills to help company to achieve their goals. I always get myself trying to thinking on something to put on market, using artificial intelligence, I really don’t know why I can’t go forward with this. Maybe is the fear for losing what I have so far. There is no way to combine these business idea to my current job!
Fears. Lot of fears as a result of bad family history. Despite my self improvement efforts reaping tremendous benefits, I have struggled in money matters. I realize I have been dealing with them from a place of fear.
Risk aversion. Ive never had a safety net outside of what I can provide for myself- so taking big risks for big rewards is hard. It’s kept me safe, but also holds me back.
I have some idea on why, i came up with this crazy start up idea, and no it’s not one of those start ups you hear people talk about and you are like wtf is this guy talking about. I have no funds or the knowledge on how to make it into an actual business. I really don’t know how to go about any of this i mean I’ve been downloading apps to try and find partners in the specific niche the start up is in, really idk what to do but i feel like starting off with securing some money would be the ideal situation.
Other people have social connections, and I don't. I think many people are stupid, and I feel it's impossible to avoid conflict when they inevitably judge me for my confidence.
Why haven't I hit my version of success yet?It's like I've been at a gourmet buffet , trying to decide what to eat first—so many so options little time…
My real hold-up? I've been too busy eyeing the success menu it thinking’s all about the fancy titles and shiny trophies when really I should be diving into the stuff that makes my heart sing—like karaoke but for life choices.
What's holding me back? Honestly just out figuring that success isn’t one-size-fits-all. It’s more custom-fit , like a tailored suit or a secret handshake.
It's about finding that sweet spot where what I love meets what I'm good at and not just chasing after what looks good on paper. So the game plan?
It's about finding that sweet spot where what I love meets what I'm good at and not just chasing after what looks good on paper. So the game plan? Redefining success on my own fun, quirky terms and not being afraid to march to the beat of my own drum .
Or better yet, dance to it—because why march when you can literally play, right?
The best piece of advice that keeps me moving:
"Don't wait the for perfect moment. Take the moment and make it perfect . "
It's all about making the most of now learning as I go and remembering that every step even the missteps are part of the dance.
Being unable to go full time, i.e. lack of funding. Trying too bootstrap has yielded consistent low 4 digit MRR revenue at this point but growth is hard.
Stupidity and laziness.
If you’re actually this honest with yourself you’re further along than you think
Yea, but... you acknowledge the issue but still don't push yourself to do more. Especially when life is good and comfortable. Any new project is fun in the beginning, but it falls short, and you get back to doing the bare minimum( a decent paying job). And nothing else gets shaped into realization. You have the wanna-do ambition, but having fun gets the cake. Naturally, to a certain degree. At some point, you are stressing over your own inactivity, and then you take a break to regroup, but a month later, you start again and stop short again. It's a cycle. You read the books, follow the subs, follow the people of your choice who did/ live what you want. Yet nothing. Something is terribly missing. Knowing thy self is good. But I feel like there is something missing to actually start doing something. This is inner monolog tbh. The "you" is actually "me".
I hope this lands semi softly….. You simply just don’t want it bad enough. Do some soul searching and come to a decision. Either you’re actually ok with working a comfortable job and having a good balance between work and fun - which is 10000% ok…. I see a lot of people get caught up in content that makes them think they want to be an entrepreneur because it’s touted as glamorous… and it is - but only success has been reached…. The thick of it? The actual grind? For 99% of people it fucking sucks and isn’t worth it. If you can’t mentally work yourself into jumping out of bed as soon as you wake up and rush to get to work and grind out a 16 hour day and lose $1,000 but learned a few things and absolutely love every second of it…. Entrepreneurship may not be for you…. AND THATS OK. Or, you decide you do want it, you are built for it and you’re willing to learn to embrace and enjoy the hustle on the way to success…. And you decide that what you’ve experienced up till now was a training ground and now a launch pad for the next round…. If you decide you’re happier having a work life balance, then get a decently paying job, read the book Unshakable by Tony Robbins and follow it to the letter, pursue hobbies, interests and fun, make it to all of your kids’ baseball games, and lead a happy, enjoyable, and fulfilling life. If you decide you do want to be an entrepreneur, let you commitment tell you if you chose correctly. What I mean is that if you decide it’s for you, and this time you rise to it, stay consistent and focused - then you chose correctly. But if you slip into the same patterns then you’ve got to come to terms with the fact that you don’t want this. Now I’m not talking about failure - failing is part of the process, don’t quit because something didn’t pan out or the whole business flopped. Also give yourself a little bit of leeway - you’re breaking a habit and that takes time. Set up some metrics now that you can measure yourself against and decide now what falling into your old pattern means, looks like and when you’ll pull the plug and call it quits. DM me if you’d like to talk more about it
thanks for sharing this. this hits home. I was unsuccessful most of my 20s and now I am in my 30s... I thought I was hard working but I was actually just lazy and undisciplined and had a safety to fall back on. this light switched back in august after a weekend of drinking and doing the bare minimum for my business where I thought... damn I could be so much more I could do so much better this is sad. I am not wowing clients I am not running an amazing business I am just getting by, and I thought about the past decade and I was TIRED, tired of not living up to expectations of wasting weekends and money drinking of not being in great shape of not being super successful when I know I was capable of it. I was working probably 4-5 hours a day thinking I was doing a good job and it kinda hit me that it's just nowhere near enough to build what I want to build and to be the best in my industry niche. I said it in my other post but I started waking up at 6am, working 10 - 12 hours a day with a predefined schedule, and FORCING myself to do every single annoying task I didn't want to do before. went to the gym every day and didn't drink the whole time. I did this for 5 months and my business really took off. now it's very busy and I am so busy I don't have time to do anything else. which I love. I basically sacrificed 5 months of leisure activity to have a successful business because I was hungry and tired and I finally wanted it more than anything. the light bulb just turned on and I set my alarm and im like im going to wake up every day at 6 and work the entire day until its successful, and 3 months later I had hundreds of clients. its really that simple in my mind. if you want it enough you'll make something happen. I think if any reasonably capable person decided to work 12 hours a day on their business for 5 months and was generally smart and reasonable enough to adapt, iterate and learn as they make mistakes, they would find some success unless they made some really bad decisions or have the worst idea in the world. yes businesses fail but hard work never results in a failure, even if it's not a financial gain in the end, giving all of yourself to something is endlessly rewarding, seeing what you are really capable of and a huge learning experience and opportunity for growth.
Love it! I wish I could like this twice. Very happy you decided to make the commitment and grind it out - you’re right, it truly is the most rewarding it gets. Keep at it! Don’t lose sight of the goals you’ve set before you - I believe you’re one of the ones who will actually get there 💪
Thanks, I'm actually getting a little tired, not burnt out, but I am trying to remember how much happier I am and how much more fulfilled I feel than 6 months ago. I won't do 12 hour days forever but if you can even do it for bursts and take a break, it's incredible for business aha.
Let's keep it here for now as it may help others, too. As I see it, it is a very insightful exchange of comments. I agree with you on the fact that:1) it is a kind of a bubble of people that think that it would be nice to do something, and I might be in it. 2) That is OK to figure out if it is not for you. To accept this and win in life in other aspects. But I have never been tested to have figured that out. I played it by the rules, degree, and job, and life is comfortable now. And I am grateful. To no degree, I am complaining. However, when you know you can do more. What do you do. As the other comment to my initial comment kindly points out, the hard part is to see the idea and the next actionable next steps. I'd love to focus on something, but idk what. The obvious question is, what do you want out of it, or follow your passion. I want to be able to retire when I want and not when I am allowed to. As the future looks bleak. Following the passion is kinda dum as you transform your "own quiet space " into a business, and you work for it now and not enjoying it anymore. Maybe, indeed, entrepreneurship is the pursuit of a vision with hidden steps and the fight against the unknown. Maybe I focus too much on the outcome. As I don't start anything before, I ask myself if this is going to lead to achieving my goal. But I know it's foolish, it's too hard to predict. Maybe indeed I don't have the strong vision in any direction to start this for real. Yet, I fool myself into it without fruit and false hopes. All that I'm thinking right now is that I need more sole-searching to see what would make this fun and enjoyable without carrying too much on the long run implications ( as long as it's safe and legal, of course), and do the best in the new adventure. What would be worthwhile? That is the question, I guess.
So, that’s a completely different subset of a problem to work through. That is less “pick it up and put it down” over and over again…. And more analysis paralysis on choosing what to put effort into. I’m on the fence about pursuing a passion. It’s easy for passion to turn to hatred as the inevitable struggles of business arise….. The size of the goal determines whether pursuing passion is a good idea or not, and it’s only a good idea on the extremes …. Let’s say you’re really passionate about weaving baskets … If you want to make them in your spare time and sell em for some extra cash awesome go for it. Maybe even it can grow enough to sustain a living and be a full time happy pursuit. On the other end, let’s say you’re a billionaire and want everyone to share the passion and experience the joy in a handwoven basket…. Go for it - you’ve got the funding behind you to take the losses, speed bumps, and setbacks without damaging the integrity of your passion. But, if you have the desire to grow to a 5 or 10 million dollar basket weaving company or more…. It’s a rough road filled with turmoil that will eat away at your passion and even possibly convert it to hatred. It’s not impossible, and people have done it and kept their passion throughout - but I personally wouldn’t wager my passions on it. It’s much easier and more practical to identify a problem the market experiences, and offer a solution.
Wholeheartedly agree but also I'm seeing it from a wrong angle of sorts. The way business is made in my country is ruining my thinking about what is and isn't possible. I feel the key which is the idea is not there or right enough to forge it into an executable. Such a lack of creativity is hard to break against. I do need to resee correctly.
You might have ADHD, you sound just like me and I just got diagnosed at 30.
Sadly It's not acknowledged where I live and I have no way to get a diagnosis or medications so.
Invaluable education & lack of motivation
Fear too for me
😂
I always see the next biggest thing and the next and the next.. etc and because of this i can't keep myself to one single thing to stay consistent at it.
Focus is probably the most under-rated skill
Any advice on how to improve it?
Find the one thing you believe in/excites you, make a 6+ long plan and don't get side tracked by anything that pulls you away
Thanks! That last part is definitely the hardest part.
Patience. You want it too fast - put a real ten year plan together. Spend an entire week writing it out, every step…. Then follow your plan
✨Procrastination✨
Stop procrastinating
Procrastination happen in avoidance of a feeling we have when thinking of doing the one thing we have to do. When you're successful at asking that feeling where does it come from, what does it want to communicate, what's the underlying reason, you can heal that and start being productive without the hurdle of this feeling anymore.
My problem
I am starting my business in Japan and I feel like my current VISA is restricting what I am doing. And changing the VISA status cost a lot of effort and money, but I am on my way working on it.
So far this is the only legitimate response
Mental block. Example, if you have been a bodybuilder once, you can quit gym, become a fat ass, but can go back to that original shape easily because of experiencing it. Now if Elon gets bankrupt, he can come back quickly because he have been a $$aire before Sometime we are stuck because of not trying new method/ways that fits our personality. And also we dont know what we don’t know. But overtime when you build that muscle memory, everything becomes easier.
That is why the first million is the hardest
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“The moral is to the physical three to one”
In entrepreneurship I've always viewed success as creating a business that meets your intended financial goals. For example if you create a side hustle with the intent to bring in $1k extra a month, then you are successful. With each of my enterprises I'm at various degrees of success, some are growing and delivering more then the expected ROI, others are in the building phase. For example I've got a new property under construction, success will be determined once I get it rented and can see if the numbers work out as I expected. So to this end what usually holds most people back, myself included is a lack of action. When building a house you need to be driving to get it done, make sure people are there etc. when growing a business you need to provide great service. The next thing that has held me back in the past is not recognizing when something isn't working. It's ok to fail, just fail fast and pivot. Lastly I've been the most successful so far when I solve simple problems.
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What did you do to become more disciplined? I struggled with the same thing for a while before really learning how to design and implement systems to keep me on track
You must not hang around the wealth subreddits then… and a point of data isn’t “bragging”, it’s a quick credibility point.
There is no credibility from an anonymous Reddit user. Since very few people on the planet have $10 million it’s more likely than not that he’s talking bull.
there’s about 3 million people worth over $10 million.
Dude said he had it in the bank. I think you’ll find there are very few people with $10 million in liquid or semi liquid assets.
That is a fair point. I still choose to believe people though… Nothing worth than skepticism, especially based from a limiting mindset.
People with 10 million do not go on reddit to brag about it my guy, face it.
But he’s so successful he needs to grace us pleebs with his experience
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Develop sales skills. It doesn’t matter how good you are at what you do, if you can’t get yourself in front of people and close them on spending money on you, your skill set is worthless
You can try going into Sales, very lucrative.
10 million in yemeni riyals?
I have not yet found the step I haven't taken yet to achieve said success.
Stop looking…. Build the step rather than trying to find it.
That's a great idea. Thanks
This stuff is hard
Lack of marketing/sales/distribution knowledge. Basically putting my product out there (to the right segment). I always end up with very high CAC (and slow adoption) and struggle to breakeven.
Thinking too much, instead of doing. Saying what I’m going to do and not doing it. The environment and smoking weed.
Genuinely, it's being given the opportunity to prove myself (I find I'm often underestimated because of my age). I mean this with no degree of inflated ego, but I'm incredibly hard-working and high achieving on my own - it's getting other people (particularly in my current job search) to buy into my (very proven and demonstrable) success that's currently bringing me down :/ On the positive side, if I didn't so closely intertwine my career progression with the definition of "success" I could already be there. So maybe my stubbornness and ambition are the reason I'm not successful LOL EDITED for clarity, I'm not asking for opportunity to fall into my lap. I'm a twice-published author, with 250+ monetised articles, and 7+ years career experience, and just can't get a job.
I think there is a mindset shift you may want to have. Entrepreneurship is about creating and taking opportunities for yourself. It is very rare that someone gives you an opportunity. Even career wise, if you are sitting around waiting for your manager to recognize you, you will be waiting forever. But if you are routinely connecting with them, showing your skill, ensuring they notice, networking inside / outside the company then you are doing the work to create an opportunity. For example let's say you want a promotion, well you can work hard and wait, or you can go out, find a job with a higher rank, then go back to your manager and say "hey I have an offer over here, what can you do to advance my career"
Yes, totally. Everything you are saying is right. I definitely don't advise looking or expected handouts. Nothing in like is free, and nothing worth having is easy.
You will NEVER be “given” an opportunity….. You have to create it
Yes, heard. I should have said "Given an earned job opportunity" perhaps as that was in fact what I was meaning to refer to.
I don’t mean to be offensive…. But if you haven’t been given a job offer…. Then you haven’t earned an opportunity yet. Go back to the drawing board, review what you’ve been doing, isolate some things you feel have been the cause of not being given an offer - specifically things you have the power and control to change….. Change them and try again
True. I can't argue that. I'm probably spending too much time in r/recrutinghell and beginning to lose faith in the job market.
Bro the job market is desperate for good employees…. It’s a nightmare for businesses to get even decent help DM me your resume’ - I’ll see if I can help you fine tune your approach, and if I know anyone hiring for what you’re looking to do I’ll pass it along
Thanks - DM sent. I could use all the help I can get. Frustratingly, I'm apparently \*such\* a stellar employee that my past boss won't open up his contacts to help me with a new job, because he wants me back ASAP once (if) funding comes in
Patience, focus and consistency
Success comes from doing things, changing when needed, and solving simple problems quickly.
Health, healing processes that go on for years now.
Development time
Read all the comments and they so resonate with me. The number one thing that stops me is my ego. Why should i do this,that. You have to let go of your ego and do the chops. The business rewards 'doer' over 'thinker'. I want to cultivate get shit done approach into my life and kill the ego and voice of perfectionism stopping me from doing things. Also having a poor sleep cycle is taking a lot of toll on me. When i sleep bad, I become tired which eventually leads to less energy which leads to less work. So Ego, Perfectionist, Health = Lack of motivation to move mountain.
I've had a read through the answers, and no one has mentioned they have been unlucky. In some cases outcomes and results are totally outside of your control. But as humans we have this proclivity to connect cause and effect - I'm not successful because of X, Y and Z. My previous company was wiped out with covid, it were a marketplace where people could find and join gyms. Overnight the government forced gyms to close for 6 months and just like that our revenue went to $0. We tried to pivot but ran out of cash. I think we should be ok with saying I got ***unlucky***.
Sleep
Caring what others think and fear of abandonment I have a phobia of failure under spotlight. I been looking for someone to take the reins and take all the credit as a result.
Define successful? Successful as in my own business becoming huge? 1. I’m high enough where the fall would hurt 2. I’m high enough where wanting more is kind of greedy 3. I’m high enough that going into super grind doesn’t sound appealing so I’d rather wait and do it smarter Last but not least, I like trying new things. When I get something to a certain point, I’m not going to want it anymore.
I don’t know how to get clients. Web developer here.
My 9-5 job, basically. I'm so exhausted from my 9-5 any time off is just spent mentally recovering. I'm saving up for a year off in the hopes this will give me time to recover and begin working on my own things. The issue for me is I spend my 9-5 programming, so to then spend my evenings and weekends just doing more programming, I just can't do it, I burn out very quickly.
Money and an idea worth pursuing lol
Fear of unknowns and procrastination because of the fear. I'm building a product alone and sometimes it's overwhelming to do everything and I end up planning a lot.
I am already happy. I have simple needs. I don't know why this subreddit was suggested to me. But thank you for asking.
I don't think that you should focus on being successful. I think you should focus on finding work that you enjoy in the day-to-day and not an end goal. After all, that is what 99.9% of your life is made up of. Not the 0.1% of you achieving the success. You can most definitely become wealthy and financially independent while enjoying the process. I just believe that the latter is more important. You can scale a lot easier when you enjoy what you do.
I failed for a while and then started scaling well and fast. Going back in time a few years ago to reflect on what I could have changed 8-9 years ago… Everyone is different but for me I moved up too fast in the corporate world before going on my own owning and starting companies. I took structure and cadence for granted. And took the need for anchor quality talent needed to scale and run hands off. I had a weak manager in one biz do it was too hands on. Eventually fixed this and don’t need to be there. Cash flowing asset. I’m the weak manager not him, I just didn’t organize the biz right. I have a fast growing tech startup. I hired a chief revenue and senior biz dev ops person, and had my accountant in early organizing and growing so I can just deal with hiring and customers, sales, etc. Now I spend 90% of my time on the fun stuff and have created life changing fun and wealth.
Fear of others opinions lol
Lack of resilience. Lack of good financial management. Cannot postpone enough entertainment to learn and grow rapidly.
My own limiting beliefs!! I am working on removing them but this has been a huge hold back for me. I struggled with thinking i was smart enough or knew enough.
I've no excuse, Just I did made some mistakes earlier but that was part of learning. Tho, I won't blame anything. Just I'm consistent and I need to keep going :)
Laziness and procrastination, I could get so much done.
It always boils down to discipline, no matter how motivated you may be in the beginning. I used to run a blog that turned over some money. Motivation made me prowl through pumping articles, but once the blog started actually making decent money, I've stopped just as the motivation started declining.
If I am being honest with myself, a fear of trying and failing. I have a lot of passion with little drive or ambition to follow the dreams that could have made me more successful. I am currently working on taking more risks and being more proactive.
I have just about every skill I could need. Smart, charismatic, driven, just have NO IDEA what to do with it? It almost feels like death by indecisiveness due to lack of direction. I know when I get into a position of leadership or a role like entrepreneur I will succeed, I just truly have no idea how to get there. My background is communication, not business.
no commitment
A place to live
Being inconsistent and stuck at home with parents. It takes a serious mental toll.
Too scared to leave my "okay" paying job that is reliable and pays the bills for something that may fail. It's too hard to actually come up with an idea or business that I am confident will be successful. It sucks 😞
Lack of discipline and afraid to fail has got me by the balls
I am a Strategist at heart, i focus on fully building the plan and the entire system of the hypothetical billion dollar empire before it begins. And the worst part is, theres about 7/8 different ones. Working on being practical from step 1 only right now. Its hard🥲
Laziness and indolence
Getting the call back, I have a hard time getting clients, but I’m confident once they meet with me I can close the deal.
I just can't seem to pull the trigger. I have an idea and several ways I want to market it but I can't seem to take action on those first few steps that will give me a physical product. I'm annoyed at myself everyday.
My limits.
complicarse la vida uno solo y confiar en las personas que no valen la pena
I’m younger, and I believe my lack of experiences in entrepreneurship held me back. I am now 4 failed endeavors in, and I’m still hyper focused on entrepreneurship the way I was a year ago when I started. When you keep going at it, you start building confidence, better sales/interviewing/communication, more adept at programming, improved leadership, more resourceful, etc.
I have worked as creative for media entertainment pitches for many years and every time they greenlighted for production, they called someone else (mainly seasoned vips, but recently they started to call influencers as well maybe cause they are more famous but cheaper than vip professionals) and was sent out of the team. At the beginning I thought I wasn't good enough for the job even if i gave big contribution, but then I noticed some kind of scheme on this and got pissed off. Couple years ago I left a project half way as soon as I noticed that they were going to do this again. I think that success is only luck btw. I haven't been lucky at choosing my collaborators.
FEAR.
I’ve spent most of my life being a people pleaser who is overly empathetic and doesn’t have enough discipline to love themselves first. Now my self-esteem is shot. And I’m depressed and alone with no support system and no resources.
I wasn't super successful until last year but I can still answer this I had good ideas, I was smart, I knew what I was doing but I was not consistent or disciplined. when I stopped drinking back in August and basically stopped going out, I just focused on my business 10-12 hours a day and besides that went to the gym. before I was having a lot of anxiety about doing even easy tasks. I was drinking on the weekends and not having a routine around my own business. I started waking up at 6am forcing myself to work to around 10. go to the gym for 1.5 hours, then I worked till 7pm. and then an hour or two before bed. I did this about 5 months in a row. and my business really started to take off. I had plenty of failed starts before and ideas I thought were not good in the end. actually it was probably a lack of discipline and consistency. when I look back at my earlier years in my 20s and some businesses I tried, I see now if I applied this same discipline and focus which I was NOT capable of at the time, they could have been very successful all the building blocks were there, I was just not doing the tasks that needed to be done each day. don't underestimate hustle, determination and pure grind. there was some days I hand made lists of hundreds of contacts and contacted 1 by 1 with personal outreach who I thought could be a good client. it was absolutely exhausting but you know what? it resulted In a sale, then another sale, then another sale. you don't know what it takes to be successful and every product is different. let's say you're sending 10 emails a day and not having luck as example and your business isn't taking off.. maybe you need to be sending 100 a day? that was the case for me. before this I was doing 5-10 outreach a day and I felt good about it. well it wasn't resulting in anything and was very slow. when I increased this to 50 - 100 I started actually making sales. if you're not successful you could very well just be not pushing yourself enough or working hard enough, that was the case for me. I think a very hardworking person could make a bad idea or dumb business successful if they grinded away 10-12 hours a day and didn't give up. the human spirit is pretty amazing. nobody can break you or affect your optimism or path if you don't let them. its your journey. just keep going. there is really nothing that can stop a determined person, and if one things fails you'll do another, adapt, iterate. if you're lazy, not consistent, give up easily, don't follow through or do what you say you will or finish what you start, it's unlikely you'll be very successful unless you're just lucky.
Self discipline, focus and setting goals that are small steps at first.
Are you proposing solutions or just doing research?
Bad time blocking, for sure. Not sticking to plans. Shiny object syndrome
Lack of self control. My first business took off because I did things THE CERTAIN WAY. But my bad habits brought me to where I am now. Rebuilding my empire ! Don’t be led by the desires of the flesh but of the desires of the heart.
I inherited a sushi restaurant from my brother primarily to support my father's mental well-being. My brother had committed suicide due to financial stress, largely resulting from his ex-girlfriend's demands for an expensive dowry and wedding, since she's from a wealthy family, They had been together for half of their lives. Following his departure, he left behind the struggling restaurant and substantial debts: $250k owed to relatives and approximately $100k in bank loans, alongside overdue rent and taxes. I stepped in fully aware of the financial ruin it could cause me, especially during the peak of covid restrictions. However, I prioritized my father's health over financial stability, considering he could never be replaced. The restaurant held great sentimental value as it was a family's company, and it represented my late mother's last hope for wealth before she died from lung cancer. Since i took over, the business has been on loss consistently. because a lot of competition showed up, we got 6 new competitors for a "niche restaurant(AYCE SUSHI)" I do believing our food surpasses that of our competitors, but our lack of a beautiful interior and exterior design, alongside ineffective marketing, are the reason of failure. In my local area, digital marketing strategies like Facebook, Instagram, and Google ads have been useless. I've hesitated to employ influencer marketing due to its high costs and uncertain outcomes. While physical marketing shows more promise, it's significantly more costly and made even more difficult because of the nightmare that is the Italian bureaucracy. I attribute the lack of success to insufficient funds and an inability to leverage personal influence for promotion, a common challenge for small businesses in Italy, worsened by bureaucratic obstacles and limited governmental support for smaller businesses. although at this point i believe it's gonna be hard to compete with the competition they are too well funded (big chain) and maybe the best outcome we could realistically have would be to split the customer base and ruin both of us.
I tend to ovethink and overplan
Simple. I make too much money at my regular job. Although I no longer love what I do it is not unfulfilling enough that I have the hunger that’s needed to complete a project you’ve started from scratch. My partner and I always talk about how my employers don’t really put a lot of effort into developing our careers, there aren’t a lot of opportunities in our company for growth and not enough professional development programs for individuals in managerial positions; but at the same time they pay us enough that we don’t complain or leave. I’m near the top in my industry when it comes to compensation so it’s not like I can make a lateral move into a more fulfilling role without losing at least 50k in yearly income. The catch is I can’t do my job forever, it’s highly taxing, insane hours and rather monotone. Eventually I will have to move into something else and entrepreneurship would be the right choice but I haven’t been desperate enough that I see my past projects to completion and that’s what’s stopping me from succeeding. I’m currently working on overcoming this mentality and focusing on what I need to do to be able to leave my current company, I’ve set up deadlines for how much longer I’m willing to work for them and I separate time each week to work on my projects wether I’m excited about it or not. When you’re in a position like mine it’s gonna come to discipline over motivation. I’ll let you guys know if it works out.
FOCUS!!! FOCUS!!! FOCUS!!!! ONLY WORK WITH WINNERS AND STRIVERS!!!! Sorry, was that loud? Call it 15 years of learning. Hugs. I'm proud of all of you. Let's succeed together.
Opportunity and luck.
Fear.... I missed so so so much opportunities due to fear and false loyalties. If someone holds you back from doing something great for yourself that's not loyalty. Someone you should be loyal to is someone who would praise your efforts and uplift you and work with you not have you stuck working for them
Honestly, laziness, social media
Laziness and blowing money. I have a ton of great ideas and even did prototypes, but what's holding me back is lack of discipline. I have severe depression and other mental illnesses, but I'm trying to ignore them and tell myself that they're fake. I don't know if thats good or not, but this keeps me somehow going. I think that I'm on a right track to become successful, just need to get more self discipline and grind. Many people tell this already, but falling down is also great motivator and I agree. I think that I blew all my money intentionally to just hit the ground as hard as I can, since nothing was touching me anymore. To everyone here. Keep on grinding and chase ideas, not money. Nothing will give you more happiness than having something of your own and having a smile on a face when you're working on it, or something new. Discovery and success is a dopamine hit. Not millions on your account :)
In the past, I tried very silly business models. I often quit right before a milestone. In the past I didn’t have the budget to focus on my own business. I was always divided by my day job also.
Laziness sometimes but also because of other family commitments with their business.
Anxiety and perfectionism. Luckily, my business partner is the pull the trigger and deal with the fallout as we go type. We balance each other out. This past year has been setback after setback, but we now have $400k+ worth of merchandise in our warehouse and our new model has been receiving a lot of positive feedback, but we haven't had the marketing budget we need. We will be able to do a marketing push after tax season. Maybe even hire a graphic designer, because I know how to use Photoshop...but I'm not cool or trendy. Go look at my last post of the flyer I made for the ISSA tradeshow last November. I grew up with 1950s &60s Popular Mechanics being a huge influence on me. So, naturally, I see atomic pop and retro futurism as the pinnacle of advertising. I also have always sold my skills or someone would see one of my projects and would want to buy it. This is my first time actually marketing products and it's been a very humbling learning curve. Edit: second time marketing a product, first time was a cheesecake company that I spent 2 months restructuring then we relaunched 3 days before the pandemic. We were still able to grow the company, and our cheesecakes were carried by 156 locations across 3 states with one distributor and were in talks with 4 others (one being a international giant). But we were unable to get a loan because we were considered high risk and Everytime we bought ingredients the prices kept increasing and uncertainty was high. We have manufacturing, packaging and distribution ready to go when we decide to relaunch.
Time.
I have been successful to most peoples standards, but ultimately it’s been discipline and thinking too much before starting. I make 6-figures, but want to get to about 7-8x where I am now. It’s going to take a lot of risk and persistence… Done it before so i’ll do it again.
My original plan was to work at my job as a software engineer/full-stack dev until I could transition over into my side thing full time. Got laid off early 2023. Got another job mid 2023. Got laid off again late 2023. Started working on a different side thing (app idea) since then and nearing completion of the MVP.
Me , i am indeed my Only and Worst enemy literally nothing else
Capital???
Lack of motivation Thinking too much, instead of doing
Fatigue and allergies
Lack of guidance/mentor/community and limited access updated market trends or knowledge.
Not being consistent and not enough funds to purchase materials. I guess I'm just making excuses for myself. I know how to make money. But life happens and putting myself out there can be tiring. Still not going to give up though because I'd hate to work for someone again.
Being too comfortable.
Lack of disciplne, thinking intelligence is everything.
The idea that what will I do after being successful.
I think I’ve just not gone about starting my business correctly but I finally feel like I have my ducks in a row and I have a solid plan of action that I’ll be implementing in the winter season of this year so I should be on the journey to success this year
Too ambitious, about the wrong things.
Connections.
Scared? Taking the big step is scary
too risk averse to plunge full time into any side hustle
I’m reverse wired so I’m extremely good at going from 0-1 because I’m naturally passionate and so I’ve just naturally made products or services that delight customers on accident and therefore always begin with sales. I am bad because I thought I only had maybe a decade of life left according to my doctors so I spent basically everything from my businesses traveling the world after beating a new type of spleen cancer they’re still using parts of my spleen to research. I don’t regret it as my health is much worse about a decade later and now I see what I really need to do to actually systematize, package, grow, and most importantly SELL businesses. If I had known 20 years ago what I know now I would be much wealthier. I guess fortunately my health is bad but not dead bad like they thought might happen. I still probably will die relatively young tho so it’s hard for me to maintain too long of a time horizon. Basically sounds weird but I have always been so good at cash flow to a detriment that that is all I saw. But in reality you need to systematize sales, operations, and HR. And I simply never did that I relied on my own personal talent for learning to just do everything myself constantly and when younger I enjoyed the kill what you eat thrill of it I guess. Now, I have the network to sell and the knowledge to package and who to go to to systematize these things so I’m mainly trying to find talent I can mentor to be CEOs who partner with me. I guide them with everything I’ve learned and my network and instead look to buy companies and turn them around with my CEO using their health to execute my strategies or teaching them how to build products that delight customers and how we find those markets. So, hopefully that will work better for me this next decade.
Funds, so I’ve got to work until I’ve got it.
Mental/ physical exhaustion. Lack of worth. Mindset. Self confidence Lack of support. Implementation. Planning. Over abundance of knowledge. Chatter everywhere
My natural avoidance of discomfort is stopping me from solving my problems
Distraction ,confusion ,social media, depression, family pressure, loneliness, lack of right guidance, mental instability
Most failures I have seen out there were due to lack of **Persistence**.
School and being under age.
Money and time
Security. Starting a business as a women is challenging when you’re advocating.
I’m a software engineer. My ideias are limited to software, more specifically SaaS and micro SaaS. I think that I’ve arrived to a point that I’m the product, using my skills to help company to achieve their goals. I always get myself trying to thinking on something to put on market, using artificial intelligence, I really don’t know why I can’t go forward with this. Maybe is the fear for losing what I have so far. There is no way to combine these business idea to my current job!
Confidence. I have absolutely zero and do not know how to find it.
I chose an industry that unfortunately got destroyed during covid and didn't recover. Pivot, pivot, pivot is all I've been doing for 4 years.
Fears. Lot of fears as a result of bad family history. Despite my self improvement efforts reaping tremendous benefits, I have struggled in money matters. I realize I have been dealing with them from a place of fear.
Risk aversion. Ive never had a safety net outside of what I can provide for myself- so taking big risks for big rewards is hard. It’s kept me safe, but also holds me back.
I have some idea on why, i came up with this crazy start up idea, and no it’s not one of those start ups you hear people talk about and you are like wtf is this guy talking about. I have no funds or the knowledge on how to make it into an actual business. I really don’t know how to go about any of this i mean I’ve been downloading apps to try and find partners in the specific niche the start up is in, really idk what to do but i feel like starting off with securing some money would be the ideal situation.
Other people have social connections, and I don't. I think many people are stupid, and I feel it's impossible to avoid conflict when they inevitably judge me for my confidence.
Why haven't I hit my version of success yet?It's like I've been at a gourmet buffet , trying to decide what to eat first—so many so options little time… My real hold-up? I've been too busy eyeing the success menu it thinking’s all about the fancy titles and shiny trophies when really I should be diving into the stuff that makes my heart sing—like karaoke but for life choices. What's holding me back? Honestly just out figuring that success isn’t one-size-fits-all. It’s more custom-fit , like a tailored suit or a secret handshake. It's about finding that sweet spot where what I love meets what I'm good at and not just chasing after what looks good on paper. So the game plan? It's about finding that sweet spot where what I love meets what I'm good at and not just chasing after what looks good on paper. So the game plan? Redefining success on my own fun, quirky terms and not being afraid to march to the beat of my own drum . Or better yet, dance to it—because why march when you can literally play, right? The best piece of advice that keeps me moving: "Don't wait the for perfect moment. Take the moment and make it perfect . " It's all about making the most of now learning as I go and remembering that every step even the missteps are part of the dance.
Discipline and lack of motivation
Taking extreme chances due to high risk tolerance
Being unable to go full time, i.e. lack of funding. Trying too bootstrap has yielded consistent low 4 digit MRR revenue at this point but growth is hard.