Frustrations...

Ever just feel frustrated? Yeah, me too. I just feel so claustrophobic right now; like I am suffocating. It is not a good feeling. Oh boy, here comes one of those rant entries.

It’s like I don’t even care to become successful. I don’t put forth the effort, and everything just seems like so much work at the time. I put it off, put it off, and put it off, until I have no more time to do anything. I feel like even if I try, I won’t get anywhere. I know this is a terrible attitude to have and I will get NO WHERE with it, but I feel like I’m starting to lose my mind. I’ve heard before the journey can be rough, but what they don’t tell you is the road to success not only has bumps, but potholes, sharp corners, wrong ways, road blocks, dead ends, missed turns and not even a gas station attendant to give you directions. Not only that, it feels like my car was stolen and I’m now walking across the country – and that would take a pretty long time.

So why do I feel frustrated? Why am I going crazy? Well, I think a lot of it has to do with where I want to be and where I am. I know these little analogies can get silly, but it really feels like I have to swim across the Atlantic. I truly believe that everyone is born with an inner drive to be successful, and I think my drive is starting to get upset that I have yet to pave a road. Think about it, when you were younger how big were your dreams? Talk to any young child and they can ramble on for hours about what they want to do. What happens to that??? When does that start to fade away? Is it when we meet Mr. Reality? Is it because other people start to lose focus on their dreams and dedicate the rest of their life to steal yours? I really don’t know…

I have felt my inner drive for as long as I can remember. I remember being back in grade school and telling my mom, “When I grow up, I am going to buy you a red Mustang convertible!” This is her favorite car, and I truly believed that I would do it. I remember hearing my parents argue about money and me saying, “I am going to get money when I am older so you guys never have to fight again!” Even if these might have been only two examples of what you hear all children say, I was very adamant about them. I knew that I was going to do them. Where does that feeling go?

Let’s talk about reality for a minute. What is reality? Why do people use reality as an excuse for things rather than trying to change it? If someone says “I was going to be rich, but then reality sunk in,” essentially, aren’t they saying, “I was going to be rich, until I realized how much work it was going to be?” What does reality sink into?! WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?! Don’t people realize that there is such a thing as rich people in the world? How does a millionaire view reality? A billionaire? Someone who works 50 hours per week and is dead broke? Isn’t reality, in essence, what we perceive? If that is the case, if I were to change my perception, would I affect my own reality? If I were to truly dedicate myself 110% to becoming successful, wouldn’t I have to become it? Maybe…

Please don’t take me saying “they” the wrong way. I am basically yelling at myself here, and all the people who have told me it is impossible, and I will fail. I am not singling out any group of people, any single person, nor am I trying to offend you if you are somewhat in this situation. Like I said before, I’m just frustrated.

So back on topic, let’s do a little experiment. Here’s my hypothesis; if someone changes their perception of reality, they will change their reality. I guess since I don’t have any volunteers, I will be experimenting on myself. What’s my current view of reality? Well, I’m broke, and don’t want to be. That’s a pretty big one. I want to be able to one day support a family, which I could not now. I want to think of myself as a success, rather than a college drop out. Most of all, I want to be able to help others, and motivate others by showing them it is possible. I want to prove to the world that a 21 year old kid who has never been good at anything in his life can turn everything around. I want to reach the end so you can read this and say, “Maybe I can do it.” I am going to start thinking of myself as a success. I am going to start changing my attitude. This is going to be difficult, but if I do it a little at a time, it should become second nature, right?

Let’s start with something that I never seemed to be able to fix. Something that irritates me like no other, and I guarantee no successful person does. I’ve had this problem since as long as I can remember; sleeping in. I’m not just talking about sleeping until 10:00 AM like some people refer to as sleeping in. My sleeping pattern has been so twisted for the past few years, and currently I am waking up around 2:00 – 3:00 PM everyday. There are even days that I lay in bed until 6:00 PM. How am I going to become successful this way? I am basically sleeping my entire day away, and then I lose motivation to do anything at night because it’s late. I need to change this. I bet if you were to poll 100 successful people, probably about 0% of them would say they sleep in past noon regularly. So, if I am successful, I can not do this anymore.

Also, I do not read as often enough. I have however read more books in the past 5 months than I have in my life, but I could have read so much more. I am going to change my one book per month goal to read 20 minutes per day. That would equal about 600 minutes per month, or 10 hours. Depending upon the length of a book, I should be able to read more than one book per month this way. I need to get in the habit to read every single day for the rest of my life; regardless if I feel like it or not. How else am I going to learn to become successful? It’s not like I am personally being mentored by someone who already completed their journey.

Writing has always made me feel better when I am in a bad mood. Sometimes I would just open up a blank document and write until I felt better. While I still feel a little bitter, I do feel better right now. I could go on, but I need to get things done. Expect an entry in a few days with a progress update. I need to get this thing going, I’ve been a slug since I started my journey; but no more!

Hello, I'm still alive.

Hello.

Remember me? I am the guy that said he was going to post 2 days per week and become a millionaire. Did you think I quit? Yeah, me too.

Okay, time to reflect a little. I made my frist entry on April 3, 2007. I said I would post twice per week from then on. If I would have stayed dedicated to that I would now have about 15 posts written. Well, I have 3. I dropped the ball, but I didn't quit. I gaurantee you I did not quit.

I think I set the bar too high, and I didn't really set any goals. Sure, I have the million dollar goal, but that is a long vision. It is much better in your journey to have a long term, and many short term goals. So here is my new dedication:

1) Update this blog once per week. I think two times per week was a little much. Obviously I didn't stick to it, and I KNOW I can stick to once a week. That is 52 entries in one year, and that is definitely enough to see me grow as a person and in success. I can not wait to look back on these entries when I get there, and I will get there.
2) Read one book every month. Books are amazing. Up until November of 2006, I hated books. I despised reading, however I never actually tried it. I thought of it as a waste of time; but it's not. Books can teach you so many things about life. Writing is an amazing way to get a message across to millions of people, and it is a way that can make you live forever. You will perish in the flesh, you have to; but your words can live forever. I will learn so much from these books, and it is the learning that I need.
3) Have a "thinking session" once per week. I think this will be one of the most important factors in becoming successful. This is also one of the reasons constant updates are so necessary. If I have a brainstorming session, either alone or with people that are doing the same as I, I can and will come up with something. Remember earlier when I asked the question I know everyone will ask, "BUT WHAT AM I GOING TO DO BESIDES JUST WRITING A JOURNAL CARL?!!?" and I said "I don't know, you'll think of something." This is what I mean. With the idea pounding in your head everyday that something needs to change, it will change.

You see, as of May 22, 2007, I am not someone who has made it giving you advice. If you're reading this in my book and I already got there, please remember I haven't always been there! The basic idea I have with this book is not to give you advice on what to do (although you will get advice) it is to show you that you can go from nothing to something. I am broke right now, but I TRUELY believe the concepts I have shared so far. I have so much more to read, learn, and grow, but I know that by trying, it will happen!

It is assumed that the three above rules I have bolded are "at least." There will be times when I update more than once per week, and hopefully there will be months where I read two or three books. Once I get flying and totally catch this, I may explode! Ah heck, I WILL explode!

I want to switch gears here a bit. I know this entry already is pretty long, but you don't mind if I keep going do you? I want to just mention something that I've been meaning to talk about.

So, in my first post ever I said "I myself have a few ideas as of right now, and more will come, but that's for a later time." I thought, hmm well maybe I could talk about what ideas I have to get rich!

I have two friends, who I will call Matt and Adam. Matt, Adam, and I own this business, called Macardam (get it?). Now before you all go, "AHA! I KNEW HE WAS LYING, HE'S A BUSINESS OWNER AND IS ALREADY RICH," no we aren't. In fact, we currently have invested more than we have made. We have this invention, and we think it is really good, but we suck at committing ourselves to anything (which will change). This business was started in May of 2006 by just talking about finding something different. One great attribute we all shared was we felt there has to be more in life, we were all looking. We wanted to take a different route rather than the "go to school, get good grades, get a job" mentality that had been drilled into us.

Currently, we created, from scratch, an invention which we have been selling. The invention is called Wrizz. (You can see the website at http://www.wrizz.com). The Wrizz is an ergonomic enhancement for the mouse. Originally, we had created it to help with gaming, but since have started leaning towards a larger audience in the ergonomic field. Here is an image of the Wrizz (for those viewing in my blog, click to enlarge):


To make a very long story short, we took a thought that was in our head and created a tanglible item. We have learned everything ourself. We learned how to make a prototype, work with silicone molds, polyurethane plastics and foams, and the list continues. I am not saying this to brag, I am saying it because I remember sitting in Adam's garage and us saying "man, I wonder how we're even going to do this?!" We literally had no idea, but we had a goal, a dream, to make this work. And like I said earlier, if you're dream is big enough you will find the answers. We received our first sale on 1/07/07. It was a great moment for us. Although everything is coming in slow, it's the start of another journey. Even if this doesn't work out, if we never sell another Wrizz, the information we have gained is priceless. Now again, if it does work.... see how the attitude changes? I can honestly say I am proud of all of us. I think we have done a lot more than we ever thought we could, and no matter how long it took, we did it. We made a sale and no one can ever take that away from us. I can not wait to see what becomes of Macardam in the future and anticipate the struggles and success we will find. I want to become closer to both of them and hope to spend my lifes with them.

We also are always open to new ideas, and constantly brainstorm with each other. One day we will find an idea that will take off, I know it. It may or may not be the Wrizz, but we will find something. I plan on expanding in detail every struggle and event that had taken place in the one year we have been together, but that's for another time. This entry already is long and I have to talk about more ideas!

Let's move onto idea number two. It is happening right now, can you see it? Well, perhaps it already did happen and you're reading it right now (that statement kinda makes you think about time travel and dimensions, doesn't it?) Yes, this book (or blog). The overall goal with this blog is of course, to become a millionaire. But I'm not just going to be writing it for my own sake, it will be for others as well. I want to share my journey with whoever choses to read it. I want everyone to see my progress from nothing, into something, and have the entire way documented. I will write from being broke until I am rich, then publish everything. I think this is a great idea, and a pretty long term investment. I will not make anything (money wise) from writing these journals, until I get there and have the book published. So you see, this plan will fail unless I become successful. So I must become rich, which I will. (And I already have if you're reading this in a book!)

Now the following ideas are not as important, and I am not focusing on them as much as the ideas mentioned above, so I am just going to list them. As you will see, I don't have many items, but more will be added. I plan on expanding on the list sometime in the near future, but for now I am just going to list them. A lot of these ideas are things that I have barely any knowledge in, but can be learned. Here they are, in no particular order:

1) Poker
2) MLM
3) Website development
4) Investing
5) Stock market
6) Inventions
7) Distribution
8) Storage

Well, I brainstormed for a good 15 minutes and that is what I could think of. As I said earlier, I will expand a lot more on that list in the near future, and also explain them. But for now, I think this entry is complete. I am back in business, and will dedicate myself to follow the three rules I listed earlier. Before you stop reading, I think a good exercise to do would be to do what I just did above. Just brainstorm some ideas you can think of that could help you. It doesn't matter if you have limited or no knowledge on the topics, just list them. Keep the list with you, and add more as you remember them. You never know when you will think of that next big idea!

Until next week, write and become rich!