This is a post you probably won’t read.
It’s too happy, too sad, too controversial and way too long for most people’s attention spans.
But the truth is, this is a message I wish I’d gotten much earlier in life. It would have saved me a lot of struggle and even more heartache. And it would have made me much more loving and forgiving of myself.
So I wanted to share it with you.
Because if you’ve ever felt like you weren’t enough…like you didn’t deserve to keep living…or that you were always going to be a failure, maybe it’ll resonate and help you out of a tough situation.
Here it goes:
A couple of days ago, I got an angry message from one of my readers.
For his privacy, I’ll call this reader Tom.
Tom is a marketing manager from Portland, Oregon.
For as long as Tom remembers, he’s wanted to be an entrepreneur.
He’s on all the typical gurus’ lists (Cardone, Lopez, and Brunson) and has tried his hand at a few “business models” (like dropshipping, FBA and online courses).
But no matter what business model he’s tried, the only thing he’s left behind is a trail of failures. He told me:
- He’s got more abandoned Facebook pages than he can count.
- He owns 4 old Shopify stores and all of them redirect to 404 pages.
- He silently watches other people post in Facebook groups and gets angry —no, jealous!! — when they share their success.
At first, he thought he just needed to tough it out.
But after years of this, he started to believe success wasn’t going to happen for him.
And that’s when he wrote me this message:
“Rob, I’m starting to believe I’ll never be successful.
Everything I do is a failure. On most days, I honestly wish I was dead.
Every business I’ve ever tried is a failure. I’ve never even gotten a single customer. My mom thinks I’m delusional. And I believe her!
It’s so embarrassing. I quit my job because I thought I needed to dedicate more time to my business. And I hate myself for it.
I was making $50k a year… now I barely make $1,000 per month!
Everybody knows I’m failing and I can’t keep hiding anymore…
By this point, I thought I would at least have something — anything!! — to show for all the time I’ve put in.
SUCH A WASTE!!!
But I’m broke. And exhausted and a fucking loser.
And the truth is I’m down to my last $150 and am considering your course.
Would you recommend I buy it? I NEED AN ANSWER”
When I got this message out of the blue, my first thought is Tom was hurting badly. I could see it in his words.
He called himself a “failure” and a “loser” multiple times in the same email.
But the really sad part is Tom is a victim of a lie that so many of us are told today.
Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard someone say, “If you want freedom, if you want more income, if you want to live a fulfilling life, you NEED to become an entrepreneur.”
Like Tom, I used to believe this lie.
And I spent years feeling like a horrible failure when my dreams of starting a business didn’t pan out.
For example, right before I graduated from college, I bought Ramit Sethi’s Zero to Launch course.
When I went through the material, I thought I found something I could teach and sell online: Social skills to awkward dudes.
For most of my life, I was a social weirdo, but after I started working in a sales internship, I learned a couple of ways to connect better with people.
So I started blogging about it. I wrote a few guest posts. And pretty quickly, I picked up almost 500 email subscribers.
But before I even celebrated the progress, I started panicking about what product I could sell.
“How am I going to make money off this?”
I felt so rushed to turn it into a business.
The problem was I didn’t have a ton of real-world experience and didn’t know what kind of product people would want.
So I just did the simplest thing I saw other people doing: Created an ebook (which I still have btw).
I decided I would sell this ebook for $7 and prepared to launch. The email went out!
…
Crickets.
Nothing happened for the first 20 minutes. Then an hour later, still nothing.
I had plans that day so I slammed my computer shut and didn’t think about it till later that night when I logged on.
7 sales!
WHAT. THE. HELL!
I did it!
Over the next couple of days, I would sell another 20 or so ebooks.
And this is the part where most stories tell you: “And then it just kept growing and growing and growing!!”
But the truth is it didn’t.
Actually, I stopped making ebook sales altogether. Even when I sent emails to my list about it, nothing happened.
My list was dried up.
And all I had to show for it was $122 (after the processing fees).
Some success huh?
After a month or two, I let the site die. I started focusing on other stuff again until another flavor of the month “business model” caught my attention.
I repeated that process more times than I’d like to admit throughout my early 20s.
It was embarrassing.
Frustrating. And more than anything, I started to feel like I wasn’t the kind of person who could ever succeed.
In anything.
Honestly, I started to feel a lot like Tom did when he wrote that email.
So I went into hiding. I just kept plugging away at my job, swallowing my pride and keeping my dreams of starting a business buried deep down.
And the only way I started to dig my way out of the hole was to force myself to stop comparing my day 1 to someone else’s day 1,000.
My 20 ebook launch was only a failure because I compared it to the millions I heard others making.
The Shopify store I started and scaled to $3K was “a mistake” because “it wasn’t growing fast enough”.
Truthfully, I think if I’d held onto any of those early businesses I started they’d be doing multiple 6 or 7-figures today.
But with so many of them, I gave up before I ever really started.
And it wasn’t until I started slowing down that I ever made any real traction.
Here’s a hard truth I’ve learned: No matter what the gurus tell you, if something demands you HURRY to see results, the advantages are small and will likely disappear as fast as they came.
As Warren Buffett says, “Seek out things where you can be slow, take your time and still win. That’s how you really build a business.”
And more importantly, don’t tie your entire self worth to how your business is doing.
It’s a horrible way to run a company and an even worse way to live your life
I made this mistake for years and made myself feel terrible, worthless, like a loser. When you’re that emotional, you’ll never make good decisions.
So my advice to Tom was what I wish someone told me:
“Tom. You’re not a loser or a failure. You’re a human and deserve to be loved just like everybody else.
But I’m going to give you some tough love right now because I can tell you’re not in a good spot and that’s what you need.
1. Definitely do not buy my course … or any course for that matter.
I don’t care what anybody tells you. When you’re down to your last $150, there is no course that will dig you out of that hole. Use that money like lifeblood. And think carefully about every dollar. I will refund you if you even try to buy.
2. Get a job. There’s no shame in getting a job. Some of the wealthiest people on the planet have jobs. Plus, you can always build your business on the side.
But when you’re hurting, you can never create the business you want.
The only true shame is not giving yourself the chance to build a business the way you want to. On your terms.
3. I need you to believe that you are enough. Right now. No matter what thoughts you have in your head about how you’ve failed before and how it’s embarrassing. I need you to say aloud: “I am enough. I deserve to be loved.” And I need you to really mean it.
And promise me, if you’re really not feeling good or any of those negative thoughts won’t go away, please get help.
I’m rooting for you. I’m here for you.
Rob”
He wrote me back:
“I’m literally crying as I read this. Thank you. I will do all that and more. Thank you.”
We exchanged a few more emails.
But I tell Tom’s story because whether you’re a man or woman, we all fall on hard times.
We all feel lonely.
We all feel like we aren’t enough sometimes.
But we have to stop believing this lie that entrepreneurship and what it represents (money, success, fame) will save you.
The only person that can save you is the person you see in the mirror.
Love that person looking back at you.
Love them with your whole heart. That’s the starting point.
Second, remember, you can start a business on any timeline. You don’t have to rush.
In the U.S., the average age of a small-business owner is 50.3 years old. In fact, over 80 percent of all business owners are older than 40.
The media loves to showcase stories of 19-year-old billionaires starting huge tech companies.
But those stories are definitely NOT the norm. And a lot of those companies face ridiculous challenges — they just don’t get the same coverage as the successes.
I’d barely classify them as “businesses” but ALL of the first 5 online ventures I tried to start failed.
And the only time I started to make real progress was when I built my business on the side.
I didn’t grow up around business people. I’ve had to figure all this stuff out by myself. And it’s not easy. I’m still figuring things out but I know growth doesn’t come from beating yourself up.
All that to say, you’re not a loser if you fail.
You’re not even a failure if you have to go a bit slower than other people.
The only real shame is when you get all your self-worth from comparing yourself to other people.
So, please, stop doing it. Okay?