League of Lions Org

I do semi-physical work as a general contractor about 20-30 hours/week over 2-3 days, while the other 2-3 days I work at my computer marketing, building websites, doing business coaching via phone/skype, SEO, designing marketing/sales funnels, etc. I used to do that for my own business, but once it was up and going and ranking, I've now been doing it for others past few years. I find the mixture of the two different types of work and the fact that I'm very good at and enjoy the challenge of both. I also get to help people, my customers in both and they are my businesses as I'm a serial entrepreneur. In those ways my situation is a bit different than the others on this thread, but not "alien" by any means, probably becoming more and more typical these days. Oh yeah, my wife and I are also very involved, have started and sit on boards for non-profits, help put on events, offer free coaching and consulting (pro bono) for about another 20 hours/week, but our kids are 24 & 26 and out of the house, so believe me, it's not bad after all those years of adding family life, sports, kid's events, etc. to the weekly commitment list LOL Lastly, I just want to mention, that multiple times I've started new jobs in new areas where I was selling and had zero knowledge at day 1. In those cases, I went to my wife and made an agreement with her and my kids, that I was going to work about 12 hours a day 4 days of the week, one day I literally stayed up all night at the office (usually Tuesday it happens) and a half day on Saturday which worked out to about 80 hours/week. I would do this for 90 days so I could bust the curve on learning the new business, having enough time to sell 40 hours a week and learn the business 40 hours a week. Every time I did this, I can honestly say I was as knowledgeable as anyone at that branch other than the top guy by 90 days and in two cases (both when I was an employee not business start up), I was top 7 out of 700 in the nation for sales at the end of the first month. I see this same principle or strategy being used successfully in project start up, business start up and even in life/business coaching. In coaching I call it "power coaching" where instead of once a week for many months or years (like typically counseling), we burst for a month or two or maybe three with very specific goals and timeline to coach our client to get his/her business started, improve their marriage, develop a new software, create a new sales funnel and test it to success, etc. Life is generally more of a marathon, but it's very powerful to know how long and how fast one can sprint in life and business if it's needed. Like anything we get better at such things over time as we do them and improve along the way. Hope some of these ideas/concepts and feedback from my own experience is helpful. You appear to be much younger than me, perhaps without wife, kids, mortgage, etc. so if you're gonna write a software, start a side business, etc. I can only say it may get harder not easier as life's financial and time commitments take up more and more of your currently free bandwidth ;-) Gary

Great suggestions on this thread and a really good question. a). I've known a number of people who figure out a way to do what they love for money, but many more who have not and have had to go to plan b, plan c or plan d. Some of those that have succeeded at this, well as you and others have mentioned...it basically converted their hobby and/or passion into their successful career or business. I don't think most of them would undo that, they seam pretty happy, it just means that something that they used to see as a hobby or passion has now become career or business...it's still the same "thing" and they're happy because they get to do it and get paid, but it isn't the same none the less. Big question on this is does that matter? Why do these kind of things we like, creativity, preferences why do we assume when we arrive at the next level that we'll see them the same or even care the same any more?...we're constantly changing, adjusting, figuring things out and going to another level. If you trust that you "idea" of drawing or romance with it can change and you just find other things, or see it differently, well then you can grow too...why see this whole thing and your love of drawing in your spare time as an issue at all, why let it define any of your figuring out first how to survive and then how to thrive, grow and keep going with your life's mission and positive momentum? b). The smaller but more urgent question is how are you going to survive? Maybe you can stay with your Mom for another year or two or three?...not forever, although if she got sick you might bless her by staying much longer eh? More so, the issue isn't that you've been staying there, it's that you didn't come up with a better 1 year, 2 year, 4 year etc. plan 1-4 years ago and stick to it. In the short-term, this to me is the real issue at hand. You can move out and "wing it", but every time you have a slight setback in that scenario it will be much harder than keeping to the plan and staying with your mom. I don't know her, but I have kids 24 & 26, many parents would go for another 2 years if their son had a really good, really well thought out, realistic plan and then saw them completing pieces of it every week. This is in effect what you and everyone of us will have to do to ever see an idea in our head come into reality. We can't just "hang out", we can't just "play video games" and quite honestly we can't just "draw and doodle". It's one thing if by some long shot of life doing them will help us get somewhere actually worth going...but 99% of the time they don't. They are just part of our personal "excuse option package" that keeps us distracted. We like them though, they are our perceived friends, they are comfortable, they are part of our identity and oh yeah...we have a right to do them when we're not actually at work! Except, those that succeed, they're training, learning languages, learning to code, etc. when they're not at work. They're gonna kick the other "hobbies" or "passions" down the road a few years or more so they can build a life, a career, etc. And when those self disciplined ones are further along at 30, the 90-95% will say they had more support, more chances, better parents, more money, good luck, blah blah blah. The truth is, they weren't lazy, they spent time making plans, adjusting, learning skills, making connections because they saw their fun hobby of drawing as just that, they didn't tell themselves it would become a career. Why, cuz it take 1,000's of hours of not just drawing, but taking classes, seeing other gifted artists and serious practice. For all of human existence people have been wanting to make a living playing baseball because they love it...well of course they love it, do we think they'll love digging ditches, do we think they'll love fixing pipes...OMG people are living in lala land on this "do what you love" crap...it's just a song we sing ourselves and read about because it comforts us as the ship keeps sinking LOL c). In contrast and lastly, if you love helping animals become a vet, before you go to school though for 6-8 years volunteer at the shelter, work as a vet tech in the summer, get the Vet to let you help with an operation or two. If you quit liking it, if the blood makes you woosy...well OMG you just save a boat load of money and time so now you can move on and find something else you MIGHT want to do for a long time. But here's reality, 90-95% of people don't like to do something that 90-95% of us can do in our society, we can't all draw, make music and play baseball...yes, only the best 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 in our country will get to do many of those things AND make a good living doing them. SO...perhaps we would be served better to take a more broad assessment of what we like to do and why? For example someone may like working with kid, like helping people, be ok with blood/mess and be fairly patient....so a long list of possible jobs could work for this person, not perfect jobs, not executive jobs, not jobs paying $100-200k next year...but starting places, jobs to survive, jobs to "taste and see". If he/she later decides that the kids are getting a bit much, then he/she can shift up, down, left or right...but at least they have some job experience now, at least they proved they can show up for work on time, at least they have some confidence that they can learn on the job, etc. Maybe after 5, 10 or more years they come up with a way or see an opportunity to do the same thing but for themselves and grow a business...hot dog!...but it didn't come at the beginning right, if everyone in our society that wanted to start a business straight out of high school or college, without any job experience, without an career experience, really with very little life experience...what exactly kind of great business start up idea are they going to come up with?...Angry Birds?...that one's long gone, how many angry bird app developers do we need??? So, after a bit of a rant, maybe, just maybe anyone reading this that doesn't have a career or much job experience should consider doing something crazy, humble yourself, stop trying to take shortcuts, stop trying to "get an in", stop wasting you precious life by investing your time in games or hobbies when you just need to get a job, then a better job, show up on time, then find a job where you can grow or get promoted, then and only then start thinking based on all your experience and busting your ass about some business you might start. Please wake up and come into reality. If you had just taken this tact, this attitude, this "no bullshit" get it done mindset at 18 you wouldn't be living at your mom's at 28. Now, my best "general advice" is stay there another year or two or three and bust your ass, do something, but at 28 it's a little late to just get into coding and try and make a living, that would have been great at 18 or 20 or 22...but now that you've kicked the f'g can down the road and been distracted you get to do a full time job while you learn coding at night like many of the other self-employed coders have had to do. In closing, go do it. Go get the best job you can in REALITY, learn coding at night or whatever other option you can get yourself excited about as an alternative, but you need to live in reality and not plan on 10 years to work on it at night, right? Then bust your ass 30-50 hours a week at that job, proving to everyone around you that you're an "A" player, a "get it done" kind of guy...and spend 20 hours nights and weekends learning to code, more if you can handle it. I've worked 80-100 hour weeks at new jobs and starting businesses multiple times in my life and you can too. Everything that is most cool and fun to you, limit yourself on how much time/money you can spend on that stuff VERY tightly, then when you achieve a goal along your planned path pay yourself off SOME...but withhold the big payoffs until you finish, until you make it to the next level. If you can't do this, if you can't "manage" yourself and your motivation, then get used to working at pizza places, riding a bike and living at your mom's. I don't want to hear that's what you've decided to do though, I want to see you freak'n show the world that you're a winner, that you can manage your own mind, your own body, that your universe may be small right now but that by dang you're the master of it right! If you don't ever master yourself well, if you just blame it on everything else and kick the can down the road, then you'll regret it and camouflage it and explain it away for the rest of your life. Don't let that happen bro, quit talking about this, go find the best job you can in a week or two, do it with excellence, treat your mom like a queen, honor her, bust your ass at night and on the weekends on something that will get you to the next level in your life. If you're 28 and just starting to get good at drawing...dude, you've lost your F'g mind, put that shit down at 28 and do something substantial and challenging with your life and then start drawing again later when you don't need to put in so many hours building your actual real money making relationship growing life. Drawing is and always will be shit compared with living a REAL life, don't let it suck you down, it's a hobby, it's an art, maybe it's a passion but IT'S NOT YOU, and it isn't going to make or break your life dude. Go get on with life and kick it's ass before it kicks yours ;-) Gary "tough love" McCormick

Hey Henry, went to check out your video. Really love where your heart is and message you're trying to get across to other teens and twenties, is a great message and point well made. Our daughters who are now 24 & 26 gave us plenty of push back as we never allowed video games in our home here in the northern suburbs of Atlanta. We allowed them to play video games or just games in general any time they wanted to outside of our house and so long as their other work/commitments were handled. They often complained about always getting beat when they would play games at friends houses, but still got to do so and had fun, including when we would go out in general, for pizza, arcades, Dave & Busters, etc. So we never made it like games were evil, we didn't act all crazy about it, our argument was that if we allowed them in the house, then it would be just too easy to skip homework, say it was done when it wasn't, get up and play at night while we slept, etc. and that their grades, involvement in sports and time in real relationships including with us would suffer, period, plane and simple. After a few weeks or months of testing us, they got over it. I can tell you Henry, that probably around 20-22 or so, when they were in college or had moved out, they both came back at the holidays and talked about how gaming out of control had kept many of their friends from going to or finishing school. How they could see as adults that gaming without boundaries or limits had hurt a lot of people, then they hugged my neck crying and thanked us for protecting them, but in a nice, loving and non-argumentative way. They have both promised without being asked, that no matter how big gaming is when they have kids, they will have computers, but no games or game controllers in there house either. So, I want to encourage you Henry, this is an important issue for you to bring to the attention of your own generation, hopefully they'll take it better from you than many of their parents. I do want to encourage you to ponder making another video or videos that go before the ones I saw that you've already made. It's just my humble opinion, but even though the avoidance/coping issue is huge, it may come after a decision that's made in the mind of our youth that they can't do more, that it's not worth the effort, that no one will notice if they even do the right thing...the hard thing and be disciplined, they may be concerned that they won't get paid off for making good choices. Now you and I and most on this forum know that's hogwash, that's crazy. If we want to live a great life, we have to build a great life and the only good shortcut is not taking a shortcut...but, society, movies, pop culture and there other friends who are already making these bad day-to-day life decisions are speaking in this way and it's rubbing off on them. So I would love to see a video, or perhaps a series of videos that tease these same gaming addiction kids out in offering to talk with them about why gaming can own and control them and why they let it... So this is a little extreme, but I can get kind of extreme, not angry or yelling, not UFO's and such, but "hard truth". When you tell someone a hard truth, they may or may not be ready to deal with it, it my be a salty finger in their wound, but if you can deliver hard truth(s) in a way that is firm, no-nonsense but compassionate, kind, from a place of love...it can be very, very effective. If you're not careful, you can come of just feeling sorry for them, you can use too much data or info and come off patronizing...like Mr. Spock LOL. The key, is to come into a state of loving your audience before you teach them, and perhaps planting seeds is even better than teaching. To plant seeds is to realize that it might take 5 or 10 videos, like Leo uses, to reach them and that one big over the top video may shut them down instead of opening them up. It's a relationship with strangers, so it may serve you and your mission better to give them 2-5 minutes and focus on just one or two main pieces per video, but tease them, cliff hanger them into watching the next and the next and the next like M&M's or chips LOL. Ok, so the tough love title might be "5 ways video game addiction may be sucking the life out of you like a digital vampire" and the dialogue might look something like "video games are a part of life, but they act as a subtle and often missed life and death test as they end up determining the survival of the fitest". We think that if we're not good at much, our life sucks, then all of a sudden we're good at video games, we get acceptance when we play video games, etc. and come on, video games are all good to me right? But, what if video games are a trap, a pre-qualifier that sorts out winners from losers before we ever make it to college, before we ever get a great job or start a business or have a family? What if when we win at video games and find our identity in video games we've actually been weeded out so that the people our age with "real confidence", with "real self discipline", with "real goals" and willing to do "real work" will be left standing? Later, when you outgrow video games at 25, 30 or older you'll say they got ahead because "they knew someone", because "they had parents that could pay", because "they were encouraged" when reality is, many of them would not be a success if they had allowed themselves to get trapped at the video game station. You could back up into the issues that come before the video game addiction and you could make a 100, so just have fun and keep doing this since it's obviously close to your heart and many could use someone to speak life and truth and tough love to this area of their lives before they end up a big mess and feeling behind the 8 ball at 30! I'll watch for more of your video postings and rooting you on from my own little mission possible Henry ;-) Gary