From the desk of Elijah “The Realist”
Subj: DON’T Quit, Give Up, or throw in the towel just yet
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In the taxi, the Vietnamese driver was complaining to me about how corrupt the Vietnamese government is.
“We work so hard and we make so little! How can we live like this?
Everything is expensive and we make so little, our money is worth nothing. A new Toyota Camry costs $80,000, how can we buy that?
We work so hard and every month we make $250.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him I make more than $250 every single day. And I don’t even have a job.
“In my heart I love Vietnam, but our Government is very corrupt, very bad“.
Well, in my heart I love America, or at least what America once was. America is the land of opportunity, and anybody born there has been blessed.
Americans can do anything. There are no REAL rules or limits.
Could I be Vietnamese and travel the world and kick ass just from writing words?
No! Of course NOT.
When I try to explain to Vietnamese people what I do for a living their eyes light up like they’ve just met a space alien.
“Wow!” is usually what I hear.
If you’re American, or live in any non-communist country, you can do anything you put your mind to.
You just have to sacrifice for your goals!!!
Ok, that was just a little joke. See the whole “sacrifice” bit is a LIE that the big dogs tell the little dogs. They’ll tell you this lie so you think highly of them. They don’t want to tell you it was actually very EASY and SIMPLE.
I make a lot of money and I don’t work hard.
I work a lot. I do the work. I barely sleep. But there’s nothing else I would rather do.
I would rather die today than be condemned to be a working schlub until I “retire“.
I have made the decision; I will NEVER go back.
Now I know what it’s like to fly like an Eagle, to go back would be a fate much worse than death.
And since I’ve made the decision to never go back my life has been EASY.
Now I will tell you why it’s NOT hard.
This is the ONE secret to living a life of ease and I’m going to use big boy words so pretty please don’t get offended….
DON’T FUCKING SACRIFICE!
You’ve heard all the big dogs tell you about all the hard work and sacrifice they endured. Don’t make me laugh.
It’s NOT a sacrifice to rise above or become something GREAT.
There is absolutely NO sacrifice in making great music, there’s no sacrifice in writing a book, there’s no sacrifice in starting a million-dollar company.
These people are doing exactly what they want! They’re following their mission in life.
Do you know what REAL sacrifice is?
Driving a taxi cab for $250 per month.
Following the path laid out for you is the REAL sacrifice, not vice versa.
The American version of the taxi driver is the guy who works a job he hates to make post-tax money so he can live a life as a debt-slave, like a schlub. Like a nudnik.
The American schlub is worse than the Vietnamese taxi driver because the American schlub has options that don’t exist for a lot of people around the world. The schlub sacrifices to get less, not more.
“Here’s your money. By the way, we took a bunch of it and gave it to the government. They’re going to keep a lot of it and they’re going to give some of it to parasites who don’t want to work. Enjoy your scraps, schlub. See you tomorrow at 8:59 am, don’t be late”.
Why QUITTING & Giving Up is NOT The Answer…
…OR the calm before the storm (pretend sacrifice)
There’s a period of time where you struggle a little financially, but you don’t really notice it because you’re focused on the achievement.
You’ll look back later, fondly, and laugh about how poor you truly were but it wasn’t a sacrifice any more than paying for your dinner was a sacrifice.
See the REAL sacrifice, the ONLY true actual sacrifice, is not trying in the first place. That’s what leads to the “what ifs” on the deathbed.
Sacrifice is what happens when you don’t succeed. Sacrifice is something that only LOSERS can actually do or understand.
I always have to chuckle a little when I hear office drones say they couldn’t “sacrifice what they have” or “take a chance”.
As if being in debt up to your ears and being a good dog to a corporation isn’t a sacrifice.
Working for someone else is the ONLY sacrifice you will ever make. If you never do that you will NEVER sacrifice anything.
I don’t sacrifice, anything, nothing, never. My life is EASY.
I can do anything I want whenever I want.
Q: Can you tell me how much I sacrificed to be able to do that?
A: Nothing. I didn’t sacrifice anything.
Will you struggle?
If you’re working towards a goal, building something, you may find money tight at times. Or you may not.
Even when I was making very little financially, I never struggled while making FRAUDS & LIARS a winner.
Why?
I lived like no one else would and I had no debts or very little bills to pay.
It’s EASY to pay in cash or go without, it’s hard to make interest payments for luxuries each and every single month.
Even if you do struggle it’s NOT a big deal. Struggle is not sacrifice!
Struggling is just part of the process, it’s what happens before your avalanche of SUCCESS comes in. So, you have to drive an older car and your friends have fancy cars, big deal.
At the end of the day, they won’t have what you have…
Live like no one else will, so you can live like no one else can
I have not sacrificed anything in the past 3 years.
What I have done, instead, is lived like no one else would.
Since I lived like no one else would, now I can live like no one else can.
Three years ago, absolutely ANYONE could have lived like me, today virtually NO ONE can live like me.
Sacrifice?
Yeah right. BLESSING is a better word. Blessed am I, for I have now FINALLY seen the light.
For 3 years, THREE long painfully slow YEARS, I didn’t buy ONE single luxury.
Sacrifice?
Ha! Don’t make me laugh. Not according to the numbers on my bank account screen.
But I did sacrifice, a VERY long time ago.
I leased an expensive apartment, I “purchased” a truck on a loan, I got student loans, I got a job as a bank teller, and I completely GAVE UP on my art.
It took me 5 long hard years to undo that very painful, regretful SACRIFICE.
FIVE YEARS! I spent 5 years in debt consumer limbo.
What did I have after 5 years? NOTHING.
It took me 5 cold long YEARS to go in a circle and end up with less than what I started with.
That is the exact path that is laid out for everyone and it’s a path to FAILURE and extreme unhappiness.
Think in terms of “I”, NOT “we”
If you want success, REAL Success, you have to make your OWN way.
No two ways about it. The path laid out for you is a path of ultimate sacrifice and true actual struggle UNLESS… you can quickly change the script.
What’s the meaning of life?
What gives your life purpose?
SUCCESS GODDAMMIT!
Not mediocrity and struggle.
The purpose of life is SUCCESS, ACHIEVEMENT, CONQUERING.
You build success by conquering your demons and acting in the face of fear.
The Coward and the Hero both have the same feelings, the ONLY difference is that the hero acts in spite of the fear and the coward runs away.
Remember these words: self-confidence, self-reliance, initiative, enterprise, optimism.
Forget “we”, FORGET group think. Group think is for inferior types of people.
People with NO drive, absolutely NO ambition, who just spend all day, every single day smoking Marijuana Weed or drinking alcohol.
The superior takes the initiative, take responsibility, TAKE ACTION!
“But Elijah, there’s no “I” in team!”
Do you know what that saying is?
It’s propaganda for the DUMB.
There is no “I” in entrepreneur either. But there’s an “I” in win and there’s an “I” in Elite.
There’s a “we” in weak.
The “we”-thinker, the group-thinker, doesn’t have confidence in himself and he needs approval from the group.
“We” is for the weak and meek.
You can’t build a meaningful life by being weak and meek. You build a meaningful life by being self-reliant, self-determined, self-made & self-paid.
Don’t NEVER, ever Play by the Rules
The people who make the rules don’t follow the rules.
Why not?
Winners don’t follow the rules because we don’t have to. The rules are for the meek and the weak.
Rules aren’t laws and the rules don’t apply to everybody.
The rules are designed for you to put your life and purpose on a deferred payment plan.
Just do as we say now (and make us $$$) and you will be richly rewarded later.
If you’re simple minded enough to fall for such a scheme too bad for you.
Get fired up
I get some form of this email all the time “…After reading Frauds & Liars I’m super fired up. The problem is I don’t know what I want to do “.
You don’t know what you enjoy, you don’t know what fires you up?
What are you, an apparition?
A drugged-up zombie?
Or are you just trying to FOOL yourself?
Not everyone can be an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is an elitist club and not everybody can join the club. If that fire isn’t there, then it just isn’t there.
But that doesn’t mean your life is pointless and meaningless and it doesn’t mean you should be a meanderer, a wanderer.
Everyone has a skill, everyone has a passion, everyone has a fire they mistakenly put out too early.
When I was 18 years old I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I just didn’t do it. I did what everyone said I should do, I sacrificed for the “good life” and spent 5 years paying off that bill.
Don’t make the same mistake I did, and don’t LIE to yourself. If the fire is there, keep feeding it.
Everyone has something they excel at. So concentrate on being excellent. And don’t ever quit or give up on becoming excellent or the very BEST version of yourself.
Until next time.
Your man,
-Elijah “The Realist”
