Adrian Nantchev's Blog, page 30

I Had Some Sexual Distractions - 7/101 Entrepreneur Mistakes & Lessons

Throughout 2015 and 2016 I had met some women that turned out to be my girlfriends, which is nice, but they were distractions and contributed to my lack of focus.I met my first real girlfriend after started Game Overload, my 1st business and I met my second girlfriend soon after I started my second business.I noticed that I spent every weekend with them, which was a distraction. Although they did at times support me, they were, generally overall a time delay.As recent as August 2016 when I split up with second girlfriend I tried to get with a few other women, but to no avail. Perhaps I came on too strong as an ambitious individual- I do not know.It would be nice to get with someone, but not just yet. I want to sort out my finances and future before I can commit myself to a strong relationship.But I found that you have to make sacrifices in order to focus on your work.You may need to cut things from your life that is distracting your from making progress.Once you have set things up, then you can focus on other people and relationships. This is not a hard and fast rule, as some people may be in a relationship and it works out fine, which I'll touch on in another lesson in this book.But the fact that I no longer allow any distractions to divert me from my work and distract me from focusing, means that I can get the work done and achieve my goals.And when I've succeeded and finished what I needed to do, then I can relax and find a real woman. We need to share the some interests and priorities.I know that she's out there. We'll find each other at the right time.In the mean time, you can find the other 100 mistakes that I madehere.

Reading Books is Vital - 6/101 Entrepreneur Mistakes & Lessons

In late summer 2014 I first started my journey as an entrepreneur. I listened to a podcast from an entrepreneur about how robots and automation is on the rise and how jobs will be replaced, yet new industries and opportunities will be created.The host spoke about a book: The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. I later read this book and it was the first book I had read since 2005 (which was The Hobbit). He talked about how you can leverage your life and business to have passive income so you do not need to work all day.Little did I know, this book was the start of my journey as an entrepreneur. I came to a cross roads in my life, I could either:Continue along the path of having a job until I retire.Do things like start businesses and control your own destiny and future.I decided to control my own destiny, and reading books, learning from others' and taking in more knowledge at an accelerated rate would make this happen.The more you learn, the more you earn.I realise now that reading books, especially business, entrepreneur and marketing books, among other sources of knowledge: videos, podcasts, etc, is vital.The way I see it is that every book has a golden nugget inside of it that could change your life, and the only way you'll find this nugget is by reading the book. Sometimes you'd find a series of small golden nuggets or plenty of silver nuggets, but the principle is that every book has a sentence or an idea that could change your life.In economics there is a thing called the convergence rate, which means that when someone has already established the way, all you have to do is learn how he did that and then catch up.It is like an ice breaker ship breaking through the arctic ice. It could take 6 months to clear a path that is 1 mile long, but once the path has been cleared, all the other ships can travel that length in a few days.It could take someone 10 years to learn a mistake, and then he spend a few months writing it up into a book. And all you have to do is read that book over a few days, in order to come to the same lessons and conclusions that took him 10 years.I actually wrote a book about this, clickhere.

Not Writing Books Sooner - 5/101 Entrepreneur Mistakes & Lessons

I first came across the idea of writing a book when I was in my 3rd year of university in mid 2013- a lecturer said that some previous 3rd years students had turned their dissertations into books. I immediately jumped onto the idea and thought that was cool, and something I'd want to do.In march 2016 I went to a one day business conference in London, which was all about how to become a key person of influence in your niche, online and on social media.They urged us all to write a book, citing all sorts of benefits and claiming we all have a book inside of us (and its true!). I immediately jumped on the idea of writing my first book.It was perhaps how the conference connected the dot of becoming an author and how you can become an authority from it. As soon as I realised this there was no dissuading me from not writing a book.On the 1st April 2016 I started writing my first book and finished it on the 31st October. A lot longer than I would have liked it to take.The book is about our cognitive biases that we all have inside of us. Cognitive Biases are a kin to 'glitches' that affects how we think and feel almost automatically. They affect how we see, perceive and interact with the world.I believe that you should write a book. You can never be too young to write a book (I was 22 when I started my first book), and I kind of wish I had started writing them a year or two ago. But: better late than never, and, back then I may not have been able to write as good quality books as I can now. You cannot go wrong by writing books.Here are some of the benefits of writing books:Free books are better than business cards.600K-1M books are published a year. But how many authors do you know? You'll be one of few people in the world.People will recognise that you are an expert in a subject and think that you know what you are talking about.You can write certain kinds of books that have different purposes for your business: create demand, spark controversy, highlight a need or create PR.The worst thing that can happen is your English grammar will improve.I actually wrote another book on this topic. Check out the bookhere.

Not Doing Due Diligence on my First MLM Company - 4/101 Entrepreneur Mistakes & Lessons

In late 2015 I joined my first MLM company- Multi Level Marketing.This sounded amazing and after going to one of their seminars I decided to join. Now, at first I was amazed by it and the prospect, but around 1-2 months into the business I started to doubt the system and think about how it worked. I wanted to see balance sheets when I went to the seminar, but because I never did saw any empirical evidence, then that was the source of my doubt.I started to be more distant from the community, deciphering how the system worked within my mind and listening to the "negative people"- the vocal opposition to the company.During one of the seminars, the host showed us a photoshopped picture of a shark with a machine gun and said "you cannot always believe what you see on the internet".After the talked I asked him whether that comment was a bit of a straw man fallacy, which is to present your opponent's argument and then attack and debunk that misrepresentation as opposed to their actual argument. He never replied.In hindsight, after seeing similar businesses get into trouble with the SEC (Securities Exchange Commission) in the USA, the business was an obvious Ponzi scheme.I managed to get my capital back before they had issues, I'm just awaiting interest payments of around $5000, once they sort themselves out.I did not do enough research and investigation into the system. It has made me a better and smarter person and I did meet a good business friend through it. So it is not all that bad.One of the lessons that I learnt from this business is that you need to be able to argue against yourself better than your opposition can argue against you.Because when you know your standpoint better than you opposition, then there is no argument that they can bring up that you do not already know how to handle and debunk.Read more about the mistake I madehere

Ask yourself: 'what could go wrong?'

When you start a business, don't think about how good things will be and how much money you could make, think instead about what could go wrong.Think about the downside and endeavour to protect it. Anyone can make money, but you then need to protect and safeguard it.You, and your business, is only as strong as your weakest link.When you think that nothing could go wrong, then you are an idiot. Anything that can go wrong could go wrong.When you are starting your business, thinking about the downside, the worst case scenarios and what disasters could happen. When you are thinking about the worst case scenario, then you are testing and prodding your business to see how it can survive.This is one of the mistakes that I made in my journey as en entrepreneur, as seenhere.

What NOT to do in your life

Admittedly: working for someone other than yourself is what not to do in life. When you are working for someone else you are dedicating your time and energy to building another entrepreneur's dream.When you are building their dream you are not focusing on your own dream as much as you want to be or should be.Here is a principle that I understand '40/40/40 rule'. Why would you want to work 40 hours a week, for 40 years, and because of inflation, your savings at the end of those 40 years are worth 40% less? Why would you want to work for someone else at the expense of your own desires and dreams?With the right kind of marketing and entrepreneurship knowledge, you can make your dreams and talents a profitable business. If you are talented and have a passion you can make it profitable. There is money to be made in everything- including arts.Years ago when I was trying to get into the games industry, I read an article about Gabe Newell, who is a founder of one of the biggest games companies. In this article he talked about how to get a job in the games industry and his answer (which probably was one of the igniting sparks that spurred me to be become an entrepreneur) was: 'give yourself a job'. Which meant: find a way to make your own skills marketable and create the games that you want to make and see in the world.I say an old fiend recently and they made the comment that "I had become all entrepreneurial", and I replied "I realised that between working for myself or for someone else, I'd prefer to work for myself".In this world of endless opportunities, why would you want to work for someone else? It is called the 'golden handcuffs', where you get an income, but you have to spend up to 80% of your time there.Become the person you want to be, that is what you should do with your life.Lastly, you can see some of the mistakes you need to avoidhere.

Where to get free business books from

Check outAmazon Kindleevery 1-3 weeks, because there are always different books that are free that could be good. Check out the business, entrepreneur, marketing, etc, department. Because if you got the book for free and it you learnt and applied something to your business, then that is no money down knowledge. Which means that the rewards, knowledge and confidence you gain from reading the books has infinite value to you because you did not pay for it.You never know what kind of book you may find. I am planning on writing some fictional works in the future and I got some books about mythology, which will be good reference. I downloaded aWriter's Guide to Harry Potterback in January 2017, which I will study and use as I am writing my own fictional works. I am finding a lot of relevant books on the stock exchange, so as to deepen my understanding about how the world works. Often there are biographies about peoples' lives and as I read them my comfort zone expands and I become a more confident entrepreneur.Be careful who you listen to, though, because not everyone knows what they are talking about. Listen to everyone but ignore the 99% of people, because often it is the blind leading the blind. Take everything you read with a pinch of salt- learn it but then compare it to what you already know and see if it makes sense and/or is compatible.Free knowledge is often worth what you pay for it. Remember: price is what you pay for something, whilst value is what you get. You can pay very little for something, yet get tremendous value from it.However, there is always something you can learn from someone's experience. There is always something that you can learn from another person's life, often it is what not to do in your life, and what to avoid.Every now and then my books are for free, check one outhere.

The Problem with Passive Income

The phrase 'passive income' is a little misleading, because it does take effort to build and maintain.Most assets that give you a passive income takes time to build and compound before you receive a substantial amount of income, and they are generally, out of your control.Let's take a stock's dividend, it would mean having to buy a lot of stocks in order to see a substantial dividend income and the stock's performance is out of your control. You can hedge against this risk by choosing  a good and stable company.Let's take a book that is selling on Amazon: if the Amazon algorithm were to change, then the sales of your book may drop.Likewise, look at a YouTube algorithm, if YouTube were to change it then your sales funnel would be in jeopardy.The problem people face with passive income is that they need to maintain it so to mitigate the damage from any changes that happens in the wider world, because you cannot control everything and your passive income is often at the whim of external factors that you do not control.The more control you have over your passive income, or the more streams of income you have from different sources, the less financial damage a change in the world will impact your income.See how this mistake, a few others, cost me dearlyhere.

How to Discover Your Passion and Your Life's Purpose

A lot of people talk about how they do not know what their purpose in life is, nor do they understand what it is they want to do in their life. So here are four questions to help you understand yourself and your life.The answers to each will help you.What do strangers consistently compliment you on?What can you talk about, effortlessly, for 20+ minutes and get people thinking?What kind of environment did you grow up around?What have you been doing for the past 5 years?When you meet strangers they do not know you and see you very unemotionally. When people that do not know you compliment you on a skill, then that shows that you a certain level of talent that these people recognise in you. Furthermore, because you are so skilled or talented they are spurred to comment, because people normally say something either when something is very bad or very good. Getting a polite response is worthless, but when you pique their excitement or curiosity, then you are on to something. This is an indication as to what your current skills and talents are- people always tell me that I am an ideas man.What subject(s) can you talk about that will get people thinking? When you can get someone agreeing with you, thinking about what it is you are talking about or get them to learn something new, then this shows that you are proficient in the subject. I could give a talk about inbound marketing, entrepreneurship and business, and get the audience wondering and excite them.The environment that you grew up around is an indication as to what kind of influences you had as you were growing up. What did you experience? What did you see? What kind of family did you have? These, and other experiences from your childhood, will have affected you in one way or another that has shaped the person you are now. The person that you have become. I lived a rather unremarkable childhood, my parents were divorced at the age of 7 and I played a lot of videos games, and wanted to work in the video games industry. I remember a lot about my childhood.What have you been doing for the past 5 years is an indication as to what you can, and have, spent your time working on. This shows that you have knowledge and ability in a certain field. When you have spent 5 years of your life doing a certain thing, then this shows that you know what you are talking about in the context of that subject.Here are a three other questions that I recommend you search deep within you and ask about your life:What answer to world's problems, or cause, do I reiterate and persistently advocate?What do I find myself thinking about and dreaming about?What difference do I want to see in the world?These three are more to do with what you think about and how you interact with the world.As you begin to understand who you are, what it is you stand for and what your skills are, then you can begin to see your life for what it is and what you want it to be.Not discovering my life purpose earlier was a mistake I made, learn more about thathere.

The Secret to Business Success

Business is an intellectual sport, and there is always someone trying to do better than you- that is your competition.I used to believe that entrepreneurs connect the dots; getting a product to a customers. Then I believed that they were solving a problem, by connecting the dots. Now, I believe that they are solving problems for people because they have a bigger vision and want to make a change in the world.The secret is rather simple, yet slightly technical, it is:Engage in my voluntary transactions in a free market.Let's break that down...Engage: you need to take action and actually create what you have in your mind and what you want to see in your life. Ideas are worthless, but action is gold. People will not come to you unless you facilitate and encourage them to. The concept of "built it and they will come" is fatal, flawed and misdirecting. You need to put in effort before they will come to you, as the world is one great big of game of reciprocity. So, the more that you give to the world, the more you will get back; this is how you become rich: you give and do more for others. A baker grows rich by giving his customers more break, either at an ever affordable price or making more bread available.An investor gets rich by giving his money away, thus allowing others to grow their business and expand their operations.Voluntary: you have to persuade people to buy from you, thus either you, your product or service has to be worth a damn in their eyes, so they will voluntarily buy your product or service. It has to be voluntarily, because it is about persuasion and, unlike a government, they cannot just take money from you on threat of violence (what is called taxation). This is an important aspect to understand. Thusyou, your products or services have to be worth a damn in your potential customer's eyes and opinion.People will not buy from you unless you give them a good enough reasonTransactions:you need to give people an excuse to buy from you. The more excuses (the more things they can buy from you) the more money you can make. The more problems you solve for your customers, they more you can justifiable make. The bigger the problem is that you are solving for your customers, the more you will be rewarded in compensation.Free market: you need to be living in the right country that allows you the freedom to start a businessand allow you to excel. Because, when there is nothing stopping you externally, the only thing that is stopping you from succeeding is yourself. Success starts from within you, and for your situation to change; you need to change.Create more excuses for people to know, like and trust you, and then give people enough excuses to give you money.Learn more about this topichere.