I'm not sure how to write this. I find it stupid idk if there is something I'm not seeing here but I need some advice on how to approach this situation better and make my sisters make up The other day, my three sisters (including me) ordered clothes online. Yesterday, when the packages arrived, we all opened them. My youngest sister (19) got these jeans she loved, and my eldest sister (26) really liked them too. We usually share clothes, but under the condition that the person who buys it gets to wear it first. My eldest sister asked my youngest if she could borrow the jeans. My youngest said maybe in a couple of months because she's busy studying and won't be going out much. My eldest sister kept asking, but my youngest kept refusing. So my eldest sister said she'd order the same jeans for herself. My lil sis argued that it was silly to order the same jeans when she could just wait and share them later. My eldest sister insisted she didn't want to wait two months, even though she already ordered other pants. My youngest dislikes having duplicate clothes since we share anyway. Then the argument became worse with my eldest sister saying she'd order the jeans anyway, and my youngest threatening to throw them away if she did. so what exactly can I do. I don't even know if I'm supposed to take sides. Its something so ridiculous idek why it became such a big deal 😭 what do I do (and so sorry if this is confusing English isn't my first language)

I am F16, my ex is M18. loved my ex. I want to get that out of the way. He wasn't conventionally attractive, but I thought he looked nice and was a wonderful person. He was autistic and had adhd, which made some stuff challenging, but I loved him and was willing to deal with it, since I myself had BPD and he was willing to deal with it (or so he said). Do note this relationship was long distance.
I knew him for four years before we dated. We didn't talk much for a year or so, before dating. I had gotten out of a relationship, a little after we had reconnected. I didn't want to date again for at least a year, but he was kind to me and we talked quite often. I started to fall for him, but he told me he was aromantic so I never pursued.
We jokingly would flirt though, and spend a lot of time talking together. One day he told me he might be demiromantic, not aromantic, because he felt something for me. I talked more with him after that, about relationship type things. Eventually I confessed, and then a while later, he confessed back to me. When we started dating, we agreed on certain things. He didn't know if he loved me romantically, but he was happy to engage in romantic behaviors and he felt some type of love for me. I was okay with this. I made him aware of what my BPD looked like, he said he was okay with that too.
For the beginning of the relationship, the first few months, it was lovely and we enjoyed each other's company (at least I thought we did). Rough patches were smoothed over pretty easily. Eventually, behaviors I have from BPD, specifically being easily triggered to react emotionally, became more prevalent. There was a point where he wanted to break up with me, then after a conversation, decided to let me try and resolve the behavior. I did try, I tried very hard.
I think I probably should have let it go, though. After this event, he began to tell his friends and family about all our dramas. Probably a red flag, since I only spoke to one person (my best friend) and never painted him negatively, though his family hates me now so he must have. We met a month after this, and it was the best five days I ever had. I felt loved, we got along well (I thought, Ill touch on this later). A month later, he begins online college. Okay, cool. Great. I was happy for him.
He told me it wouldn't affect our relationship, and at first it didn't, but eventually he stopped doing it in a timely manner and would fail to achieve commitments he had said he would do. Every day I would ask if we planned to call, I would've been fine with a yes or no. He always said yes, but often wouldn't keep the commitment. At first I handled it just fine, but eventually it became upsetting.
I'm a busy person, and I'm not free during my day until evening. He's free most of his days, almost constantly. I would do my best to be available at our designated time, and would feel hurt (and eventually react as such) when he wouldn't. Especially when he started to put off his schoolwork to hang out with his friends, often after having said we would talk later that day too. I brought this up to him, I want to say. I told him if he wanted time to himself, he could tell me how long he wanted and I would give it to him. He never did tell me, but he often would tell me that when I was awake he never felt free. He would stay up very late because that was the only time he felt free. He said he was always worried I would need him, so I guess there was a red flag in that too.
Touching back on the meeting him in person thing. He has a large family, and his family has a small farm with livestock dogs on it. His younger siblings were very interested in me, since I was a new person, and they wanted to hang out with me. I also love dogs, and have always wanted one, so I spent some time with the dogs out on the farm. I would invite him to play with his siblings with me, or go see the dog. I slept six hours a night for those five days, and would be with him for 16-17 hours a day. We would go out places and talk, and I would spend maybe two or three of those hours at the most around his siblings/the dog.
Later on, after we went on our break (I'll talk about this too, later) he said to me that he felt I wanted to make an impression on his siblings more than I did with him, and that we were at different points in our lives because I still wanted to have fun and play around (I want to reiterate that his siblings would seek me out). He told me he wanted us to have spent more time just laying around and cuddling, rather than going out to so many places, but never said this to me while we were together in person. I invited his oldest sister to come with us to a place (before asking him), though I told her I would need him to agree before we finalized anything, and then asked him after. He didn't like that.
Now, before I get into the last section of this, I want to establish that he was very kind to me (usually). We bought each other gifts, spent time together, made plans, and all of that stuff. He made me happy, I thought I made him happy too.
In our relationship, we both failed to communicate, and I would fail to discuss things calmly, letting my emotions get the best of me. I wouldn't leave him alone very often, wouldn't let him do stuff away from me very often. I loved being around him, but he wanted time apart and I tended not to give that to him. I should have. This was his first relationship that he wanted to last, but his second relationship in total. I've had many more before this, but this was the only one I really felt commitment to. We talked about marrying, about buying a house, about pets and family. I feel as if we did everything right, or at least he did. I was the emotional one, who wanted too much. I know it was mainly my fault.
When we went on break, it was because I couldn't take it anymore and lost my cool. He'd promised we could talk that night, I was extremely vulnerable emotionally because of something with my family. He failed to finish his work on time, told me he needed another two hours. I snapped. I went down the list of "everything I hate about you (him)". I told him most of the stuff I'm saying here, and some others.

• I hate how you never take my advice
• I hate how you ask me to help you stay on track but never listen to me
• I hate how you get upset with me easily, but never do with any of your friends Etc.

We talked after that, he acted pretty normal. The next day he dropped that on me, despite saying the night before that he wanted to be there for us to both improve.
I started therapy after that, I started trying to find ways to work around all my issues while he continued his typical daily routine. I didn't mind. He initiated flirting with me, and other stuff, that I reciprocated and went along with because I loved him and I still love him even now, and it was all my fault even if I know it wasn't all my fault it feels like it was all my fault. He said he never wants to speak to me again, blocked me, all of it.
During our break, I tried confronting our problems and finding solutions. He dropped several bombs on me, that make me feel rather insecure even now about whether he ever liked me for me or just because of other physical (you know what I mean) attributes, bring that that was all he would really comment on positively.
He told me he never loved me, and never likes me.
Now, what led to the final actual break up, was that I have been planning with another friend to move to Salt Lake City for actual years. He wanted to be part of it, and so did another friend. My household situation isn't great, won't go into too many details but I have been having stress reactions since many years ago, that have been getting steadily worse. I wanted to move out at 18, I'm almost 17. I've been kind of panicking about all of this, and yesterday I snapped (sort of). The conversation with him went sort of like this:

• I tell him he and the other two won't enjoy the talk we'll have Monday
• He asks why
• I said "you guys probably just wont"
• He tells me I'm being defeatist
• I tell him I'm not, then give more details on the conversation. He and the other two are 18, 18, and 20. Two of them come from well-off families. I felt frustrated that neither of them, especially him, work yet or have been trying to even get their driver's license. I intend to skip two years of high-school to take my GED and start working because I don't have another choice. They have choices, and I don't. I wanted to get this point across.

I go on further to say he and the other person's view of maturity is narrow-minded and flawed. A while later he tells me he no longer wants to be involved with me or anything to do with me, after talking to other people and getting their opinions.
Tl;Dr, had a relationship with someone I really liked, I feel like I'm to blame for the collapse of it. He had autism/adhd, I had BPD, we went on break so I could try to fix my problems (he said he would too but it didn't really feel much like he was), and then broke up because I confronted him (albeit poorly) about how I felt he and another person treated the future they wanted to be involved in. There were a lot of things that hurt me really badly in the relationship, but I think I hurt him worse. AITAH?

Greetings! This is Furkan. I'm from Turkey and have a PhD thesis on Ex-Muslims in Turkey. In my PhD thesis, studied the experiences and challenges of leaving Islam in everyday life of Turkey.
I recieved an scholarship to carry out my post-doctoral reseach, and recently moved to Germany. I'm currently doing postdoctoral research on Turkish-Dutch ex-Muslim who was born in a Turkish family in Germany or immigrated to Germany at a very early age, for example at the age of around 5.
Since I'm new to Germany, it is quite difficult to find participants right now. So I thought I could share this topic on social media.
My interviewer criteria:

• migrated from Turkey to Germany in childhood or was born into a migrant family from Turkey (Kurdish, Turkish, Circassian, Laz, etc. ethnic identity does not matter),
• Male, born between around 1977/1997
• was raised religiously in a religious family and later abandoned religious life for any reason

And I'm ready to meet with participants who will share with me their own experiences/topics such as immigrating to Germany at an early age or being the child of a immigrant family, the relationship between religion and immigration, the practices of religiosity in Germany and the practices of a immigrant in Germany leaving religious life. I live in Leipzig but can travel at anywhere any time. If you have such an acquaintance in other cities, I'd also like to meet with them.
We can talk in Turkish and English, but unfortunately I don't speak German.
The research is done purely for academic purposes. Interviewees' personal information will be completely confidential. If you send me a message I will give you all the details.
Best wishes!

This is a translation of a 16 min long interview by 银河Jett on Bilibili. In this interview, BLG coach bail talks about communicating with the team in another language, whzy as a player, the differences between Korean and Chinese teams, the importance of winning pistols, the problems present in the team and the upcoming meta changes.
Q: Have you been to China before joining BLG? What’s your first impression of China and VCT CN?
A: I’ve actually been to China many times when I was a player, but I’ve never been to China just to travel. For VCT CN, I think VCT CN plays very aggressive and they really like taking fights. I’ve also faced some other Chinese teams in another game, and the style is also similar. It feels like Valorant has taken on this style.
Q: You’ve mentioned that you used to play professionally and came to China multiple times. As a lot of the audience actually don’t know you very well, can you briefly talk about how you ended up being a Valorant coach? You can talk about what games you used to compete in.
A: I used to play CS professionally in Korea, the team is called WeMade FOX. That team could be considered as the most well known team in Korea back then. As for how I got my start in Valorant, Riot was publishing a FPS. I watched the trailer and it seemed very similar to CS. Since both are FPS games, I gave it a try. I wanted to become a professional player initially, but I’m too old for a professional player so I ended up coaching.
Q: Putting the players’ performance onstage aside, who’s your favourite player or who do you get along with the best?
A: Our team is a unit, so I won’t say that I like a single player. We have a business relationship when competing, or it’s that sort of partnership. But out of the game, we feel like a big family. If I have to choose, I’ll pick players like knight or whzy who are more energetic and cheerful. I knew of whzy and I found him to be a good player before joining BLG, and I feel that he is a very competitive person and is a strong player after joining. Also, he’s more professional and works harder than I thought. He will immediately ask for my help once he encounters any problems or shortcomings, and he absorbs my feedback very well during review sessions. If I have to talk about his shortcomings, I think his mentality is slightly weak. I’m not saying that his mentality is the worst among all the pro players, but since he’s pretty good in other areas, his mentality is slightly worse.
Q: As you’ve been involved with VCT CN for quite some time, how’s your Mandarin now? Which Mandarin phrase do you say the most often?
A: Even though I’ve joined BLG for quite a long time, I’m still not that fluent in Mandarin. I only know some basic phrases that are related to the game, like smoke, left, right, a few in-game terminologies. I can also communicate some basic numbers, but the most used phrase should be ‘play together (一起打)’, I will always tell the players to play together during scrims and official matches.
Q: Since you’re not that fluent in Mandarin, a lot of the audience are curious as to how you communicate to the team during timeouts.
A: There’s also coach Jexen in the booth, Jexen knows some English. It’s still fine if the problem isn’t too huge, everyone can understand if you talk about the game in English. Before calling a timeout, I’ll talk to Jexen about where we haven’t been doing so well at, how we can get better and stop the opponent. Jexen will add his thoughts and organise them, and relay to the team.
Q: You also faced Chinese teams during the LCQ, what are the differences between the playstyles and the habits of the Korean teams and the Chinese teams?
A: I have coached teams in Japan and Korea, and I’m coaching a Chinese team now. They all have completely different playstyles. Korean teams like to gather info and find the opponents’ weak spots before they attack the site. Japanese teams like to play in a formal and methodical manner, they play the game like they’re in a regular army. Chinese teams are completely unafraid of taking fights, they’re very confident and it gives off the feeling that they feel like they can win once they start engaging in fights.
Q: I’ve previously watched the vlog from BLG, and I found this moment to be particularly interesting. You were holding whzy and kept on telling him that ‘pistol win, game win’. It’s evident that you place a lot of importance on the team’s pistols and BLG’s pistol winrate is about 50%, which is about 15W-15L. This isn’t considered very good or very bad in VCT CN, but I’d like to know your thoughts on pistol rounds and their place within the game.
A: Our pistol winrate is about 50%, but this number is a very bad statistic to me. I hope we can achieve a pistol win rate of more than 60%. This is because the team’s overall atmosphere can get very low after losing the pistol round, and the fear of losing becomes present. It’s going to be a huge blow to the players if they fail to win the third round. Also, pistol rounds will have a huge impact on the overall scoreline since Valorant is MR12 so there is a huge difference between winning and losing pistol rounds. The overall team atmosphere will rise once the pistol round is won and the players will be more confident in themselves.
Q: The next question may be more serious. From beating NRG twice to not making Stage 1 playoffs, the team has gone through many ups and downs. What do you think is the biggest problem with the team, and what is your general plan for future adjustments?
A: This is a rather hard question to answer since I don’t know the extent to which I can talk about. If I am to talk about it a little bit, I think I should first make some changes to the players’ mindset and thoughts. The team did beat NRG twice and played pretty well. Before joining BLG, I felt that the players are all pretty good, but once I actually joined the team in person, I realised that it was like what other people said, there was indeed a bit of luck involved. It could be that the players may have experienced some changes in their mindset after they attended Champions, but they’re still practising hard. They were already working hard in the past, and they’re now also working hard. As compared to other teams, our team is a little…how do I put this into words, it feels very jumpy and inconsistent, it doesn’t feel like we’ve improved much. Hence I want to single out these problems and get rid of them. There is definitely a reason behind these players getting such results in Champions. The goal is to revitalise their potential, but it seems that this hasn’t been achieved in Stage 1. In case of the direction, it seems like my tactical style during matches is somewhat different from that of the VCT CN League. I’m not at liberty to go into the specifics about the adjustments, and I still need to give some thought to it and think about what to do. But we’ll show the adjustments and changes we’ve made when we play in Stage 2.
Q: The next question is related to the current meta. What are your thoughts on the heavy nerfs to Viper? In previous matches, many teams will choose mirror comps on certain maps such as Ascent but this has changed after the nerfs. Teams like FPX and teams from other regions are trying out new comps. I’d like to know your thoughts on this.
A: I’ve given much thought to the Viper nerfs, after all Viper has been a stable pick for operating the map, I think the game will increase in pace after Viper gets nerfed and there will be more aggressive fights, we’ve also tried a lot of different styles and different comps. As to why we never selected them in the end, I can only say that scrims are scrims, and matches are matches. In actual matches, it’s more about running a comp that best suits the players’ strengths and let them be more comfortable. Of course, we won’t force a weird comp due to the meta changes, I still need to talk with the players first and run a comp that plays into their strengths best.
Q: The last question is, from your view as a coach, do you have some tips for the audience to climb the ranked ladder?
A: I want to say that when you’re playing ranked, you first need to have good luck and have good teammates, then you can win games. You just need to play the game more if you want to climb. I can also climb the ranked ladder, but I don’t even have the time to play the game. And another point, playing ranked is a good way to train your mental strength, because if you play ranked and still win even after having one or two teammates who disconnected, that would certainly be a huge boost to your mindset.

Am I the bad person - friendship breakup Sorry for the long post.
Anim kameng mag kaibigan na couple couple. Sa group namen,.kame ng bf ko ung matanda (mid 30's) while yung dlwang couple nasa late 20's. We've been friends for more than 7yrs and super close tlga namen na tipong kahit simpleng sunday lunch sa bahay nag sasama sama kame, or pupunta sa mga bagong food parks, outings etc.
Sobrang mahalaga sakin ung friendship namen na everytime na lalabas kame ng bf ko we always make sure to invite them kung gsto nila sumama. And napaka supportive namen sa businesses nila. Customer nila kame and at the same time we promoted yung businesses nila.
So eto na yung nangyare. January 2024, we invited them to go to boracay ng March. My bf and I even told them na we will pay for the hotel accommodation bsta kanya kanya na sa airline tickets at foods. Inoffer namen na kame na sasagot sa hotel because we wanted to spend time sakanila, again we value our friendship with them.
Nung una hesitant sila, naisip ko cguro wala rin sila budget so sabi namen pag isipan nila.
Then dumating yung February hindi sila nag confirm so I thought negative na yung gala and told them na ok lang kahit hindi matuloy, mag plano nalang ng ibang outing.
Dumating yung March, birthday ni BF, may onting salo salo sa bahay, we invited them, pero laking gulat namen they posted sa instagram na nasa Boracay silang apat. Sobrang nasaktan kame. And to be honest nalungkot ako para sa BF ko. Kase witness ako kung gano siya kabait sa mga kaibigan namen, na tipong kahit mahal yung benta nila sa paninda nila, sakanya pa rin sya bibili kase he wanted to support them.
So nag heart to heart talk kame ni BF, I told him, 'alam kong malungkot ka pero wala tayong magagawa kung ayaw nila tayong kasama.'
Na realize ko, nag plano sila ng hindi kame ksma. Ayaw nila kame kasama at higit lahat hindi mag kasing level ang pag papahalaga nila sa friendship namen. Kaya pala Hindi sila mka Yes sa invite namen kase nka plano na sila na pupunta doon.
Ni let go ko ang friendship namen. I didnt communicated, no confrontation, no response sa mga msgs nila at invite nila. Tingin ko naramdaman nila ung ginawa nila because after that incident they started inviting us pero si BF ang nag dedecline sa invite nila. Ako hindi ko sila nirereplyan.
So tell me am I the Bad Guy?

My ex broke up with me a few weeks ago. We had been dating about a year and a half. I met her on a dating app and it was one of those relationships that developed by doing one date a week for several months.
Eventually she asked if I would be her bf. At first I cringed on the idea, not because it was her, but more so because I wasn’t sure about it. She was a great girl but I wasn’t sold on relationship material. I have crazy high standards and she didn’t fit appearance standard. But I went along with it, I told her I still wanted to be able to approach or work on social skills with other girls even if just plutonicly. Fast forward another several months and the I love you statement came up. I wasn’t entirely sure about how I felt but I again went along with it. I did come around to the whole thing though.
She was a very loving, loyal, committed gf, and did anything for me. Unfortunately I didn’t really find her incredibly magnetizing. She was cute, but not crazy attractive in my eye. Also, the fact that she was so wholesome, it didn’t allow for much banter. Conversations were mostly plutonic, where I’m more of the sarcastic type. She always wanted to pull out the calendar and schedule plans months in advance every week. She did all of these crazy google calendar overlays and I felt like I was always being sucked into things I didn’t want to do. She became more clingy than I had realized when I first met her. She even asked me about 3 months ago, if we could spend not just weekends together, but also Wednesday nights. (We lived just over an hour apart). I suggested it could be every other week (the opposite)…I didn’t like going to her place because of the road noise where she lived and I would really only see her when she would visit me. I know, all of this sounds really one sided and like I’m an asshole. But I was very loving to her in person and she knows that, hence why it lasted so long.
Unfortunately a lot of things she did turned me off. She was too readily available, always trying to lock up my calendar, talk about marriage and kids in the next 3-5 years and I felt trapped. We had great sex but it wasn’t crazy passionate, neither was our kissing. When alone, and was feeling aroused, I generally didn’t think of my ex. I constantly found myself checking out other girls places I went (but never talked to them). I felt like wow I wish that was the kind of girl I was with. Although my ex was cute, and attractive to most, I didn’t really feel “proud” to have her with me when I went out…I debated for months on what to do. She made $100k plus, but also had over $100k in student loans.
In the end she left me, and I shouldn’t really be surprised. But now I’m wishing I had her. Maybe not for the right reasons though?
I’m trying to figure out why if I wanted to end things myself how come all of a sudden I want her back? Is it just the void of not having someone loyal who’s there for me? The fear of not meeting someone as smart? She’s already talking to other guys and I’m just a wreck and need some advice. I can’t go an hour without thinking of her. I think I need to rewire the way I am thinking. I can’t stop thinking that maybe I made a mistake and should have put in more effort, but I feel like if I truly loved/had that spark for her I would have tried more all along
Do you think this was a good thing this happened?

So often some one will make some random statement or really want answers and the other person will take on this defensive stance for no apparent reason. Like when I think some folks are maybe all right, they'll go and make a move like that and then I find myself rejecting them because I don't think that kind of behavior in adults is necessary. It seems combative. Honestly, I hate it most when it comes to people not as prominent or relevant to a group or situation that just pounce; it's like they overdo it. Please yall straighten me out on this one. I need perspective.

Third year student about to qualify and currently on management placement in a nursing home. Wasn’t my cup of tea but I’ve managed with what I could and most of the time I get on ok.
Been having some issues that really brings down my morale and makes me dread to come in. I have last sign offs in my book that my other placements wanted to be done at my management. Mentor 1 is ok, but they informed me that some carers didn’t know if I was counted in the numbers, which I confirmed that it shouldn’t be the case. Some carers still expect me to be on the floor at all times for personal care, but I have other priorities as well to do my nursing care. I have never turned down people asking me to help with doubles or give a hand when there’s chaos going on, but I think it’s ridiculous the amount of personal care I have had to do which has affected me learning things like their online systems for notes and care plans as well as contacting external health services, which I still feel like I can improve this. There’s a lot that I have missed out to learn and witness from health visits because I have been busy with personal care tasks.
Mentor 2 also has asked me to be on the floor with the carers to “get to know your patients better” which I honestly felt was insulting. I have been proactive in getting to know residents and their families to the best of my abilities despite being there only over a month, and they have good rapport with me and there haven’t been any complaints raised about me. Mentor 2 also has a habit of rushing me with tasks and scolding me for not chasing things up right away despite me having to juggle personal care, making sure carers are supported and do nursing tasks/run for meds.
I’ll be honest and say sometimes the vibes are not it and it’s baffling to see grown ups act so cliquey.
The manager has even told me I should be on the floor with the carers despite me being on the floor 75% of the time and the other 15% is me running around crazy trying to do the jobs that the nurses need to chase up on. They also told me if I have concerns with carers not understanding my role as a student then I should have that conversation with them, but that feels like it isn’t my place to say as I have no authority. It just feels overwhelming and I’m almost being used as an assistant at times instead of an almost qualified health practitioner.
Sadly I feel like I cannot seek support with my personal tutor or university with this as my mentor is my reference for my NQN application and I wouldn’t want to be at a disadvantage if they are pissed off that I have put in a bad word. I spoke to the PEF about what should be expected of a management student at a care home and they had informed me I had leadership roles to prioritise, but it’s basically impossible trying to allocate tasks to people that are twice your age and don’t respect you. I understand burnout and short staff are big factors to these clashes in staff, and I leave in the summer, but I genuinely hate this placement experience and feel not like I am ready to finish up.
Is there any way to deal with these issues that won’t affect the rest of my time here? I’m at odds with how to approach this without a confrontation.

Delete if not allowed, looking for some male perspective if anyone is willing to weigh in.
I’m a 35F dating 35M for 9 months. Normal, calm relationship all things considered, as we get along quite well. Worth mentioning, though, that at 2 months and 4 months he briefly pulled back a little because he got panicked about his budding feelings (his words). When he did it at the 4 month mark he went quiet for about a week. No issues like that the past 4 months. Most I would expect to not hear from him is 1 day; totally fine, he likes his space and respecting that has never been an issue.
Last week, we had a really nice day where he talked a bit more than usual about his feelings and what he sees in our future. I was of course quite happy to hear it. Normal communication the few days following that. I last saw him on Tuesday and he seemed stressed. Asked if it was work(“yes”) and if we are okay, to which he said we are great; kissed goodbye and headed home, business as usual. Didn’t hear from him the rest of that night, talked briefly over text the next day. Didn’t think anything of it.
However, he now has not read my texts in 72 hours and I haven’t heard from him either. 3 days is out of character. He’s online, so I know he’s safe. I sent maybe two texts in the last 72 hours that were normal (“how’s your day?” And “wanna hang out tonight?”) but I’ve sent nothing since Friday night as I don’t want to be a pest…but I also don’t want him to think I don’t care he’s not talking to me. My concern is the feelings talk got him “panicked” like it did in the past and he’s pulling away. I just don’t want to say or do anything to upset him.
TL;DR - if there was no fighting but you’re clearly not reading someone’s texts or replying, would you want to be left alone or for the person to ask what’s going on?

I’ve been introduced by a friend to the global head of private equity at a biglaw international firm. We had an introductory call, which apparently went very well. He asked if we could meet me in person in June but that during that meeting he wants to discuss my business plan, which I presume I need to send to him prior to the meeting.
I’m almost a 10th year M&A lawyer and have only come across 1 or 2 business plans my entire career (you know the ones you’d typically see attached or referred to in an operating agreement, but not law firm related). I’m clueless as to what I should include in the BP.
I presume I should list my clients and how much revenue I can expect to bill these clients. I also think I should set out what potential clients I want to target for BD and forecast revenue based on an assumption that I’ll be acquiring such clients?
He did mention to me he’s made up over 70 partners over his career so as to suggest if I go over, he has unilateral authority to make me up. So I presume the BP should be like an application for partnership.
Anyone have any experience with any such business plans? What do you recommend I should include in there?
Thank you very much in advance!

Well, guys, I’m in a bit of a pickle. Please don’t judge me..I realize some of this was poor judgement on my behalf. But here I am. Please note that I am consulting with a couple lawyers next week. Ugh.
Background:
I am a sport coach professional of 15 years. I have been working independently with a handful of private clients since 2018.
A little over a year ago, I was introduced to an investor who purchased property near me, seeking the guidance of someone such as myself to help develop the property out for a business in my related sport field. I did not seek this investor out, they sought me.
I told the owner I had no interest in running the business, but I would happily act as a consultant to get the best use out of the facility as well as get them connected with other professionals who may be interested in leasing the property upon completion.
We had discussed briefly what compensation would look like, with plans to get things down on paper the following week when the investors were in town. (You might be able to see where this is going).
Well, fast forward — the investoowner of the property decided they did not want to proceed with the professionals I had connected them with, and instead wanted to see what they could do to get me and my business partner in to operate the business. Keep in mind that the investors/owners know NOTHING about my industry.
At this point we are about 4 months into this whole dynamic or whatever it is. At the time, despite how dumb it may sound, I sincerely did not mind going out of my way to help a few hours a week with the guidance of developing this property. No one in the area can help them the way I can. This type of a facility is overwhelmingly needed in this area for our sport, and there are few other professionals, if any, in the area that can help guide the development of their vision for the facility. For the benefit of the community, the time I was putting in did NOT bother me. I wasn’t worried about getting paid, and trusted we would come to an agreement (as had been promised).
Well, upon being re-approached by the owner to please reconsider operating out of the facility, they sweetened the pot by offering an ownership share for the time I am putting in. We met for dinner, they had printed out a sheet outlining the infrastructure of the ownership between me, my business partner, and them. Although nothing was signed, I have a printed copy of what was handed to me. Again, you can probably see where this is going. The ownership offer for my time made it worth it to me to move forward and start this whole thing from scratch. At the time, I had no reason to believe they would go back on their word.
After the meeting, I began putting more of my time into the facility (10-15 hrs per week). By this time, I was working with my business partner to develop business plans, working with their lawyers for documents, and all the normal stuff of building a small business from scratch. I have a years worth of texts and drafts I made for everything regarding the business. We had weekly meetings with the project manager. I began interviews for the team, hired the manager, etc etc. Each week went by, with more conversations about our agreement, promises that lawyers were drafting the agreements, yet each week we wouldn’t see paperwork prepared for us. As I’m sure you can anticipate, the original offer has been redacted and changed last minute. I know, I am really dumb for letting this get this far. Please don’t beat me up more than I am beating up myself.
What they are now offering are three different options
— a small salary + a much smaller profit share percentage
— a bigger salary
— a small salary + a lump sum payment for my time over the last year
A lump sum payment for my time and walking away was briefly mentioned, and my gut is telling me to accept that offer. But I am worried that they may make it very difficult to receive payment for my time, because we never had anything in writing for my consultation except for what was discussed very recently with our project manager and written down (Again, no signing, but I do have a photo of what was written down for my consultation fee). We are a month out from opening, and I am feeling pressured by them to make a decision despite asking for the last 4-5 months to review the final agreement. “The meeting” where the original offer was redacted, involved a lot of degrading statements and manipulation tactics — I believe they are trying to scare me into quickly complying with shady business practices.
I opted for the lump sum payment for my time and smaller salary (verbally). Now, I am waiting for the documents to be sent over to me so I can review the specifications of the NDA and the non-compete with a lawyer.
Although everything the owner has done (the details of the meeting in which the original offer was redacted was terrible — the owner showed their true colors and although I feel dumb, I am generally a good judge of character, and was sincerely blown away) goes against my values as a person, the facility we have built would be incredible for my clients to experience. The follow up meeting with our project manager, where we discussed the details of the new offer and got the stipulations written down on paper to transfer to the legal documents, was one that they were trying really hard to keep me on board, “making up” for the previous meeting. The reality is, once we are operating, I wont be seeing much of the owner at all. Regardless, at this point, if it were for myself and myself only, I wouldn’t move forward. But because of my clients, I want them to be able to train out of a facility like this. We have NOTHING like this in the area. However, although the money isn’t worth it to me, with the encouragement of my spouse, I do believe I need to see something in my pocket.
I believe I have the upper hand because I bring the clients to the facility and the knowledge. The owners couldn’t do this without me and my business partner, period.
Here’s what I’m worried about (aside from the obvious if not already stated) —
The NDA and the non-compete are going to be ridiculous. To be honest, I don’t know what “Trade secrets” would be covered in the NDA aside from their financials…there are no trade secrets in my industry that I can think of. I do think they will try to cover something I discovered and discussed with the owner — lets just say, someone on the property who shouldn’t be on the property due to legal reasons. But this is public knowledge if searched (which is how I discovered we needed to talk about this person and get him off the property, or the success of the business is at stake). But I don’t know if that’s legally possible. However, I do know that I saved “them” by bringing this to their attention because if discovered, quite literally their operation would have been completely shut down and ostracized by the governing body of my sport (For good reason). I also have reason to believe that after this person’s legal situation settles, they are trying to make him part of the business on other aspects of the property. With that, I think they are trying to shut me up regarding this situation. I also think they are going to try really hard to make it difficult for me to leave with the non compete.
Is there a way for me to negotiate protecting myself and the clients I am bringing to the business with the non-compete? Is it reasonable to negotiate that the non-compete cannot apply to the clients I am bringing with me? Or that, if I am fired, or the conditions of my employment change, the non-compete is null and void? How does the recent new ruling on non-competes affect this?
Do I have enough hard evidence to ask for my consultation fee for the last year and just end with that? Or am I completely screwed out of that?
Do you have any advice for me at all?
Like I said, I am meeting with lawyers next week who specialize in my industry and employment, but I just wanted to pick the brains of lawyers here about my situation. Their business practices are clearly shady, and I need to get my head out of my ass and need help with what I should be on the lookout for.

This might be a slightly philosophical post. But the aim is to get to the bottom of what you should be truly doing. To truly get the most results.
There seems to be a MASSIVE amount of conflicting information online about how to do this.
“Do stuff that moves the needle forward”
“Do stuff that brings in revenue”
What does this truly mean though. And is it even the right thing. That’s the purpose of this post, to uncover.
When I’ve spent my time on actual needle-moving forward things, like taking business from 0 to revenue, doing all offer development, operations, sales process, marketing myself, it generally has taken me about 6 months to fully ‘try out’ a business idea I’ve had.
Most times it hasn’t worked.
Either it wasn’t profitable. Or there was a big problem somewhere.
I believe fundamentally it’s because I’m moving too slow.
Because it usually takes me around 6 months to ‘validate’ whether a business has good potential.
When you haven’t sold it or developed expertise in it yourself yet.
And I would say about 5% of the time it does work.
So if it takes 6 months and only 5% of the time it works (where you bring in revenue, no major issues), and each time it doesn’t work you try a new variation of it or something new based on what you learned, then it might take 10 years of trying different things to get the business to work.
Which sounds like it takes way too long.
So I thought about how the top companies move much quicker.
What separates them and my strategy.
And realized they simply had much more people on their team.
If you think about any successful organization who has achieved great things, and is world-leading, usually there is not 1 person on the team.
There seems to be a correlation between number of people on the team and speed of progress they can make in business.
Which goes against what most conventional startup wisdom tells you, most small business content creators etc all tell you to do it all yourself.
Which I’ve done for quite a few years and it’s gone so slowly in terms of overall progress.
If you should ‘do everything yourself’ then most Fortune 500 companies would’ve had single founders, and 1 person on their team. But the vast majority of successful Fortune 500 companies had co-founders.
And most successful businesses I know of, had co-founders.
And as they succeeded, they got more people on the team, and these people helped bring more success, then they brought more people.
Obviously there can be bad staff and not everyone contributes to the success of the company.
But I do believe, based on this, and observing top companies, that generally the more successful they are, the more people were involved with bringing about the success.
Which completely contradicts most information given to startups about ‘lone wolf’, ‘go it alone’. If that were true, Google would have 1 employee. Apple would have 1 employee.
And they would have never gotten off the ground.
Anyway, I may not have explained this perfectly but I do strongly believe the more & higher quality people are working together on something, the stats show these companies tend to do better, and successful companies you see often have more people than less working on them.
From the very beginning and now.
Regardless of the stage they were at.
So going based off this information, that the more people, the better, I have hired 30+ different people for different roles. Over the past few years. Across different businesses. To help speed up the progress in different areas.
From marketing roles, sales process roles, web development, app development, customer service, delivery of services.
And I would say there have been maybe 1 or 2 of them where I was actually happy with the result.
Most times, I would hire someone to do a job, and they didn’t do the job well, despite saying they were experienced.
And showing past examples of their work. And telling me everything I wanted to hear about how good they were.
It would often be that they would end up performing badly in the KPIs I set for them, giving many excuses, asking for help/questions/not solving anything on their own.
And just so many other problems. Like when there were multiple people at the same time on a team, working on the same project, they would blame each other and no one took responsibility despite clear responsibilities.
All telling me how other staff were bad and they were good, but getting conflicting info from all staff where they blame each other for everything so it’s difficult to know who to trust and who is being truthful.
Oftentimes not being reliable or doing what they were clearly asked to do.
Oftentimes trying to outsource the work I game them, to other people and not caring about the quality.
At my expense.
So I lost lots of clients, had low performing areas in the areas I hired for a lot of the time.
To be fair, things happened faster the more people there were.
But they often needed much more from me than they were contributing.
Like they always wanted to get paid more, for doing less work, weren’t reliable, did low quality work, didn’t hit KPIs, missed clear deadlines, always gave excuses, blamed others/external things, always asking how “I” wanted their job to be done, to the point where I was having to literally tell them every single thing to do and become an expert at their job myself, and show them how to do what they were put there to do, or do it myself, and still get a low quality result from them.
Anyway, the list goes on in all the problems I have experienced hiring people.
It really seems like a minefield.
But there were 1-2 people who did actually do well, who were responsive, who did what they committed to do, who hit deadlines, who did what they were asked, who didn’t give excuses. Who were actually honest hard workers who figured out how to solve problems and actually do the job that was asked from them.
Because of the amount of people I hired and the very low % of people who seemed to do their job well, it made me think that I am probably the problem here. If so many people are doing a bad job and not doing what they were actually hired to do. When most other companies seem to succeed at hiring people.
Then it must be a problem with myself and how I am hiring and managing them.
So it makes me think I need to level up in how I hire and manage people.
I’ve tried lots of different businesses and variations of them and some have done okay, some have not.
Mainly the most success I’ve had is in my own freelancing, where I don’t have other people on my team.
Because it’s kind of turned into a headache working with others. Who just seem to have mostly never been able to deliver what they promised without it becoming pointless to hire them in the first place with all the work I’m doing on their behalf and trying to pick up after all the problems and failures they’ve done.
So I’m not sure exactly what to spend my time and resources on.
I have money saved up from freelancing.
Where I can continue to hire people.
But I do feel I’ve had many many bad experiences.
And I believe it’s mostly my fault. Maybe my training, my hiring, my management, at places along the line I’ve not done it well enough.
I’ve tried to make improvements each time but it has kind of seemed like luck to get people who do actually do their job well.
I genuinely want to hire people and succeed in this.
Because if I can successfully work with people to achieve outcomes, rather than relying only on myself, I can build a real business and not just do freelancing.
In freelancing, I was able to make $3k-5k/month but it was very stressful and I hated speaking with clients, and was constantly stressed.
I generally really don’t like socialising with people. Including clients and staff.
And staff often try to get me to socialise unnecessarily so they can avoid doing their job, and pull me away from mine.
So trying to make it work.
I want to make it work with hiring people because if I can do this, I can make 10x-100x-1000x faster progress with other people on the same team.
But I do have a very bad track record so far. So it’s kind of painful returning to it and continuing to have bad experiences.
But at the same time I know it’s me who’s probably at fault because there can’t be this many bad people I’ve hired and it surely can’t be this bad for everyone.
I think the reason is that I’ve been better at managing myself and doing things successfully solo throughout my life.
Like I’ve achieved very good things in solo sports, in academia, and in many areas that don’t require a team, but often become frustrated working in a team.
But I don’t want my business success to be limited to 1 person.
So I truly want to make it work in improving my ability to manage (ideally a large amount of) people in a way where they can actually deliver and it work well.
Because I was capped in freelancing to making $3k-5k/month because I couldn’t take on more clients because I was undercharging and overdelivering and couldn’t handle more due to being massively stressed out and hating it. I was able to work with less clients at times and charge higher, but they never wanted me to ‘outsource’ my work to others or bring on a team, and I felt bad about it because had bad experiences where I had felt like I let clients down, and oftentimes they told me they had hired me because of me, and not wanted me to ‘outsource’ the work.
But I want to make it work.
Building a real business with a team. Not just doing freelancing and relying just on myself.
So I have time and money and resources to put into this.
I have 1 staff member currently who is unproductive. But we have an equity deal so it doesn’t cost me money for them to perform. But costs me lots of time and their performance is extremely weak. Don’t even want to go into detail, but it’s a nightmare. Their performance is about 1/10 but I believe I can raise their performance if I improve my ability to raise their performance.
Anyway. I want to build a team, but not sure exactly what activities are best ways to spend my time.
If I am physically making improvements, I feel I am slowing down the business progress.
Whereas I want to hire and manage people.
I’ve built training so that this co-founder is able to hire people. And these people can use the same training to hire people.
But I don’t currently have training to enable them to manage people.
My fear is that without training, people just ask unlimited questions on how to do something in their role and it becomes pointless to have hired them because I have to do everything they should have done to do it, so they basically just become a robot following very specific instructions. Rather than a human being who can achieve things independently.
So for example, if I made this training, it would take up all my time, whereas I have savings I’ve accumulated from freelancing which I can put into either having the co-founder manage staff, or have the co-founder make management training at the same time to enable more and more staff to hire and manage new staff. To achieve overall objectives and KPIs.
Or I could have the co-founder hire someone to make the training.
Then that frees up my time, my co-founders, time and only takes financial resources to accomplish.
What I want to achieve, is a scenario where I can give staff KPIs and objectives, and they are enabled to hire and manage people who can meet these objectives. Independently without my help required.
They give feedback, and I have a system for feedback to internal improvements can be made based on staff feedback.
Without it being unfiltered, it’s structured and organised so people can’t just get unlimited help/training/whatever from me.
Where they should be able to take actions, iterate, learn, improve, and act as independent thinking people who can achieve objectives themselves. Or within a system where it’s not all tied directly to me.
E.g. I have direct reports going to me.
But they have direct reports who go to them.
Previously I had a system where I did this, but then staff at the bottom of the hierarchy would ask their managers questions, and the managers wouldn’t know the answer so would then ask me the questions, and so jumping over the managers and making me deal with everything.
Whereas I want to build a system where people can make business progress in their specific area, independently without everything going to the CEO. Only important/urgent things are feedbacked to the CEO.
This way I believe much faster progress can happen.
Because I won’t be bogged down by exponentially growing problems.
Like with how it works in any successful organisation.
Tim Cook has only a handful of direct reports. Who each only have a handful of direct reports. And so on.
He’s making the most important decisions, dealing with what’s most important and strategic, with top authority, dealing with everything as a birds eye view, but not doing every employee’s job for them, teaching every employee how to do their job. Picking up the pieces after every employee misses their deadlines, doesn’t do their work, gives excuses, does poor work that doesn’t help the company.
Even in any successful organisation. Each unit/person is making their own decisions, taking their own action, learning from it, practicing themself at improving, gaining their own experience, not all relying on 1 person, every single person in the organisation, just for them to do their job.
In successful organisations, people at every level experience new problems all the time, and don’t need to contact the #1 person at the top just to deal with it.
They come up with a solution and go for it. And iterate. Learn, try to do something better next time. And there’s a constant learning/feedback process going on across the organisation which everyone takes part in, not just 1 person doing every part for everyone.
I believe this structure of modelling what actually successful organisations do is the correct way. Because they’re successful for a reason.
Not this ‘hustle grindset’ BS in the startup/business world where lots of information seems to be saying the wrong thing. It just makes no sense to make every single person 100% reliant on you for them to do their job.
Anyway so I’m thinking about what I should do with my time.
What I want to do, is tell my co-founder what to do, which involves hiring and managing people who do things that move the needle forward in the business, as defined by me, and some of those people also hire and manage people. To have an exponentially growing system of people growing the organisation. And a communication and feedback and learning system and autonomy within the system itself so it can take action, learn, grow, thrive. As a system within itself.
I believe if hypothetically, I did everything myself, then it takes about 6 months to ‘validate’ whether a business has good potential, and 5% of the time it does. So if I do everything myself, I believe it will take me 10 years to get a business off the ground.
But if I utilise my money and time more efficiently, I can have as many people working on each part involved in validating these businesses as possible.
I don’t know if that is lazy or smart.
I believe it’s both. But mostly smart. Because I believe I can convince, hire, organise, manage people to either work on equity deals or pay in a way where businesses can realistically bring in profit.
My co-founder does very little of what I ask him to do.
And he wants me to be doing individual things.
He objectively is financially and intelligently very poor and has very minimal skills or experience.
Not to be offensive. Just to paint a picture. So since there is conflicting information everywhere in the business world and you need to choose who to trust, I don’t trust what he believes.
Objectively I am much richer in all these areas than him.
So I used to operate on a democratic system with them. But it’s kind of like, in a vote for president, if you have 80% of the population being easily controlled by the media and being very dumb and easy to sway and manipulate into believing anything, and they vote for things which are objectively dumb and go against what the smartest and objectively most valuable people vote for, I don’t want to be held back by a dumb population having authority or being listened to, if they have a clear, long track record of making very bad decisions.
If you were to take business advice from a homeless person with no experience, money or intellect, or a Fortune 500 CEO, who let’s say objectively has massive experience, money, intellect and success. Then I would probably take what the CEO has to say.
If you had to listen to what a scientist vs 12 year old had to say about a scientific topic, you’d probably want to listen to the scientist who studied the topic and is well respected in their field.
So I believe it would be dumb for both of us, if he made decisions, objectively.
But at the same time it’s difficult to truly know what the truth is.
The Fortune 500 CEO could be telling you what you want to hear, and could have an incentive to lie to you to send you in the wrong direction with bad business advice so you don’t become competition to them, and the homeless person could be honest.
The scientist could be trying to gain fame and get attention to themself to build their career on a lie and fake experiments whereas the 12 year old could be a science savant.
So it’s difficult to truly know what the truth is.
If I should listen to him or myself.
Objectively.

1. I believe if I spend time building the business via this logic I’ve described above, it can grow much faster, with unlimited people working on it and performing well, if the necessary improvements are made.
   
2. And I believe if I were to do the individual things necessary to do it, it would take 6 months to ‘validate’ each’s potential. I.e. try everything in that timeframe to make it work, build a good service/product, build good sales process, build good marketing, deal with customers, etc, all on your own.
   

Whereas in the first option, other people could do all these things.
Human development over history has happened due to the input of millions, if not billions of people.
There wasn’t 1 person who did all the work to get Carnegie or Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg to gain the success they’ve achieved.
They all build an empire off the backs of others.
Did the slave owners do the slave work themselves when they brought slaves to America? No.
Does Elon do all the individual parts necessary to grow the company? No. He leads and controls the people in order to do that.
Does Mark Zuckerberg single handedly get Facebook off the ground? No. There were 10+ people involved. He stole code from others. Who sued him.
All of these people had exponentially growing staff as the company grew, as fuel to grow the company.
So if you have the money and strategy to lead them to success, I believe it surely is possible.
So long story short this is a long rambling piece of writing but I believe there’s very little impact 1 individual person has on the success of a company. Controlling and amassing an army of people who build the company up and contribute to the company sounds more true.
Does 1 person do everything involved in every sports team? No. Each player plays their respective part. Directed by the coach/manager.
Does 1 person do everything involved in musical orchestras? No each musician plays their part. Directed by the conductor.
And so on.
If you can build an exponentially growing team of staff who effectively work together, bring others on, take action to grow the business, learn from mistakes, make improvements, are highly motivated, are led successfully, it can achieve great things. I feel like it’s a delusion that individual people single-handedly grow companies without others.
So what should that person spend their time doing?
Doing all the millions of things necessary to grow the company? Or bring and manage others who some make progress themselves, some bring and manage others, to gain more and more resources to make progress at faster and faster rate.
Do successful people really have only 1 person responsible? No. They have teams of people behind them.
So trying to do the work of 1,000 people as 1 person sounds 1,000x as hard as getting 1,000 people to each do the work of 1 person.
So if you can finance the growth of the company via hiring others.
Let’s assume I can finance this exponential staff growth. Then surely I should do it right?
Like if I were to compete with 1 person trying to grow their business, and I had 1,000+ people, all doing their jobs effectively, being organised, working as a system not all relying on me, the competition where it’s 1 staff member on average would get beaten.
And surely any excuse you could give, I could just hire someone to solve that excuse.
Like “oh but what roles do you hire these people to do?” well I could hire someone whose role is to figure out what roles they should do. “But what if x?” well I could hire someone whose role is to solve that too. And so on. “Oh but do you have enough money to pay these staff?” Yes. And I can hire people whose job is to bring in money. Whether it’s fundraising, raising from
Did Hitler fight WW2 with 1 person? No. He fought it with millions, if not hundreds of millions of people.
Did Amazon/[insert any Fortune 500 company] get to their size today from having 1 staff member who did everything? No. They had thousands if not hundreds of thousands of staff.
Did any successful mom and pop shop/small business get to their size today from 1 staff member? No. They are one of the largest employers in the USA. Which means they hire a lot of people. Successful mom & pop shops generally have more staff the more successful they are.
Armies generally have more success the bigger and more effective they are.
Companies generally have more success the more staff and more effective the staff are.
So surely we shouldn’t hold ourselves back, to use the example of war, it’s like trying to go to war with others who have hundreds of thousands of people in their army, with just 1 person, yourself. Who is going to win? Them.
How are you going to compete with companies with way more staff, and way more effective staff than you? You would have to become exponentially more effective as 1 person which I just don’t know if it’s realistic.
I think it’s more delusional to believe that 1 person can do as well as 10 or 20 or 50 or 100 or more people who are each as effective as that 1 person.
So if you were to win, you would probably want to expand your army/staff and make them more effective, rather than try to make yourself somehow perform on the same level as armies/companies with thousands or hundreds of thousands of people. It’s just delusional to believe you can beat them in my opinion.
In business, you’d have to be extremely skilled at hundreds of different skills, spend 10+ hours on 100+ individual areas of the business each week to compete with 1,000+ staff who, if performing effectively, would crush you.
This is just my thoughts.
Am I being delusional? Come on…
I just feel like this is the way. Just look at the most successful organisations in history. Was it 1 person?
No, 1 person cannot realistically win a war against 100,000+ people. No matter how good they are. They would need to be top 0.00000000001% in skill in the world at what they’re beating the other side at.
Could 1 footballer beat a football team of 100 people of equal ability than them? No.
Could a company of 1 person outperform a company of 1,000 people? No.
So I believe if I can solve the ability to do this, I can grow a team of unlimited size to conquer and beat any problem thrown at us.
It’s just down to control of people.
Money doesn’t exist.
Even biggest most successful companies in the world mostly didn’t get there on their own.
I believe less than 1% of Fortune 500 Companies were bootstrapped. Or something similar.
And this is what I’m saying.
People in the small business/entrepreneur world tell you you need to have everything yourself.
How are you going to outfinance, outcompete companies on complete other levels without acquiring these resources from others? Just relying on yourself.
How could 1 person get more financing/investment in a company from investors compared to 1,000 of equal ability.
It’s never 1 person ‘beating the world’. Or beating the industry on their own.
Maybe if your aspiration is to be an average business.
“Oh but you should do what is best at each level, and it’s different for each level. Start just by yourself until you get X revenue. THEN hire people”
…..Well if you struggle to get X revenue on your own, how are you ever going to hire others?
The others help you grow the revenue in the first place.
I feel like the small business world is too overreliant on the founder and delusional about the capabilities of 1 person when competing against units 100-1,000x + bigger than them.
Come on.
Anything you want to compete in. In business.
Generally you already have competition.
And if you manage to somehow “spot” something they’ve “missed”, they could just copy you and wipe you out with their massive resources anyway.
In my opinion you need to expand your resources as FAST as possible.
Not this BS “oh wait until you get X profit on your own to hire other people”
Well if you’ve only made good profit on your own as a freelancer, and you’ve spent a lot of years trying to get a business off the ground solo, what are you meant to do?
“Oh just make it work” Great advice.
I just feel like there’s too much delusion into what it actually takes.
In a job or as a freelancer. It’s easier to make $3k-5k/month revenue because you’re only competing against individuals.
But when you try to compete against other businesses to make $3k-5k/month profit, you’re competing against businesses with 10x-100x the people, the money, the resources, the everything, to beat you.
So how are you meant to realistically beat them on your own? Without expanding your resources as quick as possible.
So because of this I believe if 1 person on their own is somehow meant to take a business from $0 to $10k/mo profit, then surely it will happen quicker if more people, of equal ability, are trying to make the business $0 to 10k/mo profit.
To be honest I don’t know what the truth is. This is just what I believe the truth is.
Because I’ve consumed so much wrong information from people acting like they have the correct advice in business.
All Youtube videos, articles, courses, claiming to make you successful in business, when in reality it’s just advice that sounds either easy to say or easy to hear.
Like it’s easy to say as a comment to this post, a response that takes 5 seconds to write, like the first thing that comes to your mind, like “just figure it out on your own”. But that’s not necessarily the truth, it’s just easy for you to say as a commenter. Comments aren’t necessarily the truth.
And on the other side business advice is easy to hear. Like “work on your own, make $1m/month, move to X country, live the life, working 2hours/day” which is just pure delusion. And most of the time the content/advice’s purpose is to benefit the business who made it, not the receiver of the advice. Because it’s selling a course or they have ad sense so they just want maximum engagement and views.
And anyone who is successful in business doesn’t need to give any advice. Because they’re applying the advice. Not giving it. Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos etc have no strong incentive trying to help others get to their level because they could just make an extra $10M-100M from spending the same time/energy/resources giving advice into growing their business.
They’re never gonna have advice that would help you beat them because otherwise they would’ve applied it themself.
And they are actually incentivized to not want others to truly succeed. Because it means more competition for them and less success for them.
So 99%+ of info online just seems like it’s not true.
I’m trying to figure out what is true and what isn’t.
Honestly though it’s difficult to even trust what anyone says in business. Any advice or feedback. For the reasons given.
Because 99% of feedback is either from people who haven’t truly grown a successful business, or it’s not related to you, or it involved luck, or it’s just like a motivational quote they tell you, or it’s a snarky comment they tell you.
It’s only helpful to them. And you are actually their customer or viewer or their entertainment. Not a successful business yourself. Because it’s just all misinformation that all contradicts with the truth.
So not even sure if it’s worth trying to get advice or if it’s all just pointless, just to figure it out myself from experience, trial and error and learning from my own thinking than relying on any other thinking.
Anyway do you think this is just crazy and I’m going crazy or is there any truth to what I’m saying?
Let me know your brutal honest feedback

I got an offer from both Western for Media Info and Technoculture and Waterloo Arts and Business program. The past few days I have been contemplating on which to go to:
Western:
The program seems like something I would genuinely enjoy as I want to go into communications and journalism and they have a masters for that as well. My main issue is the diversity in the program, if I am going to spend possibly more than 4 years there I'd like to be comfortable with the people I'm around and feel at home but after looking through the program pictures and their Instagrams I noticed a lack of diversity which genuinely scares me if I did go to study there. I'm also aware of Western being a "party school" though I'm not much of a party person, that factor doesn't bother me too much.
Waterloo:
I'm kinda 50/50 with the program itself, I'd Waterloo would be a great option for me because of their co-op program (for the field I'm going into, experience is the most important thing). Waterloo also has a diverse ranch of people from different backgrounds in the ArBus program so that isn't a concern for me. My main issue is that Western has been my top choice for a while and I'm scared I'm going to regret Waterloo.
I'd appreciate any advice on what to choose as the deadline to accept offers is fast approaching.

This might be a slightly philosophical post. But the aim is to get to the bottom of what you should be truly doing. To truly get the most results.
There seems to be a MASSIVE amount of conflicting information online about how to do this.
“Do stuff that moves the needle forward”
“Do stuff that brings in revenue”
What does this truly mean though. And is it even the right thing. That’s the purpose of this post, to uncover.
When I’ve spent my time on actual needle-moving forward things, like taking business from 0 to revenue, doing all offer development, operations, sales process, marketing myself, it generally has taken me about 6 months to fully ‘try out’ a business idea I’ve had.
Most times it hasn’t worked.
Either it wasn’t profitable. Or there was a big problem somewhere.
I believe fundamentally it’s because I’m moving too slow.
Because it usually takes me around 6 months to ‘validate’ whether a business has good potential.
When you haven’t sold it or developed expertise in it yourself yet.
And I would say about 5% of the time it does work.
So if it takes 6 months and only 5% of the time it works (where you bring in revenue, no major issues), and each time it doesn’t work you try a new variation of it or something new based on what you learned, then it might take 10 years of trying different things to get the business to work.
Which sounds like it takes way too long.
So I thought about how the top companies move much quicker.
What separates them and my strategy.
And realized they simply had much more people on their team.
If you think about any successful organization who has achieved great things, and is world-leading, usually there is not 1 person on the team.
There seems to be a correlation between number of people on the team and speed of progress they can make in business.
Which goes against what most conventional startup wisdom tells you, most small business content creators etc all tell you to do it all yourself.
Which I’ve done for quite a few years and it’s gone so slowly in terms of overall progress.
If you should ‘do everything yourself’ then most Fortune 500 companies would’ve had single founders, and 1 person on their team. But the vast majority of successful Fortune 500 companies had co-founders.
And most successful businesses I know of, had co-founders.
And as they succeeded, they got more people on the team, and these people helped bring more success, then they brought more people.
Obviously there can be bad staff and not everyone contributes to the success of the company.
But I do believe, based on this, and observing top companies, that generally the more successful they are, the more people were involved with bringing about the success.
Which completely contradicts most information given to startups about ‘lone wolf’, ‘go it alone’. If that were true, Google would have 1 employee. Apple would have 1 employee.
And they would have never gotten off the ground.
Anyway, I may not have explained this perfectly but I do strongly believe the more & higher quality people are working together on something, the stats show these companies tend to do better, and successful companies you see often have more people than less working on them.
From the very beginning and now.
Regardless of the stage they were at.
So going based off this information, that the more people, the better, I have hired 30+ different people for different roles. Over the past few years. Across different businesses. To help speed up the progress in different areas.
From marketing roles, sales process roles, web development, app development, customer service, delivery of services.
And I would say there have been maybe 1 or 2 of them where I was actually happy with the result.
Most times, I would hire someone to do a job, and they didn’t do the job well, despite saying they were experienced.
And showing past examples of their work. And telling me everything I wanted to hear about how good they were.
It would often be that they would end up performing badly in the KPIs I set for them, giving many excuses, asking for help/questions/not solving anything on their own.
And just so many other problems. Like when there were multiple people at the same time on a team, working on the same project, they would blame each other and no one took responsibility despite clear responsibilities.
All telling me how other staff were bad and they were good, but getting conflicting info from all staff where they blame each other for everything so it’s difficult to know who to trust and who is being truthful.
Oftentimes not being reliable or doing what they were clearly asked to do.
Oftentimes trying to outsource the work I game them, to other people and not caring about the quality.
At my expense.
So I lost lots of clients, had low performing areas in the areas I hired for a lot of the time.
To be fair, things happened faster the more people there were.
But they often needed much more from me than they were contributing.
Like they always wanted to get paid more, for doing less work, weren’t reliable, did low quality work, didn’t hit KPIs, missed clear deadlines, always gave excuses, blamed others/external things, always asking how “I” wanted their job to be done, to the point where I was having to literally tell them every single thing to do and become an expert at their job myself, and show them how to do what they were put there to do, or do it myself, and still get a low quality result from them.
Anyway, the list goes on in all the problems I have experienced hiring people.
It really seems like a minefield.
But there were 1-2 people who did actually do well, who were responsive, who did what they committed to do, who hit deadlines, who did what they were asked, who didn’t give excuses. Who were actually honest hard workers who figured out how to solve problems and actually do the job that was asked from them.
Because of the amount of people I hired and the very low % of people who seemed to do their job well, it made me think that I am probably the problem here. If so many people are doing a bad job and not doing what they were actually hired to do. When most other companies seem to succeed at hiring people.
Then it must be a problem with myself and how I am hiring and managing them.
So it makes me think I need to level up in how I hire and manage people.
I’ve tried lots of different businesses and variations of them and some have done okay, some have not.
Mainly the most success I’ve had is in my own freelancing, where I don’t have other people on my team.
Because it’s kind of turned into a headache working with others. Who just seem to have mostly never been able to deliver what they promised without it becoming pointless to hire them in the first place with all the work I’m doing on their behalf and trying to pick up after all the problems and failures they’ve done.
So I’m not sure exactly what to spend my time and resources on.
I have money saved up from freelancing.
Where I can continue to hire people.
But I do feel I’ve had many many bad experiences.
And I believe it’s mostly my fault. Maybe my training, my hiring, my management, at places along the line I’ve not done it well enough.
I’ve tried to make improvements each time but it has kind of seemed like luck to get people who do actually do their job well.
I genuinely want to hire people and succeed in this.
Because if I can successfully work with people to achieve outcomes, rather than relying only on myself, I can build a real business and not just do freelancing.
In freelancing, I was able to make $3k-5k/month but it was very stressful and I hated speaking with clients, and was constantly stressed.
I generally really don’t like socialising with people. Including clients and staff.
And staff often try to get me to socialise unnecessarily so they can avoid doing their job, and pull me away from mine.
So trying to make it work.
I want to make it work with hiring people because if I can do this, I can make 10x-100x-1000x faster progress with other people on the same team.
But I do have a very bad track record so far. So it’s kind of painful returning to it and continuing to have bad experiences.
But at the same time I know it’s me who’s probably at fault because there can’t be this many bad people I’ve hired and it surely can’t be this bad for everyone.
I think the reason is that I’ve been better at managing myself and doing things successfully solo throughout my life.
Like I’ve achieved very good things in solo sports, in academia, and in many areas that don’t require a team, but often become frustrated working in a team.
But I don’t want my business success to be limited to 1 person.
So I truly want to make it work in improving my ability to manage (ideally a large amount of) people in a way where they can actually deliver and it work well.
Because I was capped in freelancing to making $3k-5k/month because I couldn’t take on more clients because I was undercharging and overdelivering and couldn’t handle more due to being massively stressed out and hating it. I was able to work with less clients at times and charge higher, but they never wanted me to ‘outsource’ my work to others or bring on a team, and I felt bad about it because had bad experiences where I had felt like I let clients down, and oftentimes they told me they had hired me because of me, and not wanted me to ‘outsource’ the work.
But I want to make it work.
Building a real business with a team. Not just doing freelancing and relying just on myself.
So I have time and money and resources to put into this.
I have 1 staff member currently who is unproductive. But we have an equity deal so it doesn’t cost me money for them to perform. But costs me lots of time and their performance is extremely weak. Don’t even want to go into detail, but it’s a nightmare. Their performance is about 1/10 but I believe I can raise their performance if I improve my ability to raise their performance.
Anyway. I want to build a team, but not sure exactly what activities are best ways to spend my time.
If I am physically making improvements, I feel I am slowing down the business progress.
Whereas I want to hire and manage people.
I’ve built training so that this co-founder is able to hire people. And these people can use the same training to hire people.
But I don’t currently have training to enable them to manage people.
My fear is that without training, people just ask unlimited questions on how to do something in their role and it becomes pointless to have hired them because I have to do everything they should have done to do it, so they basically just become a robot following very specific instructions. Rather than a human being who can achieve things independently.
So for example, if I made this training, it would take up all my time, whereas I have savings I’ve accumulated from freelancing which I can put into either having the co-founder manage staff, or have the co-founder make management training at the same time to enable more and more staff to hire and manage new staff. To achieve overall objectives and KPIs.
Or I could have the co-founder hire someone to make the training.
Then that frees up my time, my co-founders, time and only takes financial resources to accomplish.
What I want to achieve, is a scenario where I can give staff KPIs and objectives, and they are enabled to hire and manage people who can meet these objectives. Independently without my help required.
They give feedback, and I have a system for feedback to internal improvements can be made based on staff feedback.
Without it being unfiltered, it’s structured and organised so people can’t just get unlimited help/training/whatever from me.
Where they should be able to take actions, iterate, learn, improve, and act as independent thinking people who can achieve objectives themselves. Or within a system where it’s not all tied directly to me.
E.g. I have direct reports going to me.
But they have direct reports who go to them.
Previously I had a system where I did this, but then staff at the bottom of the hierarchy would ask their managers questions, and the managers wouldn’t know the answer so would then ask me the questions, and so jumping over the managers and making me deal with everything.
Whereas I want to build a system where people can make business progress in their specific area, independently without everything going to the CEO. Only important/urgent things are feedbacked to the CEO.
This way I believe much faster progress can happen.
Because I won’t be bogged down by exponentially growing problems.
Like with how it works in any successful organisation.
Tim Cook has only a handful of direct reports. Who each only have a handful of direct reports. And so on.
He’s making the most important decisions, dealing with what’s most important and strategic, with top authority, dealing with everything as a birds eye view, but not doing every employee’s job for them, teaching every employee how to do their job. Picking up the pieces after every employee misses their deadlines, doesn’t do their work, gives excuses, does poor work that doesn’t help the company.
Even in any successful organisation. Each unit/person is making their own decisions, taking their own action, learning from it, practicing themself at improving, gaining their own experience, not all relying on 1 person, every single person in the organisation, just for them to do their job.
In successful organisations, people at every level experience new problems all the time, and don’t need to contact the #1 person at the top just to deal with it.
They come up with a solution and go for it. And iterate. Learn, try to do something better next time. And there’s a constant learning/feedback process going on across the organisation which everyone takes part in, not just 1 person doing every part for everyone.
I believe this structure of modelling what actually successful organisations do is the correct way. Because they’re successful for a reason.
Not this ‘hustle grindset’ BS in the startup/business world where lots of information seems to be saying the wrong thing. It just makes no sense to make every single person 100% reliant on you for them to do their job.
Anyway so I’m thinking about what I should do with my time.
What I want to do, is tell my co-founder what to do, which involves hiring and managing people who do things that move the needle forward in the business, as defined by me, and some of those people also hire and manage people. To have an exponentially growing system of people growing the organisation. And a communication and feedback and learning system and autonomy within the system itself so it can take action, learn, grow, thrive. As a system within itself.
I believe if hypothetically, I did everything myself, then it takes about 6 months to ‘validate’ whether a business has good potential, and 5% of the time it does. So if I do everything myself, I believe it will take me 10 years to get a business off the ground.
But if I utilise my money and time more efficiently, I can have as many people working on each part involved in validating these businesses as possible.
I don’t know if that is lazy or smart.
I believe it’s both. But mostly smart. Because I believe I can convince, hire, organise, manage people to either work on equity deals or pay in a way where businesses can realistically bring in profit.
My co-founder does very little of what I ask him to do.
And he wants me to be doing individual things.
He objectively is financially and intelligently very poor and has very minimal skills or experience.
Not to be offensive. Just to paint a picture. So since there is conflicting information everywhere in the business world and you need to choose who to trust, I don’t trust what he believes.
Objectively I am much richer in all these areas than him.
So I used to operate on a democratic system with them. But it’s kind of like, in a vote for president, if you have 80% of the population being easily controlled by the media and being very dumb and easy to sway and manipulate into believing anything, and they vote for things which are objectively dumb and go against what the smartest and objectively most valuable people vote for, I don’t want to be held back by a dumb population having authority or being listened to, if they have a clear, long track record of making very bad decisions.
If you were to take business advice from a homeless person with no experience, money or intellect, or a Fortune 500 CEO, who let’s say objectively has massive experience, money, intellect and success. Then I would probably take what the CEO has to say.
If you had to listen to what a scientist vs 12 year old had to say about a scientific topic, you’d probably want to listen to the scientist who studied the topic and is well respected in their field.
So I believe it would be dumb for both of us, if he made decisions, objectively.
But at the same time it’s difficult to truly know what the truth is.
The Fortune 500 CEO could be telling you what you want to hear, and could have an incentive to lie to you to send you in the wrong direction with bad business advice so you don’t become competition to them, and the homeless person could be honest.
The scientist could be trying to gain fame and get attention to themself to build their career on a lie and fake experiments whereas the 12 year old could be a science savant.
So it’s difficult to truly know what the truth is.
If I should listen to him or myself.
Objectively.

1. I believe if I spend time building the business via this logic I’ve described above, it can grow much faster, with unlimited people working on it and performing well, if the necessary improvements are made.
   
2. And I believe if I were to do the individual things necessary to do it, it would take 6 months to ‘validate’ each’s potential. I.e. try everything in that timeframe to make it work, build a good service/product, build good sales process, build good marketing, deal with customers, etc, all on your own.
   

Whereas in the first option, other people could do all these things.
Human development over history has happened due to the input of millions, if not billions of people.
There wasn’t 1 person who did all the work to get Carnegie or Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg to gain the success they’ve achieved.
They all build an empire off the backs of others.
Did the slave owners do the slave work themselves when they brought slaves to America? No.
Does Elon do all the individual parts necessary to grow the company? No. He leads and controls the people in order to do that.
Does Mark Zuckerberg single handedly get Facebook off the ground? No. There were 10+ people involved. He stole code from others. Who sued him.
All of these people had exponentially growing staff as the company grew, as fuel to grow the company.
So if you have the money and strategy to lead them to success, I believe it surely is possible.
So long story short this is a long rambling piece of writing but I believe there’s very little impact 1 individual person has on the success of a company. Controlling and amassing an army of people who build the company up and contribute to the company sounds more true.
Does 1 person do everything involved in every sports team? No. Each player plays their respective part. Directed by the coach/manager.
Does 1 person do everything involved in musical orchestras? No each musician plays their part. Directed by the conductor.
And so on.
If you can build an exponentially growing team of staff who effectively work together, bring others on, take action to grow the business, learn from mistakes, make improvements, are highly motivated, are led successfully, it can achieve great things. I feel like it’s a delusion that individual people single-handedly grow companies without others.
So what should that person spend their time doing?
Doing all the millions of things necessary to grow the company? Or bring and manage others who some make progress themselves, some bring and manage others, to gain more and more resources to make progress at faster and faster rate.
Do successful people really have only 1 person responsible? No. They have teams of people behind them.
So trying to do the work of 1,000 people as 1 person sounds 1,000x as hard as getting 1,000 people to each do the work of 1 person.
So if you can finance the growth of the company via hiring others.
Let’s assume I can finance this exponential staff growth. Then surely I should do it right?
Like if I were to compete with 1 person trying to grow their business, and I had 1,000+ people, all doing their jobs effectively, being organised, working as a system not all relying on me, the competition where it’s 1 staff member on average would get beaten.
And surely any excuse you could give, I could just hire someone to solve that excuse.
Like “oh but what roles do you hire these people to do?” well I could hire someone whose role is to figure out what roles they should do. “But what if x?” well I could hire someone whose role is to solve that too. And so on. “Oh but do you have enough money to pay these staff?” Yes. And I can hire people whose job is to bring in money. Whether it’s fundraising, raising from
Did Hitler fight WW2 with 1 person? No. He fought it with millions, if not hundreds of millions of people.
Did Amazon/[insert any Fortune 500 company] get to their size today from having 1 staff member who did everything? No. They had thousands if not hundreds of thousands of staff.
Did any successful mom and pop shop/small business get to their size today from 1 staff member? No. They are one of the largest employers in the USA. Which means they hire a lot of people. Successful mom & pop shops generally have more staff the more successful they are.
Armies generally have more success the bigger and more effective they are.
Companies generally have more success the more staff and more effective the staff are.
So surely we shouldn’t hold ourselves back, to use the example of war, it’s like trying to go to war with others who have hundreds of thousands of people in their army, with just 1 person, yourself. Who is going to win? Them.
How are you going to compete with companies with way more staff, and way more effective staff than you? You would have to become exponentially more effective as 1 person which I just don’t know if it’s realistic.
I think it’s more delusional to believe that 1 person can do as well as 10 or 20 or 50 or 100 or more people who are each as effective as that 1 person.
So if you were to win, you would probably want to expand your army/staff and make them more effective, rather than try to make yourself somehow perform on the same level as armies/companies with thousands or hundreds of thousands of people. It’s just delusional to believe you can beat them in my opinion.
In business, you’d have to be extremely skilled at hundreds of different skills, spend 10+ hours on 100+ individual areas of the business each week to compete with 1,000+ staff who, if performing effectively, would crush you.
This is just my thoughts.
Am I being delusional? Come on…
I just feel like this is the way. Just look at the most successful organisations in history. Was it 1 person?
No, 1 person cannot realistically win a war against 100,000+ people. No matter how good they are. They would need to be top 0.00000000001% in skill in the world at what they’re beating the other side at.
Could 1 footballer beat a football team of 100 people of equal ability than them? No.
Could a company of 1 person outperform a company of 1,000 people? No.
So I believe if I can solve the ability to do this, I can grow a team of unlimited size to conquer and beat any problem thrown at us.
It’s just down to control of people.
Money doesn’t exist.
Even biggest most successful companies in the world mostly didn’t get there on their own.
I believe less than 1% of Fortune 500 Companies were bootstrapped. Or something similar.
And this is what I’m saying.
People in the small business/entrepreneur world tell you you need to have everything yourself.
How are you going to outfinance, outcompete companies on complete other levels without acquiring these resources from others? Just relying on yourself.
How could 1 person get more financing/investment in a company from investors compared to 1,000 of equal ability.
It’s never 1 person ‘beating the world’. Or beating the industry on their own.
Maybe if your aspiration is to be an average business.
“Oh but you should do what is best at each level, and it’s different for each level. Start just by yourself until you get X revenue. THEN hire people”
…..Well if you struggle to get X revenue on your own, how are you ever going to hire others?
The others help you grow the revenue in the first place.
I feel like the small business world is too overreliant on the founder and delusional about the capabilities of 1 person when competing against units 100-1,000x + bigger than them.
Come on.
Anything you want to compete in. In business.
Generally you already have competition.
And if you manage to somehow “spot” something they’ve “missed”, they could just copy you and wipe you out with their massive resources anyway.
In my opinion you need to expand your resources as FAST as possible.
Not this BS “oh wait until you get X profit on your own to hire other people”
Well if you’ve only made good profit on your own as a freelancer, and you’ve spent a lot of years trying to get a business off the ground solo, what are you meant to do?
“Oh just make it work” Great advice.
I just feel like there’s too much delusion into what it actually takes.
In a job or as a freelancer. It’s easier to make $3k-5k/month revenue because you’re only competing against individuals.
But when you try to compete against other businesses to make $3k-5k/month profit, you’re competing against businesses with 10x-100x the people, the money, the resources, the everything, to beat you.
So how are you meant to realistically beat them on your own? Without expanding your resources as quick as possible.
So because of this I believe if 1 person on their own is somehow meant to take a business from $0 to $10k/mo profit, then surely it will happen quicker if more people, of equal ability, are trying to make the business $0 to 10k/mo profit.
To be honest I don’t know what the truth is. This is just what I believe the truth is.
Because I’ve consumed so much wrong information from people acting like they have the correct advice in business.
All Youtube videos, articles, courses, claiming to make you successful in business, when in reality it’s just advice that sounds either easy to say or easy to hear.
Like it’s easy to say as a comment to this post, a response that takes 5 seconds to write, like the first thing that comes to your mind, like “just figure it out on your own”. But that’s not necessarily the truth, it’s just easy for you to say as a commenter. Comments aren’t necessarily the truth.
And on the other side business advice is easy to hear. Like “work on your own, make $1m/month, move to X country, live the life, working 2hours/day” which is just pure delusion. And most of the time the content/advice’s purpose is to benefit the business who made it, not the receiver of the advice. Because it’s selling a course or they have ad sense so they just want maximum engagement and views.
And anyone who is successful in business doesn’t need to give any advice. Because they’re applying the advice. Not giving it. Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos etc have no strong incentive trying to help others get to their level because they could just make an extra $10M-100M from spending the same time/energy/resources giving advice into growing their business.
They’re never gonna have advice that would help you beat them because otherwise they would’ve applied it themself.
And they are actually incentivized to not want others to truly succeed. Because it means more competition for them and less success for them.
So 99%+ of info online just seems like it’s not true.
I’m trying to figure out what is true and what isn’t.
Honestly though it’s difficult to even trust what anyone says in business. Any advice or feedback. For the reasons given.
Because 99% of feedback is either from people who haven’t truly grown a successful business, or it’s not related to you, or it involved luck, or it’s just like a motivational quote they tell you, or it’s a snarky comment they tell you.
It’s only helpful to them. And you are actually their customer or viewer or their entertainment. Not a successful business yourself. Because it’s just all misinformation that all contradicts with the truth.
So not even sure if it’s worth trying to get advice or if it’s all just pointless, just to figure it out myself from experience, trial and error and learning from my own thinking than relying on any other thinking.
Anyway do you think this is just crazy and I’m going crazy or is there any truth to what I’m saying?
Let me know your brutal honest feedback

My friend only ever wants to plan hangouts on the weekends. They are currently in graduate school and currently does not have any classes or job for the summer. Every time we plan to hangout it has to be on the weekend. It’s almost like they don’t think people are allowed to hangout during the week. I understand if they were busy but it’s summer now. Personally, I would love to get off work on a Tuesday and hangout. It has been like this for years even when we were both in school together. Is this weird or I just need to be more considerate?

I work for a small company in AZ. We charge customers with a payment link through a third party service. The problem is there have been some scammers who pay for the service and then when the charge shows up on their bank statement they dispute the charges saying it's fraudulent and most of the time the banks side with the customer we're out the money plus other fees. Now my bosses are saying is we don't get some form of ID from the person and they dispute the charges the person who took the call has to pay for the dispute. Can they legally do that to us?

Amtrak needs to learn from Brightline and (1) use technology instead of human staffing when technology can make a better experience and (2) have more consistent helpful staff.
I've taken the Acela Express repeatedly and Brightline repeatedly, all in first class. Two things are noticeable:

1. Brightline uses technology more, and Amtrak uses human staff more.

When you enter the Brightline stations and lounges, you scan your ticket at a fare gate, which opens. When you board, nobody checks your ticket unless you're in first class (I think), and even then nobody scans it; the attendant simply looks at your ticket to verify it. Onboard, Brightline seems to have just one first class car attendant (who has stayed busy during my Brightline trips, repeatedly coming up and down the aisle with food, drinks and offers for more food and drinks).
Amtrak, conversely, seems to use a lot more human staff. When you enter a lounge, your ticket is checked by a human. When you board, your ticket is checked by a person when you approach the track (if you're in a large station), your ticket is checked again as you board and then again once you're on board. First class on the Acela seems to have several attendants (at least two).
Since Brightline was built from scratch, funded by a large investment firm, I'd think that it did a calculation and figured that using tech instead of humans was a better investment.

1. Brightline staff members are more consistent, and more consistently nice, than Amtrak staff.

Amtrak has some really great staff members and some really nasty ones. I've seen some staff on the Acela Express be really helpful, but others have lectured and scolded passengers when I didn't think it was necessary (for example, I've seen Acela Express staff repeatedly scold passengers for boarding the first class car from another coach, instead of entering the first class car from the platform, and I've seen Acela Express staff respond to routine drink orders by stopping, fussing at the passenger for ordering one; in short, some Acela Express staff seems to make mountains out of molehills and be antagonistic where it wasn't necessary).
Brightline staff seems to be more trained in customer service. For example, they stand on the platform and wave at your train as your train pulls out of the station. When the attendant sees you for the first time onboard, the attendant seems to say, "Glad to have you". When I had a problem scanning my ticket to enter the station, the station staff smiled and helped me in. I didn't see any attitude from Brightline, although surely not everyone is cheerful and pleasant.
Overall
Amtrak really seems to have a bad mix: lots of staff members doing things that humans aren't necessary for and some staff members with poor customer service skills and attitude problems. (If Amtrak staff were consistently nice and helpful, then having lots of staff doing everything would be good, but that's not the case.) Amtrak ought to learn from Brightline and replace humans with tech and have more training of its staff. That would likely help reduce costs, provide better customer service (as Brightline's reviews are pretty positive) and increase customer satisfaction, and thus increase revenues.

Hello! This is my first post on reddit. and I'm desperately seeking advice.
I'm f/22 and have been working near nonstop since 16- I love to work and be busy, so I am not complaining there!
My current job in which is very physical has been negatively impacting me due to poor management and lack of care for my department. Following that, I've been declining in my mental health severely for a month now, constantly bawling my eyes out at work. It's very humiliating, but I need the money. I'm ready to put in my two weeks ASAP, but want another job lined up just to be secure and not unemployed. I want to be smart about my next move, but still respect my mental health.
My question to everyone is, does anybody know of stay at home entry level jobs that could just get me by for a couple of months until I'm back on my feet? I'd love to hear personal experience with companies and how you have dealt with similar circumstances. I'm suffering from severe burnout and just want something with minimal public contact and a little less stressful :/

This post is for my FWB who ghosted me. It has been two weeks na rin since our last convo. Miss na kita kausap. Miss ko na mga advices mo sakin. Gusto kita kausap lagi kasi feel ko yung sincerity mo. Pero for show lang ba yun? Maybe ganun ka lang so that you can keep me? Well, baka nga for show lang yun. Kasi, bakit bigla ka na naman nawala? This is the second time na nawala ka nalang bigla. Hindi naman ako yung type ng person na nangungulit if walang replies. Okay na sakin nag reach out ako once and if walang replies, I know end na yun and I'm not worth your time anymore kaya ganun. And so, I tried to move on. Nakwento mo rin pala noon na next month magiging busy ka na kasi magtuturo ka sa college as part time mo. Maybe that's why. Maybe you have better things to do than waste your time with me. Pero sana, di mo na ko maisip ever again. Sana wag mo na ko imemessage ulit. Kasi ayoko na ulit maramdaman yung ganitong nararamdaman ko. Ayoko na ulit maiwan sa ere. Be very busy na kahit kailan di mo na ko maiisip, di mo na ko ichachat at di mo na ko kakausapin. Please, don't ever come back.

So to clarify 1 I am British so my terms my confuse people. 2. This happened in summer 2021 and also a heatwave. 3. names are changed for GDPR purposes.
I use to work in a care home for MJ a beautiful lady in her 30's with physical and learning disability also blind with fragile bones (which is important later). MJ a little petty and finds being naughty or cheeky hilarious.
We were out on a girly shopping trip for new wardrobe as MJ had drastically gained a lot of weight during over 18 months due to physio and hydro being cancelled due to covid and building work. Due to her needs her wheelchair is a little longer and bulkier than the average and her right leg support is straight out as she cant bend it . (also important for later), Also I have to explain what's going on every few minute so MJ knows what's going on and MJ doesn't always know if she's involved in conversations so this is also explained.
After a lovely brunch is a department store we headed down in lift. To resume the shopping. This is when the incident occurred. due to the size of her wheelchair she takes up a good portion of the lift so I have no room to move, can only wheel in and reverse out. As the lift lowered I could hear children approx. 5 -9 in age and guessing 4 in total. The doors took there sweet time to open.
When they did I quietly swore because the store had a massive redesign during the lock down and what was once a nice clear area around the lift was now a narrow area surrounded by a sofa and display stands leaving me a very tight turning space. I then realised the children I heard where using this narrow space to play It/tag and were not 4 was about 6 to 8.
I called out to them to Excuse me let us through please. No answer from children and no parent telling them to move . Children still running. MJ is already in giggles as she has worked out things are not going to the plan.
I am now aware that the lift doors will shut again soon so reverse out a little to make sure the safety sensors keep doors open. Also hoping this means the children's adult might notice me better and control the little chaos.
I hoped to much and they got louder so I got LOUDER. I shouted You need to move now your in my way. MJ is now in tears because she thinks I'm shouting at her and is asking why. So I whisper to her to not worry its just some naughty children blocking our way out and I might need to yell at them again and she calms down.
This is when the boy who I think was the oldest replied "where not taking up that much space just walk around us." So waved him closer and he came over I explained the problem. " You see these handles I'm holding on to" he nodded "this means its not just me I need space to turn MJ around, so please give us that space and sit on sofa". His reply "my mummy got through okay with my sister is our pram so you get your baby through too". MJ has decided to join in by singing, "I'm not a baby, your a baby, move naughty naughty baby" . I then spot the mummy and wave my arms in the biggest motions possible to get her attention. But apparently the lacy bra she has in her hand holds all her brain power.
So I shout again. "I'm going to count to 4 and if you kids are not out of my way that's your problem not mine anymore". 1, still kid chaos, 2 , 3, nothing 3 and a half, FOUR !. So I reverse in one quick motion. I'm amazed that I didn't hit walk in to anyone. I take a moment to asses the best route to go and yes the children are still running around. but I no longer care. So I choose go to the section on the left and to do that I have to turn slightly right step backwards line up the wheelchair then go foreword. And the smallest child chose that very moment to run out right in to MJ's right leg support. MJ starts laughing at me for being a bad driver think I hit a display with her leg. I whisper to her what's happened and she laughs more, shrugs and winks at me "oops you told them". Children run over to see there crying sibling and one runs off to tell mum about the mean lady. I check the little girl over (I'm first aid trained and she risked more harm to MJ then her) and went to shop. That's when mum finally appeared and yelled at me "Watch where your going, you Spazzie Retard you hit my kid."
So In the UK these are about the worst words you can use to describe a disabled person. I took the worlds biggest breath and willed my professional BS filter to sensor my inner rage. But MJ had my back. " I can't watch where I'm going I'm blind and she had to parent your kids because you were too busy, she meant to help me shop not babysit kids , good bye B\*ch". I smiled sweetly trying not to laugh and we left her shouting about court . A staff member came over to see if we okay and I explained the situation and they go kicked out of the store of endangering customers.*
After reporting this story to the manager she laughed (unofficially told me served the woman right) and told me to record it for policy just in case she memorised the logo on my badge .But I did not get into trouble. No one was harmed apart from a possible bruise on the child's leg.