Jared's Crappiest Idea Yet - 'Namastain'
Self-Improvement that You Can Wipe With
by: Jared Egol (Founder of 'Namastain', Renaissance Man)

I have no financial relationship with 'Namastain'. It is my friend's new company and I'm happy to tell you about it.
The product is a great idea, right up my alley.

I make fun of mainstream self-improvement a lot.

It's not that the theories are wrong.

Almost everything "works" if you work hard.

The problem with 'self-improvement' is that the authorities are almost always just readers/enthusiasts and have not simply accomplished much in their lives and therefore can't provide an in-depth, insider understanding on specific subjects. 

They can only provide 'motivation' in the form of platitudes such as -

Be confident!
Be yourself!

You only have one life!
Live every day like it's your last!

Follow your passion - the money and happiness will follow!

Don't care what people think!
Don't give them the power!

If you have ever wanted to wipe your ass with wildly "insightful" and "motivational" sayings like this, here's your chance.

My friend created "Namastain", a toilet paper full of cliche, overplayed inspirational sayings that has been re-purposed to remove the remnants of human stools and stale urine on the toilet seat instead of motivate.

It can be used for the latter too though -

Have people been getting too comfortable telling you how to live by posting convenient quotes on Facebook? Does everybody on your feed suddenly, or not-so-suddenly, possess the sum of enlightenment about how life "truly" is? Are you no longer allowed to trust that maybe you can figure things out, and that maybe you're doing just fine? Or, maybe you're not doing fine at all, and you'd just rather people leave you alone?

Namastain (TM) is an elegant contemporary solution to an ass-old problem, allowing you to re-purpose the online memes, sanctimony and pseudoprofundity plaguing today's social media in a varnish of your own waste. In other words, it's toilet paper with quotes on it. You may also find the quotes to be inspiring, and that's okay too.

Introduction to 'Startups' Sub-Section

A new sub-category of 'Get Paid' (How to Make Money Online) is 'Startups'.

I have plenty of experience with starting companies.

I have 3 and will have another 2 by the end of next month.

Also, since starting Good Looking Loser, I've met a lot of guys that have their own startups, most are in their infant stages.

Will these startups succeed?

It's just like anything else -

So long as there is a 'demand' for the product or service, the guys that will succeed are the ones that are willing to fail until they figure how to succeed.

It's as simple as that.

This section should be helpful since many of you guys are looking to start a company one day, even if it's not your primary income stream.

Good for you.

You want to create something that benefits the universe, but admit it -

You also want to make a pile of money.

Unless you are a professional athlete in a major sport, an A-List entertainer, powerbroker on Wall Street or a savvy white collar criminal - starting your own business is virtually the only way to make 7-figures in your 20's or early 30's. Even most doctors and lawyers are usually well into their 30's before they actually start making good money - and much of it is used to pay off student loan debt.

Despite the death of the traditional American Dream, barriers to entry and low starting wages compared to cost of living, the reality is - you no longer need a lot of money to start a business that makes hundreds of thousands of dollars in a couple years.
(I started Good Looking Loser for $109 in late 2011)

For your business to have potential, you simply need a product or service that is -

• better than the competition
• cheaper than the competition

For your business to succeed, you simply need to do whatever it takes to make it work and live as frugally as possible until then.

It helps to work 15+ hours a day too.

Once you have your product or service - go tell people about it.

With that simple approach, your creative and financial situation can change quickly.

In November of 2010, I was still filling up empty vanilla protein tubs with flour and returning them to various GNC stores to get an extra $50 because I was trying to live on $500 of food a month.

In November of 2014, I bought Mike Cernovich from Danger & Play ~$500 worth of appetizers for his birthday.
(I do not spend this kind of money on food/drink on a regular basis, neither does anyone else in their early 30's who is serious about their finances)

The point is -

There's IS such thing as "Get Rich Quick", but no such thing as "Get Rich Easy".
(I believe this quote that is from MJ DeMarco's book, I'm not entirely sure though)

Forward by Good Looking Loser

I'm going to introduce you to someone that I know from 'real life'.

His name is Jared.
(no relation to the Subway guy, who climaxes to little boys)

After multiple semesters quietly sizing each other up in the gym, we officially met in 2005 toward the end of our senior year at the University of Florida.

Far removed from the college scene and South Florida, Jared and I have kept in touch through the years and met up a bunch of times in Los Angeles. For a period of time, we both lived in the sexy hills of North Bel Air with Lady Gaga and Chris Paul.
(shameless LA name drop for status - we lived in little apartments though)

It turns out that we have way more in common than just being stupid meatheads with emotional problems.

It's that whole "Mr. Juxtaposition" thing that I talked about.

- A guy that does all sorts of stuff that contrasts with his physical appearance.

-- A guy that really can't be stereotyped or fits multiple differing stereotypes.

--- A guy that really does lots of stuff with his life simply because he has accepted (and slowly embraced) that he is different.

Jared especially.

I really don't know anyone like him.

Jared is the strongest kid I know that has not used performance enhancing drugs (to my knowledge). I once saw him bench press 315 pounds 30+ times without a spot. It might have been 40+ times actually. He's also written several screenplays, has one of the world's largest transformers collections and knows where almost every single NFL player went to college.

The meatheads think he's a nerd and the nerds think he is a meathead.
(I get the same thing)

Jared, like me in my early 20's, is very introspective, often pondering the meaning of life and the previous universe from which once he came.

But unlike me in my early 20's, Jared is also a DO'er and not just a daydreamer.

It wasn't until I was 26 that I really started to get my shit together and stopped having a mundane life based around lifting weights and surfing the Internet reading about other guys lifting weights.

But the greatest similarity that we have has very little to do with the gym -

We have ALWAYS prioritized ourselves.

Sometime in our 20's, we ACTUALLY started embracing a 'ME FIRST' attitude and were willing to run with our crazy ideas.

I dropped my scholarship and left Law School to pickup girls for 3+ years.

Jared dropped everything in his life to co-author a book with his mentor on the original Transformers cartoon.

While many people will reach this 'ME FIRST' attitude, it's usually not until they are in their mid-30's when financial obligations and poor decisions from their 20's (soul-killing mortgage, marriage, job, etc.) make it virtually impossible to gain momentum on new projects.

Your 20's are all about 'finding yourself' by trying a whole bunch of things but not destroying your bank account and credit in the process.

Your 20's are about TRUSTING YOUR INSTINCTS.

If it seems right at the time - that is what you need to do.
(any sort of financial or lasting emotional investment must be reviewed carefully)

You will rarely be wrong.

Win or lose, you won't regret TRUSTING YOUR INSTINCTS because you DID WHAT YOU WANT.
(related: "30 Things I Wish I Knew in My 20's")

My suggestion (based on my own life) is -

Prioritize a couple of years in your 20's to Getting Laid and living frugally. Then get 2 or 3 fuckbuddies or a hot supportive girlfriend and learn how to make money online until it starts paying the bills. Then gradually expand your business[es]. Once you reach your mid-30's, you'll have collected more money and sex than many people will in 3 lifetimes. Then you can decide what you really want to do with your life.

But better yet -

Don't follow my blueprint.

DO WHAT YOU WANT.

Just be willing to fail until you succeed.

That is how life is won.

---

This quote motivated Jared to create toilet paper with generic inspirational sayings that people could wipe with:

Hey Guys.

My name's Jared, and the most gratifying thing I've done for my career is stick to me. I grew up in interesting circumstances with unique parents, but all that did was make people less surprised when I chose to do what I wanted to do in my life, for my life. Despite a rough upbringing, I thankfully didn't waste much time toiling around in jobs I hated. My job description, "human who does lots of things", has existed as long as I have.

That's the dream, right?

A few of the things I've done by 29 (I'm now 30) include:

1. I wrote a screenplay for a major Hollywood producer.
2. I helped people worldwide get out of chronic pain.
   (leave a comment for Jared if you want more information)
3. I co-authored a book on the original Transformers cartoon with my mentor, Ron Friedman, who wrote and created much of the show and the animated movie.
4. I bench pressed over 500 pounds.
5. I launched a lifestyle brand with a flagship product that is currently under review for sale at the major retailer, Urban Outfitters.

I could write a book about my experiences, and in fact I am.

It will be called "A DISEASE IN THREE ACTS", and will have its foreword written by one of the most renowned doctors in the country.

But in the meantime, I'd like to tell you about how life's ugliness, combined with finding my worth and sticking to it, turned me into somebody both interesting and valuable to others after living about 24 years of my life thinking I was the most ugly, transcendentally useless person on the planet.

Before he passed away, my father was a doctor in Miami who was considered like a 'Dr. House'. He ran the intensive care unit of a huge hospital (life and death medicine, where you go if you're too fucked up for the ER), was one of the first medical students to gain residency at an Ivy League school as a non-MD (he was a DO, Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, considered to be quacks and less smart), and went on to redefine the field of end-of-life bioethics. He was creative and fun, collecting comics, buying a Delorean and having the people who built Johnny Rockets put a 1950s diner in my house after Hurricane Andrew (I had a field trip to my own house in the fourth grade).

My father decided to get clean when I was four years old (you'd be surprised had many doctors use). Well-intended, it wasn't always fun for the family. He was trapped in a marriage he hated, and took it out on me to the point to where I believed that I was angry 100% of the time (even when I smiled, I felt like a serial killer). When I would try to stand up for myself or my mother, I would have my outrage echoed by him, shaming me into believing that I was not only wrong to begin with, that I was also mentally deficient for even having my own opinion. I survived by being physically stronger and faster than everybody, as well as being nice and funny. I did well in school too, but this was in spite of hating myself.

This didn't last for long.

At age 15, on the same exact day, I tore my ACL for the second time and my mother moved out of my Dad's house. In the same day, my family split up and I lost the protection and my identity of being an athlete.

Thus began a very dark period in my life.

Kids at my snotty Miami public school picked up on my depression (for which my doctor Dad tried me to get on about six medications, all of which did nothing), and soon those who used to tell me I'd be a first-team defensive tackle were now writing “Fag” on multiple printouts of my old AOL homepage, posting it around school.

Somehow I made it to the University of Florida, fully depressed and overweight, so mixed about what I wanted to do that I took all of the Pre-Med requirements while majoring in Creative Writing.

I met Chris at the gym after recognizing his face as that of the profile picture from a Facebook group we were both in: I Bench Over 400. I offered him a spot as a non-creepy way to introduce myself. We've been in touch since because – despite his struggles that are known to you and mine that are unknown – we detected early on a shared intensity, and whether we saw it at the time, a built-in capacity to use it to our advantage. All it would take were for some more bad things to happen.

While unique circumstances that you're born into or are given seem to be the requirements for leading that interesting, self-tailored life you want, in reality it's only a historical context for making the pursuit of your unique interests more understandable. And maybe because you've survived the unique circumstances, maybe it gives you a little more confidence than someone who on the surface doesn't seem so “interesting.”

But interesting circumstances can also kill you (Robin Williams, David Foster Wallace).

I was a Transformers-loving, self-hating, physically-powerful-yet-overly-sensitive neurotic, a kid who can easily be called a therapy brat for all the shrinks my Dad sent me to, the way a military brat lives from base-to-base. "A kid who was trying to make it in Hollywood, which requires the thickest skin, mixed so powerfully with my my lack of self-worth that I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, going from the strongest guy in the gym to someone who couldn't even pump his own gas, with my Dad, at this point dying from esophageal cancer, telling me “it's all in your head.” Which is, of course, what he had been telling me about everything bad that I was since I was a kid.

While pursuing Screenwriting in graduate school at Chapman University (I almost dropped out 4 times), in pain from head to foot, I researched the mind-body connection until I found the evidence that my Dad was right.

This may be bizarre to you -

I was causing myself excruciating physical pains largely by thinking about it. I had trained my mind to inflict acute physical pain on my body.

My Dad was correct, but I had to hear it from someone else. I finally was able to connect to my father's love before he passed away. This, at 24, was the beginning of finding meaning in my life.

24 was the turning point.

I had collected Transformers since I was four, and had one of the biggest collections in the country by graduate school. I sold much of it on eBay to pay for chronic pain treatments that didn't work. One of my professors knew about this, and asked me for advice on how to best sell his own development materials, which amounted to over $50,000 in unreleased scripts and outlines for the Transformers and GI:Joe cartoons. When the stuff was sold, it made its way onto fan message boards. People hammered my professor with questions. I told him to write a book, and he asked me to contribute. "I KILLED OPTIMUS PRIME" comes out some time next year.

Thus my low self-esteem and a “nerdy” habit that I was told to be ashamed of are now making me money doing what I love. Transformers is the biggest toy brand on the planet.

One corner of Jared's massive collection of Transformers

After getting out of chronic pain and returning to the gym, I saw how so much of self-help was the bullshit marketing of nothingness, like a pile of dandruff placed into a sack labeled “gold ingot.”

While I was waiting for feedback on a script, I went back to my repository of experiences, to what I felt in my heart and to what I was naturally arriving at in thought and conversation, to a point of irrepressible opinion. I thought back to those quack therapists who gave me meaningless self-help platitudes when I complained that the series of 12 bodywork sessions I bought for $150 a piece didn't help my pain (“You're not ready to be out of pain.”).

Instead of taking a 9-5 like I was “told” I now needed to do, I started to trust my intuition about what my experiences had taught me about humanity, and created 'Namastain' (namastain.com), a toilet paper that has printed on it the most meaningless cliched wisdom I could find.

I've just sold my 200^th roll.

Not bad for a couple months!

Certainly not bad for a guy living in muggy Central Florida (to be by my daughter), where the most prestigious job around is hairstylist who gets to chain smoke between clients.

The Internet is where it's at.

I can tell you that as someone who at one point took a middle school teaching job just to be closer to my daughter, before things started coming together for me, that EVERY SINGLE ME FIRST PERSON has something unique and valuable to offer (eventually).

Some people refuse to pursue it even as it pushes back as a passion, and live the 9-5 in more fear of falling out of a box than staying in one. It might be a thought process or a confidence thing: you were either told you weren't good enough, wouldn't amount to anything, or you were never encouraged by superiors and peers to consider the possibility that you had value. Thus begins the aging process, in which you simply lose things because nothing is ever again developed. It doesn't have to happen to you, no matter who you are.

Be patient and open with yourselves as you zoom in on and hone your attributes into something transmissible. Put effort into the dreams as they resonate. Enjoy those moments when you realize that what you have to say and what you exist for probably will connect to others.

Trust your instincts.

Don't be afraid to start all over again, you'll eventually find your way.

What kills you is the consecutive days of 'same old' that amount to NOTHING long-term.

We live in a world in which who you are and what you love – as Chris, his colleagues and myself have shown – have value beyond a platitude.

Check out Jared's invention and wipe your ass with cliche mainstream motivational advice -

• Namastain - New Age Toilet Paper Product
  (not an affiliate link)

Pour Conclure
(by Good Looking Loser)

What I want people to get from this is -

TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS.

If you have an idea of a product or service that you would buy, go create it and bring it to the market.

I've done that more times that I can count and it always works if you are willing to "fail" for a couple of months.

I'm no smarter than you. In fact, I'm less smart - I don't think anymore.

With the Internet, you have more resources and distribution networks than you'd ever need.

You don't need a business plan, market research team, advertising firm or a ton of starting capital to be successful.

Whether your first idea is your "true passion" or makes $1 or $1 million dollars, isn't really the point.
(the website/channel 'Hair Loss From Steroids' was my first online idea, it makes $2500+ a month; it is not my passion nor will it make me a million dollars - it will make me $2500+ a month though. It is consists of 30-40 webcam videos and a 5 page website with plenty of grammar mistakes)

If you are going to be wealthy (or just financially stable), you will need multiple streams of income.

So go create your first.

You already have plenty of good ideas.

update (December 2015):
Here's Namastain's first commercial featuring legendary powerlifter Scot Mendelson -