– Jim Rohn
There’s usually one very big difference between highly successful people and people who wish they were highly successful: the willingness to invest in yourself.
You see, people who have achieved great things understand that they were not born with the silver spoon of marketing in their mouth, nor the silver spoon of sales in their mouth or the silver spoon of a perfect mindset.
They realize that they, like everybody else, are a work-in-progress.
I rarely share this, but I never finished university. In fact, I didn’t get good grades. I also never finished my coach training (I already had a full practice before it was halfway over). I now believe that I am not the type of person who sits happily in an academic building to learn in the traditional way.
That being said, I heavily invest in my growth. Some people invest several hundred thousand dollars in their academic education at the age of 18 when they don’t even know what they want. I choose to invest in myself now, decades later, when I know exactly what I want. This has proven to be a very successful move.
In fact, it was Jim Rohn, I believe, who said something along the lines of, “Traditional learning will make you a living. Self-education will make you a fortune.”
Highly successful people never stop learning. They invest in themselves where others will not.
So, even though I didn’t finish my traditional education, my self-education is constantly happening. I am always participating in a mastermind or working with at least one high-level mentor coach who is well ahead of me, which is why I’m able to teach so much to our hundreds of members.
Each year, I work on upgrading my own mindset and increasing my personal growth, reading several books at once, while working with an intuitive healer to remove my obstacles.
A friend of mine says, “Success leaves clues.” This is one of those clues… People sometimes think I invest in myself because I’m successful, but it’s the opposite. I’m successful because I invest in myself.
If you were to stop any highly successful person and ask, “What do you do to sharpen the saw?”, they will likely tell you that they invest in themselves constantly, whether it be in their mindset, health and body, in their business and their skills; they are consistently investing in themselves.
And here’s the thing I tell people all the time, you may look at what it COSTS to invest in yourself and say, “Oh my gosh, that’s so much money!”
But ask yourself, “Ok, is this for just NOW? Or will I keep “the learning” for the rest of my life? Will I keep the skill set for the rest of my life?” Of course it’s for the rest of your life.
Also ask yourself the following: “If the amount I invested in myself with this training, this coach, this mastermind, this personal growth would result in four or 10 times the return on investment, would it make sense?” Of course it would.
But, perhaps you, like many people (like I, in the beginning) come up with excuses: “This is too much. I’m too busy. I don’t feel like doing this. What if it doesn’t work? It hasn’t worked in the past. What’s different about this particular program?”
Notice that these excuses, beliefs or fears that are preventing you from investing in yourself are really self-sabotage.
I say this to our members all the time: “All you have to do is show up. Just show up and we’ll do the rest. We’ve got the recipes, we’ve got the ingredients. We’ve got chefs who can teach you all these recipes. Your only job is to step into the kitchen with us. And that’s where you will get everything that you need to move your business forward.”
So pull out your journal and write down:
What are the fears around investing in yourself?
What are the limiting beliefs around investing in yourself?
What are the disempowering rules that you have around investing in yourself?
What are the excuses that you use most often that prevent you from positively investing in yourself?
Seriously, write the answers to these questions now. (I should have done it then, but no one told me.)
These are the things that are getting in the way.
Just about everybody in the beginning makes excuses or has fears around investing money in themselves. (I did too!!) But once they see the return on investment show up again and again and again, they realize what a treasure it is – an undeniable asset.
So, my advice? Start now. Somehow. Start reading the books, taking the programs, joining the masterminds, hiring the people, the practitioners, the healers, the coaches that you need, join the program you want to join (even if it feels like a stretch) because this helps you become the successful person that you’ve always wanted to be. And if you’d like to talk about working together, reach out to me here. We would love to hear about your business and see if we can help.
No more playing small, invest in yourself for the rest of your life.
