Investing in Yourself

Classic business coaching advice is “Invest your heart out, take risks!” And you might be expecting me to say that – and in this post I am saying that… to a degree.

But I got myself into a sticky situation with investing in myself in 2018, so I’m sharing them in the hopes you can learn from my mistakes.

Between June–August 2018, I invested several thousand dollars into online courses and business programs that didn’t give me the return I expected. Looking back, it was a brilliant learning experience, because now I understand the power of slick marketing that makes unfulfillable promises. However, at the time, I thought I just hadn’t found the magic pill yet (top tip: there is no magic pill).

In October 2018, I invested every single dollar I had into my High Performance Coaching Certification, without considering what might happen if an unexpected expense occurred – and it did. I got a $2000 smack in the face when I arrived at Heathrow airport for my flight to go to my training in Phoenix, Arizona without a visa (Who knew you needed an ESTA visa waiver? Apparently everyone except me). I missed my flight, and had to book a new flight on the spot.

Just to be clear: I did not have $2000. I was lucky that I have an amazing partner and he was willing to put it on his debit card – leaving him with only $20 to get the bus back from London to Brighton. I am incredibly thankful he was willing to help me out that horrible situation (I will be forever grateful, thank you, Daniel!).

After coming home from the certification, and after paying off that $2000 – I felt burned. I was suddenly in a place with money I had never been before: my boyfriend was paying our rent, my mum was loaning me money... it was not a fun time. I cried a lot. My coaching business wasn’t bringing in enough income. I had anxiety about getting a job because of a traumatic past experience. I ended up in a total of $4500NZD of debt. At that point, I didn’t want to see anything with a price tag over $4 (or £2, since I was living in the UK) and I was terrified of ever making another large investment.

Don’t get me wrong – the investment in my coaching was a brilliant one, and I wouldn’t change it. However, it would have been a good idea to have had something I hadn’t heard of at that time: an emergency fund.

In early 2019, I discovered financial teacher, Dave Ramsey, and his “baby steps to financial freedom”, and it was like the clouds parted and I could suddenly see how I would set myself up for success long term. I was hooked. The best part? It was totally free.

If you don’t know the Baby Steps, they are essentially a life plan for how you will create financial freedom, and they apply to everyone in every situation, no matter your economic status.

I devoured Dave’s YouTube videos and I got myself out of debt in a matter of just a few months.

Now, two years after my first investment, I’m ready to make investing in myself a priority again.

Only this time, it will be different. I’ve got an emergency fund. I’ve got a money-management app. I know my limits. I will never, ever, ever go into debt again, unless it is for a mortgage. And even then, I’m cautious.

My new identity: I am someone who invests in myself.
Also my new identity: I am a wise investor.

So should you make that big investment?
If you’re finding it hard to answer this question, ask yourself this question instead:

Should you go jump out of an airplane?

The answer is “Yes, of course. But bring a parachute.”

Pushing vs Being Pulled

The things that feel most right in my life are the things I am being pulled towards.
The things that are wrong, the hustle, the icky feelings – they all come from a place of PUSH.

This distinction hit me like a lightning bolt today.

A great example is my coaching practice. People have often said to me in the past that they would have given up if they were me, based on how much “hard work” I’m putting in. But the thing is, it doesn’t feel like hard work. It takes effort, but I’m being PULLED by my vision. It’s automatic effort. Putting in the effort doesn’t take any effort. When I’m pushing myself towards something, it takes effort to put in effort.

Even though I’m only beginning to understand this, I feel like this is the distinction between a desire and a true calling. A desire requires you to push. A calling is literally reaching out to you, beckoning you, pulling you in. You just have to take the steps.

But the thing is, from the outside, you can’t tell if someone is being pushed or pulled. The only person who knows is you.

Are you being pulled towards your dream, or are you pushing?

Living The Dream

I heard the words come out of my mouth today and I was kind of taken aback: “I’m living my dream.”

I never thought I’d say those words until I was a MEGA successful person with a whole lot of achievements under my belt. But you know what? It’s true. Because the dream is to be pursuing the dream.

I think of all the people in history who have spent their lives fighting for their rights, or just working to stay alive. No medicine, no rights, no love.

I think of all the people in the world today who are just trying to get by, who don’t have a house or enough food to get them through the day.

I’m blessed to be pursuing my dreams. What more could I really ask for?

What If It's Not Working?

You’ve set your impossible goal. You’ve been taking massive action. And it’s not working.

If you’re struggling, and it’s horrible, and you’re exhausted, and you cry a lot, and the whole thing is miserable.

That’s how you know you’re doing it RIGHT.

It’s supposed to suck. That’s why you set an impossible goal in the first place. You want to do something that most people aren’t willing to do. You want to test yourself, to see how far you can push your limits.

Nobody wants to hear the story of the person who set a goal and achieved it with no trouble at all. We want to hear the story of the person who achieved something impossible against all odds.

Staying positive with your impossible goal isn’t about pretending it’s all going right. it’s about embracing the struggle and saying, bring it baby.

What Do You Ache for?

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

– Oriah Mountain Dreamer

What does your soul ache for?

That’s all I want to know.

Just Choose Three

If you’re interested in personal development (which you probably are if you’re reading this blog!), then you’ll know just how much amazing content there is in the world. From old school giants like Tony Robbins and Oprah Winfrey, to popular gurus like Brendon Burchard and Gabby Bernstein, to your smaller instagrammers and YouTube influencers – there are a million different places to look for great advice and personal development tips.

While it’s fantastic that there’s so much content to consume, the downside is that there’s almost too much – cue Analysis Paralysis: the feeling of being overwhelmed with choices, unsure who’s content to implement. This rings especially true when there are teachers with conflicting messages.

Post 7x a day on Instagram / Spend less time on social media
Focus on your mindset more than anything / You wont get anywhere without action
Don’t fight your natural desires / Wake up at 4am everyday
Facebook ads are the way to go / Organic networking is the only way
Go on the Keto diet / Vegan 100%
Be a productivity machine / focus only on one thing until you’re really good at it

Confusing much?

Here’s the thing: I believe that any method works for anything – as long as you actually follow it to the letter.

For example, you can lose weight on the vegan diet, the paleo diet, the Keto diet, the Master Cleanse, fasting, anything – they all work, as long as you’re dedicated whole-heartedly to the method.

But if you try to mix ad match, vegan one day, fasting the next, keto the next, paleo next – your body and mind will be ultra confused, and it’s unlikely to work, right?

That’s why I’ve discovered that it makes so much more sense to choose just a handful of mentors and follow their word to the letter.

Here are my three main mentors:

Brooke Castillo = Mindset
Brendon Burchard = High Performance
Stacey Boehman = Business

That’s all.

Of course, I still consume the occasional piece of content from Gary Vee, Gabby Bernstein, Marie Forleo, The Minimalists, Tony Robbins, Marianne Williamson, Mel Robbins, Gretchen Rubin, Oprah, Elizabeth Gilbert, (you name it, I love them all). But there’s no way I can follow all of their advice, all of the time. So I’ve chosen my top 3 mentors, and I’m sticking with them – at least for this year. I’ll hear other advice, but I’m sticking to the Brooke, Brendon and Amy diet 100%. Their words are my gospel!

Who are your three mentors for 2020?

Architect Your Life

“If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.”

- Jim Rohn -

This quote properly pains me, because I’ve seen so many people hand over their life to someone else’s grand plan. It doesn’t matter what your plan is, as long as it’s your plan. It doesn’t have to complicated plan, but it doesn’t need to be architected by you.

We get to choose our destinies – what will yours be?

Do We Want the Process?

Do we want the process, or just the result?

When we look at someone else’s life and think – I want that – do we stop to consider if we want how they got it?

Gary Vee is a beautiful example. I love what Gary Vee preaches about working hard, being patient and hustling like crazy, but also, I don’t want Gary Vee’s lifestyle. Nope, I’m not willing to put in the work it takes to put out 60 pieces of content a DAY, like he advises.

“99% of people aren’t willing to put in the work it takes to be a billionaire!”

That’s meant to make us feel motivated to be in the 1%. But I’ll proudly admit I’m part of the 99% who don’t want to put in the work it takes to be a billionaire. I can think of a lifetime of priorities more important to me than becoming a billionaire. Sure – if, like Oprah or J.K. Rowling, I became a billionaire by accident, it would be a different story. But I’m not setting “a billion dollars” as one of my goals. Screw that. I don’t want the process.

When we set goals, we have to think about the process. For example, if your goal is to be a New York Times Best Seller, take a look at your perfect (or at least, enjoyable) day. If it doesn’t include sitting and writing for hours on end, maybe an NYTBS isn’t really want you want. This also happens to be the way I figured out I didn’t want to be a fashion designer (it turns out I just wanted to wear cool clothes).

If we love the process, we’ll be happy whether we achieve our goals or not. Choose the process, not the result.

How to Know When to Give Up

Yesterday I watched my brain disguise an excuse as a true reason to give up on one of my goals.

I heard it say to me “It’s so hard to post videos every week. Your videos are so cringe anyway. Plus, you don’t have time for this. You don’t really want to do videos, you just set the goal in the heat of the moment. You can always post one next week instead when you have something better to say.”

Ha!

I know my brain extremely well. I know BS when I hear it. Yet this one almost had me, but I caught myself at the last second. I was lucky this time – I’ve seen plenty of my own dreams go down the toilet because my brain disguised an excuse as a valid reason to give up.

Not this time. Here’s the thing: occasionally, there are valid reasons to give up. They are so few and far between, you can almost always assume that little voice inside your head telling you that “this time doesn’t count” or “have a rest day” is just an excuse. But how do you tell the difference?

Here’s the test:

Ask yourself, “Would I want this goal if I didn’t have to work for it?”

In my case, I imagined having 52 videos (one for every week of the year) posted to my YouTube channel. I imagined how much better my videos would be by the time I’d made 52. I thought about how I could say I had properly, whole-heartedly had a go at my dream of creating video content.

If someone handed me on a silver platter my own YouTube channel with 52 videos on it, I would very happily take it.

There’s my answer. NO. It is not time to give up. I only felt like giving up because in the moment it felt hard to create a video. But I didn’t, and I’m so grateful I didn’t, because come December, I can’t wait to see 52 videos from this year on my channel. I had a similar experience when I first committed to writing on my blog every single day for two years. Day 48 of 730 was the day I almost gave up (I’m on day 198 today).

Asking yourself, “Do I still want this?” is hard to gauge when you’re faced with putting down the ice cream or putting on your workout gear or facing the blinking cursor on your Word document.

However, asking yourself “Would I still want this if I didn’t have to work for it?” has a gut reaction. Yes or no. You know straight away if it’s fear, procrastination making an excuse, or if it’s truly no longer what you want.

You know the answer. Follow through. The pain is only temporary, the reward is forever.

Things I Haven’t Figured Out Yet

A while ago I saw one of my mentors post about the things she hasn’t figured out yet, and I absolutely loved reading them. It made me feel incredibly grateful to see that she is still learning. Even the world’s greatest teachers haven’t got it all figured out.

(Ooh, it makes me wonder what Oprah or Tony Robbins haven’t figured out!)

So here’s my list. Of course, this list is not exhaustive, and in real life my “Things I haven’t figured out” is infinite. I will be forever a student. But here are the most relevant ones at this point in time – Tuesday, 21st of January at 9:53pm.

Things I have figured out:

How to be myself
How to push my limits
How to motivate others
How to follow my heart
How to have fun without alcohol
How to enjoy flying
How to have great relationships
How to make money doing something I love
How to change my mood/state quickly
How to travel on a budget
How to coach people
How to forgive – both myself and others

Things I haven’t figured out yet:

How to know when to stop pushing my limits
How to manage embarrassment
How to scale a business
How to fuel my body to it’s optimum
How to meditate for longer than 30 minutes
How to be completely present
How to balance masculine and feminine energy
How to influence people for social movements
How to sing or paint
How to coach people on anything
How to breakdance
How to do 100 push ups

What have you figured out and not figured out yet? Let me know in the comments!