When I started my first business, I was broke, living with my parents and working a frustrating job. It was a no-brainer to go in the direction of starting my own business to be my own boss and take control of my time and earnings.
When I first got started I thought it was going to be a piece of cake to make tons of money and I thought I’d be rolling it in within a few days. Boy was I wrong. Firstly, it took me a whole month to design and get a website up thinking it needed to be perfect, it took me about a week to work up the courage to call one lead and I was so afraid of spending money on advertising in case it didn’t work. On top of that, when I’d come home from my job, instead of working on my business I’d watch South Park and How I Met Your Mother. At the end of every week, I’d beat myself up because I hadn’t done any work in my business.
You see, my business wasn’t going anywhere – no one told me it was going to be this hard. A few months later, I thought to myself that maybe I should start getting on the live company training calls and start reading the Personal Development program I got through the business. To my surprise, a couple of weeks after doing this I signed up my first person through the business and it was so much easier than what I thought.
Over the next few months my business went up and down and I didn’t know why. I was also stop starting with getting on the training calls and doing my Personal Development program. Looking back on it now, I didn’t realise that my results in business where a direct reflection of my personal growth. When I fed my mind with new wisdom and knowledge (and applied it), my business grew. And when I didn’t work on myself, my business didn’t go anywhere.
After having this realisation, I now priorities my personal development because I know that to get to the next level, in life and business, I constantly need to be uncovering limiting beliefs that are holding me back, changing unsuccessful habits into successful habits, and learning how to interact better with the world around me.
Some of the things I learned through my personal development were that I need to stop listening to the opinions of the people around me. I had family and friends making fun of me because I wanted to be successful and I had to develop myself to the point where the only opinion that mattered was that of my already successful mentors. I learned that my results are 100% in my control. I used to hope that a successful person would come to my rescue and make me rich, then I realised that I alone can create my own results by developing myself and doing the required work. I also learned that success is not a straight line. When creating success in life you're going to be thrown off track and it's up to you to make the required course corrections so you continue heading toward your goals. Did you know that a rocket to the moon is only 7% of the time on the correct course? The rest of the time it's off course and needs to be corrected and put back on course! That's a perfect analogy for creating success in your life. If you know your destination (goals and dreams), no matter what happens, you can always get back on course. I could talk endlessly about the lessons I’ve learned but I’ll leave them for future posts (be sure to subscribe to this blog to stay updated).
Focusing on my personal growth on a daily basis has also been one of the most empowering things I do. When I’m having challenges in business and I don’t feed my mind, all my focus goes on the challenges and my self talk can easily become a negative one. But when I focus on my personal development and challenges come up, I feel empowered to overcome them because my internal communication is one of strength and power. It’s amazing what can happen when everyday you read something that’s reminding you how much power you have as an individual!
Tony Robbins, the most sought after success coach, says that 20% of your results is the technical work, the other 80% of your results is mindset (or your psychology). So if you're only focused on “doing the thing”, it's going to feel like an uphill battle. But when you combine it with conscious personal development, you're going to have the right mindset for success, you'll be more in flow and your results will feel effortless.
To conclude, I’d love to give you a gift so you see how powerful working on yourself is. There’s an amazing book I was recommended, by my friend Hems, that completely changed my perspective on life and being a giver. The book is called The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and I would highly recommend that you read it and apply it's principles. You’ll be blown away at how much power there is in reading and applying a book like this!
How To Win At Life Part II – Counting Your Wins is now up. To read this life-changing article, click here.
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Alex Ford
Digital Marketing Trainer
Email: [email protected]
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I once read that people rather can skip a meal than skip reading and learning…
This I will never forget!
Thank you for your blog post Alex,
it touches on important values!
~Muriël
I read that saying somewhere too Dirk! I think it was Jim Rohn or something. And I sure live it! Skipping a meal does’t make as much an impact as skipping reading or learning. Thanks for stopping by 🙂
I am one of those people Muriel, I get so engrossed I forget to eat. And I know that what I feed my mind affects my bottom line.
Alex, this post spoke to me. I actually hadn’t put it down to those moments when I forget to feed my mind with the right food and self development definitely drives my mind to the positives, the actions I need t take and The motivation to do it.
Its very easy for many to let other people’s negativity hold them back in the state they are used to. Yet they shout how much they want change! Change comes form within see if your ind is not so hungry for it you will do whatever it takes to change then your actions wont follow! And thats where Our Mind Food Is essential!
Thank you for this
Hi Julie, glad you got lots from it! Your comment just brought something up for me…
A couple of weeks ago I hadn’t done any personal development for 5 days and, this particular day, I came across a few challenges in life and business. I instantly knew I was feeling dragged down because my mindset wasn’t in the right place. So I told my wife that I’d be staying up late (it was a Sunday night) to read. I was up util 3:30am and read two personal development books. I then did some work until 4:30am because I was feeling pumped and my energy levels were through the roof so early in the morning – my mind had completely shifted and my internal communication became one of success again. I ended up going to sleep at 4:30am until 10am, and when I woke up I still felt like a million bucks and ready to take on life!
So like you said, the key take away is that Mind Food is essential. When things feel like a drag, focus on yourself first and your business second. But if you’re constantly feeding your mind, you’ll feel powerful all the time.
Straight up TRUTH bro!!
Sure is! 🙂
Very interesting story Alex. I couldn’t agree more — the foundation, the bottom line, is mindset. It is important to work on mindset constantly to help us navigate all else. Thanks for the post!
Absolutely Carol! We need to weed out all the ineffective thinking we’ve picked up all our lives and replace it with a whole new level of thinking, if we want better results in our lives.
All in all though mate…How I met Your Mother is a damn good show……
But seriously, This post is solid gold!
Everytime I take a step back from working on myself (which just so happens is way more than I truly like to admit…) not only do I not feel as good about myself, my life and my future, but also my business seems to come to a complete stop, even go backwards.
Its been a struggle, being a construction worker and always surrounded by bitching and whinging, but I have to always make sure I am working on myself.
Haha I’m with you on that one! But I stopped about 2 seasons short because I got serious in my business. I haven’t even watched those last 2 seasons and I don’t intend to. I’m busy creating my own life story now… it’s so much more exciting than watching other people play out their dreams on TV hehe 🙂
I feel you on that one! The best thing you can do, in that situation, is work harder on yourself than you do at your job. And live to be the example of what is possible! Thanks for the awesome share Alex 🙂
I’m in a similar boat like yours Alex. Wanting a better future, not getting ridiculed by family and friends to just “Get Real” Even though I’ve successfully held my job and have been there for 13 years. I feel that there is so much more that what is being offered to me. And the best way to learn is of cause self-development and learning from one another is way faster and better than any degree could give..
You’re absolutely right Dave! Society tends to want to keep us in the same box it’s in, but we must break out of that box and grow ourselves if we want to live an extraordinary life.
Thanks for sharing your experience 🙂