The Rich Get Richer And The Poor…

I want to try to work on the paradigm that the rich get richer. The reason people are rich is because they value education, and not just formal education; self education. Very successful people do not shy away from personal development, however the working class tends to have a skewed view on it .I am trying to figure out why people feel they don’t need personal development(or personal growth. They’re both interchangeable). It is really a strange concept to me, , but in my opinion the issue arises with what they associate it to.

Our sub-conscious mind is very good at associations. That’s why good marketers are really good at getting your attention; they make their product appeal to a positive association. However, on the flip side our sub-conscious mind is very good at negative associations. For example lets take the swastika, it is almost always associated with Nazi’s, but very rarely is it thought of as a symbol that’s been around for thousands of year; this is a negative association. Where a large yellow “m” is almost always associated with the corporate behemoth McDonald’s. Our mind takes simple phrases or symbols and associates it with an opinion we can relate to.

When the words personal development are brought up a lot of people automatically assume that this is only for lesser people; people who are struggling or “not all there”. This association is one of the largest societal hindrances that 21st century earth has to offer. Like I said before, this association truly confuses me. Lets break this down:

The term is comprised of two words.

1. Personal
2. Development

Here is where I get confused because it is as simple as it sounds! The first word personal, simply pertains to yourself and that’s it. Secondly, development simply means getting better. Think about it in terms of professional athletes, they go thru skills development all the time. Personal development is similar. While they’re developing their skill sets for their specific sports personal development is developing our skill sets with the way we interact with people, the way we handle personal issues(external and internal), our leadership abilities, and other internal skills. Personal development is all about creating character.

To back my point up about and to add some credibility lets look at the types of the companies that spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring in top leadership experts to speak to their C level employees. If fortune 500 companies, professional sports teams, The White House, bring in experts to facilitate the growth of their leaders how come we, as the masses, are so hesitant to do so?

The masses are hesitant because they don’t understand, the association of personal growth is wrong and needs to change. Having a plan for personal growth is essential. The rich don’t get richer because they get all the breaks and scam the poor. The rich get richer because they grow and become better leaders.

I was going to write a sentence to close this post, but why? I can think of a quote by personal development legend Jim Rohn that sums it up perfectly.

Formal education will make you a living; Self-education will make you a fortune.

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The Pursuit of Happiness

When we come to the conclusion that we are not happy with any aspect of our life we are faced with two possible paths:

1) Continue doing what we are doing and be unhappy or,

2) Make a conscious choice to change what we are doing.

This may seem like a no brianer. Hey this isn’t working. I am going to make changes. But, why don’t we follow through with this?

Its’ uncomfortable, I don’t like risks, seems like a lot of work, and so on and so on. One of the largest challenges however occurs when adversity rears it’s ugly head.

There are different levels of adversity and majority of it is easy to brush off, but what about the more difficult stuff? Like when you get adversity from your family? Or your close friends? How about adversity from people that you look up to?

Have you ever encounter adversity and let it stop you right in your tracks? Why is this? What has to happen to you to prevent this? It’s all just a mental game.

Weight out the options. Whats more important? Your ego or your happiness? Remember that this is YOUR life and you are making these changes to make YOU happy. Is the reason why you’re making changes larger than the opinions of others? If yes, continue with your changes and ignore the adversity.

You have to remember that you’re living your life. If you feel that you need to make changes to certain aspects then adversity or opinions don’t factor into your decision making. It’s your life not theirs. People are going to tell you you’re going to fail and that you won’t succeed.

These are their opinions. They don’t know your reason why and if your reason why is big enough then there is nothing that is going to stop you from achieving your result.

You must decide whats more important. Don’t let adversity out-weigh happiness.

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Whats your investment strategy?

Here is a common topic, almost everyone invests on some level. Whether it be investing in retirement savings plans, simple bank investments, large scale business take overs, or the stock market. There is one sort of investment however that doesn’t seem to get the attention that it deserves; investing in yourself.

I recently just got back from a three day intensive training all about creating a mission and vision for my life. Courses and seminars such as these, in my mind, are one of the greatest investments you can make in your lifetime! I hear all the time statements such as “my return on investment this year is 50%” or “the ROI on the property I just flipped was 15%”. Quick question: What is the ROI, or return on investment, on something that will positively change every aspect of your day to day life?

Can you put that into percentages?

Now for some people investing in yourself may seem like a strange concept, but its not anything you’re unfamiliar with. Investing in ourselves can be broken down into two subsections and one we are all very familiar with, the physical.  Things such as going to the gym, or eating healthy are both good investments. Stepping it up, things such as a personal trainer or an appointment with a nutritionist are great investments. This is the same concept as seeing an investment specialist to handle your finances. Paying for expert service to take you to the next level.

The other subsection however, in my opinion, is far more important then the physical; investing in your mind. I consider personal growth to be vitally important, yet it is SO extremely undervalued. I don’t understand why it’s not promoted more frequently. Everything we do in life stems from a decision that we make in our mind, yet we don’t invest in the one thing that creates everything we have in our life.

OK, so for the newbies reading this, a 3 day intensive seminar in a different country may seem a bit extreme, but quite honestly this is so far from the truth. It is nearly impossible to put the power and impact an event like this has into words. There are however many other ways to invest in your mind. For starters pick up a good book! There are so many of them out there that you can get for a reasonable price on Chapters or Amazon, heck even go to the library and get them for free!

Hey, this all sounds great, but readings just not my thing. Not the first time I’ve heard this.

You drive? You ride the bus? There is so much great material in audio form and commuting is the perfect time to feed your brain! Think about how much time you shut your brain off while commuting? Take 20 minutes a day and invest in yourself.

My intention here is to get you aware of some of the ways you can invest in your mind and start making positive changes to get what you want out of life. The amount of material readily available is endless, yet so few utilize it.

Do you have a plan for personal growth?

If you’re not growing you’re dying, thankfully it is not too late to create a plan. Start off small, grab a book or grab an audio disc on personal growth and go from there.

Don’t get overwhelmed with all that is available just start small and get the wheels rolling. You will be amazed what results will come your way if you’re open to grow.

Set an intention to invest in yourself and furthermore set the intention to grow.

Are you aware that you’re not aware?

 

I have been on an active journey of personal growth for about the last 10 months now and it has been an incredible journey. As I was sitting here staring at the blank blog post page searching thru the small archive I have been able to amass of audio recordings looking for something that would inspire me to write, the topic of awareness came into my mind. Prior to this journey if someone asked me the question “on a scale of 1-10 how would you rate your self awareness?” I would have surely answered with an 8 or 9(I don’t like 10, never had, I always feel that there is more room to improve and that being ranked a 10 would be worse then a 1 because I have no room for improvement). Looking back at this now I am baffled at how ignorant I was at my own self awareness; truthfully I should have answered somewhere in the range of 2-4. I simply did not know what I needed to be aware of.

In late September I was fortunate enough to attend an event at which John C Maxwell was the keynote speaker(the inspiration for this post is coming from listening to the audio recording of his speech). He mentioned some things that really got me thinking, and up until about 20 minutes ago I had not made the connection to awareness. I want to paraphrase a piece of what he said:

Nothing good will ever happen to you in your life unless you do it on purpose. Most people get up every morning and accept their life, they don’t lead their life. And if you get up every morning and you just accept your life and say ‘hey whatever happens, happens’. If you go thru life just accepting your life you’ll never be successful. You need to lead your life, you gotta get control of your life, you gotta make decisions. The most important personal success decision you’ll ever make in your life is the decision to personally challenge and grow yourself. I want to challenge you today to make this decision, and if you do this 12 months from now you wont recognize yourself from now. You’ll think higher, you’ll live better, and it all starts by doing it on purpose.

These few sentences that he spoke, not only resonated deeply, but summed up the best decision I have made in my life so far. The theme of what he is saying is awareness. You need to become aware of what you feed your body, not just physically what you eat, but more importantly with what you feed your brain. What are you reading? What do you watch on TV? What are you listening to?(I need to add to this. I have become very aware of the lyrics that are used in popular music these days and nothing about it is positive! This is what majority of society feeds their sub-conscious with, stories of how people are cheated on, or drinking all night and making poor decisions. It is something to pay attention to next time your driving with the radio on!). All of this is being aware of yourself and what you feed your sub-conscious. Napoleon Hill wrote a classic must read book called Think And Grow Rich. In this book he talks about the law of autosuggestion and it’s power I recommend you grab a copy and give it a read if you have not!

I want to touch on a prime example of what becoming aware has done to me in a simple situation that happened as I started writing this blog. I got a text message while I was writing the first sentence of the blog that asked: What are you up to?. Now naturally I went to respond with “Trying to write a blog post!”. Before sending it, and even though I am positive and enthusiastic about writing this I caught that I had used one of the biggest mistakes we can use when using the English language: I wrote the word “Try”. The problem with the word try is that is allows an exit, it tells my sub-conscious that there is a possibility I won’t complete this blog or that I will give up. Its a terrible word! I told myself I was going to write this blog and here I am nearing the end. There was no trying, there was no maybe, I am going to write this and I don’t need to feed my sub-conscious might with the possibility I am not. This is the power of being aware.

I want to leave a challenge for all that are reading this post. I want you to ask yourself how aware are you of your surroundings? What do you allow to filter through your conscious brain and into the sub-conscious. Are you surrounding yourself with the right people? or are they reaping havoc on your sub-conscious? I am going to end with an analogy that John Maxwell mentioned in his speech. Personal growth and the people you surround yourself are a lot like putting two crabs in a bucket. You don’t need to put a lid on it because when one crab starts to climb out and to freedom the other one pulls it back to the bottom of the bucket. Expand your awareness.