When it comes to self-improvement, investing 10% of your income in yourself yields a return on investment of 100x or more. For every dollar spent on education, skills and relationships, you get at least $100 back. If you want to do something really well, you should surround yourself with the right mentors. Everything you ever do well is the result of quality training. If you're nursing something, it's because you haven't received quality instruction in it. The best mentors are the ones where you pay your mentor. Often the more you pay the better because you take the relationship much more seriously. You just don't accept this relationship. You don't just become a consumer. Instead, you are invested and listen more closely. You’ll care more. You’ll be more thoughtful and engaged. There will be higher consequences for not succeeding.
I invested $3,000 to get help writing my first book via ChatGPT from a highly successful writer. That $3,000 got me maybe 4 or 5 hours of his time. But in those 4 or 5 hours, he taught me what I needed to know to create an amazing book by AI. He provided me with resources that greatly improved and accelerated my process. If I had worried too much about the $3,000, I'm not sure to this day that I wouldn't have written the book. The most I would have written was terrible. I wouldn't be as motivated or invested, so I would be much more likely to put off the necessary actions. If you don't have a lot of money, you can certainly afford to buy a book. How much money and time do you spend on entertainment, clothing or food? It is a matter of priority. Only when you invest in something do you have the motivation to make it happen. Beyond mentorships, you should invest in education programs such as online courses, books, quality products such as food and sleep. Your level of success can generally be directly measured by your level of investment. If you’re not getting the results you want, it’s because you haven’t invested enough to get those results.
Your number 1 investment must be yourself. Who you determine:
The quality of marriage you’ll have
The quality of parents you become
The quality of work you produce
The level of happiness you have
Here’s what you’ll find when you financially invest yourself in something. You are very dedicated to this cause. Economists call this the sunk cost fallacy. But you can use it to your advantage. If you want to increase your personal commitment to something, invest heavily in it. Eventually, it becomes a point of no return. You do so fiercely that retreat seems ridiculous. That's why you really need to know WHAT you want and WHY. If you don't know these things, over commitment can be a huge and irrational problem. But if you are sure of WHO you are/want to be, WHAT you want and WHY, you need to invest in yourself.
2. Invest at least 80% of your Free Time in Studying
Most people are consumers, not creators. They work to get paid, not to make a difference. Left to their own devices, most people also spend their time. Only by investing your time will you get a profit for that time. Almost every second spent on social media is wasted time. You can't get that time back. Instead of making your future better, it made your future worse. Just like eating bad food, every moment you spend makes yourself worse. Every moment invested makes you better. Everything is good with entertainment. But only if that entertainment is an investment in your relationship or yourself. You'll know if it was an investment if the entertainment continues to pay off. This can include positive memories, transformative learning or deeper relationships. However, life is not all about entertainment. Education and learning are also important. And while both are necessary, education offers far greater benefits in the future.
The most successful people in the world are intense learners. They are difficult readers. They know that what they know determines how well they see the world. They know that what they know determines the quality of their opportunities and the quality of work they can do. If you spend consistently
3. Don't Work For Money, Work For Learning
"When you are young, work to learn, not to earn." - Robert Kiyosaki
Just as much of your downtime should be spent studying, so should much of your "work" time be spent. Rich and happy people work to learn. Unsuccessful and unhappy people work mainly for money. Only 20% of your energy should be used for your actual work. The rest should be used for study, self-development and rest. By "stealing your prey" you will continue to become a better and more capable person. So if you dedicate a lot of time to becoming a better thinker, communicator and skill, the quality of your work will continue to improve. You can charge a VERY high fee for your work because no one else can do it like you.
If you prioritize learning and recovery, you will be in deep flow during the actual work. You don't get distracted while you work like most people. You are either 100% in or 100% down. If you work, you can get more done in a few hours than most people can in several days. Your time is well spent because your priorities are clear, you are well rested and your mind is fresh.
4. Don't learn for Entertainment, learn to create More Value
"The key to success is not too much knowledge, but the ability to use it. Knowledge is worthless if it is not applied." - Max Lukominsky
In our media and information age, there are millions of things you can learn. But if you don't immediately practice this learning, it becomes superficial knowledge. Information and knowledge are two very different things. Knowledge and wisdom are also two very different things. It takes wisdom to determine what you should learn, why you should learn it, and when you should learn it. If you're not invested, you probably won't study with the intensity necessary to maximize that knowledge. If you don't understand the value of your time, you probably don't have the discretion to ignore almost anything while you learn that will bring the highest returns.
If you learn something, you should be paid to learn it. Too many people today read books just to say they've read a lot of books. If you don't apply what you learn, you are spending and wasting your time.
5. Invest at least 10% of your Income in Vehicles that generate More Money
Very few people create real wealth. Even high earners are not really rich. Most people's lifestyle matches their income. If they make more, they spend more. In fact, most people only earn money to spend. Very few people earn money to invest this money. It's best to think of the business as 1/2 of your income equation. You have your own business that brings in income. Then you have your own investment community to turn your income into even more money. As with anything, how well you manage your money determines how well you are led.
If you want to be successful with money, invest in training and mentoring. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The best time to start investing was also in the past. If you haven't started yet, don't dwell on regrets. People who do nothing today have no tomorrow. Get started today. Educate yourself. Create a vehicle or vehicles in which you contribute at least 10% of your income. Eventually, your investment vehicle may even start generating more profit for you than your actual business.
Compound interest is a real thing. If you put 10% of your income into your investments for a long enough time, you are set. Unlike most high earners, you can STOP WORKING whenever you want because your money will earn you more than enough money to live comfortably.
6. Change your motivation from "Getting to Giving"
"The world gives to the giver and takes from the taker." - Jack Poland
Most people only focus on what they can get out of life. Me, me, me However, when you are more consciously awake to the world, your desire changes from simply receiving to giving. You will understand that it is actually much nicer to give than to receive. In addition, you are driven by a cause in which you fully believe. The truth is, you only have one of two orientations towards people (and life).
Most people have business relationships. They only focus on what they can get from the relationship. This is to further their own agenda. Its roots are in scarcity. It is selfish. That way you won't get far in relationships and in life. It's also a way to get stuck in your own smallness. Transformational relationships, on the other hand, are entirely focused on giving and gratitude—characteristics of abundance. In these relationships, the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts. Both parties overcome their smallness in vulnerability and trust and become something more. It basically assumes a giver, not a receiver. Like Adam Grant in his book Give and Take, when two givers meet, the results are astronomical. Here's a good tip: don't surround yourself with recipients.
When your motivation is to give, you often figure out how to improve your relationships. Random thoughts pop into my head to send "Thank you" texts to different people. You'll get more ideas about how you can improve other people's lives and businesses. You become more involved, which leads to many more opportunities and deeper relationships. People will love and trust you. Your work is driven by a higher cause and is therefore much more inspiring and effective.
7. Openly admit how Dependent you are on other people
Just because your primary motivation is to give doesn't mean you won't seek out a lot of help. In fact, you are constantly seeking and receiving help. The truth is that everyone depends a lot on what other people do. But publicly admitting this addiction requires wisdom and humility. Instead of seeing it as a weakness, realize that it is a strength. In addition to acknowledging your addiction, constantly express your appreciation for the people in your life. What do you value? Relationships are assets that can and should grow better and better over time.
As the genius entrepreneur Michael Fishman said, “Doing it yourself is an illusion. Many people played a divine role in you having the life you have today. Be sure to tell them how grateful you are. If you don't value and give to your relationships, your relationships will suffer.
All relationships are like bank accounts, and if one person is constantly making deposits and the other is constantly making withdrawals, eventually all resources will run out. In such relationships, 1+1 = less than 2. Conversely, in synergistic and healthy relationships, 1+1 = much more than 2. When two people continuously give and receive, the relational bank account grows and expands, providing multiple intended and unintended benefits. benefits For example, I just went to the gym with my brother. At the beginning of training, he had mental difficulties. He didn't increase my energy or help my practice to be better than when I was alone, he drained my energy and demanded more energy and effort from me than when I was alone. I made him aware of what had happened and he immediately changed his emotional attitude.
He understood how drastically his mood affected me. His motivation changed from consuming experiences to creating something great. Our collective mental state strengthened and brought us into the group flow. Our training will be far better than what I could create myself. Not only that, but we also started an inspiring conversation. This led to great insights and connections related to the book I wrote. An amazing exercise was what our synergy was all about. The insights presented in my book were unwanted benefits. This can only happen when both sides of the relationship are actively giving and receiving. Both focus on creation rather than consumption. Both have a primary motivation to help the other succeed.
8. Create mutually beneficial strategic Partnerships to Achieve 10x or 100x goals
"All failed companies are the same: they failed to avoid the competition." — Peter Thiel
Most people compete rather than cooperate. Cooperation is at a much higher level than competition. Competition focuses on itself. It's also very low-level thinking because what you can do on your own is very limited. Competitive people grind. They focus more on profit than on creating real solutions. But when your thinking expands, you realize that you could do so much more with other people. Collaboration creates unique bonds that work on their own. You have excellent skills and knowledge in your field. There are other people in different fields who have skills and knowledge completely outside of your current awareness. These people also have assets that you don't.
If you want to get 10X or 100X results in your industry, you need to develop strategic "win-win" partnerships. This usually happens when you create a plan that combines your skills and assets with someone else's skills and assets. What you can do well, someone else might struggle. What you struggle with, others can do very well. Who can you work with who can speed up your process? Who has assets and resources that you don't? How can you help these people? What partnerships could you develop to help you achieve your goals faster and help them achieve them faster?
When you collaborate with other people, 1+1=more than 2. The whole becomes DIFFERENT than the sum of its parts. This is how CHANGE happens. Only those who cooperate experience real change. People who only function well on their own are stuck in their own narrow worldview and agenda. When you join others, your thoughts and goals change. They keep getting bigger and better. They are different from anything you could ever create yourself. The only way to get such partnerships is to think long term.
You have to be invested in the game. It cannot be commercial. It can't be because of that. It must be something much deeper. If so, you will be much more honest in your work. You show more appreciation. You always do the right thing, even when the right thing is difficult and uncomfortable. Do not seek business relationships. Only seek long term CHANGE relationships.
9. Set 10X goals and Face Your Fears
Look at your current goals. Why is this the measure of your "success"? Why is this your goal? What would happen if you seriously exceeded that goal by 10 times? What if you make $3,000 a month but aim for $30,000 a month? Is that even possible? Of course it is possible. Many people do this. The only difference between them and you is their training, relationship and strategy.
When you set a 10x goal, you have to think about your daily behavior very differently. You need to be more serious in all areas of your life. You must eliminate limiting thinking and distractions. Setting a 10x goal is one of the best things you can do for yourself. This goal should be created when you are in peak mode. You get into peak condition by doing something vigorous, whether it's training, studying, or being in a unique environment like a foreign country. You can even peak by being around certain types of people, people who inspire you to be the best version of yourself. Only you know what makes you cutting edge and passionate. So do whatever gets you there and then write down your goals. State what you will do. Then write that goal down and visualize achieving it every day until it becomes your reality.
When thinking about this goal, do not deviate from the natural flow of ideas that follows. You cannot increase your results 10x by practicing the same thinking and behavior you are doing now. So, by thinking about your goal, you will also get ideas about what you need to actually do to achieve your goal. You may not know what you don't know. So you need to start really educating yourself on how you can achieve your goals. You need to be bolder in your work. You have to create more and fail more. In fact, over and over again. Quantity is often the fastest way to quality. Not only that, but when you think about your 10x goal, you probably have thoughts that scare you. When you do work that scares you, you cross a line that most people never cross. Scary work is often very profitable and valuable work.
10. Be Very Good at Marketing
Marketing is nothing but applied psychology. It's about connecting with people, persuading them and helping them. Many people think that marketing is bad or immoral. Many "artists" don't learn marketing because they don't want to "sell out". They want their work to be clean. Academics are no better. Their work is not accessible to the common man. Marketing is nothing more than making your work easier to find and use. People don't magically appear and buy your stuff. People don't magically appear and read your stuff.
Now: How did you get to this page? See the title of this article. I could just as easily call it "tips for success". But would you have clicked on this article? Probably not. But you clicked on it. Why did you click on it? How did you get here? Consider the experience. Marketing is the "HOW" of everything you do. The reason most people fail is because they either fear or avoid marketing. For the same reason, most people are bad teachers. They focus more on content rather than content delivery and design. But delivery - HOW - is just as important IF NOT more important than WHAT you do or WHY you do it. You may have cancer medication. But if you don't market it well, you'll never get a cure for it. You can have the most important message or the biggest story in the world, but no one will see it if you don't promote and package it intelligently.
11. Don't focus on time and effort, Focus On Results
Dan Sullivan, founder of the exclusive business coaching platform Strategic Coach, distinguishes between the fields of time and effort economics and performance economics. When you save time and effort, you focus on being busy. You truly believe that the time and energy invested in something deserves praise.
On the other hand, in performance economics, you only focus on achieving a specific result. That's the bottom line, and that's why it's so important to find the most efficient way to get there. This is the main difference between entrepreneurs and employees.
As Sullivan says: Entrepreneurs have crossed the "risk threshold" from the "time and effort economy" to the "profit economy". They have no guaranteed income, no one writes them a paycheck every other week. They live by their ability to create opportunities, creating value for their customer base. Sometimes they – and you – put in a lot of time and effort and get no results. Sometimes they do not spend a lot of time and effort and achieve an excellent result. Entrepreneurs must always focus on results or there will be no income. If you work as an entrepreneur, guess what! This also applies to you. Even though you probably have a guaranteed income, it's important to understand that the company you work for is part of The Outcome Economy, even if you're somewhat shielded from seeing it.
I say this not to make you insecure, but to show you how to succeed in this environment: to maximize results and minimize the time and effort required to achieve them. Most people don't think about the results because their faith is in the salary shock. But if you focus on how little you can do, on how much you can do, you change the way you work. You will begin to learn ways to achieve faster. You take more responsibility. You change your environment. And you will also understand how important sleep and rest are to achieve the best possible results.
12. Change your Environment Regularly
The work environments you work in should reflect your work. Multitasking in the same environment is inefficient. But people do it all the time. They sit in the same place and mentally move from one task to another. A much better approach is to SEPARATE your activities and do them in an appropriate environment.
For example, when I write a blog post, I work in a quiet library where I have no distractions. Because my environment allows for quality writing, and because I knew I was going to write that day, I write a lot. It is easier to write 2-5 blog posts in one sitting than trying to write one post at a time. Sandeep Mukhi, entrepreneur, groups his activities and changes environments according to the work done. During the days he records podcasts, he goes into the studio and records about 5 podcast episodes in one session. Other days he spends the whole day in meetings or on the phone. He does this work in his friend's apartment because it is a much more interesting environment. The lack of connection prevents him from surfing the web and even using his phone because he has poor reception.
13. Define "Wealth" and "Success" for yourself.
Success and well-being do not depend on money.
There are many people who have money and little "equity" in other key areas of their lives. Of course, money is very important. It solves many problems. It speeds up processes. But money is a tool. It is a means to an end. For those who do work they truly believe in, money is simply a tool to do more work.
14. Know and Operate From Your Deepest “Why”
What is your WHY for what you’re doing or pursuing? How could you possibly know your why? More importantly, how could you know your REAL WHY? It’s actually quite simple. But it takes some radical honesty.
I'll walk you through an exercise to find out WHY. And more importantly, if you know the deepest WHY of what you are doing, you should be operating FROM THAT SPACE, not your more and more baser reasons. When you're trying to understand why you're doing something, it's better to ask "what" questions than "why" questions, because "why" questions tend to make people defensive.
Here is a solid question you can ask yourself to understand WHY.
How important is __________________ to you?
Let's say you want to start a business, get a new cell phone or go to the gym… It can be big or small. But put that thing in. How important is "going to the gym" to you? Then you just write the first thing that comes to mind: because I like to feel good. Then you take your answer and reformulate it into the same question:
What about _______________________ is important to you?
So, given the previous answer: What about “feeling good” is important to you?
It’s at the deepest levels that you’ll discover your TRUE WHY for what you’re doing. Even if that something is as simple as getting a new cell phone or going to the gym. But you want to remind yourself of your DEEPEST WHY when you’re doing something. And you want to operate from THAT LEVEL, because at your deepest level, you’ll be operating from your heart, not your head. So your presentation will be much deeper, more authentic and more powerful. The stakes will be higher. Suddenly, you're not going to the gym just to feel good, but because you have a higher calling to fulfill and you need to be as healthy as possible to make that happen (or whatever your deepest WHY is).
Your DEEPER why almost always reveals something very personal about you and your core beliefs about life. You want to be aware of these things and how/why they make you do what you do. If you really go through this exercise in an authentic way, you should experience mental and emotional breakthroughs. You should discover something about yourself and why you are the way you are, why you are and why you follow certain things that you do. Know why. Then act on the deepest and most powerful WHY you have. You will be much better at what you do.
15. Be Supportive, it becomes your Brand
You have to believe in something to be successful. You must have a tripod. All successful people and brands have a clear WHY. As Simon Sinek explains in his book Start With Why, people don't buy what you sell, they buy why you sell it. Apple is a good example. During their marketing, they do not explain the technical features of their products, but instead define and share their core values. They believe that technology should be both easy to use and cool. If you want to be attractive and interesting, you have to really believe in something. You must have a clear point of view. This billboard becomes your brand. It becomes your brand. It becomes the way you stand out from the crowd.
If you have a clear position and brand, you will stand out from the crowd. You are no longer neutral. You believe in something and fight to achieve a certain change. As a result, people either love it or hate it. That's what you want. Vague means you have nothing to say. Hot means you try to please everyone. The wealth is in the niches. Your niche is your audience. They are a small group of people who agree with your statement. They are your evangelists.
If you try to please everyone, your messaging, marketing and product will be terrible. There is no obvious reason for you, and neither will anyone else. That way you're average like everyone else and your work doesn't stand out. Only people with a certain position are really good at marketing. They care enough about their message to get it across. They understand that HOW is as important as WHAT and WHY.
Conclusion
Are you doing these 15 things? How aggressively are you doing them?
Do you want to become a multi-millionaire?
Are you ready to think and act bigger? You’ve got this.