As I was pondering on what to share on my first blog, I was drawn to the thought I had a few days ago when I was scheduling my social media posts.
Recently, I have been meditating on the thought of working hard on your dreams. As I thought deeper into this idea of hard work, I realized that successful people do not actually work that hard, but they do work smart.
This led me to want to analyze and explore this idea of what successful people do that unsuccessful people don’t do.
I have seen a lot of people work so hard but without anything to show for it. They wake up very early and go to bed so late but by the end of the day very little has come of their hard work.
So, what is it that you need to do or know in order to succeed in life. There are a few secrets to success that I will be sharing with you over the next few months. I will be sharing with you what’s working in my life and the lives of several other people who are doing well in life. I do understand that success means different things to different people. Regardless of what your definition may look like, there are a few ingredients or secrets to success. In this first blog, I will share what I believe is one of the biggest secrets to success.
Learning/Studying/ Personal Development
A few years back, after repeated complaints from myself that I was always busy and working more than 12 hours a day, one of my mentors sat me down. After listening to me whine and whinge about my lack of end products despite how hard I was working, he said something profound. He said, “Etina, your business is NOT your business. Your business is the thinking that you bring into your business”.
He went on to tell me that if I was not going to improve my thinking I would spend the rest of my life working just as hard, but with little to show for it. He further told me that working hard on my business without investing in my personal development was like attempting to cut down a tree with a blunt axe. It will take longer and be tougher than normal. If I wanted to be more productive, I had to sharpen my axe first. I had to start investing in things that would help me improve the way I thought. I took his advice on board and a few years later, oh what a change I saw. This was the start of my love for Personal Growth and Leadership. I vowed to share this secret with whoever dares to listen to my story. I am now more concerned with investing in the person I want to become rather than being successful through working long, hard hours.
Successful people are avid readers. They study, they learn and they work intentionally with coaches and mentors that help them identify any limiting beliefs in their lives. Successful people do not just focus on learning, but also unlearning any ideas and beliefs that no longer serve this stage of their life. Success in life is a process. And learning and unlearning certain beliefs and habits is an important part of that process.
So, if you want to succeed in life, invest in things that push you towards learning. Invest in courses that improve the way you think, courses that help improve your emotional intelligence. Work on yourself more than you work on your business. If YOU are not growing, then everything around you is not growing. If you are a team leader and you are not growing, then your team is most likely also not growing. A team without a leader who is intentional and proactive will most likely not see any value in being intentional and productive within the team. If you are a business owner and you are not growing, then you are stifling the growth of your business. Lack of growth will automatically put a ceiling on what you can achieve in life.
My coach and mentor John Maxwell, talks about the Law of the Lid in his book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. He states how your abilities will ultimately determine your level of effectiveness in whatever you do. So, if you want to do, be and have more, begin by lifting your lid. Invest in yourself. A good friend of mine once said to me, 10% of your income should go towards your personal growth. This is to date one of my favorite nuggets of wisdom I have ever received.
So, if you want to be a better leader, invest in leadership courses. If you want to become a person of influence, learn how to connect with people, because everyone communicates but few connect.
If Personal Growth has never been part of your life and you don’t know where to start and how to go about it, I encourage you to be part of our 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth mastermind group that will be launching soon. This study has helped many men and women achieve success in life without working so hard and by working smarter.
I will be sharing other secrets to success with you in the coming months.
To your success,
Etina
