Episode 19: Invest in Yourself with Coach BZ

Welcome to the Leadership and Success Podcast with your host, Coach BZ. If you need to develop into a better leader, this podcast is for you. If you want to achieve a greater level of success, this podcast is for you. His mentor, Dr. John C. Maxwell, said it best: everything rises and falls on leadership. We hope to inspire you today and provide you with an insight that has the potential to positively impact the trajectory of your life. Welcome to the Leadership and Success Podcast.

Hello everyone, this is Bob Fabien Zinga, Coach BZ. Very happy to be with you today, Friday, November 26th, live on LinkedIn. So I want to take a few moments today to talk to you about the greatest investment anybody can make, which is investing in yourself. There is nothing in the world, I think, that can give you a greater return on investment. If you are watching live, please type in the comments, let us know where you are coming from, and if you have any question for me, please type it there. And thank you so much for being with us this wonderful morning. Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and it was a wonderful time to just reflect and have a heart of gratitude and give thanks for all of the blessings we have received this far. So Let's talk about investing in yourself. I believe the best thing I've ever done in my life is to really invest myself, is invest in my education, my knowledge, my skills, because that increases your value to the market, right? Every time you invest in yourself, what it does is it makes you better. And one of my mentors I was just talking to, I think a couple of weeks ago, she was saying that Many people, they kind of focus on their weakness, trying to make their weakness better, but it's actually much, much more profitable to focus on your strength and make your strength even better than it actually is. And then for whatever areas in life you are weak in, because you can be strong in every area, that's when you need partnership. That's when you need to collaborate with other people who are going to complement your strength. Like, even when I think about my marriage today, it seems like my wife complements me in almost every way. In areas I'm very, very strong and some areas she's very strong and together, right, we are almost impossible to break or to stop. So we complement one another. And I think in business and in life, that's really what you are looking for. You can't do everything yourself. If you're gonna do something that is great, something that is going to last a long time, something that's going to be significant, you cannot do it alone. You're gonna need to have a team and members of your team should complement the skills you have and you should complement theirs and together you can really do something beautiful. So very, very important to invest in yourself, whether it's working on a certification, getting a formal education degree, a bachelor's degree, a master's, or even a doctorate, getting new knowledge, reading a whole bunch of books, and getting some skills in whatever area in life you feel like you need to improve and increase your skills. That's definitely the best investment I believe you can make. Now, in most companies I've worked for, many times the employer will actually pay for you to get more knowledge and go to training seminars and that kind of thing, or even get a degree. Like many companies I've worked for, if you register for a bachelor or a master's degree, as long as you have a B average, they would pay for all of your tuition, and that is great. So One, I think you should take advantage of whatever benefits you are receiving now, whatever training that's available about improving your leadership skills, emotional intelligence, or management, or technology, whatever is out there. I think you, you should take full advantage of that at your work and let your employer pay for your training. Okay, I think that is very, very important. Now, there are a few employers that do not, they will not give you any education benefit. And some of them, they may give you some, but it is not enough to cover, right, coursework at the college or to go to a seminar. But whatever they offer you, do take advantage of it, right? For example, I used to work for a company— most company I work for, actually, they usually had up to about $5,000 a year for training, education, that kind of thing. And I always, always taken full advantage of that. It's really incredible how many people at work would not even use it, right? There is this education budget for the company and they don't even go anywhere. They don't go to a conference, they don't go to school, they don't do anything, and they just let the money go away. And I think that's a very, very big mistake. So wherever you can get free training or training that is provided by another organization like your employer, absolutely take advantage of that. All right, now, uh, the other thing that's important about investing in yourself is, uh, the one person who should really know your value better than everybody else should be you, right? You should be the greatest evangelist, the greatest salesman of your skills and your knowledge. Of what you bring to the table, right? Nobody should value you more than you value yourself. All right, so you need to take it seriously, right? You need to think of yourself, uh, in many ways like, uh, a product or a service, and you need to talk about yourself, about your skills, about what you bring to the table. And in many ways, when I go for a job interview, that's exactly what I'm doing. I am a salesman. And I'm selling Bob Fabien Zinga. I'm selling my skills, my experience, my knowledge, and what I can do for the company, how I can solve their problem, right? And that's why it's important for me to enlarge my box, my territory, right? I have this toolbox with all of the things I can do, and I want that box to be bigger and bigger and bigger with more and more tools, more and more knowledge, more and more skills, right? And that's really, uh, if you're gonna be a leader, I believe, in the 21st century, You need to be fully dedicated to self-improvement, to always learning forever and ever and ever and ever, especially if you are in the area of technology. Like, I know most of the people following me on LinkedIn are in the tech industry. Things change so quickly. Nothing ever stays the same, right? If you look at technology 10, 15, 20 years ago, it's completely obsolete today, right? It's almost like here in Silicon Valley, like every 6 months or so, it seems like there is something brand, brand new. So you need to keep learning and learning and learning and never stopping that. And that's a great, great investment in yourself. Now, generally speaking, I kind of figured this out when I was about 17 years old. I think there are 3 general areas where everybody needs to really improve their skills. One is leadership. And this is part of the reason why I created this podcast, Leadership and Success. I think everybody needs to become a better leader. I really believe that leadership is the most critical skill right here and right now in the 21st century. You need to become a better leader. Even if you are not supervising anyone, even if nobody is following you, you need to develop into a better leader. There is so many leadership programs out there. Of course, my mentor, John Maxwell, I will definitely highly recommend that any and every one of you get into his program, the John Maxwell Team. He's going to teach you about leadership and he's going to certify you as well. But there are many other programs out there. Just learn about leadership and improve your leadership skills. That's, that's extremely important. Number 2, I believe, is business, right? And if you are in IT, that is wonderful, but don't just do IT kind of in a silo, right? Because IT— the only reason why IT is around is to enable the business., right? It's to promote the business, it's to allow the business to accomplish its strategic goal, to facilitate the execution of the business. That is why IT cybersecurity is around. So if you are an IT person, you need to start developing some business skills. You don't have to have an MBA like I did, but you need to learn about your organization, your business, and you need to do everything you can to add value to it, right? For most people in IT, most departments I've worked for, we've always been a cost center. We always cost the company a whole bunch of money and we never bring in revenue like sales and marketing does, right? So you kind of need to justify your own existence and provide so much value that your company knows that you are— you have become indispensable, right? They cannot get rid of you, right? Because you add so much value to the business and you need to be able to prove that, to demonstrate that. To report on, on that. So you need to develop, uh, leadership skills, number one. You need to develop business skills. And then number three is you need to develop IT skills. Even for the few of you guys, 36,000 or so following me on LinkedIn, some of you are not in the technology field, but really today in the 21st century, it doesn't matter what you do. I believe that, uh, you will always need to learn about technology, no matter what you do today, whether you are in sales, you are whether you're a doctor, a dentist, a lawyer, no matter what, you have to use computers, right? There's just no way around that. So you've got to develop your technology skills. So I am really all about knowledge and personal development and professional development. However, I like to be practical, right? I've read a lot, a lot of books, probably more than 2,000 books by now, but I do not like to read books just for the pleasure of reading, right? When I read, I'm reading with an objective. I want to learn something very specific, whether it's about a specific technology, business skills, or improving my leadership skills, or increasing my emotional intelligence. There is a specific skill I need to learn, and I'm going to focus on that. Or there is a specific certification I would like to earn, and I want to really focus on that. I believe where you bring focus, right, there is going to be a lot of improvement. If you are following something, if you are tracking something, eventually whatever you are tracking is going to improve because you are bringing your focus into it. So that's what I would recommend. Now, one of my mentors, Darren Hardy, great, great guy, he has a development plan I would like to play for you right now. He calls it the 1-1-5-3-1-1 30-35 plan. 1-1-5-3-1-30-35 plan. I'm gonna let, uh, Darren, uh, teach that to you himself right now.

So I want to give you my 1-1-5-3-1-30-35 plan. Number 1 is take your number 1 goal, whatever your number 1 goal is, okay? What is the one skill that is going to determine the most to you accomplishing that goal? And then next, take 5 books on the topic and go immediately to Amazon and order them. This is what I do. I pick the— pick the skill, buy 5 books, go buy 3 DVD or CD programs, and then pick one seminar and go to it on that skill.

What is it?

One time for me it was relationships. My number one goal was creating more intimacy in my marriage. So I bought the top 5 books, I bought the top 3 CD and DVD programs, and I went to a seminar. And then this is how you consume it. It's a lot easier than you think. It's my 30/30 plan. In the morning when I first get up, first thing I do, put my iPhone on 30 minutes and I just read for 30 minutes. I'm gonna get through those 5 books over a period of a month or two. And then I listen to the instructional audio for 30 minutes each day while I'm driving around, working out, or walking the dogs. That's it. That's my personal development plan. The reason why you create extraordinary results is the consistency of that small discipline compounded over time. And then this is the 5-step study program that I go through. As I'm going through that material, I'm studying that material, focusing on that one skill. Then I'm extracting the 3 best ideas. It could be a 300-page book, but I'm only looking for 3 ideas because if there are 100 ideas, there are no ideas. So just get 3. Number 3 is act. I implement one idea right now, this week. As soon as I get the idea, right now, this week, and I practice it. And then I measure the improvement over a period of 30 days. And then I do this plan, do, review where I review it, I adjust, and I do it again.

And then I— Darren Hardy, and if you are not following him, I believe you definitely should. And he has a lot of great programs that could be life-changing. But I really, really like his 1-5-3-1-30-30 plan, right? Focus on one skill. So maybe one quarter, every 90 days, think of one skill. What is the most critical skill you need to learn right now? There are a lot of things that you might improve, but what is that one skill that is going to allow you to move forward, right? I believe in the 80-20% rule. 20% of what you do will get you closer to the 80% of the result you are looking for. Whereas most people spend 80% of their time working on something that's only going to take them over by 20% of what they are looking for. You want to do the opposite, right? Figure out what is the most critical skills you need to improve that is going to allow you to be 80% ahead, and that's the one you need to focus on. For me, usually I like to learn about communication, right, leadership, technology, and business, right? So find the specific skills you need to improve. And once you do that, you know what your one skill is, like Deron says, he says get 5 books. Now I used to only use maybe 2 or 3 books, but I feel like there is, uh, it makes a lot of sense to have different perspective. Get a book on leadership for one of my mentors, for example, John Maxwell, or Brian Tracy has some books leadership as well, and some other people. And get those books and read them, 5 of them, right? And then you also need to get free— back in the days we used DVDs and CDs. I don't think people use them anymore, but you're gonna get a lot of online training and program. Dan Hardy has plenty of those programs that you can purchase on his website. But yeah, get 3 different programs, online training programs about that one subject you would like to learn and improve. And then you need to go to one seminar, one conference, one live event. Just like we are in November now, right? In October last year, my mentor, Dr. Maxwell, had a lead event, Live to Lead event. It was live in Atlanta, and it allowed people from all around the world to tune in from their screen, from their computer. It was about an 8-hour event also. When you have events like that, yeah, it might cost you money— $200, $50, or even $1,000— but I think it is definitely worth it. You need to have a budget for your training, for your learning, for your self-improvement. Generally speaking, when it comes to managing money, I really recommend to live on 70% of your income, meaning 10% of your income, I think you need to give it away, right? Give it to charity, give it to church, to the synagogue, give it away, right? I believe in the concept of the tithe. Many religious people do, but even those who are not religious, I think it's really a good idea to give a portion of your income to help humanity, to help somebody else who is in desperate need, right? And this also makes you feel like, okay, I am going to be okay. Even though I might be struggling right now and I'm not where I need to be, at least a portion of my money is being given away to help somebody else, to help improve my community. So I think you should give away about 10% of your income, and I believe you should save about 10% of your income. That's for your retirement, that's for your financial freedom when you are not going to be working anymore, and you're going to have to build a nest egg so that you can retire in dignity and And I think that is extremely important. And if you work at the company where they do any matching whatsoever for 401k, you absolutely have to take full advantage of that because that is free, free money anyway. So 10% to give, 10% to invest in your retirement, and I believe 10% to invest in yourself for your education. When I started this, no, 10% of what I was investing wasn't that much. Today it's quite a lot, but you need to find ways to spend the money. That's why I am saying, you know, even if your employer doesn't support you, in your quest to gain more knowledge and more skills, go ahead and do it. Because what's going to eventually happen is you're going to have so much knowledge and skills and such, such that you're going to be so valuable to the market that you're going to add great value to your company. And more than likely, another company is going to come around and get you out of there because they're going to realize how much value you add, even though your current employer may not really take full advantage of it or support you in your quest. Really, you are doing it for yourself, right?. And I think if you put away about 10% of your money to go to seminars, to purchase books, and to do all of those things, I think you're gonna get better. You are gonna quickly go from wherever you are to the top 3% or even 1% of the US population just because of the skills, the knowledge that you have gained. You're gonna be much more valuable and you're gonna make a lot more money. So to me, it makes sense that people in the top 10, 3, 5% of the society make $100,000 1,000 times more than the people in the bottom 10%. That just makes perfect sense. And especially in America, right, this is the land of great opportunity. It doesn't really matter if you come from money in America, if you work very, very hard. It's really the only country with a dream, right? The American Dream. You can go from the very, very bottom and go all the way to the very, very top. You can do it over and over and over again, even if you have an accent like I do, even if you weren't born in this country. In this country, there is opportunity for everybody. Isn't that incredible? Right? One specific example, when I joined the Navy, I was an E-1, Seaman Recruit. That's the lowest of the lowest. There is no pay grade below that. That's exactly at the very, very bottom of the ladder. Everybody in the Navy outranked me when I first joined in 2004. But today I am an O-5. I am a commander. I'm a senior officer. And I've earned that. And I've gone up the ladder. And I think part of the reason for my success is because I highly, highly value my self-education. Even my wife will tell you, even when we are driving, especially when we go on long trips, most of the time, I don't really have time for a lot of conversation. I am listening to something. I'm listening to my mentor, to Dr. Maxwell, to Darren Hardy, to Brian Tracy, to Tony Robbins. I'm listening to something that is going to motivate me and allow me to achieve my goal. Why spend so much time watching the lives of other people or what other people have produced, whether it's movies or or whatever shows, and I was like, what? Spend so much time looking at their product when you could developing your own product, when you could focus on your own life and improve your own life, right? So again, think about one skill. What is the skill that you really, really, really need to learn that is going to make a big, big difference in your business, in your life, in your school, in your work? One skill, focus on it over the next 90 days, and then you need to purchase 5 books, right, about the subject, and you're going to be reading all 5 of those books, and then find free training programs, and then one live event, one seminar. Now, that's the 1-5-3 free plan. And then the 30-30 is you spend 30 minutes every single day to read those books, only 30 minutes. That's it. For example, I read this book over and over again, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. I think this is really kind of like the gold standard for leadership by my mentor John Maxwell. Every single day, read 30 minutes. That's it. Maybe you read a chapter, maybe you even read half of a chapter, that's okay. 30 minutes and stop. And do it day after day after day after day. I believe people who become extremely successful, it's not that they do something extraordinary one time and they're done, but they do something over and over and over again. There is consistency in what they do. Every single day they show up and they spend, for example, 30 minutes reading the book. Tomorrow, 30 minutes reading the book. Day after tomorrow, 30 minutes reading the book. And they are very, very consistent. And they will not see any dramatic increase happen overnight, but in time, you know, after a week, after a month, after 2 months, after 3 months, you've read 5 books. And most people hardly read 1 book a year, and you've already read 5 books in 90 days, right? So you're gonna be reading at least, right, 20 books a year when most people hardly read one. You see how much ahead you're gonna be from the competition, how much more knowledge you're gonna have compared to the average guy, right? Average people make average salary, but you are not average. You should refuse to be average. You need to be in the top 10% of your field, and you do that by being very, very consistent with your plan. No, it's like people who want to lose weight, right? They don't just lose weight overnight. It's like every single day they decide, you know, how many calories am I going to eat? How much am I going to exercise? And they are very, very faithful, diligent. They do it day after day after day after day, and before you know it, all of the extra weight drops off, right? I don't really believe in overnight success. That just doesn't exist, right? To be successful is because you've been disciplined and you've followed your plan, whatever it is, and you've been very consistent with it day after day after day after day. Following the plan. So 30 minutes reading every day and then 30 minutes listening to your online training. That's it, that's all. And I also like a concept that Tony Robbins called net time, right? No extra time. So that is the time where you can listen to training, you can listen like— I love Audible, right? Actually, Amazon has become quite a great partner in my success, right? Because they have Kindle books which are usually cheaper than the print version and you can get them right away. And since I've come to California in 2011, so I've learned to really admire and take better care of the environment. So most of my books now, I have them on my phone, right, on the Kindle app. And you are saving trees, so you're doing something good for the environment and you're still getting all of the knowledge. And then I also like having it on my Kindle because I can search his research in the book as well. Go to a specific section or idea. So I think that is a win-win-win-win-win. So Amazon has Kindle, they have Audible as well. Most of their books you can actually listen to them. It used to be books on tapes and now it's completely streamable on the Audible app, whether you have an iPhone, Android, or your computer, it doesn't matter. You can listen to those books. So most of the books I have now, I have them in Kindle and in Audible as well. And the other thing is when you sync the two you can actually be reading a book in Kindle and then listen to it, and it's going to show you each word that the author is reading for you. I kind of like that because I tend to learn better by what I see, right? I am very visual. Some people like to listen and they learn better by hearing things, and like myself, I learn much better by seeing. So if I look at the word in the Kindle app and then I hear it at the same time, that does two things for me, right? So I'm using my visual senses and then my auditory senses as well, and I think it allows me to learn better and retain what I am learning. Okay, so if you do that, I mean, it's a guarantee your life is going to change. You are going to to move up in society, right? You are going to go up that ladder of success if you just invest in yourself every single day, determined to spend at least 30 minutes reading a book and 30 minutes listening to a seminar. Maybe 30 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes in the afternoon. So I was talking about the net time. Tony Robbins is the one who taught me this, no extra time. So this is the time where you can do something intellectual with your mind while your body is doing something else. For example, when you are driving, right? I used to commute in Silicon Valley. It would take me almost 90 minutes when I used to live in San Jose to drive all the way to the city, to San Francisco. Well, during those 90 minutes, I wasn't listening to the radio, I wasn't listening to music, I wasn't just wasting time. So that's time I used. Brian Tracy talked about that too. It's almost like you turn your vehicle into a university on wheels, right? This is your center for learning. So while I am driving, I can use my brain instead of listening to music or to the to the radio or nonsense, I am listening to tapes, to those free programs that I need to improve my skills, or even on Audible, one of the 5 books I need to read, I just listen to them on the way to work for like 90 minutes commute, right? So while you are driving or doing something else with your body, your mind is free to learn, so use that time. And when you exercise, right, let's say you are working out for 30 minutes or an hour. While you're working out, guess what you are listening to? Those books on tapes or to your— those programs while you are working out or while you are walking or running or anything else you are doing. Or even when sometimes I go to the doctor or to my chiropractor and sometimes I have to wait 15-20 minutes. While I'm waiting, I have my earbuds on and I am listening to my program. But the one skill I need to improve this quarter, and every quarter I come up with another skill. So you can really, really, really improve your life significantly by just taking the time out of your day to focus on your own learning, self-improvement, and professional development. And like Darian Hardy said, you need to study it. So not just have a superficial knowledge of what the book or the program says, but to really get into it, right? And sometimes I think it is okay to have like a first pass on a book, uh, just kind of see what the book is all about. But then you need to go back and highlight and learn. Like, I like what, uh, Darren Hardy says. He likes to get 3 ideas for every program and every book he reads. What are the 3 main ideas I need to apply right here and right now? And then you need to take action. And as you take action, the other thing you need to do is to kind of measure your progress, right? Everything you focus on, you Everything you measure will eventually improve, right? So measure it, measure it, and you're gonna see improvement. Maybe not within a day or a week, but after you've done it for a month, a quarter, half a year, a year, you're gonna be a completely different person. You're gonna have so much more knowledge and skills than you did previously, right? So that's it. That's really what I wanted to talk to you guys about today. You need to invest in yourself. That is crucial. If you are going to be successful, if you are going to be a better leader, you have to invest in yourself. You have to take time for you, at least 1 hour every single day. Everybody gets 24 hours a day. Most people sleep for 8 hours, most people work for 8 hours. What are you going to do with the remaining 8? One of my mentors told me that's really what makes the difference between the top 1% and the bottom 10%. What do you do with the remaining 8 hours? I am suggesting that you take one of those hours for self-improvement, listening to a book, reading a book, and listening to a training program. So if you guys have any resources, please let me know, add them to the comments. And I don't see any question on the LinkedIn page right now. So thank you so much for being with us. This is Coach Bizzy, and have a wonderful day. And I hope what I've said today is going to add value to you and make a significant difference in your life. Until next time, bye.

Thank you for listening to the Leadership and Success Podcast with your host, Coach Beezy. If you like what you heard, please subscribe to our channels and come back for more wisdom nuggets on how you may develop into a better leader and achieve greater levels of success. Leadership is the most critical skill. The world will always need leaders to lead others, deploy the next disruptive technology or execute a business strategy. You may as well decide on counting yourself among the 21st century leaders. See you right here next time on the Leadership and Success Podcast with Coach BZ.