An entrepreneur spent £250 on a leather journal and kept it for four years, tracking business growth, goals, and monthly self-ratings across seven areas of his life. He learned the practice from mentors Jim Rohn and Peter Sage, and writes roughly once a week to reflect and guide decisions.
Questions this video answers
12 October 2016
Up to 2 February (most recent entry referenced)
About £200–£250
At least once a week
Jim Rohn (referred to as Jim Rowan in the video)
Now I've put so much effort into this, like the last four years. Hello, everybody, and welcome to today's Video. So today I wanted to record a video around journaling and how important journaling has been post of my entrepreneurial journey over the last four years. So I started journaling, like I said, maybe about four years ago. Before that I would have thought it was quite a stupid idea, but it is very, very therapeutic and particularly as a business owner entrepreneur, to actually document your process and actually look back through how you have progressed over the last years is really valuable. So I learned this technique from a mentor that I follow online called Jim Rowan. Now, Jim, he's obviously no longer alive, but some of his video content and a couple of his books that I've read are some of the best out there. So he was probably one of the biggest persons in the game for personal development and was actually Tony Robbins mentor as well. So I just thought I'd share and show you my journal. So one of the things that Jim taught as well was you should invest in an expensive journal and notebook. So I've got like so many notebooks, like I love notebooks because I like writing, taking notes all of the time and jotting down all of my ideas because one of those ideas can make me another million pounds. So I bought a journal from Smythson, I think it's called, or Smithson. Someone will probably tell me off how I pronounced it. Comes in a nice case which I've still kept today. And then it's like a properly leathered, I think it's like cow's leather with really nice feel and the famous Madison paperweight paper. So in this actual journal you can see when I, when I first started writing in, it was the 12th of October, 16. So I don't know if zoom in a knot, try and zoom it in. Might get there or not, but yeah, so sort of journaling back in 2016 and then from there I've journaled all the way up till last week, so the 2nd of February. So I've got pretty much the last. What's that like the last three and a half years in this book. Now this cost me 200 and I think about £250, which a lot of you probably think is crazy. But to me this is worth a million pounds because I wouldn't sell it for the world. And even though I buy lots of books, this is the most valuable book because this has documented my journey, my learnings, some of my failures, some of my big successes. And I can look back on this, because I can compare and. Which I often do as well. Like, I would compare this February compared to last February in the February before that and the February before that throughout my agency. So how much we actually made three years ago to where we are now, the people we had in the office when we first started taking office space, like, first client wins, the mentors that I had back then, just looking on here. So, like, if I go back to three years ago, this time, three years ago, I started learning from a guy called Peter Sage, who was a big influence on more the personal development side, which was really interesting because that was my first, like, part where I'd actually paid, like, over a thousand pounds to attend the course. But I learned so much from that. And at the start of the actual journal as well, I wrote my vision, which is a 2021 vision. And in that, like, me writing to me as if, what's gonna happen in 2021? And how my vision is gonna be. So sharing a few of these things is like, I drive a Ferrari, Porsche 911 Turbo, a classic Porsche and a Range Rover. So I've got two of those cars already. So that actually came into real life as well. So I'm a big believer in visualization and writing goals down, and that makes them more likely to succeed because what your mind can believe can achieve. Yeah. So it's like, I love journaling. I journal, like, not always, but I would always try and journal at least once a week. Because now I've put so much effort into this, like, the last four years. And it's so nice to look back over how far I've come. I don't want to miss out on the next three or four years as well. So to continue it. So I've actually finished that book now, so that's finished the full pages. So I'm now on the next one, which I purchased again. So I've got another Smythson from Bond Street. Nice leather notebook. So I'm really looking forward to starting a new, fresh one from that. But I would strongly recommend journaling, because you get quite overwhelmed sometimes as an entrepreneur, so. And you get a lot of ideas as well. So the best way to do that is writing them down. So I have this by my bedside table every night. So when I do fancy journaling, instead of reading a book, I do that. So quite interested to hear your thoughts in terms of what are you doing as an entrepreneur to sort of get your thoughts done on paper. Are you journaling? Are you documenting it? Because one day, obviously, I want to write a book as well. And it's going to be a lot easier writing an autobiography when I look back over everything I've done over the last few years. So it's really valuable information and it really helps you learn as well. But also I would always write down how I'm feeling as well, which is quite a good tip of what we'll give you is probably every month when I've journaled, I would document how I'm feeling in terms of my financial situation. So I'd rate that out of 10. I then write down growth. So am I personally growing as a person and how would rate that? My business. How am I going with my business? Happiness, health, relationships? Am I living my true passion? Relaxation, fun stuff. And am I on my. Am I on the path? So am I on the path to my destiny or what I want to live it. So I would always look back through journeys because sometimes it's up and down. So I've always been. Again, I'll try and zoom in, but I'm not too sure if this camera is going to pick it up properly. It does, yeah. So you can see like financial, like 8 out of 10, growth 9 out of 10, business 9 out of 10, health 7 out of 10. But this, there's always pros and cons to because my focus has always been on growing the business, making more money, growing as an individual, personal development like that suffers like the fun stuff in life, the relaxation like me not being able to be fully present in my relationship sometimes so I can reflect on that. Then I would write down underneath what I'm going to do to try and focus on the other areas that aren't near 8 or 9 out of 10. So it's always a good way to reflect as well because if you start marking those down every month, you can start to see trends. So you'll see, for instance, if you were suffering financially, you'll know that your personal growth you probably haven't invested in that your business maybe isn't doing too well. But if you're happy in other areas of your life, like you're living your passion and you relax and you know that might come back around as well. So hope you enjoyed this video. If you want to like and subscribe, please do and comment below. I am going to be running a Mastermind very shortly, so if you're interested in that, drop me an email@jamestrepreneurjames.com Full details of that will be released over the coming weeks. And thanks for listening. Hi, thanks for watching today's video. If you like what you've seen, please like and subscribe the button with Entrepreneur James so you keep up to date with all of the updated videos. 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