How Do You Know If You’re Investing Too Little or Too Much In Mentorship?

Those of you that go to too many things, invest in too many courses, too many mentors, too many everything. And I love that you're a constant student, but dang it, you need to redirect some of that revenue and some of that income into growing your business. Not just growing yourself. Facebook ads or marketing or team or an assistant or. Right. Like, when you earn revenue, there are a lot of different buckets it needs to go into. And some of you don't fill your development bucket enough. In others of you, it's like all your money's going in that development bucket. And we're back with another episode of.

He Said, she Said.

I wish people could see this right now. So in order to record, we have to like go hide in the bedroom. Otherwise the rest of the house is like too echoey or too tall ceilings or whatever. And so we sit on the master bed. Yes. This fancy podcast that gets listened to by a kajillion people. We typically just sit on the bed, place this on a pillow, and then record. Well, the dogs, we try and get them to fall asleep so that we can actually record in peace. For some reason, Bananas is fine. He went and he slept down by our feet. Bonkers has decided that he wanted to lay on my lap as we sit here and record. Now picture this huge, massive, human sized dog laying on my lap. He fell asleep. You might actually hear him breathing in his.

He's doing that, like deep breathing, rhythmic snoring, breathing. So comfortable right now. And just oh my God.

As I hold him in my arms like a baby, like a child.

I guess he just hit record.

It's more like probably holding like a 14 year old as a baby. Yeah. Okay. Anyhow, well, so if you hear any dog noise, our apologies, but this is real life and it shows you that you can have a massive podcast if.

You have an iPhone.

If you have an iPhone and you're holding a couple dogs or a couple kids or whatever it might be. So listen, what we wanted to talk about today is. Cause I'm getting ready to run my mastermind, and it's a pretty steep investment to be in that mastermind we started talking about, like, how do people know what to invest in? Personal development? How do people know what to invest in Business mentorship? How do people know, like, how much is too much? Because here's the thing, you have to invest something or you won't be growing as fast as you could be. But then there's a tipping point where you're doing all the things. There's a Tipping point where you're investing in too many things, and so people need kind of a guide. And a couple years back, I came out with a rule of thumb, and I did a whole episode on it, and I thought we'd kind of remind you of what that rule of thumb is. So you know, if you're investing too much or if you're investing not enough. Now, here's the simplest rule of thumb. You need to be investing between 5 and 10% of what you want your revenue to be in that year. Let me repeat that. You need to be investing between 5 to 10% of what you want your revenue to be that year. Now, I don't mean like pie in the sky, like, you know, you think you're going to make 100 grand, but you wish you were making a million. So you're not going to invest 10% of a million when you think your plan is 100 grand. I mean, a real solid business plan. Here's what I think I'm going to make this year, and that number times 5 or 10%. So if your goal is to make $100,000 this year, that means you'd be investing 5 to $10,000. If your goal is to make 200,000, that means you'd be investing 10 to $20,000. If your goal is to make a million bucks this year, then that means that you're going to be investing up to $100,000 in business mentorship and or personal development. It doesn't mean in one place either. Right. A lot of times it's in multiple. Now, what if your goal is to make $40,000 this year in your business as a side hustle? Great. Then this rule of thumb would be $2,000 to $4,000 throughout the year in guidance, in self development, in business mentorship. Now, what's nice about the sliding scale is one, it gives you a rule of thumb to kind of police yourself. And then this sliding scale goes down as your income starts to cross a million dollars. I'll give you an example. When you're trying to make 200 grand, absolutely, you need to spend 10%, $20,000 to get there. Typically, it's just too long and too drawn out and you're making too many mistakes. If you're not. Now, you got to invest in the right place, but that's not what this episode's about. It's about, what range should you be investing? But of course, it goes without saying, you got invested in the right people, the right mentors, the right self development. But now let's say your goal is to make 2 million this year. There's a lot of you that have a $2 million business, a $5 million business, $10 million business that listen well, it doesn't mean that you have to spend 200 grand in personal development or in business mentorship. The sliding scale starts to go down closer to that 5%. So if you're at a million dollars, yeah, you might spend a hundred grand, but. But you also might be closer to that 50 to $75,000 range. If you're going to make $2 million this year. I doubt you're going to spend 200 grand in this. There's probably better places to invest that money for sure. I think 5%, which is 100 grand, absolutely gets you what you need that year if you're going to make $2 million. Okay, so it's a sliding scale, 5 to 10%, but once you get up past seven figures, it's a lot closer to the five and not the 10%. So Lori, I thought we'd kind of ask you. Like you were the first in our relationship to invest in self development. You were the first to invest in events. And the one that stands out to me is like 15 years ago or whatever it was. When we're living in Waukesha, Wisconsin, we're at Cardinal Fitness, this gym that we're working out at. Remember that I was still working a full time job. You were bouncing around, I think at the time you worked at a hair salon at the front desk.

Yep.

And you came running up to me off the treadstepper and you're like, babe, I think I want to go to this.

It was a camp. I actually just did a post about it. It was called Savage Camp, put on by a woman named Kathy Savage. And I had watched MTV True Life probably a few months before that. And she was helping this woman, if I remember correctly, she was a doctor, but the doctor wanted to do a fitness competition which was like totally outside of her realm. She had never done anything like this before, was not in, did not have a fitness background. Like I don't really even know if she really worked out all the time from what I can rem. And Kathy was like, okay, we've got this many weeks and we're going to turn you into a fitness competitor. And I remember watching that going, okay, if she can do this and this woman with zero background doesn't even work out as much as me or have the knowledge that I have, then I must be able to do this as well. So fast. Forward. I'm on the stepper and I'm flipping through a magazine called Oxygen magazine, which to me was like the bible of fitness back then. And all of a sudden I see this little ad for Savage Camp. I'm like, this is the woman. She's putting on a camp. It's in like two months. I'm going to go, I jump off, run and tell Chris. I had never done anything like this, you guys. I have never traveled by myself. I had never flown by myself. In fact, I've probably only flown three times up until that point. Honestly, that I went and did this, maybe four, maybe four max. So for me to go from Wisconsin, Waukesha, Wisconsin, you don't even know where that is, to Boston, out with all of these women that I had no idea who they were, I had no idea what I was in for. And to completely go by myself and to spend money that we absolutely did not have at the time was a huge risk. But that one decision completely propelled my entire journey.

And do you remember what you spent? I think with travel is probably less than two grand, right?

Yeah.

Camp, travel, everything all together.

Sure.

That same year we went to Landmark Forum, like within a 12 month period.

That was a couple grand, I think.

Yes. Less than a couple grand. No, it's only like 699 each. Right. So less than a couple grand there. And then you had signed up with Kathy as a coach that year and, you know, it wasn't a lot. Maybe throughout the year ended up being another thousand bucks. Right.

Or to have her to be coached. Yes.

Yep. In her program. So that year we spent about $5,000. That was the year that we were starting over financially. So that was $5,000 out of maybe that first year. I wish I could actually go look it up that first year when we were starting below zero and reinventing ourselves, Maybe we made 100 grand that year, you know, a little bit more. So we were on the light side in that case, that was, you know, five grand against a hundred thousand plus. That was on the light side of what we should have been investing. But then the next year you definitely caught up. What was the next big investment you made in personal development?

The next big investment. And I don't think it was the next year.

I think it was couple years after.

A couple years after. That was what I talk about all the time on here, the Jack Canfield train, the trainer program. And this is when I started to know I wanted to teach personal development and I wanted to run events because events had really impacted my Life up until that point, I think we also did a Tony Robbins event that really rocked my world and changed my life. And I was like, oh, my God, I would love to put on events for women that are like this because I know personal development is life changing. So I went to something called Train the Trainer. I was just email marketed to truly. Like, he came and spoke at an Isagenix event. This is how I found him. And he did Chicken Soup for the Soul. He did this incredible talk. I really resonated with him. I signed up on this email list and I was just marketed to this Train the Trainer. And it was marketed so well, which it was absolutely an incredible course, but it was marketed so well because it was for people who wanted to speak, who wanted to coach, who wanted to write a book. I'm like, that's me. I wanna do all of these things. And it was a three week program spread one week at a time throughout the year for three different events. And I signed up for that. But I remember getting it in my email. I was out on a run and I was like on a little break and I decided to check my emails. Why do that? I don't know, but I checked my emails and I read it and I was like, oh, my God, I'm going to this. But then I read the price and I was like, oh, my God, we can't afford this. Chris is never gonna go for it. But there was something in me that knew I had to be there and we had to figure it out. So I went home and told you, like, you're gonna freak out, but I have to figure out how to do this. And I promise you I'm going to make it pay off. And I think that was the moment for me that I really learned that I am motivated by putting a lot on the line.

Now, do you remember what that investment was? I do.

$25,000? Yep.

25,000. And plus the trouble for the few weeks. So maybe, you know, 30, 35 all day. I want to ask you about these two investments, right? The first one, Kathy Savage's camp and then the training, and then second one, Jack Canfield's. What did going to Kathy's camp when we were like, what? What do you mean you want to travel? What do you mean you want to invest in this thing? What did that do for you? It was the single biggest thing it did for you.

It gives you the roadmap of exactly how to do it. It takes out all of the mistakes that I would waste money on. It connected me directly to trainers that I knew I would resonate with. Instead of buying programs and trying a ton of things online that didn't really resonate, it just gives you the. The shortcut. And without finding that camp and without having a coach, I would have never, ever been able to do what I did in my career.

I remember one thing far more valuable than anything you just said, the biggest thing that came out of it, it gave you belief. How did it give you belief?

Because I was in a room full of people who were able to help me and spot talent, who were able to believe in me, who were able to breathe life into me. And I think that that is the most important thing when you are transitioning or taking a leap into your dreams is to be with other people or mentors, to be able to say, hey, like, don't get in your head. You're made for this. This is like the perfect fit for you. You can absolutely do this. And if you're not investing in places like this, you're probably sitting at home and you're wasting your time and you're wasting your money sitting on the fence or feeling like you can't do it when you're probably better than half the people who are doing it.

Okay, so now fast forward to Jax, the $25,000 investment, maybe 35 for the year by the time travel and all that stuff. What was the single biggest thing that came out of that for you?

That I could do it. Because we did real time training. Like we actually learned how to do the things in the mechanics of how to run a room, how to facilitate how to run an event. So it'd be like you'd learn, you know, how to break people into groups and then you would actually, hands on, go break people into groups and put them through an exercise that you had to make up on the fly. So you literally were recreating event situations and doing them. And I was able to put on an event immediately after that without sitting there going, I don't know if I can do this. I'm scared, I'm nervous. Was I scared? Nervous? Heck yeah. But I had already lived out actual real time, real life scenarios of it. So I had that reference point that I could be successful and that I could do it.

So before I prompt you to share one more thing you invested in in terms of like coaching guidance and self development, I want to talk about the concept of being afraid to invest the money and how when you don't invest it, that's why we give those guide rails right 5% to 10% of what you want to earn that year when you don't invest it? There's two things that might happen. One, you're going to spend that same amount of money you would have invested or more in mistakes. And two, opportunity cost. An opportunity cost, if you're not familiar with that, simply means what opportunities have you cost yourself by not making it? What revenue are you not earning because you didn't learn how to do something? Or what step did you not take because someone didn't help you take that step? Or you know, what product did you not create because there wasn't somebody in the room to give you the idea to create that? What is the opportunity cost of not doing self development? What is the opportunity cost of not getting a business mentor if you're going to be an entrepreneur? Now here's why I wanted to kind of set that up. Years later, you sought mentorship and coaching from Gabby Bernstein and it was significant investment. It was one on one coaching along.

With going to her event at the same time.

Yep.

Her big event in New York City.

Poured yourself in like mega investment that year. Right. And you got something in terms of revenue that was very unexpected that came out of that.

So I decided to. So Gabby Bernstein rarely opened up coaching spots and I just happened to kind of be right place, right time, I believe. She had sent out an email and I followed all of her work and I think I had gone to a few of her book launches, like, huge fan. Her work had changed my life. And I think she opened up like literally two spots, maybe three, and I grabbed one immediately because she never does in person coaching. And at the time she was also doing something called Spirit Junkie Masterclass and I just went full in because her book had changed my life so much that I knew that I wanted to learn these teachings and help other people with them. I was really starting to do courses and events and knew that this changed my life. I wanted to learn how to do it. So Spirit Junkie Masterclass was all about teaching you what she does and you can go and kind of reteach all of these things. So I end up coaching with her. Probably in total, I think it was like six to eight sessions. But they were really life changing sessions. Totally worth the money. It was super expensive for me at the time. And then I also go to New York City to this masterclass that was in person. Well, soon after that, that was the only in person masterclass. She turned that into a digital course. And what happened is because I was a part of the event that we invested in. Also, because I believed in her so much and had gotten to coach with her, I was able to sign up as an affiliate for this digital course. So she turned the masterclass into a digital course.

And can you just tell Sharon, you know, some people don't know what an.

Affiliate is, so an affiliate is when you are able to get paid a commission, essentially, for sharing the product that you feel passionate about. So she turned it into a course. I was able to share that product with my audience and got a good split of that course. So I went on to be an affiliate three different times, three years in a row, making almost 400 grand from affiliating. Now, this is early in my career, Chris, and because I invested, I got my return back 10 times, 10 times over what I invested, because I did this.

Yep. Yep. And so that's an example of opportunity cost. Had you not gone and invested in that coaching, not only would you have, you know, not grown as much as you did, not only would you have not learned things that you did, but you would have missed out on the opportunity to be an affiliate because you didn't let very many people be affiliates, which went on to, you know, earn us over $400,000 over the course of those three years that you're an affiliate. That's a ton of money. That's a great example of a direct roi. And, you know, for context, when you invested that year in that stuff, it was about coming up on 10% of what our income was that year. So here's why we share this. We wanted to have these guardrails so that you knew what to invest. There's two types of people, the ones who are afraid to invest anything. So when you have these guardrails, you say, okay, I know I should be investing 5 to 10% of what I want to earn this year. But then the flip side, those of you that go to too many things, invest in too many courses, too many mentors, too many everything. And I love that you're a constant student, but dang it, you need to redirect some of that revenue and some of that income into growing your business. Not just growing yourself. Facebook ads or marketing or team or an assistant or. Right. Like, when you earn revenue, there are a lot of different buckets it needs to go into. And some of you don't fill your development bucket enough. And others of you. It's like all your money's going in that development bucket. So we wanted you to have these guide rails of 5 to 10% of what you want to earn in that year as a way to kind of have a safe way to estimate what you should be investing. And of course we would always love for you to invest in our opportunities because we take it so seriously when it comes to self development and business development and I just think that we have some of the best in the world out there and we've got two opportunities. Dinner Series Laurie, tell them about Dinner Series.

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We're basically throwing three weddings a year.

It's like a stunning wedding where you get to dress up, you have a beautiful evening. We typically have some sort of incredible music or live music there. There's opportunities, incredible content. I'm telling you, I think one of the coolest things was all seeing all the people getting this incredible content that helped their businesses grow as well. And you get to network even more. At dinner we get to talk with all of you, which is incredible. And so like I said, you get to choose from either two or three of these events throughout the year. You should come to three because they're life changing and the people in this room are next level. Like we actually have a lot of our friends who have come and who have joined and this next one that's in Beverly Hills, I'm telling you even more.

Yeah, you don't want to miss the new people who have joined that incredible.

People in this room. And this is people you and I want to network with, Chris. This is like it's our peers.

It's our network level.

You want to be in this room.

I love it. And then the other opportunity is Roundtable. And Roundtable is actually almost sold out. There's only a few seats left at the time of recording this, but that's just you and 15 other entrepreneurs for 48 hours in Scottsdale, where we're working on each other's business. For those 48 hours straight, you meet a few new people, of course, but the collaborative effort of me putting you in front of the room and doing what I call a Spotlight, and all 15 of us, right, 14 other entrepreneurs plus myself and my team working on your business for a distinct amount of time, giving you ideas you wouldn't have otherwise from the different perspective of the other talented entrepreneurs, it's one of the coolest things we've ever invented. That one's Roundtable. So listen, here's how you find these two. If you want to go check one of them out. Dinner series, you go to loriharder.com dinner. That's loriharder.com Dinner. And if you want to come to the roundtable at the time of recording this, there's just a couple seats left. Go to chrisharter Me Roundtable. Again, that's chrishardter meroundtable. And whether you come to one of our things or anybody else's, please make sure that you're holding yourself accountable to that 5 to 10% of what you want to earn. Guardrails. When you do that, not only are you going to grow faster than ever, but you're going to save yourself some of that opportunity cost. Thanks for listening, you guys. Love and appreciate you.