Getting Out of the Personal Development Trap (and how to accelerate growth!)

Personal and professional development is at the basis of almost every entrepreneur's operating system. Being a personal development junkie can be a lot of fun and really rewarding. And it can also become a trap that leaves you feeling like you're constantly learning but struggling to actually grow into new results. What's the difference between successful entrepreneurs and CEOs who read and learn on the regular, and struggling entrepreneurs who can't seem to integrate and live with what they're learning? All of that, along with a special method for choosing books that will accelerate your growth and results, are right here in this episode. You're listening to the Universe has yous Business. It's the podcast for rising entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants, and change makers who are here to achieve more while letting the universe do the heavy lifting. And I'm your host, Andrew Donovan. Now, the inspiration for this episode today was the many, many piles of books that I've got all around my house. I definitely identify as a personal development junkie, and I'm cool with that. You might relate to that term if you're an ever learner, an eternal learner. I think that learning is a common piece of the DNA of successful human beings. Not just successful entrepreneurs, but definitely successful entrepreneurs, business people, successful, successful coaches, successful instructors. We're meant to grow, we're meant to expand, we are expanding beings. And so constantly learning is just part of the fun, in my opinion. When you look around my house, I've got. I mean, you can literally walk into just about any room and you'll see a pile of books, and they're books that I'll just. When I've got a few minutes here or there, I'll just open up, start thumbing through something. I like to buy the physical books and I like to buy the physical and the digital versions of most books that I read. I like the physical books for when I'm home and I just, you know, want to lounge on a comfy couch, kick my feet up. And I like the digital versions because if I'm in line at the bank or I don't know, I don't go to the bank if I'm physically, if I'm in line somewhere, instead of playing a game on my phone, I like to read a book. And I frequently will buy the audio version as well. I just, I like having things to learn from. Now, the reason why I thought this would be a fun episode is because as I look at my history with learning and developing my skills professionally, my mindset as an entrepreneur, I can see a really big shift that happened maybe just a few years ago. And it's when I started really studying the law of attraction. And if you're listening to this podcast, you probably are familiar with what law of attraction means. And if you're brand new to the podcast, then just the quickie version, like attracts like that which is likened to itself is drawn. And if I can become the energy of something new, then the new things that I want will meet me. That's Law of Attraction. Easy enough to understand. So everything that I've dreamt up, all of my goals that I've set in the past, those are things that the universe is eagerly answering. And my job is to become an energetic match to the things that I've already asked for. And when I am being the vibe that matches what I've asked for, then I rendezvous with those things and AKA I manifest those things. So what does this have to do with reading books and personal development? Well, when I look at the stacks of books around my house, there's books like Success Principles by Jack Canfield or Launch by Jeff Walker or 7 Healthy Habits of Highly Effective People, those kind of books. And these are just the books that are in the routine arsenals of most entrepreneurs libraries. And the thing that is different from my personal development attitude now versus at the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey is actually a slight difference with huge benefit, huge impact. You see, when I was a brand new entrepreneur, I knew that I had a lot to learn. I knew that. Well, actually, to be honest, I kind of thought that I knew everything at the very beginning. And then I learned pretty fast that I didn't know anything and was very eager to learn. And so at the beginning I felt I was very aware of my shortcomings. I was aware that when I would look at some of my Internet role models, some of the marketing entrepreneurs, gurus that I would want to study from other coaches that I'd want to emulate. I was aware that they had developed mindset traits, that they had developed skills that I didn't yet have, and they had strategy that I lacked as well. And, and so I'd want to read their books and listen to their audio materials in order to develop myself professionally and personally, of course. And a lot of where I was coming from back then was the feeling that I wasn't enough yet I was inadequate in some way. And if you understand anything about Law of Attraction, you know that if you're feeling inadequate, that what's the emotion tied to that? Fear, worry, maybe even shame, a little bit of despair. If you're feeling super inadequate. Well, if that's the energy that I'm reading a personal development book from, what am I manifesting? What am I attracting? Even though I'm reading a really good book, what am I attracting? If the emotion that I'm feeling during my reading session is I'm inadequate, I'm not enough, I feel poorly, badly about myself. That's not a great space to be in. Right? And when I see people complain or criticize the personal development world, I think that they're probably experiencing a lot of what I felt in some of those moments where I've got a great book in my hand. I mean, a book written by someone who's done incredible things with their careers. But it's not the book. Isn't the answer or the problem the place that I'm coming from, my focus, my vibe that I am being, the energy that I'm living, that's the problem or the answer. Does that make sense to you? So Law of Attraction is always working. It's always working for you or against you. It's actually always working for you. But sometimes you don't like how it's working for you. But, but if Law of Attraction is really the foundational answer to everything you want, I mean, think about how simple it is. If you can learn to shift your focus and you can learn to be a different vibe, if you can learn to shift your beingness, then you can attract anything you want into your life. So why would you need personal development? Well, frankly, personal development's fun. Learning is fun. Practicing new things that you learn in a great book, that's fun. That's why personal development is so is great for me, because. But if you sit down and watch interviews with some of the world's most renowned billionaires, they all say, oh, yeah, we read tons of books. We learn, learn, learn, learn, learn. We mastermind with each other. We ask the right questions. They're constantly learning and developing themselves. But here's the difference. Successful people develop themselves out of an eagerness for growth and expansion. They develop themselves out of an eager eagerness to continue growth, to continue their success. Unsuccessful people develop themselves out of a place of struggle, out of a feeling of inadequacy, out of feelings of unworthiness. And they think I am unworthy, I'm inadequate, I don't have success, I'm lacking this and that. And if I read this book, maybe it will fill in the gap, maybe it will compensate for my inadequacy, maybe it will make up the difference. Do you feel the difference between those two things that I've just described here. Successful people don't pick up a book and say, gosh, this is just a shit year. I am not where I ought to be. I'm just really falling short. I must need to do something different. Therefore, let me read this book and fix what's wrong. That's not why they read books. They read books saying, holy cow, they this girl did this amazing thing with her career. I've got to learn what she's doing. That looks incredible. The energy is one of enthusiasm or excitement or encouragement. Even just the energy of curiosity is on the positive end of the spectrum. But if you're trending on the lower half, the lower end of the emotional or vibrational or energetic spectrum, and that's why you pick up a book, I mean, the results are not going to come to you, my friend. You'll continue your struggle. And that's the difference. So personal development gets in the way of a lot of entrepreneurs path. It's an obstacle more than a help in so many situations. And it's simply for the reason that many entrepreneurs are trending on the lower half of the energetic scale. They're trending in discouragement or in hopelessness or in shame or in guilt or unworthiness. And if you're trending in that energy, that's what you're attracting, period. It doesn't matter how good the book is that you've got in your hand. It's the exact same reason why I've said in previous episodes that you can be doing all the gratitude exercises, you can be writing the positive lists and doing all the work. But if you're emotionally, if you're energetically trending on the lower half of the scale, well, it doesn't matter what exercise you're doing. What actually matters is where your energy is, where the vibe is, the vibe that you are being. And that's all Law of Attraction is. And that's why it is so important for me to be aware of why I'm reading a book. And so I've got a lot of books around my house that are probably really good books, and they're books that maybe I've started. Maybe I bought the book because I felt the positive impulse to order it. Instagram ads sell me a lot of books very successfully. And there's many books that I haven't finished or some that I haven't even started. Why? Because I only want to read books from the positive end of the spectrum. I want to read books because I'm Feeling calm, relaxed, peaceful, encouraged, curious, insightful. I want to trend on the upper half of the emotional scale, and then from that space, pick up a great book or plug in a great podcast episode or audiobook or whatever. And when I'm in that space, I'm always gonna read the right book or listen to the right thing. And I'm not going to compare myself or find myself feeling inadequate as I'm reading because my energy was calibrated differently before I even picked up the book or the audiobook. Does that make sense to you? It's a night and day difference, even though it's a subtle difference. The only difference is where am I trending on the emotional energetic spectrum? Upper half or lower half? That's it. And if I'm trending on the upper half, then I can't go wrong. And if I'm trending on the lower half, well, what's the result? The result is you start reading a book and you say, oh my gosh, look at all the stuff I'm not doing. Look at all the areas I'm falling short. Look at the goals I haven't met yet. I remember when I was reading Crush it by Gary Vee, and I was definitely trending on the lower half of the scale while I was going through some of that book. And so the takeaway that I had was, I mean, I just felt discouraged because I'm reading this book by this guy who's affected millions and millions of lives in many positive ways. And he's, you know, like every entrepreneur, every author, he's got a mix of reviews. Gary Vee might have a bigger mix of reviews than some folks, but when I read his book because I was trending on the lower half of the scale, I read his book thinking, gosh, my career is really falling short of my own expectations of myself. I'd better read this book and figure out what the successful guy's doing that I'm not doing. And then maybe I can do some of that stuff and it will fix what's wrong. Do you hear what's flawed about what I just described? But that was exactly the narration running through my head. And so then I start reading about how he does social media super aggressively and how he is just a content generating machine and I'm a content generating machine, but not like him. And I was comparing myself and yes, I felt so inadequate. And so I stopped reading the book because I recognized where I was trending. And I finally realized, oh my gosh, this is no space to read a personal development book from. And so I put it down and. And you know, it's interesting. As I've trended higher and higher on this energetic spectrum we're talking about, I haven't felt the impulse to pick up Gary Vee's book again. Not because I think it's not a good book, just because when I'm feeling lit up, I feel drawn to other books right now. And I always trust that. And so even if some author says, this is the world's best kept secret, this is how you get all the followers and all the sales and make all the impact, even if they've got the most compelling headline. If I don't feel lit up, I don't read it. It's just how I work. So let me share with you a simple rubric that I like to use when choosing personal development books, because I think that we can all agree we're not interested in being in that personal development trap anymore, right? We're not interested in being the eternal learners who don't get results. We're interested in seeing that accelerated growth. So I choose books. Number one, I choose books that match the person I'm intending to be. So I want to choose a book that's written by an author who embodies characteristics, traits that are what I'm growing into, where I want to grow into. I don't choose books that are from an author whose attitudes about life and about business and about whatever I'm reading about don't match the person I want to grow into. Okay? So number one, choose books that match the person you're intending to be. Number two, choose books that play the roles you want to play in the future and maybe even the immediate future. I found myself recently reading a lot of marketing books and I realized that I wasn't enjoying them because marketing is something that I don't want to focus on right now. I have teams of marketers that work with for me now, and I want to focus on my content that I'm creating, my frameworks. I love creating videos and courses and writing, and that's what I want to focus on. And I finally had this epiphany the other day. Andrew, why are you reading all these marketing books? You've hired marketers, you've outsourced marketing because you learned a lot of that and very successfully. I mean, I've sold millions of dollars of my own products through my own marketing efforts online, but I don't want to be the marketer in my businesses anymore. So I put the marketing books away and I started looking up what other successful CEOs are reading currently. And number three, make joy lists as you read, not should lists. What I mean by that is I think that it's really easy as an entrepreneur to read a book and to be listing on paper or a digital note, or even in your head all the things that you think you should be doing. And it's a really easy way to fall into comparison in an unhealthy manner. And, and it's also an easy way to overwhelm yourself because you think, oh my gosh, I've got to do all this shit to be successful. Instead, I invite you to make lists of things that are joyful, that joyfully stand out to you as you read and listen to good resources. And if it's joyful to you, then I would say that's a good idea. That should be your top priority. And then finally, the last thing here is number four, keep reading. If it lights you up, put it down. If it doesn't, you don't have to finish the book just because you started it. Maybe it lit you up for a reason and you started. And. And if it stops lighting you up, then choose something else. All right? You can come back to it later. Or maybe you'll never come back to it. But the point is that if you follow what lights you up, you can never go wrong and you will never stop growing. If you follow what lights you up, if it's lighting you up, it's lighting you up for a reason. So, my friend, that is my little framework for picking personal development. Books, audiobooks, resources that will bring you forward, that will help you line up more and more with your goals, with the things you want to achieve. I hope this is helpful for you. If you learn something valuable, do me a favor. Just write a quick line in the review section for the podcast platform that you're listening in on. Leave a five star rating if you would. And as always, hit that share button. Share this with colleagues or family or friends that would also find this meaningful. Thank you for joining me and I will see you soon.