MBA2473 5 Ways I’ve Invested In Myself to Grow My Business

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After all, you're making all the decisions and our job as leaders, as founders, as business owners is to make the best decisions possible so that we impact our business in a big way. Well, how do you make great decisions? How do you perform at your best so your business can benefit? Well, that's what today's episode's all about. I'm going to share with you five ways that I've invested in myself that has helped my businesses grow over the last 20 years. This is tried and true. This is not theory. I've tried plenty of things that don't work. I won't be including them in today's episode. I'm only including the stuff that actually have the most impact has the best return on investment of Your time and money as you invest in yourself. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. I want to start by saying that a lot of people don't fully understand what I just mentioned at the top of the episode, that you are the most impactful person in the business. If you are the leader, if you are the CEO, if you're the founder, just thinking about it for a moment, you're making most of the big product decisions, the direction your business is going in, the hires you're making, where you invest and spend your money, the business, the marketing decisions, the branding decisions. If you're not your best, you can't expect for you to perform at your best, to do your best, and to produce great work. A lot of us think that things are just going to happen miraculously. No, I've learned this the hard way. They don't just happen. They happen for a reason. And they happen because the person that is making the decisions, the person that is actually doing the work, has everything to their advantage. This is a very important point. I'm not going to lie to you. Business is really hard. There's a lot of things that will work against you, things out of your control. So you need everything to your advantage as much as possible. This is where investing in yourself is all about. How do you optimize your performance? How do you optimize you showing up to your business every day and make sure that you could deliver the best work and make the best decisions? Well, I've tried a ton of things and here are my top five. Some of this stuff is going to require you to invest money. Most of the stuff's going to require you to invest money. Many of it will be just about investing time or effort or attention. And you don't need to do all five of these. You could start with one, focus on that, master it, and then move on to the next. So let me start with number one. I've mentioned this a ton of times. A lot of people don't fully understand how impactful this is, but it's probably the most impactful thing, believe it or not. And that is your physical health. Investing in your physical health. Let's put nutrition aside for a second and let's just talk about movement, exercise, going to the gym, going to your favorite sport, whether you love to play volleyball or tennis or whatever it might be. Swimming, going to yoga, whatever you love. But here's the secret. No off days, exercise every single day. This is an investment that pays off. So. So. Well, I'm Going to tell you why. Number one, forget the physical benefits. Forget the fact that you'll be in great shape and you'll feel great and you'll sleep well and all that kind of stuff. Let's forget about that for a moment. But the fact that you exercise and prioritize it every day shows that you can be disciplined. Business requires you to be disciplined, to be consistent. And if you could do this every day, if you can carve out whatever it is, 10, 15, 20 minutes, an hour, a day, whatever you like to do, but it's consistent and you exercise every single day, this investment that you're making is going to pay so, so well. I know I said that before, but it's so true. Why? Because your mind follows your body. If your body's feeling good, if you're exercising, if there's good blood flow, if there's oxygen flow, whatever that might be, it could be just a simple 15 to 20 minute walk around your neighborhood every single day. That alone, if you do it every day, will give you more energy, it will give you more focus, it will allow you to be more present in your work. If I'm ever feeling sluggish, if I feel like my ideas are just blah, not great, if I feel like I'm feeling lethargic or I'm not really into what I'm doing, it's usually because I haven't moved, I haven't exercised that day, or I missed a day. As soon as I move my body, as soon as I exercise, as soon as I get that blood flowing, things change dramatically. Ideas come to. Even while you're working out, you start to feel better about everything. You start to feel positive. Guys, business is mostly an emotional game. And you can change your emotions through motion, through exercise. So I gotta start with this one. And I know a lot of people might be like, omar, I don't have time for this. What are you talking about? I got, you know, kids, I got obligations, I'm taking care of my mother, whatever it might be. I, I totally get it. And I understand that there are people with many obligations and the pressure of running a business and making ends meet. But we all can wake up 15 minutes early, we can all go to bed 30 minutes later and get that in. It is so important. Why? Because it's going to accelerate your success. You're going to feel better about yourself. You're going to be more confident as a speaker, as an entrepreneur, as a person. You're going to just show up better because you know you are prioritizing Yourself, you're giving yourself time to be better through physical exercise. I know this might seem hard, but I'm telling you, it's going to pay off dividends. And by the way, exercising every day, even if it's just 15, 20 minutes a day, moving your body, this is actually more beneficial to you doing it consistently every day, not skipping a day, than you working out an hour, three days a week. Our bodies, our lives, our minds, like consistency and, and when it's not questionable when this is something you have to do every day, like showering or having breakfast, right? When you just do this every day, it's not a negotiation with yourself. Every day, am I going to exercise today? Am I going to go to the gym? It's just a given. You're going, that's it, it's over. This practice alone that I've implemented consistently over the last few years has catapulted my success as an entrepreneur in ways I can't even enumerate. But I know exactly how I felt when I didn't do this. And I just wasn't the same person. I wasn't the same leader, I wasn't the same thinker, I wasn't the same content creator. Everything improved. Investment number two, Outsourcing. The most time consuming thing you have in your life. I'm not talking about work here, I'm not talking about business, I'm talking about life. For me, I want to eat healthy, I want to eat good food, I want to enjoy my food. Okay, but it's time consuming. It's very time consuming for me to cook breakfast, lunch and dinner. And I worked from home most of my career, so this means going to the kitchen, cooking the food, doing the cleanup, all that stuff. Not to mention choosing what I'm going to eat, going grocery shopping, bringing home, putting the fridge, all that kind of stuff. For me, this was the most time consuming task of life. Laundry. I do it once a week. It's fine. It's not so time consuming. Washing the car, not that consistent, not that often. But even cleaning the house is not as time consuming as cooking food. So I chose this thing as the most time consuming thing in my life and outsourced it. What did I do? Well, I found the most delicious healthy meals that I could buy that are prepared for me. It's Live Fit Nutrition. I love Live Fit Nutrition. They're amazing. I know the founder, Terry Cook, amazing guy. But by choosing to outsource this part of my life, it makes my life so much easier. Why? Because I have these meals All I gotta do is heat them up on the stove. I'm not a big microwave guy, so I just heat them up on the stove. I eat them and the wash up is very quick. Why? Because usually when you cook, say for example, having a steak and shrimp and mashed potatoes, okay, in order for me to make that, I'm gonna waste so many utensils and cutting boards and pots and pans and things like that to make each item. Peeling potatoes, all that kind of stuff, right? But when I have this set meal, I just heat it up. I then wash my plate and wash the frying pan that I heated up in and that's pretty much it. Over. I can eat and clean up within minutes and I'm eating very healthy. These meals are like super clean, five ingredients or less. They're very, very tasty. Probably just as good, if not a little bit better than what I would make myself. And there's plenty of variety. Now, there is a cost involved, financial cost, but if you work it out, in my opinion, it's just a little bit more than grocery shopping and buying your groceries. I would say maybe 10 to 15% more. But for me, it's so worth it to save the time. Why? Why is the time so important to me? Well, because if I want to comfortably exercise every day, if I want to comfortably have downtime to read, if I have comfortably run errands and not feel rushed all the time, or do my obligations towards my family, whatever might be, this really alleviates a lot of the stress and allows me to feel better about my day. I don't feel stressed out. I don't have time for this, I don't have time for that. It eases the overall stress because my most time consuming task is outsourced and taken care of. Find your most time consuming task in life and try to outsource it. Maybe for you it's cleaning, maybe for you it's laundry, whatever it might be. The third investment that I have made that has drastically improved my business is something I learned from my buddy, Ramit Sethi. Ramit Sethi is a fantastic thinker and author. He is a New York Times bestselling author of I'll Teach youh to Be Rich. And he has this rule that I've adopted for myself. And the rule is unlimited budget for learning. So for me, that means I am allowed to order as many books as I want, watch or buy as many courses as I want, go to as many events as I want. When it comes to learning, when it comes to professional development, There is no budget. It's a blank check. Now, obviously you need to be doing well in your business, doing well enough that you can incorporate this expense. But even if you just experiment with this for a couple months, you realize it's actually not that expensive. You're not actually spending that much money on books and courses every single month. But just having this idea of unlimited budget, it allows you to just say yes to things without even thinking, without even having to ponder. If there's a course I feel like is going to improve my ability to be a better leader, to be better at business, to be better at marketing or sales or whatever it might be, I don't think about it, I don't hesitate. It's a good course, it's a credible course. I know it's going to be great. I'm going to go ahead and buy it. The book that interests me, a book that's going to help me out, buy it. I don't even think about it because this is my rule now. And obviously, if this is something that's helping you and your business, of course, speak to your bookkeeper and your accountant. It could be a business expense. Business conferences, all kinds of things that allow you to improve and network and learn from each other or learn from others. This is something that you should not be stingy about. Because when you improve yourself and you get better, everybody else in the business gets better and benefits from it. Not only the people that you work with, but your customers benefit from all the great improvements you're going to be making to the experience of the business or the product because of the things you learn. I love this unlimited budget on learning.

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So we talked about the first three investments that I recommend. Number one is investing in daily exercise. Number two is outsourcing your most time consuming task or work in life. For me it was meal prep or cooking, so I got that done. And the third thing is unlimited budget on learning. Number four, invest in your workspace. A lot of people don't understand how much your environment impacts you, what you absorb around you, right? What surrounds you every day your environment will impact you. It's just nature. So take a look at where you build your business. Where do you work on your business? Do you work on your business in a home office at home or a corner in your room? What are some ways that you can improve that space? Maybe it's a new desk, a standing desk, maybe. Maybe it's getting some sound paneling or a better microphone. Or maybe you just want to get better lighting in your room. Making your space more comfortable, more pleasant, more conducive to creativity. And better work is going to impact you every single day. One of the things I always talk about when it comes to workspace is your computer, your laptop. A lot of people I don't know for some reason go cheap on their laptop. This is ridiculous. Most people who run an online business, their number one asset is their laptop. Everything goes through their laptop. Everything they do is on their laptop. They should get the best of the best that they can afford because you're using it every single day. Everything you produce is touching that part of your office, your work, which is your laptop, right? So the point here is, is that whatever your workspace looks like, whatever it is, maybe you have space in a co working space. If it's a high traffic area and it's distracting, ask to move. Can I get somewhere closer? Corner area, maybe by a window? Improve your workspace in any way possible. This might take an investment of money. Of course it's going to take an investment of time to kind of make this happen. But you just got to be willing to take the time to say this is important. Why do people act differently in a fancy restaurant? If you go to a five star restaurant or a Michelin star restaurant, for example, where there's tablecloths and nice cutlery and beautiful glasses, right? People are acting differently, okay? They're speaking softly. You might even See people sitting more upright versus people at a McDonald's. Right. People might be a little bit louder, a little bit more casual, a little less refined. The environment matters. So build an environment around you that allows you to do your best work. Great investment. And here's the last one. Maybe you'll disagree with this one. Maybe you might think that this is really not that important, but in my experience, it is. And that's your appearance. Okay? Investing in your appearance. For some people, that might be clothes. For other people, it might be a haircut. For me, it's a haircut. I love having a fresh haircut. It makes me feel better. It just makes me feel professional, makes me feel like I am putting myself first. Okay. This is especially important for me because I'm on camera a lot. I do a lot of webinars. I shoot a lot of videos for, you know, courses or Instagram or might be. And it's just easier for me to always have a fresh haircut. So I always know that I'm going to look okay when my face is on camera. And just by having a normal schedule of getting a haircut, whether it's every 10 days or whatever, it might be maybe for use every week or every two weeks, but just having that normal cadence makes you feel good, knowing that you're taking care of yourself. For other people, it might be upgrading their wardrobe, getting a stylist. A lot of people might think this is superficial. It's not superficial. Okay. One of my favorite quotes by the American athlete Deion Sanders, who played baseball and football, he said, when you look good, you feel good. And when you feel good, you perform good. And when you perform good, they pay good. This is essentially what I mean is that when you feel good, you perform better. And we often feel great when we look ourselves in the mirror and like what we see. We're proud of what we see. And of course, the exercise and the healthy eating and all that stuff comes into play. But it could be something small for you. Maybe it's just getting a facial. But investing in the way you appear, your appearance can go a long way. Trust me, I've tried it and it does. And I'm not one of those people that, you know, spends a lot of money on clothes or morning routine, you know, creams and all that kind of stuff. But just getting a fresh haircut for me makes me feel a ton better. And that feeling and that attitude translates to my work and my business in a big way. Thanks so much for listening to the 100 ombre show. I hope today's episode was helpful. If it was, let us know in a rating or review. You can give us a rating on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts. You can even write in a review. We read every single review. So thank you so much in advance for doing that. We'd love to learn more about what you'll love about the show. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. You are important. You need to value yourself and invest in yourself. That's how you value yourself. Can't say I love myself and I value myself and don't invest in yourself. You got to keep investing in yourself so you can get better. So everybody around you also gets better. Your family, your friends. They see the best version of you. That's how you win. That's how everybody wins. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in the next episode. I'll see you then. Take care. Introducing Fidelity Trader plus with customizable tools and charts, you can access across all your devices. 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