Episode 92: Stop Being Cheap- Invest in You

Hey, when I say that you matter, those are not just 2 words that I throw out there. And part of that— here's where I struggle when I'm talking to people, and I am just as guilty of this. So there's one finger pointing forwards and there are 3 pointing right back at me. But you'll spend thousands and thousands of dollars, you'll spend thousands of hours Protecting what you own, but you hesitate to invest in the person that's responsible for all of it. And that's you. And that hesitation may be costing you a lot more than the investment would ever make. Hey, welcome to the Stand Sure Coaching Podcast. I'm Rob Anderson, and I think of my life in 3 chapters. The first one, my service in the military in some of the most challenging environments of my entire life. The second chapter, 25 years of designing and delivering leadership development in both Fortune 500 and mid-sized companies. And now I'm in my third chapter as a full-time life and leadership coach where I help people who feel stuck To rediscover who they are, transform how they live, and move forward with purpose. And that's what this podcast is all about. Welcome to StandSure Coaching. Hey, straight up, today's conversation is going to make a lot of people really uncomfortable. And it does for me too, whenever I have this conversation with other people or even have it with myself. And we're talking about investing in yourself, not, not going out and buying something for yourself. And, you know, and that's fun too. I did this a couple of weeks ago. I went out and I bought a toy. I don't get a chance to do that too often. And I know it sounds odd for a grown man to say I bought a toy, but I did. I bought something that was entertaining for me. I bought a little RC truck. Now, by the way, I bought Brooke's one too. And I fully wanted to enjoy that with her. But come on, I spent a lot of time by myself and look for opportunities to kind of escape a little bit. So yeah, I bought a toy for myself. But we're talking about investing in yourself, not buying something for yourself, not treating yourself. But actually investing. I want you to think about that word investing, but actually investing and becoming a stronger version of yourself. Because we invest in our homes, we invest in our cars. I've got to take my truck. I got an incredible deal on a truck, but it's a 22-year-old truck. I need to know if the timing belt's going to go. I'm going to invest probably $700 to $800 To make sure that that timing belt doesn't fail. Because if it does, it's no longer a $700 or $800 issue. It's now a $12,000 issue, or at least an $8,000 issue to replace the motor. But we'll invest in our homes, our vehicles, our careers, our kids, our hobbies. But when it comes to our own growth, suddenly we pump the brakes. We don't even pump the brakes. We hit the brakes so hard we go through the windshield. And we'll, and we'll say things like, I don't think I can justify it. Maybe later. I need to ask my spouse. Maybe I can just do this on my own. Maybe I can figure it out on my own. But stay with me because at the end, I'm going to tell you about an opportunity that you can work with me over the next 12 months on 4 areas of your life that you should be investing in. Your faith, your family, your fitness, your finances. But first, there's a number most of us never calculate, and that's the cost of staying exactly where you are. Think about the area of your life where you already know something that needs to change, something you want to do. Maybe there's a goal out there, maybe there's an aspiration, maybe there's something that's just— you're stuck. Yeah. And honestly, you probably don't need 2, 3, 4, 5 minutes to sit here and figure it out because you already know. Maybe your faith, whatever your faith happens to be, whatever your faith is, you feel disconnected from the life that you're actually living. Yeah. Maybe things at home, they don't look anything like what you thought they would. Maybe the future that you planned has changed, and now you're trying to figure out who you are in this new version of your life. Maybe you're just burned out. Maybe you're exhausted. Maybe you're one of those people that has taken care of everybody else for so long that somewhere along the way you stopped taking care of yourself. Man, I watch my wife do this. She makes sure that everybody else is happy, almost to a point where she— where I feel like she gets abused and I have to step in and go, whoa, we need to stop right there. Maybe you work hard, you make decent money, and you're still wondering where it all goes. You know, whatever it is, you already know. And yet you wait. So here's the question: What's that waiting costing you? You see, we tend to notice the price of action while ignoring the price of inaction. And there's, y'all, there's actually some psychology that's behind this. Amos Tversky. And his work on loss aversion showed that potential losses can carry more psychological weight than the comparable gains. And that's one reason spending money on yourself feels really weird, feels uncomfortable, because you immediately see what's leaving. And you start asking yourself the question, what if it doesn't work? What else could I do with that money? Maybe I should wait. What else could I do with that time? And those are legitimate questions. And you should not spend money that you don't have. And I'll tell you straight up, as a guy who has taken a lot of courses and a lot of seminars, bought a lot of books, invested in programs. Not every course, program, seminar, even coach— not every coach is investing. I've had some coaches that were horrible coaches, and I distanced myself as quickly as I, as I could from them. But I've also had coaches that made a huge difference in my life. Justin Janowski is one of them. He's a guy that listens to me, listens to the people he talks to. It helps me create my own challenges, co-creates challenges with me. Not every course, not every program. Not every coach, not every seminar is worth investing in. But you have to ask the other question as well. What happens if nothing changes? I pulled up Facebook today and I wrote down about an incident that happened 20 years ago. 20 years ago. 20 years ago, man, my life took a major tumble. I had the worst setback. I'm not going to go into details, but I had the worst setback that a man could possibly have. My world was crushed. And man, the sharks were in the water. They were all over. 10 years ago, I wrote an update, and this is what popped up on Facebook, was how far I had come in those 10 years and thanking the people that stood by my side, fought back the adversaries, fought back the enemy. And here I am another 10 years later, looking back, not only how far I've grown in the past 20 years, but in the past 10. With that sitting behind me, I don't want to wait another year to make changes I know I need to be making. I know what those changes are. I know the direction I need to be heading. I did this with my own coach. I did this a couple of weeks ago, sat down, figure out where I want to be quarter by quarter by quarter by quarter. And I can see those changes taking place. And with all those changes taking place, man, where I'm going to be a year from now looks so different than where I am right now. What happens if nothing changes? Another year of indecision, another year of the same relationship patterns, another year of neglecting your health, another year without financial direction. Maybe it's another year saying, hey, one day. Y'all, I got to tell you, it's— you're either sitting in one day or you're sitting at day one. Doing nothing has a price tag. It just doesn't send you an invoice. It costs you. And by the way, this is where positive psychology gets really interesting. Martin Seligman's work on what's called flourishing looks beyond simply eliminating what's wrong. And he created this framework called PERMA. And I've talked about that in other podcasts, and I've got another podcast coming up on that shortly. But in that framework, it includes Positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. So if you're writing that down, let me walk through what the PERMA is. So P, positive emotion. E, engagement. R, relationships. M is meaning. A is accomplishment. In other words, a good life isn't simply about hurting less. As a matter of fact, we need some of that hurt. You see, happiness isn't just— I mean, there's a whole science behind what is actually happiness. We'll talk about that in another podcast at a later point. What we're talking about today is living more. You can survive a difficult season and still have no idea what you're building next. One of my clients is going through a horrible divorce right now. The end is in sight, and she's going to survive. She's going to do okay monetarily. She's going to be fine. And she's the one that brought it up that if it wasn't for walking With someone on this journey that's not giving advice, she would have no idea of what she's going to build next. And honestly, that's the distinction I care about. I don't want the goal simply to be that you get through it. In her case, that she just gets through it. I want it that she becomes. I want her to say, look what I built from it. And for me, it comes down to those 4 areas again: faith, family, fitness, finances. Faith is in there because there's a foundation to it. And I'm not talking about checking a box on Sunday morning or that you have to be doing all the stuff that are religious ceremony. I'm talking about building a foundation. I'm talking about what you believe on Tuesday afternoon when everything falls apart. What anchors you when somebody disappoints you? What tells you who you are when circumstances have changed? And since we're talking about faith, I'll— okay, I'll share a little bit of mine in here. But if you look over Proverbs 3, it tells Faith teaches us not to lean entirely on our own understanding. And that's a lot easier when you can see the path. But faith gets real when you can't. Sometimes the next step isn't understanding everything. It's truly trusting enough to take the next step anyway. And then there's family. This is where success can become deceptive because you could be winning on every ground. You know, you could be winning professionally and still walk through your front door knowing that something isn't right. And sometimes the life that you thought you'd have changes completely. Someone makes a decision that you didn't make. A relationship changes. The future that you're counting on, boom, disappears, falls through the floor. And suddenly you're asking, who am I now? I've worked with people and still work with people in seasons just like that. I've watched them question their confidence, their decisions, their future, but I've also watched them begin rebuilding. They stop allowing what What ended to define everything that comes next. They make decisions again. They rediscover parts of themselves that they'd forgotten. They begin creating a future instead of mourning one that no longer exists. That's not pretending the past didn't matter, by the way. That's deciding the past doesn't get the The final word. Third component, fitness. By the way, your body is carrying you through everything that you're trying to build, yet it's usually one of the first things that we neglect. Fitness, it's not just about how you look and what you're doing, how you look in the gym or Or how you look when you're out there running. It's about capacity. Can you do the things that you want to do? I've got a couple of clients that their life, like mine, revolves around scuba diving. For me, my fitness, yeah, I want to look good for my wife. Okay? I want to feel confident. I want to be able to take my shirt off, that kind of stuff. Right? It comes down to if I have to pull one of my students through the water for the next 400 yards to get them safely back on shore, or if I have to be able to strap on my tank, or if I have to have good balance when I'm out on a dive boat, I ask myself the question, can I do the things that I want to do? And for my clients that are diving, whether they're 27 or they're 70, if they are part of the Built at Depth program, fitness is a component of that so that they can do the thing, which is scuba diving, that they love to do. If you're into mountain biking, can you do that? If it's just the ability to play with your kids or walk upstairs. Be able to take off your shirt? Can you do the thing that you want to be able to do? Do you have the energy for the life that you're trying to build? Because that plays a lot into it as well. Finance-wise, you're going to have to pay healthcare bills. Family-wise, if you don't have energy, you're not spending time with family. And it just goes on with all those areas. Are you getting stronger or are you just getting older? And it might be that your first step is walking, or maybe you go into strength training or changing what you eat. Maybe it's finally taking sleep seriously. And the goal, honestly, is not about perfection. It's becoming physically capable of living the life that you want. I mentioned finances a moment ago, but yeah, It ties into finances. I'm going to be very blunt here. Money creates choices, but it can also create stress. And I'm not, I'm not even interested in pretending that investing in yourself means ignoring financial reality. But what I'm finding is that I can't afford it actually means I haven't decided that this matters enough yet, that I don't matter enough. When I'm talking to a potential client and they tell me, I really can't do this right now. Okay, I get that. I've been in that situation. And especially when it comes to coaches, I've had to look for alternatives with that coach. I can tell you this, every time I've put it off with that coach, I never get to the success that I could have been getting. So right now, Justin Janowski, Faith to Influence, I have put off having him and working in one of his programs for a year. For a year. And from the finance side, I signed up for his program and immediately start seeing a difference, not just in what was happening financial-wise for me, but a difference in the way that I was approaching my clients. Because I finally decided that it mattered enough. Tell me when. I was trying to think of where I was going with this, and I kind of lost track a little bit because, again, I'm going to go back into scripture here just for a moment. And whether you're in faith or not, that's cool. It's still some pretty decent writing. But Jesus had a parable about talents. It was in Matthew. I don't remember where it was. I'm not a Bible scholar, dude. Okay. But I just remember it was over in Matthew, and I remember it was Matthew because he was the dude who was a tax collector, right? So I thought that was kind of interesting. But Jesus's parable of the talents is fundamentally about stewardship. Different people, if I remember the story right, different people were entrusted with different amounts, and the question wasn't about who had the most. Right. The question was what they did with what they had. And guys, that's money, time, health, relationships, abilities, opportunities. I know he was talking about money, right? But what are you doing with what you've been given? And that's the connection between all 4 of those pieces that I've been talking about: faith, family, finance, fitness. Because— and when you look at those 4 and you're at the center of it, that's where coaching comes in. Not because I've got the answers for your life. I will never give you an answer for your life. I'm not a consultant. I'm not a counselor. I'm not a therapist. I don't have the answers for your life, and I'm not going to give you advice and tell you how you should live. My job is a lot different. I create— I'm the guy who creates the space for you to slow down enough to hear yourself think. I'm the guy who's going to ask you questions. I'm the guy who's going to challenge your assumptions. I'm the guy who's going to recognize your patterns. And together, we're going to create awareness. Then you're the one who decides what you're going to do with it. There's a lot of value in having someone walk alongside you and figure out what's next. I would love to take credit for this, but I'm gonna tell you straight up, as a coach, I'm not the one who transforms you. You're the one who does the transforming. You're the one who has to show up. You're the one who has to be honest, make the decisions, do the follow-through. And that's why I don't want you thinking about coaching as purchasing just conversations. It's about making that outcome real. So here's what I want you to do. If we're gonna make that outcome real, I want you to picture yourself 12 months from today. Your faith is stronger. Your relationships are healthier. You have stronger boundaries. You're more present. You're physically stronger. You have more energy. You're taking care of the body that's carrying you into this next chapter. Your finances have direction. Now you put all those together. You put all that together— faith, family, fitness, finance— what would happen if you made meaningful progress in all 4 of those areas over the next year? And, and probably more important, what would you have to become to make that happen? And that is the idea behind my One Year Transformation. It's not a motivational weekend. It's not a couple of conversations followed up with a workbook. It's 12 months. It's 2 private coaching sessions each month. There's weekly accountability. There's resources and exercises between sessions. Because straight up, 12 months from now is going to pass anyway. I look back to the Facebook posting, man, I can't believe 10 years ago I was thanking people for something that happened 10 years before that. And I look at how much I've grown and how much— by the way, in both those cases, 20 years ago, I set myself on a direction for transformation. And for me, it was all about boundaries. 10 years after that, I had a 1-year plan of where I was going to make differences and change people's lives. And that turned out to be Neptune Warrior. I'm on a new chapter myself now. So by the way, the 1-year transformation— didn't just dream it up. This has been something I've been working through all my life, and I've been working through other— well, I don't say all my life, at least the past 20 years. I think it goes back probably 30 years, but I've always set up a one year from now I'm going to be. And now I've taken that, I've turned it into a program, and I'm working with others doing it. I'm watching their transformations. A year from now, you're going to be somewhere. The question is whether you simply Are sitting where life happened to carry you, or are you somewhere where you intentionally chose to be? So maybe the question isn't, what does coaching cost? Maybe it's, what is another year of staying the same going to cost me? Because you're not investing in just conversations, you're investing In stronger faith, healthier relationships, a stronger body, greater financial direction. And ultimately, you're investing in the person who's responsible for all 4. I don't want you reaching the end of another year saying that you just made it through. I want you looking at your life saying, I built something different. I became someone different while I was building it. And y'all, if you're ready to explore what that could look like, schedule a discovery call. Because we're going to talk about where you are, where you want to be 12 months from now, and whether the 1-year transformation is even the right set— the right step to take. If I'm even the right coach, because I'm gonna tell you straight up, if we don't click, if I don't feel like I can honestly help you, I'm not gonna make the offer. Your future is going to cost you something either way. You just have to decide what it's gonna be. Hey, if today's episode Help you think differently, do me a quick favor. Give it a 5-star rating on Apple Podcasts or whatever app that you are using to listen to the show. Share this episode with a friend. And if you're ready to go beyond listening and it's a real transformation, visit me out on standshirrcoaching.com to explore my current offerings. Would love to Just book a discovery call with you and see how we can work together.