Day 14: The Simplest Way To Overcome {Problem}

Everyone struggles with professional-development.

Personally, I’ve struggled with it for a long time too.

But what changed for me was understanding the costs.

Everyone worries about the cost of a buying a course, hiring a coach, or joining a mastermind.

But few worry about the cost of being in the exact same spot a year from now.

Many years ago this happened to me. I was worried about the cost of enrolling into a specific program (Seth Godin’s altMBA).

I waited a year and then enrolled. It was transformative.

Investing in my professional development not only accelerated my success but it also shortened a learning curve that I wasn’t aware of.

The only thing I could think of was “why didn’t I do this before?”

I sometimes wonder what would be different had I not wasted that one year and instead took action.

And as soon as that clicked, I started to understand that overcoming self-development wasn’t that hard — I was just doing the wrong thing.

Here’s what I should have done instead:

When you realize there’s a gap in your knowledge-base that should be a signal that there’s a skill that you do not possess that could be the catalyst to unlocking new income earning potential.

So rather than waiting until an event that causes so much pain and fear that you take action, be proactive in finding the best route to acquire the knowledge-base and skillset.

Here’s an example:

When I launched my course last year I was doing fine but realized there was a lot of areas I didn’t know (automation, marketing, community development etc)

Rather than waste a lot of time consuming random and free resources, I spent one day research the best route for me to invest money to accelerate my timeline.

That ended up being a $10k course that I didn’t have money for. But I have great credit and that’s the purpose of building credit which is to leverage GOOD DEBT when you need it.

I invested in this course and because of the cost I immediately worked through it and took action on it because of the pain of the cost.

And what happened? 30% into the course I learned some key levers that I immediately implemented.

One week later I did about $17k within a few days, paying off the debt and profiting.

The moral here is that these moments are not once every 5–10 years. The market is rapidly changing for everyone on a monthly if not weekly basis.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur like me or an employee, you have to be proactive in investing in your professional-development so that even when things are tough you find inflection points to level up.

This is why people effected by tech layoffs (Google, Facebook etc) are freaking out.

Many got comfortable in their roles and thought “Ill never get laid off” and decided not to be disciplined in acquiring more skills.

And now they’re paying for it unfortunately.

If this happens to you and you’re taking action when it’s too late just know that you don’t have to put yourself in that position.

Realize professional-development is your responsibility, not your company’s.

The more you learn, the more you earn.

Read this post and more on my Typeshare Social Blog