Performance & Success Advice Blog Post # 11 - Invest in Yourself!

The inspiration behind this post is the Young Investors meeting I attended tonight at UCF thanks to my friend Doug Markovitz.

Here are some of the investment topics Doug moderated tonight:

• Hedging Against Inflation
  
• World Currency Trading (and how to use Forex.com)
  
• Investing in Healthcare (and Obama's Healthcare reform plan)
  
• Emerging Growth Companies

Doug read my Performance & Success Advice Blog, and asked if I would mind speaking about a few things in the meeting.

After going through the agenda of the meeting, Doug gave me the floor to say a few words.  The overall message I wanted to send was the need to harness the power we all have as individuals.

I found one of Mark Victor Hansen's tweets the other day to be very profound, so I brought the quote in to share with the group.  "Your state of mind creates your state of results."

My interpretation of that quote is that your attitude, your mental clarity, and how sharp your mind is will determine your success.

I shared another quote with the group that I found to be motivational by Howard Thurman: "Don't ask what the world needs.  Ask what makes you come alive and go do it.  Because the world needs people who have come alive."

I summed everything up by explaining the need to invest in the most viable investment out there - YOU!  Invest the time in yourself to find the things that make you come alive.  Discover your passion.  And once you do, invest in yourself more to sharpen your attitude and your mind!

I ended with one final quote by Dr. Wayne Dyer:  "Act as if everything you desire is already here...treat yourself as if you already are who you'd like to become."

By Investing in Yourself, you will arm yourself with the tools and resources, (image, attitude, a sharp mind, etc.) that will foster success in all areas of your life.

The most successful people in the world invest in themselves.  Do you?

Invest in Yourself by signing up for the Collegiate Performance Magazine and blogging with me here on my Performance & Success Advice Blog!  

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*TIP* - Some ways I invest in myself are:

• Listening to podcasts
  
• Reading books, magazines, newspapers, etc.
• Modeling and learning from other successful people
• Networking & Marketing YOU
• My Professional Image
• My Health & Fitness
• My Self-Discipline
• My Positive Attitude

Performance & Success Advice Blog Post # 10 - "I Admire and Model Rich and Successful People"

This statement, "I admire and model rich and successful people," is one of my business philosophies.  The reason I decided to blog about this today though, is because today (and last night) I was re-inspired about this passion of mine.

As the publisher of the Collegiate Performance Magazine, it is my duty, pleasure, and passion to seek out the youngest, most successful people in the world to first learn from them and then share their knowledge and success stories with the world. 

One successful entrepreneur I have connected with recently is Louis Lautman, the Founder of the Young Entrepreneur Society and the Executive Producer of the The YES Movie.

I mentioned that today (and last night) I was re-inspired and here is why:

I had lunch with Louis today who is a successful author, speaker, entrepreneur and producer.  He has already accomplished much of what I am working to become.  While sitting at lunch, I asked him about how he became a speaker and something beautiful happened.  He told me how!

There is something so powerful about learning what people have done.  If it has worked for them, they must have done something right!  

Bringing it back to our lunch today, he was telling me about how there are so many existing strategies that people are already using to become successful. While telling me his story of becoming a speaker, there is one thing I want to make special mention of.  At his first full time job after graduation in professional sales at 20, he worked in New York for a telecommunications firm.  In the office, a board hung with each salesman's results and their corresponding rank.  Louis noticed that there was a large gap between the top performing salesmen and those coming close after (the Pareto Principle at work).

Instead of only taking the advice that the lower ranked salesmen offered him, he made a conscious effort to seek out those top performing salesmen.  He asked them for their advice, shadowed them on sales calls, and modeled their selling style.  What do you think happened next?  Louis followed in their footsteps, becoming one of the top selling salesmen.

Coincidence?  I think not...

*TIP* - The key is to find out a strategy that worked for someone that has done something similar to what you are doing, and model it!

Last night, while watching The YES Movie, I was also re-inspired.  In this movie, Louis travels around the world and interviews many incredibly successful people.  For that hour and a half last night, I learned from many well-known successful people, I learned about (and from) many successful people I have not heard of, and I was re-motivated to continue my quest for knowledge.

I leave you today with two question that will hopefully inspire you to take action:

 

I told you about some of the successful people I have been learning from.  Who have you learned from lately?

I left lunch today with several names of successful people to research and several books to buy and read.  The next book on my list is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.  What's next on your list?

Questions?  Comments?  Blog with me!

Performance & Success Advice Blog Post # 9 - The Importance of Reading

I haven't always been a reader.  Since becoming an entrepreneur and a salesman, reading has become a mandatory part of my life, as it should be in yours.

Here is an example of how it plays out for me. As a 21 year old entrepreneur, my goal is to learn from highly successful people as a means to improve and grow on my skills.  With only 2 years of hands-on business experience, the most time and cost-effective way for me to learn is to study what other successful people have learned from their years of experience.

The bottom line is this - by reading from successful people, it allows you to learn from their experience thus shortening the learning curve for you!

One of my role models, Brian Tracy, sums it up really well in his Performance Magazine article entitled "The Discipline of Reading."  He says, "Remember, it may take an author ten to twenty years to learn his subject and years to write a book on it.  You probably are getting the results of twenty-five years of effort by one of the smartest people in your field."

*TIP* Many other successful professionals have advised me personally to take on speed reading and Brian Tracy even suggests this in the above article.  Many of them, including Brian Tracy, have recommended the Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics program (found below).

We are all familiar with Sir Francis Bacon's famous quote "Knowledge is power."  If knowledge is the fuel for our mind, reading is what fuels our mind with knowledge!

What have you read lately?

Questions?  Comments?  Blog with me!