WHY
One of my favorite authors, Simon Sinek, addresses this simple question in his book Start With Why (I love obvious titles). This basic inquiry is so fundamental to our very existence, I’m not sure if there’s a more powerful, one-worded question.
Why? Why Investing Inward? Why build a personal brand focused on motivation & self-development? Why now?
I’ll answer those questions with another one. What happens when you add 2020 to almost losing your wife, wondering if you’re going to lose your business and thinking you’re going to die? Oh, and all within 7 days.
The answer? A change in perspective.
That’s what I experienced in March of 2020: a change in perspective. My wife was hospitalized twice in 48 hours and it was touch and go for a while. With the arrival of something called “COVID” I watched the markets melt away day after day and seriously wondered if I was going to lose my business. To put the icing on the cake, 7 days after my wife’s experience I made my own trip to the ER. I thought I was having a heart attack and it was time to cash in.
An examination showed I was not having a heart attack, but a different sort of attack: a panic attack. I had heard people describe them before and I always thought they basically felt nervous and scared and just needed to “calm down”. I was dead wrong…you literally feel like you are dying (thus the panic). Yeah, it sucks.
The next 18 months were a very long, painful journey. Life was messy and I questioned just about everything I ever thought was true. I became more reclusive and viewed people differently. I increasingly alienated myself from others, finding fault with just about everyone and concluding I was one of the last few people on earth who actually had his stuff together. I know, ironic, considering my condition. Thank God my wife is gifted with superhuman levels of patience.
As I peeled back the layers of my life, I realized how ill-equipped I was to actually succeed in life.
Things started to change when I finally began to look inward at myself, rather than looking outward for people and situations to blame. As I peeled back the layers of my life, I realized how ill-equipped I was to actually succeed in life.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a nice guy and I’m good at what I do. I like to think my clients pay me because they love to hear me talk, and my friends and family all wish they could pay to hear me. I mean, what’s not to like, me with my winning personality and everyman blend of humor & wisdom?
When I say “succeed in life”, I’m talking about becoming the person, husband and father I was designed to be. A better version of me. My ultimate discovery came when I realized that those flaws were a result of poor thinking. I was frequently engaging in bad mindsets and destructive thought patterns, often unknowingly. These mindsets reinforced lies that I believed about myself and the world around me.
I’m good at helping people plan for their financial future and make wise investment decisions, but I realized I was bad at planning for how I wanted to grow and invest in myself. For me, it took a few crises in rapid fire succession to hit me upside the head and force me to reckon with reality. I found myself sitting in the dead winter of the ultimate inward bear market.
Which brings us back to the beginning. Why.
Why Investing Inward?
The simple answer, you can't afford not to.
Investing in yourself must be intentional. It doesn’t happen naturally or by accident. As a species we are hardwired to remain in stasis and change only when forced to. We instead get entrenched in toxic behaviors and habits that limit our potential and harm our families and those we care most about.
So, what am I doing about it?
I’m here to inspire and motivate you to invest inward. Not only motivate you, but also equip you. You need to know how to challenge the lies you believe in and begin to think intentionally and live differently. My own experiences have taught me a lot about what works and what doesn’t. I’ve distilled what I’ve learned into practical, relatable content that will increase the probability of your success and consistency.
I’m also a huge fan of learning from others, which is why I created the Think.Live.Repeat. podcast. It provides a platform to hear from likeminded, successful people who practice investing inward. You’ll hear transparent conversations as they share their successes (and failures) and you will walk away better equipped to think and live better.
I hope you join me on the journey of investing inward, because your life’s return, well, it’s up to you!