Behind the Scenes: Invest in Yourself to Evolve as a Leader
We all know that when you invest in yourself you get to grow in new ways. However, many people let their fears control them. Warren Buffett has said openly about the need to invest in yourself, “The most important investment you can make is in yourself.” Today, I share why you must invest in yourself. I share a story about one of my clients who invested in himself in a time that was tough, but he wanted the payoff. Discover how you can get over your fear and invest in yourself as a leader.
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Invest in Yourself to Evolve as a Leader: The Transcript
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Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.
Today we’re going to talk about investing in yourself. Now, this is a topic that I think about a lot because I want to make sure I’m pushing the boundaries of where I’m going and how I show up every day because I have to for my clients I have to for my family I have to lead the way. Warren Buffett has famously said that the most important investment you will make is in yourself. Now, this comes from one of the richest people in the world. He’s known for his investment strategy. He thinks about companies and the values of those companies over and over and over.
This is what he’s done for decades and the most important investment you can make is in yourself. So let me ask you how are you investing in yourself. How are you truly pushing yourself to be a better leader? How are you pushing yourself to connect with your people and create a culture that’s a competitive advantage? Well, that’s what we’re going to unpack in today’s episode of Behind the scenes.
Welcome to Growth Think Tank. This is the one and only place where you will get insight from the founders and the CEOs. The fastest-growing privately held companies. I am the host. My name is Gene Hammett. I help leaders and their teams navigate the defining moments of their growth. Are you ready to grow?
Investing yourself is not something you do once it’s something you do consistently. Today I’m going to tell your story about one of my clients and this is started years ago and I will tell you what. Where he is today Ron Dodd is someone I started working with about four years ago I can’t remember exactly when it was but I remember a friend of Ayers connected us that we were it was a referral that came in. So it’s great to get referrals right. And this was a referral for a digital agency owner who was doing pretty good.
His average revenue per month was about eighteen thousand. Now for some of you, that’s just tiny for others you. That’s probably a lot. But when I share this story with you you’ll see where he’s gone from there. When we first started working together we started talking about what he wanted. He said I want to grow the business. I’m just not sure how. And I remember distinctly talking to him about what he wanted. He wasn’t sure the strategies behind it. And in fact, when I took a look at his business he was all over the place.
He was really focused on too many industries and focus on too many services. He was focused on too much stuff and that distraction was keeping him from growing and he couldn’t see it. But I could as an outsider stepping in. But Ron did have the commitment to invest in himself and he didn’t have much leftover because my coaching fees were a good portion of his take-home pay. And he decided to do it anyway. I don’t know what it was because we didn’t talk about what he was taking home out of the eighteen thousand but I know he had contractors he had employees that were helping him deliver this.
So it couldn’t have been that much that he was taking home. Month to month. He decided to invest in coaching. And when I started working with Ron we started you know really thinking about what he wanted as a business owner what he really wanted to do and how he wanted to grow and how you want to create the kind of life he wanted and his as a leader now we did this over about six months and frankly, he got a little bit of value out of that but not a whole lot. He didn’t see a whole lot.
And I say that because I’m just being honest with you. He was working really hard and taking some time for the ROI to kick in. And one of the things we worked on was his positioning in the marketplace going after the right customers. And this was a power move for him because he was so distracted. Ron was running this agency and he’d never given a speech before he got a chance to speak in a conference called Imagine. So it’s filled with his target audience. And it was a couple of hundred people who sit in the room and he gave a speech which is all the energy had and he was nervous because he never had given a speech like that before and he ended up generating more than a million dollars from that one speech.
Now I say that because that set the foundation for him it set him on fire for giving more speeches and in positioning himself inside that same marketplace. So right after that speech he engaged me back as his coach because he said you know what do I do now that I’ve got all this revenue and all these people coming in and I’ve got to be a leader to this new group of employees I’ve hired. And so we started again you know inside of a year he had gone from 18000 a month to over eighty-five thousand a month.
Now was it a long time ago but I remember distinctly because we were doing the math of No. Did he make a million dollars or did he you know is he a million-dollar company. And by his monthly revenues, he was considered a million-dollar company. And he continued to grow from there. We continue to work together through this coaching and I helped him through some defining moments as a leader in his investing himself allowed him to keep pushing forward and at merging his company with a guy named Brian and brand and him became co-founders of this new venture it’s called visitor today and visitor has grown leaps and bounds from that because we continue to work together on different aspects of their growth their sales the leadership.
And that changed everything for both of them. Ron and Brian were growing this company now and they took it to three million a year. Then they took it to about six made in the year the last conversation I had been running at a pace of about 10 million a year and they were going even further. They were hiring more people they were getting much more intentional about how they were going to keep moving. And I’m really proud of both of them what they’re doing so I want to share this with you about investing yourself.
Maybe it’s scary maybe it’s not something that you have budgeted and that you feel comfortable with. But let me tell you every time I’ve pushed myself into a place where I’m uncomfortable I’ve grown and I think you will too. I’m not asking you to mortgage your house or anything like that but I am asking you to whatever you think is next for you. Be willing to invest in yourself have the courage to do that. Believe in your worthiness because that’s really the key.
As you continue to move forward as a leader you can’t continue your pace of growth. If you’re not willing to evolve as a leader and I think you’ve got to invest in yourself in one way or another I do like to coach founders and CEOs and their teams around these models of leadership and fast growth. I love to share with you some of the work. If you have any questions whatsoever make sure you reach out to me [email protected]. Keep pushing forward. Keep investing yourself.
Keep evolving as a leader and lead with courage. We’ll see you next time.
Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.
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