We all got into the “entrepreneurship” game to make a lot of money. I mean, being a business owner is NOT for the faint of heart. I’m here to tell you that it will eat you alive if you don’t figure out how to grow yourself, your influence, and your business. Over the last decade, I’ve purposefully sought out the best of the best in entrepreneurship when it comes to personal development, leadership development, and my personal circle of friends.
It took me years to narrow it down to these three. I found them to be the most significant ROI for my energy, financial investment and intentionally creating my influence circle. If you’re ready to grow exponentially, you should consider the same.
Personal development isn’t for the faint of heart.
It takes dedication to growth, like few things you’ll ever commit to in life. REAL personal development requires that you take FULL ownership over your circumstances. Victim mentality MUST be replaced with the mantra, “if it is to be, it is up to me.” Removing your head from your ass can be a painful process. Hearing feedback about painful subjects without reacting requires firm dedication to the results you want. The motivation becomes internal overtime because your self-image grows when you’re willing to lean into difficult things and do the work necessary to grow as a person. You also cannot outgrow your self-image. No matter how much success you have, you will always find a way to bring it back to what you think you can handle. It just makes sense to indeed view yourself as someone worthy of higher levels of success, so you will maintain the effort necessary to keep it.
If personal development is the driver of the vehicle you ride in, leadership development is the engine that drives it.
Very few successful entrepreneurs get “there” alone. It takes a team to make your vision come to life. There’s a HUGE difference between being a boss and a leader. Bosses enforce rules. Leaders inspire, persuade, and put systems in place to enable individuals on their teams to flourish for their vision’s overall success. The dichotomy of being a great leader is that the idea of extreme ownership and personal development must be passed on to your team. Leadership development begins with you, and to grow, you must develop more leaders. Yes, you must find team members who are open to ideas. Still, it will be up to you to encourage and set the foundation for them to explore their own goals personally and professionally. If you think doing so means you might lose the “good ones,” I’m going to suggest that’s precisely why you aren’t growing as you’d like. Many remarkable people in the world would rather work inside of a company instead of building their own. These people search for a leader who gives them the room to grow, prosper and live a life of meaning and abundance. Why not take the time to build a culture inside of your business where people are excited to help you realize your dreams too? To me, this is one of the best uses for the idea, “if you help enough people get what they want, you’ll get what you want.”
Finally, since I only chose 3 factors that affect entrepreneurship growth, you must include who you spend time with. We are social creatures. It’s hard-wired into our brains to “fit into a group.” Whether we are aware of it or not, we act like those we hang around the most. I wish I’d been more intentional about this earlier in my entrepreneurial journey. When you know your core values, are dedicated to growing yourself and your team AND get around others who are like-minded, the magic can really happen. This core group of people will begin to motivate you to work smarter, push past your limiting beliefs, and challenge you to keep pace. Just by the simple fact that they are in the trenches and doing the work for themselves, you’ll find yourself operating at a much higher level. From your goals to your work ethic, even the excuses you used to make that kept you stuck…you’ll begin to match your thoughts with what your group believes about each of these. As your thoughts change, your actions follow. Actions always lead to results. The caveat is that you MUST increase your personal development and leadership development to increase your group’s quality. The higher your aim, the more your excuses must be shed. Highly successful people don’t congregate around others who limit themselves.
The best is when you can find all three of these in the same place. I’m here to tell you that it DOES exist, and if you haven’t seen it yet, it’s because you haven’t truly made a choice to win at all cost. If you are looking for a group that lives by this code, please check out this link and discover how you can become the most elite version of yourself.
See ya in the trenches!
