These are the keys that you have read about before yet have not made changes in your life yet. The interesting thing about success is that there are so many people that have come before us that have shown us the way. They write books and present their findings, but we are too stubborn to change. I am going to jam these points down your throat one more time.
Read
Never in my life have I finished reading multiple books and said: “Man I wish I did not read so much.” Reading gives us life, it gives us ideas, it helps us grow, and it works the imagination and keeps our minds sharp.
Bill Gates often talks about how he reads 50 books a year. If a billionaire is reading 50 books a year then why are we not trying to read 50 books a year?
Here is why: It requires discipline; it means that when you would rather watch TV, a movie or YouTube, you need to resist and pick up a book instead. It is not a hard thing to follow yet we struggle with this.
I used to consider myself not to be a “numbers guy” but I quickly realized that to be successful, I had to shake this notion. To do this, I started reading everything I possibly could about finance and numbers. I bought books on investing, learned real estate, stocks, downloaded apps, took courses, I just got excited on the topic. I would not stop until I felt like I understood money and investing well. It all came from deciding to read.
Mentorship
As humans, we are simulation machines. We learn from imitating those around us at an early age. Here is the problem, when we get older we get stubborn and stop simulating. We try and create our path by learning on our own, but trial and error is slow and often the most costly way of learning.
I quickly learned this when I was learning about numbers. I was lucky enough to be mentored by the CEO of Group Home Riches. Not only did he teach me about numbers and real estate in a way that I understood, but he mentored me as a CEO as well. He introduced me to ideas that I would have never learned about without him.
I always thought investing in real estate only consisted of buying houses and renting them out to others. My mentor taught me about specialty real estate like investing in group homes. Group homes rent out by the bed, and you can stick two or three people in one room. That means that a 3-bed room house that would rent for $1300 to a family could rent for $600 per bed making $3600 a month instead. I realized the power of mentorship that day. Some people are playing the game at a higher level. I was able to enter this business pretty quickly because I had someone showing me the way.
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Workout
I don’t think anyone would argue that there is value in working out. The problem is that we look for the motivation to come from somewhere other than ourselves. We make excuses to not have to workout, I have struggled with this. I was an Olympic sprinter, and after retiring, I struggled to find any motivation to workout. All I wanted to do was grind on my business because I though more work was better.
Look at any high-level performer in any field, and they will all say they regularly workout. If we want to be high-level performers then why do we not make time to do this? There is no excuse good enough!
My mentor knew that I was an Olympian, so our first conversation I came to learn from him, but he started asking me questions about what I do for workouts. That was incredible and a reminder that high performers are always learning.
Eat Veggies
I am not a nutritionist by any means but when people get into arguments about what we should eat it can become such a pointless discussion. I try not to stick to any extreme; I just look for commonalities amongst all of the different systems. There are advantages to being vegan or paleo or many other diets, but they do not work for everyone.
The one thing that they all have in common is to eat a lot of leafy green veggies. Veggies just make us feel good, and they help us stay healthy. I don’t need to get into any more specifics because you already know this. It is time you go and do it!
Waking Up Early
You rarely hear successful people say they regularly sleep into 9 AM because they have the freedom to do so. The real story is the opposite. They are often up before 6 AM and dive right into a morning routine to start their day off right.
When I started realizing this truth, it was a bit easier for me to make a change because I always loved the morning. I started getting up at 3:10 because I wanted to make a statement and show people how my life would change from changing that habit.
If you’re telling yourself, you’re a night person, or you don’t like the morning then you better grind at night. You can’t say that you are not a morning person yet at night you barely put in any work either. The morning is the way to set the tone for the rest of the day.
You Need a Clear Vision
Most people have blurry images. Most people wonder through life lost with no idea of what they want. We have to be 100% direct about what we want, and we can’t ever worry about how we will get it. Great things are often done deciding exactly what. Once you know what you want, it is easier to build a map to it. You can never get a how without a what!
We know this, though! Almost every single successful person has told us this. Every book we read on success asks us what we want? Why won’t we say what we want? Why do we refuse to come up with the answer to this question? We will get nowhere until we get a concrete answer.
I knew for years that I wanted to get into real estate, but I was never clear about it. I just kind of talked about it and played with how the idea would be cool. That is not having clarity of purpose in life. Once I got clear about what my real estate business would look like, things started moving forward. I found a mentor, and he directed me to a course I could take, and I invested in myself.
Let Go of Fear
We know that fear does not produce a healthy mind, or life but yet we still base actions off fear. We have become so used to this that we think we are acting in faith when we are acting in fear. The only way to be able to walk in faith is to let go of fear.
Success has been telling us this from the begging of time.
2 Timothy 1:7 says for God gave us the spirit not of fear but power, love, and self-control.”
Some may say well they don’t believe the Bible. Well then look at the words of those who may not believe in the bible, when it comes to fear they are saying the same message. We can create nothing of magnitude riding on fear.
We know all of these things. The question is when are we going to apply them to our lives consistently? I operated so heavily under fears that I tricked myself into thinking I wasn’t scared at all. It was not until I let go of my fears that I started to make progress with as an investor and entrepreneur. I added them to my life at different times but I made sure I did add all of these things, and everyone has been a game changer.
