The Best Investment is in Yourself

I am a big advocate in believing in yourself enough that you will invest in your continuing education. Yes, it most likely will mean that there is a cost involved, but these days what doesn’t. I have people that truly would benefit from martial arts training, but cry they cannot afford it, only to see their facebook page relaxing in a pose while they are getting a manicure. I do not doubt their financial stress, but are they really choosing the pampering spa day over an experience that will not only serve them for a lifetime, but maybe their family and friends as well.

One thing that I notice is that all great consultants will always pay top dollar to be consulted themselves. They have let go the ego of “I am too good for that”. In fact, experts in any field, medicine, engineering, sciences, to fitness will tirelessly attend lectures and read current theories if not to learn from them, at least to attempt to disprove them. It “sharpens the sword”. It makes them the best (or at least better than they were before).

I recently “paid” to see an old friend, who was in the area to consultant with martial arts school owners. In fact, it may not be common knowledge, but his expertise was NOT only as a martial arts consultant, but of a tremendous business entrepreneur. He had spent the last few years traveling and rubbing elbows with people we would never be able to be in the same room with and he was learning from them. I was very excited to see him again and see what I can learn from his recent encounters. When I arrived, I was first disappointed to not see a large crowd for his appearance. This  quickly turned into excitement because now I had very little competition for his time and I could extract more information without a line to wait in.

When i attend business training, the places seemed to be packed. When I have seen medical conferences, they too seemed to be standing room only. However in the martial arts owner expos, I seem to see fewer and fewer people. Could this breed of people feel they do not NEED the advice? They do not want to SPEND the money? Do they have BETTER things to do? On a corporate level, companies spend thousands of dollars finding out what works and what doesn’t. But they learn from it and they become highly skilled and implement systems. Sometimes I notice that most small business owners take the stand that all money  spent is a LOSS. This is a mistake because you must take the view that money out is an INVESTMENT. If you gave me a dollar and I gave you back $5, how many times would you do it? We all have a mindset. You have to figure out what that is. If you actually agreed to spend say… $1,000 for a weekend of seminars (I may have lost most of you already), your goal is to not only have fun and learn from it, but