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If you’re in business for yourself then respecting yourself is respecting the business – and vice versa. Join me for this episode as I share five actions (and one bonus!) that have strengthened my self-respect and in turn, grown my business.
- Do the ordinary things in an extraordinary manner.
- Charge appropriately
- Save your money
- Design your calendar
- Try one new thing a year
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Full Transcript:
If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all. As I was a kid growing up, I heard some form of that from my parents, teachers, Sunday school teachers, uncles, aunts, every adult figure in my life growing up, but it’s interesting how I had such a hard time applying that to the way I talk about myself.
When I look at the gamut, the range of my own self image, Since I was a kid growing up, I feared way more towards the end of not feeling like I was enough, like something was wrong with me, something was fundamentally flawed, and I just didn’t have it all figured out, and I was some sort of imposter. I’m not sure if that’s you, but It’s likely that at least some who are tuning in find themselves in that boat.
Maybe you have a healthy self image and that’s good. That’s amazing. I wish that was something that I had from the very outset of my life. And then we have of course those others who I, and I don’t think this is you because you probably wouldn’t be listening to this kind of podcast or watching this kind of video, but we have those.
Who are on like the extreme end of just being completely delusional and you know thinking like they’re God’s greatest gift to mankind, right? And so do without what you might, but I want to share in this episode a little bit about self respect. I’ve been in business now for myself for over 10 years and I started out a solopreneur, which means that I was the engine behind everything that I did.
I wore a lot of hats in the business, and what I found was that as I go, so the business goes. Since that time, and over that time, I’ve started a couple of other businesses and ventures, and I have other people who are involved in those things. But still, when I start something new, and when I assemble a team, and when I cast Vision, and I build bridges as Mike goes, so do those businesses or those projects or those endeavors.
And I’m starting to pick up on the fact that this may be the case for the rest of my life. If I want to do well in the world of work and business, then maybe I need to really look at myself. Obviously, I want to grow in that area personally speaking, but this is linked to business and my profession and the things that I do.
And so I want to share a little bit about that today. And I want to talk about a couple of things that I’ve learned when it comes to self respect. So none of what I’m really going to share today is. The respect that others give you, it’s more has to do with the respect that you give yourself and how you learn to do that.
And some practical things that I’ve experienced and have really helped me out, regardless of where you are in your business building journey. I’ve met too many entrepreneurs. I’ve met too many people high performers, you name it, who have. They’ve accomplished a lot, and no matter what accolades they’ve earned, whatever their accomplishments are, it just doesn’t seem to sink in.
I’m not sure if you’ve ever felt that way. People say nice things about you, they congratulate you, you get some recognition on social media or in your industry or whatever it is. And it just doesn’t seem to sink in, right? And that’s a really tough place to be because you can never really outperform a poor self image.
I’ve learned that a negative mindset rarely yields a positive outcome. If we can work on ourselves and this internal stuff is stuff that we can control, and at least improve on, then it’s worth it. It’s a battle worth fighting. It’s a journey worth traveling on. One thing that’s really helped me through the years.
is to learn how to do the ordinary things in an extraordinary manner. I’ll say that again. Doing the ordinary things in an extraordinary manner. One of my favorite types of people to read about and study are professional athletes. I’ve been a sports guy as long as I can remember. I was always into baseball, that was my first love.
Then I got into basketball, I played for my high school. I was a pretty decent player. I had no shot at playing Division 1 NCAA or anything like that. I was good for some kid in New Jersey in a suburban town, alright? And I loved football. I still watch all three sports occasionally, especially when the games are really important.
I’m not as avid as I used to be. I have better things to do than watch sports these days. But I still keep a pulse on it. I log on to ESPN, I listen to podcasts occasionally with athletes, and I am an absolute junkie for any kind of videos or books that talk about the process of preparation that professional athletes have to go through in order to perform.
One book that comes to mind, actually two books I’ve been reading lately. One is this little book here, if you’re watching on YouTube, it looks like just, it’s just a thin little book, almost a complete white blank cover with very tiny print says greatness in all lowercase letters by David Cook.
And I might do a recap of this book on a future episode Because this book costs over a hundred dollars and is only available On david cook’s website, and if you’re not sure who david cook is he’s a peak performance coach He was one of the like OGs in that field work with NBA players and stuff like that.
So I’ve been devouring this another book that I’ve been reading, which was recommended to me by a number of friends is by Tim Story, who is also a high performance coach, works with a lot of athletes. And his book is called Relentless, and I’ve been devouring these two books.
If I come across a video on YouTube of athletes working out, I don’t even care if it’s professional wrestlers. I grew up a wrestling fan. I don’t watch it as much as I used to either. But man, when I was in college, you can keep me away from watching The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin. And when I was, a kid, Hulk Hogan and all those guys.
And. Looking at, watching video of the training that they undergo, right? There are videos of Kobe Bryant and the Lakers practicing when he totally chews out Jeremy Lin. There are workout videos of athletes that, when they’re training. And I watch all of that stuff. And I’m fascinated by what it takes to perform at such a world class level.
Because in sports, at least to me, you can see the outcome. You can see how this preparation directly affects. Performance on the field you get any interview with Ray Lewis, famed linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens Peyton Manning Tom Brady I will watch that stuff. I like I just can’t get enough of it right and one of the themes that I’ve picked up on as I’ve Just consumed this kind of content is how the greatest in the world Do the ordinary things in an extraordinary manner, whether it’s shooting a free throw Whether it’s throwing a block whether it’s making a tackle when it whether it’s running out a ground ball in baseball, it’s just the fundamentals and The amount of study that they engage in this is not Epic world changing strategy.
It’s just Ray Lewis saying, I literally built another room in my house to study Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, the quarterbacks that I was going to the two greatest quarterbacks in our And I had to play both of them twice a year. I literally built a house and would just watch film. That’s boring.
That is ordinary. He’s not at the club. He’s not going out. He is just locked in and studying. And I’m not a professional athlete. But I’m a business professional. If you make money doing what you’re doing, guess what? You’re a professional. And so there are things that we can borrow from these peak performers and bring them into our world.
One of the things I think about when it comes to my business, and I do a lot of online, online marketing. Email marketing, not particularly mind blowing strategy, right? Not mind blowing stuff here. Nothing like to write home about some new strategy. It’s just email, just learning to keep in touch with the people who have said yes to you.
And Just like most other people I struggle sometimes with coming up with something to write But it’s doing the ordinary things in an extraordinary manner. Can I just write my list once a week? Is it really the end of the world? If you really think about this I said to my you are the brand Academy community just the other day You know all of us make email marketing to be this like crazy insurmountable task If you’re just writing a weekly email, it’s only 52 emails.
All of us, every single one of us have written more than 52 emails in our lives. Now you might say Mike, that’s not the point. Like it’s about the kind of email regardless you either do or you don’t. You send it or you don’t, right? The number of reach outs you do. If you need to prospect for clients.
Like how many people are you calling? How many people are you pinging? How many people are following up with? Collaborations. Like who you want to be on a podcast with. Who you want on your podcast. This is not extraordinary stuff. This is everyday ordinary stuff. But doing it consistently makes you extraordinary.
I meet a lot of people who kind of gripe and complain that no one’s reaching out to them. No one wants to work with them. It’s you got to reach out to them first. And if. You ask not, you have not, right? And if you’re embarrassed to ask because you don’t have your stuff together, if you don’t have your junk together, then just get your stuff together, right?
Consistency is the name of the game. For me, it’s learning to do the ordinary things in an extraordinary manner. I don’t bat a thousand. I’m not 100 percent successful. Sometimes I miss podcast episodes. Sometimes I miss an email. But I come back to the basics, study the film, learn how to block, learn how to make the tackle, learn to hit a fastball, learn to hit a curveball, whatever it is, shoot your free throws, learn how to do the ordinary things in an extraordinary manner, you will grow in your self respect if you do that, if you show that consistency, you prove to yourself, you have the data to back coach.
One of the things I’m most proud of when it comes to this is writing in my gratitude journal. If you’ve followed me at all over the last couple of years, you know that I’ve been talking quite about a bit about this. The five minute journal. Gratitude journal. And if you’re watching on video, I’m going to hold these up for you.
I rounded these up in my from my bookshelf here. I have written in these journals like almost every day. I’m holding up five of them right now. If you’re listening on the podcast. And each of these journals is six months of daily entries. And I’ve got five of them here. This is over two years.
It’s two and a half years of writing in this gratitude journal. Guess what’s happened over those two and a half years. I’ve become much more grateful, grounded, right? Easygoing still passionate, still have the drive, but I’ve become so much greater of a respecter of myself in just doing this. I don’t do it, there are days that I miss, but if I miss a day, I try to go back and fill in what I did that day or what I was grateful for that day.
And I have, I literally have two and a half years worth. Of stuff that I’ve written in consistently every day to ground me in gratitude. This has become a skill that no one can take away from me. I’ve literally learned how to become grateful, like on demand. And as a result. What do I not do? I don’t complain.
I don’t gripe. I don’t catastrophize. I don’t dive into the depths of despair because I’ve learned how to give thanks and be grateful for what I have, whatever I have. I can find the good in the situations that I’m in, even when they’re hard, right? Not an extraordinary thing when I do it every day. But now that I look back two and a half years, I’m like, that’s pretty extraordinary.
I can’t believe I’ve written in this thing. In these journals for two and a half years, I had another friend say to me, you have over 400 podcast episodes. That’s crazy. I don’t know when it happened and happened somewhere along these 10 years. But I tell you what, when I show up week by week and record one of these, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal, but I have done those ordinary things consistently over time has become an extraordinary thing.
Okay. So number one, do those ordinary things in an extraordinary manner. Number two, charge appropriately for your services and your products. Now. Little caveat here. I’m not one of these internet marketing bros who’s out there that tells you to charge a gajillion dollars for everything that you do and you got to Upgrade your self image so you charge more money.
I hate internet marketing bros First like none of them are friend my friends and I’m not interested in being friends with any of them And that is why I have a special place in the heart of my audience, right? Am I maybe you’re one of them? Maybe that’s why you tune in here I’m not into that trash, right?
I’m not into that overhyped and, just
like snake oil salesman type stuff, I just don’t like that, right? But here’s what I’ll say. The reality of life and business sometimes mean you go through ups and downs, right? You go through ups and downs. And Sometimes you have to discount things for the sake of cashflow.
Let’s just be honest. That happens. That happens in life. Stop beating yourself up over it. But what I would say here is that if you can’t charge appropriately for everything that you do, everything that you offer, charge appropriately for at least one of those things. Does that make sense? I’ll give you an example.
I sell online products, I have online courses, I have online coaching programs, I have mastermind groups, and I have private clients. Okay, let’s just say those five things. I’ve got those five things. I might Not be able to charge appropriately for all five of those things because I definitely don’t think that I do there are some things That I definitely don’t charge.
I could charge more for I’ll say it that way I know that with my accomplishments with my positioning in the market I know I could charge a lot more for some of these things but I want to serve people and I want to meet people where they’re at and I want to make it easy for people to work with me And it’s up to me to draw those boundaries.
But here’s the thing, when I work with private clients, so when it’s like one on one work where our team is doing stuff for you, I charge them appropriately. I don’t discount that because other people need to be paid on my team and all. So I respect myself and I respect that part of the business because I’m charging appropriately and doing that allows me to make enough money to be generous in the other offers that I might have.
If you give everything away for free, you’re not being generous because that stuff doesn’t really typically cost anything. Makes sense. I was, there’s some food for thought in order for you to be generous. You should be giving up something that is a sacrifice that is worth something that is valued.
If you’re just giving away junk, like whatever, you’re not being generous. You’re just getting rid of your junk. So if you’ve got a number of products and services or whatever it is that you do, and you can’t charge appropriately for everything, at least charge the appropriate amount for one of the things that you do, and that will level up your self respect and you can frame it.
Like I’m going to be generous in some of these other offers. And I’m going to be able to do that because in some other things that I’m charging. I’m charging appropriately for. Okay. So quick tip there that has always helped me navigate the ups and downs of business.
All right. Number three, this one’s big. Save money. Get your financial house in order. I’m not a financial expert, but I have met way too many people, myself included, who can make money and they don’t keep any of it. And this is one of the most demoralizing feelings that you could ever have as a business owner.
I have been there. I had to grow up. I had to get people around me who knew and understood this area of business and life. Those people are very important to me. And I needed coaching because I didn’t grow up with a strong money mindset. I didn’t grow up around that. I had to learn it.
And I would have these amazing years, especially early on in my business. I would make so much money, more than I’d ever thought was possible. And December would come around and I’d pay off all the credit cards. And I’m just like, okay, that will never happen again. And the next December, I’m like, why do I have a balance on my credit card?
Why can I not stop this cycle? What am I doing? And I had to really grow up to face the guy I saw in the mirror. I had to crunch the numbers I had to look at the numbers and read the story that they were telling me and accept it and realize that it was me and Yeah, you can hide behind how much you make and all of that But if you want to grow in your own self respect You have to be able to trust yourself with your own money.
I’ll say that again. If you want to grow in self respect, you have to learn, or you have to be able to trust yourself. With your money, it’s a big topic, right? It’s a big thing, but there are very few things that are more frustrating than trying to fill like a bucket that has a hole in it and just working yourself to death.
And here’s the one thing that changes. You get older. Yeah. You can keep working hard grinding, going to make the sale, doing the next big thing. But the one thing that will change no matter what is you will get older, you’ll get that much more closer to burnout. You get tired, the market will change, and you don’t have anything saved up.
I’ve met so many people, I don’t take these guys as clients, these people as clients, but I’ve heard so many times, so many. Mike, I’m reaching out, can I work with you one on one? I’m down to my last couple thousand dollars, I don’t have any money left. I’ve made a lot over the years, but I just don’t have anything left.
And I appreciate their honesty. But now I’m going to charge this person their very last dollar to work with me. That’s, first of all, that’s not my ideal client or ideal situation. And it has nothing to do with what I think that they’re a good person or not. It’s just a very difficult situation and they tell me all the things that they spent money on and they invested in quote unquote and My heart breaks and I’m just like, this is a way bigger problem than a marketing problem this is this is way bigger than that.
I cannot help you I can help you market things, but I cannot fix that I can’t fix the conversation you need to have with your spouse about investing and working with I, that’s just way out of my scope. I don’t want to do that. And I will not take people’s money if they’re in that situation. Now, other people will.
Internet marketing bros will. They’ll tell you, isn’t your dream worth it to go all in and completely sell out and, move the entire You’re all your chips into the middle of the table and bet big i’m not like that I’m, I just not like that right and i’ve learned here now Especially in the second like the second half of my business career, right where I really got this under control Man, I look at that and I’m just like all that hard work.
I earned this. This is what I have. This is what I, the peace of mind that I’ve earned because I learned to stop chasing shiny objects. And I learned how to take action and I learned how to do the ordinary things in an extraordinary manner that everybody else that I follow, every guru that’s out there does and I’m just looking for the next big idea.
No, you do points number one and two, number three will fall into place, but you’ve got to really confront your own financial self image. That’s huge, right? That’s another topic for another time in depth, but that is huge. Number four, design your calendar. I completely understand if you have time constraints and you have certain days that like, you’ve just got to work a lot.
I’ve been there too, but if you work for yourself and you are full time for yourself. You can’t tell me there’s, there’s just no circumstance that you can tell me that you cannot block out one day a week for no calls or meetings. That’s just, you’re just lying to yourself. You just lied to yourself.
You say that who’s to say you can’t move your calls on Fridays to Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. How many calls do you have on Friday? Who are you talking to? The Pope? You’re talking to the President? You can move the freaking call, right? It’s not the end of the world. Move the call!
Free up at least just one day out of the week to not have any calls so that you can write your emails, so that you can do your content creation, or you can just take the day off. There’s no situation that I can think of that says you have to be on a call every single day with that same client. That’s called the job.
You need to figure that out and tell them, no, I can’t do this. I don’t mean to sound morbid. I said this on a previous episode at some point, cause I say this all the time. What would happen if you got COVID or you got really sick or you got into a car accident? You literally, would you still do those calls from the emergency room?
No, so there are situations that do exist. Stop lying to yourself. There are situations that exist that would enable you to take that day off from doing calls. Just start small. Now I’m back to the schedule where I don’t have any calls on Mondays or Fridays regardless of the week it is. I just don’t talk to anybody on Monday to Friday, right?
And if I do it’s like genuinely legitimate Emergency or reason, and what’s amazing about that is that when emergencies or opportunities come along, I don’t get frazzled because I’m not trying to squeeze them in into a schedule that has no wiggle room or margin. I can go meet somebody on a Monday or Friday more often than not.
I don’t have calls on those days. My coaching calls all take place in one week. The mastermind groups I run, my Academy, you’re the brand Academy. Standing meetings with clients there every other week. So that means every month I’ve got two weeks where I really don’t have calls on those two weeks. Every other week.
What do I do during those weeks? I write books. I create content. I shoot videos. I write emails. I get a batch create. Whatever I have to do. I go to meetings, and networking events, and meet new people, and look at new ideas, or I travel. All of that. You don’t have to have the schedule that I have, but I just cannot believe that it’s It is impossible for you to create a day a week that you don’t have calls.
Design your calendar. You didn’t get into business for yourself so that you can work twice as many hours as you would at a normal job. So I’m speaking to those of you who are in business, especially for yourselves. Now, if you’re not there yet, I totally get it. You got a Monday through Friday work schedule.
I get it. I’ve been there. I side hustled my way to where I am today as well, but you need to learn how to design your calendar or other people will design it for you. And that was one of the main reasons I wanted to get into business for myself. I just didn’t want to have my time controlled. Okay, so number four design your calendar number five Try one new thing a year like experiment don’t become so set in your ways Stuck in a groove stuck in a rut where you just aren’t growing You feel like everyone else was moving ahead of You can’t move at the pace of the market by yourself.
Like it’s impossible. Like, how are you going to keep up with everything that’s going on, in your section of the internet or the world, right? It’s just hard, right? No one does everything well, at least alone. You can’t, you need a team, but what I would say for you to grow in self respect.
Try one new thing a year. Last year, I tried a lot of different things. I tried additional co led mastermind groups with a couple of my friends, Sean and Robbie, right? I launched a marketing agency officially in a new industry. I ghost wrote a book for a client. On top of all the other stuff that I was doing, I was very busy.
And, oh man, I was killing myself, right? I was just like, just, this was hard. But I looked back on it and I ended some of the things that weren’t working and that I couldn’t commit to, but I’m very proud I did that because now I know, I tried those things. I was like, okay, I tried that. Turns out I don’t want to really do that.
So let’s just take it off the plate. No hard feelings. And in that I always gave myself an off ramp. I didn’t say we’re going to do this till kingdom come. I said, let’s try this for six months. Let’s try this for a year. And then that way, we can come to an agreement, if both of us aren’t into it, or we’re not all into doing this me and my partners in the agency or whatnot, we can walk away, still remain friends.
But I tried those new things. I didn’t get stuck in doing the same thing over and over again. So yeah, do the ordinary things in an extraordinary manner, but try one new thing this year. Try to do a launch in a different way. I’ve had a couple people tell me this so maybe this is something i’ll try right as recently as my friend Stacy Brown Randall She has a certain webinar strategy where you have to apply to attend her free training And I was like, oh, that’s interesting.
I’ve heard a couple people talk about that. Does it work? She’s like it works for me I’ll tell you all about it. I said, maybe I’ll try that. Maybe I’ll try in one of the businesses that I run. Maybe I’ll try it in one of the launches that I do. I’ll try it because I can sit here and theorize all day.
Stacy, that’s crazy. I would never do that. Whatever. How do I know? And her offer is a little bit different. It’s much more high ticket. So now I can that kind of makes sense, but I can’t say that it’s going to work or not. I’ve got to try it, right? So I’m going to try one new thing a year when it comes to your business.
You will respect yourself. You’re not just theorizing and reading books. You’re applying the things that you’re learning. You’re getting real data and real feedback, right? You’re letting the market tell you, letting experience teach you, right? Do that. Okay. This is a bonus thing, but this is where you as a multifaceted person, maybe you’re struggling because you want to talk about a lot of different things, but your business is about You know this other thing like in my case here in this channel and all the podcasts that I do here It’s really about building a personal brand business, but that is not what I think about 24 7 a day, right?
Like this I have another I have I’m a human being like there are other things that I find interesting than just building a personal brand business and One of the things I’ve become proud about Myself in and growing my growing in my self respect in is that I’ve learned to bring Elements of my life that I’m proud of into My work and business life so that I can borrow my own belief from those other areas Okay.
Now that might sound crazy. Mike what in the world are you freaking talking about right now? Here’s what I mean. One of the things I’m really proud of has really helped me grow in self respect This might sound crazy is cooking I’ve been cooking a lot in the last year and a half and i’m gonna be, real with you here I never really liked cooking towards Around the end of 2015, early 2016, I really started to enjoy it and it had a big part to do with the fact that I moved into a beautiful four bedroom house, I was married at the time, and we actually had a nice kitchen.
There’s a lesson there, sometimes your environment really matters, right? We had this gorgeous kitchen just stainless steel appliances, like the whole nine yards. It was awesome. And while I did, I was very busy around that time of life cause I was starting up my business and everything and I was working a ton of hours and I was also like splitting time as the CMO of a company.
I loved Cooking. I just didn’t know how to do it very well, and I didn’t have any time to learn it. What I used to do is we would order these blue apron boxes. They come ingredients in a box, and they tell you how to do it, and all the ingredients are, like, precisely parsed out.
And all you have to do is cook it. You don’t have to do any prep or anything like that. And I enjoyed that. And then, I went through a divorce, and my life, my personal life, Was, thrown into disarray. I didn’t have a place of my own. I traveled a lot, stayed with family. Then COVID happened. I stayed with family because I was worried about my mom and who knows what the world, like no one knew what the world was going to be like then.
So I, I chose to stay near family. And to be totally honest, I didn’t like grocery shopping by myself after I got divorced because it was like the last trigger. Because the only person I ever went grocery shopping with as an adult was with my ex wife. And when I would go into these supermarkets, it would just bring back a rush of emotions and memories and I got really sad.
Like it was really tough. My, my friend, Chelsea Brinkley, Lauren Davis, Mary Valonia, like they’ll tell you, they’ll tell you this. Cause we would run events together and stuff. And Chelsea and I would go out, grab a bunch of coffee and snacks for, our mastermind meetups or whatnot. Lauren would go with me and, being that they knew how I felt like.
It was really tough and I was like I don’t want to go grocery shopping alone. So for many years, despite me working on myself and healing and doing all the things that I felt like I needed to do.
This idea of going to the grocery store was like a really big trigger. It was something that I really needed to face. So about a year and a half ago when I, I moved into my own place in New Jersey a couple of years ago, like two, three years ago. And I was like, I can’t eat out every day. This is crazy.
And neither do I want to. I don’t want to be like scared of the grocery store. That’s ridiculous. So I start going and I was like, you know what? I’m gonna learn to cook and I’m gonna, I’m gonna get back into it. And I have my own place and I’ve got a great kitchen now too. I’ve got all these really nice appliances and all this nice cookware because I bought it when I lived in Florida.
And I’ve, I’m the kind of guy just so you know, I go all out. I’m not a materialistic person in that sense. I don’t buy a lot of stuff, but when I do it’s like top of the line so that I can use it forever. So I got this all clad cookware and like a knife set that was like a thousand dollars, like this Japanese knife set and I didn’t use it for five years.
So I got all this stuff and I was like, no, I’m going to learn to cook. I’m going to, I’m going to get back into it. Like I need to. Face this, I’m proud of myself for that, that it’s not just cooking at home. It’s not about just saving money. It had a much deeper significance to me. And I’m very proud of myself for that.
I grew in a lot of self, I grew a lot of self respect for that. And I’m not a cooking podcast. My Instagram is not about cooking. My business is not about cooking. So I started to play around with this a little bit. How do I bring that aspect of my life into my business world? Because it’s something that I’m proud of.
I think it like is meaningful to me. I, maybe my followers think it’s weird or crazy, but I like this. And so the other day I was cooking a steak. I went to Whole Foods, paid way too much money for a ribeye. I grilled that thing up and I was like, man, this is looking really good. It’s great. It’s going to taste really great.
I shot a video, posted it on Instagram and said, marketing tip. Sell the sizzle, not the steak. And I was like laughing to myself. My dog probably thought I was crazy. So what are you doing? Just give me some steak. And I was like, wow, look at this. I found a way to bring something, some element of my life that has nothing to do with business, but I’m very proud of into my business, right?
And started doing that. And then I cooked some pasta, some ragu sauce and bolognese the other day. And I was like, Hey, partnership and collaboration tip. Find people who add to your sauce. I’m just having fun with this. I’m very proud that I’ve been working out consistently. Now I outsourced that thing.
I, I hired a trainer. He’s, just right outside his gym outside of where I live. So I have no excuse for missing a workout and people are like, wow, I wish I had the discipline that you had. I’m like, I don’t have any discipline. I just engineered the system, like literally don’t have an excuse.
I can’t go like skip a workout. He knows where I live and it’s like right by his gym and I do it during the workday, so I can’t complain that it’s too early or it’s too late in the night to work out and I have absolutely gotten in better shape. And I just show up, I do what he says and I go home, right?
So I don’t actually view it as discipline, but every day in these journals the days I have a workout and, if it wouldn’t be too creepy for you to read these you would see that in the mornings that I have workouts with my trainer, I write down what, write three things that would make today great.
And you know what one of them is? Always, every time I have a workout, train hard. With that would make me proud that would make this day great and I’ve done that now for two and a half years And that’s why for the first time in my life, like I’m really physically getting strong Balanced right?
I’m engaging with muscles in my body that I did not engage with like I never did those things properly I never did those things properly, right? so I’m bringing those elements into my life and from my life into my content, into what I do for business, and I can talk about them like I’m talking about them now on this podcast or shoot something and post it on a social media channel or something, right?
These gratitude journals. This is part of my personal life, but I’m very proud that I’ve done that. And these things that have helped me increase my self respect. I’m learning how to borrow the self respect that comes from doing them and sharing them now with you and making them a part of my work life.
So it’s just a little tip there something that I’ve really enjoyed and will continue to enjoy. I’m gonna close up for today, but I really feel that if you learn to grow in your self respect, and today I shared five things, I’ll recap them again. Number one, doing the ordinary things in an extraordinary manner.
Number two, charging appropriately, at least for one thing that you offer. Number three, saving your money. Number four designing your calendar and number five trying one new thing a year and as a bonus bring things that you’re proud of That have increased your self respect in other areas of life Into your work life into your business figure out how to make those ties right tie those things together I believe if you do this that you will start to love who you are and not just What you do may change the market may dictate that you’ll have to change what you do.
It could do the same for me I’ve thought about this, will AI just completely replace content creators and copywriters and marketers? Who knows? Who knows? But I know, because I have a track record of working out and writing in these journals and cooking and charting appropriately and taking control of my calendar and doing ordinary things in an extraordinary manner.
What I do know, as a fact, is that I can rely on myself. And can trust myself to adapt to whatever comes Because I have a self I have
I can adapt to what comes because I have a healthy self respect There’s no reason for me to believe i’m not going to grow i’m not going to learn I’m not going to be able to adapt it might be hard, but there’s no logical basis to think That I’m just gonna be thrown out, and not live indoors, and not have any food to eat.
Barring some major health crisis, or whatever it is. Or some travesty, tragedy in the world today. All that aside, I have a track record that allows me to have a healthy self respect. And assume that things are gonna work out. In my favor, because I’ve shown I’m willing to work and I hope that this episode has inspired you in some way as well, whether it’s some of the five things I shared today or something else.
If this episode added value to you in some way, I’d love to hear from you. DM me on Instagram. I’m at Mike Kim or on LinkedIn. If you want to share the episode on Instagram and tag me, I’ll get, I’ll repost your tag. And if you found this valuable, share it with somebody, just help me get word out about it.
I’m over 400 episodes now on the podcast. If you’re watching on YouTube, I’m not quite as many videos yet, right? I’m starting to integrate that. And I didn’t talk a lot about YouTube either, but that’s another thing that I’ve grown in my, I’ve had self respecting because I’ve been consistent in that channel and I’ve seen the growth, so just stick with it.
I hope this episode was valuable to you today and I will see you back here on the next episode.