In this episode, we discuss the importance of developing yourself so you can become more valuable as a person.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons on how to grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so you can have better careers, better relationships, and better personal finances.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
In today’s episode, we’re are going to talk about how not accept our current state and that we can do more with what we have. When we are born, we have all these possibilities for what we can do, we just need to develop the skills and wisdom to make more of ourselves.
Think of yourself as iron ore. A pound of iron ore can be sold for eight cents a pound but a pound of nails made from iron can be sold for $4.50, which is over 5500 percent more valuable the iron ore by itself. But to turn that iron ore into nails, you need to learn how to extract the iron from the rock, you need to know how to smelt the iron, how to mold the iron into nails, and then you must be able to know how to sell those nails to the public.
It’s not a simple process of just turning iron ore into nails, there is a detailed process that needs to be followed and it is going to require skills and wisdom to do so. When we are born, we are just iron ore that needs to be turned into something. Actually you might not be iron ore, you might be another resource, but just follow the analogy. As you grow up and go to school, try new experiences, get new beliefs, and meet new people, you will figure out what you can be turned into.
If you look at me now versus where I started, you can see that I put a lot of energy into my development. I grew up the son of two blue-collar workers, my mom was a cashier and my dad worked in the fields digging up trees. I’m impressed by my dad’s journey. Who left Mexico with a third-grade education and worked his butt off to provide opportunities for his family. He really upgraded his iron ore.
But for me, I was a shy overweight kid that was a good school. Thank god my parents made sure I went to a good school. After high school, I went into the Marines, from the Marines I received two bachelor degrees, worked in the White House and Pentagon, wrote three books, and started my own financial planning company. I did a lot over my life and I’m not done yet.
To do all of those things, I had to put a lot of work into my development. I’ve read over 200 books, listen to over 5000 hours of podcasts, make sure I work out 4-5 times a week, get 8 hours of sleep a night, I try to make the hard choices, I went to therapy, I took improv classes, and I’ve done other training.
I’m trying to see what I can turn myself into but that requires me to work on myself and to believe that I can be more than just iron ore. I’m blessed that my parents made sure I went to a good school that was diverse economically. I was interacting with other students up the economic ladder and I saw that on a performance level, I was just as good as them athletically and academically so what can’t I upgrade my life. Education was the first path that I saw to upgrade my life and that’s why I joined the Marines to get access to the GI Bill.
After the Marines, I was still not where I need to be in life but I was able to get rid of a lot of the impurities that were holding me back as a person. To get rid of those impurities, you have to go through the heat. It’s going to be uncomfortable and most likely going to be painful but if you want to shine in life, this is what is going to be required. After the Marines, I still needed to learn how to deal with conflict and have an uncomfortable conversation, and I’m so much better at it and I’ve grown tremendously since I left the Marines 25 and now that I’m 33.
I have big goals ahead of me and I’m trying to turn my iron ore into in beautiful sculpture but that is going to require me to continuing working on myself and pushing myself to do better. One of my goals for Grow With Joe is that I want to start hiring Latino financial advisors underneath me so that we can have more representation in financial services since we only make 2%. I have a lot of work ahead of me but I’m ready for it.
So whatever goal you’re trying to reach in life. Ask yourself, do you have the skills and wisdom to make those goals a reality? If you don’t, what can you make it happen? One of the saddest things in life for me is wasted potential, people who could have believed that could have been more than iron ore, but never made it. I think this is important to me because of my dad. My dad grew up in a poor village in Mexico where he and his brothers, which he had four, one pastry. If my dad had the same opportunities as me, I believe he would be unstoppable. So I’m going to pick up the torch and see what I can do to make this world a better place.
That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, don’t accept being iron ore in life. You have the ability to be turned into something amazing. Just work on developing your skills and your wisdom and you too can be turned into something beautiful like an iron sculpture. Life is too short to accept mediocrity. Go out in the world and see what you’re made of because that’s all we can really do in life.
To get a free copy of my book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and just pay for shipping and handling.
I have a quiz on my website that grades your inner circle, so if you want to find out if your inner circle is an A, B, C, D, or F, you can take that quiz at growwithjoe.me/quiz
I’m also trying to do a feedback Friday episode, so if you have a question that you would like to have my answer on the air, just e-mail me at [email protected]
I’m also on Instagram at Grow With Joe and Facebook just look up Grow With Joe
If you’re on iTunes, don’t forget to give me a five-star rating if you liked this episode.
Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
*Music outro
