In this episode, we discuss how it’s best to find who the best at doing something first before you try to reinvent the wheel.
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 that you can reflect on in your journal so you can grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and have a better career, better relationships, and better personal finances while you enjoy your morning cup of coffee.
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.
At the end of today’s podcast episode, I’m going to give you a prompt question to reflect on in your journal. The idea is to take one to five minutes to reflect on today’s lesson and write a minimum of one paragraph on how you can apply the lesson in your life life. You can use an actual journal, a word document like on Google Drive, or your note-taking app like Evernote. The idea is that you’re actually thinking about how to process the information to help you improve your life.
In today’s episode, we’re are going to talk about how success leaves a trail. Whatever you want to accomplish in the world, there is probably a 99.99 percent chance that someone has done something very similar to what you’re trying to accomplish in the past. I’ve always tried to mimic what other successful people have done them in past. As a kid, I saw that if I wanted to have a good life after school where I wasn’t breaking my back, I had to go get an education. There are some caveats to getting a formal education and getting a self-education, but my formal education has helped me out.
Once I graduated from college, I realized I needed more than my college degree if I wanted to get ahead in life. I think one mistake that people make is that they think intelligence equals success. There are a lot more factors in life that are required to help you become successful like emotional intelligence which is something that is not really taught in school. Once I saw that my college degree wasn’t enough, I sought after more books and podcasts that I could assume. In college, that was when I was first exposed to non-fiction and once I learned about Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, I was hooked. In Outliers, I learned about the 10,000-hour rule, which states that it takes about 10,000 hours to become a master. I was also aware that there is some luck involved in people’s success like when they were born.
Since I learned that it took 10,000 hours, then I told myself that I need to put in the work. I can’t passively do the 10,000 hours, the must take an active approach to become successful. Then once I got into Financial Planning, I started reading different books on different people to see what caused them to become successful. I just learned so much from these books, and I use their lessons in my daily life. When one writes a book, they are putting a lifetime’s worth of wisdom into a 500-page book and I can read that book in about two weeks. What a great deal that I paid $15 for the book and I didn’t have to go through 40 years of work to learn the same things.
I also try to read things outside of my industry because I know there are things that I can apply there, into my own stuff. Then I can make breakthroughs in the financial services industry. I just have to go find that information and then implement it in my life. If you’re having trouble with your relationship, then go find an expert who can help you out.
If you’re having trouble with anything, there is someone out there that can help you out. There might not be a book or YouTube video about it, but there is still an expert who can help out. So when you’re doing something new, don’t ask yourself how you can do it. Ask yourself, who can do this for me? Why reinvent the wheel when somebody already did it. Depending on your resources, you might how to do the work and you can get someone else to do the work for you.
This is why it’s called a trail and not a teleport machine. You either have to walk the trail by yourself or you can hire a guide to carry you. Either way, you still need to travel the distance. I know right now, I don’t have all the resources yet to start delegating everything I need, so I’m making the journey myself. Then when I get to the end, hopefully, I will have gained some resources that I can use to help me to start delegating. If I don’t get any resources, then I just find another trail. Not everything you do will work out for you, you just have to use it as experience for the next trail that you follow.
There were many useful things I learned at my last financial planning firm that are helping right now with Grow With Joe. I got a lot of experience in how to run a financial planning company and I’m grateful for that experience. It’s still a lot of hard work to go out on my own but at least I’m doing what I want to do. Now that I’m doing my own thing, I’m still searching for trails that I need to follow. This doesn’t mean that every day I’m trying something new. Some times you have to stick with a trail for 1 to 5 years before it actually pays off. Then when you’re done with that trail, then you can move on to the next one.
I’m exploring about four different trails right now. I’m in Mexico, trying to learn Spanish and I’m here in Latin America because I know immersion is the best way to learn a new language. I’m focusing on marketing right now because marketing makes up 40% of businesses success, I’m reaching out to my network everything, because this is what Jordan Harbinger told me what to do after he said it helped him out, and I’m obtaining an MBA right now because I just want to learn some new things about business.
Everything is uncomfortable, but I can tolerate it. As long as I keep taking action in each one of those areas, then one I get to the end of the trail, I’ll get my reward. Some trails will just go on forever but they do have great places to stock up on the thing. Think of coming across a sweet spring when you’re really thirsty. You drink up and then you keep going. When you’re going on your trail, you’re going to have moments of doubt and feelings of wanting to quit, but if you just keep going, then you get the thing you really want in life.
I’m doing all of these trails because I want to provide myself with a good lifestyle and also have the ability to give back to others. If I don’t follow the trail, then I’m not going to be the person I want to be in life and I won’t be able to help out more people. And for me, I can’t tolerate that for myself.
That’s it for today’s episode, and to summarize it, success leaves a trail. If you want to get to a better life, then don’t try to figure it out on your own. Try to find out who already did it, and follow there example. You don’t have all the time in the world, so use as many shortcuts you can. It will cause you less stress, cost you less time, and it will probably save you money. I’ve used so many books and podcast episodes as mentors and they have served me very well. They will probably serve you well too.
So in your journal, ask yourself, who can help me get to where I want to go? What books can I read, what YouTube videos can I watch, or what podcast episodes can I listen to help me get where I want to go to? Then ask yourself, when can I start taking in the material? Hopefully, this exercise gives you more options on how to live life. That’s what happened to me once I started to read more books and listen to more podcasts. The options for how I could live life expanded and now I’m one the one path that’s tailored made for me. This is the outcome you should want and following the trail will get you there.
Thanks for listening today! 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]
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Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
*Music outro
