Invest in yourself!
I was in the living room, seating on the floor as I was watching Steve Harvey talking about “taking the jump.” This time he was not making any mistakes, instead, he was actually saying one of the most truthful and empowering statement I have heard. His words were strong and powerful. Steve Harvey was basically saying that everyone has an inner talent, an intellectual resource of creativity that they can use to become successful, and that we just need to find that thing that we know how to do best, and have enough courage to take the jump, enough faith to take the risk of doing it. As he was going through his motivational speech, I was thinking about how accurate this is in life. Furthermore, this made me think of how we often look for external affirmation, rather than personal belief and faith in what we do. We would wait for someone to tell us how beautiful we are so we can smile. We would wait for someone to tell us that they love us so we could start loving ourselves. We would wait for someone to tell us, that the clothes we designed, the food we cooked, the work we did, the life we live, is good, so we can actually think that we are capable of doing great things. We are seeking for fame and Facebook likes, in order to think that we do worth something. Thus, we are caught living for people instead of living for ourselves. And, when you are living waiting for people’s affirmation or approval, you are condemned to be so “fake” that on your back “Made in China” will be tagged. As I consider myself an entrepreneur, I look at the link that exists between this concept and how we do business, and how it results making us miss the opportunities of our lives. We are often looking for external investments in our businesses, yet we are too scared to invest in ourselves. How do you want someone to trust you and to invest in you, when you do not event want to invest in yourselves first. This investment that I am talking about has different aspects.
First, you need to invest a certain amount of faith in yourself. Believe in your capacities, believe in your ideas, believe in your dreams. So many time, we had great ideas to create businesses, but we did not have enough courage to take the jump and to start the journey. We often care too much about other people’s judgment. Many times we would even start the journey,but loose faith along the way as people would criticize us. Please, let me remind you that Steve Jobs was considered crazy even by his peers. What about Snap Chat? A social media platform that let you post pictures that will later disappear. Do you think that people praised this idea from the start? Of course not, and let me tell you the secret, your idea is not that great, until other people think you are crazy for believing in it. And, as soon as you believe in it, the how to do it develops as if it was magic. And let me tell you one last thing, when you believe so much in an idea, people will be forced to believe in automatically. Do not even bother presenting your idea to investors if you do not put faith in it yourself.
Other people think that they do not have enough knowledge, enough abilities to own their own businesses. If you feel so, then you need to invest knowledge in yourself. As Warren Buffet said “The more your learn, the more you earn,” you should start the process of enriching your brain. Try to read more, try to know more about the world that you live in. The world is too big to limit your knowledge strictly to the things that you only see in your immediate entourage. You should go beyond that! You do not necessarily have to go to school, which I encourage, but life experience remains the best teacher, and every successful person will back me up on this. Different business owners invested in business fields that they did not know anything about, and that they didn’t even have any experiences in. When they are asked how they became successful investing in these fields, they often replied that they just grabbed a book and learned about them. They are not smarter than you an I, they just know better how to invest in themselves.
Additionally, you need to invest love in yourself. Stop wasting your luxurious love on people that will probably stab you in your back, invest it instead in yourself!! Learn how to appreciate who you are. Learn that you are valuable, and that you worth it. Stop waiting on other people’s affirmation. Look at yourself in the mirror, and say: I love you. Yes, say it! Stop thinking about the parts of your body that you would like to change. Hold on, who told you that you had to change them? Why do you even think that you have to change them?
-Probably because you think it is different from Beyonce’s nose. Maybe because it is not as big as Kim Kardashian’s ass. Or maybe because your body is not as curvy as Nicki Minaj’s. There is the truth: all the parts of your body are perfect. You might think the contrary only if you compare them to someone else’s body, and specially, if that “someone else” is sold to you as a so-called concept of beauty. No baby is born thinking that his nose should have been tinier, he might think so only after watching Lady Gaga being on the cover of every beauty magazines, with her tiny nose. The concept of beauty is socially constructed. It has been stolen from us, and sold back to us as luxury. It is time for you to learn that you are beautiful the way you are, for a simple reason: You are natural!
If you are an aspiring business owner, invest some faith in your ideas (I would recommend you to read my article Easy-to-dismiss-Ideas). If you are in a relationship, invest love in yourself first. Listen! If you are on this earth, be the first investor of yourself, cause nobody will, until you do!
Feel free to email me, for business and job opportunities.
Esdras Malbranche
Independent Business Owner
amway.com/emgroup
862–235–7094
