Ep. 12 - Bet on yourself

The best bet you can make is a bet on yourself.

This has never been more true.

Gone are the days of taking home a steady pay cheque, employer matched RRSP, and large pension funds that allow you to retire at 55. Inflation, cost of living, draining pension funds, and the speed of technological advancements are all contributing factors to longer working careers, less stability, and more debt.

If there’s anything the pandemic taught us, it’s that employers have zero loyalty. They don’t care about your situation, your mortgage payments, or your upcoming vacations. I don’t blame them totally either, their primary concern is generating shareholder value, and sometimes that means protecting the bottom line.

But that doesn’t mean it’s all out of our control. The best way to regain control? Make a bet on yourself and seriously invest in yourself.

Investing in yourself

This can take form in many ways. It can range from living a more healthy lifestyle through fitness and nutrition, seeing a counsellor, learning a new skill, or investing your hard earned money. This isn’t new advice, we’ve all heard about investing in ourselves. Every billionaire has a similar quote attached to them, whether they've actually said it or not. However, something that often gets overlooked is that this doesn’t happen overnight, and it doesn’t happen from just purchasing a book or a gym membership. It takes discipline. And a lot of it.

Discipline = Freedom

I don’t care if you’ve done something once, or twice, or for a couple months. Have you done it for years? And are you still doing it? Because that’s what it takes. Fitness, for example, is fleeting. If you don’t do it virtually everyday, it escapes you. So would that new skill, investing, or reading. Without discipline nothing sticks. It takes a dogged approach to find rhythm, and success, in whatever you’re set out to do.

Your goals don't take any days off.

Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is the greatest asymmetric bet one can make on themselves. The asymmetry can come in one of two forms (or, if you’re lucky, both at the same time). First, the learnings. No matter where the venture lands, the learning endured will create lasting returns. You're thrust into a volatile, sink-or-swim environment, where learning and adapting quickly is a necessity.

Second, the potential for massive financial returns. The wealthiest people are always the entrepreneurs. They're the ones with the most skin in the game, risking their time and capital, and therefore reap the largest rewards.

People often assume entrepreneurship is risky, and that entrepreneurs themselves are natural risk-takers, and are individuals who don’t believe failure is a possibility. Basically, there is a belief that entrepreneurs have unwavering faith in their ability. However, I’ll be the first to admit that this is not the case. How do I know? Because I’m not that risk-taker with unwavering faith in my own ability. I’m naturally risk-averse, and betting on myself took more courage than ever imagined. Plus, I usually analyze the down-side before even contemplating the upside of a certain decision.

However, I always defer to the process. I have unwavering faith in my process. And I trust the process relentlessly. I try not to focus on ‘the goal’, because frankly there isn’t one. There is no finish line, so I've found love in the process. Focusing on the process is calming and stress relieving. It provides a pathway for everyday and keeps me focused on the details, rather than the figurative scoreboard.

So trust the process and start betting on yourself. You’ll never regret it. Trust me.