Chapter 4 | The Miracle of Your Personal Development

(Part 1 out of 3)

In this chapter I’ll discuss the subject of personal development:

* What is your value to the market? Can you increase it and is the term "wage per hour" correct?

* Four important lessons for life that will help you get the maximum out of the “four seasons” of your life.

* Difficulties along the journey of self-development.

* Other aspects of your self development.

The miracle of your self development:

What happens outside happens to everyone and doesn’t determine your future.

The key is what you do with it, and that does determine your future.

Do something different from what you've done so far: like reading a book, defining things that it's important for you to have self-discipline in and take them into action, starting a health plan.

Do something different under the same circumstances that were until now, no matter how big or small, since you can’t change the circumstances - but you can change yourself.

What you now have, you pulled toward yourself through the person you turned out to be.

If you’ll change - everything will change for you. You don’t have to change what’s on the outside.

It certainly isn’t easy to make that ‘switch’ from blaming the entire world to realizing that the problem lies within you. Keeping that in mind, know that although the problem lies within you, the solution lies within you too.

Don’t ask for things to be easier - ask yourself to be better.

Don’t wish for fewer problems - wish yourself to have more skills.

Start implementing these personal changes and everything will change for you.

Remember the phrase: a small effort is the best substitute for excuses.

Self development:

The subject of self-development is easier to explain in the context of money since it's more perceptible, and therefore, that’s how I’ll approach it.

However, self-development can be integrated with a wide range of fields and values.

We earn our salary in return for the value we produce to the market – that’s the key to understanding the economy, the market.

Remember: our salary is for the value we produce and not for the time it took us to produce it. It’s important to understand that a sentence like: "I earn $10 per hour” is incorrect.

If that was true, you could have stayed at home and receive the money for that time... You get paid for the value you produce in an amount of time.

If so, we get paid for value and not for an amount of time.

From here you can ask the following questions:

Is it possible for instance, to double your value in the market and by that earn twice as much for the same amount of hours?

Or

Is it possible for instance, to triple your value in the market and by that earn 3 times as much money for the same amount of hours?

The answer is - obviously.

Meaning, all you have to do is increase your value.

Every country has its own wage rate, starting from the minimum wage (approximately $7 an hour in the U.S) and ending with the highest salary, reaching even a six-digit salary a month.

Several conclusions:

* Yes, some people produce a high enough value, the company they own or the one that employs them, find it worthwhile to pay a six-digit salary.

* Paying someone minimum wage, indicates that in comparison to the market, the value that someone produces isn’t high. I specifically emphasize in comparison to the market, because certainly in other aspects of life such as family, friends, and community that someone might produce a higher value.

You can ask: "So how can I earn more money?"

Three solutions can be offered here:

1. Go on strike - the main problem with this solution is... your demands will be what?

Are you demanding to become rich?

2. Wait for the next salary raise – but let me tell you, it's easier to climb the rank ladder than wait to be given a salary raise. Why not increase your value instead of waiting for that raise?

3. Here lies the secret - learn to invest in yourself more than you invest in your job.

If you’ll invest in your job – you’ll make a living / exist.

If you’ll invest in yourself – you’ll be rich.

How many hard working people do you know? I personally know a lot: people who don’t mind a bit of hard work, the first to come to work and last to leave, good and diligent people no doubt, but they’re not rich.

And why aren’t they rich? Because they invest in their job and not in themselves.

Start investing in yourself today, increase your value in the market and I guarantee your income will go through a dynamical change.

Invest in yourself. Develop your life philosophy, your skills, knowledge, interpersonal communication, and everything will change - not just financially but in other fields, areas and values too.

Four important lessons for life:

Before discussing the lessons, let me start with an introduction:

It’s important to focus on the essential things. Whatever you do – by the end of each week / month / year, check and verify you’re not wasting valuable time on unimportant things.

There are two expressions you might want to take into account:

* Life and business change like the seasons of the year.

* You can’t change the seasons, but you can change yourself.

Given these two expressions, here are the four important lessons:

1. Learn to deal with winters: they come right after autumn - regularly. Some are long and some are shorter, some are easy and some are harder, but winter will always come after fall. Remember - that's not going to change.

There are all kinds of "winters": a "winter" when your mind is blank, a "winter" when everything goes wrong - these are the winters of your life.

There are financial "winters”, social "winters", personal "winters".

Learn to deal with the winters.

Learn to deal with the night, it comes straight after daylight. Learn to cope with difficulties - they come after the opportunities, learn to deal with recession - it comes right after development and expansion.

That’s not going to change.

How are you going to deal with the winter? Let's face it, you can't "get rid of” January just tearing it out of the calendar... But you can strengthen yourself, be smarter and better.

Winters can’t change but you can, don’t wish for summer when it’s winter.

During a time of crisis, nothing will happen if you say: "If only it was easier".

Don’t wish for things to be easier – wish for yourself to be better, don’t wish for fewer problems - wish to have more skills, don’t wish for less challenge – wish to have more wisdom.

2. Learn to take advantage of spring: spring is opportunity and you can be sure it will

always come after winter.

Just as days come straight after nights, so will opportunities come straight after difficulties; development and expansion will come straight after recession, and all - regularly, you can count on it.

The main point here is - learn to take advantage of it.

Just because spring has come, doesn’t mean you'll do better come autumn. You have to do something for that to happen.

In fact, everyone has to be good at one of the following: cultivating and planting in the spring or beg for help in the fall... so take advantage of daylight, take advantage of an opportunity, read every book that can help you make use of opportunities.

Alexander Graham Bell said: "Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand.

The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus". Accelerant alone won’t start a bonfire – focus your thoughts to ignite the change.

Why don't you start immediately? Life is short – don’t let the seasons just pass by you.

3. Learn to nurture and protect your crop during the summer: some people will try to take away the crop you planted in the spring and if you won’t prevent it, they will prevail.

Here are two phrases worth remembering:

A. Eventually, someone will try to take every substantial thing you have – don’t ask me why, all I know is - it's true ... To think otherwise will be naive.

B. Protect your values - meaning your social values, your family values, your business values etc.

4. Learn to harvest in autumn without complaining: Take full responsibility for the consequences of your actions, that’s the indication you've reached matureness.

Learn to harvest in autumn season without apologizing too - without apologizing for your success (and without complaining if you’ve failed).

I’m not saying that would be easy, I’m saying that's the right thing to do.

Success is not something you chase after, success is something you become:

What determines the quality of your life is not what happens around you. The sun set on all of us last night and the sun rose on all of us this morning.

Same things can happen to two different people, however, one becomes rich and the other poor. Why do you think that is?

That’s because the incident \ event is not the important thing, it's what you do about it.

It's not what's going on around you; it's what you do that determines how your life will look like.

Anything can happen:

You certainly know Murphy's law: "If something can go wrong - it will”, anything could happen.

There are people who have lost a lot of money and it took them a long time to get over it.

It’s possible that for others the same amount of money is not much but for those people who have lost it, it was everything and everything is a lot.

I’m sure you too have lost at one time or other, something valuable that was everything to you or maybe you’ve experienced a great disappointment.

It happened to me too and also to other people around you, but it’s important to understand that these are events.

Some might say: "Right, but you don’t understand the disappointments I've had!".

Let bygones be bygones. We’ve all had our share of disappointments and losses, being them great or small.

Disappointments and losses are not a "privilege" reserved merely for the poor.

Everyone has them. The question is - what are you going to do with them?

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Continue to Chapter 4 | The Miracle of Your Personal Development - Part 2

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* Chapter 3 | Expanding Your Knowledge Base - Part 2

* Chapter 3 | Expanding Your Knowledge Base - Part 1

* The Magazine