So, what is the actual value of personal development? Is it just a big scam to make money for a bunch of people who are gonna pump you up with a bunch of false promises and dreams? And a whole bunch of energy?
Or does personal development actually have a real-life practical value? Well, it really depends on how you use it, right? You can read 1,000 books on personal development, and not improve your life at all. It's entirely possible. I see a lot of people out there in my network do a lot of personal development stuff, but they mostly just hype and fluff, right?
They're doing a lot of that. You can do kind of stuff, be positive stuff and they don't actually get anything done. And I feel like that's a path that just leaves them getting bitter and angry because nothing's happening, even though you're doing all this personal development stuff.
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But the real value in personal development, the real personal development is in action. It's actually stuff you do. It's not about what you read, it's about what you apply. So if you read a book on something, some personal development stuff, or watch a video - or this video, ya know, what do you do afterward?
What skills have you learned? Which action have you taken? Did you stop procrastinating on something that's really important? Ya know, what have you actually done? Because reading the stuff by itself is not enough. There's a lot of value in mindset as well.
Your mindset is your operating system for life. It drives you, and it drives your actions, and that's really important to develop as well.
So, reading a whole bunch of books, watching a whole bunch of videos, and all the positive stuff can have a lot of value because they're going to change your perspective and the way you feel and think about things. And that can lead to action as well.
But you can't do that by itself. You actually have to go do the hard stuff too. And a lot of boring stuff that actually creates things in your life and develops skills.
So, I feel that's also another thing that's very often missed in personal development, is the fact that it's actually skilled development. You have to go learn something that's practical that you can apply.
One example, I had this inhibition about working on my own vehicles mechanically because I had a bad experience from many years ago where a mechanic actually told me not to touch my bike because I'd fuck something up. Something very minor and something very easy to fuck up too, especially for guys with no experience.
Now, obviously, his discouragement was a very bad thing and that led to me not touching my vehicles for many, many years. And as a result of that, not learning anything mechanically, even though I wanted to. Many, many, many years later, I took a basic mechanical or basic motorcycle maintenance course.
And in this course, I actually got to work on my own bike, and I had to change the rotors and there's also a bunch of other things that were shown in this course.
Well, because of that, because I learned a few mechanical skills and got some tips that I really needed to do mechanical stuff properly.
That boosted my confidence dramatically. That mechanical course was personal development, right, it doesn't have to be some Tony Robbins thing, and a whole bunch of hype and raising your voice, or whatever.
Learning a few mechanical skills for me was personal development and it boosted my confidence because it was an inhibition. I had for many years, and now I could work on my vehicles.
Now I work on the Fiero and my wife's vehicle, and my Harley, and it feels good doing that stuff and I'm always learning more. I'm late to the game, but I've come a long way in the number of years since I started working on my own vehicles.
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Even when I started learning how to approach women and start conversations, it was a huge personal development event for me, even though the intent wasn't to have any personal development.
I was just trying to get laid.
But the end result, because of all the trials and tribulations I had to go through, all the rejections and all the experimentation, trying to figure out how to start conversations the way that doesn't creep women out and push them away. I learned a lot about social skills, and I learned a lot about my own personality, too.
And the fears inside of me about approaching women and overcoming those inhibitions, and overcoming those fears, and go talk to women made me into a much stronger man, much more confident. Even though again, the entire point of learning this stuff wasn't at personal development.
It was actually to get a practical skill, to get laid. But I got so much more value out of it, and I ended up turning it into a business which I'm running now, a lot of money and a lot of really good experiences.
So, that's personal development. It doesn't have to be something you call personal development. It just has to be skill development, right? If you can develop the skills you want to learn, they're going to apply in your life and make your life better.
That is personal development. Anything that boosts your confidence is personal development. As a man, if you can learn any practical skills like mechanical skills for me, which helps my own confidence, and talking to women, overcoming your inhibitions and fears to go talk to women. It could be skydiving, right?
Jumping out a plane could be personal development for you if that's a fear you have. Any kind of physical exercise is personal development. When you're consistently working out and you get in the gym, even when you don't feel like it, which is going to be often, that's personal development because you're overcoming the lazy bone in your body and getting in the gym anyways.
If you can do that consistently, you train your mind to be stronger and more to stick to things, which is really important if you want to develop anything in your life. And for me right now, hunting is personal development because every time I go out hunting, well, I don't get anything.
I'm sitting alone in the woods for hours upon hours trying to figure this whole thing out. When you're alone in the Woods, there's a lot of things that pop into your mind like, am I wasting my time?
But I have to overcome that in order to figure out how to hunt, right? If I gave up just because I haven't got anything yet in the last number of seasons, then I'd never learned anything.
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But the fact that I'm overcoming that and I'm sticking to it anyway, it's helping me become stronger again and more mentally resilient, and eventually, I'll also learn how to hunt.
So, it's really up to you what you call personal development. As long as you're learning a skill that you can apply practically in life, that's gonna make your life better than that's your personal environment. And anything where you have to overcome procrastination because it's hard, or maybe tedious, or boring, you stick to it and make it better.
That's personal development. But you know, you want to keep doing the reading too, keep watching the videos like this video, because you always want to be pumping your mind full of good ideas and reinforcing old ideas - old good ideas, in order to have the right operating system in here to make everything work and then take more action.
Just make sure you're not stuck in the reading and video mode. You actually have to take action, learn practical skills, and apply them to your life. In summary, remember the following steps:
Well, that's my thought for today. If I missed something or you have another opinion, leave it in the comments below.
And until next time, conquer and win.