Leadership lessons: Don't be cheap on your way to greatness

The extent to which you invest in yourself not only shapes the way you interact with others but also forms your own self image and esteem. Image: Shutterstock

I often get asked what the best sort of investment is and without a shadow of a doubt, I say “One that is in yourself”. No FD, Bitcoin, SIP can give you a better return on investment than an investment in yourself. Take this from someone who flunked his 12th grade and never made it to college but still managed to grow a thriving business and today, leads an enthusiastic community of 11,000 people. All of this only because of my quest for knowledge and my desire to grow.

Coming from the sound engineering industry, I thrived on using a lot of cracked software, cracked plugins, cracked music-making software, and shared Torrent courses. I used to be a geek at getting free stuff and I was proud of it.

However, one fine day, as I listened to the words of my mentor Vick Strizheus, “Don’t be cheap on your journey towards greatness”, I felt a huge amount of remorse and realised that I was doing a disservice to the creators of this content as well as myself by 'stealing' this information. I decided to delete everything from my hard drive and start afresh. In spite of all the information I had collected over the years, I hadn’t experienced true success. Maybe because I was following too many approaches, not following through on any of them and just hoarding whatever information I was getting easily.

I decided to study successful people across domains, by closely examining the practices and approaches they had adopted on their journey to excellence. I came across a few principles that were a common conviction amongst a majority of these individuals. Diving deep into their personal journey began to expand my mind's cognitive perception around what resonates optimally in life, business and relationships.

So invest not just in knowledge but in all aspects of your life: Mind, Body and Soul. The extent to which you invest in yourself not only shapes the way you interact with others but also forms your own self image and esteem. Open your mind, set goals, stay current, read voraciously, write, eat well, exercise and find a mentor whom you can trust wholeheartedly.

Your future is in large part determined by your willingness and ability to invest in yourself now. Follow through on these even when the immediate return on investment does not seem to be fruitful enough for a supper. I know it paid me to nourish myself through ample and adequate upskilling, education and learning. This, I can now confirm through tried and tested experience, is the only fool-proof and guaranteed way to reap the benefits of a plentiful harvest through added value, learnings, deep-rooted connections and even financial gains in your life long journey towards summiting the mountain of personal excellence.

The writer is one of India’s leading digital coaches and has recently launched his book ‘You Can Coach’