My goal with CoachCarson.com is to help you win with money and live a better life. I do this by sharing ideas and strategies about real estate investing, personal finance, early retirement, and personal effectiveness.
But, of course, there are other people who write and teach about those topics. So, what makes me different? What am I all about?
Below I want to share with you the 7 core principles of success that make up the philosophy at CoachCarson.com. These are the principles that have guided me in my own journey as an entrepreneur since 2003 and even as a student-athlete at Clemson University before that.
I hope you find them helpful.
1. You Are the #1 Asset
In business and investing we talk about assets all of the time.
You can buy assets like houses, apartments, mobile homes, stocks, bonds, or even business assets like a printer or a bulldozer. All of these can be valuable when purchased correctly.
But none of these assets come close to the infinite potential returns from your #1 asset – YOU.
What exactly is so valuable about you?
Your mind. Your attitude. Your skills. Your ability to earn income. Your ability to communicate. Your trustworthiness. Your desire.
Too often we focus on improving something outside of ourselves, but it all starts inside of us.
So, how should you treat your most valuable asset?
- Invest in yourself. Spend your time and your money to improve yourself. Focus on specific trade skills, on communication skills, and also on physical and mental health.
- Take care of yourself with rest, good nutrition, exercise, and relaxation. If you drive a truck engine 24-7 without rest or maintenance, it will burn out and lose its usefulness. You are no different.
- Study your unique personal balance sheet. Leverage your strengths. Compensate for your weaknesses.
Starting today, treat yourself as something more valuable than gold or diamonds. You truly are.
2. The Power of Hustle
If you don’t want a 9-5, be prepared to hustle 24-7.” — Anonymous
“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion, or it will be killed. Every morning, a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle, or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lion or gazelle. When the sun comes up, you’d better be running.“ – Anonymous
When I first started my real estate business at 23 years old, my specific techniques were clumsy from inexperience. I was a quick learner, but there was still an enormous amount I did not know. It would take months to build basic skills, and it would require years to start mastering my craft.
What was my secret? Actually, it wasn’t much of a secret. I just hustled.
A beginner always has plenty of disadvantages, but you can always decide to hustle. It’s the great equalizer.
- Hustle is showing up early and staying late.
- Hustle is not being afraid to give 110%.
- Hustle is being slightly obsessed, and as a result, making others around you uncomfortable because they want it less than you do.
- Hustle is the gleam of pride in your eyes that attracts the admiration (and the money) of investors, team members, clients, and customers.
- Hustle is extremely valuable because there are no shortcuts to achieve it. You must work, you must sweat, and you must pay the price.
If you can’t see yourself hustling to make your cause, your business, or your goals successful, find something that you can hustle for.
Like trying to make bread without flour, you can’t create success without hustle.
3. There Are No Secrets
Secrets sell. That’s why late-night infomercials and hucksters of all kind pitch their snake oil as “new” or “little known” or “exclusive.”
But you know the truth.
Whether it’s a diet, an exercise routine, building wealth, or starting a business, there are no secrets.
There ARE subtle distinctions and key pieces of information you can pick up along the way. But, the core of success in any endeavor is an open book. It really comes down to this:
>>> Mastery of the fundamentals <<<
The fundamentals are the key skills or areas of competency mastered by the experts of a craft.
An excellent medical doctor trains for years to master the fundamental processes of health, disease, and the human body.
An excellent carpenter becomes an expert with the tools of his trade and the processes of applying those tools.
An excellent real estate investor masters core competencies like:
- real estate valuation
- financial analysis
- real estate law & contracts
- construction and development
- property management
- marketing and sales
Every path has its own fundamentals to master. Observe or ask someone more experienced than yourself what the fundamentals are, and then proceed to improve at those fundamentals for the rest of your life.
4. Team = the #1 Ingredient of Stardom*
The biggest misnomer of business is the “self-made” man or woman. It’s just not true.
Yes, you can hustle and plow your own individual path. But it’s impossible to succeed without help from others. Anyone who says otherwise has blinders on.
In particular, the key inner circle of people who support you are the #1 ingredient that will make you a star.
I call this inner circle my team, and it includes your mentors, teachers, advisers, contractors, employees, partners, and family members.
Part of the trick to an excellent team is recruiting. Attract and pick only the best people to your team.
Teacher Jim Rohn once said “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” So carefully choose the people you depend upon.
The other part of an excellent team is leadership. This means you.
The best leaders aren’t dictators. They are servants. They aspire to make their team members better, and they give more than they expect to receive.
In return, servant leaders are rewarded with the hearts, minds, loyalty, and best performance of their team members.
*I found this phrase in the gem of a book, Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court, by legendary basketball coach John Wooden.
5. Courage Triumphs Over Fear
I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
Nelson Mandela
Any worthwhile endeavor will be scary. Fear and achievement go hand in hand because the higher you reach, the further you potentially have to fall.
As Nelson Mandela teaches us, the key is how you respond to and conquer that fear.
The root meaning of the word courage is “heart.” It’s the virtue that pumps blood and vital oxygen to every other virtue. With courage, it’s possible to thrive. Without courage, every other strength we have diminishes.
Personal development super-star Tony Robbins calls fear an action signal. It’s a message from our body that says “get ready.”
If we listen to that message, we can respond courageously by preparing ourselves appropriately for the challenge.
If we cower down, stick our head in the sand, and ignore the message, we only make the fear worse.
I have found that fear has an energy to it. If the fear conquers you, it paralyzes you. If you conquer it, the energy fuels your tenacity of purpose and becomes a central part of the solution to all of your problems.
Conquering fear, like any other skill, can be learned and mastered with practice.
6. Life 1st, Business 2nd
As an entrepreneur, you don’t live to run your business. Your business or job exists to serve you (and your other stakeholders).
That doesn’t mean you can’t be passionate about business or work. I certainly am.
It’s simply a challenge to build your business around your personal goals, values, and priorities.
If you let your business have a mind of its own, it will grow and become an out of control monster. The famous story of Frankenstein was a beautiful idea that turned into a monster when the new creation realized it was really in control instead of the creator.
So, even business “success” can be a failure if you make money but lose the life you love.
The good news is that you can shape your business any way you want, like an artist molding a lump of clay. But you as the artist must have the vision, the discipline, and the courage to mold your business into an entity that works with your life.
7. Money Buys Opportunity & Autonomy
Money isn’t the most important thing in life, but it’s reasonably close to oxygen on the ‘gotta have it’ scale.”
Zig Ziglar
Clearly money provides a base level of happiness when it puts food in your belly, provides a roof over your head, and keeps out the cold in winter.
But recent studies also show that money can buy happiness as long as its spent on the right things, like experiences or worthwhile causes. Money also buys opportunity. Money opens doors to personal life possibilities that would never be available otherwise.
On the other hand, negative financial patterns like over-consumption and personal debt trap you in an endless cycle of making a dying. Like a rat running on a wheel, you exert a lot of effort but make little progress.
In this rate race, a job becomes simply a drudgery that pays the bills. Money becomes a negative word that holds you down instead of lifting you up.
Becoming competent at earning, saving, and investing money creates new opportunities. It buys you personal freedom of time and flexibility. If give you back control and autonomy in your life.
What you do with that personal freedom is up to you.
You can travel. You can do hobbies. You can volunteer. You can work a job you love, even if it pays a lot less. Or eventually you don’t have to work at all.
In the end, money is not the most important thing in life, but success with money opens the door to the things that are.
Conclusion
The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination.”
Carl Rogers, American Psychologist
You just read the 7 core principles that I aspire to in the worlds of business and money. Keep in mind that principles are more like guiding stars which help me move in a certain direction and not a destination I am anywhere close to reaching.
Like all of growth, these principles are an experiment that I hope continues to make me a little better each day.
The articles, ideas, and strategies I send you each week are my way of working out how best to apply these principles in the realms of real estate investing, business, and life.
I hope you find my little experiments helpful! Thank you for letting me share with you.
Do you have your own set of success principles? How have they helped you in your own work or business? Did I miss any principles that you find important? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.
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