In the previous article, I discussed the first five best trades that I’ve made in my career. You’ve seen how the best trades weren’t physical deals but were mental and spiritual changes that I needed to make in my life. Now here are five more that, hopefully, you can apply to your life. With this, I hope you can assess the things you might need to trade for the returns of a better experience:
1. I Traded Excess for Balance
We live in a world of more. We’re told that more is always better and that we need more things to succeed. However, like a closet that gets filled up with too many clothes, you’ll often find that excess can be a bad thing when it turns into clutter.
Before I diversified my businesses, I would only have a few that I really maintained. Eventually, as the business cycle is, some of them underperformed and were closed down, and I wondered where I had gone wrong. The truth was, I hadn’t balanced my life enough. I had let the attraction to excess stop me from giving the right amount of attention to each of my businesses.
Now that I’ve learned this, I always strive to make sure there’s never too much of anything. If you maintain your focus and cut the excess from your life, your goals and success will have a kept focus too.
2. I Traded Inconsistency for Regularity
Often in life, you will come across a massive opportunity that you seize and that you think changes your fortunes forever. These big achievements aren’t anything to scoff at; however, you also can’t base your career purely on one-time-big-time successes.
I learned this throughout my career. There were many times where I felt a sense of complacency due to having succeeded in a big way. This complacency led to stagnation, and as my success dwindled, I was frantic to find more big opportunities. However, this wouldn’t have happened if I had stayed more consistent with my growth.
Now, I take every day as a new opportunity. The big opportunities that used to entice me so much don’t exist anymore because I’ve found that those are the norm when you work hard every day.
3. I Traded Procrastination for Anticipation
When you’re younger, it’s intuitive to just wait around for opportunities to happen. However, there’s a lot you could be doing in your spare time. This is why procrastination is such cancer to productivity. The time that we could be spending making life better for ourselves, we use it on useless things like being slobs and watching too much Netflix.
Life got so much better for me when I started being proactive about my career. When I started anticipating what I could give to others and how I could develop myself, it became more comfortable for me to give more and more of myself, and be the best I can be.
4. I Traded Indifference for Curiosity
There’s a concept called the Diffusion of Innovations, which talks about the rate at which new ideas and technology spread. The people who create new things are called innovators, and the people who believe in it right away are called Early Adopters.
For most of my early career in business, I wasn’t an early adopter. It took me a while to believe in the power of new technology and inventions that I didn’t understand. This led to so many missed opportunities for me. But once I started trading my indifference for curiosity about new things, so many new ventures opened for me. For example, being a Forex trader wasn’t something I’d considered, but it slowly became my bread and butter, and something I’m so happy I became curious enough about to try. When you stop being indifferent and seek to learn more, that’s when you get the most returns from your investments.
5. I Traded Mediocrity for Excellence
I used to be content with just being alright. Well, I’m thankful that I stopped thinking that way.
You need to be confident and believe that you’re built for excellence. This is how life got better for me – when I realised that I had something to offer to the world, and that being okay with mediocrity was never going to cut it. I had to be more so that I could give more. And you can be more too, once you start trading that old mindset for one of growth and excellence.
To your success,
Mario
[Visit www.mariosingh.com now to enjoy a FREE e-book of my latest “37 Essential Principles for Massive Success” when you subscribe!]
