As a keynote speaker I can understand with the best of them that it is easy to get busy here and there. We will discuss later better organizing your life to obtain results. For a moment lets focus on something Brian Tracy taught me when in the car driving to an event in Seattle: your E v. e quotient = L. Education (E) verses Entertainment (e) quotient equals Leverage (L).
We all understand the importance of leverage in science and life. When it comes to creating opportunity for yourself you must be using leverage to gain advantage over your competition. Here is how it breaks down: There are almost 24 hours in a day. E/e=L only deals with the discretionary time of your day. This encompasses every minute you have available after sleeping, eating, working/cleaning etc. The question becomes how many minutes are you spending watching TV, surfing the net on ESPN, CNN, The Onion and so on? If you would invest only 1% of your total day’s time in educating yourself that would be 14 minutes.
That’s it, and there is no question how valuable this time is. I recommend to people I coach that they spend 25 minutes a day minimum on continuing education. So what classifies as education? Education is time spent learning a skill or knowledge that adds value to your life. When it comes to increasing your customers – sales – or anything else you want in business or life, if that is high on your priority list, here are some areas you should focus:
1) You should be focusing learning skills that sharpen your current abilities
2) What new skills can you learn within your industry
3) Is there an area of your life you would like to be better at
4) What skills can set you apart from the crowd The list could go on, these are just a great stating point.
The second question becomes where do you get this education? There are many resources for education from formal educational institutions, the library, online, and experts. Depending on your budget your options will shift. Some people can afford to go back to school or hire private coaches.
No matter what you do for a living there is a private coach that can help you learn and refine skills you will need in your field. Colleges, Universities, and Tech schools can cost from hundreds of dollars per credit to $50K a year. For private coaching you can expect to pay $40 – $250 an hour depending on the skills you are trying to learn.
Online resources vary from formal style education to free content like this blog. It is important that you both educate yourself on trends in the job market, your industry, and your skill sets. Take some free tutorials, look up blogs, and don’t be afraid to pay for some online courses. The web is quickly becoming a location similar to a community college campus. Online courses take more self-starting on your part, but can prove effective if treated with the respect of your time and energy.
Either way, take a moment and look deeply at your life. Are you spending the time needed to build the edge to survive into tomorrow! If not, take a minute…14 at least.
