Episode 84: Investing in Yourself
In this episode of “The Pursuit of Badasserie,” we’re diving deep into the art of self-investment. We’re getting personal as we share our own journeys and reflections on why putting time, money, and energy into ourselves is so crucial for growth. We’re not just talking about it—we’re living it, emphasizing the importance of self-care and ensuring our own cups are full before we pour into others. Think of it like pouring champagne into a tower—the more we invest in ourselves, the more it overflows into every aspect of our lives.
Throughout our conversation, we’re uncovering the magic of self-investment, pulling examples straight from our own experiences. We’re debunking myths and shedding light on common misconceptions, like the difference between expenses and true investments. And let’s not forget about the power of staying open to learning and receiving—because that’s where the real growth happens.
So buckle up and get ready to be inspired. We’re on a mission to empower you to embrace self-improvement, knowing that investing in yourself isn’t just about achieving success—it’s about living your best, most fulfilling life.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Self-investment
- Personal experiences and reflections on self-investment
- Importance of dedicating time, money, and energy into personal and professional development
- Prioritizing self-care and filling our own cups before giving to others
- Metaphors like pouring from an empty cup and overflowing champagne
- Emphasizing the transformative power of self-investment
- Citing examples from hosts’ lives to illustrate points
- Benefits of continuous learning and growth
- Addressing common misconceptions about expenses versus true investments
- Highlighting the importance of being open to learning and receiving
- Encouraging listeners to adopt a mindset of self-improvement
- Recognizing the essential role of self-investment for personal fulfillment, professional success, and overall well-being
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Read the full transcript of this episode below!
Lynn Howard
Hey, I’m Lynn.
Amanda Furgiuele
And I’m Amanda. Welcome to the Pursuit of Badasserie, the podcast. We are back again, the dynamic duo. And we’re talking about something that we talk about a lot actually.
And that is the importance of investing in yourself.
Lynn Howard
Absolutely. I would not be doing myself service if I did not, I would not be doing us service if I did not start with one of the most profound moments that I think change a bit of the trajectory of like my my business career.
What made me take a leap is I had an opportunity to purchase a franchise. This franchise would be to coach consult and train at a very different level in a professional manner, because I was already doing it in a network organization that I belong to, but also
And my just, it’s just always been natural. And I remember struggling with it. Should I, should I do it?
Should I not? I was like, okay, I’m gonna do it, but do I need to get all the training?
Do I need to do this? And I remember, I was actually in a wahoo with girlfriends of mine, where we went to a wahoo to watch Wicked, which by the way, it’s coming out to be a movie now.
I’m super stoked. We were going to watch Wicked. I was sitting watching the paddlers in the canal. And I heard a loud voice and it says, if you don’t invest in yourself, how do you expect others to invest in you?
And it shook me because it’s not that I wouldn’t do things, but I typically did things for others. I put other people first, I did for others.
I mean, at that point, was a single mom of three teenage kids. Like, I was, yeah, like, but that.
at moment hearing that absolutely like my life changed after that in a lot of ways my business life but it really got me to say I need to although I did it like I love learning I love podcasting I love all these different things but this was like an investment a financial investment in myself to up level my skill set in a very different level so that way I could serve more and it was mind-blowing to me.
Amanda Furgiuele
That’s actually one of my favorite quotes so I’m going to repeat it so that everybody catches it in case you didn’t and that it’s if you do not invest in yourself how can you expect other people to invest in you that has had a huge impact on my life as well because it’s so easy to well for me anyway it was all that give give give give what can I do for other people and I love that and I was pouring from an empty cup.
You’ve got to fill your own cup. You’ve got and I know it’s cliche. Let me just put it on a cup and wear a t-shirt I get it.
It’s cliche, but it’s true. You cannot pour from an empty cup And so if you are constantly investing in your clients in your business in your family in your spouse and your friends Everything around you, but you’re never actually pouring into yourself.
It’s going to lead to burnout. It’s going to lead to bitterness and and stress and all the things that are the opposite of why you wanted to start a business and why you wanted to, you know, live the life that you live.
So when I think about investing myself and when I say investing I do truly mean time and money and education and energy.
There’s it’s it’s all the things. It’s not just money. It’s not just time It’s not just it’s all of the things because when you’re really investing in yourself It’s a little bit of everything.
It’s a little bit of energy. a little bit of time It’s a little bit of money. It’s there’s all the things that that go into that by
it’s worth it because ultimately all that you’re putting back and all that you’re pouring into yourself is going to overflow into everybody else because the more you pour into your cup it doesn’t mean you have to empty it out it means it’s just gonna overflow it’s like the champagne pyramid you continue to pour champagne into the top and then the champagne trickles to everybody around you you’re in your personal and professional life and i’m a firm believer in that and it has changed the way i do business is to change my mindset around business and personal development because i do feel so strongly that you must pour into yourself and i don’t do it enough at all i will be i will acknowledge that i don’t do it enough i tend to do more professional cup filling than personal cup filling that is just because i am self-proclaimed workaholic i love what i do and so i will i find it easier personally to invest in business development because i know i’m going to get back
at that ROI. And so for me as, you know, sole parents, it makes more sense to me to invest either in my professional development or my child’s life than it does to necessarily invest in, you know, facials and massages.
Though what I was in Thailand, I did plenty of those. I’ll pop back over and do like 11 in a week.
But the cost of silvering is true. You have to, what’s important to you, invest in that. If it’s important to you, fill up that cup, let it overflow into other things because it will change how you feel about life in general, not just your business, but life, all parts of it.
Lynn Howard
Absolutely. love the champagne example with the champagne tower and like the because it is. You know, I heard somebody recently, they were talking about the cup and you know, we’ve had many versions of this because that whole saying, I feel like for a long time I was
definitely pouring from an empty cup so you can give but it’s just like you you can give more like and you can give more to yourself too but somebody was talking about like um you don’t take what’s in your cup but as you fulfill your cup what flows over onto the saucer is what you give right so there’s plenty to still give and i just love that example um i i do want to though i do want to kind of go to the other people who maybe aren’t as big of givers or or whatnot um there’s an aspect of like uh or like you’re not learning so you can give more but also there are people who things come intuitively easier for us we’re that like things that absolutely come easier for us in some aspects some is learned some is intuition right some is like experience right with entrepreneurship um and some is uh some that is more intuitive
if but I find that people where people feel like things come easy for them as well like they don’t always invest in themselves because they’re like oh it comes like they’re just complacent and I’ve actually been called complacent in some of my gifts because things come super easy to me and not that I don’t want to learn and invest in that aspect it’s just not a priority right now and this is more on the personal side but still like it rings so true that for those of us that things come easy to us are natural for us or intuitive for us a lot of times we can forget to invest in ourselves too because things just come easy like we figure it out we don’t we don’t need to do that but that’s not true it gives us actually more ammo for the intuitiveness that natural aspect of ours to just be stronger and more foundational and and even more expansive I would say in some aspects so
I, you know, I don’t want the people who feel like, ah, I don’t just give and give and give, like things come, you know, things come easy for me.
I’m doing for myself, whatever, that this is also about you, like that invested in self, even those who aren’t just doing it to give to others, but to like grow your own intuitiveness and your own, your own, like smarts, if you would.
Amanda Furgiuele
And I would actually even say that if you are naturally good at something and, and Liz and I both have a lot of things that we sort of naturally fall into, or not trying to tutor on horns, it’s just facts.
And I like to give the analogy of somebody who’s naturally good at soccer. Do you just say, oh, well, you’re going to do fine, you’re just naturally a big soccer, or do you get them a soccer coach that’s going to take them the next level of that soccer scale that they’re naturally good at?
Can they skate by? but if they really want to make soccer their profession, they’re going to need a coach to invest in that skill that already comes naturally to them.
So there are examples that are outside of what our normal lives are that you can really see how that investment even if it comes naturally or even if we feel like we might not need it because we can skate by and what we have why it’s even more important to invest because if it does come naturally think how much more successful you could be if you invested a little Could you be 100% I wish I remember the statistics I wouldn’t know the updated statistics but the top CEOs in the world the top athletes in the world the top money makers in the world they all invest in themselves in multiple ways not just one-dimensional they’re going to have maybe a consultant that works with them on their business they’re going to have their right hand person who keeps them in line they’re going to have
Lynn Howard
For example, if we take your example of the soccer coach, they don’t just have whatever position they’re playing, they have the overall coach, they have maybe a stamina coach, they probably have a financial coach, they probably have a spiritual coach or a life coach of some sort, so they’re hitting different aspects of their life.
And I’m talking about the top tier. If you look at them, the percentages are high. Of those that have some kind of consultant, coach, mentor, guide guru, whatever you want to call it, it’s all helping them invest in themselves, build that aspect of their being, of their profession, of their life.
And it’s so, so it isn’t that if you want to be, those have people are doing it. And so we can learn something from them.
There are so many famous stories about famous people, and kind of their paved way to success and how they’ve stayed on top.
And it absolutely, I would say more than 90% will accredit some accredit part of that to the outsiders who or how they invested in themselves, how they invested in their mindset, their ability, their mental abilities, their physical ability, whatever that is.
Yeah, it’s so important to invest in ourselves.
Amanda Furgiuele
I mean it’s investing straight up investing in your future. When you invest in yourself, you are investing in the best investment of your life because you are investing in yourself and your future, and your dreams and your aspirations, and there is no better investment because that is going to pay off involved.
It always does. And I will say that for those people who said, Oh, well I invested in XYZ and I hated it and it didn’t pay off and I didn’t learn anything.
I’m going to counter that because, for example, I’ve known some people like, Oh, I took this course, and I never did
or finished it and I didn’t get anything out of it. I’m like, okay, well, you didn’t fully invest. You didn’t finish it.
Lynn Howard
Just because you paid doesn’t mean you invested.
Amanda Furgiuele
Just because you paid doesn’t mean you invested. And maybe you got something out of it that wasn’t what you intended, but you still got something out of it.
Because sometimes the investment that you make in a desired outcome, maybe it’s not the actual desired outcome that comes from it, but something else.
Positive or negative depending on your mindset. But I have had many, that’s hundreds of thousands of dollars have been invested in professional development, not even including my multiple degrees.
if you don’t include like $100,000 in actual normal education, there are trainings I took that I didn’t really feel like I got out of it, what I wanted to get out of it.
But I still got something out of it, even if it was more knowledge in that subject that I didn’t really want to.
a pursue. It’s like, oh, you know, this isn’t what I thought it was going to be. And now I have this skill set, but I’m not really going to do as much with it.
For example, I did a lot of work and development on website architecture and web design. I do still do stuff with that and having a general knowledge has helped me.
But I at the time, I thought I was going to do that as a way to make money. And it really hasn’t.
That isn’t what I got out of it. Eventually, it was more like having more knowledge of technology behind the scenes has helped me in my business.
But when I took that course, I thought it was going to be a business. And so I got something different out of it.
I still learned, even though I didn’t make six figures off of being a web designer back in, you know, 2002 or in years ago, that that first training went out because, you know, computers were just starting.
Oh, Lord.
Lynn Howard
But the point is that something different came out of it was a different outcome.
Amanda Furgiuele
It wasn’t what I wanted. But the investment still sticks because even though I didn’t use I didn’t get what I thought I was going to get out of it I got something out of it and it has helped me grow and all the subsequent and continue education I’ve done in computers has gotten me somewhere even if it wasn’t where the course necessarily said it was going to get me.
Lynn Howard
Well I know I would challenge people and that a lot of times first of all again I want to repeat just because you pay doesn’t mean you invested right if you’re not fully in if you’re not open to learn if you’re not open to process through and take action if you’re not open to see things from different angles then are you really investing you paid that’s that’s not always an investment right and not an investment to in myself in my opinion that’s just a cost that’s an expense it’s not an investment and investment means that you’re going to get something in return and expense means that
you know, or costs doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re getting something in return, right? So just keep that in your mind.
And I’ll give you a great example, as well as that. I remember I was coaching and consulting, but this is when I really wanted to start stepping more.
And I was already speaking on stages, but I wanted to grow that. And so one of my coaches at the time invited me to go to this conscious business conference.
And there were hundreds of people in the room. And I remember her telling me like, when you watch the people at the front of the stage, I want you to not just like listen to what they’re doing.
And this was actually a little bit into the process, but she set me up first. I want you to watch the people at the front of the stage.
And I was like, okay, so I’m watching them at the front of the stage. I paid to go. I paid to travel.
It was not in Hawaii, it was in California. So I invested costs, I had costs. I get there and I’m watching that and I’m they’re totally like they’re selling from fear that’s so against my green blah blah blah and I shut myself down and I had a conversation with her at break and she’s like I want you to change the way you’re looking and obviously you’re not going to do things that way but they’re talking to a certain audience that audience isn’t yours so the people who are going to buy are not your people because they want that victim mode kind of like being sold to buy fear.
right they want that. so what can you learn from them so maybe you’re learning not what to do but what not to do right and it was mind-blowing to me to be like in a lot of ways like it changed my perspective and I was able to pull so many I learned so much that was because I was open to learn.
I had to change my mindset in the middle of the conference to be open to learn because otherwise it would have to
just been an expense. It wouldn’t have been an investment because I didn’t wouldn’t have taken anything out of that.
And I even write about some or I will write about one particular thing in our financial book when we have the badassary financial edition because something big happened there.
But there are so many little nuggets came after that because I opened myself up to learn and to take and to receive so that way it was more of an investment versus a cost for an expense.
Amanda Furgiuele
Absolutely. think that’s such an important distinction and you know it reminds me vaguely of years ago I was a certified stop Pilates instructor and I was getting an additional certified certification as an MI and peak Pilates which for anybody in the Pilates world they’re totally different companies and you have to take different training.
And I struggled with the second training because I had so much ingrained for me from this certification that it was like this
is the way they do it. This is the way it’s supposed to be done. This is the order. This is the and I actually had a discussion with my instructor and I was like, I’m really struggling over separating out the theories and the practices at each thing.
She said, well, you’ve got to realize that you’re you’ve taken the time to invest in this. You’ve got to get yourself open to learning a different way that you learned it this way and you’ve been teaching it that way for 10 years.
And this is a different way to teach it. And so you’ve got to learn between, you know, classical style versus your contemporary style.
You’ve got to learn that they both have valid points and you’re just learning something new and you have to be open to it.
Because if you’re going to close yourself off and be like, well, this is always better. This is the way I’ve been doing it for 10 years.
It’s better than you’re never going to get anything out of this. You will have just paid the money, had an expense, gotten a cert because you’re going to wing it because you’re already skilled, you’re getting a wing it and get through, or you can actually open yourself up and really fully invest in yourself and learn a different
different modality, and then be a double threat with all the knowledge that you have because you can switch back and forth between multiple visions of which basically is the same exercise.
that, to me, opened a lot of different things because it’s a whole concept of, know, one plus three is four, but those two plus two, there’s a lot of different ways to do things and you have to be open to it.
Otherwise, just like Lynn said, there are plenty of ways that you can rack up expenses, but investing yourself is different.
Truly investing is different.
Lynn Howard
Absolutely. So now let’s talk about, and Amanda, you brought this up earlier, is one thing to keep in mind is we should be our number one client, both in the business and in life.
So we should be our number one. And a lot of times, and you were talking about this earlier, is like on the personal side, investing in itself is like putting yourself first, is doing the workout is maybe getting the massage, saying no in boundaries.
is also an investment in self and we’ve been speaking about this a lot and I really wanted to bring this into this particular podcast because I think it’s not spoke about enough in in overall that is it is a part of investing in self like creating those boundaries and being able to say no is so important to building yourself and investing in yourself because the boundaries is is not just you know it’s not just for others but it’s for yourself and it’s not just for yourself it’s for others and that whole thing is like putting yourself first like if you’re not feeling it if it’s not a hundred percent and I find myself too even though I’m good at saying no at a lot of things there are a lot of things that sometimes like I’m like whatever like I’ll just go with and when really it’s a no and I still don’t understand and it’s usually when I’m with close people like with like super close friends and I think that’s more of my people pleaser.
kind of like unhealed child a little bit or like you know just like try not to make waves or whatever it is.
Go with the flow. Yeah, I’ve been doing it again and I’m like oh no that’s not okay. And so like investing in self is learning and reconnecting to those boundaries, those nose and like knowing your needs.
What are your needs? And like like making sure you’re pulling from wherever you need to pull from to nourish those needs.
That’s investing in self because everybody’s internal needs are different and it can be different depending on your season, reason, season, lifetime type of thing.
Like sometimes my need is to like not talk to a soul and stay in my condo. And sometimes people.
Amanda Furgiuele
And now it’s always like oh don’t you if you’re missing out. Like no, I have a Fear of being involved.
No, I don’t have a fear of seeing people and being involved in anything. So, it’s true, though, you really have to understand what your boundaries are.
And I know it’s difficult and I acknowledge because I do it. I will always, I will not always, but 99% of the time, I will put my personal boundaries behind everything else.
So, I wanted to have an appointment. will change my point because my kid has an appointment. I will change this because a client wants to meet.
I do it all the time. Not because I don’t have value for myself, because I’m like, oh, do it later.
Like, I’ll figure it out. fit it in. I’ll be adaptable. I’ll be flexible. I’ll be accommodating. And, you know, it’s a work in progress.
But there are some non-negotiables and I am hard on my non-negotiables and. The older I get. at the more non-negotiables I have.
However, it’s a work in progress and sometimes it’s different. It’s different in different seasons. Obviously, for me anyway, because I have a young child like around Christmas, very few of my personal needs are being met, but it’s all about creating memories for my kid.
there are other months where it’s not really about his needs at all. mean, of course it’s about the needs, there’s a lot more of me in there.
So it’s fluctuates based on what’s going on in your life. And I think you need to be nice to yourselves and also understand that some of that boundary setting and it’s about harmony, it’s not balanced, it’s not always going to be equal, it’s not always going to be the same.
But the overlining arcing point is there still has to be investment in self. And it may be different from month to month, week to week, year to year.
And in my opinion, if you’re really going to have a fulfilled life and a life that you can look back on and be like, I am proud of that.
And I and thrilled that I took that time for myself, that’s going to be investing in yourself. And you can define what self is and what the investment is.
But I’ve never looked back on a personal investment journey and thought, shouldn’t have done that.
Lynn Howard
Never.
Amanda Furgiuele
It’s not a single investment.
Lynn Howard
You definitely recognize that.
Amanda Furgiuele
There’s not a single regret that I have on any investment I’ve made. Except for that one stock market thing.
But that stocks, that’s a whole other topic as an expense, not an investment.
Lynn Howard
You know, as you’re sitting here talking, I often speak about indirect manifestation. That means that you’re doing something over here and like indirectly you’re manifesting things to happen.
And I’m reflected, reflective of like when we were going to start a podcast, like I love podcasts. I love YouTube’s.
But YouTube, but I got off kind of like the bandwagon of listening and I remember when we started our podcast And we were asking people what podcast you listen to and like we’re expecting these like grossed in our podcast and YouTube channel I was like well .
I’m not listening to podcast So I need to like I need if I want others to do for me I need to do right and so like that even though I’m I’m listening to podcasts and not asking them to follow my my podcast I feel like it’s like an indirect manifestation putting energy where energy goes energy flows like even like when we started Maybe talking about writing books even a year before like I even before that I buckled down and I was like listening to I forget how many I listened to in that one year, but I like to listen to audio books And I really amped up my my book intake From zero to one is amping up
Maybe I read a couple books a year, but but then I started reading at least one a month. Well, that one year I read read a bunch, but audible books.
But so this indirect manifestation as well about investing in self. Like if you want a return on investment somewhere else, like what what efforts are you putting in investing in to make that happen?
And when you can do it in alignment of the direction that you want to go, besides just like depositing into self, right?
It can profoundly have a movement and changes and results in your in your life and in your business.
Amanda Furgiuele
Absolutely. It’s funny that you don’t about your reading books. I was like, I read six this week. I get into the book.
I’m, but you know, we all know I’m I’m the book snob of the group. love love love to read introvert thing.
It’s like an introvert quality, but and That’s part of my self-investment for me too. It’s part of my invest in self because if I might not be getting daily massages currently, it’s going to be on the docket I think for coming up, I might not be getting up but I do things daily for myself that are purely for myself for no other reason than I enjoy them and that’s investing in self.
I regularly invest in my business and personal professional development. regularly, even in things that aren’t really necessarily the things I like or things that I have any natural skill in but that I really need to learn just from my own personal satisfaction.
You can choose what you invest in. That’s what’s so great about it and as long as you are remembering that it is an investment, you will not regret it ever.
Lynn Howard
Absolutely and investment doesn’t always have to be cash just FYI. It could be taken a bubble back. be taken time out for yourself for your input so just a little nugget in there but
We really want you to think on your pursuit of bad assering, like, are you investing in yourself? And what’s kind of like your take on investment of self?
are you that person who’s like, I’m not going to learn anything, I’m going in with ego. And I actually give one more example, because a newer client of mine is a coach, is an executive coach.
And he had bought into another program, he’s wanting to create some programs, some bigger programs versus the training that he has.
And I said, I want you to look at it through two lenses. I want you to not only look at it through, like, you know, you as a student, but also you as a facilitator, watch how they facilitate, like, watch how they do things.
Like, so, are you maximizing the ability of the investment, the return on that investment, right? So for him, it wasn’t even just like learning as an individual and as a student, but it was also learning as a, as a, as another facilitator.
And what can we take from there, right? So, you know, what’s your mindset around investment? like, how are you investing though?
Like, do a reality check. How are you investing in yourself and in your business? Isn’t it an alignment of where you wanna go?
And what’s your mindset around it? Are you completely open to learn it? are you going into it with ego?
Are you going into it with, I already know all this? Are you going into it with, this isn’t my stuff, right?
Okay, well, then you’re not gonna, it’s not investment, it’s a cost, it’s an expense. So, yeah.
Amanda Furgiuele
So if this is resonating with you or if you know someone else who might need a little push on investing in self, make sure you like, subscribe, send this to them and start a conversation.
Lynn Howard
Yeah, DM us if you wanna learn more about investing in your business future.
Amanda Furgiuele
Till next time. Get after it.
