Learning From Our Experiences

LEARNING EXPERIENCE 

Hi. Anthony Manly here from selfmanagedbusiness.com. Today I want to talk to you about a story that occurred to me probably well, when I look back on this, it’s quite a several years ago now and it was just an experience that I learned from. And what I had done is I had set up a business that delivered financial education. How to learn from experience?

Experience that taught me an important lesson.

So essentially we taught people how to trade stocks and options.

And it wasn’t just to get rich quick scheme, it was more focused on teaching people the principles that they needed to be successful. And we had devised this program that allowed people to effortlessly build a portfolio of profitable stocks for the long term but also rent those shares out. 

Now, that’s not here nor there.

The reason why I want to tell you this story is pure because I learned from my experience. And what I had done is I put a day out in the future and I said, right, that’s what I’m going to deliver it.

There were three sessions that I was going to deliver over three days and those sessions were lunchtime and evening sessions and morning sessions.

So my then girlfriend at the time had two children from another relationship and I explained to her that, look, we were going to travel from a coastal town at that time just north of Sydney, to get a flight to go to Brisbane, and I’m talking about Australia.

So what that meant was there was some travel involved and she decided that she wanted to visit some friends that she knew up that way and that we could also turn it into a bit of a holiday.

And I thought, well, what a great idea. So we embarked on this journey.

We drove from where we are currently living at the time it was Port Macquarie. We went down south, we drove about 2 hours south of where we were and we came to a town which is known as Newcastle. We got on a flight, took that flight up to Brisbane, got off the flight, and then the adventure began.

The first thing that happened to me was that my bag didn’t arrive. And I found it odd that here in Australia that someone would just lose a bag on a local domestic flight. But sure enough, my bag went missing.

So I had no clothes.

And I thought to myself, okay, that’s okay, let’s just wait a couple of days. I’ll be able to buy a few things, I’ll be able to hire a suit, whatever I need to do to deliver this event, and also talk to people to put it out there and sell our product and services.

So we went on holiday, we went to the zoo, we went and visited friends, we went out and partied.

By the end of it, I was exhausted. And by the time of coming into this three-day event that I was delivering, I was quite tired. I was stressed because I didn’t look after myself.

I didn’t take the time out to emotionally recharge before walking into this event. What it meant was for the three days that I was delivering and I was doing a morning and evening and an afternoon session for these people, there were a lot of people that turned up as I came across as tired, rushed, I wasn’t focused.

It just left me in a position that I just didn’t want to be in.

Now, what am I sharing this with you for? Learning through life experiences.

Well, firstly the reason I am sharing this with you is pure that you’ve got to learn from experiences. What I should have done is probably run the three-day session before actually going on a holiday which would have made me feel a lot more relaxed and instead of reacting to my circumstances, which is what I did on that trip, I should have sat back and understood my plans and carefully understood am I feeling okay? Am I reacting to the situation?

Now, I don’t know about you but I think everybody does this in some shape or form.

However, I think you need to take it and understand that you are quite important and if you’re not emotionally and physically charged or recharged and ready to deliver your best self, whether you’re selling your products and services, it can have detrimental effects. The best way to learn is through experience.

Just thought I’d share that with you. It’s something that is not the best experience from my perspective, but it just demonstrates that understanding who you are and putting yourself first is more important than saying to yourself yeah, I’ll just turn this into a holiday as well as business at the same time.