Buy Your Own Stock

Investing in yourself is one of the most basic, and most difficult, components of success.

We often feel so uncomfortable and intimidated when promoting, investing in, or talking about ourselves and our accomplishments. It feels like we are bragging or full of ourselves or so many other things we try not to be or do, but if we don’t buy our own stock, how can we expect anyone else to?

I’ve been working on my first novel for four years, and honestly, it’s pretty damn great.

I poured a lot of work and so many sleepless nights into this thing, and I’m super proud of how it turned out. And you know what? I’m allowed to be!

At the BlogHer17 conference I recently attended, I met so many incredible people (from Serena Williams to Chelsea Clinton to Luvvi to bloggers/writers just like me) who have altered the course of my life forever.

These individuals gave me the motivation, confidence, and ability to buy my own stock–to invest in myself.

So many people at the conference encouraged me to publish my novel, and told me I first needed to hire an editor.

“For my first novel, though?” I asked them.

“Yes, for your first novel and every novel after that,” they replied.

If you don’t invest in yourself and in your dream(s), how will you expect to show your best self, and full potential, to your future customers or fans? How will you expect people to buy your novel (or art or music or clothing or photography or product or services etc…) if you did not have the confidence in yourself and in your product to invest.

Obviously, there is a financial risk involved with this. It can be scary investing in general, and especially investing in yourself, because all that pressure to succeed has now been amplified by a financial need to earn a return on your investment.

If you are ever going to invest in anything, though, (which you definitely should) then why not start with yourself?

So, I did it. I hired an editor, and each day that passes until I have her critiques in my hands, I grow more and more excited. Hiring an editor means I am giving myself the same advantages that J.K. Rowling and John Green and Amor Towles gave themselves to create some of my favorite novels. They invested in themselves, and it shows.

On the outside, a treasure chest is a mysterious and beautiful thing that holds the promise of riches. When you open it, it sparkles. As you dig deeper and deeper into it, you find gems so brilliant they take your breath away, and you look over and over them, admiring their intricacies and beauty. That is what a book is to me.

I want to make my book, my product, my brand, my self, something worthy of investment from others, and I could never ask that from them if I hadn’t taken the time to invest in it myself.

So whatever your thing is, whether you’re an athlete, an artist, an entrepreneur, a realtor, or a nurse, invest in yourself. Take the class, ace the test, work the clay until your fingers ache, and try out 943,723 versions of your product.

Because you owe it to yourself to be the absolute best you can be.

If you believe and invest in what you’re doing, others will too.

So put in the time, the effort, the money, because it will show, and what you’ll be offering to the world is the best of yourself and your thing.

If you have a dream, just start, find a way to make it work, invest in it, and don’t stop until you’re done.

Then, do it all again.

Now get out there and be awesome.

Sending you all my love today and always, my little chickadees.