We surveyed y’all after the official launch of H2H Playground™ to find out why those of you who’d shown interest decided not to join us.
One of the survey responses inspired today’s podcast.
This attorney said, “I personally cannot afford the price, and it’s not an expense my firm is willing to shell out. Call my bosses and convince them to invest in my future.”
Now, this is certainly not the first time I’ve heard something like this, but it’s the first time I’m calling it out.
There are three reasons why I do not accept that as an answer. And there are three reasons why investing in yourself is incredibly important.
Tune in to today’s episode of the FHTH Podcast to find out what those reasons are. And then go spend some money on your damn self.
Enjoy!
-Sari
EPISODE 203 TRANSCRIPTION
Hello, hello. We're back. Another episode and today we're talking about Why You Don’t Want Your Firm To Pay For Your Personal Development.
So we opened up the H2H Playground™ back in January and we sent a survey to those of you who did not join and we got some very interesting responses. So here's a couple of the ones that I thought were super interesting.
First, "I personally cannot afford it and it is not an expense my firm is willing to shell out sad face, call my bosses and convince them to invest in my future." Another one, "I've been so busy that I didn't have time to really look into it until I get my firm up and profitable, it's probably not going to happen." Another one "I asked myself, is this going to be another program that I don't really use to be trapped or caught spending $10,000 on something that was not used did not sound good."
Well, I'll tell you right now, we're not willing or wanting to trap anyone. So if this feels like a trap, then it is doubly not for you. But there are some really, really good reasons why you do not for the first person who said they want their firm to pay, and we've heard that quite a bit, why you do not want to let your firm pay for it. I'll talk about the times where you do, but in general, there are three reasons.
If someone else pays for anything, but we're talking about your firm for right now and you don't pay for it, they own it. Not you. They own your learning. They own all of it. If you're not getting the results that they think you should have got, you're going to get pressured for that.
Guess what you do not learn well under professor, if you won't try things, you're not going to succeed. But you're not going to try the things that we teach you back in the H2H Playground™ if you're scared, right? It's like when you borrow a car, when you borrow someone else's car, you're like super careful with it. You don't drive over the speed limit. You want to make sure that it stays safe, but when you are driving your own car, you're going to take some curves kind of fast cause it's kind of fun and you're going to not worry so much about being really careful when you're parking it. Maybe you are, some of you're like crazy obsessed with your cars, but my point is we're even more careful when someone else owns it and carefulness is not what's going to get you ahead in this work.
In fact, so much of the H2H method has a mindset component because what we're asking you to do is risky and scary and vulnerable. You won't be able to do that if someone else owns your learning and has expectations about said learning.
Closely related is number two, which is you are more invested in your learning when it's your money. I know that when we give my kid money, which we rarely do, but when we were like, "Here's $10, go spend it." No problem. But when she has her own money that she's been saving for months, she gets really picky about what she's going to buy. When you spend your own money on your personal development, you are more invested period. When you are in a program that or whatever else that someone else is paying for, it's easy to skip things because it's not coming out of your pocket. It's not hurting you in any real way. So the investment does become a waste in many cases, not all because it's not something you personally invested in.
Three, letting someone else decide when and if you get better is not a good idea. What does it feel like, for example, to have to write in a survey "they won't invest in me." And that's basically what that person said. They won't pay for it equals they will not invest in me. And I have a question for you. Why do you expect someone else to invest in you if you are not even willing to invest in you? Think about that. When you allow your learning and your personal development to stay on the shelf until somebody else decides that you are now worth it, that does not do you any favors, both in self-esteem and in terms of your success and your career and in life, why are you giving your power away by letting someone else decide when it's time for you to develop as a human being? That don't make any fucking sense.
Now, investing in yourself does three very important things and they're related of course. The first one is that it empowers. You are taking control to be your best. You're not waiting on someone else to give you permission to work on yourself and become the best person, trial lawyer, et cetera that you can be. It's incredibly empowering to say, "I don't give a fuck if they're going to pay for this or not. I am going to empower myself and get my learning going and get my life going and have the success I believe I need to have. I'm not fucking waiting on anybody."
The second thing it does is it proves that you have your own back. You are worth investing in. Using your own money says "I'm backing myself." Think of so many things that you spend money on without even a thought, even just trial prep, which is like focus groups and consultants, but you don't spend the money on yourself.
What is that saying? That's saying, I don't believe I'm worth investing in, and yet you are the person that is going to be out there talking to the jurors, delivering the opening statement. You are the one that's going to have to be away from family and having to manage that and manage your mind and you'll spend money all other places, but you will not spend it on yourself. When you spend money on yourself and your personal development, what you are telling yourself and the world at large, by the way is "I am fucking worth it and I ain't going to wait for anybody to give me permission to do this. I'm not going to wait just because somebody doesn't believe I'm worth investing in."
Third thing is you make yourself proud. You did this on your own. I didn't take loans from people to do my business very small and from like the SBA, I did this primarily by myself and I am so fucking proud of that. When you take your learning and you invest in you with your own money, you can really be proud of that. Now, if someone offers you money and says, "We want you to do this, we are invested in you." Then you need to ask yourself a couple of questions before you take that money. What are their intentions? If their intentions have strings attached, which brings us to the second question, what results do they expect? You may not want to take that money. Why? Because again, learning under pressure, knowing that you're doing something because someone expects some result at the end is not going to be a great learning environment for you.
So the third question is you're like, "Okay, well, they don't have expectations. They're not looking for a particular result. Of course they hope that I improve, but they're really just doing it to support me." Then the third question you need to ask yourself is, how will I feel accepting this money? Will it feel like I owe them something? Will it feel like they own it? And if the answer is yes, then I still think you need to not take it. Now if they're like, here's this money, we think you're great, we know that you're really invested in this and go and run with it and you are in that kind of environment, then hell yeah take the money. But I just want you to be thinking carefully about taking the money under any other circumstances and not investing in yourself if that money isn't offered to you.
Now, you might be listening to this and go, "This is all great, Sari but the H2H Playground at this recording at least it may go up is $10,000 a year. So even though I agree with all that you're saying, I'm trying to get my firm off the ground, I can't afford it." All the things, here's what I will say about that. The reason why we price it at that, the higher the investment, the more commitment I get across the board. I know that if I charge less, you will be less invested unless you're some of my special snowflakes and there are those my founders who are in and have been in from the beginning and are paying pennies on the dollar, but they've always been with me and have always been committed and ate up everything I ever did. But if you're just coming to me out of nowhere, I know, and this is true for most trial lawyers in general, life is going to get busy and if you're only spending a couple a hundred dollars a month on this program, it's going to be easy to skip.
And here's what I also know is that when you skip things, you're not going to get the transformation that I promise, and so it is bad business decision on my side to charge less for a program to get you in the door, only for you to not do it, and then a year later go, "Well, that was the worst money I ever spent." And tell other people that it wasn't worth it. What kind of business sense does that make for me? Not to mention that I am not interested in just your money. I want you to leave the program if you ever leave, most people have been staying in for years and years because it's transforming your life and it's helping us change the world and you're getting amazing verdicts and you're sleeping well at night and you are happy and fulfilled. That's what I want, and I know that you will not get that if you are not invested, so that takes a higher price point.
Two, it's easier to sell things that are higher priced than lower price. It's easier for us to sell the H2H Playground™ versus the H2H Fundamentals course. Why? Because it's a whole year of eight things, live things a month, not to mention all the bonuses and all the stuff on the back end for $10,000. We literally do not charge what it is worth. It would be worth thousands of dollars for you to come see me for a couple of hours and you're going to get me three to four times a month. Not to mention the other coaches. Look, I'm not telling you all of this to try to get you in H2H Playground™. I want you there. Yes, I'm not afraid to say that, but what I am telling you is that when you invest a significant amount of money into anything personal development or otherwise, you are more likely to take care of that thing.
You are more likely to spend time with that thing and that is what we are after. That is just how it works. Now, I was just talking in the Playground the other day when I did my monthly through the training about this be, do, have model, because you still might be thinking, it all makes sense. Sorry, but I still don't have $10,000. Okay? Crew isn't even open right now, so I can't even take your $10,000 if I wanted to. I'm just talking about the principle here. We were talking about how so many of you operate with the model backwards. You think you have to have something. Let's use here money $10,000 to do something like join the crew and then you'll be this trial lawyer that you think you always could be and that I know you can be, right?
So you think you have to have the money to do the thing to become the person you want to be. Now just look at that model for a minute and realize how much powerlessness that holds. It's all about waiting till you have something. What I said in the crew the other day is that's absolutely reversed. You have to decide who you are and be that. Decide that you are a trial lawyer who is going to kick ass and change the world. Then you say, "What would a trial lawyer like that do?" Well, they would go and they would get training. They wouldn't wait for anybody else to give them permission, and then you will have the money. Why? Two things. One, you start to recognize what's actually important because the money is there. Ain't nobody listened to this podcast that doesn't have $10,000 or couldn't come up with it quickly.
Again, you don't need to give it to me. I'm just talking in general, right? It's there when you get clear about who you are becoming and what you want to be and what it's going to take to become that person. Money is the easiest objection to overcome. When I decided I wanted to start a business and I wanted to start working with trial lawyers, I bought shit before I had the money. I hired people before I had the money. I got that small business administration loan because I knew one thing and this was one thing that was really important. I knew that I was good for it. I knew that if I had the backing, if I had the training, if I had the people, if I had the things that I could make good. And so can you. That's what it says when you invest in yourself is that you believe in yourself, that you're good for it.
It's like asking a friend to borrow money and them looking at you and you saying, "I'm good for it.", and them saying, "I know you are." That's what you have to say to yourself. You got to spend money to make money. I don't give a if that's with me or with anybody else. What I'm trying to say in this podcast is that if you want to be amazing, you must invest in yourself. Don't be waiting for anybody else. I don't care whether that's life coaching or therapy or the H2H Playground™ or trial lawyers college. You have to invest in yourself, and I do not want you to give that power away to someone else to decide when and how that will happen. You are amazing. Trust that and now back that shit up by investing in yourself, you will not be sorry again.
I can't even take your money right now. This isn't about you joining the Playground. It's about you getting really clear about who you are, what that's going to take to become that person, and then recognizing once you take that first step, whatever you need will come into your life. I firmly believe it. It's happened for me and it's happened for hundreds and thousands of other people. I love you. Talk soon.
While you wait for next week's episode how would you like instant access to exclusive trial skills training on my H2H funnel method for voir dire? Grab a pen and paper so you can jot down the website address for a 16-minute video that will help you win more cases. The free training is called Let the Jury Solve Your Problems in 3 Easy Steps, and I'm even going to send you a workbook to go with it now. Are you ready for the address. Visit sariswears.com/training. You'll see me there. Enjoy.
If you liked this episode topic, check out these others:
- Episode #202 – How To Make Any Juror Answer Work In Your Favor
- Episode #201 – Why I Take On My Detractors
- Episode #200 – 7 Ways I Built a 7-figure Business
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