Jim Edwards and Stew Smith discuss how change is inevitable but growth is not.
We are all going to change and grow physically each year of life. Time will change us all – that is a fact. But do you become a better person each year? Well that is up to you. Your personal growth is not inevitable and is dependent on many variables:
– Your Dreams and Your WHY
– Your Attitude and Mindset
– Your Goals and Focused Attention
– Your Effort Level
– Your Motivation and Discipline
– Your Persistence in Preparation
– Your Situation and Support Network
You could probably name a dozen more things that are important with personal growth. But, once you figure out your WHY and adjust your attitude and mindset toward the direction of your goals with all your effort even on days when you are not particularly motivated to do so, you build the discipline to stay persistent and you will achieve that personal growth.
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Transcript…
Jim Edwards: Hey guys Jim Edwards here…
Welcome back to The Sales Copywriting And Content Marketing Hacks Podcast…
This is episode 54, and with me, I have my trusty partner and podcast producer, Mr. Stew Smith…
Welcome Stew…
Stew Smith: Hello, everybody…
Welcome back, Jim, we missed you…
Jim Edwards: No, you didn’t…
You didn’t know, I was gone…
Stew Smith: Tell us about your trip…
Jim Edwards: So, well, it’s funny, that’s part of what we’re going to talk about today…
So the title of today’s episode is “Change Versus Growth, Which Is Better And What’s The Difference?”
Or Change Versus Growth?
What’s The Difference?
I don’t know…
Had somebody tell me one time if you have a growth that changes, go see the doctor…
And that’s sound medical advice.
Stew Smith: Yes.
Jim Edwards: But that’s not what we’re talking about today…
Stew Smith: Good.
Jim Edwards: So I had an interesting experience over the last 24 hours that I’m going to bare my soul a little bit.
And before we do that, though, I will share that my trip was awesome.
I was on the 2CCX cruise hung out with Russell Brunson.
Myron Golden Dave Linden Balm, all the cool kids were there.
And it was pretty amazing…
Everybody gave presentations…
I gave one, and I had a lot of people come up and tell me they really enjoyed it, and they asked when my next book was coming out, and I said,
“Well, did you find my current book?”
And there were a couple of people who said, no, Stew you believe that what?
Stew Smith: What! And you’re giving it away for free?
Jim Edwards: Well, we’re giving it away for free
At copywritingsecrets.com all you need to do is just pay a small shipping and handling…
And that was part of my change versus growth because all Jim would’ve been like, “Okay, if you don’t even have my book, just get away from me.”
I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it sets up what I’m about to say…
But “growth Jim” said, “Well you might want to think about it.”
A lot of people have gotten it, and they’ve really enjoyed it…
And get some use out of it…
So I was nice instead of my old self, which was stinky…
So I guess that is change and growth…
So, but that’s still not what I want to talk about…
Though I did talk about what my next book is going to be Sales Story Secrets.
I’m going to be teaching how to use stories to make more sales, get more subscribers, and get more clicks…
All that good stuff…
Stew Smith: Where’d you get that idea?
Jim Edwards: A couple things.
One, I was a lot of stuff I wanted to include in the Copywriting Secrets book about sales stories, but I just didn’t have time, and I wanted to go into so much detail, it became really clear that it was going to need to be on a different book…
So perhaps I’ll use orange next time on the top of the book…
Stew Smith: Why?
Jim Edwards: I don’t know, I just looked at, I said, you know, I haven’t used…
Stew Smith: Magic sales copy.
Jim Edwards: Orange.
Stew Smith: Hypnotizing, thing for a purchaser…
Jim Edwards: I’ll make up a story about why.
Stew Smith: Okay…
Jim Edwards: So one of the guys who spoke was speaking about when you start making money, and everybody thinks they’re after financial freedom, but what is financial freedom?
And gave a really cool definition of it that basically, financial freedom is…
And the guy’s name I think was Ryan Lee…
I like to give credit where credit was due…
So he said basically financial freedom means that your income is greater than your expenses…
If you have income sources that are greater than your expenses than you are financially free.
If those income sources are not dependent on your trading time for money.
All right, so that’s financial freedom.
So I was trying to read that thing behind you say Navy Seals…
Sorry, I was trying to read the book behind you…
So, then he started talking about some of the ways you can do it…
And one of the ways is in Real Estate, and I’ve done the whole real estate thing, and Terry and I flipped a bunch of houses in one year.
I think we did 40 total transactions.
I mean, it was a lot, but what they say that’s financial freedom, but it’s not because you’re trading a lot of time for maybe some dollars.
Stew Smith: Working a lot.
Jim Edwards: And a lot of risks.
So then they talked about something to do with life insurance, life insurance trusts, and other stuff that you can do where put money into life insurance and contract and stuff.
And I said, okay, now that makes sense…
And I’m familiar with that because I was in that business for about six months…
My first job out of college, I was selling insurance…
So I called up these guys that I used to work with literally 30 years ago…
And my partying with them was not great because I didn’t have my poop together when we kind of parted company…
So it’s kind of like if you haven’t seen somebody in 20 years or 30 years or even five years, your image of them is what it was then…
Stew Smith: Yup…
Jim Edwards: So I called up the dude, great guy, brothers, really good guys.
And he’s like, “Dude, why are you calling?”
I’m like, “Why are you calling me?”
And I started telling him about the changes and stuff that what’s happened over the last 20 years and stuff.
And he said, “You’re speaking internationally”…
Yeah…
“You’ve written a bunch of books”…
Yeah…
“You’re a software developer”…
I said, yeah.
And he could hear it in his voice that he had to change his whole perception of me like in the space of a couple of seconds without having heard from me and at least 20 years…
And it got me thinking and when I was waiting for him to call me back, cause I left a message for him yesterday, call me back this morning, and I was thinking about it from the standpoint of like, what if he doesn’t call me back?
Doesn’t he know who I am now?
And I’m like, wait a minute…
They’re scooter!
His whole image of you is based on not who you are but who you were…
I’m not the same.
I mean, I’m the same person, but I’ve grown a lot.
I’ve changed, but it was funny that I slipped back into that mode of.
Cause I held these guys in real super high esteem and everything and I’m part of in the back of me is like, “Hey, they need to know that I’m important too.
And if they don’t call me back, I’ll just call somebody else.
They’ll never know what they missed out on and all this other stuff”…
And I think it’s just interesting to look at this from the standpoint of change versus growth.
Some people change, but they don’t change for the better…
Some people change because circumstance beats the crap out of them and life chews them up and spits them out, and other people change through growth and really, really, are able to go to the next level and the next level and the next level.
And I think it’s important to think about that every once in a while life’s changing…
I’m changing…
Am I changing as the result of life working on me or am I changing as the result of on-purpose growth and a conscious decision or at least a growth path that’s based on my morals, my principles, my purpose, all these things that I’ve set in place, hopefully, become part of who you are as a person and launch you on that path…
And this isn’t something I’ve really thought a lot about until recently after passing the big 5.0 mark…
And it’s just something I think about and, how many years of productive work do I have left in me before energy, and other stuff just makes it so I can’t pound 10, 12 hours a day, which I don’t even like doing now even though I love what I’m doing.
It’s like, yeah, too much of a good thing after 10 hours…
I love what I’m doing, but I’m damn sick of it for the day…
I just thought it was weird, and I do want to get your thoughts on this Stew cause…
Stew Smith: Sure,
Jim Edwards: But I thought it was weird that I would get that pensive about somebody calling me back…
But then I analyzed what I was actually feeling, and what I was feeling was the image that we have of ourselves, the image that other people have of us…
It’s all transient…
It’s all an illusion if you really want to think about it…
So talk to a bunch?
What are you thinking?
Are you just like, what in the hell are you talking about today?
Stew Smith: Oh no, I feel, ya, I understand where you’re coming from.
Cause I grew up in a little small town, live Oak, Florida…
I think we’ve told the story a few times where I’m from one high school in the whole County, so everybody knows each other and everybody remembers me as, either the little kid who if I bump into somebody who was my little league baseball coach, right?
They remember me as just a little kid played baseball and…
Jim Edwards: Headed kid with that bowl haircut.
Stew Smith: Oh, I had a big hippy hair back in the 70s.
It was down to my shoulders.
Jim Edwards: Oh, man.
Stew Smith: People used to say, you sure do have some muscles for a girl.
Jim Edwards: So we talk about change…
It’s right there.
Yeah…
But anyway, it’s they knew that I left the town and, when I come back, I do have that feeling of “I’m excited to see people”…
Right.
And I’m nervous to see them again.
And I remember I hadn’t probably been back to my hometown in probably 20 years and I went back and people that I hadn’t seen in 20, maybe even 30 years we hit it off just like I’d never left…
Jim Edwards: Right.
Stew Smith: And that was very refreshing to be able to do that.
And we’ve all changed and went in different directions and just came back, and we’ve all grown, we’ve all changed and just kind of hit our own path…
And for the most part, I think if you can do that and you’re happy with what you’re doing.
And, you’re finding ways to do it less, but make more money…
I mean, I think that’s the biggest thing because I liked your quote this morning from William Penn is that we exact quote always escapes me, but it was about most the thing that we want the most is time, and it’s the…
Jim Edwards: Time is the thing we want the most, but it’s the thing we use the worst.
Stew Smith: Yes…
This is the thing we waste and use the worst…
Yeah…
But that’s a lot to do with it as well…
As you can make changes in your day to day life that promote growth eventually if you’re doing in the right curve, which I think you are and I think I am too, is that you can still do the same things that you did become more efficient at them and still make the same amount of money or more with less effort.
I think that is the ultimate goal of growth.
Jim Edwards: Right?
Knowledge, I think…
It’s turning growth when what you’re talking about growth means turning knowledge and experience into wisdom and wisdom is how you can look at something and go, “Oh, I know how to fix that”…
Whereas somebody else would be…
Stew Smith: Reference it.
How do I fix that?
Jim Edwards: Or need therapy, or I mean…
Stew Smith: Yeah.
Jim Edwards: Or something…
And that you can leverage wisdom…
Stew Smith: That’s a very big significant part of growth…
Jim Edwards: Looking back and also looking at my life, looking at what I know of your life, looking at other people’s lives, change is inevitable…
That’s one of those things…
Stew Smith: But growth is not.
Jim Edwards: What’s that?
Stew Smith: But growth is not.
Jim Edwards: You’re absolutely right…
Growth is not.
Stew Smith: That is a very good way to put it.
Jim Edwards: Those changes…
We need to write some of this good stuff, man…
Change is inevitable, but growth is not, I think growth is the result of a conscious decision to move in a certain direction…
I really do.
If you think about it and because if you’ve made a conscious decision to move in a certain direction that is going to impact how you deal with internal and external change…
It’s gonna help you how you interpret what things mean.
Something might happen that one person would interpret as, “Oh my God, this is the end” in somebody else’s, “You know what, this is really good this is a good opportunity for me to work on this area in my life or to, I have to stop here so I’m going to have to find something else to keep moving forward with.”
And that’s the difference.
Stew Smith: That is a growth mindset…
You’re exactly right…
It’s a growth mindset because when you can see vulnerabilities or weaknesses or…
Jim Edwards: Just shit happens, how you’re going to deal with it.
Stew Smith: But you look at it as an opportunity versus a catastrophe,
That is the difference…
Jim Edwards: Yes, absolutely…
Because I don’t know, man, I’ve just over the last few weeks and other things that have happened over the last year, I don’t know if my mortality is…
I mean, I want to say this at 52 I’m pretty confident that no matter how positive I am and how much I watched the cheeseburgers versus iceberg lettuce, I’m probably closer to the end than I am to the beginning…
So it’s causing me to, I mean, dude, I don’t know if I’m making make it to 104, I’d planned to make it to 103, but you never know.
I mean, with the changes in medical science and all that good stuff, who knows what will happen, but it’s just made me think about and evaluate things on a more strategic level than I used to where I just kind of blindly charge ahead and things will figure it out on their own…
Stew Smith: I think that’s healthy because I mean, if you think about it, man, these 20 years of this century have flown by…
Holy crap…
Jim Edwards: Yeah, I mean, do you remember when you were a kid thinking, when the year 2000 gets here like me, I’m going to be 33 years old…
I mean that’s old as hell…
That’s older than my parents…
Stew Smith: Exactly, that and I was expecting floating cars by then…
Jim Edwards: I know, man…
Where is my flying car?
Stew Smith: Yeah…
I want that escalator to takes me all around town…
Jim Edwards: Yeah, like the Jetsons man…
And I finally had money to pay for that flying car…
Dammit…
Where is any jet pack?
I wanted a jet pack…
Remember when the 70s when I think it was a Superbowl that the guys flew into the stadium in that jet pack.
Stew Smith: Yeah…
That’s pretty sweet.
Jim Edwards: Where’s my jet pack?
Anyway, the reason I brought this up was because something happened and it really made me think about it.
And I think the number one thing that I would tell you, everybody, to do and how do we tie this back into Sales Copywriting Content Marketing Business, all these things is that a year from now is going to be here a year from now whether you do anything or not, whether you take care of your body, whether you take care of your mind, your family, your finances, your business, spirituality, any of those things.
But specifically, when it comes to business, a year is going to be here a year from now…
Whether you learn how to write better copy, whether you start experimenting with content to build your audience, whether you start building your group, whether you start doing any of the things that Stew and I’ve been harping on now for years and have been doing for decades…
And so I would just hope that when you look back on the next year, you won’t just say, “Wow, things sure did change,” cause they are changing…
But you look back on it and say, “You know what, things changed a bunch, and I grew a bunch, my business is better…
I’m smarter than I was a year ago, and I’m certainly moving in a direction that I want to move rather than being subject just to the change and whims of the internet and people who are in charge and politics and all that other crap”.
So that would be the big thing I’d really want you to take away from this…
How about you Stew?
Stew Smith: My big thing is I tell people this with everything, whether it’s time to study for my kids or it’s time to train or whatever it’s make today, day one, don’t start one day from now…
Don’t start one day
So make today day one, not one day…
That’s one of my classics…
Jim Edwards: Nice…
Stew Smith: It’s a great meme too…
Jim Edwards: It’s a Stew-ism…
Stew Smith: Make today day one…
Jim Edwards: That’s so nice…
That could be a Stew ism, whereas opposed to Jim isms which just have filth in them and you can’t mention in mixed company…
So thank you for that…
Stew Smith: Yes…
Make today day one…
All right, maybe I want to talk about that tomorrow with the quote…
Anyway, those of you who have you don’t have a copy of Copywriting Secrets, head on over to copywritingsecrets.com get your free copy.
Just pay a small shipping and handling…
Make sure you pick up the audiobook version as well…
It’s the order bump right there…
Stew and I dive deep into extra topics…
I had a bunch of people on the cruise just now say, “Hey man, I really love what you and Stew did with the audiobook version”…
I mean, people are going nuts over that where you and I talk about additional stuff and all the extras that we throw in there, so that’s something to keep in mind…
Everybody…
Stew Smith: Yes.
Jim Edwards: If you’re not a member of our group on Facebook, you can apply to be, make sure you answer all the questions and stuff, but dude, we’re closing in on almost 11,000 members in that group…
You believe that?
Stew Smith: It’s big, I remember when you started, it was…
Jim Edwards: Small…
Stew Smith: You’re doing pretty well when that just came out…
you had a few couple thousand in there, but when we started doing podcasts a year ago, we may day one January of last year, and we came out with 54 podcasts as of today…
Plus some others that we also did with the…
Jim Edwards: FunnelScripts live and other stuff…
Stew Smith: And then some extra ones…
And then we’re doing a lot of live stuff…
So we’re adding content.
Jim Edwards: We have done 75 podcast episodes in the last year…
Stew Smith: I know!
Jim Edwards: As before, we had none…
Remember…
Stew Smith: Yeah.
Jim Edwards: That’s good…
Stew Smith: Where are you going to be next year?
Ask yourself that now…
Jim Edwards: I’m going to have at least a hundred podcast episodes, and I will have sold at least 50,000 copies of this book…
Stew Smith: There you go…
So nice…
Jim Edwards: There you go…
Stew Smith: So, alright, make a change today and watch it grow.
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