You need skin in the game if you're serious about change
AKA your invite to join our Club and transform your Self in 2025 (with 30% off annual membership)
Hello everybody,
I have a hypothetical question for you today: If I gave you a free membership to the gym nearest your house, would you use it?
According to the research, the answer is no. Even if you've decided this is absolutely, definitely, positively your year of fitness.
Another hypothetical: If I gave you free membership to the Shelf Help Clubhouse, would you use it?
Of course I would TJ... gimme gimme gimme!
Not so fast, my self-help loving friends, because again, according to all the research, the answer is no. No you would not.
And this has nothing to do with you being too busy or tired or stressed or unmotivated, and everything to do with human psychology and something called the 'skin in the game' (SITG) principle.
We value things more when we invest in them.
When we invest with our money, sure (Warren Buffet is generally credited for coining the 'skin in the game' phrase in reference to trusting investors who put their own money in the funds they recommend) but we also invest with those other super precious resources; our time and our energy.
Having SITG means we are invested in something, that we have an active interest in the outcome and the success of it. And so we take more of an active role in supporting that outcome.
That investment could be in a financial portfolio or a racehorse or a footie season ticket or a qualification or - much, much more important - our own lives.
Early on in our new BOTM, The Miracle Morning, author Hal Elrod shares a quote from one of his mentors, Jim Rohn:
Your level of success will rarely exceed your level of personal development, because success is something you attract by the person you become.
Jim Rohn
I love this quote because it perfectly captures the idea that we make a better (more successful) life for ourselves by valuing ourselves enough to invest in our development.
When we value ourselves enough to commit to taking care of ourselves mentally, physically and spiritually, we become bigger and better versions of us.
I know this from the research, but also from 7+ years of running a self-help book club. Once upon a time I decreed that Shelf Help would always be free, because I wanted everyone to read self-help and to remove as many barriers to that as possible. I also used to stress that reading the books wasn't even that important as it was the coming together that counted.
I've since been proven wrong on two counts:
1. I now know that not everyone is ready to read - or do - self-help. I still think that everyone should do it, and that ongoing self-help could improve anyone and everyone's life, but I've learned that being ready and willing to seek out change is the first part of the process.
2. I now know that personal development requires some SITG - that 'skin' being time, energy and usually a bit of money - and that if people are serious about change they need to get serious about investing in themselves by; reading the books, learning from the experts, turning up to the events, pushing themselves out of their comfort zones and spending time with other people doing the same.
It’s called doing The Work for a reason.
And I wholeheartedly believe that doing this Work is the key to unlocking our healthiest and happiest selves and lives.
Which is why I run a self-help membership for those people who are ready and willing to create the change needed, to get that SITG and to become bigger and better versions of themselves.
(and from a personal SITG POV I've invested 7+ years and £000s getting the SHC to where she is today so I am very much invested in her - meaning your - ongoing success).
So, if you’re one of those people (and in case you hadn't noticed 😄) this is my extended invitation to invest in yourself and your success and self-development by joining our book club and membership community for 2025.
To commit some of your time, energy and money in a way that proves to yourself, your subconscious and the Universe that you are serious about making some change in how you think, feel and/or behave this year.
And I hope I haven’t scared you with all that talk of The Work, because the good news is that this kind of investment doesn't need to be massive or scary (if you know anything about investing, it's mostly about consistency and compound interest) and that doing The Work is much more fun when we do it with friends.
BOOK MATHS
I know we love words here, but at this point I’d like to share some sexy stats and book maths with you:
The average reader reads 1 page/minute (that's 60 pages/hour).
The Shelf Help Club reads 1 book/2 months (that’s 6 books in 12 months).
The average page count for the 6 x books we read last year was 259.
Meaning 30 minutes of reading/week (or <5 minutes/day) = 6 self-help books or 1 year of Shelf Help Club reading.
That's right. If you’d committed to 5 minutes reading/day last year you would have read at least 6 new self-help books by now.
And - if reading along with us - you would have learned how; to create lasting habits, to value yourself enough to earn and save more and manage your money, to manage your mental health, to read signs from the Universe, to create happiness AND how to boost your self-care in winter.
And if you commit 5 minutes/day reading this year you’ll have read 6 more books by January 2026.
Starting with a manual on how to maximise your mornings and your days/week/life.
Which is already bound to lead to some game-changing shifts.
But if you're really serious about supporting your health, happiness and growth this year I have an even more exciting statistic...
Sharing any goal increases your chances of achieving it by 65%.
Add in an accountability appointment (a weekly online book club check-in, for instance) and you’ll increase your chance of success by up to 95%.
95% people! That’s a pretty incredible number.
Whatever your goal, this shows us that joining the right community, engaging with its members and content, and showing up to their events will increase your chances of achieving it by 95%.
Community support and an accountability appointment is why AA and Weight Watchers and Park Runs work. (And it’s why I’m so obsessed with rebranding self-help as something to be done in community, and why everything I do around here is based on connection and conversation and bringing people together).
And so, having read the sexy stats, and depending on how much change you want to see/how much skin you’re ready to put in, I have a few options for you in 2025 (and a juicy new year discount on annual membership if you sign up before our kick-off event with author Hal Elrod on Monday):
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SITG Level 1: Free membership of the SHC. Hello! Welcome! This is a great way to get to know us - and yourself - as you dip your toe in to some new conversations, books and ideas. There’s lots of lovely content and resources for you to access here as and when you feel like it (but a gentle reminder that self-help only works if you do, so you’ll need to be very self-motivated if you want to start incorporating what you learn).
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SITG Level 2: Monthly membership (£7.99/month, cancel anytime). This is where things start to get interesting. You commit a little bit and get access to best-selling authors and well-being experts as well as weekly events and our private community of growth-minded folk.
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SITG Level 3: Annual membership (was £79.99/year - currently £55.99/year with 30% NY discount). This is where the rubber meets the road. Our annual members are the ones co-creating this community at the same time as they are creating big shifts for themselves. Experiences and different perspectives are shared, trust is built, friendships are made, limiting beliefs are busted and healthy new habits are adopted. Our annual members are the ones showing up week after week, supporting me and each other and being supported in return. They are also feeling the benefits of ongoing personal development as they are making new, improved choices in every area of their lives (career, love, family, money, fitness, mental health) and as a result are 99% likely to renew their membership year on year.
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SITG Level 4: Bookworm membership 🐛🐛🐛 (was £249/year - now £174.30 with your 30% NY discount). Annual membership plus physical BOOKS and a 1-2-1 Bibliotherapy session with me . The hand-wrapped books are a beautiful gift to yourself every two months (and I’m told there’s something very satisfying about building up your Shelf Help shelf), and a Bibliotherapy session, combining reading coaching and a bespoke self-help prescription, is the perfect starting point if you’re serious about change and also realistic about the fact that you’ll need a bit of extra help to get going.
(NB Bookworm membership is only available to UK residents right now BUT if you are a non-UK annual member you can save 30% on a Bibliotherapy session if you book before our author event on Monday evening. Please message me for the link by RSVP).
In summary: Committing to change means investing in your Self and who you are becoming.
The Shelf Help Club is here to provide the tools and the tribe to help you do that.
And as Chief Shelfie I commit to supporting you by; curating inspiring reading lists, by connecting you to the world's best self-help authors and experts (kicking off this year with Miracle Morning creator Hal Elrod, in 2024 we hosted live community events with mega authors like Rebecca Campbell, Kate Northrup, Suzy Reading, Marianne Power and BJ Fogg) and by creating a world-class community space for you to heal and grow and connect with others doing the same.
So my final - non-hypothetical - question of the day:
How much skin are you ready to put into the game of your life in 2025?
I’d love you to join us.
Toni 💛
Can I just say the audio option on these are FAB!!