Learning to Invest in You

Making yourself better

Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.
~Jim Rohn

In any kind of business, as in life, there are two things you can invest with: time, and money. And in business, as in life, the most important thing to invest in is people. And the most important person? It’s you.

You see whether you’re happy in your job and want to progress, or if you’re not and you’re working towards your own business, a new job or extra qualifications, then you really need to make sure that you’re the best you can be. You need to be better than the competition for that job, or you need to have a fuller understanding of the market and industry. In short you need to be the best, the strongest, the smartest and the best informed.

That’s why when I have a deadline looming, you’ll often find me reading the biography of Richard Branson, Nicola Tesla, or my personal hero Richard Bandler. It’s not idol relaxation, although it is relaxing. It’s inspiring and giving me ideas. That’s why I buy Wired magazine, Men’s Health and Esquire out of my business account, as well as a gym membership and various supplements.

Role models and inspiration are actually particularly useful, whether you’re the head of a business or the lackey in administration. Either way learn from the greats and keep your finger on the pulse, it’ll keep you at the cutting edge and with the right frame of mind to spot entrepreneurial and business opportunities. It’ll help you make other wise investments and to keep an eye on the future.

If I’m not reading, I might well be in the gym, taking supplements or buying good clothes and equipment. Being fit is a great way to invest in you and keeps your mind active, but it also gives you the drive and the determination to succeed in any field. It gives you an air of confidence and makes you more imposing. People will see you and know that you mean business and that you’re capable of setting your mind to something and accomplishing it-which is really what all business is about. You will blow the competition out of the water, you’ll be the complete package.

Raise your standards

You might be wondering why I bother buying nice clothes. Spending money on nice clothes and accessories/supplies is an investment in yourself and will propel you to success in business and in life. It’s true that you get out of life what you put into it. The more money you put into your appearance and the more you spend on your ability, the more your salary is likely to reflect that. If you take pride in your appearance and accessories, get a good hair cut and a nice pen, then you’ll inspire more confidence in those you’re dealing with. It reflects high standards and ability.

I read something interesting just recently, that like spawns like. Meaning that you get in life not what you deserve so much as what you’re accustomed to. So if you make yourself accustomed to high standards, high standards will be what you find coming out of life.

For example, think about the people in your life. With some you always have to be on the top of your game while with others you can relax, indifferent to their opinion. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad guy, it’s natural. If they seem like someone who’s used to being treated with less respect or just not the same admiration because they’ve let themselves go then you will be less concerned with how they see you. Similarly, when thinking of what gift to get someone for Christmas or birthdays you generally spend more on people who are better off. In reality this should actually be the other way around.

Surely, it would be nicer to get something nice for someone who really needs it? And yet we don’t.

You see other people will treat you the way you treat you, if you treat yourself well others will follow suit. And you have to respect yourself before others will. So it’s worth investing in you even if it just means getting better Christmas presents.

Don’t rely on others

If you’ve put time and money to invest in you and develop every aspect of your game, then you can always rely on yourself to perform when necessary. My own personal business model, or it’s more of a maxim really, is do everything yourself. So many individuals and businesses, waste unfathomable amounts of money by hiring unnecessary amounts of staff to perform even the most menial roles, or by outsourcing for a task that they could probably learn themselves.

I was tempted to hire someone to program a website for me the other week as I don’t understand CSS or PHP. But then I had a change of heart and learned CSS and PHP myself by taking a “community class,” reading a book then reverse engineering other sites. That took me two days and saved me several hundred dollars. And now whenever I want to invest in a new website, I can do the coding myself in a fraction of that time and at no cost.

If you’re weak in a certain area, or there’s something you want to do better. Take time out, train, put time in and learn to do it better. Don’t be satisfied with what you’ve got, almost every aspect of yourself can respond to training.

A great way to invest in you is to make it your job to be aware of everything that’s happening and upcoming in your field, so that your work can be on the cutting edge and ahead of the competition at all times. Riding the waves of new trends and technologies. Right now I can tell you that made-to-order, consumer designed goods and trans-humanism are where currently my head is at is the future

Combine your interests

Don’t stop with being fully aware of your field; be aware of everything in other fields. Combining unrelated areas is one of the greatest ways to open up your creativity and originality. Adopting other ideas can help you to succeed and is a great way to invest in you. See what’s working in other industries and try and work out how they can help yours. Think of yourself as a giant wall of sensory information that you can use to identify patterns and trends in the human psyche. Brilliant.

See what’s working, or what’s upcoming, give it your own slant by simply investing some time into thinking about it. No unasked question will ever get answered. Consider setting aside an hour of meditation each day to either focus on an answer to a problem or to clear your mind completely.

Then actually go out and do it. Do it first, do it different or do it best.

Give yourself time to think

Beyond exercising, reading or buying nice clothes, you’ll often find me just staring into space thinking. That is possibly the best use of my time I can think of. If you have a specific problem you can set yourself to thinking on it until you come up with a solution. If you don’t have a problem, others might consider it “daydreaming.” But it is actually building your imagination, creativity, visualization-and it can lead to a breakthrough. What better investment in yourself can you make?

That’s the whole purpose of this website: so I can invest in my own ideas and be the one who not only gets to do the mountains of really interesting research, I also get to help people like you accomplish all your goals too.

To Invest in you is one stock that you can control, economic crisis or not. Why invest in a business that could go south at any moment because of bad management when you could invest in a business and a CEO that you can control every facet of? In any crisis you need to put money into the economy for it to recover. You need to put money into yourself to be able to overcome anything that comes your way too.

If you think about anyone truly successful you’ll see that they are usually in good shape, great public speakers, and fully aware of everything that’s currently going on in their field. I recently saw Richard Branson interviewed and was actually really surprised that he was as shy and nervous as he was. He’s a pioneer, a great businessman, an adventurer. He should just spend some time to complete his game and fulfill his potential by becoming a good speaker and improving his confidence. (…because Richard Branson really needs to be taking advice from me; still it’s a valid point!).

The graduation ceremony of the first college I graduated from featured a bunch of old chancellors and deans marching around the hall at a snail’s pace, doddering around, and then mumbling self-importantly for an hour. These guys are supposed to be ambassadors for the university. They’re supposed to inspire respect. If they want me to respect them they need to earn it. They need to get in the gym!

And of course there’s a chance you could fail at something when you invest in you. You might end up losing money and time, ending up with nothing. If you do, that’s actually one of the better things that can happen to you. You’ve learned a lesson and increased the challenge. Pick yourself up and try again, taking the lessons you’ve learned and do it again better.

Investing in yourself will help you in your business life, your private life and your love life. Like anything else, you need to put the time and money into yourself to get the time and money out. It really is the best investment you can possibly make.