The best investment you will ever make
Is it buying a car? Buying a house? Buying shares? In fact, it’s none of them. The best investment you can make is in YOU! Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? I don’t mean buying material goods, but investing in good old-fashioned education for yourself. You may have heard the expression “Knowledge is Power“ and “Power is Money”. Both these expressions are very true. Everyone wants to get rich quick, but I hope past experience would have taught you that becoming richer is hard work.
Where do I start?
Lots of work, persistence and trying (and trying again and again) will get you everything you want. I see a lot of people moan about how little money they have, but they’re the same people who won’t actually do anything about it (welcome to the life of the loser). The people who do something off of their own backs and try to create opportunities will often be successful (welcome to the life of a winner).
The following personal characteristics make up the successful person:
- Willingness to try
- Persistence
- Self-reliance
- Initiative
- Hard work
- Trying, trying and trying again
The first step into investing in yourself is enrolling in professional courses. In some industries these courses are worth their weight in gold. If it cost you $3,000 for a course that pushes you two rungs higher in your career and commands a pay rise of $10,000, would you sacrifice time to take the course? If your answer is yes, what’s stopping you?
Know your enemy
Your greatest enemy in life is you. No matter what you’re trying to achieve, seeds of doubt will enter your mind. Don’t let this doubt grow as it may prevent you getting what you truly want from life. For most people, this is to live ‘the easy life’. If you want the easy life then don’t expect the high life. Don’t groan about not having money, and don’t bitch about that friend who does have money to burn.
The following examples are real people who have achieved a great deal of wealth and power through hard work, education and persistence alone.
Duncan Ballantyne – a famous entrepreneur who first made it by making money from his Ice Cream fleet. This is a classic example of hard work and persistence.
Deborah Meaden - studied business at Brighton Technical College, during which she worked as a sales-room model in a fashion house.
James Caan - Graduated from the Advanced Management Programme at Harvard Business School. This again shows a willingness to invest time in studying.
Richard Farleigh – Studied economics at the University of New South Wales. He has achieved his goals with a lot of hard work.
Make investing in yourself a mantra
It’s very important to note that you must invest time and money on yourself before you look at other investment ventures, such as buying a house, stock trading or saving a considerable amount of money. All these things can be yours when you have reached the career level you’ve been striving for. Eventually you’ll gather the disposable income to buy that house you dreamed of or to make millions from stock trading. You must first invest in yourself before your money will grow.