Your Greatest Investment Is the One You Make In Yourself

There is no greater investment that you can make than the investment you make in yourself.

There is no greater return on investment on Earth that is greater than the ROI on books. I don’t care what the price of gold, oil, water, real estate, or pork bellies is right now, the return on investment from a single book outstrips all others. On the shelf behind me are a half-dozen books, let’s call it $150 worth of books in hardcover when I bought them. Those half-dozen books have helped me generate literally hundreds of millions of dollars in sales. The ROI is incalculable . . . and still growing.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have received a formal education. The price of a college degree, a degree from law school, and a masters degree are individually staggering, let alone collectively. But the price of the diploma isn’t the real price. The real price you pay for an education is measured in the time you spend reading the books and trading and arguing big ideas with a group of smart people. It’s a lot of money, but you can and will get the money back and more. But will you really invest the time to sharpen your thinking skills without the formal education? The truth is that most won’t. The return on the time invested getting an education pays dividends for the rest of your life.

Whenever I want to learn something, I find a coach with the skills and the track record to bend the learning curve in my direction. I pay them to coach me. The money that I spend with a coach speeds my time to results. A coach looks at what you are doing and shows you the distinctions you can’t yet see for yourself. A good coach holds you accountable for making changes. The faster acquisition of the skills and the speed to results makes coaching very inexpensive. Pay somebody.

Consulting is another investment with an outsized return on investment. You are literally paying for someone to help you discover the right choice for your business. Consultants are expensive. But the price you pay for not knowing what you need to know is more expensive (If you sell insight, this is true for your clients too, isn’t it?).

Right now I am listening to two audio programs. I paid $497 for one program and $297 for another. The two programs combined total about 30 hours of content. I made a life-changing distinction on the first track of the first program. I’m also signed up for a professional development course that costs around $2,000. At the end of the program there is a live event. I expect to make back my $2,000 at least 40 times next year–and for the following decade.

And the financial rewards are just the beginning.

What are you doing to make yourself more valuable right now? What are you doing to grow increasingly valuable in the future? You need to answer these questions as if the quality of your life and results depend upon that answer.