I have a question, when is the last time you’ve invested in yourself?
I’m not talking about stocks and bonds, what I’m trying to say is that when is the last time you educated yourself?
You know, that is the problem with most people. They forget the most important rule in the world of investing. That is “investing in yourself.”
Do you remember the time when your parents 1st sent you to study in a nursery class during your childhood years? You worked your way up till grade school, studied high school and finished college with a bachelor’s degree? I remember mine. When I was young, I dreamed to be an Electrical Engineer. After 6 years in college, I fulfilled that dream. That college degree became my “investment” as I started to look for employment opportunities.
Now, I’m working in an construction firm. I depended on that “investment” to secure my employment and improve my career as an engineer. And I’m successful at that!
But as time passes by, I realized that I cannot depend on that “investment” to make me rich. I realized that my college degree and technical expertise only taught me to earn money by working for other people. That being said, I realized that I needed another form of “investment” to secure another part of my career; my financial career.
Sometimes, I looked up at my boss and wonder how did he succeed in his business. I wonder how can I someday be in his shoes.
Then it struck me, I realized that success starts by being proactive enough to take that responsibility!
When my boss finished investing in education, he used that education to fund another investing opportunity. That is investing in the knowledge of entrepreneurship. You see, education doesn’t stop in college. We need to find other sources of education. Education not in the academic or technical sense, but financial education particularly. For most people, education stops after graduation. They stop learning and keep doing what they do until they grow their bellies and fat asses.
Investing in yourself means taking on the importance of educating oneself through financial literacy. I realized that the most intelligent people in the world aren’t engineers. They aren’t accountants or financial planners as well. They are mostly people that have a great attitude, a positive mindset and a high financial education.
Investing in yourself means developing your financial education
“Investing in yourself” means developing a healthy relationship with money and building income generating assets. I realized that if I buy an egg today and eat it, it’s consumed and gone. But if I buy a chicken that lays an egg on a daily basis, I could save enough money in the future. Even if the chicken costs 100 times the egg, I’d still buy the chicken even if it costs me a great fortune because I know that after the 100th day, I would get free eggs after that day. A normal person would buy a thousand eggs and still buy more if his inventory goes down and would never think of buying a chicken. That’s the reality. Just look around you and see that almost all people buy eggs instead of creating one.
Get the point?
Most people in the provinces own a parcel of land, If you’re financially educated, you’ll rent it out to generate income.
If you have a beat up car, you’ll know that if you fix it, make it a public transport service or sell it, you’ll to generate profit.
If you are good at something, create it. Develop it. Turn it into a product then sell it.
You see, everyone is capable of building wealth. People just don’t know how to create it. This is what financial education is all about.
The bottom-line is this, are you ready to step out of your comfort zone and pay the price for financial education? Or stay, avoid risks and live below your means for the rest of your life?
It’s time to invest in yourself.