Tuesday, March 19, 2024

How to Invest in Yourself.

March 23, 2017 by  
Filed under Business, Money, News, Opinion, Weekly Columns

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(ThyBlackMan.com) Investing in yourself means legitimately improving your ability to produce greater value for others within your area of expertise, and decreasing your risk of financial loss. There are many ways to invest in yourself, but they can be narrowed down into four categories:

1. Personal Growth: Gaining clarity and focus on your values and purpose; increasing your personal knowledge and skills; and improving your personal habits. This means spending time, money, and effort on any type of self-improvement content or activity that supports your ability to create value for others.

2. Business Growth: Building your business to increase your cash flow, reach, and impact while decreasing effort, stress, and waste; and building a sellable asset that does not depend on your personal presence to function.

3. Create a Personal/Professional Development Fund: This is just like that “Saving for the Wedding Day Fund” or that “Home buying Fund.” If you put a name to your money (a designation, if you will), you’ll be more likely to keep the fund on the up and up. Find a savings account that has a competitive interest rate and that you won’t be likely to dip into every now and then. With this, you won’t be strapped for cash when it’s time to make power moves to that conference or new business class.

4. Pool and utilize resources right in front of you: Many conferences and training programs have group and student rates. Also, schools and employers have resources available to fund your career development if it’s applicable to your studies or your job. Consult your guidance counselor, human resources department or professors to find out what’s available. Also, if your network is full of other young professionals looking to be better leaders and business people, why not pool your money and resources together to help one another? What better way to impress your boss than by presenting the results after you and your peers have come back ready to further add to the bottom line?

Some of the best investments small-business owners can make have little to do with work itself. A study in 2013 by Stanford University’s Department of Psychology found that physical activity improves brain power. Many small-business owners are too busy to exercise. “My first year of business was so busy, I found myself bringing a gym bag with me to work but being too tired at the end of my day to go,” says Kelley Kitley, owner of Serendipitous Psychotherapy in Chicago. Her solution: putting a spin bike in her office so she can work out three days a week when she gets a quick break during the day.

Spend your money on building yourself and your own business. This takes more work and a higher level of thinking than just handing money off to advisors and fund managers. You have to really dig deep to get clarity on who you are, what you want to accomplish, the legacy you want to leave and your overall

Entrepreneurs are always on the lookout for opportunity. So when a “hot investment” opportunity comes along, it’s hard to resist.. They’re expensive for two reasons: One, you’re more likely to lose money when you’re investing outside of your expertise. And two, your time, money and energy are spent on the investment rather than your best wealth creator, your business. Invest wisely!

Staff Writer; Amber Ogden

One may also view more of her work over at; AmberOgden.com.

Also connect via Instagram; 1amberogden and Twitter; MsAmberOgden.


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