Have you ever noticed that when someone tells you that you should invest in yourself, it usually means they want you to buy their stuff?
What does investing in yourself REALLY mean?
How do you know what is the right way to invest in yourself?
Show host and Cash Flow Expert, Chris Miles, what investing in yourself really looks like, and how to know what is the right “investment” is when investing in yourself.
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Chris Miles Bio
Chris Miles, the “Cash Flow Expert,” is a leading authority on how to quickly free up and create cash flow for thousands of his clients, entrepreneurs, and others internationally! He’s an author, speaker, and radio host that has been featured in US News, CNN Money, Bankrate, Entrepreneur on Fire, and has spoken to thousands getting them fast financial results.
Chris consistently teaches audiences how to do what no other financial advisers can or will – achieve financial prosperity, NOW AND IN THE FUTURE, while spending time doing what they love most!
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Listen to the podcast here
What Does It Mean To Invest In Yourself?
As a reminder, check out our website, www.MoneyRipples.com. Make sure to download our free eBook Beyond Rice & Beans: 7 Secrets to Free Up Cash Today. Download it while it’s still there. If you’ve got questions, “I would love to hear a show topic about blank.” Let me know. Email me, Chris@MoneyRipples.com. If you say, “I would love to know how I can make this applied more in my life. How can I make this work? I’m making more money, but where’s it all going? I have no clue. I feel like I have a lot of debt or I feel like I could be doing better in my business. I’m feeling like I’m at this plateau and getting stuck. I own a job. I don’t own a business.”
If you’ve ever said any of those things, email me. Chris@MoneyRipples.com and ask for a free money leak evaluation. Ask for the free one to say reference the show and say you heard it here. I want to talk about the question that you hear people say all the time, or is even a statement as well the question, which is how do I invest myself? What does it mean to invest in yourself? We hear it all the time. People say you should invest in yourself. That’s the number one investment.
I believe that’s 100% true. What I don’t buy is what that means in most people’s minds. Usually, when you hear people tell you to invest in yourself, it usually means, “I’m selling you something so you should buy my crap.” They say, “Invest in yourself,” which means like invest in some education or training, whatever it might be, that could very well be true.
I want to start to dissect this a little bit. Not only what it means to invest in yourself, but what is the right investment for you to invest in yourself. When it comes to investing in yourself, this is what it has come down to. This is your goal when it comes to investing in yourself. Your goal is how do I show up as a better value creator in people’s lives? That’s what investing in yourself is.
Invest in yourself by investing in others. This allows you to free up your time and start focusing more on your genius. Click To TweetInvesting in yourself allows you to be a better value creator because dollars follow value. If you truly want to show up in a way that’s able to see a rate of return on investment in yourself, it’s going to show up in the way how you are able to serve people. This may not always equate to money. This might be how you live your life. It could be investing in a relationship or your marriage. It can be investing in your children. It could be a way to invest in yourself to show up better and be more physically fit or whatever it might be or a more spiritual connection with your higher being, whether it be God or whatever it might be. All those things are investing in yourself.
The real question is what’s going to be the most effective way for you to become a better value creator in your life and the lives of those around you. Does that mean education and training? Yes. That’s one way. You could invest in education training, and I have people do this all the time where they will say, “I don’t know where to put my money. I’m not sure what to do.” A great place to start is to invest in something that will help you to know where to do that. That’s why I teach people how to discover what that is, especially because it’s different for everybody.
Maybe you do know. Maybe you say, “I want to invest more in my business. I want to do more there.” It could be hiring people. Is it possible that hiring more people could be the best investment for you in a way to invest in yourself because you are now allowing yourself to be freed up of the things that are the tasks that are weighing you down? The things that you are not special, you are not a genius in. You are hiring people that are in their genius, and that’s a way to invest in yourself by investing in others. That allows you to free up your time so you can start focusing more on your genius, and that allows everybody to prosper as well.
Invest in yourself could be as I mentioned. It could be investing in all different types of areas of your life. It could be investing in your physical health. Is it eating better foods? Is it exercising more? Is it able to get better sleep? That could be an investment in yourself that costs you nothing other than a few hours of your eyes being open. There could be things like that.
It might be where you are simply investing in your spiritual connection. How do you do that more? How do you invest more time into that? That could be a way to invest in yourself. This is where I talk about we do a power hour every day. We were talking about that in previous episodes. How are you showing up there so you can be more awake and more alert and a better value creator right from the get-go every single day?
This could be also investing in things where it allows you to develop business skills or things of that nature. It could allow you to be better in the personal development side and being a better person or strengthening the relationships that you have. All of these things are applicable. When most people say, “How do I invest myself? I get client’s assets all the time. How do I do that? What does that look like?” “What do you want?”
The best way for you to determine what to invest in now is where are you going. What is your vision and what are some of your shorter-term goals? I get a lot of people that will say, “I want to do this.” “That sounds like a big vision. What about in the next three months, what are you going to do now? What’s your real goal?” “I want to focus on improving my customer service.” “What could you invest in that would allow you to improve your customer service? Is that in another service you can leverage or a system? Is it somebody else’s training? Is it something of that nature? Is it buying a product of sorts that allows you to do that? Is it helping you invest in buying a bunch of thank you cards and sending those out to people and that’s how you improve your customer service?”
Whatever it might be. That’s what you do. You take one area and you focus on it. Don’t try to improve everything at once because it’s not very likely it’s going to happen. You want to usually focus. You can focus on a few areas. We don’t try to do six things at once because it’s not effective. Maybe you want to do better with sales. Maybe you feel like that’s where you are lacking. You’ve got this great service or product, but you are not sure how to deliver that.
Take one area and you focus on it. Don't try to improve everything at once. Click To TweetOnce you get some sales training. It could be as simple as a book, seminar, or whatever it might be. It could be one-on-one coaching. That could be where and how you are investing yourself. This could be something that shows up in business skillsets. It could be something of that nature, and the list goes on and on. I have had some clients where one of the best investments they have had, bought some equipment. They bought something that allowed them to add a service or a product into their business.
One client I had, they took the money from the water damage to their office. They were able to meet somebody or a network that was able to get them to get an extra $25,000 from the insurance company because of the lost production and things like that. With that $25,000, they went and purchased a piece of equipment that allowed them to add another service and their business.
With that equipment, it allows them to add another $2,000 a month to the bottom line. That’s huge. That could be a great way to do it. I had another client where, for them, we wanted them to invest in their business. He would start up new offices. Great. Once you invest in that to cost $30,000 or $40,000, and in a couple of years, you can make $250,000 from selling it to somebody else.
Doing all the hard legwork in the beginning, and then having a systematic business that he could turn around and sell. That’s another way to do it too. This could also be developing extra skills. Even if you are an employee because some people will say, “I don’t have a business, but I’m an employee.” “How could you best show up there? Have you ever asked your manager or your boss?” “What could I do that would merit me a raise? What skills could I develop? What things would make me more valuable to you in the company?” Then let them answer.
They might say, “We’d love to be better at putting in numbers on a spreadsheet, do an Excel, who knows, or whatever it might be. It might be something such as, “I would like you to be able to develop your skills and how you are able to manage your team.” “Then let’s focus on that. Maybe it’s focusing on developing your leadership skills.” All of these things are ways to invest in yourself, but it comes down to what is it that you can do right now that will allow you to show up as a better value creator.
If dollars follow value, we want to find out how you can better add value, solve problems, and serve people in a way that money will come back as a natural result. Don’t buy into the whole thing where people guilt you into saying, “You should buy my stuff because you need to invest in yourself.” You need to invest in yourself. That never ends. That’s always there. The question is what do you have planned for the next three months? What is something you need to be doing and where’s that focus? Where do you need to develop those skills or areas of how you go about creating value for people? Whether it be your business or yourself or a business with a boss. All those things are the same.
Find out what it is. Find that next step and always be thinking ahead. Thinking about what you are needing right now. What are those things that you have to have? I invite you to reach out to me if you say, “Money is a real big hangup for me. It frightens me to look at the numbers and I know that’s keeping me from being bigger from being a better steward and allow my stewardship to increase.”
Reach out to me and say, “Is this something I should be looking at? What should I be looking at right now?” Those kinds of things. Everything, there are so many ways to invest in yourself. It’s countless. The trick is deciding where’s your focus, especially in the short-term and then what’s going to be the best matchup for that. Invest there.
That’s how you invest in yourself. It sometimes requires money and other times it does not. It requires time and energy. Whatever it is, invest in yourself, develop yourself and allow yourself to grow and become a better value creator every day. If you do that consistently, you don’t want those things to start to come in more consistently. If you start to be inconsistent with how you create value for people, you’ll notice that your income is inconsistent. Show up consistently, powerfully, and boldly. Go out and make it a great week. Focus on how you are going to best invest in yourself. We’ll talk to you later.