The Wisest Investment You’ll Ever Make: The Personal One

“Take a coin from your purse and invest it in your mind. It will come pouring out of your mind and overflow your purse.” — Benjamin Franklin

When it comes to discovering who you are, figuring out your purpose or even trying to manage your life in business, in your finances or even in your relationships, one of the greatest investments you can ever make, is in yourself. That’s not to say that it’s the only investment you can make in your life in order to achieve what you want, but it is certainly the wisest and most powerful investment at your disposal.

So the question is, how do you make such an investment into yourself? Is it monetary? Is it receiving more education? Is it expanding your social network or making stronger connections with your family and loved ones? Or could it be that it’s time to head off to the gym, see your naturopath, chiropractor or acupuncturist for a physical re-evaluation?

Well, the answer to these questions depends solely on where you currently are on your journey in life. If you’re in debt, for example, and all the other areas of your life seem or appear to be in order for now, what could you do to reduce that debt?

Most people would focus on the debt, how much they owe, how devastating it is, how it’s ‘preventing’ them from living their lives to the fullest and how it’s the root of all evil in their world. This a common misconception that the majority of people have who land themselves in debt. There are many lessons to learn from this experience and a number of ways to make a personal investment to alter the outer challenges that you may be facing.

Debt is the universe’s way of helping you learn more about who you are. From your perspective, it may appear like a mountain, standing in your way, yet it was one that you unconsciously chose to create. It is an assistant, something you recruited to help you understand the value of money, fair exchange and the value of who you are as a human being.

It’s something that the universe has always had in play in the world, from the beginning of time as we know it. When there have been droughts around the world, specific countries have responded by preserving their water supply or creating alternative solutions to preserve the long term viability of the countries water resources.

There is a reason the planet behaves in this manner and why we, as human beings, do the exact same thing. It’s one of the Laws of Conservation. There is always a balance and everything is designed to wake us up to the hidden order of the universe or the authenticity of who we are and our inspired mission.

You may still be wondering how making a personal investment in yourself is going to help you solve your debts or manage your relationships more effectively, or even transform the trajectory of your career. Well, it’s all very simple, yet as we all know, nothing is only ever simple. This is the beauty of every action we take and every moment we experience. There is always another side – an opposing force. That force is designed to keep us in check.

Think about this for a moment, when you make an investment in your business or in your children’s lives or in your relationship with your wife or partner, what’s your reason for doing so? Why do you do it? What are you aiming to get back as a return?

Well, in business, it might be a promotion or a salary increase or a bonus or even a new partnership to help your business expand. In your children’s lives, it might be to develop their minds, activate their creative potential or even give them the opportunity of achieving what they’d love to do with their lives. In your relationship with your wife or partner, it may be so that you can have time for yourself when you get home, a stronger physical or emotional connection or because your partner is an asset on your journey.

Investments are always made to increase the growth potential of whatever it is that you’ve chosen to invest in. That’s why we make investments – to help our asset value increase, as well as assist the area or people we’ve invested in, to grow in value too. One of the places that we forget to invest in, however, is predominantly within ourselves. From our perception, there’s no guarantee of a return; it’s a risky investment and it may not pan out the way we expect it too.

We don’t place a high enough value on ourselves to pursue an investment strategy. The doubts or lack of belief we have accumulated about ourselves, over time, are one of the major reasons for this lack of action. We’re also scared, and sometimes, even feel guilty or shameful about doing so. How are your self motivated or inspired pursuits going to truly serve you? How are they actually going to assist or serve the people in your lives? If we don’t take the time to truly answer these questions and probe deeper we may, in effect, miss out on some of the greatest opportunities in our lives.

One of, or in my opinion, the wisest investments you will ever make in your entire life is in you. The reason I’d suggest such a crazy and outlandish notion is as follows. You are in control of every action or reaction that occurs in your day to day life. You are in control of your debt as much as you’re in control of your wealth. You are in control, to a degree, of how your relationship grows or dissolves. You are in control of whether you create an illness or dis-ease in your body or whether you introduce wellness into it. You are at the epicenter of every major crisis or challenge that befalls you, whether that be on a personal level, professional level, social level, family level, physical level, spiritual level, mental level or financial level.

In order to truly create change in your life, focusing on the challenge in front of you, will only create more of what you’re trying to avoid. However, when you make a conscious decision to look inside of yourself and take the time to work out who you are, what you are about, what inspires you and what’s truly most meaningful to you, you will uncover the solutions to every single crisis that you experience in life. Instead of you perceiving your experiences only as challenges, you will uncover the many blessings and opportunities that they have to offer, at the same time.

Personal investing is the key to personal growth. It is the advice I offer anyone who comes across my path. The potential value that personal investing holds is limitless. There is no boundary to how much you can create within your life by taking this necessary and wise action step into the future. In essence, it’s the key to business and financial success. It is the key to social and family upheavals. It is the ‘cure’, as some would see it or label it, to the many physical challenges that have been part of our lives. No other investment is as important as this one.

We are often told not to be selfish, not to focus on who we are and even to compromise or sacrifice what’s important to us for others. Instead we are told that we should give to others, that we need to be kind and not cruel, that we have to support people when they’re victimizing themselves, instead of challenging them to grow and ultimately, that we ought to be humble because arrogance is a terrible way to respond to people. In saying that, I do believe it is important to be able to give, to be kind, to be selfless, to offer support and lend a hand and present ourselves with an equal dose of humility, but not at the expense of who we are. That one-sided approach to life will inevitably create and attract the very challenges, debts, illnesses and crises that we wish to avoid.

You are the most valuable person in your life. When you begin to truly realize that, understand that, appreciate that, respect that, recognize the value in that and own it, you will create the space to open yourself up to the world around you. In doing so you will give the world around you an opportunity to invest back into you, to the degree you’ve achieved it within yourself.

So, keep this in mind. When you’ve invested that much time, energy and money in yourself and you’ve empowered yourself in all the areas of your life, you will then stand on the shoulders of giants. You will reach heights that you may have once thought or believed to be impossible or just a dream.
Greg Schreeuwer