Absolute BEST investment anyone can make

As an accountant, people thinking about their eventual retirement often ask me for my thoughts on the best place to invest. Whether they should invest in stocks, bonds, real estate, active business, or whatever. People are always looking for places to invest their time and money into something that’s secure, low risk, and with the highest possible rate of return.

The answer to this question is actually quite easy. And this is especially true if you’re younger (however you want to define youth). The answer?

Invest in yourself.

Invest in improving your portfolio of knowledge. That’s the absolute best short-term and long-term investment you can make.

I’ve already spoken about the 3-legged stool in previous video of mine, but it is a great place to start your investment.

In my opinion, the 3 skills that will pay huge dividends in your life are the following:

Technical skill – Ability to service your clients well (bookkeeping, auditing, taxes, etc. – for accountants and bookkeepers)
Marketing skill – Ability to attract and retain good clients
Management skills – Ability to convert every dollar and every minute invested in your business to be as productive as you possibly can

Now here’s the beauty of investing in yourself:

Nobody can ever steal this investment from you
It never ever goes down in value
It will survive the test of time
It is low risk
It will stay with you forever
You can transfer it to your children and other loved ones

It also has the added bonus of simply making you feel good, which is better than any other investment I know.

But the best part, many times, is that the return on investment is often FAR better that the 3% to 15% I can hope to make on any other investment, and this rate of return happens year after year. It is not uncommon for investments I’ve made in myself, in my education, in my knowledge, in perfecting my own skillsets, to provide me a rate of return of well in excess of 100% EVERY SINGLE YEAR. Many times, it’s been far in excess of 400% or more. Personally, I cannot think of a single other investment that is better. Where else can anyone get such a great rate of return with such minimal risk, and for such a long time?

I’m often blown away to find people in the financial world who actually make a living on advising people on what to do with their money invest so little in what’s between their ears. There are very few stupid self-made millionaires out there and almost all extremely successful people (define success however you want) have all made learning a very important integral part of their plan.

So why are so few people picking up on this GREAT investment strategy? I wish I knew, but I do have some thoughts on the matter.

I think following are some of the reasons too many people are NOT investing in this enough:

Pride – Don’t want anybody thinking I don’t know what I’m doing
Unaware – Simply didn’t think of it. We’re taught in school that formal education will land you a good job, but very little is said about the tremendous value of continually learning and perfecting your skills
Laziness – Who the hell wants to put themselves through the effort of stretching our minds
Incredulous – We don’t believe it when someone suggests that this or that extra knowledge will pay off huge dividends. Afterall, we’re swamped with all kinds of unrealistic promises from all over every day of our lives
Arrogant – People often think they know more than they really do.

Let’s be real here. We are all surrounded with people who are more successful, who are smarter in certain fields, who have achieved more than us in less time, and who have figured things out that we haven’t. Why the hell are we not picking their brains more? Why are we not reading their books? Why are we so damned hesitant to invest a few hours and dollars of ours to improve ourselves?

Let me know if you ever find the answer.

If you have a question or something to add about this month’s article, or have a good investment to suggest, you can reach out anytime.