Human Capital; yourself is the best investment in the world.

This is the one and only investment which you are fully control of, and no one else is going to take away from you.

For readers who are a younger crowd, investing in yourself is far more important than any other investment. While you should continue to deploy your money into productive assets, hence making money work harder for you, you also want to invest money and time into yourself as well. Before I explain that in detail, allow me to share the risk of you invest in other assets.

For you to make a profit in the assets you invest, someone has to buy so that you can sell. You then book a profit if you manage to sell higher than you buy. This statement applies for all investments, be it property, equity investments, Cryptocurrency, Gold etc. If this hold true, then it means that you are always at the mercy of the external market forces, and hence you are out of the control. Many of us are not full time traders or investors, and you don’t have the means to predict where the market forces will lead us to. Even so, many analysts are merely predicting and no one can really predict with full 100% accuracy on the future of the market.

On top of that, I have also witnessed younger people doing “small” investments (small in my own terms), and everyday got excited or upset by the up and down of the market. They invest $10k into some trading, and got excited when their portfolio goes up, upset when their portfolio goes down, and get bored when their portfolio remain unchanged. This unknowingly and badly affect their quality of life. Come on, with a $10k base, even if I give them a 100% return, that extra $10k is not going to change their life much. Besides, you only book the the profit when you sell. Else it’s paper profit. It makes you feel good, but never change your circumstances.

Based on my 2 points above, one should really focus on investment in yourself. What can I invest in then?

1. Education: I don’t necessarily mean it by getting more certificates and degrees. The chasing of paper qualifications are meaningless. In today’s environment, one can easily get access to free and quality education online. YouTube is the most powerful platform for you to learn, if you choose the right source. If you want to study about fitness, YouTube it, and learn from a few credible experts on the platform. Watch their channel for free, and you can apply it on yourself, and then you can become a fitness guru yourself. List down areas of improvement you would like to make, and tag a few names of people whom you think are able to help you improve. There are tons of videos and interviews on YouTube. Imagine, if you were to listen to 1hour of interview of Warren Buffett every day on YouTube, and reading his annual letters which is published on Berkshire Hathaway website, you would have spent 365 hours with the greatest investor in the world. Wouldn’t your mindset be improved after spending so much time with your mentors? The more you listen to these successful mentors’ interviews, the more you think like them, and hence you will speak and behave like them, and sooner your wealth will also grow. I’m certain there are also other platforms which provide you with free and credible knowledge of different genres, and for me, YouTube happen to be the best platform. Find one which can serve your needs, in areas such as, health and fitness, leadership and management, mindset, entrepreneurship, finances, marriage, just to name a few.

2. Invest in your network: after you study deep enough about successful people in YouTube, you will realise that they have a vast amount of network. If you want to build a business or something big, you definitely need a strong network. Network will provide you with financial resources if you need one, and also important skill sets and competencies which are necessary to build businesses. How should you build it then? The thing is, you already have one; your friends & acquaintances. You want to build on it, by investing in your friends. A super practical way is to allocate 5-10% of your income into your network by being a nice person to your friends. Buy them meals and drinks. Build stronger friendships and relationships with your friends. Even if this 5-10% is not giving you any results, it’s not going to make you poorer anyway. However, because of how you treat your network in the past, when there are opportunities arriving, I can guarantee that you be one of the first names to be notified! Invest in your network today!

When you invest your time and money into lifelong learning and into your network, if you are an employee, your value to your company will increase, and hence you will receive a pay raise. If company doesn’t value you, I’m sure other companies will and that’s where you receive a higher compensation. If you are into entrepreneurship, as you invest in education and your network, plenty of opportunities will come your way, and you be spoilt for choices on what to invest in later on. It is only in business where your value can be unlocked to the maximum. You gotta understand that, no matter how much of a high flyer you are in the corporate world, your pay will forever be undervalued. Can you find a boss who will overpay you? You can’t…

Let’s increase your value today by investing your time in education and lifelong learning, as well as your network. However, take note, just like wealth, it takes time to build and compound. Hence you got to do it with consistency and discipline, and over a period a at least 365 days, you are guaranteed to witness the internal and external change in you.