The Best Investment You Can Make

In this article, I want to tell you what I believe is the very best investment you can make. I'm going to take you back to 1994 when I had finished University. I went to Birmingham University, and graduated with a 2:1 Honours degree in manufacturing Engineering and Business Studies.

Life After Graduating

I came out expecting to get a really good graduate job. The reality is, I didn't get a good graduate job, in fact I had no job when I left. I actually went on the dole for a couple of weeks, and that was pretty depressing at the time.

I realised the problem was that I hadn't actually put enough time and effort into applying for a good graduate job. So I decided that's what I wanted to do, and I needed to get some employment in the meantime, not only to pay the bills but also to show I was employable. I found various jobs. Some weekend jobs, some day jobs. One of them was where I was knocking on doors for Training and Enterprise Council, doing market research. I went all over the country doing this.

What Were Others Investing In?

One of the people I worked with, who became a friend of mine. was called Gavin. We both lived in Birmingham, and we went down to London one weekend to do some of this door knocking.

I'd been out the night before on the Friday, and had a few beers. Gavin picked me up early in the morning as he was driving us down to London. He said, "Do you mind if I listen to this tape?" This was audio cassettes at the time, not CDs. I said, "Well, what is it?" and he said, "It's a guy called Tony Robbins." I said, "I suppose so." I had never heard of Tony Robbins. I was sitting there, and I had a hangover, and I thought, I'll just go to sleep. But Gavin was really into this, and he was kind of really frustrated that I was going to sleep. I'm also pretty sure he would swerve the car to wake me up every so often, just to make sure I was listening.

After listening to these cassettes on the way down to London, I thought, yeah, that's kind of interesting. I said to him, "how much were they?". This was a pack of six audio cassettes, and at the time you could buy a double album cassette for £10. Gavin told me that he had paid £50. I responded with, "how much, £50?", he said, "yeah, £50." I said, "That's ridiculous, "why would you spend so much money?". He then said, "Oh, it's great, it changes the way you think." I thought well, I wouldn't pay that much.

At the time I had no money at all, I was in debt, I had no career. But it planted a seed in my mind. Then when I finally secured my graduate job at Cadbury's, my uncle told me about this company called Nightingale-Conant, who sold these audio cassettes. These were cassettes from people such as Brian Tracy, Tony Robbins, Jay Abraham. I started listening to these guys and would also spent £50 on six cassettes to listen to them. I noticed that I was putting positive information into my head, and it started to change the way I was thinking. I thought, that's interesting.

My First Huge Investments

As well as my job at Cadbury's, I had a part time business running student nightclub events. I realised that I could actually pay for training by putting it through my business. So I actually went to my first paid seminar in 1998. It was with Jay Abraham, who's a marketing expert. It was £4k for a 4-day event in Heathrow. It was a huge investment for me at the time, but I put all the costs against my business.

The information that I gained on that training course, that cost me £4k, I've used for the last 20 years. Some of the things like offering money back guarantees, on my training, I learnt from that 4-day seminar. I've made millions of pounds by using the training over the years. I participated in other training such as personal development with Tony Robbins, I've also spent money with Brian Tracy, Jay Abraham and many others. This is along with doing some property courses in the early 2000's.

The Best Investment I Could Make

I found that whenever I invest in myself, it's the best investment I could make, and that's what I wanted to share in this article. The very best investment you can make, is the property, or the real estate, the 12 inches between your two ears. When you invest in yourself, when you gain specialist knowledge. You never lose that knowledge, you've got it for life. You can use it forever and get a continual Return on Investment on the time and money you've invested in yourself.

What Does That Mean For You As An Investor?

The other thing is, when you invest in yourself, I think you get a 'Psychological Upgrade'. You're backing yourself, you're saying, "yeah, I can do this". You're investing in yourself, which means you are more investible for other people. When you want to borrow money from other people, or if you want a joint venture with other people, if you've invested in yourself, it's more likely they're going to invest in you. If you're not prepared to invest in yourself, why would anyone else back you, or invest in you?  So that's what I wanted to share, I believe investing in yourself is the very best investment, I continue to do it.

I've actually just come back from two weeks in America, where I attended two different courses, 8 days of training in all, at an investment of $20,000. But it's going to make me a better business person, a better speaker and hopefully a better trainer as well. So well worth the investment. So I'll always encourage you to think about investing in yourself. It's very important. I hope I can help you, at some point in the near future investing in your property journey.

Invest with knowledge, Invest with skill.