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Investing In Yourself - Read Time: 4 Minutes

  • Career
  • Personal Development

📅 October 07, 2018

⏱️3 min read

Introduction

When was the last time you had to read a book since you had graduated from school? 

Is it for leisure or for knowledge? Is it to gain a better understanding of your knowledge?

I had been a steady learner ever since I had understood the importance of investing in oneself. 

Despite it might not make sense that education will pay you dividends. 

It will definitely pay a dividend by allowing education to reshape one's own reality of life through a different angle.

No One Can Ever Take It Away

I remember that while I was reading a book about a Mexican businessman, that fled Mexico to the US before a dictator has came to power which cost him a thriving business.

He was talking to his grandson on the importance of education, which the grandson took his advice and graduated with a PhD.   The advice to his grandson that lead him in getting a PhD was like this. "People could take away everything that you possess, but they could never take away your what is possessed in your mind." 

This is actually true because with the correct perception or reality and education. Anyone could actually start over without having any material possession.

What I had learnt along the years is that education does not leave us, instead it form us as the backbone of who you are as an individual.

Specialised Knowledge Vs General Knowledge  

According to Napoleon Hill, "one should always seek knowledge that is specialised instead of general knowledge". 

In summary general knowledge does not pay the bills instead it is a specialised knowledge that pays the bills, 

As you continuously increase your specialised knowledge to add value to the marketplace.  Your knowledge, experience and skills become important 

Whereas with general knowledge, you could always google for that information literally free of charge.  

Therefore I am always in favor of gaining specialised knowledge over general knowledge.

So that I could become better in my craft be it, to be a better writer, developer or speaker.

Focus on Loss Instead of Gain

Personally, I have always had the tendency to pay for my education. Despite there is a possibility to get the same education from Youtube videos or to google for tutorials on how it is done.

For me, the reason to pay for it is in term of the learning materials and your paying for a successful expert in a specific niche for their time and effort to teach you. 

By providing you with the knowledge, experience and skill sets to provide value to the marketplace at a reasonable price. 

Besides that paying forces you to learn subconsciously, as we humans place a higher priority on lost instead of gain. 

If you don't believe me, do try passing an amount of money that is financially uncomfortable to a friend in an envelope and set a goal. 

If you fail to achieve that goal, your friend can do whatever they want with that money. I am confident that you will become hyper-focused to achieve that goal.

Conclusion

Despite this article talks about the financial terms in investing in yourself. 

I would like to take this opportunity to say that investment could be in various forms.

This could be in the form of spending your own time to listen on podcasts, reading books or articles, attending technology workshops or courses related to the specific technology you would like to learn,

Top 10 Ways To Invest In yourself

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/megan-tull/top-10-ways-to-invest-in-_b_8406130.html

Specialization 

http://www.chrisbartell.com/superpowers-blog/2017/4/30/think-and-grow-rich-principle-4-specialization

99: IRIS Nevins - Teacher who Became a Software Engineer at MailChimp

https://breakingintostartups.com/iris-nevins-engineer-mailchimp-2/





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