It has taken me a few years to realize it, but the best investment I've ever made has been to continually invest in myself.
And compared to most of the population, I've invested a lot! I'd estimate that my wife and I have spent more on our financial education than either of us did on our first homes. I know the number will be over 6 figures especially when you factor in the flights, hotels and meals we've had when travelling to seminars and workshops.
I still remember our first seminar though. It was shortly after we were married. We were sitting at home watching TV late on Saturday night and saw an infomercial for an upcoming evening seminar about investing in Real Estate. Since we both had real estate backgrounds (mine in drafting, hers working for a builder and both of our parents built houses for a living) the idea of making our fortune in real estate was something we could envision.
I don't remember if we had to phone in to RSVP or just show up at the hotel conference room, but regardless we were there, to see a smooth talking, well dressed gentleman tell us his story of how he made his fortune in real estate.
Before we knew it, we were at the back of the room buying up one of the "specially discounted" packages of training that included an upcoming 3 day workshop to teach us how to become real estate investors.
We took time off work so we could attend all 3 days of that real estate boot camp, and I remember one of the exercises quite clearly. It was a lesson in having available capital to buy properties when we found them. On our lunch break we were all assigned the task of calling each of our credit card companies and asking them to increase our credit limit to $100,000, or as much as they'd give us.
When we returned after lunch, I was feeling pretty good having increased my limits by about $20,000 or more, however someone else took the prize for largest increase more than doubling my numbers.
At the end of the event we were given the opportunity to once again invest in ourselves by buying the packages of further training. I remember my wife and I debating back and forth whether we had picked up enough to go out and start investing yet, or if we should take the plunge and put more training on our credit cards. It was a long debate, mostly because it was such a big investment. If I remember correctly, even the lowest price package for one or two more boot camps was 5 or 10 thousand dollars.
I knew in my heart that we either stopped with what we had learned and attempt to go out and figure it out on our own (which wasn't likely to result in much) or we invest in one of the bigger packages that included one on one time with another successful investor who would mentor us.
That investment turned out to be one of the best investments we've ever made. Even though it took us a few more years, the building of our own home, starting a family and then finally buying our first investment property, that one deal paid for all of our training and set us up to go on and do more deals.
In hind sight, the best investment you can ever make, is an investment in your own self education. As Jim Rohn said "formal education will make you a living, self education will make you a fortune."
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