Investing in Yourself

When you grow up on a farm, you experience the direct link between your labor and your survival.  If you don’t work, your crops don’t mature and your animals cease to exist.  Farming is a grueling entrepreneurial enterprise.  Just a few centuries ago, the majority of the world’s population farmed and people traded for goods they did not produce.  Existence was subsistence.  Unless one were in trading, manufacturing, mining or business.

A few weeks ago, a friend and I were discussing all of the people we knew who had acquired real wealth in their lifetime.   She observed that they all had their own businesses.  None of them were employed by someone else. Some of the “nouveau riche” had the good fortune to have had family members invest in their business adventure but the majority had simply started something small and had grown it into a successful business.  One fellow we knew started an indoor plant care and watering business.  In the early years, he pruned, planted, hauled and handled all of the houseplants himself.  Now, he has four different locations with 53 employees.

“You never get rich working for someone else,” she said, “All of your effort to grow the business goes into someone else’s pocket. You’ve got to invest your time, money and energy into yourself.”

You can’t turn back time but you can start investing in yourself right now.  You can begin by looking at what it is that you are really good at and what you love to do.  Think about the people who need and want what you do. This is your niche market.  What are those people watching and reading?  How can you let them know you are ready, willing and able to provide the product or service you love?  Tomorrow, I’ll write about some of the ways  you can use your computer to reach the people who need you the most.

Your assignment:  

• Set a timer for ten minutes.  
• In a notebook, write the things that you really love to do, the things you’re really good at, the things you’ll do even if no one wants you to do it.   
• When the timer goes off, stop writing.
• Set a timer for five minutes.
• On a new page, describe the people who would buy what you do. Write about publications they read, websites they’d visit, television shows they’d watch, where they’d meet friends. Any details.
• Stop writing when the timer goes off.