Your Greatest Investment: You

by Mitch Anthony

Few conversations are more fascinating than what money means in our lives.

People constantly mull, study, worry, regret, scrutinize, second-guess, hope, and fantasize over money. Sometimes it becomes an obsession.

“What are you invested in?”

“What do you think of the stock market right now?”

“Where is the safe haven that pays anything these days?”

That’s what I hear these days when I talk about money, especially among people who are approaching what has traditionally been called retirement age. But I propose a different question––one that gets past money and gets to the quality of your life:

“What is the greatest investment you can ever make?”

The answer, as some of you may have already guessed, is the YOU Fund.

How do you start investing in yourself? It’s a simple question that requires a complex array of answers. My goal with this column is to provide some of them. I want you to think not so much about your return on investments, but about your return on life.

Millions of us are working in jobs we can barely tolerate––toiling away in search of a dollar we can’t enjoy because we are stressed, discouraged, and indebted beyond our means. If this sounds like you, it’s time to take control of your financial life so you can make the most out of your personal life.

After all, what good is a big pile of money? To impress your friends?  If you really ponder what life should be about, it is just wrong to have missed out on life’s experiences just so you can amass enough money to allow you to “retire” and do nothing for about 30 years.

We’ve all heard that you’ll never see a hearse pulling a U-Haul. But chances are you know of somebody who ended up in that hearse because of financial stress.

A major medical study announced last month proves it. People who work more than 10 hours a day are about 60 percent more likely to develop heart disease or have a heart attack than people who clock just seven hours a day.

So why are you working so hard? If it’s simply to make more money, you’re dead wrong.

I’m not against people having money. I just see too many people squandering it on things that add little importance to their lives. Managed unwisely, money can hinder your chances of living a full life. You work harder––and you can’t have the experiences you want––just to pay interest on more debt.

A healthy conversation about money ought to begin with the correct starting point: “How can I live the best life possible with the money I have?”

Chances are your thoughts quickly turn to living healthier, eliminating and managing stress, spending time with family and friends, and having some “me” time to just enjoy a sunset or a ballgame.

And chances are, your thoughts do not turn to all those expensive things you bought on credit before experiencing buyer’s remorse, or those investments you wished you hadn’t made, or the deals you missed because you were too impatient.

You need to invest in yourself. The best parts of your life probably are not those things on which you make payments, but on the relationships and experiences you invest in along the way.

These experiences and relationships––and the good you create with them––are how you invest in the YOU fund. Making a commitment to increase your experiences (while decreasing your obligations) puts you on the path to getting the most life for your money.

Mitch Anthony is the founder and president of The Financial Life Planning Institute, the leading provider of financial life planning tools and programs. 

For more than a decade, Mitch and his team have provided training and development for both individual advisors and major organizations throughout the world. Mitch personally consults with many of the largest and most-recognizable names in the financial services industry on both financial life planning and relationship development.

Mitch has been named one of the financial service industry’s top “Movers & Shakers” for his pioneering work, and is interviewed by the media on a regular basis. The Institute is partnering with both Texas Tech University and the University of Georgia to develop financial life planning programs for their undergraduate programs. Mitch is a popular keynote speaker, columnist for Financial Advisor magazine, and host of the daily radio feature, The Daily Dose, heard on approximately 100 radio stations nationwide.

Mitch is also the author of many groundbreaking books for advisors and consumers, including From the Boiler Room to the Living Room, StorySelling for Financial Advisors, The New Retirementality, Your Clients for Life, and Your Client’s Story. For information on these books and more resources, click here.

Contact him at mitch@mitchanthony.com.

© 2008 Mitch Anthony