Not long ago, they did a survey in New York of a cross section of professionals in business and academia. They asked them this question, “If you had managed to accumulated $100,000 from your job, what would be the very best way to invest that amount of money?”
They received a variety of answers from business people, academics, teachers, doctors, journalists and other specialists. The most popular answer that they finally settled on was different from what most people had expected. They concluded that, if you had saved up and accumulated $100,000 in your work, the very best investment that you could make would be back into yourself, and into becoming even better at what you had done to earn the money in the first place.
4. The Guaranteed Formula for Getting Rich
Sometimes, I will ask my audience this question, “If I could give you a guaranteed formula to become rich, would you be interested in hearing it?”
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Of course, everyone says yes and raises their hand. I then tell them the
“guaranteed formula” for success and lifelong riches. It is this. Invest as much in your mind each year as you do in your car. That’s it. Simple.
Guaranteed. Obvious. And it works every single time.
The average driver spends $600 per month on their car in terms of purchase payments, insurance, fuel, maintenance and so on. If you are a high earner, you probably spend much more. But whatever the amount, resolve from this day forward to invest that same amount back into your mind, into becoming even better at what you are doing today.
In the first year of practicing this formula, your income will increase 25% to 50%, or more, and your entire career will take off.
5. Appreciating Assets versus Depreciating Assets
An automobile is what is called a “depreciating asset.” It is subject to what accountants call “straight line depreciation.” This means that, from the time you acquire the car, the value of that car depreciates a certain amount each year until it reaches a value of zero. At a certain point in the life of a car, it becomes a piece of scrap metal, suitable only to be melted down and turned into a new car.
Your brain, on the other hand, is an “appreciating asset.” The more money you invest in it, by reading and acquiring additional knowledge and skills, the more valuable you become. No matter how much you invest in your car, 243
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it will soon be worth nothing. But when you invest in your brain, you increase your “earning ability” with every new idea or concept that you can apply to producing value or result for someone else.
This is why people with more knowledge and experience earn more than people with less knowledge or experience. It is because their earning ability is greater. They have turned their brains into appreciating assets that are worth more and more each year in terms of the quality and quantity of results they can achieve by applying their minds to their work. You should do the same.
6. Practice the Rip and Read Technique
It is essential that you be alert and aware to what is going on in the world of business, and in your business in particular. However, we are overwhelmed with a deluge of information that pours into our lives from all sides every day. You cannot get through it all. It is estimated that the average executive has 300-400 hours of reading stacked up around his home or office. You have to find away to sort the relevant from the irrelevant and read the most important material.
One method you can use is called the “rip and read method.” Instead of reading a magazine the way it is written and laid out, you instead go to the table of contents, identify the articles of interest to you, and then turn straight to those articles. You then rip them out and place them in a file folder for reading at a later time.
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Carry Articles with You
Many people keep a “rip and read” folder in their briefcases that they carry with them to read during “transition time.” This can be in taxis or waiting rooms. Transition time takes place in airports and airplanes. You can keep this file handy and read the articles, one at a time, whenever you get a few spare minutes. You will be amazed at how efficient you become in plowing through huge quantities of key information using this method.
Remember, magazines and newspapers are written and designed to sell advertising. For this reason, you must resist the temptation to read a magazine from front to back, from cover to cover. Instead, you approach each newspaper or magazine with the assumption that most of the material is contains is of no use or value to you. The best way to save time in reading an article is not to read it at all.
The Way Adults Learn
Here is an important point about learning. The adult brain is designed so that you only learn and remember something if it is immediately relevant and applicable to your current work or personal situation. No matter how interesting it might be, if you cannot connect it to your current life or work and visualize how you might apply the idea immediately, it will slip through your mind, like water through a grate, and you will not remember it at all.
For this reason, you should not waste time reading in subjects that may be of interest to you “some day.” Remember the Law of the Excluded Alternative”
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which says, “Doing one thing means not doing something else.” If you are reading something that has no immediate relevance or applicability to your work, you are simultaneously failing to read something that may help you immediately. Especially when reading well laid out magazines and newspapers, you must discipline yourself to keep focused on only those subjects that are relevant to your current work.
7. Use Gifts of Time Wisely
Take advantage of every “gift of time” that you receive. These are short periods, sometimes just a few minutes, which you receive during the day.
Always carry reading material to go through when you get these unexpected moments of waiting or inactivity.
Many people harbor the secret desire to read the “classics” of literature.
They even purchase the “great books” and keep them in their bookshelves, hoping someday to sit down and read them. But this seldom happens.
Here is a great idea for you. Purchase a paperback version of a classic book that you have been wanting to read. Tear out twenty pages and put it in your briefcase or purse. The next time you have a “gift of time” you can read a few pages. When you have finished reading the torn out pages, replace them with a new set of pages from the paperback and put a rubber band around the old pages.
If you read a book per month in this way, you will read 12 books per year, 120 books in the next ten years. You will become one of the best-read 246
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people in the world by using this method. One estimate concluded that if you read in the classics for 15 minutes per day, over the course of a few years, you would have read all the great books of literature.
8. Learn From the Experts
Read the books written by experts in your field. Read books that contain practical information that you can use immediately to improve the quality of your work and your life.
Often people ask me what books they should read. Here is a simple technique. With few exceptions, you should only read books written by people who are active practioners of their craft. Books written by university professors are usually theoretically true but practically useless in the course of operating a real, live business, or living a successful life.
When you see a book that interests you, immediately read the biography of the author. Find out what he or she has done and accomplished, where he or she has worked, what kind of experiences he or she has accumulated in the course of his or her career. You are looking for books by people who have established a successful track record in your field.
Once you have determined that the author is a credible source of information, look at the table of contents to be sure that what the author is writing about is relevant and applicable to your field today. Avoid theory whenever possible. Look for practical ideas with practical solutions to 247
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common problems. The very best way to save time with any book is to decide not to read it at all.
Some of the best selling business books are written by academics. They are full of ideas that are completely impractical. No one is ever able to achieve improved business results applying their ideas in a real corporation. The material looks wonderful on paper but it has no relevance to the real world.