Aha! Moment Monday
Are you a risk-taker? Or do you like a safety net and the guarantee that comes with it?
If you are a risk-taker and decided to buy Facebook stock at the beginning of this year, your investment would have increased by 19.12%. If you like guaranteed investments, on the other hand, a one-year Canada Savings Bond purchased at the same time promises .5% at the one-year maturity point.
My friend, Michele Bailey, Founder: Blazing, the Agency, tells a story of leaving a V.P. position to start her own business over 20 years ago. It seemed like an easy decision at the time as Michele was promised guaranteed business from a large, national retailer. As Michele explains, “…after 27 voicemails and emails, she never replied.”
Then there are guarantees that accompany contracts and purchases…like the life-time gym membership I purchased when I was 22. I thought I was buying it for my lifetime but it turned out it was for theirs (which, as you guessed, was very short-lived).
Like Michele, I was raised in an era when we were encouraged to get a job with a pension and buy a house, then we would be set for life. Perhaps if you were employed in health care or by the government there was truth to that, but my neighbour worked for an automotive supply company for 30 years with a guaranteed pension. One day he went to work to find a padlock on the door. No business. No job. No pension.
If a guarantee is an assurance of a particular outcome or condition, how can we make certain that in turbulent times, our investments will yield the rewards we expect?
Aha! ~ “The most important investment you can make is in yourself.” Warren Buffet
The oxymoron: it may seem that taking full responsibility for outcomes is an enormous risk (for some reason we tend to have more confidence in others thinking they are smarter and more capable than we are) but you are the only person who can guarantee to deliver on your promises.
That is not to say that investing in yourself means to jump ship and start your own business. What it does mean is to understand that first you work for yourself, then for someone else.
You see you don’t actually get paid by someone you get paid through them. You are always in control of your standards, your offers, your value and your worth. All your skills – especially your mindset – belong to you. Every moment and every decision is a risk, and failure is a profoundly competent teacher, but when you know the depth of your potential and value, you realize the iron-clad guarantee is you..
Have your Aha Moment Mondays delivered right to your inbox… sign up.