In our businesses, we talk about achieving a good return on investment (ROI).
We want to know that where we are investing our resources is providing us with an adequate, even above-average return.
We consider risk and reward as a part of this and most likely will not invest where the potential ROI (reward) doesn’t align with what we want to achieve.
It is about our priorities and choices.
All too often, we limit these expectations (and conscious decisions) to where we are investing our money. We equate the idea of investment with what we spend and what we earn in terms of money. This extends into our personal lives as well.
The reality is that for most of us, where our money is spent is not, in fact, the best place to focus on to determine whether we are getting our highest returns. There are at least three other areas of investment where, when handled strategically and with a clear intention, we can grow ourselves and our businesses exponentially.
As we enter this new calendar year, it is the perfect time to integrate this into our planning for how we will measure our results overall.
The top three areas we typically need to adjust in setting expectations are learning, relationships, and energy.
Do you have an investment plan covering these areas, both personally and professionally? If not, I would encourage you to step back and consider that, as Charlie “Tremendous” Jones taught, where we will be one year or five years from now will be the result of our learning and relationships. In his teaching, it was “the books you read and people you meet”. Fast-forwarding to how we operate today, it is how we take in information and evolve our philosophies (learning) and our personal network (relationships).
The inclusion of energy stems from the fact that it is one of the three primary resources we need to do anything (time, money, energy). While time and money are important, energy is often overlooked. Even when we have the time and money, we are simply out of steam (energy) to do what we truly want to do. In reality, the overall return on energy becomes the return we see from our life’s ultimate investment in what we care about and how we achieve it.
Join me over the course of this series of posts to learn more about how you can be strategic and achieve much higher returns on your investments for learning, relationships, and energy!
