The best ways to invest in yourself are to read for growth, find a mentor, build skills, protect your health, sell something and create income that does not depend on your time. An investment in yourself pays the best dividends, yet few people know how to make one. This is a list of 15 practical ways to do it if you want to change your life for the better.
Each item below comes with the reasoning behind it, and a bonus idea about time and money closes the list.
Watch the full video here, or skip to the breakdown below.
The 15 ways at a glance
- Read for growth (0:22)
- Talk to people and find a mentor (1:10)
- Make friends (2:20)
- Travel far (3:16)
- Take courses to build skills (4:17)
- Build health on purpose (6:26)
- Sell something (7:11)
- Optimize your environment (7:57)
- Teach something (8:50)
- Build an income stream that does not depend on you (9:39)
- Clean up your image (10:40)
- Expose yourself to art and creative ideas regularly (11:20)
- Learn a new language (12:44)
- Better equipment and tools (13:24)
- Practice introspection and stop saying yes to things you do not want
- Bonus: Invest time before money, until money can buy time
1. Read for growth
The most accessible long-term investment is learning to read for growth. Many people avoid books because teachers made them read boring ones and graded them on it. Homework became the association, and school ended up making you hate the most valuable self-investment tool there is.
The strategy for building the habit: read what you love until you love to read. A thousand short videos on a topic will never come close to one good book.
2. Talk to people and find a mentor
Talk to many people from different backgrounds and ideologies. Most people live in bubbles. They spend time with others who live nearby, consume the same content, think alike and vote alike, so their own ideas just bounce back at them.
Growth happens when you meet new concepts, either absorbing new knowledge or replacing old ideas with better ones. Along the way some people will become guiding lights. Pick one to be your mentor. A mentor who is open to guiding you through life is one of the best investments you can make.
3. Make friends
Your friends and network are your personal and professional safety net. Your net worth is directly correlated to your network, and the better the quality of your connections, the richer your life.
Beyond money, a life lived without people to share it with is missing a big piece. Other people’s happiness becomes yours. Keeping friendships alive takes work, sometimes time and sometimes money. If a friendship faded, it is because neither side made it a priority, and both are worse off.
4. Travel far
The farther you go, the more your understanding of the world changes. Ten hours away by plane, the way people look at life is different, shaped by other education, customs and traditions. The farther you travel, the less self-centred you become, because you realise the world has carried on for ages without knowing you exist.
Travel is one of the few purchases that makes you richer. Be a traveller, not a tourist. You will not learn about a country in a Starbucks or a McDonald’s, so let the culture shape your identity.
5. Take courses to build skills
Acquiring skills is the best investment a person can make. Skills upgrade the potential outcomes of your life, they are tools you can put to work, and nobody can take them away from you once learned.
You may already communicate well, which gives you an edge in expanding your network, but lack others, such as setting clear and practical objectives. Your life is cheap because you think investing in yourself is expensive. If $15 for a book or $250 for a course feels like too much, you have not yet grasped the return on you. A single idea from a course or book can make you tens, hundreds or thousands of dollars.
6. Build health on purpose
Young people neglect health because they miss one fact: neglect is an invoice that arrives later. Most people borrow from future health to spend in the present.
The more you develop, the clearer the return on good health and good sleep becomes. It is the difference between running at 95% brain capacity and running on whatever an energy drink gave you at 3 AM. Invest time and money in learning about nutrition and the body, then invest effort and money in making use of that knowledge.
7. Sell something
One of the best ways to grow is to try selling something. So many skills have to come together that growth accelerates, and the more you do it, the better you get.
You have to decide what to sell, who to sell it to, how to talk to the buyer and how to deliver and close the deal. Every one of those steps carries over to other parts of your life, which is why practising sales is among the best investments you can make.
8. Optimize your environment
A well-ordered space has two clear benefits. You save time because you stop hunting for your things or wondering what to do next, and you get more done quickly because the space supports you.
You do not have to be a minimalist, but many young people struggle with organization, and some never shake it, living in constant chaos. Happiness, success and calm come from putting order into the chaos of the world. Start with your immediate surroundings and expand outwards.
9. Teach something
If you want to master something, teach it to others. Teaching forces you to explain things in a way that is easy to follow, and you must understand the topic well enough to pass it on.
That is the opposite of what schools often rewarded. Learning stops the moment you begin to memorize. Understanding is the goal, and teaching cements what you know.
10. Build an income stream that does not depend on you
This is the only purely financial item on the list. Invest your money so you do not have to work for money. You will never be rich while you trade time for money.
The moment you generate a second income that runs without you, your life changes. It may be small, but done right it stays. If it still needs you to bring in more, you have only created another job.
For reading on this, the script recommends three books: The 4 Hour Work Week, The $100 Start-up and The Parable of the Pipeline.
11. Clean up your image
Investing in yourself means giving yourself access to the most opportunities. That may mean retiring the handstand keg chugs from last summer that are all over the internet. Everyone judges by appearances, and your social profiles are the new emperor’s clothes. If you think it does not affect you, you are probably lying to yourself.
Clean up your Facebook and LinkedIn, do some press and opportunities will follow. Then look after yourself: learn about fitness, grooming and personal hygiene, and the snowball rolls in your favour.
12. Expose yourself to art and creative ideas regularly
Many people see little value in art. Paintings seem overpriced, and who has time for statues and buildings when there is a celebrity to bash online? But creativity breeds value, and the only way to be creative is to exercise those muscles.
Think of it as light in a room: the more light you take in from others, the brighter yours shines. You connect dots differently and learn new approaches. Art should inspire you, make you think and make you question things.
The script recommends two Netflix shows for this: Abstract: The Art of Design, and Chef’s Table.
13. Learn a new language
A new language has immediate value in the marketplace. You get better jobs or better deals, and your brain expands as you absorb culture and new structures that pay off over time.
It also lifts your inner circle. Ordering in Italian at a restaurant in Italy makes Italian friends throw their hands up and cheer, and gives you the feeling of being embraced by a culture.
14. Better equipment and tools
The most straightforward item: buy better tools that either raise the quality of your work or let you do it faster. Early on, at least 70% of your residual income should go into equipment that directly brings in more money.
These are purchases you make once. They pay for themselves in the short to medium term, and they are a deductible expense. You cannot afford to waste time on problems that money can fix.
15. Practice introspection and stop saying yes to things you do not want
This one invests time in yourself. We all carry baggage, and the goal of introspection is to work through the issues of the past one by one until your worries are only the ones at hand. It ties in with meditation but is not limited to it. Being free of old anchors is a fundamental step toward happiness.
The extra step is to stop adding new problems. Some people say yes to things they know they do not want to do, others take advantage, and life gets more miserable than it should. Stop living for other people and decide what you want out of life.
Bonus: Invest time before money, until money can buy time
Growing up poor, the writers had little money to invest, but everyone gets the same amount of time. So they put as much time as possible into things that could one day let them buy time with money.
The deeper point for those who watch to the end: if you must choose between investing money and investing time, invest the money. You will probably run out of time before you run out of money. You may end up overpaying in the eyes of others, who do not realise you are buying time.
People talk about return on investment or return on time. The script asks about the return on yourself, or ROU. Nobody can make you rich, fit or smart. That comes from the passion, hunger and desire you channel into change.
You are the one generating the positive return on your life.
Where to start
You do not need to do all 15 at once. Pick the one that matches your current gap, whether that is skills, health, people or income, and put real time or money into it this month.
The script closes by asking how many of the 15 you actively pursue, and invites readers to answer in the comments.
FAQ
What are the best ways to invest in yourself?
Reading for growth, finding a mentor, building skills, protecting your health, selling something and creating an income stream that does not depend on you. The list covers 15 in total.
How do you build a reading habit?
Read what you love until you love to read. Many people dislike books because school tied them to homework, so start with topics you enjoy.
Why is selling a good way to grow?
Selling requires deciding what to sell, who to sell to, how to communicate and how to close the deal. Those skills carry over to other parts of life.
How much should you reinvest in tools early on?
The script says at least 70% of your residual income should go into equipment tied directly to earning more, because tools are a one-time purchase that pays for itself.
Should you invest time or money first?
Invest time before money until you have enough money to buy time. If you must choose between the two, invest the money, since you will probably run out of time before you run out of money.
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