Investing Time and Money in You

Invest time and money in you (you are worth it) 
Get comfy this is a long one

Beware of free advice!I hear this statement time and time again, most recently from Robert Kiyosaki(from Rich Dad) and Dean Graziosi ( Real Estate Expert). Be aware of who is giving you advice. Does this person have a vested interest in you? Do they have something to gain from the advice they give you? When talking investments like stocks, FOREX, Real Estate, and so on what is their experience? Are they currently invested?
These are just a few of the questions you might want to ask these "guru's" and yourself. So you are giving me some tax advice, are you an accountant or a lawyer? So you think buying Real Estate is a bad idea. Do you own any property? Have you owned property in the past?

Sometimes this free advice can end up being costly to you. Maybe you are talked out of a trade that takes off and makes mad money, maybe you are talked into a trade that bombs and looses all or worse more than your initial investment. When you talk to that friend, family member, or co-worker all they can say is whoops. They do not have to take any responsibility. They don't have to give you due diligence you are not a client. Due diligence that is a key word to remember. You do the back-round checking and research. You must do the fact finding and number crunching. Almost every type of investing I do is self-directed. This includes trading stocks, forex, and commodities. I have just one person to blame or congratulate, me. Because of this I am always investing time and money in my financial education. You can always learn more.

I feel that quality learning involves an exchange. You trade some of your money for knowledge. This transaction really has more value. I know that when I pay for a book, course, class, seminar, etc I pay more attention. My focus is sharper and my desire to learn is greater. One of the best things about knowledge is once you learn something it can never be taken away from you. That is real value. Even if you spend just one dollar that will change your mindset verses something that is free. You will find on the internet and everywhere in the marketing world that information that starts off as free will 99% of the time lead you to a product to buy. I don't like sticker shock, and I don't like this bait and switch technique. You can see on my blog the items I promote have an up front price tag. Take a look at some of these offers and find one that matches your comfort level of spending. A wonderful habit I have is to upgrade my training by using profits to purchase said training. That is a win win, and a great feeling. To give you a specific example way back in 1998 a bought a Ken Roberts Commodities trading course for $250. This gave me the knowledge and education to be comfortable getting into the commodities market. I then funded my trading account with $3,000 to start trading options. Once I made a profit on a few trades I re-invested in an upgrade training course from Ken Roberts called The Round Table which cost me $600. Then took another position with the initial investment. In essence I bought more knowledge with the houses money. This is different than getting something for free. I paid for the education. Used this information to make an investment, made some profits, and paid for more education. This is a process I continue to repeat. This is also a great investment strategy which I will get into at a later time.

If you are reading this blog you are someone who is an active investor. Keep learning and keep investing in your financial education...No one wants your money to make more money than you do!

Shawn Ravenscraft