Is Your Ability to Making Money Appreciating or Depreciating?
Two quotes from Warren Buffet come to my mind when I think of this topic: “The most important investment you can make is in yourself” and “Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn’t. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value.”
In the first quote, he emphasized the importance of continuous learning and self-improvement. He is known for reading for more than six hours or more than 500 pages a day. The second quote refers to those who don’t invest are doing it wrong. Those quotes answer the fundamental question of what is your most valuable asset?
The way to increasing your income is to spend time and money improving the most important skill you can develop which is your mental skill. In this context, your most important asset would be your earning ability as Bryan Tracy calls it. Your earning ability is the total sum of the learning, study, experience, knowledge, and skills you have accumulated over the course of your personal life and career. Because all the components that constitute your earning ability appreciate and depreciate over time as you change and as the people and environment around you change, your earning ability appreciates and depreciates too.
Skills can be acquired and can become obsolete over time, people may stop learning at college or can remain lifelong learners, the speed and quality of acquiring knowledge change, and experiences depend on the situations you are facing. In all cases what you get paid for your services is the type of services you provide, the quality, and the availability of a potential substitute. If you want to increase your earnings you have to change one of those three factors: the services you provide, the quality of your product, or you have to become indispensable for your customer. As you work to improve yourself keep those factors in mind to optimized the way you earn money and increase your productivity.