by elmads

“Ultimately, there’s one investment that supersedes all others: Invest in yourself ⁽¹⁾, nobody can take away what you’ve got in yourself ⁽³⁾, and everybody has potential they haven’t used yet ⁽²⁾.”

-Warren Buffett

“Invest in yourself…”

“Invest in yourself” you’ll always get to read and hear those words when you get exposed consistently in the financial and investment world. Simple yet impactful words isn’t it? but what does it actually mean? is it only applicable in the financial space? or can we bring this idea into other aspects of our life?

I’m very passionate about the markets, investing and also the financial aspects of it. It gives me joy to even talk about it with someone, to the extent that I could have conversations about it for hours. Various topics and sub topics to discuss within its sphere, at the same time I get to hear different stories and experiences from other people, “the what works, what doesn’t, and the things I do know and for most of the time the what I do not know”.

Eventually from the years of watching videos, reading books, hearing podcasts and connecting/talking/messaging with others about it. I get to completely realize that “invest in yourself”, as cliché it has been, will always be a very important sentence that everyone should always take seriously, not just for financial purposes but also in other aspects of our well being.

Invest in yourself, invest on the things that you have the natural affinity with, on the innate abilities and strengths that you have.

The quote above from Warren Buffet seems specifically only about investing and finance, but to tell you honestly, it encompasses all other aspects of our lives. Invest in yourself, because we only have one body, one mind, one soul and one lifetime. Make it count. 😁

“…Everybody has potential they haven’t used yet.”

Communication and information technology, the nervous system of our human civilization. It is the means to communicate information through both the traditional methods of communication (speaking, listening and body language) and via the more sophisticated technological devices of this age.

It’s evident in our daily lives how the ways of communication have rapidly improved in just over a century. From postal letters to smart phone social media messenger applications, there’s no one stopping us in sending and receiving information faster than ever before.

Same as with learning. We’re now able to get information as quick as a Google search, when just 3 decades ago we would require an access to a library just to pursue learning for free. On top of that, we would need to look for books that has the information that we’re looking for, in a library that has hundredths if not thousands of books. Roaming around the library, looking for those books placed in multiple aisles and stacks of shelves. That itself takes a substantial chunk of our time already. 😅

NOTE: Finding information via “Google it”, will eventually change in the future. It’s already happening today with the rise of artificial intelligence chat box, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT. I’ve been utilizing it for more than a week already. It’s mind blowing.

It’s indeed easier now to find what we want to read, hear, see, know and learn than before. Yet, despite this fast paced method of learning, there is still this enormous amount of hesitance to learning for self improvement. There was a time when experts thought that the lack of resources for learning was a problem in our society, but fast-forward today, it’s not the case anymore. Though this is not a blog for me to discuss what is causing this, as it is not a domain where I have a complete understanding of.

That being said, I just want to point out that, learning ideas, concepts, skills and fields where we are willing to understand, take actions from, while enjoying the process, is and will never be a zero sum game.

Become the person who is way better than who you were yesterday. Build yourself into something that your younger self has dreamed of becoming, or surprise him/her into becoming the person he/she has never envisioned to even happen in his/her lifetime.

Always choose yourself, always choose to be the better version of you, because you always have the capacity to do so. As like what Warren Buffet said in the above quote “Everybody has potential they haven’t used yet.” which is somehow the same and connected with Carl Jung’s collective unconscious psychoanalysis.

Collective unconscious is a universal version of the personal unconscious, holding mental patterns, or memory traces, which are shared with other members of human species (Jung, 1928). These ancestral memories, which Jung called archetypes, are represented by universal themes in various cultures, as expressed through literature, art, and dreams.

As he stated ‘The form of the world into which [a person] is born is already inborn in him, as a virtual image’ .

Jung, 1953, p. 188

According to Jung, the human mind has innate characteristics “imprinted” on it as a result of evolution. These universal predispositions stem from our ancestral past.

Some of the innate characteristics (positive or negative) don’t manifest immediately. Some of it UNLOCKS ITSELF based on our environment and experiences during our lifetime. Then compare this with what Buffet said “Everybody has potential they haven’t used yet“.

This is analogous in an oversimplified way, with MMORPG games like Ragnarok Online. Where there are certain experience levels, and skills that need to be achieved before attaining the higher and unique characteristics that has been granted to the characters of the game.

Unfortunately, it’s quadrillion times complex in reality than in my oversimplified MMORPG analogy. Firstly, we don’t know what ancestral characteristics we have, and secondly we also don’t know what are the required experiences and skills we must have before we can unlock our innate high and unique characteristics.

This is one of the many reasons why further learning, experiencing things in life, and getting out of our comfort zone can be of tremendous help to achieve what Carl Jung calls our “imprinted” characteristics. And for most of the time, these attributes are unlocked through hardships and setbacks.

However, we don’t know yet what those experiences will bring out in our own imprinted characteristics. Will it be the positive or the negative ones? no one knows, not unless we try unlocking it.

“…Nobody can take away what you’ve got in yourself…”

One of the greatest things of continuously improving ourselves, understanding more and applying our accumulated learnings is, it never entirely cease to exist in our mind and body.

“Wisdom, thoroughly learned will never be forgotten.”

-Pythagoras

Though there might be instances that we can still forget what we’ve learned and applied before, only if we don’t completely practice it anymore.

As an example, let’s say you’ve worked as nurse and you are used to insert Intravenous Cannula to patients who require IV medications and fluids, but then you stopped working as nurse as you have transferred into another industry.

The knowledge and skill are there but through time you could forget those things. Nevertheless, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you wouldn’t be able to relearn what you have learned before.

Same as with failures. Overcoming it repeatedly is also a skill that only a few people dare to attain. It’s one of the skills that cannot be completely removed from our mind and body once achieved. To be honest, handling failure has also something to do with shaving of some of our emotions.

Just think of it like this, If we remove our emotions in the equation, what we intrinsically get from our failures are information.

Let me explain. Failure is an outcome of any endeavour that has not worked. In its simplest form, all of our aims have two outcomes, either success or failure.

Failure is knowing that the approach we took was not applicable for that scenario, our goal in our mind, so we need to change our method and way of thinking to see how to tackle our aims differently to solve the problem. But then, we’re all emotional human beings, and emotions can be both helpful and detrimental for us. Not to mention that majority of people place more weight on the opinions of others than of themselves, that’s pure emotions in play as well.

Learning about ourselves. Having the intrapersonal skill, could prove beneficial for us, because once we are able to somehow discipline and domesticate our emotions and behaviour within a certain level, then we could approach failures, judgements and setbacks in an easier and strategic way than when our emotions have the complete hold on us.

“Let failures, judgement and setbacks take all of my hard-work including all of my material things. But I tell you this, at the end of the day I will still be able to recover myself, not by money, but with my mind, heart and soul.”

-Anonymous

What you’ve learned and practiced for a long-time with discipline, faith and consistency cannot be taken away from you.

As what a portion of Warren Buffet’s quote above says”…Nobody can take away what you’ve got in yourself ..”

Nothing beats, INVESTING IN YOURSELF.

Knowledge is my Sword and Patience is my Shield,

elmads

This blog is for informational purposes only and not a Financial Recommendation. Not all information will be accurate. Consult an independent financial professional before making any major financial decisions.