Invest in You

By Tommy Leung on 05/23/2010 in Life

The economic future I see is very gloomy. Hopefully, I’m wrong. I’m not the only one who doesn’t see an economic recovery. There’s an entire community of economists who don’t. You won’t hear many of them on TV. I guess their position isn’t very popular.

There is one that you might have heard of: Peter Schiff. He predicted the economic crisis we are in when everyone else laughed at him.

The economics really doesn’t add up to a recovery. But, economics isn’t really a science. Not a science like physics at least. Physics can predict the future if given all the variables. It can tell you exactly when a ball will reach the ground when dropped at a certain height in a certain condition.

Economics can’t do that. Economics can’t time it that accurately. Even if one can predict that the economy will go to hell in a hand basket and be correct, it doesn’t mean there won’t be some very prosperous stops along the way.

In the end, none of us really know. Economists aren’t psychics.

We do know we aren’t in a boom. That’s apparent. The economy is in the toilet. That isn’t a prediction. That is the reality. Right now. Whether the economy will recover next year, five years from now, or ten no one can be sure. It can even get incrementally worse for ten years. No one knows.

The only thing that is sure to be a good investment in bad times and good times is you. Whether unemployment sky rockets or falls through the floor, improving yourself is going to be pay off.

It is easy to forgo self improvement in good times. It’ll take a lot of people to frog leap you for it to really matter. And besides, the other guy is probably thinking the same thing. So we all stay in relatively the same place while the good times keep rolling.

It is in the bad times that we suddenly realize that we have to do something to be better than the other guy. The competition is fiercer. The jobs are fewer. The other guy is thinking the same thing. And so it becomes a matter of who can work harder and smarter. The one who continuously improved through good times is sitting in the best position. He’s way ahead of the pack.

If you haven’t been constantly learning as much as you can, it isn’t too late to start now. It’s never too late. There’s always those who are still praying that the good times return instead of doing something about it. Leap frog those guys first.

I’d recommend looking into personal branding. The economy will eventually improve. When it does, the social trends forming right now are going to still be here. Don’t let the rug get pulled from under your feet. The world of Google, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, social media, and the rest of Web 2.0 isn’t only here to stay, it’s here to dominate the way we live, work, and play for the foreseeable future.

So start or continue to invest in you. It’s the safest investment you can make.

By Tommy Leung