The many returns of the day: What investments do you measure?

GrowthIn our businesses we talk about achieving a good rate of return on investment or ROI.

We want to know that where we are investing our resources is providing us an adequate, even above average return.

We consider risk and reward as a part of this and most likely will not invest where the potential ROI (reward) doesn’t align to what we want to achieve.

It is about our priorities and choices.

All too often we limit these expectations (and conscious decisions) to where we are investing our money. We equate the idea of investment to what we are spending in terms of cash. This extends into our personal lives as well.

The reality is that for most of us, where our money is spent is not in fact the best place to focus for determining if we are getting our highest returns. There are at least three other areas of investment where when handled strategically and with a clear intention we can exponentially grow ourselves and our businesses at a much higher rate.

As we go into this new calendar year it is the perfect time to integrate this into our planning for how we are going to measure our results overall. The top three places we typically need an adjustment in setting expectations are learning, relationships and energy.

Do you have an investment plan covering these areas for yourself personally and professionally? If not, I would encourage you to step back and consider that, as Charlie “Tremendous” Jones taught, where we will be one year from now or five years from now is going to be the result of our learning and relationships. In his teaching it was “the books you read and people you meet”. Fast-forwarding to how we operate today, it is how we take in information and evolve our philosophies (learning) and our personal network (relationships).

The inclusion of energy is because it is one of the three primary resources we need to do anything (time, money, energy). While time and money are important, energy is often over-looked and even when we have the time and money we are simply out of steam (energy!) to do what we truly want to do. The overall return on energy in reality becomes the return we see for our life’s ultimate investment in what we care about and how we achieve that.

Join me over the course of this series to learn more about how you can be strategic and achieve much higher returns on your investments for learning, relationships and energy!

Live (invest) today like you want tomorrow to be. Live (invest) well!