Unless you are knowledgeable in financial matters, investment is not a word that you would regularly use. It is most commonly referred to in these circles as well as in business.
What has become quite obvious to me over the years, is that most success comes after investment. Not before. It is the greatest insurance against bad luck happening by being prepared.
Investment? I have no money. Why should I read on?
Your investment could be time, learning to gain knowledge, or experience by trying different things. These investments don’t need to be large. They could simply fit in a day or an hour. It is critical to always have some type of foundation underneath what you aspire to accomplish.
To be a good cook, you must spend time in the kitchen. You must invest your time making new recipes over and over until the addition of seasoning or spice becomes second nature. Where measuring tools are not as needed as they were when you first started. Where ingredient substitutions begin to make your dishes different and special.
Both persons and organizations need foundations and infrastructure in order to be successful. The professional basketball player, while possibly having natural born talent, has spent hours in the gym shooting and shooting to be able to score at least 15 points in every game. His or her practice is foundational to their current success.
Turnarounds of business typically need not only investment in fixed assets, but investment in learning how to operate differently for success. New roles and responsibilities help build a new infrastructure for better performance months after all of this began. It takes time to learn and adjust. Why? Because we are simply human.
Life always tricks us into thinking that results simply occur by buying a lottery ticket which equates to simply “playing the game”. It never ends well if this is all we are willing to personally invest. Counter-intuitively, it’s never the money that secures success but rather all of the things around the money and what it buys that minimizes the risks involved in pursuing success.
What might that be? It simply is people. It’s the investment around people, knowledge, processes, and habits where the greatest leverage is to move forward. The same is true of you and i on a personal level. We can complain about our circumstance or the obstacle, but in the end the question always comes back to how much have you invested in yourself or others to make things happen each and every day.