Mark Cuban Invest in Yourself

http://www.trendslate.com/2011/12/11/mark-cuban-invest-in-yourself/

by Anon84 • 15 years ago

65 24 15 years ago

groaner3• 15 years ago

OK... so as one of those people with a fair amount of spare cash lying around and no debt, I still can't quite grok this "invest in yourself" idea. Clearly I'm not about to start swallowing Ben Franklins.

I'm just a jaded programmer who is frankly terrified of the brutal startup culture, with no intention of being a founder (can't handle the high pressure and emotional roller coasters) or employee (not a fan of grueling schedules for minuscule hope of a payout). I'm also a couple of years out of grad school and have no interest in going further down that rabbit hole, so don't try selling "education" as an investment vehicle to me either.

The only area where I have a good idea of how to invest in myself is to improve my physical fitness. Still, that's mostly an investment of time and effort, not money.

What am I to do? Maybe it's time I just check out of the working world and wander for a while.

jaredsohn• 15 years ago

One thing you can do is take your money out of the stock market and keep it somewhere safe.

This is investing in yourself in that your financial success is tied much more to yourself than on things you don't control. It has practical value should you find yourself in a situation where you need to rely on that money, it won't have disappeared due to external risk.

joelrunyon• 15 years ago

Physical fitness is a great way to invest in yourself. Either you spend the money (which it doesn't really take that much of really) to stay healthy now, or you spend it down the road getting tubes stuck in you in at a hospital.

That said, there aren't any side-projects, interests, hobbies that you'd be interested in trying out on the side and seeing if you can turn into small businesses. Surely, there has to be something.

whenisayUH2• 15 years ago

Cuban's points were a bit all over the place, but if we're talking about wealth creation of the F you money type, taking some personal/career risk often is required. Whether that's being a startup founder, being a hedge fund trader, or the best investment banker in the world, etc.

So if you don't want to start your own thing or work at one or work hard or generally take any risk, the wealth thing is probably going to prove elusive.

Of course, if you want to retire with a couple of million dollars, a nice corporate job and frugal lifestyle is prob all you need.

inuhj• 15 years ago

What's your passion? Do that.

groaner3• 15 years ago

Ha! If only it were that easy. I've spent most of my life being a goody two shoes, only doing what other people told me to do and never really exercising any individual free will. Passion? What passion?

I'm aware of the irony of reading what more people, this time strangers on the internet, are telling me to do. I doubt I'll see the answer in a web browser.

For the time being I'm simply trying to do something I've never done before every week. It doesn't have to be drastic, maybe something like trying out a new recipe or taking a photo of a different neighborhood or going for a moonlight run at 3am. Sort of a "throw lots of things at the wall and see what sticks" approach.

confluence• 15 years ago

Maybe this will answer your question:

http://www.quora.com/Day-Trading/Where-can-I-learn-about-spe...

Seems that you just want return without the excruciating work of a startup. And that's cool.

So you want to invest in good companies and not trade more than twice a year.

People who say stay out of the stock market don't understand what it's for - liquidity not return.

If you want return, you have to buy cheap and sell high companies with high margins, low debt, great management and awesome economics.

It's relatively easy once you've chosen your awesome companies, and valued them using common valuation models.

moocow01• 15 years ago

You could try to replace your income with small business ventures and certainly having some cash will help. This business makes it seem like the only way to do well is to hunt down VCs and convince them you are the next prodigy. There are other paths - they just aren't going to be written about on Techcrunch.

davidw• 15 years ago

You could try a side project ala "Start Small, Stay Small", with the 'stay small' being a great way to keep it from being too stressful.

BadassFractal• 15 years ago

Spend a few years at a 9-5 corporate giant, let us know what happens.

mkramlich3• 15 years ago

> the brutal startup culture

doesn't have to be brutal. that's a dial we can turn

> or employee (not a fan of grueling schedules for minuscule hope of a payout).

again, doesn't have to be

> so don't try selling "education" as an investment vehicle to me either.

education can be had for free. lots of ways to gain education for free and/or cheap, relatively fast and flexibly. but you can't restrict yourself to the traditional K-12-college pipeline, those are very costly and rigid in terms of time and money.

> Still, that's mostly an investment of time and effort, not money.

arguably money is fungible with time and energy. somewhat. you can trade and convert between them. if you have tons of money and little free time, that tells you what currency to spend (spend money); if you have little money, but some time/energy, spend time/energy on self-investment instead.

LostInTheWoods2• 15 years ago

The best thing you can buy for yourself is time. Undoubtedly our most precious resource. The base ingredient for any pursuit.

wslh• 15 years ago

Funny, I was searching for yourself.com !

I will not pass the Turing test today.

whenisayUH2• 15 years ago

He's recommending if you have a $100k in savings, you should invest in startup tech companies and not public equities which is somewhere between ridiculous and stupid to dangerous. I like Cuban usually but this is terrible advice. If he meant you have an extra $100k to play with that you don't mind losing, then maybe this advice is ok.

GFischer• 15 years ago

Maybe they could invest in another country (though, of course, you need to know some people you can trust in said country!).

Here in Uruguay, you could get 10 startups started with 100k. I guess the same in India and other countries.

itmag• 15 years ago

Required reading for young people: http://tynan.com/youngpeople

erkin_unlu• 15 years ago

dont take what he said just literally, he meant to say dont limit yourself to tradition, people do stuff that other people admire so you can do the stuff yourself, if you try harder..

mkramlich3• 15 years ago

Huge believer in investing in yourself or a company you start/own. It gives you the highest leverage with least risk, in the general case. Even for folks that cannot or should not or do not want to start/own a company, they should at least self-invest in things like health, fitness, education, skills, socializing, peace of mind, etc.

bennesvig• 15 years ago

Reminds me of the Benjamin Franklin quote:

“If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”

Mark Cuban Invest in Yourself

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