Just having past the five-year anniversary of the tragedy of 9-11, I recall a very interesting thing that happened not long thereafter. The airline industry was in turmoil, the economy was sinking into a recession, and people in the United States and abroad were genuinely nervous about the possible repercussions of what that event was going to have on the world. Recognizing this, the leadership in this country went on television and gave a directive to their American constituents…go spend money. Go buy that new car. Go spend money on higher education. Go buy that house for you and your family. Go spend.

Of course they weren’t referring to frivolous spending, and yet ultimately they were right. The top world economists knew that if spending on a macro economical level were to stop, a recession would definitely ensue and that would, in turn, hurt the country even more. A lot of times we need to look at how we spend money and how it can benefit us. Many people in older generations adopted a mentality of “save every penny” which can be traced back to the Great Depression where literally every penny mattered in a household budget. While thankfully those days are long behind us, the mentality sometimes still exists. I’m not saying that saving money is a bad thing. The point being is that when you invest your money properly, the benefits you reap will vastly exceed the less than 1% interest you will get by putting your money to sleep in the bank or under your mattress.

Sometimes the efforts we put forward to save a few bucks here and there wind up costing us severely. Take for example all of the banks and technology-based companies who farmed their customer service phone centers overseas a few years ago. Most of them are moving all their call centers back to the United States. The reason is the backlash they received from unhappy customers who simply had difficulty in understanding the foreign accents but also because the phone calls were literally going around the world and often resulted in poor quality calls. According to a study done on the matter, it was revealed that one in seven customers actually left and began purchasing goods and services from competitors who did not use overseas customer service centers. As a result, the money saved by employing low-wage staff was dramatically offset by the loss of revenues from unhappy customers. So while it’s always valuable to find ways to cut costs in your business, you have to account for the human factor as well.

A lot of times though, investing is not just in real-estate, your own business or some other vehicle for making money. Sometimes it’s investing in yourself that matters…that “human factor”. So many people think of spending money as just a means to get more “stuff” as George Carlin so eloquently put it years ago. The key difference that sets millionaire and billionaires apart from this mentality though is that they don’t see something as “How much does it cost?” they see it as, “How much can this make me?” So the question is, do you see spending money as a temporary loss in your balance-sheet or do you see it as something you are investing in for yourself? Something that can make you money? Something that can create a better relationship with your family? Something that can make you a person of POWER? Some people see buying a new car as something fun to drive where some people see it as a better showcase to take clients for a drive in. Some people see a diamond Rolex as just another piece of jewelry where some people see it as a means of gaining rapport with a high-end customer. Some people see attending a seminar as a retreat or simple education whereas some people see it as something that will ultimately make them money. So which are you?

 “Money is like manure; it's not worth a thing unless it's spread around encouraging things to grow.” – Thornton Wilder