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Investing in the Invisible

Written by: Chellie Campbell

Article Overview: If you’re a business owner, you might be surrounded by sea, but you know there is land out there somewhere and you are determined to find it. You are investing in the invisible – the land you can’t see yet is the land of your dreams, your goals, and your brilliant, successful future filled with riches, profits, and rewards. If you’re thinking of becoming a business owner, you’re thinking about investing in that same invisible, glorious dream.

Investing in the Invisible

“They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.”—Francis Bacon (1561-1626, British Philosopher, Essayist, Statesman)

If you’re a business owner, you might be surrounded by sea, but you know there is land out there somewhere and you are determined to find it. You are investing in the invisible – the land you can’t see yet is the land of your dreams, your goals, and your brilliant, successful future filled with riches, profits, and rewards. If you’re thinking of becoming a business owner, you’re thinking about investing in that same invisible, glorious dream.

Either way, all the financial advice you’re getting in the media right now is wrong. “Save your money.” “Pay off your debt.” “Don’t buy anything – wait until it’s clear the market has hit bottom.” (Trust me, by then the savvy investors will have bought all the bargains.)

70% of the economy is consumer spending, and consumers spend when they’re making money and feeling secure. When they keep getting bad news about the economy, they get scared and feel insecure, they put on the brakes. Everyone is doing affirmations about the economy these days – it’s just that they’re all negative ones! So you need to be one of the ones spreading Wealthy Spirit Wisdom – do joyful affirmations like “I am rich and wonderful!” and “I am a successful money manager!” and believe in yourself and your dream.

Years ago, I listened to a successful business owner talk about how she grew her $3 million a year manufacturing business. At one point, she turned to the audience and said, “To grow a large business, you have to get more and more comfortable with bigger and bigger negative numbers.” Scary, maybe, but true. You have to invest capital in expansion – more space, more equipment, more marketing, more help. And most business owners borrow money to do that. Bill Gates didn’t build MicroSoft on his savings. He got the Bank of America involved. Steve Wynn didn’t build the Mirage, Belagio, and Wynn hotels in Las Vegas without construction loans from banks.

So when business owners tell me they have cut back on their marketing, or they aren’t willing to borrow money to grow because they don’t want to be in debt, I worry for them. Either you believe in yourself and your business, or you don’t. If you believe in yourself, you know that you have to spend money to make money. You need to do even more marketing in a slowdown than you do in boom times. Who cares if you have some debt right now? Cash flow varies when you’re in business - that’s why you have a credit line. Pulling back isn’t going to get your more customers or more profits. No one coasts uphill.

If you see a business opportunity you want to invest in, don’t pass it up because you’d have to borrow money to do it. This isn’t consumer spending that the financial advisors are warning against – it’s building your successful business of the future. It may be invisible today, but you must invest in your vision or it will never become visible. Yes, you want to make sure that you have a plan for how to be profitable and pay back the loan eventually, too. But if the business plan is sound, if you’re passionate about the work, if you’re willing to do the work, then go for it! As Douglas Everett said, “There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality, and then there are those who turn one into the other.”

The banks got billions of bailout dollars from the government, i.e., you, the taxpayer. When you put money in savings, where is it? The bank. When you pay off your credit cards, or credit lines, or your mortgage, where is it? The bank. The banks have all the money, y’all. But when you borrow from them to start or build your business, the banks give the money to you.

Now that’s the way it should be!

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About the Author: Chellie Campbell RSS for Chellie's articles - Visit Chellie's website Chellie Campbell is the creator of the popular Financial Stress Reduction® Workshops, and the author of The Wealthy Spirit and Zero to Zillionaire, both published by Sourcebooks, Inc. She is one of Marci Shimoff's “Happy 100” in her current NYT bestseller Happy for No Reason and contributed stories to Jack Canfield’s recent books You’ve Got to Read This Book! and Life Lessons from Chicken Soup for the Soul. She is prominently quoted as a financial expert in The Los Angeles Times, Pink, Good Housekeeping, Lifetime, Essence, Woman’s World and more than 35 popular books. For more information, visit her web site www.Chellie.com or email her at Chellie@Chellie.com.   Follow Chellie on Twitter http://twitter.com/ChellieCampbell Click here to visit Chellie's website More from Chellie Campbell Networking Works Party Networking or Are You George The Loneliness of the Homebased Business Person Risks on the Road Between You and the Emerald City Are Your Prices High Enough

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