If you put money into a savings account, chances are, you’ll get back, with the addition of interest, more than you started with. You might not get very much, especially at the moment, but you’ll likely end up with more money than you started with.
Different banks offer different interest rates, and occasionally different incentives to encourage you to deposit your money with them. I’m sure I’m not the only who opts for the easy option and sticks with what I have, rather than trawling the internet for better deals. But, you know as well as I do, the old adage that you get out of it what you put in.
Last year, I signed up for something in the hope it would both unpick and develop some areas of both life and business (though, as we well know, the boundaries between the two are very blurred).
I’m not going to tell you what it was, but it cost money. It cost a lot of money (by my standards). A sum not far short of four figures. I had to think very carefully about spending that amount of money, and by spending it on that, I had to allocate the money in a different way to how I might normally have liked.
Money is a constant background issue for freelancers and the self-employed. We don’t like talking about money. For all it offers, money can often be as much a hindrance as it is a help. I think that those who work in the music industry, and music teachers in particular are especially conscious of this, and by consequence, are often reluctant to spend money. There’s perhaps a whole side issue here about music teaching and business, and how teachers perceive themselves as business owners, but that’s for another day.
Continuing Professional Development (CPD) comes in many different forms, but in most cases, engaging with it costs money. In the past, I’ve been one of those teachers who was reluctant to spend money, but over the past few years I’ve made a sizeable shift in mindset when it comes to this.
You see, one of the things which we often forget is that by engaging in CPD which we have to pay for, we are making an investment. We’re making an investment not just in our business, but in ourselves. Just as when we invest money in a bank or similar, we’re investing in the hope of getting back more than we put in. Sometimes we might look for short-term gains, and other times, we might look for longer-term gains. We often adjust our investments accordingly.
So far for me, engaging in CPD hasn’t necessarily been about making more money. This may, in part be because of the ‘complicated’ relationship status I have with money anyway, but I’m not necessarily spending money in order to make more money in the future as a direct consequence of that CPD. Above all, it’s about investing in myself, and as a consequence, in my business.
Remember the thing I invested in last year, that cost a sum not far short of four figures? Well, since I did it, I’ve made back the cost of that investment almost 10 times. I never set out to do that. That outcome was purely unintentional. I say that not to show off, but to make the point that the results of our investments are not necessarily measured in monetary terms and can often manifest unexpectedly. I got far more out that thing than could ever be measured in pounds and pence.
In the online mentoring work I do with teachers working towards teaching diplomas, people are often reluctant to spend the money. In truth, as I often say, it works out at less than the price of a cup of coffee per day, but nevertheless, money is often the sticking point. We immediately see the total sum and label it as ‘expensive’.
Spending money on CPD such as that is seen in terms of parting with money rather than investing it. I think there’s a subtle difference. If I buy £5.00 worth of apples, my money has been spent on fruit. Logic says that the intention is I will eat those apples. I won’t get my £5.00 back, and after I’ve eaten them, I won’t have the apples either. I don’t think CPD works like that if we see it as an investment, but this requires a shift in mindset.
As a private music teacher, how do you look at spending money on CPD? Do you view it as a necessary evil? Do you see it as parting with your hard-earned cash? Do you see it as an investment? Do you think about the value you might gain from that investment?
Above all, I believe that it is by investing in yourself that you invest in others…and that goes beyond any kind of monetary investment. Next time you look at a CPD opportunity and rile at how expensive it is, consider its investment potential. It’s a potential investment not just in you, but in others.
