We are just coming out of an economic recession, where many investments, including safe investments like people’s homes have shown negative growth.

This article is based on an article that I wrote about a year ago. The article was about increasing your net worth without needing lots of cash.

I am glad to say that my investment would’ve had a positive growth in any economy, even during this economic recession. While I did not offer immediate riches, I did promise that you would increase your net worth, no matter what your current situation is, without needing lots of cash.

I asked you to imagine changing only one thing in your life and receiving almost immediate rewards and then went about showing you the one thing that you could change to receive these rewards.

Despite my guarantee of an increased net worth without investing lots of cash, I am sure that very few people that read the article made the investment. It’s not too late. You can still invest with guaranteed returns!

Why do so few people do this investment?

Ask yourself the question, “How much have I invested in myself the past year?” Compare this to the amount invested in entertainment.

Pareto, an Italian economist, described a phenomenon based on the land ownership in Italy where 80% of the land was owned by 20% of the population. This later became known as the Pareto Principle. 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people, 80% of your income will come from 20% of your customers, 80% of the wealth is owned by 20% of the people.

80% of the knowledge is held by 20% of the people.

The same goes for this investment, 20% of the people will try to improve themselves. The other 80% will be exactly where they are a year later.

How will this give you a competitive advantage?

Look around you. Look at yourself. How do you rate yourself against the people you work with. How does your knowledge and your expertise compare.

How many “excellents” do you see. I am afraid to say that most people will just be mediocre. Are you one of the “excellents”, or are you one of the “mediocres”?

Are you in the top 80%?

If you are not, then this article can be most important article you’ve ever read!

Your ability to learn faster than your competitors may be your only sustainable competitive advantage – Arie de Geus.

Choose an area you would like to improve in and put a programme in place to manage your learning and make 2010 the year that you turned your life around!

Let’s look at the programme in action

In 1985, at the heart of the anti-apartheid struggle and a product of apartheid education, I entered the workplace, working at the Post Office in one of the units that allowed ‘non-white’ entry.

Today I am the Business Intelligence Manager at a leading fashion retailer in South Africa with solid International and cross-industry work experience behind me.

What is it that made me progress from a poor, non-white Post Office worker to a well paid Senior Manager doing a job that I love?

• It wasn’t favouritism
• It wasn’t political affiliations
• It wasn’t salesmanship
• It wasn’t bribery

It was simply increasing my knowledge in my field of choice!

Our high school principle, Mr Ritchie, gave us one important message: ‘They can discriminate against your colour, your race and many other things, but don’t let them discriminate against your results or your knowledge.’

While I did not realise the value of the message at the time, it later became the core of my modus operandi.

Today I am sharing this message with you, on my own website, designed and hosted by me. Living in a so-called ‘Third World Country’ or ‘Emerging market’, I am able to reach an international audience, writing about topics I love, Mind Mapping and Lifelong Learning.

I don’t view myself as being more intelligent than the next person. In fact, my results at school were pretty average. Yet, my achievements were all based on the ability to acquire knowledge quickly and easily.

With this growth came various promotions and financial reward. I was able to work entirely as a knowledge worker in a foreign country, The Netherlands, where Dutch is not my mother tongue, as part of their highly skilled migrant programme.

I was able to learn the Dutch Language and obtain a Dutch as second language diploma within a year by attending ‘night classes’. I was able to come back to South Africa and work as a contractor, being paid based entirely for my knowledge. I was able to learn enough web design to do this website and a few others. I was able to do a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management and work as a Senior Manager today.

All this, because I discovered that the secret to success is gaining knowledge in your field. So to get ahead, simply increase the knowledge that you have of what you are doing right now!

Applying the programme

Let’s use a simple example to illustrate the point. Assume you are a waiter (or perhaps you are one) and you are not highly educated. What will make you a better waiter than your colleague? I can immediately think of a few things:

• Courtesy
• Friendly Greeting
• Knowledge of the menu
• What accompanies various dishes, etc.
• Memorising orders
• Etc.

I’m sure you can think of a few things yourself, even if you are not a waiter.

Now by simply increasing your knowledge of some of the above aspects, you can easily become the best waiter at your current workplace. You could even do a bit of research on the Internet, like I did, and come across the following site (http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Waiter) on how to be a waiter. You would then be in with a good chance to get a better waitering job, or even be promoted to being in charge of other waiters.

You could take it further, if you realise you are in the hospitality industry and grow your knowledge further…

As you can see, the above scenario illustrates a simple, but effective strategy to get ahead by simply increasing your knowledge.

Short-cutting the process

What am I selling?

To cut to the chase, I am simply saying that because knowledge is the key to your success, doesn’t it make sense for you to learn how to gain knowledge in the quickest possible way?

By learning how to learn you ensure that you have the shortest possible path to increasing your knowledge and therefore increasing your value and your net worth.

With this principle in mind, my wife Jasmine and I decided to put our efforts into learning how to learn. She is currently an Education Specialist in the South African Parliament after being in the same high school class as I and coming from an even more deprived background than mine.

The important point to note is that just focusing on learning was not enough!

We had to learn how to learn. And if we could learn effectively, we could learn faster than the next person, have more knowledge than them about our chosen subject and therefore be seen as an expert and therefore fast track our growth.

We explored all sorts of learning strategies and methods and tested them both in the classroom situation and in the workplace.

The result of all our efforts was our Learning Management Programme.

We wanted to ensure that we had a holistic approach to acquiring knowledge that allowed us to learn as much as possible, as quickly as possible. Our methods had to be Easy to Learn, Simple to Use and Produce Fast Results.

We also wanted the programme to be used in all walks of life. Whether you are a high school student, or a doctor doing Post Graduate studies, you will be able to gain by following the programme. The programme is a holistic one that allows you to manage your learning, so that you are in control and therefore ensuring that you are on the path to success.

The framework

I am giving you the framework for no cost at all. Everything that you need to increase your net worth is right here!

But if you want to fast track the process, enroll for our Learning Management Programme.

Our Learning Management Programme started with Studying and Learning Methods. This is still at the heart of the programme, we’ve just added the body!

The Programme covers the following topics:

• Module 1: Motivation to learn – Covers why motivation is poor in so many cases. It then goes on to give step by step instructions to get you motivated to do your best.
• Module 2: Time Management – Teaches you how to get through the volume of work in the time you have available.
• Module 3: Learning Methods - Firstly gets you to evaluate your current methods and then introduces you to a method that can be applied immediately.
• Module 4: The Reading module - Shows you how to read effectively thus increasing your reading speed, comprehension and recall.
• Module 5: Effective Note Taking – Shows you methods that reduce the monotony and boredom of traditional note taking. It shows you how you can get better results with less effort!
• Module 6: Perfect Memory – Is achievable once you know how the brain works and how you remember. You will be given methods to increase both short term and long term memory.
• Module 7: Exam Technique - Prepares you for exam writing.
• Module 8: Sound Mind, Sound Body – Shows you the importance of keeping healthy – mentally, physically and spiritually. It also gives you principles that can be applied no matter what your beliefs are.

So, if you are ready to embark on this journey, enroll now for our programme to fast track your efforts. This is the small investment spoken of in the heading of this article.

Or just simply put a plan in place to focus on your area of expertise and become better at it. This is the ‘free’ investment.

Whatever you choose, good luck in your efforts!

Even with this offer, 80% of my students will come from 20% of my readers!

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