The best investments you can make are in people.
“I’ve invested in the stock market, real estate, businesses, equipment, & classic vehicles, but the best investments I have ever made have been in people.
You can’t quantify the ROI in dollars & cents, but you damn sure can in currency that is far more valuable than money.”
-Ray Zingler on X
I’m not the best investor.
I’m not passionate about the stock market.
I can’t predict what the real estate market is going to do 10 years from now.
And that ’84 Square Body Chevy sitting in my carport being taken care of, I’m not sure what it’ll be worth in 2054, but I’m not going to sell it anyway.
While I do take pride in being a good steward of money, and I do hire/seek wisdom from others who know more about investing than I do, I admittedly don’t put much time into it.
It’s because I have found that the best investments, for myself personally, are not in things that can provide a material return.
I’m not after “things”.
I’ll tell you what I am after.
It’s relationships with people.
Strong, unbreakable bonds with human beings that can only be cultivated over time. Real time.
I’ll paint you a picture as an example.
This past Saturday, I was in Washington D.C. at Audi field attending a soccer game for one of my people. She’s an athlete, but I certainly would never relegate her to that term alone.
I arrived at 10:15am for a noon game and was greeted with premium club level service and found myself eating prime rib by 10:30am.
The game was one of those games where you couldn’t have drawn up a better script. Think of one of those sports movies that’s thrilling but “unrealistic”. That was this game. And the girl I was there for happened to be the main character.
After the game we shared a raw, real, emotional moment rooted in not only gratitude, but patriotism as we drove past our nations capitols landmarks.
We capped off the night with cheeseburgers and a celebratory shot of Titos.
The amount of money I would have paid for the mere chance of experiencing this is ludicrous.
I got it for free.
This was only possible because of the years that went into developing a relationship rooted in trust and simply trying to show up.
If you proposed to me a million dollars OR my random Saturday in November 2024, I’d tell you to eat the money in a heartbeat.
When they say the best things in life are free, they mean it.
