You want to succeed in your career? Invest in yourself.

That’s the extended point made by Tony Nitti in a New Years’ post at Going Concern – This Year, Resolve to Finally Decide What You Want To Be When You Grow Up in Public Accounting.

This article is cross-posted from my other blog, Attestation Update. While the focus of the article is people working in public accounting, the point applies to every single person who has a job – invest in yourself.

Don’t rely on the networking, hand-shaking, going-out-for-drinks-after-work schmoozing, and drumming up new business to get where you want. (Those things are important in public accounting and many other fields.) Although you may have to get really good at those things, the first priority is to invest in your skills and knowledge.

Oh, as expected for any Going Concern post, there is a fair amount of naughty language and word pictures. Just letting you know.

Three superb comments:

Invest in yourself.

People aren’t staying for the long-term in jobs anymore:

But the truth of today’s marketplace is that in all likelihood, [new people starting today will] be cashing checks from another employer three years from now. So while yes, they owe it to the people signing their paychecks to show up and serve clients and do an A-plus job, they also owe it to themselves to prepare for the inevitable.

Things with your currently wonderful employer can change rapidly and radically. Never know when things might go sour and you have to fire your employer.

That’s why you’ve got to have substance. Substance goes with you.

You take your knowledge and skills with you wherever you go and whatever you do. Invest in yourself.

If things go sideways or you can’t stand it anymore or you realize 3,000 hours a year will continue forever (that huge workload happens a lot in public accounting) or you need/ want/ have to make a change, will you be able to?

If you have invested a lot of time and effort in yourself, you will have the freedom to walk away.

Invest in yourself.

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