1) Dont do just one thing. Diversify.
2) Hold some liquid assents…possibly beyond just money
(gold or silver?)
3) Buy something useful that will appreciate in value.
Used to mean owing a home in U.S. but bubble
in home values burst here.
4) Satisfy your craving for improving yourself by buying
(and actually taking the time to read) a few GOOD
books.

If anything, use that money to buy time. Read more and enjoy life more (maybe travel).

Happy New Year!

Insead costs more than your budget, unless you get support. If it’s the right thing for you (ask somebody who has an Insead MBA first) then it would be very worthwhile, but it’s difficult (but short!). Ever tried GMAT?

Not enough cash for real private equity, and it distances you from learning about investing. Anyway, there’s too much private equity chasing not enough opportunities right now.

You might consider utilising half on personal development (includes improving your home or work environment, reducing stress, travel, reading, education, etc.) and half on investments (whether it be building businesses, or investing in them).

I know a lot of people who have MBAs (comes from once having worked with a management consultancy) and there seem to be two main answers to the question "should I do an MBA" when I have asked people I respect with MBAs:

# No
# Yes – but only at a top school – for a number of reasons. The teaching, the people you meet, the credibility.

The only European school I’m familiar with is Insead. The one person I know well who studied there loved it. As robin says – it will cost you more and be much harder than you think.

I don’t necessarily agree with robin about diversification – I think that depends on you and your ultimate goals. I think like me, one of your key strengths is in being able to understand and bridge different areas of life. Just like you are trying to bridge emotions and logic (which is something not everyone can do).

For myself my growth ideas are (in no particular order):

# Masters of International Relations (University of Sydney)
# Computer Science Masters – research into something search/AI ish
# Law degree
# Drop everything and go join the startup circus in Silicon valley

As you can see – fairly diverse! There are two fairly distinct possible outcomes and I don’t know yet which I want.

Which is quite a good question – can you imagine what you would like to be able to do/do better after this study/self improvement?

Buy yourself time to go a 100% into a product startup (you know which one i’m hinting at).

Perhaps combined with some coaching/mentoring in that process.

infact it’s a funny idea to deconstruct an mba down to a group of people, time to reflect and coaching/facilitation.

it would probably be easy to setup the equivalent of an mba environment if you we’re 8-10 people.

Also really valued the people I got to meet, not just the classmates, but the large number of CEOs, industry experts etc.

http://joshkaufman.net/personalmba/