When is the best time to invest in yourself? (Spoiler: it's now)

There is a sentence I have heard more times than I can count, across more than a decade of working with business owners and leaders.

"I'll make time to invest in myself when things calm down a bit."

And I understand it. I lived it, for years, as a corporate leader. The business always had a more urgent claim on my time, my energy and my budget than I did.

There was always something more pressing, more visible, more immediately defensible than investing in the person running the show (the person choosing what is pressing, visible, more defensible).

We all know that things rarely settle down. And the longer you wait, the more expensive the delay becomes.

The "or" that is keeping you stuck

In a recent poll I ran on LinkedIn, I asked agency owners, creative directors and marketing leaders to name the biggest barrier to investing in themselves. The options were:

A – It costs too much... or

B – I can't give the time to it right now... or

C – There are more important things my business needs... or

D – I'm fine at the moment... maybe later... or

E – I'm mindful (maybe fearful) of what I might learn

Every single one of those answers is defensible (It is also worth noting how each of these plays into at least one of the Four Fears® of Business Ownership).

Every single one of them is, on closer examination, a story rather than a fact. And the story they share is this: that the business comes first, and you come later.

That story is costing you more than you think.

What the research actually says

The evidence on this cost to your business is consistent, credible, and worth taking seriously.

A 2025 study by Great Place To Work UK, based on five years of research conducted in partnership with Johns Hopkins University, found that when leader and employee wellbeing suffers, so does productivity, trust and retention. The data is solid: wellbeing and business performance move together.

Research from the University of Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre found that companies with the highest levels of wellbeing consistently outperformed their competitors on key financial metrics. Evidence that the relationship between how the people at the top of a business feel and how that business performs becomes commercially significant.

McKinsey estimate that improving global leader and employee wellbeing could create up to $11.7 trillion in economic value worldwide. The scale of that number is almost absurd. But the direction of travel is clear: investing in people, starting at the top, is not a nice-to-have. It is an essential business strategy.

Notice that none of this research is about bubble baths and mindfulness apps. It is about what happens to a business when the person leading it is (or isn't) operating at their best, with clarity about where they are going, confidence in the decisions they are making, and the energy to bring other people with them.

The selfish act that is not selfish at all

I was sitting with a client just last week, who apologised at the start of the session because they were going to "use our time together to be selfish". I couldn't have been more pleased!

Investing in yourself is not selfish. It is, in fact, the least selfish thing you can do for your business.

When you are at your best (when you have genuine clarity about what you are working towards, why it matters, and how to make it happen) everything around you lifts too.

• Your team gets a leader who gives them permission to grow rather than one who (however unintentionally) gets in their way

• Your clients are attracted to the energy and confidence your business is exuding rather than quietly sensing the uncertainty beneath the surface.

• Your strategic decisions get sharper because they are coming from a clear head rather than a reactive one

And the bottom line? Great Place To Work UK's Workplace Wellbeing Report found that high levels of wellbeing are directly linked to higher productivity, lower attrition, reduced absenteeism, and greater discretionary effort from the people around you. All of those have a number attached to them.

The return on investing in yourself is not abstract. It shows up in your team, your clients, and your accounts.

How much does it actually cost to invest in yourself?

I want to be direct about this, because the "it costs too much" barrier is worth addressing specifically.

• My own Stop Being Stuck 'half-day intensive' session (half a day, spread over two weeks) is £540

• My Write a Better Story coaching programme (four months of genuine, sustained change) is £1,800

You can see the full picture on my Services (work with me) page.

Compare that to the cost of a month of poor strategic decisions, a key team member who quietly disengages because the leadership energy in the room is not what it was, or a client who does not renew because something felt slightly off in how your business showed up.

The short-term investment is specific and finite. The long-term cost of not making it is opaque, cumulative, and considerably harder to reverse.

The best time to invest in yourself

There is a Chinese proverb that goes something like:

"The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now."

The version of you that is operating with full clarity, genuine confidence, and a braver story to tell about what you deserve – that version does not magically show up. It is built, deliberately, through the kind of work that most agency owners and creative leaders keep deprioritising, in favour of the business that "needs them".

The business does need you. But it needs (and will flourish) the best version of you.

And the best time to start building that version is not when things "calm down a bit" (because guess what? They won't).

What are you thoughts?

Which of the five options from the poll above would you have clicked on?

Drop it in the comments. And if option E is the one that made you pause, a free 30-minute call costs nothing and might be the most useful conversation you have this month.

Mark Franklin is The Four Fears® Guy: a transformational mindset coach and speaker working with agency owners, creative leaders and marketing directors who are ready to close the gap between the business they have and the brilliant business they deserve.