If you browse the Internet often enough, you can’t help but come across click-bait articles touting the next ten-bagger stock, crowdsource real estate investing, high yield loans via crowdsourcing, promises about cryptocurrency, and alternative investments ranging from art to baseball cards.

These investments are dicey, although in speculative times people are not recognizing the risks. The ten-bagger stock that’s supposedly the next Apple or Amazon usually collapses once investors get tired of astronomical valuations or when the company faces unanticipated headwinds. I’ve personally dabbled in crowdsource real estate investing via two of the best-known firms, and the returns – along with transparency — have been disappointing. High-yield lending via crowdfunding faces the same issue: Do you really trust a third-party to do due diligence for you about high-yield loans they are making with your money, when they receive a management fee regardless of performance? Next on the list, cryptocurrency is a lottery ticket that could go to the moon, or crash down to nothing. And so on.

It seems that fear of missing out is what drives many investors to speculate in these vehicles.

Here is the only ten-times investment I have been able to count on reliably….

I’ve found that there is only one sure way to earn long-term cash flow that continues to grow for me, and has secured a comfortable retirement for me: Investing in me; or, in your case, investing in YOURSELF.

The one way I’ve ever successfully generated cash flow and returns – with little or no investment once I got going – is by starting my own professional practice. And the returns keep coming, even twenty years later. I highly recommend that you consider the same path. As with any investment or business, there are no guarantees. However, at least with this investment you put your destiny in your own hands, and the upside is unlimited.

How I found my ten-times return….

My ten-times return got started while I worked for a management consulting firm, and growing desperate. The money was good. The time was not. I was ready to start a family, and yet had to get on a plane every Monday to work with a client until at least late Thursday night. I was fatigued, stressed, and found that clients already knew the answers they had hired us to work all hours finding. It was unrewarding work.

One day, after yet another client told me that he already knew and agreed with the recommendations we had found, I asked him why he had hired us. I said, “I’m confused. I get this a lot. A client pays us $150,000 and already knows the answers. Why did you agree to pay us for an analysis you didn’t need us to do?”

His reply changed everything.

He shared, “I don’t care about your analysis, your team of over-educated MBAs, or your fancy PowerPoints. What I value is the time we have to talk about what I have to do to get to where we need to get. I don’t have anyone to talk to that I can trust. Our conversations are one of the few opportunities I have to get a sounding board, share my challenges safely, and come up with the best ways to move forward.”

That answer, along with my increasing frustration with consulting, caused me to take action immediately. I shifted my role at the company to one where I could work from home, and used every spare moment I had to start building a coaching firm. 

It wasn’t easy, because I couldn’t compete with my current firm. I just needed enough clients to prove that I could replace my salary and benefits once I went out on my own.

It took six months to reach the point where I knew I could make it as a solo professional.

A year later, I was making more than the six-figure salary I had left behind. Not long after, I was making more than the most senior partners at the firm.

Today, I work with fascinating clients in dynamic organizations around the world to address their most pressing leadership issues, issues about strategic priorities, maximizing productivity and use of time, having impact, influencing and motivating people, and career planning and succession.

As a coach, I don’t have to do any PowerPoints, spreadsheets, or database manipulation. I just listen, observe, ask powerful questions, and have a dialog with clients based on the results they want to achieve and the challenges they are facing. It’s amazing work.

The math to prove it…

I don’t mind sharing my own story and business model, so that you can see that a ten-times return on investment on YOU is possible, too.

First, my investment was minimal. Back when I started coaching, it was still the Wild West, and I figured things out through trial and error. Today I would have to invest in a coach training and certification program, because the market has evolved. Even still, that’s not a lot compared to the potential returns of being an executive coach.

Second, because I secured some clients before leaving my consulting firm, there was not a huge opportunity cost in giving up my salary and benefits. If anything, I found the time to be exhilarating, which was worth any reduction in income initially.

I got started without a website or brochure. To attract clients, I’d speak at associations and round-tables, networked, and did some writing for some well-placed industry publications. In other words, marketing cost me time but not money. The low cost of marketing is another great thing about starting a professional practice.

There was also almost no overhead, another reason coaching is a great career. You can work from home and just need the usual computer and phone. The only ongoing costs might be website hosting and maintenance, although more and more coaches are simply using LinkedIn for their web presence.

After my first year, I had easily earned well over a ten-times return on my investment – and found freedom, flexibility and more job satisfaction than I had ever had. 

Here’s my business model for a portion of my income:

I work with a typical client for a six-month engagement, although many coaches work with clients on an initial term of nine months, twelve months and – for business coaches – as long as two years. I charge as much as $25,000 per engagement, which is in the mid- to higher range of leading executive coaches. It took me a long time to get to these prices. The range for executive and leadership coaching fees among my colleagues, broken down on a monthly basis, tends to run between $1,500 and $5,500 monthly. It depends on your market, size of the organization where you coach, title of the person you are coaching, and your own confidence and ability to sell consultatively.

That initial engagement is just the start for me. 

Most clients renew for at least another six-month term. Additionally, many clients eventually hire me to work with their teams, to do a strategic planning retreat, and/or a retreat to help get a change or other stuck initiative unstuck. As a result of this work, the average client can approach a value of six figures in a year. That’s not a lot compared to what big consulting firms charge for even a single short engagement, but I’m just one solo professional with low overhead. I don’t need many clients to make a great living and enjoy amazing flexibility in my life and work.

And that’s only the first part of the business model…

At a certain point as a solo professional, you will reach a ceiling because you simply have no more time to sell. This is called the time for dollars trap.

Once I saw that I was going to reach a ceiling, I learned to stop trading my time for dollars. I’ve done this by developing and offering training programs, online programs, hiring other coaches, and licensing my intellectual capital to companies and individuals. 

Every coach has the opportunity to do the same. The two ways to gain leverage on your time are through other people or by developing products. You can hire other coaches, so that you earn income while they do the work. You can develop products that generate passive income: trainings, online courses, licensing content, and leadership circles/executive round-tables.

Today, the only reliable source of ongoing income to me – the best investment I ever made – is from my investment in ME. Everything else feels like rolling the dice. And no other investment has given me the freedom, flexibility, ability to make a difference, and overall satisfaction.

I believe that the same is true for other educated, already-successful professionals. If you love helping people to be their best, are a good listener, are passionate about working with leaders, and are willing to do the work of attracting clients, then executive coaching might be your ideal ten-times return on investment.