A few days ago Daniel announced the winners for the Blogging for Benjamin competition and a few hours after that I received a notice from PayPal saying that I had $100 bucks waiting for me. Well I don't know about you but when I have money sitting in my PayPal account I have to spend it on something fast because it's so darn easy to spend it on frivolous things! There are plenty of new board games I want to buy but I instead I decided to do something fool smart and invest in myself.

How Did you Invest In Your Self?

Have you ever heard of Startup Weekend? It's an organization that puts developers, designers, and marketers into teams to work on whatever project they want to work on over a weekend. The goal is to create a proof of concept startup service/website/product in 54 hours.

I spent $75 of the #wtbfb money on getting my ticket to the first ever Startup Weekend Green Bay!

I just purchased my ticket to "Green Bay Startup Weekend 2014" http://t.co/5rOEc1wPR8 via @eventbrite

— Patrick Rauland (@BFTrick) January 3, 2014

What Do I Plan on Getting Out of it?

There's actually a number of things I plan on getting out of it. Launching a startup itself isn't the main purpose here – I really want to dig into a different community and learn from the experience.

• Learn through creating – this is honestly my favorite way of learning. I love jumping into the deep end and figuring things out as you go. You'll never know how hard it is to create a startup unless you create one.
• Get outside your comfort zone – since you're in small teams with skill gaps you'll have to work together to figure out problems you normally don't have to deal with
• Learn new skills – the other great benefit of having skill gaps is that you'll also have to learn new skills on the fly. If a designer doesn't know SASS but they know LESS then it's time to switch things up and use LESS.
• Build your network – I love meeting people who are passionate. Even if I don't ever work with these people outside of Startup Weekend I'll follow them on Twitter and we'll hopefully inspire one another
• Meet startup gurus – The only thing better than starting your own startup to learn the process is to talk to someone that has already done it. And the Startup Weekend format has lots of lessons taught by people who have that experience.

What Are You Going to Do With the Last Bit of Money?

I'm very happy that I invested in myself. I know it will be worthwhile but I haven't found a good item to spend the last $25 on. I do plan on indulging myself a little. After all it's really important to reward yourself for your work.

Who knows maybe I'll get Hive which has been taunting me for a while.