Valuable Assets
Not the same old “You’re Your Most Valuable Asset”
Most folks, ninety to ninety-five percent of them, will categorize their assets something like this; Real-Estate, Cars, Cash, Stocks, Bonds or Precious Medals. While they’re not wrong and some of them may possess a whole lot of each of these assets it would be foolish to think that any of these should be thought of as their most valuable asset.
If you purchased the home that you live in pre-Real Estate boom than you may have a balance sheet that looks something like this; Mortgage owed $121,546.98 appraised value $434,000.00 therefore you’d have $312,453.02 equity in your home causing your net worth to go to the plus side by the same amount. Then add in everything else minus any other debts and you end up with your total assets.
While the above two paragraphs is basic for most of you reading this I needed the example to point out how boring and really un-important (in the grand scheme of things) the “traditional way” of figuring out your assets really is!
The reality is that YOU are you’re most valuable asset! And second place to you is that all important commodity which we all possess, but never know when we’ll run out of…Time! So let’s start with calculating your value…
Everything that you have in your life (or don’t have) is because of you! Your wife, your husband, your kids, your job, your business, your body, everything!
As we subtract what we own from what we owe to find out our asset base let’s come up with a simple formula to figure out our personal assets. First, let’s take our strengths, what are we good at? What do we bring to the table? What can we do better than the next guy? If it were real-estate we were appraising we’d figure this as “location, location, location.” Next, what’s our knowledge flow? Meaning what kind of quality information do we take in on a regular basis? Do we read good books on the subjects of business, motivation, and self-help? If this were a business this would be the “cash flow” statement. Now, this one is a tough one; How much time is left? Since we really never know we need to just factor in the average. Male life expectancy hit a record 75.2 in 2004, women can expect about 8 more years. This would be like “depreciation.”
The above formula is definitely not a mathematical certainty. (I challenge one of you arithmetically gifted readers to come up with that and then get in touch with me). But don’t miss the value in thinking of your life in this context. Those are some of the things that you have going for you. Those are some of the items that increase your worth. However, there are items that decrease your asset value.
For instance, if you’re older, you’ve hopefully, got more priceless wisdom stored up but you have less time to personally use it (better find someone to hand it down to). Sorry, that’s just the way it is. I do believe that it will benefit you in the next life, but only those who have already passed on know that for certain! More importantly than how much time we have left, we need to really keep an eye on the items we can control that will destroy our value…
How’s your health? Are you taking care of your physical body? If not, it’s going to devalue YOU! Are you being careful of the messages you allow into your mind? Since all messages are stored by the subconscious mind they are either an asset or a liability! How’s your thought process? Is it positive and optimistic overall, or filled with fear and doubts?
The important concept to keep in mind is that YOU are you’re most valuable asset! Therefore, you need to constantly be improving, learning, and growing mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually!
Give yourself a fair appraisal, then take steps to boost your asset value. Just remember the few key areas that make the most difference in boosting your value… Take care of yourself mentally by getting on a good mental diet, take care of yourself physically by staying active!
Always remember going forward that it’s all up to you! You’re worth far more than anything that shows up on your balance sheet!
© 2007 Michael Dolpies
very interesting.
i’m adding in RSS Reader