Have you identified all of your hidden resources that you may currently have access to that could be converted into financial wealth-building assets? Are you fully capitalizing on these non-financial assets and taking advantage of transforming them into actual financial assets?
Your assets can come in many forms and can include financially-related assets or resources that you have actualized, or hidden assets that have potential future appreciable economic value that you may be unaware of.
The term “genuine wealth” is holistic and represents the measure of individual well-being or prosperity. It can be vastly greater in quantity than any of your current tangible, intangible, or contractual financial assets alone.
Genuine wealth can include meaningful assets stored in one or more of the seven primary areas of your life: spiritual, mental, vocational, financial, familial, social, and physical.
Your unique set of life priorities, or values, determines where and in what form you store your variety of assets in. Whatever is highest on your list of values is where you will store most of your intangible or tangible assets. If someone offered you money to not do these actions you would possibly say no since these actions are too meaningful and fulfilling to not do them. So instead of saving or investing your income into classical financial assets you may prefer to continue investing into other assets that align most with your highest values. The amount someone would have to pay you to not do these fulfilling actions is the hidden financial amount they are worth to you that you are storing.
For instance:
Your spiritual assets or wealth can include your spiritual awareness and any of its associated or corresponding actions. These may be donations to spiritual charities, synagogues, temples, churches, mosques, to great spiritual education or texts, to leaders of spiritual meditation retreats, or for trips to places you consider sacred. The spiritual awareness, knowledge, or experiences from these actions is how you are storing your spiritual assets or wealth.
Your mental assets or wealth can include your mental training, awareness, or knowledge and intellectual property or your educational pursuits and experiences. If your mental quest is highest on your list of values, then when you receive your income it will probably be funneled proportionately into actions that fulfill whatever is most mentally meaningful or intellectually stimulating to you. The mental awareness, knowledge, experiences, or Intellectual property from these actions is how you are storing your mental assets or wealth.
Your vocational assets or wealth can include tangible or real physical business machinery, land, buildings, or intangible non-physical business-related assets—business education, patents, trademarks, intellectual property or royalties.
Your vocational quest may involve reinvesting back into your business, attending business conferences, adding human capital, technologies, AI, or to whatever you perceive to be most vocationally fulfilling. The business awareness, knowledge, or experiences from these actions is how you are storing your vocational assets or wealth.
Your financial assets or wealth can include contractual cash or cash equivalents, bank deposits, certificate of deposits, fixed income securities (bonds), mutual funds, equities (stocks), REITs, commodity-linked securities, or real-estate holdings.
Your financial quest may involve investing your profits back into your own business, or other newly or well-established businesses, real estate holdings, or development, or into whatever you perceive to be most financially fulfilling. If this quest aligns with your highest values, instead of saving and then investing your income into forms of assets in the other six areas of life, you would prefer to continue investing into viable and appreciating financial assets. This is the primary form that many people associate with financial independence and ultra-high-net worth—although, all of the other forms of assets or wealth are still important portions of genuine wealth.
Your familial assets can include the value you place on your children and immediate or extended family members and/or your home, furniture and family lifestyle. If your familial quest is highest on your list of values, then when you receive your income, it will probably be funneled proportionately into actions that fulfill whatever is familially most meaningful and fulfilling to you.
These actions may involve buying or remodeling your home, replacing furniture, children’s education, activities, and entertainment, clothes, travel vacations, lifestyle, or whatever you perceive to be familially most fulfilling. The family experiences and lifestyle choices from these actions is how you are storing your familial assets or wealth. The amount someone would have to pay you to not do these familial actions is the hidden financial amount they are worth to you and that you are storing.
Your social assets or wealth can include the value you place on friends or colleagues that you have access to, that have influence and that you can network and socialize with.
Your social quest may involve dinners, parties, gatherings, adventures, or travel or whatever you perceive to be most socially fulfilling. Instead of saving or investing your income into actively or passively managed financial assets you would prefer to continue investing into social assets that align most with your highest value. The social experiences and lifestyle choices from these actions is how you are storing your social assets or wealth.
Your physical assets or wealth can include physical fitness, specialized sports skills, strength, stamina, vitality, longevity, or physical attractiveness.
Your quest may involve your physical fitness activities, gyms, workouts, marathons, yoga classes, sports, sporting events, cosmetic and longevity hacks or procedures or foods and supplements or stem cell or surgical procedures, or whatever you perceive to be physically fulfilling. So instead of saving and then investing your income into actively or passively managed financial assets you would prefer to continue investing into physical assets. The physical experiences and healthy lifestyle choices from these actions is how you are storing your physical assets or wealth.
If you do not have a true high value on building financial assets or wealth, then you may feel financially strapped and burdened even though you could be storing or sitting on a vast fortune of the other six forms of assets or genuine wealth.
Until you raise the value you place on building financial assets and wealth, where it ends up higher or highest on your list of values, at least to within the top four values, you will probably continue to manifest the other six areas of assets and wealth yet remain financially burdened.
Although financial assets and wealth are generally considered more versatile and more easily convertible into the other forms than any of the other six forms of assets and wealth, ultimately genuine wealth includes the fulfillment of whatever set of values and forms of wealth storage you actually hold. Trying to build financial assets and wealth without placing a truly high value on them will be frustrating and often futile. The hierarchy of your values dictates your financial destiny. Money circulates through the economy from those who value it least to those who value it most.
So it is wise to discover your hidden assets and either honor them or shift your hierarchy of values and allow them to become converted into more financially viable forms.
Dr. John Demartini, founder of the Demartini Institute, is an educator, international bestselling author and business consultant. drdemartini.com.
