Looking for ‘it’ (4) – Tribune Online

Now that you know that your life depends on ‘it’, do whatever you need to do to discover it. But don’t stop there, go ahead and invest time to develop and invest it. God will not do that for you. He only stops at revealing it to you if you care to ask Him. Make it specific, so it can be dynamic. Nobody funds an undefined project. Every serious potential financier wants to see a business plan.

Everyone I know wants to be wealthy, even when they speak ill of rich people. As the saying goes, “If wishes were horses, even beggars would ride.” No matter how much a poor man hates a wealthy man, it does not make the rich man poorer and it does not make the poor man richer. Suffice it to say that the potential for your wealth or success lies in the quantum and quality of the value you are creating or adding to the rest of society. True wealth comes when value is added to assets in order to create more assets. An asset is something that has value and the potential for linking us with a desired outcome. Assets are not limited to the tangible things that we see like real estate, cash, stocks etc. In the production of sustainable wealth, the intangible assets are even more important.

The greatest impediment to the discovery of our internal, albeit intangible assets is our BELIEF SYSTEM. Scriptures enjoin us to guard our hearts very diligently because the very issues of our life proceed from there! Check your belief system about success and wealth. It says a lot. If something must change around you, something must first change within you. Check your thinking before your thinking checkmates you!

When properly identified and harnessed, the intangible assets add value to the tangible. To accurately know your hidden assets, you would need to take a careful inventory of your current endowments so that you can begin to accord greater value to certain areas of your life that you have hitherto ignored.

On a final note in this series, let us do an exercise. Grab a pen and (preferably) a notebook where you document important issues of your life. If you don’t have one, buy one. You will definitely need it.

The first thing you need to do is make a list of all the SKILLS you possess. Include anything that you do very well viz, selling, relational skills, management, leadership, speaking, listening, insight for ideas, etc. As a sub-head, list what these skills are designed to do that can benefit others. If you have a problem identifying your skills, you may ask one or two people who know you very well for their input.

Furthermore, make a detailed KNOWLEDGE list. By knowledge, I mean your familiarity with a certain area or information even if you have not developed specific skills in that area. This list may include your education, training, exposure, music, culture. Or even your knowledge of human nature and behavioral patterns. What do you know as the best way to do anything even if you are not currently doing that thing?

Do an inventory of your present RELATIONSHIPS. Make a list of people that you know and possibly those who know you well. In what capacity do you know them? How well do they know you? Your list should include your family (immediate and extended), people you have worked for or worked with before, people you currently relate with in your present sphere of endeavour (customers, contractors, suppliers). This should also include friends, classmates or schoolmates, mentors and people critical to your development and enhanced leverage capacity, neighbours – past and present, people you have done business with at one time or the other. Having done this, filter your relationship list through the lens of your skills and knowledge lists and try and see how and where they feature. This will open your eyes to see specific areas where these relationships can be assets to you when you make the appropriate connections with them.

Each one of us has pain points, i.e., certain things that bother us, things that make us uncomfortable in life and in our environment. Identify your own pains and the triggers. Which of these are personal: mental health, physiological health challenges, marital issues, financial etc.? Which of these affect the society you live in? What problems can you get involved in, thereby helping others to find a solution?

There are certain things you excel at doing almost effortlessly in terms of your relational ethos with others. Reputation is what people know you to be, but character is what you really are when no-one is looking over your shoulders to take scores of your behaviour. Make a list of your CHARACTER STRENGTHS. In what direction do your emotions naturally flow? It has been said that your life flows in the direction of your most dominant thoughts. How deeply do you care for people? Are you a good listener? Among these three words, resilient, hardworking, compassionate, which best describe(s) you?

Finally, make a list of your CHARACTER and SKILL FLAWS. Identify areas of your life where you may not be so good or strong. This is not so that you can flog yourself or throw a pity party about your shortcomings, but so that you can know how to appropriately identify and connect with the people on your list who have the skills that you lack. You call them your weaknesses. I call them your greatest opportunities. This is because what you call a weakness is inverted strength or a strength awaiting discovery.

This exercise is designed to help you have a proper perspective as regards the treasure you carry within you in intangible form, coupled with your largely ignored potential platform of value to humanity. It also helps you to widen the scope of your possibilities.

By now I believe you are seeing yourself several times better than you thought you were. I can almost hear your shout of “Eureka!” (I found IT).

If you have missed any part of this series, please search for it on the online platform of this newspaper to get a full picture. If you can probe into the inner recesses of your mind, you can begin to see opportunities and potentials even when you don’t fully understand how to utilize them yet. This puts enormous power within your reach. All you need to do is take full responsibility for maximally converting these discoveries about yourself and the attendant opportunities to advantage.

Making ‘it’ is what happens when there is congruence between your discovered hidden wealth and the tangible assets you can produce from it! Now that you know, what will you do about it?

When you were born, you cried, and people rejoiced. My prayer is that when you die, the order would be reversed: with you rejoicing and people crying!