Whether you have a physical piggy bank where you store cash or a bank account or credit line, you appreciate the advantage of having a ‘reserve’ that you can draw on when you need. It doesn’t always have to be cash, animals like squirrel store their winter food during the summer, camels store water in the humps (or actually fat), the concept of “storing or generating for later use” plays an important role in nature.
For human, there are at least 3 inter-related categories of accounts that you should be aware of:
- Physical – money, strength, endurance, flexibility, boats, cars, house, etc are all within this category. Some may say that money doesn’t buy everything, it is true but it sure solves a lot of problems too. Neglecting other categories will always bite you some time later in life.
- Mental – knowledge, ideas, patterns, models, ability to focus, confidence, understanding, vision, satisfaction, motivation, dream, etc. While others can give you things, you have to be involved to earn your mental assets.
- Relationships – This includes interpersonal: parents, friends, business associates, employees, your boss, teacher, student, sparring partners, etc. This also includes your relationship with the surrounding / environment. The ‘cash’ that you get with positive relationships are: trust, goodwill, friendship, opportunities, karma, efficiencies, motivated team, etc. How you build good relationships includes humbleness, loyalty, care, generosity, kindness and more. Relationships has to be nourished to grow. Having solid relationships allow you to conquer the world and to enjoy life.
Exercise:
– Map how you are training with the above categories and see if you are missing anything.
– Describe how one category helps the other.
Piggy banks