Net Worth or Life Worth, Where’s your focus?

By dougnau on Feb 24, 2009 in Decision Making, Life Coaching, Personal Growth, Spiritual Coaching

Calculating Net Worth

We’ve all heard the term ‘Net Worth’, and it something that many of us strive to increase and improve over time. In today’s struggling economy, many of us have seen our net worth drastically decline as the jobless rate has increased and the stock market has plunged. Net worth is a simple concept that calculates the value of all of one’s assets (money, investments, home, things owned), and subtracts from that all of the liabilities that one has. Its an imperfect equation in most cases because its difficult to ascertain the value of the clothes on ones back, or that used treadmill in the garage, but it is possible to make rough estimates that calculate net worth. Clearly, in some cases that estimate is easier and more accurate than in others.

Calculating Life Worth

Life worth on the other hand is a much more abstract concept and is subject to personal preference, opinion, and the quality given to one’s experience. Just last week, I received a voice mail from my aunt after I had sent her some photos of our young children, and she proclaimed on the voice mail that she loved us and that our life was so rich. What a fantastic word to express what is usually meant to appreciate financial gains. Our life is indeed blessed and rich, however, you could argue whether or not you’d agree that we could be considered so financially. In fact, determining if one has a high net worth and life worth is extremely personal in nature. I know that my perception of what high net worth means has changed over the past decade, and people from region to region and one social class to another have significantly different opinions of the matter as well.

Life worth is determined and quantified by you and you alone, and this article is intended to get you thinking about how you’d rate your own life worth. I don’t suggest that the following questions have a right or wrong answer, but they should do the trick to get you thinking about ways you can determine if you’ve been living a life you feel is of high value and alignment with your aspirations. Consider the following questions:

How often do I do the things that I love?
How has my life impacted others in a positive way?
What do I find myself doing ‘most’ of the time? Am I passionate about this?
When my time has come and gone, what contribution will others say that I have made?
Do I ever feel I was meant for something bigger or different? What would that look like?

What do most people want?

Ask yourself: What do I really strive for in life, a high net worth or a high life worth?

Although we glamorize and often envy the lives of those who accrue a high net worth, when asked what more people would prefer, a high net worth, or a high life worth, the vast majority choose the later. It sounds like the timeless question, happiness versus money.

Can we have both?

Interestingly, when I heard this question presented to me for the first time, my immediate response was ‘both’. It didn’t make sense to me that one would have to choose one over the other. A small percent of people asked this either/or question will jump outside the boundaries of the question itself with this response. That surprises me as the truth is that there is nothing exclusive about net worth or life worth. Despite the drama’s we hear in the media of multi-millionaires going to jail and abusing alcohol and drugs, we seldom hear the beautiful stories about the enormously successful that have both a high net worth and a high life worth. This of course is a reality for many.

Net worth and life worth are not dependent on one another. Someone with a low life worth and low net worth is likely to have a low life worth even if they won the lottery tomorrow. The temporary joy the influx of money may bring into their lives would not change who they are, or their approach towards life. It takes a lot more work and time to make such an adjustment. We often see these instant millionaires lose it all shortly after their winnings. Money is an enabler, and someone with a low net worth but high life worth would with that same influx of money use it to further support their passions rather than filling a void. Imagine what Mother Theresa would have done if she’d won the super lotto? She died with little more possessions than the clothes on her back – but with an enormous amount of life worth.

If the question had to be answered with an ‘either/or’ response, I’d surely take a life with high life worth over net worth. If you’ve been asking the same question in terms of either or, consider the limitations that your mind is putting on the possibilities.

Living in Balance

Many people, particularly those engrained in their careers sacrifice life worth for net worth. I’ve been caught in this vicious cycle in the past myself. I was in the continual climb up the corporate ladder, doing work that was out of alignment with where my passions were, selling my time and in essence my life for a cause I really didn’t even believe in. It took me a cancer diagnosis to ‘wake up’.

Right here and now is your opportunity to rate yourself on a 1-10 scale of life worth. If you feel that you would score yourself with anything less than a 9 or 10, then read on. How can you improve that value. Are you sacrificing life worth for net worth, or do you ‘tune out’ to television for the family average of 5 hours/day? What’s your vision and what action are you willing to take to make that vision a reality. Stop hiding behind all the things that you ‘do’ (this is the modern day way of running away), and start focusing on who you are being. Being true to who we are, and acting upon this is the ultimate measure of whether or not we are living a life of high life worth.

Be Well