Intangible is the new in....

Being a business major and a corporate trainer; I often end up comparing our real-life situations to a corporate world situation. This is what led me to write on investments.


With the New Year in full swing as we have entered a new decade, I am totally sure, every household and every individual would have done their financial planning for the decade to come. (If not; This is the time) 


This is the time to reflect on types of investments. There are investments which have tangible benefits and there are investments which do not have tangible benefits or let’s say not tangible on the face of it. 


Let’s dig deep into it. We all would like to invest in stocks, mutual funds and bond which have a tangible benefit. We can see the gain that we would receive at the end of a period. But we all also always have a life insurance. Which does not mean that we will die, we might never be able to use that money if it is a term life insurance but, we still take an insurance because it provides us an intangible benefit. The benefit is in form of a safety net around us which we might never want to use but it is there. 


Now here’s the point to ponder, we truly never understand the importance of a life insurance up until we see someone who was the bread winner and lost his life and does not have a life insurance. This keeps the bereavers stranded. That day, we all feel, how crazy, he didn’t have an insurance? But, do we go and celebrate the people who have insured themselves. The answer is NO. the reason is, it is given and expected.  Lesson here: The absence of an intangible investment causes a bigger damage than the presence of it.


We invest in intangible mode of investment purely based on our common sense, acumen and judgement. That’s the least expected out of us to ensure that our family is safe after us. We are not doing a big deal having insured ourselves. It’s a big deal if we have not insured ourselves.


 We don’t even think about all these things. But moment we see a person who met with a heart attack and doesn’t have a medical insurance, we feel strange. Hence, investment in intangible assets is more important than tangible ones.


Now let’s compare this with life. In our life we invest in our education. We ensure that our child should have good grades, should be going to best of university and so on. Why? Because it gives us tangible returns. You can measure the growth by ranks and marks and eventually money. You can teach him a sport and have him compete and see him win a medal or two and feel bloated about it. The more you spend, the more you feel you have invested in the future of the child. All Tangible….

But all this while chasing these tangible things we forget that it is what is inside of him that will shine out. Yes, he might go to best of the university but is he the best version of himself?  Mental Health first aid news provides some alarming statistics

1.      In the United States, almost half of adults (46.4 percent) will experience a mental illness during their lifetime.

2.      5 percent of adults (18 or older) experience a mental illness in any one year, equivalent to 43.8 million people.

3.      Of adults in the United States with any mental disorder in a one-year period, 14.4 percent have one disorder, 5.8 percent have two disorders and 6 percent have three or more.

4.      Half of all mental disorders begin by age 14 and three-quarters by age 24.

This is not something new. We have known this for long. But what is new is why so much so sudden. Why is it that this number is growing instead of coming down? 


History has shown and science has also backed that all these issues start small. Absence of life skills in children. We get so involved in the tangibles, that we forget the intangible investment. Obviously, because there is not tangible rank, grade or eventually monetary benefit associated to it. We want our kids to be wealthy nut we forget to teach them right ways to earn it. 


Now lets’ come back to our tangible and intangible argument. Investing in instilling proper skills in your child is a very thankless and intangible investment. But, as in case of all the intangible investment, even in this one, the absence of it is going to be noticed and will affect all your tangible investments. 


We do not go out of our way and praise someone for their honesty and integrity every time they show a proper behavior. But let me tell you, you will always notice an arrogant person, a dishonest person and it will make you think, why are they like this. They are like this because their parents, when they were planning for their child’s next decade they only focused on the tangibles. 


These small little life skills like honesty, accountability of time, responsible behavior, integrity, communication and so on go a long way and they might not openly benefit you in a material form, but their absence will affect your material gains. Today all the corporates are moving towards skill-based hiring. We have so many assembly line workers and artificial intelligence has taken over all those jobs. The world needs leaders. And there is no sure sought recipe to build a leader. A leader is the result of his experiences, failures and learnings. The skills that he learnt right from childhood to utilizing it in the adulthood. The leader is not always someone who always had good grades, but someone who failed, touched rock bottom and rose out of his own ashes. Integrity builds a leader, resilience strengthens him and adversity tests him. 


Parents sadly have forgotten to plan for this and not planning for these intangibles is a result we see those alarming statistics. Walk the walk and talk the talk, develop the qualities of a leader and your child will follow. Teach them to fail. Teach them to take NO for an answer. Teach them self-respect. Free loader mindset is a poverty mindset. Don’t teach them to use people. Teach them to use their two hands and two legs. You don’t need any title to be a leader. You can be a homemaker yet be a leader, you can be Janitor yet be a leader. A leader requires no titles. His qualities are those intangibles that the world has forgotten. 

Give yourself and your family a New Year gift, take a Life Skills insurance and secure yours' and your child’s mental health. You don’t need any big planning, just look with in. invest in books. If you don’t like to be treated the way you are treating others, then change it. Remember, what you give is what you get.