PILLAR 2 - CREATING ABUNDANCE, MODULE 4 - MAKING THE … · been established from this one non-physical asset, alone. Mrs. Fields Cookies is just one example. KFC, formerly Kentucky

PILLAR 2 - CREATING ABUNDANCE, MODULE 4 - MAKING THE MOST OF WHAT YOU HAVE


CAPSULE 4 - MAKING THE MOST OF WHAT YOU HAVE - NON-PHYSICAL ASSETS You are now of the mindset to create abundance! You have learned the useful skill that thought controls your drive or motivation. So, by controlling your thoughts, you can control your emotions. From there your activities can be productive, and you can reach a successful outcome. What seems to be missing from the equation? You have recognized that you must assume the risk and step out from your protected zone to claim success. Nothing comes to him or her who waits. Still, a person who launches without loading and equipping for the journey is leaving much to chance. Make the most of what you have. Pilots have something called a preflight checklist. Passengers rarely see it but it covers everything from preparing the airplane before the engines start to prepare it before it takes off. Pilots are constantly performing checklists. Why? Not because they worry they forgot something, but because they want to ensure they make the most of everything they have. Sometimes two or more hours before passengers arrive at the boarding area, not having boarded the airplane, one of the pilots is reviewing the airplane for airworthiness. The fuel tanks are inspected to see that they are filled appropriately. The fuel itself is inspected for contamination. The fuel pumps are inspected for operation in all modes of operation, which includes valves for cross-feeding. The wing surfaces are inspected. Moveable areas are inspected for proper motion. Landing gear, hydraulics, electrical, pneumatic, air-conditioning, fire extinguisher, oxygen, navigation, communication, and pressurization systems are inspected. Every light bulb is inspected. De-icing equipment is tested. Meanwhile, another pilot receives the weather report for the entire trip. The operations report is reviewed from the airline for routing, cargo weight and distribution within the airplane, and navigation updates. Various things such as runway braking action on snowy surfaces, possible construction equipment on the approach at the destination, and reports of icing by pilots at specific elevations are included. So far, the passengers are just arriving at the airport and arguing over their baggage and passports. When the passengers arrive for boarding, additional preflight work is performed to make the most of everything the pilots have. The passenger or cargo list is rechecked for weight and distribution. The weather is updated and the effects, if any to the airplane surface, are inspected. Deicing equipment is used as needed. Fuel requirements are recalculated; runway distances and take-off speeds are calculated. The airplane has a small jet engine, that idles for starting the main engines and that engine is used to power most electronics and air conditioning. Again, as the airplane is taxiing for takeoff, the pilots make the most of everything they have testing communication, navigation, and related control equipment for broken lights or parts that don’t work. The moveable surfaces such as elevators, rudder, and ailerons are tested to the full range. Brakes are tested. The pilots even read checklists as they are rolling down the runway and during ascent after takeoff to ensure each step is used. They want to take advantage of everything.


Why do the pilots invest so much time taking advantage of everything? Pilots want everything functioning and available because they have redundant systems to maintain safety in the event one system fails. There is an adage pilots use, “You cannot use the runway behind you or the air that is above you.” So, pilots insist on taking advantage of everything before they leave the ground and depend only on what they have in the airplane. In that is the moral of your quest for abundant success. You may not be a pilot. You may not be a soldier preparing for battle. But you must prepare and make the most of what you have in your storehouse of assets when you launch. So, let’s assess your assets. You may not realize it, but you have many non-physical assets. These start with your thoughts or mindset, but also include your skill sets and talents, your ideas, and the people from whom you can draw multiples of the other three. Let’s start with your thoughts or mindset. Recall your mindset, from capsule three, is influenced by earlier conditioning. Your conditioning may have come from role-modeling, hearing repeated phrases or statements during your conditioning, or experiencing a significant incident that left an indelible imprint on your life from that point on. Often, these conditioning events are negative. Thus, the conditioning creates negative thought interpretations that influence your drive or emotional motivation. Thoughts are the basis for most individuals to fail to launch in the face of risk and claim success in the face of opportunity. When you find the thoughts that are your positive assets, and not your liabilities, you can make the most of what you have. You can add that arrow of strength to your quiver of arrows. Oprah Winfrey was given as an example for her role-modeled asset in her grandmother. She had no other positive thoughts from which to draw during her horrific, abusive childhood. Still, it was the regular trips to church and demanding lessons to learn to read before age three that gave Oprah her strength of thought. This built in her a powerful drive and later activity that proved the success that she became. When you make the most of what you have, you may not consider all the skills and talents you have already at your disposal. Most individuals think skills and talents are those things that are learned in a job. But much is learned when one is investing spare time doing a hobby or helping others do what they do best. Think of what you like to do. More specifically, think of what is naturally fun for you. It may be income producing activities such as writing documents or constructing buildings. It may also be sitting by the pond listening to the geese and writing poetry. It may be surfing the Internet and finding interesting facts about diverse subjects. It may be drawing doodles that look like logos. It may be going to neighbors in a remote location and helping them learn how to cook healthy meals for their families. These are all skills and talents that at face value may not be income-producing. But with ingenuity they can be driven from thought to an activity that creates a success. Many entrepreneurial ventures have been established from this one non-physical asset, alone. Mrs. Fields Cookies is just one example. KFC, formerly Kentucky Fried Chicken, is another example.


Have you ever had an idea? A really good idea? Ideas or concepts or logos are intellectual property. They can be sold, copyrighted, and developed into a plan. Ideas are another non-physical asset. In many situations, it can be monetized. Fred Smith was once a Master’s degree student in political science and economics at Yale University. His logistics homework assignment was to write about the problem with the nation’s supply chain that then existed. This was the dawn of Microsoft, Apple, and other Silicon Valley technologies. Fred Smith had an idea. His idea did not appeal to his professor who gave him a “D.” Still, his idea, written in his ill-fated homework assignment was the concept of building an overnight delivery system dedicated to only small or lightweight items and using a commercial network, not the government postal system. You know this idea as the monetized intellectual property known as Federal Express or later FedEx. The fourth non-physical asset is people. This is probably the most valuable resource since it probably has assets you can make the most of from the other three: thoughts, skills, and ideas. These are your mentors both present and future. Networked into your plan of success should be a series of mentors eager to share their knowledge. This knowledge is often available for free simply because they have already accomplished a success in the area you need their talent. Individuals are self-centered. Demonstrating interest in another person is all that is needed to unlock the knowledge for free. Still, we are all part of collective group of universal knowledge. Recall the famous quote from John Donne’s Meditation 17, “No man is an island, Entire of itself, Every man is a piece of the continent, A part of the main…” The long-lasting syndication of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, while not a good example of creating abundance, depicts a well-known example of using people-assets for help in time of need. The contestant, faced with a four-answer question has three “lifelines” to aid them in their decision. One “lifeline” was merely paying to delete two of the answers using the 50:50 rule. But, the other two were phone-a-friend and ask-the-audience options. Here, people with some prior experience could share knowledge the contestant may not have considered. Exercise Take a moment, now, to exercise a complete listing of your non-physical assets. You have already exercised an inventory of your thoughts in the exercise of capsule three. Dedicate additional, separate pages in your small, wire-bound notebook for listing your skill sets or talents, your ideas, and the people who you think are or could be good resources of knowledge. Realize your skills will not be the first things you think of but rather creative and fun uses of your total talent. Scribble all the little ideas that have been starting to form in your head since it will take time to develop them into something useful. Your list of people may not always be listed by name, but by category or type. You will have an idea of the knowledge base you don’t currently have and will want to capture it when it becomes available. Unless you list this plan to anticipate people who possess these qualities, you will not know to appreciate them when they appear.

PILLAR 2 - CREATING ABUNDANCE, MODULE 4 - MAKING THE … · been established from this one non-physical asset, alone. Mrs. Fields Cookies is just one example. KFC, formerly Kentucky

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