How to Maximize Your Human Life Value
A simple formula for creating your best self
A few days ago, I was participating in my weekly coaching call, which was being led by Michael Isom1. I have had the opportunity to interact with Michael a few different ideas, so the content wasn’t necessarily new. That said, perhaps I was more prepared to hear it.
Michael discussed the idea of Human Life Value. If you are unfamiliar with it, Human Life Value has been a technique used by life insurance companies to assess the maximum amount of life insurance you could be eligible to purchase. By definition, it is “the present value of all future income that you could expect to earn for your family. It is defined as the total income an individual is expected to earn until retirement.”
Kind of boring, but also kind of necessary.
Somehow, life insurance companies have created a formula to determine the monetary value of your life. Likely, that’s probably a fairly rudimentary calculation, something along the lines of Income x Years Until Retirement = Human Life Value.
Using that definition, you have effectively been relegated to what you are today. No growth. No expansion. No change. No improvement. No retraction. No failures. You are, simply, what you are.
But that definition also presents an opportunity.
If the value can be translated into a formula, then you have been gifted unlimited power to grow your own Human Life Value.
This is what Michael encouraged us to see.
He used the example of a balance sheet. In one column we have our assets. On the other, we have our liabilities.
If we’re talking about a financial balance sheet, in the asset column exists items like your home’s value, your checking and savings account balances, your 401(k) balance, and the current worth of your stocks and investments portfolios.
In the liabilities column, we have things like our mortgage balance, our car loans, student debt, and credit card balances.
Ultimately, the balance sheet gives you a snapshot of your Net Worth.
Assets -liabilities = Net Worth.
Using this Balance Sheet idea, and substituting Net Worth with Human Life Value, you have found the formula to create unlimited possibilities in your own life.
Under the Asset column, you have potential positive qualities such as experience, skills, knowledge, education, certifications, degrees, integrity, and work ethic.
Under the Liabilities column, you have potential negative characteristics such as confidence, motivation, discipline, sedation, habits, routines, communication, and behaviors.
Assets - Liabilities = Human Life Value
Of course, all of those characteristics listed above as positives could be your negatives, and thus your opportunity to improve. Or just as easiliy, all those listed as potential negatives could be your strengths. And in come cases, you may find a characteristic, such as motivation, to sit on the fence of both assets and liabilities, waiting on you to decide how you will deploy it.
And therein lies the beauty of the formula. It is unique to you. But once you harness it, once you begin to leverage it, the real power is found and unleashed in your life.
Human Life Value = Net Worth.
If Assets - Liabilities = Net Worth, AND Assets - Liabilities = Human Life Value, THUS Human Life Value = Net Worth.
Value after all, by definition, is the worth of something in terms of the amount of other things for which it can be exchanged or in terms of some medium of exchange.
As you begin to focus on the fully controllable pursuit of impoved Human Life Value, you simultaneously increase your market value. You improve your skills, education, knowledge, acumen, habits, and routines, and you have more to offer the world. You have more value to provide, and you increase your ability to attract the financial value equal to your improvement.
So if you don’t like where you are at, if you don’t like the reflection in the mirror, or the reflection in your bank account, you now have a path forward.
The concept of Human Life Value applies to all of us, and it’s so much more powerful than the traditional life insurace approach of multiplying your salary now and the number of years you could continue to earn it. In this definition of Human Life Value, you effectively deploy compounding interest to your life because you begin to embrace life-long learning, life-long improvement, and life-long growth and expansion.
And really, isn’t that what life is all about?
So here’s a simple assignment. Grab a sheet of paper, and draw a line down the middle. On the left, make a list of all your human assets. List everything that holds makes you unique. Don’t be shy. Don’t be humble. This is for you.
And on the right, make a list of all that holds you back. Be honest. Don’t be a liar. Put it all on there. You’re only hurting yourself if you hide from yourself.
And then go to work. Set a 90-day goal to re-balance the worksheet. And do it again every 90 days after that. Allow yourself to see your ultimate possibility.
And remember, you were born for this. Go get ‘em.
You can learn more about Michael Isom’s work at michaelgisom.com and/or at vaultais.com, which includes a self-assessment.