In their beautiful book The 100-Year Life, Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott explain the difference in 'asset classes' that one must pay attention to in the game of longevity.
One of those is tangible assets, such as wealth, money, houses, and that type of thing.
But the other one, which is equally important or some might suggest more important, is intangible assets.
On the Emirates flight to Singapore, I watched advert after advert of people showing me beautiful apartment complexes in Dubai and investment companies telling me that if I gave them the money, I could have that.
All about the happiness of the tangible asset, nothing about the intangible asset.
Of course, they were suggesting that if I had one of these apartments in the blocks in Dubai, I would have all the time in the world to do what I wanted and to enjoy my intangible life.
But that really isn't how it goes for most people.
What I have done when I've been here is I have made a huge and unapproved withdrawal from my intangible asset bank because I haven't eaten as well as I usually do, I haven't slept properly (jet lag and going out for meals), and I haven't spent time outdoors like I would normally do in a normal week.
It's easy to think that this wouldn't have an effect over a few days, but at least for me, it definitely does.
And so, now what's happened is my bank account is low, and I have to go back and slowly invest again in the intangible assets, which are the things that ultimately take me to a better place and ultimately allow me to build tangible assets because I am well enough, motivated enough and creative enough to do my work properly.
It has been amazing to be here, and I have seen some extraordinary things, but definitely, for me, this is a very rare occurrence where I go into the account and withdraw almost all of the assets.
Much better to go drip, drip, drip from week to week, building the intangible bank balance.
Blog Post Number - 3805
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