Sekou Andrews | How to Calculate Your Net Wealth

Sekou Andrews - Give A Damn

Motivational poet Sekou Andrews delivers an impassioned plea asking you to please reconsider your true riches.

Transcript:

Today I just found out that I'm worthless. You know, yesterday I was like a million bucks. You know? But today I just stumbled across one of those online net worth calculators. I'm asked to enter my liabilities, home mortgage, car loan, credit card debt, student loans. And then next, what are your assets? Like the value of my home. Jewelry or collectibles. Cash, mutual funds, stocks, bonds, and after the immensely complicated calculation of subtracting my liabilities from my assets, I magically discover I am worth about $2 and a bus pass. Funny thing though, the only solace that really made a dent in nursing my worthlessness with a meager offering of encouragement was the old adage, "I still got my health." Now maybe your net worth is not the best test of your self worth.

Perhaps the more critical query is, what is your net health? Tell us a little bit about your assets. Bonds. Rate the strength of your connection with others. Collectibles. Are you living a life of memories worth saving? Vehicle. How powerful or painful is your mobility? Life insurance. What is the total value of your contribution to humanity? And, of course, retirement. How much good will have you paid into your IRA? And can't forget our liabilities. Student loans, alright? How much has it cost you to learn the hard lessons about stressing? Oh, credit card debit. Are you still really just paying the minimum balance due to your behavior? Personal debt. How much do you owe it to yourself still to get fixed?

Your net health score will not be a number. It will be many numbers. Cholesterol levels to reach, numbers of hours to sleep, amount of veggies to eat, a number of relaxation techniques. It will be fitness suggestions, and most importantly, a personalized navigation to get behavior from location to destination. And that map, the map that tells you what to do, that is the critical component to the assessment. Our odds for success that changing our unhealthy behavior are only as good as our directions. To simply approach change as though it is difficult, it only scratches the surface. Change is emotional. Change is emotional. And our ability to override our emotional resistance to change depends on our intrinsic motivation to give a damn.

The irritating know-it-all in my mirror is right, I do know better, right? I know what medical research says about my unhealthy behaviors. I know how it feels when I make unhealthy decisions. And I know that I'm supposed to do the right thing, and I finally learned what the right thing is to do, and I finally give a damn enough to get it done. Stop forgetting your pills. You know better. Stop postponing treatment. You know better. Stop being afraid to change. You know better. Stop staying you'll start tomorrow. You know better. To know what to do, you must have the right answers. To have the right answers, you must have the right questions, the right plan, and the right reasons to help change your direction.

So grab those reigns of responsibility for navigating your path. Embrace your power to enhance the luster of your laugh. Accept your duty as sovereign leader of your wellness. Of your vision. Your net health potential is limitless. The same way you network your net worth to amass your net wealth, you can net heal your net self to amass your net health. And your future can be saved. Good decisions can be made. And your net health can increase with one thing to do. Give a damn.