By Joni Lindquist
Unless you inherited your money (lucky you), your financial wealth starts with your human capital. You can’t have money to invest unless you earn money. You earn money by deploying your human capital. We define human capital as your time, talent, experience and skills.
A good financial planning process starts with your goals and objectives, then assesses your current situation and resources, identifies any gaps that may exist, and develops recommendations to close the gap. An even better financial plan integrates human capital planning into the process. Your financial plan should start with your career plan – how do you plan to earn your money? Use the same financial planning steps below to create your human capital plan:
- What are your career goals and objectives? What is your long-term career goal? What is your five-year goal? In a 40-year career, just as with your financial plan, you and the world around you will change, so your goals and objectives may change as well. That’s okay. What’s NOT okay is to not have career goals. I work with many business executives in health care that started on the clinical side. They found they loved the management process and obtained the education and experience to move to the business administration side. Their goals shifted as they learned about their own natural talent and interests and the available opportunities.
- Where are you today in your career? What skills have you developed, what experience have you banked, what training do you have and what accomplishments can you tout?
- Is there a gap between where you are and where you want to be? What experience do you need to gain? Do you need additional training or education? Do you need to acquire certifications? How and when are you going to get these skills or experience?
Use the same discipline of the financial planning process and apply it to your human capital plan to improve your chances of long-term success. For help getting started with your personal planning needs, schedule a meeting by clicking below, contact Joni Lindquist –jlindquist@makinglifecount.com, or call (913) 345-1881.