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Individual Capital: chapter 1 – what it means to you
Individual capital is something you already know or should learn quickly. Let's think of you and everything you can do. We then take everything you do and put it in a box. We are going to label this box capital.
This box includes all of your natural abilities and all of your learned abilities. We need to begin understanding the importance of continuously adding to our individual capital. Once we become content with the contents of the box we rarely open it to add new things.
So if you find yourself in a situation that doesn't please you consider your individual capital. Understand that at any point you can add anything you want to this box. No capacity has ever been reached where a person could not add more to their individual capital.
Things that might count as individual capital are as follows:
type speed
college degree
customer service skills
ability to socialize
motivation
passion
ingenuity
intelligence
wisdom
so if you aren't adding to your box you may not get what you want for it. Always remember that as long as your breathing you can learn as long as you can learn you can change.
Jacqueline d'Etienne
However, I think that knowing one's own worth is extremely important. Individuals who are able to engage themselves in introspection and establish a realistic sense of their own strengths and weaknesses will have an easier time getting what they want out of life without as much compromise, and will also have a better idea of how to improve upon themselves (since there really are no limits on self improvement, as you pointed out).
Knowing one's own self worth can greatly improve the quality of one's profession, one's friendships, one's personal relationships, and much more. For example, I'm sure many of us are acquainted with an otherwise lovely person who (much to the dismay and confusion of their friends/family) has chosen a horrid significant other. Even if "horrid" is too severe, it's very distressing to believe that a friend can "do better" than the one they're with. In my experience, these types of relationships often occur (and persist) when the person does not realize his or her own value. That is one of the more frustrating instances, but the same can sometimes apply to individuals with ill-suited friends, and individuals with fail to live up to their potential when it comes to advancing professionally.
I completely agree that we would do well to recognize the importance of continually trying to improve upon ourselves and increase our "capital" as individuals.
edward long 100+
Linda Taylor 50+
Then I realized, I was happiest sans box.
george lockwood 20+
Fritzie Reisner 100+
You may find his book entitled Human Capital or his articles interesting.