Leveraging Your Most Valuable Asset to Make a Difference

Leveraging Your Most Valuable Asset to Make a Difference

Typically speaking, when people today think of assets, they commonly think of stocks or investments. Others may consider their home, car, or sports memorabilia. Still others may consider their knowledge, specialty, or looks. These, of course, can be powerful assets for some, but most fail to be utilized to make much of a difference for others. Worse, some rarely, if ever, think of any way to leverage their assets to make a difference for others. Yes, we live in an age of incredible wealth and philanthropic giving which has never been better. Although, even in some philanthropic giving, there are political statements being made hoping to leverage their dollars for additional gain. 

Being a beard brand, it would make sense that beards would be our greatest asset. To some extent, they are. However, it is pretty tough to leverage beards or beard care to make a difference. We have found that beards, in many cases, command attention and if used with the most genuine intentions can be leveraged to engage in meaningful conversations with the potential to make a difference. Beards have only become a means to an end; the means—attention and the end—meaningful relationship and quality time. 

Gaining control of time and leveraging it to invest in things that really matter are a priority for us. Our brands were inspired and began from a desire to spend more time with family. Finding a way to pursue our passions and interests, allowing us to one day spend incredible amounts of time with our family living in constant adventure, freeing us from wasted time working for another entity. In essence, the dream is to rid another person or entity from having control of how we use our time, often leaving little time to invest in what matters most. Not everyone can become instantly self-sustaining and entirely self-controlling of their own time; we understand that first hand. Regardless, we believe that everyone can leverage their most important asset, time, to make a huge difference in the lives of the people around us investing in relationship. 

Many businesses would consider their service or products to be their most valuable assets. They'd be wise to do so, after all they are what provide the revenue for which the business can operate. We absolutely consider our products to be an incredibly valuable asset, but ultimately, our mission is to leverage the revenue created by our products to create unique ways for us to invest in relationships. When we leverage our time as an asset to invest in relationship, there are limitless ways to use it. There is no one size fits all approach to utilizing this valuable asset most effectively, but first you have to identify what your natural giftings are. One incredible source for you to discover these gifting's is through Strengths Finders. This resource will help you uncover your greatest talents helping you better select how you can manage and leverage your time for greater good. Not only is this an essential tool for leadership, but it incredibly illuminates your most powerful traits, giving you more direction in how you can invest in relationship. Once you discover your greatest strengths you will feel more confident in how you leverage your time, investing in relationships to make a difference around you. Every person will be different. Everyone's top ways to leverage time for good will be different. So don't get too consumed with how you do this, or else you'll sit around wasting this most valuable asset. We'd like to share three ways we leverage time, our most valuable asset, to grow our relationships for good around us. 

1. Invest in the lives of others

If you follow either of our brands, you'll know we've built in a charitable component that supports organizations providing essential services to our homeless friends across North Texas. I think many people enjoy and get on board with giving to organizations such as these, but this requires no time. Just a few clicks and a donation. We like to take it a step further and roll up our sleeves to assist in their programming. The times we've spent there have provided opportunities for an incredible way to leverage time for good through mentoring. There are very few ways to truly warm your heart than to spend quality time investing in the lives of other people. We have personally experienced the overwhelming sense of purpose and incredible personal growth from our time spent serving our homeless friends. We are quickly reminded how richly blessed we are, even in spite of our own struggles. Hearing stories of brokenness and hurt are heart wrenching and once you spend time in this setting, you'll likely never be the same. You'll often walk away from your time spent mentoring others realizing you've also been mentored--experiencing unexpected joy mentoring some really fine people who truly are crying out for attention, relationship, and time. 

 

 

 

 

2. Provide a service to someone...free of charge.

The adage is that time is money. While that is absolutely true, we have to remember how many people have invested their talents, ideas, and advice for no other reason than they believed in these two incredible brands and want to see them grow to become mainstays in the hearts of those who are partial to them. For instance, we met perfect strangers a year ago and now we've become quite good friends. These beautifully talented people have offered us so much wisdom, encouragement, and service for no other reason than genuine compassion for our brands and what they represent. They've spent hours thinking, creating, and sharing their gifting's on our behalf and it has affected us in ways that we can't fully put into words. Our experience with these great people has left us working to discover how our brands and service components can do the very same thing for others. Spending precious time with those who are walking the same difficult paths you once walked and encouraging them through it, providing assistance out of genuine compassion only keeps the pay-it-forward model going. How easy and sacrificial it is to make an intentional effort to provide such services to others. After our initial meeting with these incredible people, we reflected and wondered why people would offer so much to people they don't even know. Even now they continue to shower their talents over us for no apparent reason. In a world of never ending heartbreak and bad news, leveraging time to provide unexpected service to others, expecting nothing in return, will leave others wanting to do the same. Now, that's good news.

 

 

 

 

3. Make time for what matters most.

Time is money, but unlike money, time can't be given back. You can't get back lost time. Sometimes in the hustle of making things happen, we forget to invest our time appropriately. We can tell ourselves whatever we want to justify the hustle, but to leverage time as an asset for good, we have to set time aside for the relationships that matter most. It's never been more difficult to stop the hustle and detach from work than it is today. We carry our work with us everywhere, often checking emails right before bed and the second we wake up. We recommend picking a time in the evening to put the phone and computer away. Invest in your family, be present, read a book. This may hurt, but we also suggest putting work away on the weekends too. Consider it a weekly reset. After all, Monday is coming, you need it! For your own sake, your sanity, leverage your time to invest in what matters most. 

In the end, time is hard to manage. We can't stick it in an IRA and hope that in 30 years the interest earned will be enough to get the most out of the waning moments of life. We spend so much time investing material assets so we can enjoy our least active, least mobile, and least spontaneous years of our life, rather than utilizing it now to make radical improvements in the lives of people in your community. Unlike many obstacles we face in our lives, when it comes to leveraging our time, we actually have complete control of our time; more importantly we have complete control of how we leverage it. So, leverage it and make a difference today.

 Tackle Life,

Andy + B&T Crew

July 31, 2017 by Molly Parker
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