Intangible Assets

Focus on the priceless

Jul 03, 2025

In the years before retirement, it’s natural to consult a financial advisor, keep track of investments, concentrate on saving, and when assets hit the magic number, relax. Retirement, here we come.

With all the attention given to financial assets, numbers, stock prices, and bond yields, we may forget about our personal intangible assets, human capital, such as self-knowledge, relationships, health, wisdom and spiritual enlightenment. Intangible assets can be difficult to measure and cannot be bought or sold like tangible assets, but they increase in importance in late adulthood. For example, lifelong relationships cannot be traded or quantified, but they are priceless.

The 100-Year-Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity by Lynda Gratton and Andrew J. Scott acknowledges that as we live longer lives intangible assets become more significant.

So intangible assets are key to a long and productive life - both as an end in themselves and as an input into tangible assets. Indeed a good life needs both, as well as the balance and synergies between the two.1

Gratton and Scott define three categories of intangible assets: productive assets such as skills and knowledge, vitality assets like friendships, mental and physical health (and I would include spiritual health), and transformational assets, “…self-knowledge, their capacity to reach out into diverse networks and their openness to new experiences.” 2

Late adulthood is an excellent time to invest more heavily in intangible assets - less emphasis on financial capital and productive assets and more on human capital and vitality assets. Late adulthood is also a time of tremendous transition, so you may develop or improve some transformational assets.

Most of us have developed vitality and transformational assets throughout our lives, but late adulthood gives us more time and the opportunity to evaluate our intangibles and ask ourselves what we can do to improve areas that may be lacking. Our focus may have been on productive assets for the last 30 or 40 years, and perhaps we haven’t given as much attention to vitality or transformational assets.

The good news is that you may have 20, 30, even 40 years ahead of you. I recommend that you use them well!

Vitality assets

How is your physical fitness and health? Many people begin or improve an exercise routine upon retirement. In my experience, it takes more time to stay fit as we age, and in my case, exercise has become more of a priority. Are there friendships that have been neglected and that you would like to reinvigorate? This is the time. It’s also an excellent time to explore spiritual truth.

One of my lifelong friends decided that she now has the time to invest in reading and studying the Bible. She asked me in January if I knew of a plan to read the Bible in a year, and serendipitously I had just signed up with my church to do exactly that. She signed up too. We’re now halfway through the Bible, discuss what we’ve read once a week, and I’m impressed with her determination and diligence in this process. She is investing in the most important vitality asset.

Longitudinal studies suggest that high stocks of vitality assets are a key component in a measure of a good life.3

Transformational assets

Transformational assets, self-knowledge, generating diverse connections, and being open to new experiences are assets we may not have thought about but are increasingly important in a rapidly changing technological and social world. Another factor is the accelerating impermanence of jobs and even careers.

Self-knowledge, I believe, comes somewhat naturally in late adulthood. My self-knowledge has increased tremendously, and through my careers, experiences, and spiritual pursuits, I’ve come to better understand who I am. It’s liberating. I no longer attempt to be someone I’m never going to be.

Self-knowledge is needed to plot a path through change and transitions and, above all, to provide a sense of identity and coherence.4

Coming up with diverse connections and a readiness to experience new things may be a bit more difficult. At this point in life, my family and friendships are wonderful, and frankly, during these years of extensive caregiving, I don’t have time or emotional energy to invest in new connections. My husband, on the other hand, has developed new and diverse connections through groups he has become involved with since he’s retired. I’ll tag along with him, for now.

Retirement itself is a new experience that many have trouble adjusting to. It challenges identity, upsets life-long schedules, and opens the door to multiple new opportunities. Transformational assets will be called into service or perhaps created by the changes that confront us in late adulthood.

…transformational assets… reflect the capacity and motivation to successfully achieve change and transitions.5

May we all develop strong transformational assets.

Finally, Steve Conley, in an article that also referred to The 100-Year-Life on LinkedIn, writes,

Personal intangible assets include reputation (spirit), connections (heart), skill (body), and know-how (mind).

These four categories bring to mind the most important commandment according to Jesus, quoting Deuteronomy 6:4-5,

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Mark 12:30

Notice that Jesus didn’t put these aspects in a 1, 2, 3, 4 priority sequence; there is an ‘all’ before each one. It’s overwhelming, actually, to imagine what it means to truly love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength, all at the same time.

This is God’s highest call on each of our lives.

With the wisdom, knowledge, experience and intangible assets that we have developed throughout our lives and in late adulthood, I pray that we come a bit closer to loving God with all of our hearts, souls, minds and strength.

Reimagining Retirement

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