The Law of the Most Valuable Asset says: Your most valuable asset is your earning ability.

An asset is something that yields a steady, predictable cash flow. Your ability to earn money is probable the most valuable asset you have.

Your ability to work, to produce, to earn money in our competitive economy by applying your brains and ability to your world, enables you to generate tens of thousands of dollars each year.

You could lose everything, all your possessions, but as long as you maintain your earning ability at a high level, you can continue to enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world.

It has taken you your entire lifetime to develop your earning ability to where it is today.

But your earning ability is a depreciating asset, like a car or a piece of equipment. You must be continually maintaining and upgrading the quality of your earning ability to keep yourself at the same high level of productivity, performance and output.

Knowledge and skill are the keys to the 21st century. Your earning ability is made up of your unique combination of knowledge and skills developed to their current level. If your industry is undergoing rapid change, your knowledge and skills are also undergoing rapid obsolescence. You must be continually replacing old knowledge and skill with new knowledge and skill if you want to keep even, much less get ahead.

You are being paid today exactly what you are worth, no more and no less, based on your current earning ability. If you want to increase your standard of living, you must increase your earning ability through a systematic and deliberate process of learning and practicing new skills and abilities.

How you can apply this law immediately:

1. Identify the specific skills you have which make you the most valuable to your organization. Which are essential to generating your income? Whatever your answers, make a plan to improve in each of these critical skill areas.
2. Look down the road of your life. What will you absolutely, positively have to be excellent at doing three to five years from now for you to continue enjoying your current or an even higher standard of living? Whatever it is, identify these core competencies and then make a plan to acquire them.

- from "THE 100 ABSOLUTELY UNBREAKABLE LAWS OF BUSINESS SUCCESS" – Brian Tracy