You'd have to be living in a cave not to be worried about money these days. When we get to this part of the economic cycle, it's easy to panic and think it will never end. And this downturn is particularly scary because so much has deteriorated so quickly. Whether you have a job or not, are in the workforce at this point or not, have a fat bank account or not, there's something about this downturn that can make you want to hide under the bed. That's not a good place to weather it out.

Since so much of what's going wrong is beyond your control, it's also easy to start feeling helpless. That makes it even harder to endure the broader situation and can lead to illness or depression. Another not-so-good idea.

There really are things we can do in times like these that will pay off now and in the next upturn. Action is the best cure for fear. One action that can be very reassuring is to inventory your assets—your INTANGIBLE assets.

"Intangible assets" are the skills, knowledge and abilities you have that you could use to make a living—whether you are using them now or not. Maybe you don't use those assets because they aren't required in the job you hold. Maybe you don't use them because you are retired. Maybe you don't use them because they are not the direction you prefer to go in right now. But they are still things you can do and thus ways you could make money if you needed to.

It might be writing copy for your former ad agency as a freelancer. It might be driving a bus. It might be underwater welding. This is not just a description of the skills and knowledge you need for what you are doing now--or did before you left the workforce. It's every single thing you "could" do.

When the value of your mutual funds takes a dive or the situation at work is looking iffy, it helps to consider the rest of who you are to identify resources you forgot you had. Below is one way to do that, but HOW you do it isn't as important as THAT you do it in some form.

Before we start, you need three definitions: KNOWLEDGE = an information base you have acquired in some arena. SKILLS = any set of behaviors you've perfected to get something done. ABILITIES = your natural attributes that make you good at doing a particular thing.

Defining Your Intangible Assets:

1. List the last job you had and the knowledge, skills and abilities you needed to get the work done. (We are starting with the easiest stuff here. This is the obvious one.) Do you still have those skills? If not, what do you need to do to regain them?

2. Do the same thing for every job you ever had, including the paper route or babysitting you did as a teenager. What knowledge, skills and abilities did you need to do those jobs? Do you still have them? If not, how can you polish them?

3. Now list all the things you do for fun and the knowledge, skills and abilities they require.

4. List what you do as a volunteer or as part of your community and the knowledge, skills and abilities needed to accomplish that.

5. List things you used to do as a volunteer, maybe when your kids were younger. What knowledge, skills, and abilities did you need for that? Are those assets that are still part of your repertoire? How could you reclaim them?

6. Make a master list of the knowledge, skills and abilities you've listed in steps 1 - 5. These are you intangible assets.

7. If you want to take it all the way to "peace of mind," go through your master list and write out all the ways you could use each thing on the list as gainful employment.

Going through this exercise can alleviate some of the anxiety that comes in facing a downturn, especially on a fixed income or when you are relying on the stock market to pay your bills. But there is another benefit to this. Looking at all the things you CAN do sometimes triggers a realization of what you WANT to do, downturn or not.

Defining your intangible assets can help calm your fears about dealing with economic uncertainty. But don't be surprised if you end up launching in a whole new direction for the long haul because of what you find out. Not because you need the money. Because what you discover is so exciting you can't ignore it.

Copyright (c) 2009 Mary Lloyd