The Challenge of a Two-Legged Stool

Saw a picture of a two-legged stool on the internet the other day. Apparently it was designed to make us challenge the norm. And, incidentally, like the ball chairs, you can sit on it if you really concentrate. Just what everyone needs to do -- is focus on trying to sit while you are sitting. Isn’t that the opposite of the function of a chair? Isn’t it supposed to make it easier for you to focus on something else, like writing this essay?

Well, all that got me to thinking about why three-legged ideas work better than two-legged ideas. Let’s start with sports. Football teams are more successful if they work on all three phases of the game -- offense, defense, and special teams. If baseball teams only work on pitching and defense, they tend to not score enough runs to win (and the fans don’t come to the games). If, however, they also add offense to the game they become the '27 Yankees, The Big Red Machine, or the current day Giants (yes Red Sox fans, I know you have won as many World Series as the Giants, they just won last year). In politics I think we currently have the same issue. When the three political branches of government (House, Senate, President) work together (Post 9/11 for instance) we have a government that works smoothly. However, as we have seen for the past four years, when only two of the three political branches of government work together we have grid lock. So we can agree that three is better than two in many instances.

So that brings me to my thought of the day, building your net worth. If you are working on the two most common areas of building your net worth, saving and pay, you will do OK -- just like football teams will do OK with just offense and defense with their two-legged stools. However, if you want to maximize your net worth you will also look to monetize all of your assets. If you have a vacation house, wouldn’t you be better off if you could rent it during the time you and your family were not using it? Airbnb is leading the way in developing this impactful tool with room rental. Assets that are sitting idle are all of a sudden being put to use, being monetized. People are renting out their cars and personal tools. You don’t have to loan them to your neighbors with the hope of getting them back some day, you can actually list them for rental on line.

And, that is exactly what Axcelora (www.axcelora.com) is doing today in the B2B world. They are helping their members monetize the biggest assets they have… the relationships they have built throughout the business world over the course of a career. If renting out a room in your house (or your entire house) is now a multibillion dollar business, why shouldn’t leveraging your Rolodex be the same thing? If you can make the relationships you have built become the third leg of your stool, you have taken the next step to financial freedom.

So, the biggest challenge of a two-legged stool is to find the third leg. In today’s world people and companies are looking to maximize all of their assets to get a leg up. Are you?

For more information about Axcelora click here.