Social Capital

This started as a comment on BostonGals blog but I realized I had more to say on the issue than just a paragraph.

The book The Bag Lady Papers tells the story of Alexandra Penny who lost her savings to Bernie Madoff and subsequently had her friends rally to her aid helping her find a job, get published and launch her art career. Admittedly I haven't read the entire book so I don't know all of the details but I don't want to talk about the exact details of her life because I don't think they are important. What is important is that throughout her life, Penny fostered and developed her social network so that when she needed help the most she had a deep pool of talented and influential people that could help her.

It's easy to berate her for coming from money or for having influential friends that helped her recover - yes she had a lot of advantages - but I think there is also a lesson that everyone can apply to their lives and that's the power of social circles. If she had not consciously developed that pool of "social capital" she would never have been able to bounce back the way she did. Did Penny have built in advantages? Yes, of course she did. But she also made a series of choices in her life to put her in a position to succeed. So, instead of dismissing her as some elite snob whose life has no bearing on yours think of the overall lessons you can learn from her story.

So what are you doing to create a broader and deeper pool of social capital? Is your pool of social capital a puddle, a lake or an ocean? And what have you done recently to make it larger?

Have you taken your boss's boss out to lunch recently to learn about the goals of your company and how you can help. If you're interested in starting a business, have you met with other small business owners to learn about common mistakes you should avoid making? When was the last time you called an old friend from school to see what they are doing? Have you hosted a diner party recently?

These are just a few examples of things you could do to broaden, deepen and strengthen your pool of social capital. Eventually everyone needs help in their lives, from the smallest of favors to the biggest of problems. When it comes time for you to call on your pool of social capital, will it be large enough to sustain you?