Capitals

a look at the things we bring to the table

In last week’s article, I mentioned that I moved. I left Dallas for The Middle Of Nowhere, Texas. I can leave my home, turn right, turn left, take another two lefts and end up right back home. The entire drive is about 2 miles and takes about 10 minutes. 

I grew up in the same house in Dallas for the entirety of my childhood. When I left to go to college, it was the first time I had ever moved. Then, 9 years later, I moved again, to the Pacific Northwest. And 4 years after that, I moved back to Dallas. 

Dallas is where the foundation of my life was laid, and when I went back, it was with blazing determination bordering on hubris. Of course, I was dealt a hand that made my weaknesses and personal shadows glaringly obvious, and therefore, my second run at living in Dallas was not the fiery success I dreamed of.  It was a series of difficult and uncomfortable lessons, not the least of which was a lesson in capital. 

Capitalism is a buzzword these days. In general, when it comes to the conversations surrounding our systemic performance, the term capitalism gets thrown around as a synonym for money, but there are several types of capital: financial, natural, produced, built, cultural, human and social, to name a few. 

A more accurate synonym for capital is assets. 

The assets I’m concerned with here are the less tangible ones: social and cultural. If you move around a bit, you’ll notice the differences in these things in different places. 

Dallas, for example, is heavy on social capital. It’s what neighborhood you come from, who you know and how these relationships bridge to create opportunities. 

Baton Rouge has an overabundance of cultural capital, and if you are born there you are blessed with tradition and heritage that has been passed down for hundreds of years. It’s thick in the air, and even as an outsider, you’re welcomed into it.

Regardless of what type of intangible capital is most prevalent where you live, it’s important to remember  these assets are valuable, and stand alone as forces unto themselves. You cannot run a business without money, true. But you also cannot run a business without people, and what people bring with them are these lesser appreciated, understated forms of value. 

It’s kind of like that saying about marriage you’ve heard your mother say your entire life: “when you marry someone, you’re marrying their family.”

When you hire someone, you hire all the connections they have, all the ideas they have and the culture from which they come. Perhaps this way of thinking is unpopular; after all, in almost every job I’ve had, I’ve been told to “leave personal stuff at the door.”

But there’s a difference between bringing baggage and bringing in assets. 

In a country where value is often imbalanced, where a large percentage of the population is obsessed by what famous people are doing and things like appearances, do we really understand the value of social, cultural and intellectual capital?

When’s the last time you heard the term networking? That’s the verb for social capital. A big part of my job is networking—forming bonds with people who will return to the restaurant, or with whom I will forge a lasting relationship.

I think  a large part of why these types of capital get overlooked is because our overarching culture is obsessed with money, and therefore financial capital is given all the attention. This, in turn, informs the way we think about value. 

We are taught overtly that we are to decide what to be when we grow up. 

As I am now grown up, I would like to ridicule this line of thinking. When I was first asked what I wanted to be upon growing up, my answer was “a ballerina or a cop.” No joke. 

I may have been off on the specific career paths but I did have  one thing right. No one is just one thing. I explained this to my niece several years ago. 

“Aunt Leslie, what are you?” She was seven or so, and catching her drift took me a couple of seconds. 

“What do you mean, what am I?”

“I mean, you’re grown up. What are you?”

Heart sinking, and confused as to why, I had to think for a moment. There, within the walls of my human body, I found the source of disappointment. I felt like a failure. 

How silly. 

I answered her, “I’m lots of things. For my job, I’m a bartender, but I’m also a writer, a friend, an aunt, a sister, an artist. I’ve been lots of things, and I bet I’ll become even more things. What about you?” 

She thought for a moment.

“I want to be a backhoe driver.” 

The perfect answer. 

It’s no wonder we’re obsessed by our titles and the money we make at our jobs. We’re fashioned to be employees from a young age, tailored to see value as a dollar sign and told those things that hold arguably more value than anything monetary are actually worthless  because they can’t be bought.

I believe the opposite. The intangible forms of capital hold more value in our personal lives as well as our professional lives. And I don’t think I’m alone in this sentiment. I think that in some sense we’re beginning to see a pivot toward upholding more diverse ideas of capital. And as the value of a dollar fluctuates and prices rise and fall, perhaps this will give us something steady to hold on to.