The Social Currency
Did you know you have access to a limitless currency that is more valuable than any piece of paper or Crypto Coin?
It’s called your sociability. It allows you to develop connections, manifest ideas, and can give you access to an abundance of opportunity and options you wouldn’t have otherwise.
If invested correctly, that is.
You (and everybody you know) has, what is essentially, a social bank, and it’s how this currency is traded and exchanged.
Think of the people you call friend for a minute. I mean those you can really count on, go to for just about anything, knowing that they’ll have your back.
Why do you think that is?
Is it bonds built over time? Your reliability to one another?
Well yes, it is, but it’s more than that.
Ultimately, it’s your level of investment in one another. That’s what really separates a “friend” and an “acquaintance” from one another.
Your friends are the people you’ve exchanged the most value with. You buy them lunch because their short on cash, and they get you next time. They help you move that couch and you both struggle for 20 minutes trying to figure out how to get it through the door. Now, when they need to move a refrigerator and they call you to help, you’ll be there to do so.
If you always helped them, and they never helped you, I’d wager you wouldn’t stay friends for very long.
It’s this push and pull, this give and take, this exchange of our social currency that creates trust, and when trust is created, bonds are strengthened, and when bonds are strengthened, friendships are formed.
The human being is a self serving creature, every last one of us. You may give to others, you may go out of your way for others, but innate in us is a degree of selfishness. A “what can X do for me, how can Y help me get ahead” mentality. This is not a bad thing, not at all. In fact, it’s what keeps us alive. If we didn’t worry about ourselves, our own well being and our own survivability, we probably wouldn’t have lasted nearly as long as we have.
And you can use this trait to your advantage, not only to benefit yourself but to benefit those that interact with you as well.
You want something from somebody, I guarantee it. Be it a job, a relationship, a recommendation, we all want something from somebody, for it is only through others that we are able to make things manifest.
Have an idea for a business? Awesome, enough people have to like it for it to succeed.
Want to be a successful entertainer? Great, enough people need to enjoy your entertainment for you to go far.
Want to be a world renowned novelist? You need to write a story that compels enough people.
So the question is: what do you bring to the table? How are you providing the other person (or people) with value? What are you doing for them, so that they can do for you? What’s something they want that you can help them achieve, so that they, in turn, can help you achieve what you want?
You need to think about this when dealing with anybody and everybody. Family, friends, business partners, clients, you need to consider “what do they want, what do I want, and how can we help each other get closer to our goals in this interaction?”
Now, does this mean you should stop doing things for others without expecting anything in return? No, of course not. There’s a balance here you need to achieve, as there is with everything. You shouldn’t think people will only do things out of self interest, but just that they will most of the time. Being aware of this will allow you to navigate any interaction with any other individual better, and will not only help you become a more socially aware person, it will also raise the value of your exchanges.
Become aware of your social currency, your time and your mental and emotional investment. This is what is truly valuable, this is what the world really runs on. It isn’t money, we can make more money. Time and attention, however, are finite. Once they’re spent, they don’t come back.
So value yours, and use it wisely.
Like this? Check out more of my work here:
The Gym - A Place For Mental Clarity
The Notion That Knowledge is Power is Wrong
An Introduction to Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Pt. 1
Practical Applications of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Pt. 2
