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How Does Your Capital Grow?
If the thought of trying to develop five types of capital seems a bit much -- relax. When you approach situations with the right attitude, you'll find all your capital increasing as you focus on influence and not concerns. Below are two examples of how that happens.

Your friend Jill recently lost her job as a project manager, and she asked you for help. You don't know of any job openings, but you still want to help. Use your social capital to check with friends on Facebook to see if they know of anything. Make sure you and Jill are LinkedIn so she can benefit from your contacts in her job search. If you're volunteering somewhere to use and improve your own skills, be sure to talk with people there about leads for Jill. By using your social and knowledge capital you may be able to give Jill the help she needs. In the process, you've added to your own brand capital and perhaps have even increased your social capital through new contacts.

Every project manager at work is under pressure to keep costs down and get more done. You decide to do a payback analysis on your current project to find ways to use less money and get better results. In the process, you check out Facebook to talk about what you're doing and see if anyone else has some ideas. You also decide it's worth the investment in an online payback analysis class to be sure you're as up to date as possible. Once again, you've used a few different types of capital. By looking to use less money, you're developing your financial capital, by taking the class you're increasing your knowledge capital, by checking your social network you're building that capital and by getting better results with less money, you're increasing your brand capital.

Building all five types of capital is truly about focusing on influence and not concerns. Learn more about your capital in this month's first article, Capital Isn't Just Cash, and this month's Know How Network.

Your friend Jill recently lost her job as a project manager...Use your social capital to check with friends on Facebook to see if they know of anything.