Little deposits add up

Aim to add to your career capital account every day

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is that we all have relationship and career capital accounts.
Just as financial wealth tends to be built up over time,

(00:25):
career capital and relationship capital accumulates over the long haul
as long as you keep putting in more than you
take out. But the good news is that many little
deposits do add up. Many years ago, I wrote a
short e book called What the Most Successful People Do

(00:46):
at Work. One of the regular habits I identified was
to pay in career capital. I wrote, is a convenient
way to think about the sum total of one's experience, knowledge, network,
and personality characteristics. When your career capital level is high,

(01:06):
you can cash in your chits at any point for
a new situation, to take your career to a new level,
or even to take a break without destroying your ability
to earn a living. Successful people develop the discipline of
paying into this account every day. These deposits can take
many forms. One of the most straightforward is to share

(01:29):
useful information with people. If you have or create some
knowledge that someone else would genuinely find helpful, pass it along.
Tell the new hire about everybody's favorite coffee shop and
about how to get his expenses reimbursed more quickly, tell
your colleague who's working with a new team about her
new manager's little quirks that you've picked up on from

(01:52):
a past project. You can also share articles or social
media posts you find, as long as you know the
other person will find them useful. If you think, oh,
I have just got to send this to Jack, then
you are less at risk of tilting towards spam. You
can also share useful information more broadly. Start a newsletter,

(02:15):
whether that's internal or publicly available, post on LinkedIn, or
start a podcast. Every episode will be another deposit in
your account. You can also make deposits by doing favors
for people. Cover for your colleague if he's got a
family conflict or if he is slammed with a different project.

(02:37):
Introduce two people who you think can help each other
with their permission, of course, give a testimonial for someone,
or refer business to someone you think would do a
good job. Praise someone for a job well done, ideally
in front of other people. Deposits also take the form
of being genuinely good to work with every bit of

(03:01):
work that is done to a high standard and that's
turned in on time is like more money in your account.
People understand that it is a gift when you make
their lives easier. Just like with money, you don't have
to put in a ton at a time to see
it accumulate. You just have to do it consistently and

(03:22):
do it for a long time. So think about what
you could do today that would make a little deposit
into your account. To keep yourself accountable, you might make
a list somewhere of little things you have done. You
might note what you have seen others do too. Think

(03:43):
of the people that you want to spend more time
with and that you want to work war with. What
makes them compelling, what makes you want to do what
you can for them? And why doesn't that feel like
a burden. Chances are they have made a lot of
deposits with you, and over time we can all do

(04:05):
the same. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening,
and here's to making the most of our time. Thanks
for listening to before breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,

(04:27):
or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app,
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