Being Invaluable

by Chad Hellwinckel

As the recent market convulsions continue, I’ve been thinking about wealth and how to make a living in a changing world. And I realized that really there may not be much difference between a person who goes to work for a multi-national company and a person who decides to enter an eco-village. They both may be simply looking for opportunities to become invaluable.

When I talk to college kids looking out at their future, they are trying to find that place where they are invaluable. They have options laid out before them by their parents, their teachers, and society at large. But the options that they see are quite limited. They become trained as accountants, salesmen, electricians, or business managers, and then go out to find who will pay them. Most will go anywhere in pursuit of the job. “Pay” is only realized by most people today as monetary capital. Yet social capital, environmental capital, spiritual capital, cultural capital, or intellectual capital are rarely considered in their equation.

But a few and growing number are seeing that there are other ways to be ‘paid’. If you make yourself invaluable to people and places that have these other forms of capital, then you could continue to be ‘paid’ even if the monetary capital is not as plentiful and free-flowing. These other payments might be access to things like food, clean water, shelter, security, and entertainment.

These other forms of capital, and how to make yourself invaluable to the holders of these other forms of capital should be considered by anyone looking for a living in a changing world.

My friend Frank brought up how chiefs in tribal arrangements were wealthy not in material possessions, or even their ability to harvest material possessions, but by the web of relationships that made the chief invaluable to many members of the tribe.

How can I make myself invaluable to these other forms of capital and thereby build reserves of them? How can I teach my child to see and value these other forms of capital? I believe monetary capital may not be as forthcoming in the decades to come, and those that take a new look at what being ‘invaluable’ means will find it easier to find a good and meaningful existence.

Source: Ethan Roland & Gregory Landua, A Whole System of Economic Understanding