The previous blog, Why We Need Money, presented how the Intellectual, Network, and Financial capacities are established. This blog will focus on interdependencies of the three capacities and discuss why the Network is critical.   

The three capacities albeit project independent, stand alone qualities that each of us can separately acquire, they are nonetheless interdependent in that we require presence of at least one in or order to generate another. The most essential of them is the Network Capacity (NC).

Reason 1: The NC addresses the most critical of our vulnerabilities - sustenance at birth. At birth and throughout childhood, we are completely exposed and reliant on others for food, water, and shelter. We must have guardians to nurture us through self-sufficiency. Whether we are born in a mansion, or a modest home, or a cave, or even on a Central Park bench, we need NC to provide us the essential resources.

Reason 2: The NC is our initial information source. We develop the base Intellectual Capacity (IC) through chores, assignments, and experiences, as the members of our NC teach us skills for self-sustainability. If there were no competition, we would just stop with that basic knowledge. However, since all of the essential resources are finite, we continuously compete with others for the same basics. To stay competitive and improve our chances we therefore grow our capacities.

Reason 3: The NC is a critical factor in elusive environments as IC and Financial Capacity (FC) alone under those conditions do not always translate into resources. We require access. Whenever our immediate NC is not able to provide the essential resources, we must expand our capacities. For example, if we are hungry and freezing from cold and our parents are not able to provide food or warm clothes because they don’t have them nor have access to others who have them, then we must expand our NC through exchanging either our personal IC or FC. For instance, if we know how to rebuild engines in a town where there are many people with mechanical equipment, the IC that we possess is of benefit to our neighbors and may attract some of them with our required resources to exchange our IC (skills) for their reserves.

The Difference Between Social Connections and Network

We are required to have IC, FC, or additional reciprocal NC to exchange for resources. Having just access to a lot of people - alas Facebook contacts is marginally useful. These are simply social connections. Disadvantaged people linked with others in the same situation, extend access to resources minimally if at all. People and Partnerships come together successfully when the members bring reciprocal value that is greater than each unit independently. That’s a real Network.