Take a some time to reflect on some of the ideas in the Life Inventory and Eight Forms of Capital lectures.

Click here to access the master copy of the reflections worksheet.

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I've found the Eight forms of Capital to be a very informative paradigm when trying to holistically take stock of my career and life ecosystem. But the thing that has made the biggest difference is when I discovered how to map the exchange of various forms of capital in our day to day projects and interactions.

The Seed Idea behind Trade Mapping is that every time you are involved with a project you are making a trade. Every time you say yes to something, whether it's going to grad school or getting a dog, choosing what to eat for lunch or breaking up with your boyfriend, there is a cost, usually involving multiple forms of capital, and also you're (hopefully) receiving back multiple forms of capital as well. Every interaction, every project, every relationship, is a trade. Not only that but most people don't even have a clear idea of what they're actually trading or whether the resource exchange is actually benefiting them.

Trade mapping is a simple visualization of the resource exchange being made in any given situation. Actually being able to see the trade on a piece of paper can clarify whether a trade is working for you or not. We make exchanges every day. Being able to map them will give you clarity about which trades are serving you; it allows you the ability to focus on the right parts of the right projects.

Click here to access a blank version of the Resource Exchange Map to fill out on your own.

What I love about resource exchange mapping or what I also call trade mapping, is that while it can get very elaborate and complex, most maps that you draw, you could do on the back of a napkin or a scrap piece of paper in just a few minutes. And this is the basic template that I use. As you can see, it's very simple. You could just replicate this on any scrap piece of paper that you have.

This is one that I color coded based on which areas of capital were an abundance (green) deficit (red), or somewhere between (this yellow or kind of reddish yellow here).

I'm just going to give you an example of how this works to show you how quickly and effectively it can be used to make a decision. This was what my resource map looked like a few years ago. I was teaching a lot of music lessons then, and finances were definitely my weakest link. I live in a town called Beacon, which is about an hour and a half outside of New York City. And I used to live in the city, so I have a lot of creative friends who do all kinds of cool things that they invite me to once in a while.

And I had a friend who is having a dance performance, and it was kind of a big deal. They had gotten into a bigger venue than usual — and they had invited me to come see the opening of this dance performance! And so normally that would just be something I didn't even have to think about. Go down to the city, spend the weekend, see my friends, see some other friends, have a great weekend, and that would be it.

But I realized, hey, maybe I should take a second and map this.

And so I'm just going to show you what that process looks like: So in the center here, I'm just going to draw N-Y-C to represent this weekend in New York. This is the thing that I'm mapping to see whether it's a good idea for me. And the first thing that I do is draw arrows that represent the cost of what this is all going to cost me. So, first I'm just going to switch over to a red color here and draw a little arrow.

For instance, financial (capital) is going to be the biggest cost (red). And just to keep things simple, I'm just going to grade how much is this going to cost me on a scale from one to five. Going into the city on the commuter train round trip ticket is going to cost something like $30. Plus, I'm going to have to take the subway a bunch. That's another $10… $15… maybe $20 for the weekend.

Great. My friend is performing in a more legit venue than they ever have before. But that also means it's going to cost more; the tickets are maybe $40. And afterwards, we're probably going to want to get drinks and maybe a meal or two. Maybe I'll be late to something and I'll have to get a cab.

All of a sudden, the cost of this little weekend in the city to support my friend — even if I'm staying overnight at a friend's house and not having to pay for anything like that — the cost starts getting well over $100, maybe even close to $150 or $200.

That’s not a million dollars. Putting this at 5 would be a million dollars. But it's also not an insignificant cost, especially since financial capital is my weak link. So I'm going to make this three or maybe even four out of five for financial cost.

Another cost is I have a few students who want to have makeup lessons since they missed their lesson earlier that week. And if I stayed in Beacon for the weekend, I could go teach those makeup lessons and get that money. So that again, is going to be another cost over here that's accounted for and what it cost me. I'm not going to make that money I otherwise could’ve made had I stayed in the city.

There’s also going to be a tiny sort of hit on my reputation as a music teacher if I don't do those makeup lessons. It's an insignificant cost but it still should be accounted for. That's an example of maybe like one out of five in social capital.

Also, just back at that period of time, I had some health issues going on, and I was already stressed about money and stressed about medical bills and going into the city. While it can be really fun, it always kind of takes a toll on my body… walking around everywhere, taking the subway, staying up late with my friends, etc.

So that's an example of maybe a two or three out of living capital.

So these are the costs that are going to come out of my sort of capital store houses here. Now I'm going to switch to green because this is a trade. I'm also going to hopefully get something out of this trip. Social capital being the main thing I get: getting to see and support my friends, even kind of getting brownie points for going to this big deal performance of theirs.

At the same time, there's going to be dozens and dozens and dozens of people who are supporting them, so their attention is going to be divided between all those people. It's not going to be that significant thing for me to be there. Like, I could probably also get brownie points for just sending a quick message and saying, “hey, I'm really proud of you.”

So, you know, this is maybe a one or if I’m generous, a two in social capital. Also cultural capital.

On one hand, it’s not that significant, it's just one performance. But on the other, it's cool to be part of the cultural and artistic conversation that my friends are having in this big Metropolitan area and being part of that is kind of like a two out of five.

And then, of course, there’s experiential capital. I've been to a million dance performances. This isn't like cr ucial experience that I need for my own art or something like that but it's a fun thing to do. That's an example of a one (in experiential capital)

So this is kind of the trade that's being made right here. And remember how I said, normally, I wouldn't have had to think about this, and it would just be obvious — like, of course, go support your friend!

Well, looking at this map, it’s interesting to notice that the largest cost is coming out of my biggest deficit area down here in financial capital. And the biggest gains that I'm getting are going into these areas that are already green. So normally this would have been something I didn't have to think about it.

Since I drew this map though, I decided to send my friend that text, say, “hey, I'm really proud of you. I hope your performance is really amazing. Great work.”

And then stayed in Beacon for the weekend, taught those makeup lessons, used some of this living capital time that I saved, and focused on figuring out what my next gigs are going to be that are going to feed this financial capital.

So, that’s a quick example of how resource exchange mapping can work. A very quick and dirty example. But hopefully you can see how this would be a really helpful way of getting a perspective on maybe the facets of the trade that you're making that you wouldn't have seen otherwise.

Quick visual number three here: This kind of mapping can get very complex.

There can be multiple sort of modules in the middle here. Don't worry about this right now. You don't have to understand what's going on here. I just wanted to show you kind of the scope of where this can go. It can get even more complicated than this, but the more complicated ones can give you even more insight.

And in my longer course on resource exchange mapping, we go into a lot more of this stuff and give you more examples like this. Another part is this, capital exchange principles. I have eight capital exchange principles I've developed that help analyze what's working and what's not working once you've drawn your trade map.

So there are things like draw(ing) from abundant pools and fill deficit pools.

As you could see in that ‘New York City dance performance’ example that would not have been drawing from my abundant pools… and it would not have been filling my deficit pool. I was, in fact, doing the opposite of that. This sounds so obvious, but are you doing it? That's what the principles are about.

So hopefully this is a helpful introduction to resource exchange mapping, or trade mapping. And I hope that this gives you enough to go try out drawing one of your own.