5 ‘Capitals’ You Need to Build in Your 20s to Be Successful in Life

Your 20s are the defining decade of your life

Photo by Anna Pou from Pexels

Your 20s is the best time to accumulate your stock of capital. Capital includes anything — your knowledge, relationships, experience, etc — that becomes helpful much later in life. Most people limit capital to money, which is a terrible viewpoint to have. This is not to say that money is not important, but capital goes beyond money. Here’s a list of capital that if developed, will increase the odds in your favor:

1. Expertise (Skills) capital: This includes assets like education, training, intelligence, expertise. Everyone in their 20s needs to develop at least a skill, practice, and hone it until they are proficient in it. At a time when the traditional 9–5 jobs are no longer fashionable, developing a skill or two that allows you to live with freedom is essential for success and happiness. Thankfully, you can pick from an array of increasingly in-demand skills from writing, copywriting, video editing and design, coding, painting, and so on. With a highly sought-after skill, you can work anywhere you want and on your own terms.
2. Network (Relationship) capital: In today’s world, who you know matters. People have gotten opportunities that they would ordinarily not have if it was not for the associations, relationships, and connections they had established in the past. This is not to say that we go into relationships with people expecting to get favors from them in the future. But the fact remains that over the course of your life, a lot of the opportunities you’ll get will come from people.
3. Experience Capital: One of the most important skills to learn in your 20s is the ability to curate your experiences into a “portfolio career.” I explained what this means in a post. Beginning from high school, you should create a portfolio containing every single role, responsibility, participation, membership, leadership, or anything that you’ve ever been involved in that produced value for society. It also includes side hustles, gigs, volunteering, as well as every paid or unpaid task you were part of. Author April Rinne in her book “Flux,” describes this capital as a superpower. Why? Because by being able to curate your portfolio and see what’s in it, helps you to know how it…