Chapter 1: Build Your Network
“The idea isn’t to find oneself another environment tomorrow, but to be constantly creating the community and environment you want for yourself, no matter what may occur.” – Keith Ferrazzi
Jim Rohn once said that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. While this is true, you’re also the summation of all the people you spend time with.
Some have more impact on your life and some have less, but everyone you interact with shapes your understanding and experiences of the world. If you’re consistently hanging around people with a negative outlook and low motivation, you’ll begin to mirror their thoughts and actions. If you’re consistently hanging around people with love, ambition, and passion for life, than you will be one in the same.
It’s safe to say that everything positive in your life comes from the experiences you have and the people you share them with. At the end of the day, that’s all that matters emotionally: experiences and people.
It’s instrumental, then, that you surround yourself with the right people so you are encouraged – or pushed – to live the life you want.
The Average of Great and Greater
“Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are – you need one. “ – Jane Howard
While some think of their network as purely professional or purely personal, it’s important that we don’t have a distinction between the two. You should be striving for network integration, not network balance.
This means that the people you interact with in a professional setting and the people you interact with in a personal setting both make you a better person; it means you treat everyone with respect and friendliness. This doesn’t mean that you have to go on vacations with your boss, become best friends with your clients, or even become business partners with your affable yet clueless friend.
Regardless of whether it’s a business relationship or a personal relationship, it should be enhancing your life in at least one area. As the great Ralph Waldo Emerson mused: “Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him.”
Ensure that the people you surround yourself with have a quality that you wish you had. It could be anything: exercising more, reading more, working less, traveling often, being more outgoing, being less worried, showing more love, etc.
When you begin to view a relationship through this understanding that you will become, at least in part, some of that person, it makes who you spend time with some of the most important decisions of your life.
Each member of your five person “inner-circle” needs to have a quality, or qualities, you strive to have.
Look at yourself and be honest. What are your five greatest weaknesses? What are the five areas you’d like to improve the most? Surround yourself with people who emulate each one of those qualities.
For me, my greatest weakness used to be a volatile sense of motivation. One day I would be the most productive person on the planet (save for Tony Robbins, most likely), and the very next day I would sleep in, forgo my to-do list, and lose all my momentum from the day before. It didn’t matter if I tried to be an early bird or a night owl, I couldn’t sustain motivation.
I wish I could say I identified this and then went out seeking someone who could help me. I can’t. Instead, I met one of my current business partners through my stint in tech. For better or for worse, he was so motivated that he would wake up at 3:30am, five days a week, so he could accomplish everything he wanted to do for the day.
While I will never wake up at 3:30am (although that could be a self-limiting belief), he encouraged me to keep a consistent morning schedule of a 5:30am wakeup, followed immediately by the gym.
That’s all it took!
By having my business partner as my support system, and by committing to go the gym with him every morning, it forced me to methodically maintain my momentum. I really had no choice. No matter how motivated I was or wasn’t, I knew my alarm was going off, I was getting up, and we were going to meet for a workout.
I was able to adopt that trait from him, and my life has been undeniably better. Not to mention the business we helped start was a direct result of the schedule we kept. Sometimes that’s all it takes: showing up.
One more example for you:
My best friend from high school got married young. Well, young by my standard. Although we remain friends to this day, our life paths couldn’t be any less similar. While I’m a motivated self-starter fueled by the fear of crushing self-doubt, he’s more of a corporate guy, with a lovely wife and home in San Francisco.
On the surface, it would seem that we have nothing to gain from each other. Not so!
Whether he knows it or not, he’s the most levelheaded person I know. He uses extreme logic and reasoning when making any life decision. I, on the other hand, love to take risk and go with my gut. There are many times, however, that I could, and have, benefitted from a more even-keel approach.
Because of our friendship, his levelheadedness has rubbed off on me, and I now try to approach all of life’s situations with a logical, open mind. I like to think that, in turn, some of my bravado and desire to take on risk has rubbed off on him, leading him to live an increasingly dynamic life.
The points of the stories above are twofold:
One, your network doesn’t – and shouldn’t – be filled with people like you. In fact, it should be filled with people very unlike you. It should be made up of people you want to become, even if it’s just one small aspect of them.
Two, your network should happen naturally. Identify what it is that you’d like to improve, and put it out to the world. Be open, honest, passionate, fun, and full of life, and you’ll attract other high achievers into your life.
Follow the Leader, Push the Led
What’s just as important as the people you surround yourself with is where those people are in life.
I’ve learned that you should always be cultivating a network comprised of: mentors, peers, and mentees.
Mentors are those who pull you forward. They’re people above you in social status, career, love life, and overall goal achievement. They’ll show you the ropes, but they’ll also inspire you to do more, dream bigger, and believe in yourself.
I think of my mentors as my ceiling. It’s human nature to only believe something is possible when you’ve seen someone else do it. There’s a reason that the 4-minute mile was once thought impossible, and then in the same that year Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute threshold, two other runners also broke the 4-minute threshold. It’s because once others saw someone do it, they believed they could do it too.
The more successful your mentors are, the more belief you’ll have that you can achieve anything and everything in life you want.
A great example of this is my friend and colleague. While I was crushing it in my professional life, my love life was admittedly lacking. I couldn’t seem to find someone who resonated with me on both an intellectual and physical level, and who also fit in with my career aspirations.
My colleague, on the other hand, who is my senior by five years, had a great job and an even greater fiancé.
He showed me that marrying the coolest person in your life wasn’t only possible, it actually worked! They have a phenomenal relationship to this day. It’s through him that I learned not to settle in my love life, and always strive to be with someone great (hey, if you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with, your significant other better be awesome).
Peers are those who you compete with, albeit a friendly competition. They’re your friends who are on the same footing as you in life, and who also have the same ambitions.
While mentors pull you forward, peers are a measuring stick for yourself. They’re the people you want to keep up with, who encourage you to stay on the narrow road to success. Think of my business partner and high school friend, above.
Mentees are those in your network who are younger or behind you in terms of life achievement. They are the hungry young guns who are looking to put a similar mark on the world as you, though just coming around to the idea of success and the true meaning of Wealth.
Mentees are important because they’ll tell you if you’re slipping, or losing focus on your lofty goals. While mentors pull you forward and peers are a measuring stick, mentees push you forward.
When and if you’re ever complacent, and you see a mentee of yours coming up in life, it will re-motivate you to keep going, and you can even borrow some of their young, unbridled passion if yours is ever waning.
My three younger siblings are all great examples of mentees. They’re all passionate and success-driven, but they each do it in their own way.
My sister is an artistic type living in Paris. My first brother is a musician living in LA. My second brother is the youngest and still in school, but has aspirations to join the ranks of the entrepreneurial.
How do these three different life paths fit in with my own personal network? Well, perfectly!
Just because you’re an entrepreneur doesn’t mean you need to surround yourself with business people. It’s the passion of my siblings and their willingness to live life in the way they see fit that drives me.
When I see my sister move to Paris, for example, with no friends and no firm plan, it forces me to look at my own life.
Have I fallen into a life-haze? Am I stuck in a routine or rut? Do I still live my life to the fullest, with consistent and impactful new experiences? If the answers are no, then I know I need to course correct, thanks to my mentees.
Value for Free
The ultimate value gained from networking, and therefore your emotional wealth, is not to receive value, but to give it.
While your network does wonders to increase your skills, abilities, and emotional wherewithal, it also directly increases your success. The key, however, to realizing incredible success and emotional riches, is to focus on the success and emotional riches of others.
In the timeless words of Dale Carnegie: “You can be more successful in two months by becoming really interested in other people’s success than you can in two years trying to get people interested in your own success.”
By giving to your network, with no ulterior motives, you’ll paradoxically receive from the same network. Every action has an equal reaction.
Focus on spreading positive emotions and a positive mindset. Make your happiness the cornerstone of your network and the center of your connections. Understand what makes the people in your life tick, both personal and professional, and help them get what they want.
“You can get everything in life you want, if you just help enough people get they what they want,” the great Zig Ziglar reminds us.
Networking, building a system of positive people, and then adding consistent value to their lives, is the true meaning of Emotional Wealth, and allows you to truly become emotionally rich.
“Stop driving yourself – and everyone else – crazy thinking about how to make yourself successful. Start thinking about how you’re going to make everyone around you successful.” – Keith Ferrazzi
This is the definition of Emotional Wealth.
And hey, if it’s money that ultimately drives you, there’s a reason why Keith Ferazzi calls it “relationships for revenue growth.” Your net worth, remember, is directly proportional to your network.