There’s absolutely no secret to what I’m about to tell you. People have been doing it for years, and they will continue to do it for years to come. There is one thing I learned to do that has increased all of my opportunities including romance, business, and money, and that’s this: Networking.
Networking is all about adding human resources to your life. The more resources you have, the more options you have. The more options you have, the more you can do in your life. “Human resources” are those people that know things that you don’t know, and have access to people you don’t have access to.
Building my personal and business network has helped me do things I wouldn’t have imagined otherwise. There are jobs that came my way that simply wouldn’t have happened had I not known someone in the field I was interested in. Sometimes I didn’t even know I was interested in a certain field, but because someone in my network told me about it, I became interested.
Networking has brought me friendships and romantic relationships. It’s helped in so many ways that’s it’s funny to think that it’s actually something I tried to avoid most of my life. Yup, I’m an introvert, so meeting new people doesn’t appeal to me as much as the typical extrovert. Most of my life has been working and living very isolated from the rest of the world.
That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy meeting new people and mingling, it just means I didn’t typically reach out to make connections with others. What this did was put the whole weight of the world on my shoulders. I felt comfortable being alone or with one other person most of the time, but this put more pressure on me to figure things out on my own. Sure, I learned a lot but I also missed a lot of opportunities.
When I got online about 15 years ago, I discovered the world. It was this moment that I realized I didn’t have to face the world by myself because there are many others who I could learn from and tackle problems with. The past two years has been the most educational, because I started The Overwhelmed Brain. I couldn’t have started something so big without knowing people who each had a bit of knowledge or wisdom to share.
I’ve met online entrepreneurs, podcast hosts, and other individuals just trying to carve their own path in the world who are trying to go at it, hoping to succeed. The problem I witness over and over again however is that they are not making connections. They go at it alone trying to save money and end up spending lots more time and money than they needed to, to try to get ahead.
But there’s a simple solution: Networking! That’s it! Just meet other people, and you’ll expand your resources and intelligence by the number of people you meet. The more people with different backgrounds you meet, the more your collective intelligence increases.
It’s all about people. Everything you do in this world will involve someone else in some way. Someone had to make the clothes you wear, someone had to grow the food you eat. People are your power source and resource for almost everything you need to accomplish.
My advice is to reach out and connect with other people, build a network! You are going to be just what someone else needs, just like you’re going to meet others that will be just what you need too.
After a few days, I had epiphany. I realized that networking has been the most major contributor to my own personal growth and success throughout my life! For one thing, people reflect who you are by their behavior towards you so the more people you connect with, the more you learn about yourself. Also, people act as a “conduit” to all the things you want in life because they are all connected to their own wealth of people and resources themselves.
Sometimes, it really does come down to who you know in order to get what you want in life. Life doesn’t have to be a struggle all the time. Add more people to your life, and you add more options. In fact, that’s my definition of true wealth: Having options.
When you know more people you are truly wealthy. Have you ever landed a job, met the lover of your dreams, or received an opportunity that you wouldn’t have otherwise because of the people you had in your network? If so, leave a comment below. I’d love to hear about it!