How to Build a Network

Let me tell you something about a video I watched recently. One of those rare ones you stumble upon when you're not even looking, and somehow it feels like it finds you exactly when you need it most. It’s the kind of video that doesn’t just fill your head with motivation for five minutes. No, it lingers. It sinks into your mind like a seed, whispering that if you actually apply what you hear, your life might quietly, patiently, and irreversibly change forever.

The story comes from a guy who didn’t have the easy setup most people dream about. No silver spoon, no backdoor connections, no lucky head start. It was just him and his mom, figuring things out one hard day at a time. And yet, at just nineteen years old, he cold-called his way onto Wall Street, landing a job at Goldman Sachs. Later, he would go on to raise millions for his own startup, pulling in investments from the top venture capitalists of our time. When you hear a story like that, you can’t help but ask: what made the difference? His answer is disarmingly simple. It wasn’t luck, or a one-in-a-million genius move. It was realizing something most people never truly grasp: your network is your net worth.

And right when you're thinking, well, that's easy to say if you already know people, he cuts through the noise with the real question: what if you have nobody? What if you're just some kid with no contacts, no prestigious school to name-drop, no money to flash around? That’s where the beauty of this whole approach begins. He doesn’t just throw clichés at you. He shows you, step-by-step, how you build something priceless from absolutely nothing, using only time, patience, and a little bit of courage.

The first thing he hammers in is that it all starts with mindset. He paints a picture you immediately recognize — you, staring at your phone, scrolling through endless emails and notifications, barely reading anything before deleting it. Promotions, cold sales emails, random messages... gone in a blink. Now he asks you to imagine your dream connection — that mentor, that CEO, that investor you secretly wish you could meet. They’re not just scrolling like you. They’re ten times busier, ten times harsher with their attention. They are flooded with noise. So if you want even a chance to stand out, you can’t be more noise. You have to be value. Immediate, unmistakable value. Otherwise, you don't even exist in their world.

That’s the foundation. No connection will survive without value, whether that value is business opportunity, positive energy, emotional support, or simply making their life easier. Once you build your mind around that truth, everything else you do becomes sharper. Now the question is no longer "How do I reach them?" but "How can I help them?"

From there, he shares a way of thinking about people that feels so natural you wonder why you never saw it before. When you’re starting out, think in two layers. First, the people within reach — the classmates, the alumni, the mutual friends. Those are your nearby islands. Then, just a little further, the dream connections. The ones that feel a little scary to even think about approaching. You don’t start by building a bridge to the furthest island. You hop from island to island, from reachable people to those slightly out of reach, using the strength of your earlier connections to reach the next one.

When you do reach out, most people blow it completely. They send dead-cold emails, robotic walls of text, filled with generic fluff. He laughs at this — and then shows you how it’s really done. You research the person deeply. You find what makes them human. What makes them light up. You connect with something real, whether it’s a shared hometown, a team you both root for, or something they wrote or created that genuinely moved you. And then, you send a message that’s not just a request but a moment of human connection. You don’t send them a novel. You don’t waste their time. You drop a message that is crisp, personalized, and easy to read while they are doom-scrolling. And you accept, humbly, that most of your efforts will be ignored. That’s the price. But every few messages, someone will reply. And one reply can change everything.

When the reply comes, when the meeting happens, it’s not time to be mechanical or stiff. It’s time to be human. You start with small talk, not because weather reports matter, but because energy matters. You feel their rhythm, you let your own guard down, you connect. And when it’s time to move into the conversation, you come armed with thoughtful, specific questions — questions that prove you cared enough to learn about them, to honor their journey. You don’t ask, "What do you do?" You ask about the hard choices they made, the battles they fought, the projects that defined them. You ask with curiosity, not calculation.

And then, like sliding a note across the table at just the right moment, you ask the most powerful question: “Is there anyone else you think I should meet?”This is how the chain reaction begins. One connection leads to two. Two lead to five. Five lead to ten. Before you know it, you're invited into rooms that your old self wouldn’t have even dared dream about.

But here's the real trap, the one that trips up almost everyone. People think that getting into the room is the finish line. It’s not. It’s barely the starting gun. Building a real network isn’t about first impressions. It’s about consistency over seasons and years. It’s about showing up with reliability. Being the person who always delivers, who doesn’t vanish, who doesn’t fake energy, who doesn't show up only when they need something. It’s about nurturing relationships the way you water a tree — small gestures, thoughtful notes, quiet moments of generosity that build something sturdy over time.

And the simplest act, he says, is sending real thank-you notes. Not the corporate ones. Not the copy-paste LinkedIn templates. Real notes. Real words. Thanking people for something specific they shared. Following up because you meant it, not because you’re hoping to extract something. Checking in when they win. Checking in even when they don’t. Being there like a real friend would be.

When you do that, something strange and wonderful happens. People start rooting for you. Opportunities start popping up that you never applied for. Rooms start opening that you never knocked on.

But the final insight — and it’s the most important one — is this: while you’re building your network, you have to be building yourself. Because knowing powerful people only gets you so far. You have to become powerful in your own right. You have to be someone worth knowing.

That doesn't mean pretending to be something you're not. It means working on your craft, building your own brand, documenting your journey, even when it’s cringey and awkward and no one is clapping yet. It means starting where you are with what you have, without waiting for permission.

The real goal is not just to know important people. It’s to become the kind of person that important people want to know.

And you don’t have to wait for that moment to arrive. You build it yourself, brick by brick, day after day, conversation after conversation, act of kindness after act of kindness, awkward video after awkward video.

If you do, if you have the patience to stick with it through the invisible seasons when nothing seems to be happening, the life that’s waiting for you on the other side will not just be bigger. It will be unrecognizable compared to the life you are living right now.

Shoot your shot. Build your value. Stay kind. Stay real. Play long-term games with long-term people. Let time, karma, and compounding do their magic.Your future self is already out there, waiting for you to show up.