Chapter Five

6. Becoming a Powerhouse through Networking

You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

—Jim Rohn (American entrepreneur, author, and motivational speaker)

So far, I’ve mentioned two impactful conversations I’ve had with two incredibly special people: Jay Strommen and Ken Rutkowski. Both of them are total ballers and have been mentors of mine for years now. My talk with Jay meant a lot to me personally and professionally because I greatly admire the way he lives and works. My talk with Ken occurred at a time in my life when all had seemed lost, as if my dreams were about to collapse. He did more than just pat me on the back and tell me to keep fighting; he transformed my entire mindset. From that moment on, I began to see seemingly insurmountable challenges and fear of failure as opportunity and motivation.

Every time I spoke with Ken, it seemed like I learned something. I felt the same way each time I spoke with another positive and influential person in my life, Nanxi Liu, a serial entrepreneur. When I realized how valuable my time with them was, I decided to make a conscious effort to spend as much time with them as possible.

I wasn’t exactly great friends with either of them at first, but I knew they represented a lot of the lifestyle I wanted to manifest. I admired the way they talked with people, the way they ran their businesses, the way they did almost everything. So, anytime I had an extra few hundred dollars or was able to find a cheap plane ticket, I flew to California to hang out with one or both of them. It was my way of networking.

I would usually crash on a friend’s couch or figure out some temporary living arrangement. Honestly, I barely even had enough money to buy food at that point. (Yes, this is post-Trish time.) The bottom line is, I didn’t worry about logistics very much. I simply knew that I needed to soak up more of how they lived their lives, so I did whatever I could to enable more of their overall awesomeness to sink into my own life.

Ken is a human high-voltage generator. He calls himself a super networker, but he’s so much more than that. Presently, he runs an entrepreneurial group I belong to, called METal International. At this point, he’s made enough money to last the rest of his life, so his sole purpose is to help others achieve the life they desire. To do this, he connects people from all over the world who can benefit from each other’s skillsets and ambitions.

Ken also has a radio show where he talks to some of the biggest names in business. His mannerisms and style of communication are so incredible that he gets billionaires from all industries to appear on his show and open up about their businesses and personal lives. Everybody loves to interact with Ken. He makes friends instantly with his contagious enthusiasm and playful humor.

Dogsledding with my entrepreneurship group in the Arctic, Svalbard (The dogs were actually extremely lazy and we ended up walking halfway up the mountain.)

Nanxi has out-of-this-world intelligence going for her. She started a biomedical company in college that kept vaccines cold without using ice or dry ice. Her company was tremendously successful; in fact, it exploded—financially, not chemically.

From there, she went on to start a company called Enplug that offers software for digital displays to cycle information for businesses. They provide real-time social media interaction between brands and users. Nanxi has also started a hedge fund for cryptocurrency. Don’t ask me to explain that one, because I get a headache just thinking about it. I told you she was smart.

Beyond her superior intelligence, however, I noticed how Nanxi ran her businesses, particularly the way she empowered her team of engineers. She didn’t get bogged down in the minutiae of daily operations when she didn’t need to.

Nanxi put a lot of work into the hiring process, which ensured she had incredibly talented people working for her, and then she let them shine. It helped me to realize that I didn’t have to get on the ground floor every day to show people how to do every fucking aspect of their jobs. In fact, they probably knew how to do them better than I did anyway. Nanxi taught me all about empowerment, which was an extremely valuable lesson.

As a result of my efforts to connect more deeply with Ken and Nanxi, I’ve benefited from a lot of valuable insight from incredible people over the years. Although we weren’t super close friends at first, I consider them to be two of my very best friends today.

The Conscious Circle

As I began to see the positive impact that spending more time with Ken and Nanxi was having on my business and personal life, I took the concept a little further. I began to wonder, “What if I surrounded myself with more people like that?”

Suddenly, that idea started to take shape into a form of networking I call the “conscious circle.” What I mean by that is to look around at the people you’re spending the most time with. They could be family, friends, or coworkers, or maybe they’re the people who make your skinny vanilla latte every morning at the neighborhood coffee shop. Ask yourself if those people are helping you to become the person you aspire to be.

Through that thought process, I realized that I needed more of what Ken and Nanxi were doing for me, and less of some of the other relationships I was a part of. That’s when the words of highly influential entrepreneur Jim Rohn started to resonate. Those words, which lead off this chapter—”You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with”—meant that I should make a conscious effort to ensure that the primary people I spent time with were the ones who could help me grow to become the kind of entrepreneur, leader, and person I wanted to be.

The first thing I noticed when I began that exercise was that, in my opinion, five people wasn’t enough to form a complete conscious circle, so I extended Jim Rohn’s concept to include seven people.

Developing your conscious circle is about taking control of your own destiny. It’s about knowing who you want to become in life and making consistently good choices to allow that to happen. You don’t have to abandon anybody, but you might have to spend less time with old friends and acquaintances to accomplish bigger and better things in your life and for the world around you. The point is, you don’t have to be a dick about it.

The Circle Evolves

Approximately one year before I started writing this book, I noticed one thing in particular that was missing from my conscious circle. Faith had always been a big part of my life. Through journaling, I realized that I wasn’t as connected to it as I wanted to be.

Journaling is a great way to check yourself. By recording the various happenings in your life—both significant and somewhat routine—you give yourself checkpoints to reference. Those checkpoints can tell you if you’re on track for certain goals and objectives. By looking through my journal, I realized that my conscious circle was missing a spiritual presence.

I found that spiritual presence in an amazing psychologist and life coach named Kathleen. A friend of a friend introduced us a few years ago, and since then she has added immense value to my spirituality and mindset. I still talk to her three to four times per month, and she does an excellent job of keeping me on track with becoming the person I want to be and become.

One of the things she most helped me with was gratitude. Listening to her perspective on the connectedness of humanity and the gifts this world gives us made me so much more grateful for every damned thing I see and feel. With that sentiment working its way through my mindset, I started a new ritual, which is to announce something I’m grateful for before every meal.

Christians are very familiar with this custom and refer to it as “saying grace.” But I feel like sometimes the value of it gets lost in ritualistic prayer, which can become a repetition of words that have been recited a million times and provide little actual meaning. Rather than regurgitate a formal prayer that was written thousands of years ago, I like to say some words off the top of my head about something I’m truly grateful for, and I encourage others I’m sharing the meal with to do the same. It’s cool with me if they choose not to, but I always like to extend an invitation just in case.

Putting God back into my life was a conscious decision I made about a year prior to writing this book, and it’s had a profoundly positive impact on me ever since. Finding God again through journaling and graduating my mindset has brought me much closer to the person I want to become.

Spirituality can be an important component of your life as well, whether or not you believe in God. If spirituality is important to you, or if you feel it’s missing in your life, make sure there is someone in your conscious circle to help you with it.

Key Takeaway #7: Your conscious circle is—hands down—the seven most important decisions you will continuously make in your life. An individual in that close circle truly has the ability to help you achieve the extent of your dreams. On the flip side, they can also keep you stuck in a comfortable life forever and never allow you to achieve anything beyond your current state of complacency. Keep in mind, your conscious circle will evolve, so it’s a good idea to revisit your list at least once per year.

For some people like myself, spirituality is a necessary component. Others may feel compelled to get closer to social or political causes, environmentalism, or volunteerism. There’s a whole world of choices out there to identify with. Finding people to positively impact you with any of them could bring you much closer to the person you want to become.

Check Yourself

Take some time to develop your own conscious circle. Start by writing on the lines below the names of the seven people you currently interact with most on a daily basis.

Old Conscious Circle

1. _______________
2. _______________
3. _______________
4. _______________
5. _______________
6. _______________
7. _______________

Now, think about the people who are already in your life or the people you want in your life who could help you to get closer to the person you want to become. Take a few minutes to seriously think about this. If necessary, take a break for a week or two and come back to it. Once you have those names in your head, take some additional time to ask yourself some critically important follow-up questions:

Are these seven people the accumulation of who I want to become?

Are these seven people going to push me to accomplish my dreams?

Are these seven people going to support me through thick and thin?

Can I call any one of them at any time and be confident that they’ll answer my call?

Am I supporting these people the way I want to be supported?

Humans lean toward complacency and comfort, so the answer is likely no. If that’s the case, you need to make some adjustments to that circle for a kick start to personal and professional growth. Again, it doesn’t mean you have to be a dick about it and completely forget your oldest and dearest friends.

If this exercise causes you to discover that certain people in your life are predominantly negative influences, you’ll need to remove that sort of toxicity somehow. That could be really fucking hard, but necessary, because toxic relationships can make it nearly impossible to achieve everything you want in life. You may not need to disassociate yourself entirely, but you’ll need to minimize your exposure to them, at the very least.

There may be other relationships that aren’t necessarily toxic but aren’t as beneficial as those in your conscious circle. You may be forced to spend less time with those people as well, because it may be the only way to free up enough of your schedule to spend the appropriate amount of time with your most positive influencers.

Now, curate your new conscious circle.

Who are the seven people who are going to push, challenge, and support you to accomplish your dreams and goals? Don’t stop until you come up with seven people. (No offense to Jim Rohn, but five people is just a blip on the social radar for most of us.)

Now, write down your new list of positive influencers. Next to their names, write down specifically what you most admire and appreciate about them. Then list what you want to learn and attract from them as well.

New Conscious Circle

1. _______________
2. _______________
3. _______________
4. _______________
5. _______________
6. _______________
7. _______________

Remember, it’s your life and it’s up to you to live it the way you want.