The Education of Millionaires - Michael Ellsberg [41]
■ INVESTING IN YOUR CONNECTION CAPITAL
So, if you want to recruit powerful mentors and teachers to your team, the secret is giving. Giving. Giving. Support them. Figure out how you can help them, and do it. Be the water beneath them, pushing them up the fountain. Be enterprising about it—figure out ways to give and to support them that will blow their mind.
And, while you may hope to get something in return, you must always do it with absolutely zero expectation of getting anything in return. The vibe has to be one of giving, not taking. Simply be grateful for the opportunity to help someone who’s doing amazing things in the world. Very likely, it will come back to you (it always does, in my experience). But you can’t focus your attention on that, or it doesn’t work. Focus your attention on how you can be of service.
In my stories about connecting with Eben and Bryan as teachers, I highlighted examples of two different kinds of things I was able to give them. These two things, which I’ll explain in detail in a moment, are both examples of what I call “connection capital.”
Capital is something used to create value, which itself is not depleted significantly in the creation of that value. (A hammer is used to create a house, but is not significantly “used up”—the way nails and wood are—in the creation of that house.) In a capitalist society, she who owns the most capital is the wealthiest and has the greatest means to become wealthier still.
Some people spend their time amassing financial capital— cash, stock, bonds—and real capital such as buildings. In turn, I’ve noticed that many people I interviewed for this book spend an inordinate amount of time, effort, and money investing in the growth and maintenance of what I’ve called “connection capital.”
Connection capital is anything that can help you expand your network of connections (your “tribe,” as Seth Godin calls it), and is not significantly used up in expanding this network. The two biggest forms of connection capital are (a) your already-existing connections and (b) your ability to give good advice.
Your Already-Existing Connections. I connected Eben to Annie, who turned out to be one of the most important people in his whole life. I couldn’t have done this if Annie wasn’t already in my network. As a result of this connection, Eben became a tighter part of my network. I connected Bryan to Eben. I couldn’t have done this if Eben wasn’t already in my network. As a result, Bryan became a tighter part of my network.
It’s one of those rich-get-richer, need-money-to-make-money kinds of situations. There’s no denying it: the bigger your network is, the bigger it becomes. The more connections you have, the more you make still. For a simple reason: the more people you have in your network, the more they connect you to other people, and the more people who want to join it. Lots and lots of people want to be connected to Elliott Bisnow because he knows lots and lots of people.
This is the snowball effect in action; once you get a good network going, the growth can be fast and dramatic. In fact, no other asset I know of can grow so quickly. Because it’s comprised of people and of caring. And people, unlike dollars or bonds or stock shares or globs of gold or factory machines or plots of land, talk to each other and connect each other over the things they care about.
Elliott Bisnow held his first, small ski trip in 2008, just two and a half years before I am writing this. Now he’s at the helm of one of the greatest business networks on the planet. “Bisnow’s ascent to the mobile tech elite happened so fast even he is surprised,” a Washington Post profile about him said in