[Music] but the dynamic introduction speaking at Google in front of a room of people many of them virtual would never have happened to me a few years ago now every week I'm talking with Eric Schmidt might have heard of him I assume this is a good crowd for that one then I'm off to Howie Mandel or Chelsea Handler or Kobe Bryant but when I was a kid I had I don't even I think now they call it Social anxiety back then it was just you're a big weirdo and I think a lot of people can
I kind of identify with me when I talk about this I hated school because I felt like the attention there was attention on me that I just didn't want it any sort of attention on me was negative and so I started skipping school a lot and it wasn't the cool kind of skipping school where you're singing on a parade float like Ferris Bueller it was the kind of skipping school where at 5:00 p.m. your parents come home and you're playing video games in your underwear on the computer and so I didn't have this very outgoing
dynamic life as a kid and when I got to college I realized that this system is not working for me it's not getting any better it's not an anxiety disorder or anything like that I just don't like I'm an introvert you might say now there's personality tests for that and all of my Friends from college went to the University of Michigan they all had these awesome Bright Futures they would go work for the biggest tech company which at the time was AOL so they were headed to Virginia and little tech company called AOL or they
were working in finance you know they were off to New York and they had to buy different jeans to fit in with all the cool guys in New York and I needed some time to figure it out I know some people probably can Identify with that as well and what that means is didn't really know what the heck I wanted to do with my life and everything else sounded kind of boring and my parents you know my mom was a special ed teacher at a public school my dad was an auto worker they had jobs
that were great for their time but I didn't really want to follow in those footsteps so I was pretty uninspired and I thought that there would be some sort of magical lightning bolt that would Help me figure out what I wanted to do with my life and that system wasn't working for me either one day I woke up right in early again it's College so it's probably 2 p.m. maybe 1 and I walked into Best Buy I needed a new disc man with anti skip technology and mega bass and I ran into a buddy of
mine I was like hey I don't know what are you doing for the summer he's like oh I'm working here I'm actually gonna Be working in the computer department why don't you start working with me here and I thought great I just sort of accidentally stumbled my way into this job and he said well you know you can't do what you do right you can't build computers like you do at home you can't help customers with problems you need to sell music first and I said for how long and he said well I don't know
maybe like the first two years so I saw my bright future go down the tubes in front of a Life-size cutout of Britney Spears and I decided that that system wasn't gonna work for me either I didn't want to sell CDs I mean the guys I was working with or would have been working with at that point were all sophomores in high school and I just graduated from college like what what's happening I've been wronged by this system that was supposed to deliver me the inspiration to find a perfect job and then hand it to
me on a silver platter and so I did what a lot Of guys do when they run out of career options and I became an attorney so law school was tricky for me as well right I went there thinking good I can fake my way through a geometry test good I can fake my way through a social studies exam I don't even know what that subject is anymore if it even still exists but that was my strategy through high school college my strategy shifted a little because everybody was pretty smart at Michigan and luckily they
had discovered Drinking for the first time so all I had to do was show up to class and do a little bit of the homework and I was in the top 25% because I wasn't partying all the time and waking up at noon anymore and so I finally was able to get into a great law school because I worked my butt butt off and that place either I'd lost my competitive advantage of being smarter than a lot of the average kids in my high school or in my middle school but everybody was hard-working Once I
got to Wall Street and that was a huge problem that was a big problem for me because my other competitive advantage which was a work ethic that had also evaporated right walking in on the geometry test and winging it and doing and that was great and then out working people and undergrad in law school that was great but now this is Wall Street everyone here is really smart everyone's really hard-working I'm gonna get fired It's only a matter of time now we know this is called impostor syndrome because all of you may have had that
at one point or another we're like okay I'm working at Google don't blow it make keep a low profile maybe they won't notice I don't belong here slip through the cracks I see people giggling cuz they're like yeah I still have that I totally get it right or at least when you started you had that that's very normal it turns out That that's actually a trait of high performers you know who doesn't have impostor syndrome teenagers because they know everything and nothing could possibly be new for them they don't have when I give this talk
or a similar talk at a high school they're all like never happened to me don't know what you're talking about whenever I go to like Harvard Google Apple they're like oh I have that is that ever going to go away kind of maybe usually a little bit but Not all never completely in fact I asked Eric Schmidt the same question on an episode of my podcast and he was like I don't know if I should admit that I still have this sometimes this is the guy who ran the place for a long time I looked
him up on Forbes not doing too bad right still feels this from time to time so that's a big deal and that's a big indicator that this is this is a good sign even though it feels like a bad one and when I got hired on Wall Street the guy who hired me his name was Dave and he was never in the office and I thought this guy is on to something because if I can figure out how to never be in the office then they won't find out that I don't belong here it and
I'll have plenty of time to figure out how to do this lawyer thing and then by the time they're like where's Jordan been for the last nine months I'll come in and I'll know what I'm doing and then maybe they won't fire me that was Literally my strategy I wish that was a joke so and I knew Dave was smart right because he was from Brooklyn and he had a tan so obviously he knew something that nobody else knew and this guy was never there and he had like a limp he'd come in sometimes with
a limp and I go oh what happened your knee I was doing jujitsu and then I went to Brazil and then I did was playing golf and I aggravated this injury of my knee and I thought okay so wait a minute he's Not just working from home he just appears to not do any work really somehow and he was supposed to mentor me and on Wall Street what that means is there's a checkbox on an HR form somewhere and they're like you have to mentor this one new guy everybody else is going to see Blue
Man Group going out to really fancy lunches this guy with my mentor was never in the office so I didn't get squat and HR kept asking me have you been mentored yet by Dave and I Was like no I've never seen him or if you have seen him once in the elevator and then he ran away with a bum knee and so it's like I don't not getting a mentorship program here what's happening so they were like I don't know the exact email exchange but I think it was dear Dave can you please come in
once this summer August July doesn't matter mentor this guy whatever that means to you because he came in one day and I remember cuz I went down to meet him and The managing partner he was like the CEO of the law firm he was in the elevator and he goes oh what's going on Dave's in the office that's how little this guy was there that the managing partner thought something joked around that something might be wrong because this guy actually showed up he goes I'm here to mentor and he said it with such just absolute
defeat that I couldn't wait for my session and I didn't go to Blue Man Group I didn't go to McCormick and Schmidt or Morton's Steakhouse we went to the Starbucks in the basement of the office building and he said all right ask me anything you want and he's hammering away on his Blackberry and answering emails and I said well how come you're never in the office but you're a partner and a lot of you know you make a lot of money and he goes who said that who said I'm never here and then I make
a lot of money and now I'm just like backtracking Because I'm like oh I'm gonna get fired at Starbucks like this was a mistake I should have just kept my frickin mouth shut everything would have been fine and I said well it's kind of you know the word around here is that you're never around but like you you must work from home or something right he goes sometimes but mostly I generate business for the firm and that was like Greek to me I had no idea what that even meant that changed the way that I
look at work Forever because what does that mean you generate business for the firm how does how how are you outside not in the office generating business for the firm and that really was that made no sense to me and he said well I have friends all over the place at Goldman Sachs or Lehman Bear Stearns or whatever investment bank we were working with his clients and if they are out biking doing jiu-jitsu golfing going to a charity thing playing Squash whatever I just join them because my value outside the office is more valuable there's
more value there than than inside the office I don't worry about my billable hours which is how most of us as lawyers make money for the firm I don't worry about my billable hourly bonus because I get paid a percentage of the deals that I get for the firm I was like well can anybody do that and he said yeah we would love to have people generate business for the Firm what does your dad do and I was like ah not anything that's gonna bring a million dollar deal to this financial law firm and he
goes well you just have to be cool man just network and you know you'll be fine you'll be able to bring in business that was really good advice and also not advice at all because what does that mean go network be cool man like it gee if I'd known I could just do that would I have become a lawyer in the first place Probably not right and I love my lawyer buddies but I'll tell you being cool not one of the things that were usually known for and have being outgoing charismatic and having lots of
friends around us also not something that most attorneys are known to be naturally good at and so I again had lost my competitive advantage but I had the seed planted in my head where I thought okay if everyone's working really hard and trying to outwork each other and Everyone's trying to outsmart or be smarter than the next person he's telling me to generate business and he's one of the youngest partners in the firm this is kind of the secret third pathway that nobody's talking about this whole generating relationships building connections this is like a secret
third path and if I get good at this then by the time I am fifth year or something junior level associate senior level associate I will be able to out of such A huge advantage of bringing in business for the firm that I won't have to worry about what other people are starting to do because I will have a five year head start they're already gonna these other colleagues of mine they're already gonna be are hard-working as hard-working as me or harder they're already going to be smarter than me as least that's how it felt
but if I get a really good runway and I don't talk about this very much then I have a distinct I get my competitive advantage back and maybe I don't get fired that was again my actual strategy Dave wasn't this most skilled lawyer he probably wasn't even the smartest lawyer he just was the best-connected and he did that very deliberately so that he could write his own ticket it was his relationships that brought in the business and that was brand-new for me I thought you worked your way up to the top dot dot dot Country
Club Network That's how I thought that worked until I met Dave it turns out it's actually the other way around you network your way until you're valuable enough to be made partner Country Club optional right his people skills were the rarest in the firm and since they were so rare they made him one of the most valuable people at the firm entirely and so that's when I realized that in order to succeed inside a system inside a corporation inside a law firm I had to work outside The system entirely and that finally after 25 years
or so of Education and working had finally clicked for me and that was amazing that changed the way that I looked at work forever and now I know that in the professional sphere and in the personal sphere for that matter the strength of your relationships translates directly to opportunity flexibility and prosperity right the more money you make the more networks and relationships you have the more Money you make the more flexibility you have in your job like working from home like Dave's becoming a partner early is a clear advantage and a clear opportunity that most
people don't have how many people like networking not many right like one or two hands always go up when I ask this a lot of people they would do it yeah they do one of these I totally get this I'm also one of these right most people don't like networking I get it There's a fundamental difference between people that are like oh I like this I enjoy the process and people that hate it and that's what is inside your head the image you have of networking for most of us what it is is you walk
into some place and you're like all right I'm at a networking mixer gonna drink some stale punch and get like a hard cookie or whatever and stand in the corner and then someone's like hey where are you investing your retirement funds you're Like no right you know what's happening it's just used-car salesman type stuff over and over again and eyeballing the door and then you're like I'm gonna check my email or pretend to because everybody around me is being really weird and wants something from me so nobody likes that nobody likes being a target of
that and nobody wants to be like that because you're all good people and being like those people sounds horrible so instead we just don't Network at all we don't generate relationships at all because we decide it's disgusting and hateful and dirty and it's a dirty word and we don't like talking about it and what we're gonna learn a little bit today is how to leverage connections to hustle opportunities or build opportunities for yourself inside a corporation or a company in a way that is doesn't make the other party or yourself feel like you need a
sulfuric acid shower after The fact and we'll turn something that most of us dread into one of your largest competitive advantages everybody's always heard that it's not what you know it's who you know but when we hear that or when someone says that or when we say it usually we throw some stank on the end of it right because it means we didn't get an opportunity that we thought we deserved and someone else did or it means you're not networking enough and you need to get that under Your belt before you can be in our
management group or join this project very few people ago I have an unfair advantage and I'm really appreciating that right now very few people will admit that that's what building strong networks is it is an it is a fair but seemingly unfair advantage that you've put a ton of work into and people that are well-connected we often assume it's unfair because we think they were born into it and I'll get to that in a second But I think we all know that even inside companies like Google for example brilliant ideas can fail if you don't
get buy-in from the people around you I don't know if that's ever happened to anybody in this room whenever I say that there's a lot of people who kind of like shamefully look down at their iPad or their sorry their Chromebook and they they they don't want anything to do with that right and when I first started learning about networking like I said I Thought you were born into a secret Club you went to school you had a little blazer yet shorts you had to pull your socks up that was how you got your network
or like you're hit too close to home for some people over here I think or you had good neighbors you went to a fancy private school if you're born into it I get it for those of us that were not we have to teach our own kids this stuff right their parents may be taught them What I'm gonna teach you now if your parents didn't do that you got to do it for your own kids otherwise they're gonna grow up and go yeah it's all about who you know and put stank on it and have
this talk about how other people have an unfair advantage if you can marry into it highly recommend it also but I don't think all of us have that kind of foresight unfortunately I certainly didn't with intentional application of these skills though you Can create a better Network than somebody who was born into it and the reason for this is because they are it's the tortoise in the hare it's really as simple as that they're born into it a lot of people who are born into it don't appreciate it and when they don't appreciate it they
don't have their foot on the gas and if you go I remember distinctly a friend of mine who now works here actually we went to law school with me great guy I remember Thinking I will never know or have as many connections as this guy he's popular in his family knows people I'm never going to build that kind of network now though I look at all those people similar to him that I met back in the day and I go how do you not know more people you've lived here for a long time how do
you not have these opportunities the reason is because I've had my foot on the gas for a really long time for 10 years 11 years with these Types of systems you can easily surpass these types of people and it's not a competition I just want to outline and highlight the idea that if you look at people and you go well they're naturally good at this or wow they have a massive leg up on me for this that is very very temporary if they're not working hard to maintain those relationships they often will evaporate with their
older their parents their grandparents I know tons of Attorneys that could have gotten a job anywhere and did and had tons of opportunity and then their grandfather retired or passed away and then they went oh I don't I can't just make a quick call now and get whatever I want they they learn the hard way we can build the foundation and not have to worry about that problem now networking and relationship building properly it is a way of being it is a set of habits I moved to the Bay Area from LA a few years
ago now but people that I know that grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area they'll tell me wow you know so many people I grew up here I don't I know a lot of people but you really know a lot of people again I have my foot on the gas I'm not going out and networking that's what a lot of people think this is like oh well maybe if you just go out every night and you're glad-handing that's not at all what I'm doing this Stuff doesn't turn off I'm consistently looking for opportunities for
other people and I'll get to what that means in a second with everyone that I meet I'm consistently introducing people to one another and I'll tell you how to do that in a bit as well because once you see the matrix on this there's no going back and the skills go to work for you you don't have to like get psyched up and be on and get your business cards ready and go out and network it's a Thing that just happens throughout your daily life that's the way to handle it trust me that's a lot
easier than the other way and trying to do a performance act we are suddenly networking and going to these mixers which by the way are almost universally completely useless rule of thumb never go to an event a networking mixer that's open to anyone the more curated the better and by curated I mean we're only inviting people that do AV tech for Large tech companies in Silicon Valley those are the events you guys want to go to you don't want to go to tech networking mixer at Chili's like that will be the death of you trust
me just yeah I know you've been in one or two never again right and everyone has the capacity to do this stuff how many people are introverts you took myers-briggs and you're like cool I got a medical excuse to not network so cool this talk was fun but I am an introvert INTJ I don't have to do any of this stuff I get it this is turns out unfortunately for us introverts Susan Cain who wrote the book quiet and is brilliant she found some really good science that says us introverts are better at connecting with
other people because we actually listen to what they have to say think about what they might be feeling think about what we're feeling at the time and then we use that information to connect rather than just Barging into a group of people like a lot of extroverts do and yelling and screaming about how great they are and follow me on Instagram right the introverts are actually better at connecting it just doesn't feel that way because when we're introverted we go home and recharge with some me-time like I'm not gonna go give another talk after this
I'm gonna go in my room and curl up in the fetal position or whatever and turn on an Audio book like that's what we do to recover and that is normal so it doesn't mean that you can't build this skill set it just means that the way that you rest as an introvert and recover is is that me time so no more medical excuse and your homegrown Network the relationships you create this is what keeps opportunity coming into your life at an unstoppable flow opportunities come from people that know like and most importantly trust you
they know like and Trust you and it's actually more important to be trusted than it is to be liked and a lot of people will argue with me on this but frankly I've done tons of business with people I don't necessarily like but I trust and I've done only I've only regretted doing business with people that I like but don't trust as much and I think if you think about it that makes sense you can make your friends elsewhere you don't necessarily want them to be your boss Especially if you can't trust them so by
the way this is pure job security because Dave when our firm the guy who hired me on Wall Street when our firm hit economic hard times in 2007-2008 he dipped and he went to another firm as a partner everybody else that I worked with was punished pretty much everybody was punished by the recession Dave ended up and as a partner at another firm and I know this because I saw him in the elevator after I left I Was doing the Jordan Harbinger show on Sirius XM satellite radio in New York City and I saw him
in the elevator and he goes don't I know you from somewhere and I said I don't know maybe because I didn't want to have anything yes I did from that firm that you also left and now is going out of business right I didn't want anything to do with that and also because I think he probably resented every second that he had to spend with me and that's basement Starbucks and I don't want to want to traumatize anyone most people procrastinate right when it comes to relationships they go alright I get it Jordan I'm gonna
do that but first I need to finish this project then I'm gonna build this website for my business my side hustle whatever and then I'm gonna get my business cards printed and then I but I got to design those first so that's going to take a while this this is back This is not an add-on skillset relationship development is foundational it's not a bonus it's not something you do on your to-do list you have to start early because and you'll hear this phrase from me a lot it's from Harvey Mackay you have to dig the
well before you're thirsty you don't create relationships when you need them and I'll explain why in a second but of course you all kind of instinctively know why because it's happened to Everyone and if you decide to willfully ignore this skillset you're not immune to the consequences you're just being willfully ignorant of the secret game that is being played around you and that is a huge problem because you can bury your head in the sand all you want say I'm the best coder at this place I've got the most tribal knowledge of this project or
this particular sub skill set if you don't know people that can help you get your next item or next project Or next gig or move up the ladder you will eventually be obsolete you can work and be the best at something but if you don't have opportunity coming from your connections you will always run into problems I my inbox on the Jordan Harbinger show I give advice every Friday my inbox is full of people from tech company a that are the number one whatever security whatever it is person and they know this thing back and
forth and someone they hired four years ago is Their boss now and they're having a crisis about it and the reason is because their manager says we just you're not much of a manager you know you don't really have that skill set we're looking for but we really love you in this basement cubicle coding and COBOL or whatever it is right like we love having you here for that so you're not going anywhere Jim and they're like that's the problem so you have to be open to these opportunities and the way That you do that
is by making connections not by hoping that lightning strikes now I've always loved giving little practical exercises and my show is full of these practicals and one that I will give you right now this is called lay off lifelines and what this is imagine that you get laid off today and that's terrible and unfortunate but who are the ten or so people that you would contact to solicit their advice on what to do next Who are the 10 or so people that you would contact and say what do I do yeah your parents okay next
but who is it's the college professor that advised you on your master's thesis or whatever it's somebody that you met at your old job maybe your old boss that you lost touch with when you came here to Google maybe it's a friend of yours that you know is running a startup but you know he's really busy and you're really busy and Life gets in the way who are those people that you wish you had kept in touch with make that list now and then reach out to those people also now before you need anything because
if you don't have anything on your agenda this is a lot easier to reach out to somebody if you don't have if you don't need anything or want anything from them you actually just want to reconnect it's a much smoother process because who here has gotten like a text phone call email Whatever from someone in high school and you're like they're like hey Jordan what's going on you're like Amanda ku and you're just like oh wait Herbalife or Scientology what's it gonna be Herbalife or Scientology like what's going on it's gonna be something and then
they're like Oh Saul you're up there's so many cool things love your pics on IG anyway I'm running this amazing work from home business and I want to loop you in on it and you're Like new it no thanks bye and then you you you went from not knowing them anymore to never wanted to talk to them ever again and that's really toxic and a lot of us don't realize that even something that's a little bit more sympathetic okay a lot more sympathetic like hey I just got laid off where's your plays hiring that's more
sympathetic but what's much more sympathetic is reaching out to somebody you talked to six months ago even if it Was just an email maybe three months ago and you say hey speaking to this look I just totally ate a bad sandwich here at my company and I was wondering if you knew of any opportunity that seems a lot more realistic and a lot more frankly friendly and honest and authentic than somebody who calls you offers you a quick little piece of value or just asks you for something out of the blue and so what this
layoff lifelines exercise does is it reenacted relationships and this Is a good thing to do it'll take you maximum half an hour including making the list and finding their contact information and reaching out to 1012 fifteen people I highly recommend that you do this and it will make you feel a lot better and what happens is you end up with a lot more opportunities because and this is my next little I guess bold bullet if you're taking notes opportunities are usually over the horizon and what that means is you don't Know what kind of opportunity
you're going to get from connecting with someone I want to move to LA as a while ago now I pre Oberer there was no over back then I had a toothache and I was looking for dentists around me and everyone that I called was like hey we don't take your insurance or I don't even think I had insurance Who am I kidding it was like 2009 I didn't have insurance I just got out of the law firm I started the Jordan Harbinger show and I couldn't get this toothache fixed and everybody else is like oh
we don't take new patients whatever so in desperation and poor privacy settings I post it on Facebook and somebody I don't even know responded and was like my aunt has an office a dental office near you do you want me a collar I said yes please I'll do anything other than going to the ER and tying a string around it and like slamming the door which is what I think was gonna happen if I go to the ER and So this guy helps me find a dentist through his aunts she fixes my tooth opens up
early like the next day doesn't overcharge me and I'm like oh my gosh anything you need man let me know I owe you huge he goes well right now I'm a barista but I love graphic design and I have my portfolio do you need anything I didn't need anything I know that it would be really convenient if I did but I didn't need anything I'm like well keep my ear to the ground for you Because you know I owe you once at least I can do so a few days later probably more like a week
two weeks later a friend of mine who does client designs website designs she goes do you know who designed your website do you know anyone do you have this in-house or do you outsource and I said ours is in the house but I happen to have this portfolio from this guy I know he's really hungry her designers kept bouncing for better gigs and I said this Guy he's making coffee right now but he wants to do graphic design she's like good I can probably afford him in that case he ended up with an $80,000 a
year job full-time quit working at the cafe and making coffee to go work for my friend the reason he got that opportunity was because he helped me find a dentist on Facebook I've never met this person even today I have never met them in real life if he had decided to help me only Based on what I could do for him he never would have done it and if I had reached out to every graphic designer that I knew that I'd ever met in my whole life before that based on my friend needing something from
me I couldn't have provided him I met him because he helped me without the attachment to anything in return and that's the key you know sit down and think about this list when you get home spend 30 minutes you never know Who you can help and who might help you in this horizon the fact that opportunities lie over the horizon we can't predict the outcome of a given relationship we rely on what we call what I call a B G always be generous or always be giving you have you seen Glengarry Glen Ross ABC always
be closing always be closing business that's like go get them always be trying to get hustle someone to give you something this is always try to figure Out how to help someone else you don't have to create free graphics for their website all you have to do is make introductions that's what makes this scalable right I'm not mowing everyone's lawn because they can't afford a landscaper I am creating connections between people that come into my orbit so if I know someone that's like man I really need a computer security expert I'm not like man I
better learn computer security and help my friend out that's Not what's happening at all what's happening is I'm thinking about who's in my rolodex and connecting those people to see who that who can help that is scalable I can do that a hundred times a week if I wanted to it doesn't cost me any much of any time at all I can do it at an airport gate most opportunities lie over the horizon we don't find them unless you're practicing ABG helping other people without the attachment to anything in return Always be generous also this
is logistically easier because think about this you go to a party with your friend and you you're looking for a new job and you go and talk to somebody and they're a lawyer and you're like oh I don't want to work at a law office so now what you start looking over their shoulder you're trying to find a way to end the conversation you're trying to get a job in the tech sector what if you weren't looking for what was in it for you But you were just looking to hook up other people in your
network with something that could value them now you all you have to do is elicit from this terney what is he looking for clients what is he looking for a paralegal now you have options and every interaction you have is valuable for your network you're not looking at what's in it for you you're looking at what's in it for every one that you know that is a much much wider net and is much easier to fit Those Legos together your network then when you do this right becomes your value proposition it's not your particular business
or skill set so a lot of people who are maybe in university or something they'll go well I'm I'm like 21 I don't know I don't have any money I don't have a skill set I have no work experience doesn't matter if they're applying this if they can go well I know this Jordan guys like a podcast guy and he's you know he would Probably do consulting for this company that I just heard needs corporate podcast maybe I can introduce them that's valuable for me and for the company doesn't matter that this 21 year old
kid is the conduit for it it doesn't matter if it's a high school kid I don't care if he's 15 years old the relationship the introduction is what matters so you become valuable because of that this is important because it's a numbers game right and the way you Increase your odds in a numbers game is you simply keep rolling the dice so some introductions are going to yield fruit most of them won't you have to be ok with that because if you're counting on them always bringing something back to you it poisons the well and
I'll talk about why that's destructive in a few minutes but you should look like the person who's constantly getting lucky like how do you get all these opportunities how did you end up with a Talk at Google how did you end up getting featured by Apple or win that award it's about creating surface area for what might look like look but it's about relationships and I think it might be an evolved account or something that talks about surface area for luck it's very very true the more opportunity you're creating for yourself the more likely you
are to get a hit so in the next week introduce two or more people you know don't already know each other And you do this using the double opt-in introduction what that means is you start off by saying do you know that you email each party separately I mean be really clear there each party separately do you know this person know do you know this person know okay if they don't know each other you've confirmed that would you be open to being introduced to so-and-so you asked both sides whether they know each other and whether
they're open to an introduction This is important because one side might say no and if they say no then you go back and you tell the the third party or the other party hey this isn't a good time for this we can circle back on it in six months what you don't want to do here's what we want to avoid hey Jordan meet my friends Eve he's pretty cool he really wants to spend a lot of time with you and not give you anything in return and then I have to turn around and go oh
really busy just had a baby recently I Don't really have time for this right now and then he goes great I'll circle back with you every Monday for the rest of your life now I have to deal with that right I don't want to deal with that it's not fair to me so you as the third party you're doing a double opt-in it's your responsibility to find out if the introduction it's valuable if both parties are interested and if there's a no from either one it's your job your responsibilities your obligation to Handle that social
awkwardness so the other party doesn't lose face this is extremely valuable and what it does is its signals professionalism when you go to introduce people like this they will always trust you with making good introductions because they know you're not just throwing their name and a hat for everything or name dropping them to do something that's good for you right like oh I'm gonna introduce you to this person to make myself look good you're Not doing that with a double opt-in you're getting their permission first that's much more valuable it also has the added bonus
of making sure that those two parties actually connect because if you just randomly introduce people to me in an email chain and I don't want that intro I might delete it and if they don't reply then I'm off the hook but if I tell you I'll take that intro and the other person says yes I'll take that intro I am 10 a hundred times More likely to respond to that and they're 10 times more likely to respond to that as well so your success rate for those introductions goes through the roof thus helping you accrue
what we might call referral currency or social capital at a much higher rate now that's your homework - introductions use the double opt and the other side of your homework is on the other side of the equation think of a challenge you yourself are dealing with and ask Someone you know for an introduction to nobody who might be able to help you you don't have to ask them to help you you have to ask them for an introduction to somebody who might be able to help you does that make sense so far great great now
your network is unique to you I'm not going to be at this point to death because we just talked about the 21 year old kid who can make a valuable introduction but a lot of times when companies y'all have seen shark Tank right so we know that often people will turn down deals or go for specific deals because they they want to work with Mark Cuban or they could have taken in fact everyone on Shark Tank could have gotten a better deal at pretty much any VC firm anywhere around here they go to shark tank
for publicity and they go there because the Sharks are super well connected and people answer their phone calls now that's very valuable so your network is unique to you that same thing Yes it's true for Mark Cuban it's just as true for a 21 year old college student who happens to know all the best graduates from his class at Stanford who are gunning towards computer security positions that's a good person to know a recruiter wants to know him the company is that he's interviewing for want to know him they're more likely to give him a
job because they want to help him to help recruit other qualified candidates your network is actually it probably one Of the most important lines on your resume at that point the invisible lines I suppose at this point that exists because when you start you're equally valuable or non valuable is another person with zero days of experience but if you have zero days of experience and you know thirty other people really well and they'll take your call that is a huge value proposition that is unique to you it's only yours that network other People might have
a similar one there might be people that have built an even stronger one you're the one that's sitting in front of them right there that wants that job that's a huge advantage you can bring value to somebody with a hundred million dollars in their bank account even if you're broke as a joke negative all in the red because you have a great Network full of people that they're looking to hire a choir interview doesn't matter what it Is so what you ask yourself is would you rather be irreplaceable or someone who's only as good as
their investment check right those sharks they compete over those deals and they don't say sometimes they say I'll give you more money but usually they say I know everyone at QVC well okay done if it's a product oh well I've been making clothes for 20 years at FUBU well okay I'm gonna work with you then They don't just say I'll give you 20 grand more for less of a percentage it happens occasionally but only when they can't differentiate based on their skill set or their network now now that we know who's in our network as
we're making these lists we got to figure out how to level up right and business fundamentally is people selling things to other people usually people they know like and trust and that's why country clubs exist I'm positive of this that's Why people go golfing all the time sure it's fun but mostly especially in the early stages of corporate corporatism you're you're creating relationships and that's kind of what it's build ads and everyone's maybe heard this Jim Rohn quote you only go as high as your five closest friends I'm not saying you have to ditch your
friends it's not a feel good session this is not a Instagram video I will spare you that but networking and relationship development This is one of the best ways to make sure you are surrounded with high quality people you guys work at Google this is great you're surrounded by high quality people a lot of the day but I know a lot of high performers that are really good they have great careers their personal life is a freaking dumpster fire because they live with somebody who's unemployed it plays video games all day and all they do
is complain about their ex girlfriend or Their ex husband or boyfriend and there's smoke and weed all the time and they don't go to the gym and they're dropping garlic chicken all over the floor like you know that we all know someone like that in the next day look at your appointment or challenger book over the past three to six months who have you surrounded yourself with with whom have you spent the most time are you satisfied with the influence those people have on you right because if You're not and you look at that calendar
and you go I spent a lot of time with my high school buddies and they're not really doing anything and I kind of have to pay for everything when we go out and I don't know how much longer I want to deal with this now's a good time to make a change are you happy with the influence of your friends because that's something that you can change you don't have to ditch your friends but finding out who's giving you a positive Influence and who's giving you a negative one is usually a pretty good look once
every year every other year now this is not a game you play because you want to it's not a popularity contest you're not climbing the ladder don't play this game because you want to enjoy the spoils of victory right it's important to me personally I like helping people I know you all are probably the same way don't build your network around somebody that has no Integrity I see this a lot in the this I hate this word but here we go influencer space there's all these people are like make money in real estate if you
invest in my dropshipping thing you're gonna make all this money on Amazon it's all garbage they all share each other stuff in my opinion are completely morally bankrupt and the reason that they do this and generate success is because they're willing to completely lie now it's very tempting to Go man if I just hang out more with these schmoes I can build a huge business and then later on I'll be ethical because you don't have this huge audience that's not really how this works my inbox my social life is littered with people former friends who
thought they were gonna go do something unethical for a second and then back out of it later and are still busy doing all that stuff because that's they get addicted to the Money it's really a lot easier than building something valuable and tricking people is an easy road to riches for a lot of people so don't build your network around those people people who steal from others or don't have integrity it will rub off on you you cannot you cannot like what is it don't lie down lie down with dogs you get fleas that is
never more true than an online or in the internet or in the corporate world it really is it's also This is an important exercise to do this calendar review because unless you've been very intentional about your process of filtering in the right people your life might be full of people that are more than satisfied with mediocrity and that's it's a bummer but it's really bad when you look at the new science around network effects and I wish I had this science handy but there are studies now that show that if your friends friends friends smokes
you are X percent more Likely to smoke if your friends friends friends this is someone you don't know and have never met is X number of pounds overweight you are more likely to also be overweight we really can't avoid this so when we when we look at people when we look at who we're curating an arson you have to be really careful about who's right next to you and hopefully those people are also being very careful about who's right next to them because of these network effects I'm gonna add That at some point because that
that science is disturbing to say the least and it's one of those things where you read it you go wow I really hope that's not true because it seems very unavoidable now if you surround yourself with high achievers both at home and at work you're gonna crush right and then you have to avoid those Network effects but you're gonna do a lot better and you're gonna feel a lot better it's gonna be easier for you you're not gonna Have emotional baggage waiting for you when you get home with your roommate or whatever and when you're
building relationships bear in mind people want to help you right they want to reciprocate everything that they've gotten from you this isn't metaphysical this isn't like some DVD of the secret or some other garbage that's been debunked over and over this is something that is very very measurable now people whenever somebody Helps you you often feel like I want to help them back you might not know how to do it but if you're banking social capital and goodwill people will look for opportunities to help you and if they don't you can always ask them if
you don't think this works look at things like charities they are the top performers rely on this all the time charities are loaded with the well-to-do and the well-connected high-performing institutions like this one are loaded With people that understand intuitively reciprocity I mentioned this before but dig your well before you're thirsty harvey mackay wrote this like in the 90s he's brilliant the number-one rule of your relationships in your network is build it before you need it once you need a job not effective to go looking for one or not as effective once you need something
from someone it's not going to be as effective I know people like to kick the can down the road and Procrastinate on this procrastination leads to stagnation when it comes to your personal and professional relationships if you wait it gets a lot harder and I know just you know this right who would you rather help somebody who's you've known for three months you've worked with them they've texted you every three months just wants to see how you were doing or somebody who cold calls you with the Herbalife pitch right it's a really easy Calculation to
make and waiting to build relationships only when you need them it's kind of like trying to put a spare tire in the trunk of your car after you find yourself stranded on the highway and this is a drill that I do every day and I highly recommend you do the same thing or an exercise they call it Connect four what I do is I open up my phone open up the text messaging app scroll all the way to the bottom You know those threads where it's like we had lunch one time four years ago at
a conference and then there's like another friend of yours in there you never kept in touch with reach out to those weak and dormant ties is what we call them weak and dormant network ties just reengage one two four I do one because I literally do this every single day but if you find yourself only doing it on Tuesday do four at a time you'll find that when you re engage People and I'll tell you how to do that in just a second when you when you do this you're gonna find that maybe 70 75
% of people respond and you're not going to see a lot of opportunity right away but as you become top of mind for dozens or even hundreds of people you find and I find routinely that somebody I texted three weeks ago will go hey Jordan do you still do speaking yeah why well we're looking for a keynote for our annual sales event and you're just fresh In my head because of our recent conversation great there's twenty five thousand dollars that I wasn't gonna get before sending a text instead of looking at Instagram again or being
in a Starbucks line and deciding to send those connect for instead of just killing time reading reddit's you know who you are I'm one of those people right so you want to constantly yeah you should this fly that flag so you know that this is something that it's outlook It sounds like it's gonna be tedious you think oh I'm gonna have all these ongoing conversations yeah we're it's so easy most people let's say 50/50 response rates seventy-five percent response rate you're gonna have three or four texts go by they don't want to meet up and
hang they're not gonna invite you to their wedding okay they just go hey I haven't heard from you in a while yeah nice to talk to you what's your update what are You looking for here's how you reengage I say hey whatever their name is use their name so it's not like hey friend because that's that sounds like again you know some MLM dropping in use their name say it's in a while what's the latest with you here's my quick update usually I just had a kid a month ago so I'm like this is what
happened in my life boom I have a little URL with my kids photos and they're like whoa big deal and then I Sign it with my name right because what you don't want is new phone who dis or if there are anything like me I go well if they don't know who this is then I tun just never answer and they'll never know write it that way I can forget about it so what you want to do is sign it and that way when it comes in they can pretend or search their mind for who
you are use your first and last name don't be like it's Sam somebody wrote in recently and they're like oh What's up man talking a huge update and then they get on the phone and he's like is this Sam and she's like yeah we met at this random event a few weeks ago and he's like I've been talking to a mysterious woman and I can't remember how I met you and I shared a lot of personal information and now she thinks we want to work together on something and he was a videographer and he's like
yeah this is gonna be great I loved working with you last time has no idea What who she is how they met what she wants nothing so use your first and last name it'll save you a little bit of a hassle and it will increase your response rate as well because people go oh Jordan Harbinger oh right cool yeah good to hear from you man it's been a while again this is scalable it takes about four minutes to send for text I use the shortcuts in my phone I basically just tailor it with a name
and that's pretty Much it I change it up every week it's really really easy so this is fully scalable it yields a ton of responses it doesn't take up any time that you would be doing anything else that's valuable and it will bring opportunity back to you at a very quick clip and if it doesn't bring opportunity to you it brings you the opportunity to connect those people to one another and it's a great way to reengage all these weak and dormant ties so for those of you Thinking I don't know anyone yes you do
look in that text app there's a bunch of people in there that you've lost touch with many of whom would be worth at least a text now everyone who's worked at my company the Jordan Harbinger show they get their jobs through networking I if I had a bunch more time and this was a bunch of students I'd go through the stats but the short version is the TLDR as this 80% of people find jobs through networking they don't apply on a website They don't walk in the or they don't door knock they don't know it's
always referral it's networking that's how they get their opportunity a lot of heads shaking I assume that probably happened to you either here or somewhere else so remember ABG always be giving always be generous connecting is a constant process of asking for an offering help but it's not about the rolodex it's about the action you have to make those Intros that is the key networking it's a muscle it grows with use the more you use these connections the stronger they get if you horde your network it atrophies it's not a pie where oh I used
that connection to my friend Yakka at Google I can't use it again no you want it's like a synapse in the brain use it as much as you can as long as there's value there that's how you make strong relationships so it all comes down to ABG always be giving and doing so in a Systemized way and I'll leave you the little brief story if you're not as comfortable asking for help as you are giving it because that's where a lot of us fall in it's like well I give a lot of help I just
don't ask for anything for myself I was the same way and it took me years to get over this but when I applied to law school I didn't get in pretty much anywhere I got a full scholarship to a local university in Michigan that I found out later was Owned by the family that owns Domino's Pizza and I went home and I told my dad I go I got a full ride here and he goes there's another Domino's Pizza law school you're the pizza lawyer and I was like never going to that school because I
don't want to hear that for the next rest of my entire life from my dad and all my relatives so I applied to the University of Michigan which at the time and I think still is a top 10 law school in the nation and I had no freaking Chance pretty much of getting in and I knew that but I wanted to stay at Michigan I went there for undergrad and you know a lot of attorney friends of mine and their parents they said hey if you get into Michigan you have to go like you this
is a career-making school you can get your any kind of job you want out of law school it's a big deal so I applied and I promptly got wait-listed and then they told me at the end of the summer You're not getting into Michigan have a nice life whatever those letters say and in desperation I've reached out to a lot of my buddies because they had gotten into Michigan already and I said oh man I didn't get in what should I do you know I'm gonna be the pizza lawyer and they're like well yeah that's
it's a bummer because we're all in and we thought you would be a good addition you could live with us and everything but Well I was reading on this forum there's one guy at one school some year he wrote a letter and he wrote it in like a legal argument kind of format and then he sent it to the Dean of Admissions and they were really impressed and then they let him in and he wrote this story on a forum and I was like how do I do that no like well it just so happens
we are in the class that teaches you legal writing right now so I drove up to Ann Arbor and they Showed me how to write this letter and I formatted the letter and I sent it off via email and I thought well that was probably a waste of time but at least I got to see my friends and then three days later I got a phone call and said hey I'm gonna bring the admissions committee together we're gonna meet about this but you know an unusual move man props for that no guarantees a week later
they told me that I was admitted not for the next year but the year after To the University of Michigan Law School so think about this I got into one of the best law schools in America where I didn't quite maybe have the grades definitely didn't quite have the test scores because I asked and I had other things going for me of course but I remember they had already made their decision not to let me in I asked again and I got help from my network and then I got into that law school and I
will tell you I get a reminder of just how Valuable that experience was every single month when I pay my student loans and I know that we are basically out of time we probably time for like one or two questions do you ever find it cumbersome or difficult to maintain or keep these uh connections or relationships yeah actually I did until I started using systems so using the connect for which I mentioned earlier using the CRN that contactually that I use I explain how to do this I actually I have a free course on how
to do all this it's not like a under your credit card number free it's literally just free it's all about the system's I use how I reengage how I manage all these connections it's at Jordan Harbinger calm slash course it's called six minute networking and the reason is because it takes only a few minutes per day to do connect for to use the CRM go over how to introduce yourself how to do the double opt-in intro in more detail and Also because five minute networking was taken so it's six minute networking and that's at Jordan
Harbinger comm slash course thanks everybody who came because they listen to the Jordan Harbinger show and thanks to everybody who came who didn't but now probably hopefully maybe will and thank you for your time [Applause] you
