Business Secrets Podcast Episode 15: Your Network Is Your Net Worth

This is a transcript from the Business Secrets Podcast With Robert Kanaat. Click here to view and subscribe on iTunes

Hello and welcome to another episode of Business Secrets. My name is Robert Kanaat, founder of wanderlustworker.com, the premier online destination for all things inspirational and transformational. Thank you so much for being here with me today.

I am right now in a place called Tučepi, Croatia. It’s a little bit further down south from Split. It’s pretty much a beach community which is just epic and amazing. This morning I woke up and all the birds are chirping. I’m on kind of like this farm. It’s crazy. It’s got like this private pool, and it’s super cool. It’s like this three floor house, and the views are just epic. This morning I woke up, and wow I was blown away. So I just wanted to share that with you guys. I don’t know if you have children – but I travel with two toddlers, and it’s definitely challenging, to say the least. But I’m grateful that I could be here and spend the time here, and just simply enjoy it.

Today what I wanted to talk to you about while I’m out here in Croatia, is something that’s pretty important. Because it’s a quote that is revolutionary. I know that it’s changed my life in – significant way. I want to kind of give you the backstory of this quote, and tell you kind of where I heard it first. Then I’ll kind of explain some action items on what you could do to implement this into your life.

So the quote is, “Your network is your net worth.” So the first person that I ever heard this from was David Sharpe. You guys know about my experience with David Sharpe is, I interviewed him for Forbes, and we ended up becoming good friends. It’s pretty cool, because I can just reach out to him and ask some questions when I need to. He’s definitely one of the most inspiring entrepreneurs that I know. He’s recently built an eight figure business called Legendary Marketer. Before that, he built up Empower Network with another business partner. He built it up to 170 million dollars in sales. If you listen to a previous episode, I kind of talked about this a little bit.

But I wanted to tell you about what David would say to me, and he would always just say, “Your network is your net worth.” That kind of stuck with me. Because it was funny, because he was one of the first people that I reached out to after Russell, to kind of interview for Forbes after my business collapsed with my business partner. So it’s funny because I found a lot of similarities in David’s journey. That’s probably why I related to him so much.

The cool thing about this quote is, it’s probably one of the most powerful sayings that’s out there anywhere. When you say, “Your network is your net worth,” the question is that – who do you hang out with, and who do you spend your time with, right? So you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. So if you’re always complaining that your life kind of isn’t really meeting up to the standards that you hold in your mind, check out the people that your’e hanging out with. Are you hanging out with people who have lower standards than you? Are you hanging out with rock stars, right? Who are you hanging out with? Because if you are the smartest guy or girl in the room, you’re in the wrong room. So if you’ve ever heard that saying before, it’s so true, right?

When it came to David Sharpe, it’s crazy because I felt like he brought a lot of value to my life. Even though like I reached out and did a Forbes article about him, I even did an Entrepreneur Magazine article. Included his Legendary Marketer– Not only his company, but also like the events that he’s doing. He does these incredible events. He’s probably one of the most gifted live speakers that I know. He just has this like ability to sway and convince you, and to really embolden and empower you. I’d say he’s up there with the likes of Tony Robbins. I’d say like – David Sharpe in the next five or ten years will be kind of like a Tony Robbins, in my opinion – and I hold Tony Robbins up like really high, like on a pedestal.

So anyways, so the whole point is that if you’re hanging out with kind of losers, then you can’t really expect to be a winner. The hardest thing I think though is, when you’re hanging out with certain people, it’s really difficult to go out there and expand your kind of network, right? It’s difficult to go hang around with more popular people, or I should say, “more successful people.” That’s really, really hard. Like for me for example, I was an introvert. So going out there and meeting really, really successful and inspiring entrepreneurs, that was really hard. But I had a conduit to do that, right? Writing for Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazine, and contributing to those platforms. It was easier, because there’s this transference of trust.

It’s kind of like – you go out there and you meet somebody, and you’re introduced by somebody else. There’s a transference of trust. “Hey, Robert, meet so and so. So and so is my blah, blah, blah and Robert is my blah, blah, blah, blah,” right? So like that person is creating a bridge of trust. Because if you already implicitly trust the person who’s introducing you, then – and that person speaks highly of you, then – and the other person of course, then there’s this natural bridge. It’s called a transference of trust. So for me, for example – a lot of people trust Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazine. So it’s easy, because there’s a transference of trust. If you’re writing for those platforms, if you’re contributing to those platforms – there’s a transference of trust.

So the difficult thing is – if you are hanging out with people who don’t kind of meet up to the standards of what you want in life, how do you change that, right? How do you change that? So I went from a guy who was just sitting behind a computer, and literally I did not want to meet anybody, okay? I didn’t want to be the face, I didn’t want to be vocal. I didn’t want to be out there. I didn’t want to put myself in front of anybody. I just wanted to sit in front of a computer screen and code and write, and that’s all I wanted to do.

So to kind of shift the mentality, it took a pretty epic failure for me. But I don’t think that that’s what it should take in life, right? So if you’re sitting there and asking yourself like, “How could I meet new people? How could I hang out with more inspiring people?” You have to put yourself out there, right? So not only did I write about these people, but then I started going to the Masterminds. With the Masterminds, you begin making newer and more lasting connections. For me, the Masterminding is really the key, it’s really the conduit.

So you can either spend ten years working your way up, trying to meet these people. Or you could buy your way in. If you can afford to buy your way in, buy your way in, right? If you can go to – for example, Russell Brunson’s Inner Circle Mastermind. I know that he is completely tapped out and sold out, and like there’s a massive waiting list – so you probably can’t get into that one, but there are several other Masterminds. For example, War Room Mastermind is definitely one of the best. War Room is Roland Frasier, Ryan Deiss and Perry Belcher – the digital marketer guys. You’ve heard me talk about Roland Frasier before in the past. Roland – I just owe so much to Roland Frasier. But his War Room Mastermind is epic, and I’ve made some great connections there as well.

So as far as getting out there to meet people, networking events are great. Local networking events are okay, like those kind of like city council or business council – whatever you want to call them. Those are okay. But I think that you have to kind of reach out, kind of expand out to where other people will be like – more successful people will be. Joe Polish has something called The Genius Network. Genius Network is absolutely terrific as well. All these are about $25,000 per year to join.

Now I know – if that sounds like a lot of money, I assure you that the best investment that you can make is to invest in yourself. You just cannot go from zero to hero without getting in the room with these people. If you can get into the room with these people, I mean it’s just epic. It’s incredible. So, “Your network is your net worth.” The connections that you make, that you bridge in these events – I mean– For example, for me, it could potentially be worth billions of dollars. It could be worth billions of dollars. So you could be worth millions of dollars. Whatever it is, like in your mind that’s a lot of money – it’s worth that.

So I would say that if you are not going to these events, if you’re hanging around people who are pushing you down. If the people around you, when you talk about your goals – all they say to you is like, “Man, come on you can’t do that. Who are you kidding? Do you know where you’re from?” Or, “You don’t have the money for that.” Or, “You don’t have the talent for that.” “You don’t have the connections for that.” It’s so annoying to me when people around kind of try to bash and berate another person just for having goals.

To be – trying to be inspired, and trying to make a change in their lives. It’s like – what does Tony Robbins call it? The Tall Poppy Syndrome. They try to cut you down when you grow too tall. If that’s happening to you in your life – if you have those kinds of people around you, you’ve got to make a change, right? I know that people invest in cars, they go and they get loans for cars and they get loans for houses. There is no better investment than an investment in yourself. So go out there and find a way that you can get into the room with these people, okay? Find a way to do it.

I know that the money is out there – and if you want to find it, you can find it. If you were really committed enough to finding it, you can find it. I assure you, there is no better springboard than getting into a room with these inspiring entrepreneurs. It completely changed the game for me, and I know could completely change the game for you. If I hadn’t started putting myself out there and going to these Masterminds, all the incredible stuff that is happening in my life right now wouldn’t be happening.

It was really expensive to travel to these places, to stay and do all these other things. But I’d literally made the sacrifice. I committed to it, and it’s changed my life. I know that it can change yours. If you can put yourself out there, and if you can put yourself in the room with these people – you never know what can happen. So just have an abundant mindset, and just go out there. Try to meet people. It’s really, really hard, but you should try to break through those fears. I know for me breaking through those fears was really, really difficult.

But it’s not the same thing when you’re at these events. Meeting people when you’re actually in a Mastermind – it’s a lot easier than say approaching a person who’s speaking on stage, and you just went to some random event – it’s just really, really hard. It’s just – I’d find that extremely hard to do. But in these events, you’re kind of like – you’re almost like peers. Yes you’ve bought your way in, so immediately you’re in the room and you all become peers, right? Yes there are more successful people and less successful people in that room. But get into the room with these really, really smart people – and I assure you, your life and your business is going to change forever, okay?

So that’s it for today. Again, I thank you for being here. I thank you for listening. Thank you so much for being a loyal listener. So if you like this podcast, please subscribe. Like, comment, share – all those things. I look and listen to all of them. If you have any comments, please go to wanderlustworker.com and click on the “contact tab,” and drop me an email, and I will speak to you guys soon.