--- ## Highlights SUCCESS IN LIFE = (THE PEOPLE YOU MEET) + (WHAT YOU CREATE TOGETHER). (Location 112) Your network is your destiny, a reality backed up by many studies in the newly emergent fields of social networking and social contagion theory. We are the people we interact with. (Location 113) You’ll get the most from this book if your desire to learn is exceeded only by your willingness to act. Apply the principles and tactics as you read them. (Location 132) Here are just a few things that this book will allow you to do: 1. Create a fulfilling, authentic, effective networking strategy that lasts a lifetime 2. Build and align social capital to achieve ever more ambitious goals 3. Combine strategy and serendipity to keep in constant contact with a wide network of people 4. Filter and prioritize your relationships for quality interchange that supports your goals and values 5. Cultivate a magnetic personal brand that has people clamoring to share information, access, and resources 6. Translate that brand to social media to build a devoted online tribe 7. Increase your value to your network, and specifically to your company or clients 8. Create innovative content to build a reputation as an expert and increase your online influence 9. Get “discovered” and tapped for the best opportunities 10. Create a life that you love and the network to cheer you on (Location 136) CHAPTER 1    Becoming a Member of the Club (Location 151) I realized, wasn’t only a lack of financial resources; it was isolation from the kind of people who could help you make more of yourself. (Location 183) And the rule in life that has unprecedented power is that the individual who knows the right people, for the right reasons, and utilizes the power of these relationships, can become a member of the “club,” whether he started out as a caddie or not. (Location 186) Success in any field, but especially in business, is about working with people, not against them. (Location 211) Over time, I came to see reaching out to people as a way to make a difference in people’s lives as well as a way to explore and learn and enrich my own; it became the conscious construction of my life’s path. (Location 221) I was, instead, connecting—sharing my knowledge and resources, time and energy, friends and associates, and empathy and compassion in a continual effort to provide value to others, while coincidentally increasing my own. (Location 224) connecting is one of the most important business—and life—skill sets you’ll ever learn. Why? Because, flat out, people do business with people they know and like. Careers—in every imaginable field—work the same way. Even our overall well-being and sense of happiness, as a library’s worth of research has shown, is dictated in large part by the support and guidance and love we get from the community we build for ourselves. (Location 232) I learned that real networking was about finding ways to make other people more successful. It was about working hard to give more than you get. (Location 249) It’s never boring. Time-consuming, sometimes; demanding, perhaps. But dull, never. You’re always learning about yourself, other people, business, and the world, and it feels great. (Location 289) A relationship-driven career is good for the companies you work for because everyone benefits from your own growth—it’s the value (Location 291) Today, I have over 10,000 people in my phone’s contacts who will answer when I call. They are there to offer expertise, jobs, help, encouragement, support, and, yes, even care and love. (Location 297) We are the very product of the people and networks to which we are connected. Who you know determines who you are—how you feel, how you act, and what you achieve. (Location 369) Autonomy is a life vest made out of sand. Independent people who do not have the skills to think and act interdependently may still be good individual producers, but they won’t be seen as good leaders or team players. Their careers will begin to stutter and stall before too long. (Location 374) You gain trust by asking not what people can do for you, to paraphrase an earlier Kennedy, but what you can do for others. In other words, the currency of real networking is not greed but generosity. (Location 423) 2. There’s no need to ponder whether it’s their lunch or yours. There’s no point in keeping track of favors done and owed. Who cares? (Location 434) I would argue that your relationships with others are your finest, most credible expression of who you are and what you have to offer. Nothing else compares. (Location 445) The more specific you are about what you want to do, the easier it becomes to develop a strategy to accomplish it. Part of that strategy, of course, is establishing relationships with the people in your universe who can help you get where you’re going. (Location 459) But the key is to make setting goals a habit. If you do that, goal setting becomes a part of your life. If you don’t, it withers and dies. (Location 483) Step One: Find Your Passion The best definition of a “goal” I’ve ever heard came from an extraordinarily successful saleswoman I met at a conference who told me, “A goal is a dream with a deadline.” (Location 484) Campbell believed that deep within each person, there’s an intuitive knowledge of what she or he wants most in life. We only have to look for it. (Location 511) 1. Look inside There are many ways to conduct a self-assessment of your goals and dreams. Some people pray. Others meditate or read. Some exercise. A few seek long periods of solitude. The important thing when conducting an internal review is to do without the constraints, without the doubts, fears, and expectations of what you “should” be doing. (Location 514) Next to that first list, I write down in a second column all the things that bring me joy and pleasure: the achievements, people, and things that move me. The clues can be found in the hobbies you pursue and the magazines, movies, and books you enjoy. Which activities excite you the most, where you don’t even notice the hours that pass? When I’m done, I start to connect these two lists, looking for intersections, that sense of direction or purpose. It’s a simple exercise, but the results can be profound. (Location 520) 2. Look outside Next, ask the people who know you best what they think your greatest strengths and weaknesses are. Ask them what they admire about you and what areas you may need help in. Before long, you’ll find that the information you’re getting from your own review and the input you receive from others will lead you to some very concrete conclusions about what your mission or direction should be. (Location 524) Human ambitions are like Japanese carp; they grow proportional to the size of their environment. Our achievements grow according to the size of our dreams and the degree to which we are in touch with our mission. (Location 537) Coming up with goals, updating them, and monitoring our progress in achieving them is less important, I believe, than the process of emotionally deciding what it is you want to do. (Location 538) Turning a mission into a reality does not “just happen.” It is built, like any work of art or commerce, from the ground up. First, it must be imagined. Then, one needs to gather the skills, tools, and materials needed. It takes time. It requires thought, determination, persistence, and faith. The tool I use is something I call (Location 546) any work of art or commerce, from the ground up. First, it must be imagined. Then, one needs to gather the skills, tools, and materials needed. It takes time. It requires thought, determination, persistence, (Location 547) The tool I use is something I call the Relationship Action Plan. The most simple version of the plan is separated into three distinct parts: The first part is devoted to the development of the goals that will help you fulfill your mission. The second part is devoted to connecting those goals to the people, places, and things that will help you get the job done. And the third part helps you determine the best way to reach out to the people who will help you to accomplish your goals. This means choosing a medium to connect, but, more important, it means finding a way to lead with generosity. (Location 549) In the first section, I list what I’d like to accomplish three years from today. I then work backward in both one-year and three-month increments to develop mid- and short-term goals that will help me reach my mission. Under each time frame, I create an A goal and a B goal that will meaningfully contribute to where I want to be three years from now. (Location 554) Her A goal three years forward was to be a teacher. Her three-year B goal was to be a teacher in a well-respected district located in a place she wanted to live. Then she filled in her short-term A and B goals. (Location 563) She started to see the symbiotic relationship between goal setting and reaching out to the people who can help us achieve those goals. (Location 572) Ultimately, the third stage helps you do two things: first, assess which of the strategies I’ll show you in the following chapters will be most successful. With some people, it will require you cold-call them (Location 575) Connecting with others really just involves having a predetermined plan and carrying it out, whether you want to be a ninth-grade history teacher or start your own business. (Location 584)