How to Build a World-Class Network | Tim Ferriss & Dr. Andrew Huberman
00:00:00.000 | And when people who have common interests decide to get together and talk and listen
00:00:07.620 | and brainstorm, and I'm yet to do that with good people and not have something really
00:00:15.480 | incredible come out of it.
00:00:16.520 | Not necessarily that day, but looking back five years later and just going, "God, that
00:00:21.200 | was really worthwhile."
00:00:22.200 | A few thoughts in no particular order.
00:00:26.000 | I would say the first is my recommendations depend a lot on where you are in the arc of
00:00:31.780 | your career in life.
00:00:33.600 | If you are in full growth hyperdrive mode and you are trying to build both yourself
00:00:44.900 | and your capabilities in a very concentrated way, where you're not necessarily focused
00:00:49.800 | on family, you maybe have fewer obligations, then if you're serious, I think many people
00:00:57.340 | should consider moving to an area of high density for a period of time.
00:01:02.380 | It could be three months, it could be six months, it could be longer.
00:01:06.920 | But putting yourself in a New York or an LA or a San Francisco or Chicago, or as new places
00:01:15.680 | develop, I'll give you one you might not expect, say in Ottawa, Canada, where Shopify is based,
00:01:22.120 | and the presence and growth of Shopify has spawned an entire ecosystem of startups.
00:01:29.160 | There may be options outside of the usual cast of characters, Pittsburgh and Duolingo,
00:01:34.880 | similar effect.
00:01:36.540 | There are more options than people might recognize, but taking a journey and placing yourself
00:01:45.640 | in a place where you can be in a very active pinball machine, where you may interact serendipitously
00:01:52.360 | with many different people from many different worlds, I think is hard to overstate the value
00:01:58.320 | of.
00:01:59.320 | And my drive and my filtering function, let's just say, because when I first got to the
00:02:06.400 | Bay Area, nobody cared about me.
00:02:07.600 | I was nobody.
00:02:08.600 | I was driving my mom's used minivan hand-me-down that had the seats stolen out of the back
00:02:12.720 | and looked terrible.
00:02:13.720 | Were you in the South Bay?
00:02:15.400 | I was working in San Jose.
00:02:16.920 | I mean, no disrespect to San Jose, I'm from the South Bay.
00:02:21.120 | But there's a bleakness to the South Bay.
00:02:24.160 | There is a little bit of bleakness.
00:02:25.560 | And then I lived across the street in this tiny apartment, lived across the street from
00:02:28.720 | the Jack in the Box in Mountain View.
00:02:30.800 | So it's not like I was strolling onto the big stage and just blowing people away.
00:02:34.920 | Oh, I grew up right near Mountain View.
00:02:37.640 | I'm very familiar.
00:02:38.640 | I probably skated the curves at that Jack in the Box.
00:02:40.840 | You probably did, yeah.
00:02:41.840 | Did you train at the Gold's Gym off Rangestorm?
00:02:43.800 | I did, actually.
00:02:44.800 | That was a great gym.
00:02:45.800 | That was a great gym.
00:02:46.800 | That was a great gym.
00:02:47.800 | I don't think it's still there.
00:02:48.800 | I would go there super late before my writing sessions.
00:02:51.360 | And it had the benefit of being open really, really late.
00:02:54.680 | And wow, Rangestorm, I haven't thought about that in a long time.
00:02:57.440 | So the point is, I also started where a lot of people are starting.
00:03:02.760 | And what did I do?
00:03:04.880 | I put myself in a high-density environment.
00:03:07.280 | Next, what did I do, knowing no one?
00:03:09.800 | I started to volunteer at events where they had interesting speakers and interesting people
00:03:16.560 | coming to hear those speakers.
00:03:18.480 | So I put myself in Silicon Valley, and then I began volunteering for groups like S-Base.
00:03:23.280 | I don't know if it exists anymore, the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs,
00:03:28.320 | I think it was.
00:03:29.320 | Thai, the Indus Entrepreneur, which is a very sort of Indian or Indian-American focused
00:03:34.880 | organization that does a lot in the realm of startups.
00:03:39.660 | And I would carry water, I would take out garbage, I would check name badges, I would
00:03:44.120 | check people in.
00:03:45.280 | Nothing was too low for me.
00:03:47.600 | And I'll give you guys a tip that will be obvious to some but non-obvious to many.
00:03:54.320 | When you are volunteering, a lot of folks who volunteer do the absolute bare minimum
00:03:59.560 | because they are not getting paid.
00:04:01.880 | This is not going to get you noticed.
00:04:04.320 | But it sets a very low bar so that if you volunteer at these events and someone's dropping
00:04:09.320 | the ball or there's something happening that needs fixing and you just proactively do it,
00:04:13.680 | the producers of these events will notice you.
00:04:17.120 | And this is what happened over time, over a few months.
00:04:20.320 | And then I got invited to join in on meetings that were planning future events.
00:04:24.920 | And I eventually got to the point where I was recruiting speakers and able to set the
00:04:29.360 | agenda for an entire main event.
00:04:32.360 | And then that's how I got to know, say, Jack Canfield, who is the co-creator of Chicken
00:04:37.040 | Soup for the Soul and many others, who introduced me to my book agent many, many, many, many
00:04:42.160 | years later, Jack Canfield.
00:04:45.480 | But I was a nobody then.
00:04:47.200 | You have to play the long game, but you can be methodical on how you play that.
00:04:53.280 | And that is one approach, just as an example, for how to build your network, which snowballs
00:04:58.540 | over time.
00:05:00.120 | Don't hump every VIP's leg within 10 minutes of meeting them.
00:05:03.900 | Play it cool.
00:05:04.900 | And gatherings where that person has a lot of demands on them is the last place you want
00:05:12.000 | to do that.
00:05:13.000 | The way you're going to make yourself memorable with people like that is to be very professional,
00:05:18.880 | always on time, predict what they're going to need or problems they'll run into beforehand
00:05:23.500 | and address them before they even think of them and be easy to deal with.
00:05:29.200 | And people like that, high performers notice these things.
00:05:33.600 | And they will make note of it.
00:05:34.600 | Yeah.
00:05:35.600 | The being easy to work with is something that I used to tell my graduate students in post-docs.
00:05:42.920 | Because the opposite of that, nobody wants.
00:05:45.000 | Yeah.
00:05:46.000 | Right?
00:05:47.000 | Nobody wants that.
00:05:48.000 | Yeah.
00:05:49.000 | Especially in the beginning, like later.
00:05:50.000 | Okay, great.
00:05:51.000 | You're Steve Jobs.
00:05:52.000 | You want to be difficult here and there or a lot?
00:05:53.000 | No problem.
00:05:54.000 | Right?
00:05:55.000 | But in the beginning, that can be a real liability.
00:05:57.800 | You can make up for that if you're the best in the world.
00:06:00.360 | But in the very beginning, you probably won't be.
00:06:03.080 | So try to stack the deck in your favor.
00:06:06.540 | Volunteering is a shortcut.
00:06:07.540 | And that would be one way of doing it.
00:06:09.840 | Another now, especially given the virtual communities that exist.
00:06:12.360 | So you have subreddits, you have online communities, you have Twitter groups, you have clubhouse,
00:06:17.720 | you've got a million different options, which can be overwhelming.
00:06:21.240 | Clubhouse still going?
00:06:22.280 | Maybe not.
00:06:23.280 | I have no idea.
00:06:24.280 | Oh, no, I don't know.
00:06:25.280 | I'm not saying it's gone.
00:06:26.280 | I just, I remember during the pandemic, there were some clubhouse gatherings that hopped
00:06:27.720 | on there and, but I've sort of forgotten to get on there.
00:06:31.040 | The platform affinity is really fickle, which is why I think to the extent possible, if
00:06:37.560 | you want to build a world class, and I use that term very deliberately, network in record
00:06:43.560 | time just to give you a nice headline, I would say focus on the uncrowded channel, which
00:06:48.320 | is in person.
00:06:49.320 | It's out of fashion.
00:06:50.960 | It's out of vogue.
00:06:52.320 | Going to a conference and actually interacting with humans in the hallway, approaching panelists.
00:06:58.240 | This is another thing that I did.
00:06:59.800 | I'll give it, I'll give another tip.
00:07:01.300 | So very early on, I would go to conferences.
00:07:03.400 | Nobody cared who I was.
00:07:04.600 | Nobody knew who I was.
00:07:07.200 | Fine.
00:07:08.200 | And I would study the panels.
00:07:10.440 | Let's say I'm going to a big event like South by Southwest.
00:07:13.440 | And I would, this is what I did in 2007, which was just prior to the first book coming out.
00:07:20.200 | And I would go to these various in-person events.
00:07:23.160 | I was focused mostly on events that had the thematic focus of blogs.
00:07:28.400 | We could come back to that, but blogs were what podcasts were a few years ago.
00:07:32.320 | They drove incredible traffic, but they were undervalued by mainstream media, undervalued
00:07:37.480 | by mainstream publishers, et cetera, which meant there was an arbitrage opportunity in
00:07:41.960 | a way.
00:07:44.080 | And I would pick, say, a handful of panels with topics I thought were super interesting.
00:07:51.080 | And then the panel would end, and what would happen?
00:07:53.680 | The panelists would get rushed by various folks, because many of them were well-known.
00:07:59.160 | Who was not getting rushed?
00:08:00.720 | The moderator.
00:08:02.040 | I would go straight to the moderator.
00:08:03.800 | And I would talk to the moderator.
00:08:04.800 | I'd thank them for the panel.
00:08:06.040 | I'd be very genuine.
00:08:07.040 | None of it was made up.
00:08:08.740 | And talk to them for a bit.
00:08:09.740 | They would generally ask why I was there, what I was interested in.
00:08:13.240 | I would mention whatever that happened to be.
00:08:15.480 | In this case, it was I'm finishing my first book, or I had my first book coming out soon.
00:08:19.200 | I'm here to hopefully meet people who are involved with A, B, or C.
00:08:23.960 | And then if we hit it off, which was not true every time, but if it seemed to be going well,
00:08:28.680 | I would say, I don't know anyone here.
00:08:31.960 | I'm really orphaned here, making my way through this entire event.
00:08:37.800 | Is there anyone else here you think I would get along with, who maybe I could buy a drink
00:08:41.520 | or a coffee?
00:08:42.920 | And the vast majority of the time, they'd be like, oh, yeah, you should meet so-and-so.
00:08:46.960 | And then I'd get the introduction, and then I would meet that person.
00:08:49.880 | I would have a genuine interaction with that person.
00:08:53.520 | And if it made sense, if things were going well, I'd do the same thing.
00:08:57.760 | Is there anybody else here you think I should just say hi to and get along with?
00:09:02.000 | Not who I can ask for something.
00:09:04.840 | And that wasn't deception.
00:09:05.840 | I was being honest.
00:09:06.840 | Like someone I could actually vibe with.
00:09:11.480 | And if so, would you mind making the intro?
00:09:14.200 | Yeah, sure.
00:09:15.200 | No problem.
00:09:16.200 | Most people are still my friends.
00:09:19.320 | And by being surgical in that way, not trying to gather business cards, to use a really
00:09:25.480 | antiquated metaphor at this point.
00:09:28.200 | People still hand them out.
00:09:29.200 | Yeah, people still hand them out.
00:09:30.200 | I guess it depends on where you are, especially like Boston.
00:09:32.240 | But rather than trying to collect people as Pokemon cards, developing, say, five, three
00:09:41.960 | to five deeper relationships through longer conversations at an event, that is what directly
00:09:49.560 | led ultimately to the hockey stick for the four-hour work week within tech, within specifically
00:09:56.160 | San Francisco.
00:09:58.000 | So those would be a few approaches for building your network when you don't have the ability
00:10:03.660 | to just walk up to, say, a Kevin Kelly and have a conversation.
00:10:06.920 | That came over time.
00:10:07.920 | Yeah, whether or not it's health practices or nutritional practices or at meetings, it
00:10:17.040 | seems you're oriented toward the uncrowded but very interesting people in spaces.
00:10:24.380 | But the keyword there I think is uncrowded.
00:10:27.320 | And of course, the other keyword is interesting, right?
00:10:29.560 | I mean, it's not like you're standing in the parking lot talking to whoever happens to
00:10:33.080 | be there.
00:10:34.080 | Although that can be interesting, right?
00:10:35.080 | There's a serendipity there.
00:10:36.320 | And there's always things to learn from people.
00:10:38.940 | But in terms of career advancement and building new ideas and forging for information, I'm
00:10:44.520 | just struck how you've done that over and over.
00:10:48.360 | And again, thank you for giving us some insight into the process.
00:10:52.000 | Please.
00:10:53.000 | All right.
00:10:54.000 | Here's another one.
00:10:55.000 | So I think there's a tendency among people who want to develop their networks or their
00:11:00.160 | relationships to be star fuckers.
00:11:03.600 | Not to get too technical.
00:11:04.600 | That's a technical term.
00:11:06.240 | Yeah.
00:11:07.240 | Yeah.
00:11:08.240 | And they want to tell other people they are friends with someone more than they want to
00:11:11.680 | develop skills or learn from someone.
00:11:14.880 | This puts you in a very disadvantaged position.
00:11:18.080 | Because then that means, all right, you want to become friends with Elon Musk?
00:11:21.160 | Good luck.
00:11:22.720 | Or you want to become friends with this A-lister celebrity who everyone else wants to meet?
00:11:28.760 | Good luck.
00:11:29.760 | It's going to be a crowded, bloody path to get there.
00:11:33.800 | And by the way, they've also certainly developed really attuned defenses against people like
00:11:39.480 | you.
00:11:40.480 | So it's going to be hard.
00:11:41.980 | They have staff to prevent that from happening.
00:11:44.320 | They have a phalanx of protectors to prevent you from ever getting to that person.
00:11:49.680 | On the other hand, if you're approaching it from the standpoint of developing skills,
00:11:54.120 | learning and actually becoming potential friends with someone, I'll give you an example.
00:11:59.560 | You could go after, you want to become better at boxing.
00:12:05.280 | Let's just make that up.
00:12:06.280 | All right.
00:12:07.280 | It's maybe not the greatest example.
00:12:09.160 | Skiing would be another one.
00:12:10.160 | But let's stick with boxing just because of the way I'll explain it.
00:12:14.320 | If you wanted to, say, get personalized lessons from Floyd Mayweather, it can happen.
00:12:19.680 | Okay.
00:12:20.680 | Let's go then maybe a step down out of the pro ranks to gold medalist.
00:12:25.000 | Okay.
00:12:26.000 | If it's a brand new gold medalist, let's just say like Oscar de la Hoya when he was really
00:12:28.480 | the golden boy and it just thrashed everyone, still going to be hard.
00:12:33.120 | What about the silver medalist who just had a bad day when he had that last bout against
00:12:37.840 | Oscar de la Hoya potentially, right?
00:12:40.280 | From a technical perspective, from a personal connection perspective, you may have more
00:12:45.480 | in common with that person or a bronze medalist and they can get you 70, 80, 90% of the way
00:12:50.480 | there.
00:12:51.480 | And by the way, you probably don't have the physical attributes to make it to 100% anyway
00:12:55.480 | if you're coming to it this late.
00:12:57.960 | And you could get, in many cases, one-on-one lessons, whether in person or virtually with
00:13:06.120 | someone who is of that caliber.
00:13:09.200 | They're in the same front of the pack as the names I just mentioned, maybe not as famous.
00:13:14.880 | 100 bucks, 200 bucks per hour.
00:13:18.720 | For a lot of people, that is within reach.
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