They say “your network is your net worth”…

I wholeheartedly agree.

If you’ve been wanting to upgrade your network (quickly) and you're not quite sure how to do that, I’ve got good news for you:

It doesn’t have to take a decade. And there’s no cold calling involved. (Introverts rejoice!)

First of all, what do I mean by “network”? I mean your colleagues, friends, and fellow entrepreneurs. Doing it alone is crazy. And also it's really, really lonely and it will kind of takes you longer when you're trying to do this by yourself and you don't have someone to bounce ideas off of.

One of the things I did early on my business, which I believe contributed to my rapid success, is invest (both time and money) in my network. I’d love to take credit for this as a strategic move but the truth is it was a bit of a happy accident.

I’m a bit of a self proclaimed learnaholic.  (It can be a great thing but it can also get out of hand if you don’t apply what you learn) but I digress.  Early on in my business I invested (cautiously at first) in courses and mentorship, 1 at a time, depending on what I felt I needed to learn most at that time.

I did it for the content, and to speed up my learning curve and although some courses and mentors were better than others and there’s only a select few I go out of my way to recommend (counted on 1 hand), the truth is there’s not 1 that didn’t help me in 1 way or another.  

Now, I didn’t invest in those courses for the network but the accidental bonus I quickly learned was included was a network of awesome entrepreneurs.  A community that I could tap into.  My friend Jayson Gaignard says it best: “amazing people know other amazing people”.  It’s as simple as that and as soon as you’re hooked into an amazing handful of people, it shifts everything.

Your mindset shifts; your habits shift; the bar is raised and you rise up to meet it.

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with” – Jim Rohn

So choose wisely…

Can this be done organically? Absolutely.

Does it have to be expensive? Nope.

But to be honest I’ve found that community, like mentorship and training is one of the core pillars of my business and as such it’s something that I value enough to invest in every single year.

Pro tip: “paying to play” can buy you time.

Free Facebook group communities are plentiful, but the truth of the matter is, is that free Facebook groups can often be overwhelming in size and are diluted with people who are not really serious about reaching their goals.

If you’re in a smaller group with fellow entrepreneurs that have invested to be a part of it, the chances of peeps being more committed to reaching their goals are, understandably, greater.

Of course there are exceptions to the rule, but if you’re all about maximizing your time, effort and energy that rule of thumb will be helpful.

How to choose a great community

Ideally you want to surround yourself with people that are just as ambitious and goal oriented as you are and are at a similar level in business.  Some groups, courses and masterminds (like the 90 day year) have subsets within them for different stages of business so that you can find your peeps and an accountability partner to help keep you from making binge watching Netflix your new day job.

If you’re looking for a great community of game changers to join, click the box below to be notified with The 90 Day Year opens.

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I’d love to hear from you! What are your best networking and community building tips? Leave a comment below!