Build Equity In Yourself

The single best thing you can do for your finances, career, and personal growth is to invest in building a personal brand and a network.

A good personal brand makes you memorable. It positions you. You will come to someone’s mind first. Think of this like the amount of money you invest.

A good network distributes your personal brand among many people, all of whom know people, all of whom know more people. Think of this like compound growth.

Over time, these two factors combine to a powerful engine that can take you places you never thought were possible.

Let me explain.

Your surface area for luck

At a bare minimum, having more relationships has a numerical impact on the number of opportunities you have access to.

It means more channels to get in touch with hiring managers. It means you know more people who might know people who need freelance work done. It means more people who can put in a good word for you.

Opportunities don’t exist in isolation. Jobs, contracts, and even co-founding opportunities exist because someone needs something from someone else. You want to be that someone else - and if you know the person in advance, you don’t even have to work for it.

Networks are a compounding asset

The more 1st degree connections you have, the more 2nd degree connections you have access to.

The more people grow to like and trust you, the more they will think of you and rely on you.

This is why people say your network is your net worth.

We’re all human, and humans like people they already know. They don’t hand valuable opportunities over to strangers. They cooperate with friends.

When you grow your network, you become known to more and more people. Some of those people will want to cooperate with you on increasingly valuable opportunities.

This isn’t transactional or slimey. The best relationships are built on mutual trust and the best way to grow a good network is to help people.

It just happens that trusting relationships are often also valuable. So why not build more of those relationships?

Networks are future-proof and unique to you

No one can steal your network. AI cannot replace the value of your network. You keep your network when you change jobs, or when you change careers entirely.

Even if human-written code becomes obsolete, you will be able to pivot your personal brand and leverage your network to distribute it.

It’s a value-creating, compounding safety net.

It is, in other words, your most valuable asset.

This is why I think low-leverage activies with diminishing returns, like improving your programming ability, are a waste of time. They’re an opportunity cost. Your time is better spent building equity in your reputation.