The 4 Things You Need To Build A Million Dollar Network: The Distribution Effect
What I wish I had done 3 years ago (and you should do right now)
Everything people do is driven by two motives: the desire to be great and the sex urge - Sigmund Freud
Every human being, no matter how small or insignificant in other people’s terms, have innate desires that make them human
These desires become apparent in the Formal Operational Stage of cognitive development
The Formal Operational Stage of cognitive development typically happens from age 12 and up, but it should be noted that many never reach this stage..
This is often the result when there’s a lack of educational material at their disposal, and no teachers who can remedy the situation
Education is the life blood of humanity
Without it we would never have come as far as we have, but it is also misunderstood
Education isn’t sitting in a classroom or lecture hall listening to a person who just prepared for the lesson beforehand and doesn’t really know what they’re talking about (trust me I studied teaching, they rarely know the theory they’re preaching)
In the Formal Operation Stage of cognitive development, Jean Piaget outlines what the human mind undergoes from age 12
People in the Formal Operational Stage of Cognitive development have reached a certain level of education, and as a result they can:
Use Abstract Reasoning: Which means they can grasp abstract concepts like freedom, justice, and evil
Use Hypothetical-Deductive Reasoning: They can analyze and determine potential outcomes, as well as form hypotheses
Possess Metacognition: They have learned how to think critically (think about thinking), and are capable of finding and implementing different learning strategies
Possess Idealism: They develop their own perceptions of reality, and that affects the way they perceive supposed authorities (this makes them constantly doubt themselves)
Part of cognitive development is relationship management, so I wrote a book teaching you how to avoid toxic relationships, and replace them with healthy relationships
Want the book? Go grab it here
But like I mentioned, not many reach the Formal Operation Stage, and that is exactly why university students would rather go out partying, drive around while drunk, and not dedicate time to more important pursuits like financial freedom and relationship management
Outgoing ones
These ones party, sleep around, and all kinds of things that someone in the Formal Operation Stage would determine as unintelligent
Non-outgoing ones
They stay in doors, are poor at socializing, and often watch series, anime, or play video games
The mind is a super computer. There is nothing that exists with that amount of processing power in the world, and these young people are using it to live as hedonists
No matter how you look at it, an individual like that cannot possibly be using Hypothetical-Deductive Reasoning, can they?
Its a difficult dilemma to be sure, but the fact remains that most people don’t reach that stage of cognitive development
So with that in mind, I am introducing an entirely new stage of cognitive development, that I’d like to call, “The Post Awakening Perspective Stage, of Cognitive Development (age 12-116 years)
The point of this article is not only for you to understand how your cognitive development has worked up until now, but also to teach you how to reach this new stage, and why even less people (especially those not reading this article), are likely to reach it on their own
This new stage will allow you to:
Eliminate most anxiety
Get where you want in life
And most importantly, build a network that will be worth millions in 10 years
As previously discussed, every human being wants to be great, and they want to get their on their own
It has already been established that due to evolutionary instincts, men are more driven to achieve greatness, because it has historically proven to ensure they get the best mates
But no matter the gender, every human being wants to feel like they have achieved their life’s goal (greatness in their eyes)
And that is exactly why building a network is beneficial not only to you, but the person you added to your network
Both of you have the desire to be great, so the next logical course of action is to pool resources together, in order to get the desired result faster
This is exactly why networking is not selfish, but reciprocal
Its the essence of helping one another achieve their goals..
A simple concept many fail to understand
If we look at Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs (a psychological construct coined by world renowned psychologist Abraham Maslow), the order in which people will want to fulfil their needs is the following
To simplify it, once a person possesses enough food, a place to live in where they are safe, and they have important loved ones that fill them with belonging..
They move on to the Esteem stage
This stage is exactly where Freud’s statement about the human ego comes into play
This level of the hierarchy is driven by the individual’s need to be great
To achieve greatness is the goal of every person deep down, but how else could you say you lived life to the fullest?
Looking at the above pyramid, its safe to say that the human desire to be important is fundamental for anyone who’s fulfilled the prerequisite needs
And that’s exactly what we’ll be focused on honing when it comes to networking
Here’s how it will work: I will break down what you will need to reach the Post Awakening Perspective Stage of Cognitive Development, then I will explain how you can use the human’s desire to be great, to build your network
Only by successfully understanding and/or reaching level 4 of the needs hierarchy, will you be able to build a multi-million dollar network
You need to be able to spot the right individuals who will increase your networth, opportunities, and results over the next 10 years
You can only do this by being in the right state of awareness
What is it you’re attempting to achieve? Because if you’re on level 3 of the needs hierarchy, you’re still in the unaware state
You won’t see this article as useful, because you’ll be too bothered by your problematic real life relationships
Once you fixed those, come back to this article
Now let’s get started
Core Requirement 1 - Understanding The Post Awakening Perspective Stage
A person in this stage needs to possess the following qualities:
The Highest Level Of Education (discussed in previous articles): This means that they understand education is a tool that can get them anywhere, but they also understand that degrees and qualifications do not determine that level of education.
In fact, they are enlightened, in that they understand there are alternate, way more effective ways of teaching themselves the required skills, for them to make a living from almost anywhere in the world (using the internet)
Examples of alternate educational sources:
Udemy, Gumroad, Payhip, Systeme .io, Medium etc
Analytical Decision Making: They view important matters in regards to data, instead of emotion. They are able to remain objective when it comes to matters that could affect them, or others, personally.
This allows them to apply critical thinking skills to any, or all relevant situations
An Example of Analytical Decision Making:
Your dream woman or man comes to you and wants to sleep with you
For context, you don’t know them very well, but you find them incredibly desirable
So much so, that you’re not against the idea
Would you:
Ask them a list of predetermined qualifying questions to cover yourself
Sleep with them after talking to them for a few hours about non personal things
For some reading, the answer might be obvious..
The answer is 1, not 2. You’d be surprised how many (if this happened to them in real life), would pick option 2
But with option 2 ‘Analytical Decision Making’ is absent
Without analytical thinking, mistakes are likely to happen
Think about it for a second
As a man, you might need to pay child support for 18 years
As a woman, you might end up getting pregnant
But if you looked at the situation from an analytical point of view, you would already know everything about the person, so this never happens
And if you’re reading this in a country that doesn’t normalize behaviors such as this, the same concept can be used in almost any situation..
Marriage for instance
Can you see yourself with this person for the next 50 years?
Because believe it or not, people often don't even think that far ahead
This is non analytical
Its not about calculations, but emotions
You need to remain objective when it comes to decision making, otherwise you can suffer devastating consequences down the line
To make these decisions I use Ian’s law of dice, a theoretical concept on probability, I officially explained in my book (this is information you won’t find anywhere else)
It assumes you have 5/145 chance of encountering misfortune for every decision you make (I go into more detail in the book), grab here if you want
Is 100% Certain Of Their Attributer.
Every human being, no matter where they are in life, has an attributer
An attributer is a new concept I coined in my book (learn more about it here), which defines a person’s moral compass and how they rationalize decisions
Why do you wake up every day and go to work?
Why do you keep living?
What is the purpose behind it?
For some its religion, for some its their life’s goal, for some its their ancestors
It doesn’t matter what your attributer is, just that it cannot change or be derailed
Because if your direction is affected by your attributer, and it randomly changes, your entire life’s work will be affected
How can you get up in the morning and work on business or writing projects, if you’ve lost the reason for doing so?
These are the 3 core aspects of the ‘Post Awakening Perspective Stage’, in Cognitive Development
If you’re paying attention, you should see that they heavily align with entrepreneurship, analytical thinkers who plan ahead, and people who embrace alternate education
These are a must if you want to build a future career
Jobs are being replaced by AI left and right, and the job market is so saturated, you can send out 100 job applications, and have nothing to show for it
Even if you studied for 6 years to get a “high value” degree
Creators and digital writers are using social media to build their digital careers, and this isn’t going to change
But even if you understand the required cognitive level of development, you won’t know how to build an actual network
Core Requirement 2 - Identifying Excellence & Potential
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." Aristotle
Every human has the innate desire to achieve greatness, and how could there be a better way of achieving something than to turn the actions that will produce greatness, into habits?
A person who has these habits, can be identified (with practice)
With enough experimentation you will be able to determine the following three things:
Their brand lifespan
If you want to add someone to your network, you need to know they will still be there 5 years later (because a network member who isn’t online, is not a network member)
Their level of resourcefulness
To gain something from a network member they need to have resources of expertise that you can make use of at a later date, even if that expertise and resources takes time to achieve
In this situation you can even coach others to progress at the same speed you are, so you and them can later benefit from each other more
I have a mastermind, and if I learn important strategies that not many people have access to, I share it with the group
This increases the speed at which each of us delivers results
How far they will go
Getting someone who achieves things is great, but identifying people, who in 5 years will have made tremendous progress, compared to their peers that are way behind, is KEY
You should not network with people who are going to drop off the map, or vanish
The most valuable people to network with are people who already have a large number of leverage and accomplishments, or you know for certain will become such a person
In short, you need to learn how to spot potential in others early, so you know you will always be able to count on them in the future
The speed at which one sees success is increased through reciprocity
If you give me the answer to a problem, and I do the same for you, our progress is sped up exponentially
Do this for years on end, and you can grow 1000% faster than others
But its not just about growth
People with excellence help you:
✅ Improve your skills
✅ Get access to strategies many of your peers don’t have
✅ And teaches you how to manage relationships that increase your cashflow
“Growth is the result of consistently doing the boring tasks over a long period of time”
To connect with these people, just send the ma DM with a compliment on what they’re creating or something they produced that they really care about
Then from there you can connect on similar interests, and later start sharing each other’s posts, promoting each other’s products, and helping each other out
Just connect like you’d make a friend in real life
Core Requirement 3 - Befriending Potentials
You have to keep in mind that people with a large following that you're trying to get infront of, they're just skimming through DMs to see if they're missing anything important - Dan Koe
The best course of action besides identifying potential, is befriending those who’ve already proven their potential
Think 100,000 follower accounts on X, 10,000 subscribers accounts on substack, 200,000 follower accounts on Instagram etc.
These individuals are the quickest way to driving more views to your content, and therefore your product
But the problem is that of leverage
The more leverage a person has, the less likely they are to care about what you’re saying
Your best bet is to be 100% genuine, and 200% human
You need to stop looking at these accounts or brands as a number, and instead connect with them on a human level..
Because behind every account there’s a human being just working hard on their goals, with the potentially limited time they have in their day
Your job is to find the contact information of the person behind the account (if its a giant account that’s run by a single person or a team), or connect with them through direct messages (if they are a bit smaller or they are a personal brand)
Depending on the size and activity of the account, you might need to find them on a different platform where they don’t have as much traffic or DMs
For niche based accounts that post platitudes on things like philosophy, wealth, mindset, or things like that.. Getting their telegram can be very beneficial, since their DMs aren’t flooded unlike on X or Instagram for instance
To connect with them, do the following:
Do actual research on their brand and passions
Open the conversation with a compliment based on step 1
Learn more about them and what they are working on
Stay on top of their mind by sending follow ups
Talk to them regularly, and don’t just vanish
Some of them won’t care, and will just see you as a number..
But some (this works especially well if you have skills or resources they can benefit from), will keep talking to you
That person then becomes a friend, a traffic source, and a network member
Not all network members have to be in a group with you
Some you can just DM individually
In my experience the most influential ones are connected with in the DMs, and not in groups
Core Requirement 4 - Building An Established Product Funnel
Having a network is not the only thing you need to do to make money online
The point of the network is to generate traffic, using likeminded thinkers
The more traffic you have the more sales and clients you will get
I like to call this “the distribution effect”
If 1 person sees your post, and reposts it
Then more people see it
If those people repost it, even more people see it
This is one of the vital parts of a network
You can x100-1000x your reach simply by distributing your content using growth mechanisms
And with that traffic you can make more sales or land more clients
To build a good product you need to do the following:
Choose A Market
As Dan Koe likes to say, there’s 4 eternal markets
Wealth, Health, Relationships, and Happiness
As a human being, you have already solved a problem that lies within one of these categories → Its impossible that you haven’t (unless you’re like 12 lol)
Determine a market related problem you have solved
Once you have the problem, you need to determine how exactly you fixed it
Take the solution, write it down in a document, divide it into relevant course modules, then publish the product on an ecommerce platform like Gumroad
Gather Social Proof
Give out free copies of the course to people experiencing the related problem, and get testimonials from them in exchange
Setup A Sales Page
To sell something you need to funnel traffic in a specific direction, and a sales page does this well
Agitate the frustrations of the target market, explain how you can help them solve the problems they have, explain to them what vehicle they will use to get there, add the testimonials to the sales page, and give them a big fat button to push if they want to buy
Actually Use Your Network’s Traffic
Use the traffic you borrow from your network, to drive visitors to your website
With a 2.5% conversion rate, if you get 1000 site visitors a month, and you sell a $30 product..
That’s 25 sales and $750 you’re making passively (If you get that many site visitors every month)
From there you can massively scale it (By borrowing more traffic)
But having one product doesn’t mean you’ve built a product funnel
Your next course of action is to do the following:
Take a valuable part in the paid course that solves an entry level problem related to the big solution, and convert that into a free product
If your book shows people how to sell a product, then your lead magnet can show them how to identify a product they can sell
The lead magnet solves a problem, and the paid course solves the new problem
But you shouldn’t stop there
Take the paid course and create a cohort that solves the same problem, but people get access to you in groups
This turns the course into a program
You now have a reason to charge significantly more than you do for the paid product
Lead magnet → Paid Course → Cohort Program
Then you take the cohort based problem, and create a new tier for it where clients can have direct 1 on 1 access to you, and every educational material you’ve ever produced
You’ve now created a high ticket coaching product or service
Lead Magnet → Paid Course → Cohort Program → High Ticket Coaching
Free → $23-$150 → $300/mo for 3 months or $900 upfront → $1500 upfront or 3 months
Now you can follow this process 4 times, so at all times you have 4 different niches you can sell a product for, and they don't need to be directly related, they only need to be in one of the eternal markets (and it will sell)
Nurture your network, improve your network, expand your network, use your network to drive traffic to your product/s
In 10 years it will have the potential to, or already have made millions (collectively)
Like, Subscribe, Share → Cheers, Ian
PS:
If you..
Don’t know how to build connections that increases your monthly income
Always find yourself in the wrong relationships
Suck at managing your relationships
Struggle with toxic relationships
Then my book will help you solve your problem, grab it below
