The Network Factor

How to develop the potential of networks to achieve your goals and increase your opportunities in life and business

Stefano Calicchio

• Publisher: Stefano Calicchio
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9791220244619
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

What is the network factor? How does it affect people's quality of life? What are the hidden rules that allow you to use networks to your advantage? We all live in multiple networks, but few people stop to think about how they work. In this book, I will explain how to enrich your networks in a constant and continuous way, thus providing you with the resources you need to recognise and increase your opportunities and achieve your goals. In particular, we will discover together the rules on which building and developing a strong network is based. This is exactly the system of principles and strategies that are often completely ignored by most people because they are highly counterintuitive. This guide takes you by the hand and takes you on a step-by-step journey in which you will discover how to turn on the switch of your networks, how to learn the basics of personal networking and how to become more influential. You will discover the scientific rules for harnessing the power of networks in relationships, how to foster the development of your financial network and how to generate multiple career opportunities. Finally, the last chapter of the book will address the impact of networking on personal health and well-being.

1. How to turn on the network switch

How to turn on the Network switch

Complex systems are one of the wonders of our world. Think of something so complex that it can only be grasped as a whole, and you get a pretty good idea of why people struggle to gain a clear understanding of what is going on around them. Only a few are able to grasp what is behind the general view of things (knowledge is power, said Bacon).

The interesting thing is that those few are the ones who usually develop an enormous possibility to intervene in the external reality and at the same time have real possibilities to achieve ambitious goals.

The world today is as articulated as it is self-organised. Everything seems to flow with the utmost ineluctability in an apparently harmonious way, but without any apparent order or precise design. An (apparently manageable) chaos seems to dominate all human existence.

Sometimes, as chance would have it, someone comes up with a new idea, as unexpectedly as suddenly, and a new perspective appears that only yesterday seemed so trivial and yet so elusive. Gravity, light and relativity are good examples of this.

But what are the implications for each of us? The interesting side of the question is that some people seem to have the ability to intuit universal rules and principles before others have managed to formalise them.

More importantly, these great anticipators understand how to use the hidden rules to their advantage, radically changing their position within the context in which they operate. If you have managed to grasp this, you have had a small taste of what this guide will do for you. What has just been described is exactly what happens when you turn on the network switch in your life.

Of course, not everything can happen automatically and spontaneously. Learning how to make the best use of your networks can take years of experience, but you will be able to speed up the natural learning curve enormously, thanks to the advice and suggestions I will offer on these pages.

After all, the Network Factor naturally influences the life of any individual. We simply tend to remember those who have achieved the most. Take, for example, the biographies of many people in history books. Analyse their knowledge bases or social networks and you will discover that they became what they were thanks to those close to them.

So, people who are particularly effective in achieving their goals obtain results also because they sense the existence of a set of rules that characterised their networks. A system that would certainly allow them to emerge, because whenever there is a person who emerges there is an element that cannot be overlooked: their network of relationships.

It seems a simple enough concept to understand, and indeed it is. It is more difficult to understand how to exploit all this in a profitable way for one's own projects. But in reality, it is a basic reasoning that works in any field.

It is not enough to have the best product on the market if you do not have an adequate sales network. It's not enough to have excellent sources of energy production if you don't have a stable and reliable electricity distribution network capable of providing a continuous, uninterrupted service. There is no point in having ultra-fast and super-efficient locomotives and trains without a rail network. The examples could go on forever and fill pages and pages, the only limit is your imagination.

Therefore, the first awareness we need to reach in order to discover whether or not there are rules that can help us is to understand that we are all immersed in a dense web of networks, as different in as many areas as those that cross and characterise our existence. Understanding this means turning on one's own network switch, to enter into a new state of awareness of what surrounds us.

But there is more! Being aware that we participate in a network of people also implies that we are all interconnected with people, objects and places. If we decide to see the world through the lens of networks, we will begin to discover and draw a whole series of new maps and connections about what surrounds us, for the simple reason of having a new filter to apply to the reality we knew before.

The globalisation of networks

The idea of living in a highly connected world is not a concept that dates back to today's globalised society, although today it can easily be confused with the means of communication offered by mobile technology.

Thousands of years ago, Buddhism spoke of karma and interconnectedness, explaining that all living beings on earth are connected to the wheel of life. The concept of interconnectedness was already so deeply rooted in people's collective unconscious that it overcame the archetype of death, so much so that it became established in the existence of an infinite cycle of birth and death (the so-called Samsāra).

Well, all this demonstrates very well how, since ancient times, man has known and understood the importance of networks, and has consequently tried to apply their rules in his life in every aspect, even the spiritual one. From this reasoning, two concepts emerge that are among the pillars of the Network Factor:

1. The position a person occupies in their life in relation to the network in which they were born is not the result of ch...

Table of contents

• Cover
• THE NETWORK FACTOR
• Table of contents
• Introduction
• 1. How to turn on the network switch
• How to turn on the Network switch
• The globalisation of networks
• Using 'the list
• Case History: the 2003 blackout of the electricity network
• Learning the skills of the future
• How to control a network
• Towards collective intelligence
• The network effect of the SETI programme
• The baptism of the network
• From theory to practice: discovering the networks around you
• The first axiom of networks
• 2. Learning the basics of Networking
• Understanding the basic elements
• Who knows the president?
• Operating principles of the network
• We are what we connect to
• Case History: the enneagram tool
• The irregularity of networks
• The second axiom of networks
• Self-assessment test on the Network Factor
• 3. How to develop your network
• Why develop the Network
• Remove passwords from your networks
• Case History: the Small World project
• The Link Building Strategy
• From handshake to social climbing
• The secret of weak contacts
• The third axiom of networks
• 4. How to harness the power of networking in relationships
• The network's field of excellence
• Synchronise your relationships
• The case does not exist
• Taking the leap
• Case History: the phenomenon of Co-housing
• Overcoming shyness
• Improving your emotional intelligence
• Learning social rules
• Case History: the story of Leonard Zelig
• How to create quantum leaps in personal relationships
• First steps to apply the Network Factor in relationships
• 5. How to set up your financial network
• The importance of the Network Factor for money management
• How to generate financial wealth through networks
• Discovering one's own financial networks
• A practical exercise to discover your financial networks
• How to leverage financial networks
• Case History: Venture Capitalists
• How to innovate to break free from the barriers of mother nodes
• How to find your business angels
• Using the network factor in your financial situation
• 6. How to use the network to get ahead
• Is a career really a question of work ability?
• Case History: The man who never eats alone
• Making a career: quantity and quality of your contacts
• How to analyse your network in the work environment
• Focus on the network
• Building relational bridges with colleagues
• Case History: the history of presidents
• How to structure one's social competence
• Successfully exploiting the Network Factor in the workplace
• 7. How to turn the network into your own well-being
• The influence of the Network Factor on one's state of well-being
• The Network Factor and its psychosomatic impact
• Analysing the relationship between networks and one's own well-being
• Case History: Traditional Chinese Medicine
• Our body as a large network
• Case History: the story of 23andme
• Final implications of the Network Factor in personal well-being
• Conclusions