One good mentor doesn’t just teach you what they know, they hand you a door into who they know. Larry’s own inherited network runs back to Mark McCormack and IMG, the sports management company that built relationships as its whole business. That’s External API in its cleanest form: you don’t build a network from zero, you plug into one that already exists.
“DJ two things that exist” is Larry’s phrase for this. Here the two things are you and a mentor’s already-built rolodex. You don’t get handed the whole list on day one. You earn names one at a time as trust builds. The mentor is watching how you treat the first two or three introductions before they’ll give you a fourth.
Follow up fast with anyone they introduce you to, and tell the mentor how it went. That loop is what earns the next name. A rolodex you inherit and then let go cold is worse than never having it, because word gets back to the mentor.
Franchise thinking applies here too: once you know how to work one relationship from this network, the pattern repeats with the next one. This is why one real mentor beats a hundred surface-level contacts. The contacts don’t open other doors, the mentor does.
Treat every name they give you as a test of whether they should give you another one. The inheritance isn’t the list itself, it’s the standing to use it well.
Details: Watch Larry on the inherited rolodex
#Rolodex #Networking #Web12