WHAT YOU'LL TAKE AWAY
Your network is built on deposits, not withdrawals. Invest in people long before you need them.
Relationships forged without agenda are the most durable ones in your career.
One introduction from the right person can change the entire trajectory of your career.
The best partnerships are built on friendship first, business second.
Never confuse contacts with relationships: one is a list, the other is a lifeline.
It was the era before the iPhone existed. Before the app store, before mobile-first anything, before the world had a word for the digital life we were all about to live.
I was working at Rogers Wireless, the countries largest mobile phone operator, doing business with a scrappy social platform called The Facebook. That is where I first crossed paths with Josh, one of the earliest employees Facebook had ever hired in Canada.
We were not colleagues. We were not doing a deal together. We were just two people who loved technology, who saw something coming on the horizon that most people around us were not yet paying attention to. And so we talked. We stayed in touch. We checked in on each other as the years passed and our careers each took their own shape.
No agenda. No transactional motive. Just a genuine connection built on shared curiosity and mutual respect.
I had no idea, back then, how much that relationship would come to mean.
The Deposit You Don't Remember Making
Here is the thing about investing in relationships: you rarely feel like you are doing it in the moment. It does not feel strategic. It feels like lunch, like a phone call you did not have to make but wanted to, like following someone's journey and being genuinely happy when they succeed.
That is exactly what it was with Josh. Years went by. Our careers grew in different directions. But the warmth of that original connection never cooled, because neither of us ever treated it as a means to an end.
And then, at a pivotal moment in my career, I reached out to Josh. Not to ask for something, exactly. To ask for a conversation. I wanted an introduction to the newly appointed operations leader for TikTok in Canada.
Josh made the call as yet again, the first TikTok employee in Canada (Josh has a tendency to spot the unicorns early). A connection was made. And that single introduction set in motion a chain of events that led to one of the most significant opportunities of my professional life.
But here is what I need you to understand: that introduction was not the return on my investment. It was not a transaction that closed a loop. It was the beginning of something far greater.
The Relationship That Became a Partnership
Working at TikTok, the real depth of what Josh and I had built became clear in a way I had never anticipated.
As my team pursued innovation after innovation (Out of Phone, TikTok Radio, experiences that had never been built before), Josh was there not as a vendor, not as an external contact, but as a true believer. He understood the vision before it was fully formed. He could see around corners with us. He became an internal partner in the truest sense of the word.
That kind of alignment does not happen with someone you just met. It does not happen with someone you connected with because you needed something from them. It happens with someone you have known long enough to have earned their trust, and to have given them yours.
We flourished together. And I will always be grateful, not for the business wins alone, though those were real, but for the friendship that made all of it possible.
What Most People Get Wrong About Networking
Most people treat their network like a savings account they never contribute to, and then wonder why there is nothing there when they need to make a withdrawal.
They show up at events and collect business cards. They send LinkedIn requests with no message. They only reach out when they are job hunting, when they need a favor, when there is something specific they want. And then they are surprised when the response is lukewarm, or when the relationship simply is not there to call on.
That is not a network. That is a list.
A real network is built on deposits. On showing up for people when there is nothing in it for you. On celebrating their wins publicly. On making introductions that benefit them, not just you. On staying curious about who they are becoming, not just what they can do for you today.
The account earns interest over time. And when you finally need it, it is full.
The Ripple Effect on Your Leadership
When you lead from a place of relational abundance, everything changes. You stop being transactional in your conversations. You start investing in the people around you with the quiet confidence of someone who knows that what you give will come back, even if it comes back differently than you planned.
Your team watches how you treat people who have nothing to offer you right now. They are learning from that. They are deciding what kind of culture they are working inside. And they are making mental notes about whether you are someone worth going the extra mile for.
Leaders who invest in relationships before they need them never seem to be scrambling. They always seem to know someone. They always seem to have a path forward. It is not luck. It is compounded interest on years of genuine investment.
The best relationships in my career did not start with an agenda. They started with curiosity, with respect, with showing up as a human being before showing up as a business contact.
Josh and I never did a deal together before the TikTok chapter. Not one. And yet when the moment came, there was more trust between us than you could have manufactured in any boardroom.
Your network is a bank account. Start making deposits today, not because you know what you will need tomorrow, but because the people worth knowing deserve better than a transaction.
Invest in the relationship. The returns will take care of themselves.
Community Challenge: The Relationship Audit
This week, I want you to do something that feels overdue.
Think about someone in your network who you genuinely respect, someone you have not reached out to in six months or more. Not because you need something from them. Just because the connection matters and you have let it go quiet.
Reach out. Not with an ask. Not with an agenda. Just to say: I was thinking about you, I saw what you are building, and I wanted to check in.
That is a deposit. And it costs you nothing except a few minutes and the willingness to care.
If this lesson resonated, drop NETWORK in the comments and tell me: who is one person in your career that showed up for you before you ever asked? Give them a public moment. And if you want the Relationship Audit framework I use to stay intentional about the people in my corner, comment INVEST and I will send it your way.