The Ultimate Guide to Building A Network Online

This is a juicy one...

Something I'm learning as I'm getting older: the best way to inspire your friends is to simply live a good life and let your life be an example of what's possible.

(Share this on X/Twitter)

If you think you're behind in life, just remember there are hundreds of thousands of people who type words in Instagram comment sections because a post told them it was 11:11 and it would help manifest their future.

You're doing fine.

Villains and heroes both experience hardships. One uses it, the other is used by it.

It’s inevitable that you will face moments where things feel unfair, where the odds feel stacked against you, where it would be easier to be cynical than to keep going.

In those moments, you get the opportunity to choose what you believe.

When in doubt, choose the one that serves your higher self rather than your current self.

American journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson on finding your purpose:

"A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance."

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld on the advice he gives to young comedians:

"Get good at something. Everything else is bullshit."

"Your network is your net worth."

"It's not what you know, it's who you know."

"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."

You hear it all the time. Networking plays an essential role in advancing your career and business. But how do you actually go about it in a non-icky way? And more importantly, where do you even start?

Let's first start with defining what "networking" is and why it matters:

The dictionary defines networking as "the process of making connections and building relationships."

I can't think of a better definition than that, so let's stick with that for now.

Why is it important?

British physicist David Deutsch defines wealth as "the repertoire of physical transformations that you can be capable of causing."

The investor, Jeremy Giffon, says, "A real marker of wealth is how many problems you can solve by simply texting a guy."

There are a bazillion other definitions for wealth, and honestly, I think it is a personal definition. But if wealth is your ability to live your life the way you want to live, then your network is what increases the probability that you live that life.

Okay, so now that we're both on the same page, how do you actually build your network?

The answer? Don't think about networking at all!

Let's run a thought experiment:

Imagine there's a table with Jeff Bezos, Tom Brady, and Harry Styles. What could you possibly offer that would make them want to invite you to their table?

Donating to their favorite charities won't help. There's no one you can introduce them to that they can't already meet. The only thing you could possibly offer is information, a unique perspective, an insight on something that's happening in your corner of the universe that they can't buy off a shelf.

It sucks to say, because it's hard, but the best networking hack is to be great. To increase your value in the marketplace. Because the truth is, winners want to hang around winners. The rooms I'm able to gain access to are ten-fold now that I have a skillset, an audience, and a track record of results.

That said, I don't think it's as black and white as increasing your value and not thinking about networking at all. Like most things, you can do both. It's a false dichotomy to think you have to only care about skill building or only care about networking.

So how do you go about getting in front of the right people?

1/ Write upwards, not downwards

When most people think about creating content online, they think about giving advice to people who are a few steps behind them: how-to playbooks, frameworks, templates, etc.

Which is not a bad approach if you're trying to build an audience, but if you’re writing content so that you can build a network, then you have to also write upwards. You have to write for the people you admire.

So instead of trying to teach your business frameworks, you find your target and you curate, summarize, and synthesize their business frameworks and tag them, feature them, and highlight them.

Here's an example:

Twitter tweet

By synthesizing Shaan’s ideas and tagging him, I increase my visibility and show that I’m a like-minded person.

2/ If you like something, tell the creator

The cool part about the internet these days is you can literally reach out to anyone, for free, and reasonably guarantee that the message will land in their inbox.

Yet, in my opinion, not enough people reach out to the creators of the things that they love and tell them that they love it.

I have met many of the people I've looked up to simply because I sent them a message with a compliment and then started the relationship there.

A compliment can quickly become a conversation, which can quickly become a relationship.

Here's an example of me complimenting Mike McGuiness, who founded Startup Archive.

That simple message led to us hopping on a call, which led to us working together.

3/ If you think of someone, say something nice

On a similar note, if you think something nice about someone, tell them. Don't gatekeep your compliments.

One of the things that slightly pisses me off about funerals is the eulogy. Everyone takes turns saying these incredible things about the person who passed away, and that person never gets to hear any of it. Why do we wait until someone is gone to tell them how much they meant to us?

Same thing with friends. We talk positively about them behind their backs all the time but rarely say it to their face.

Pretty much every day now, whenever I think of something nice about a friend or someone who's been on my mind, I tell them. It can be as simple as, "Hey, thought about you the other day. Keep crushing." Let people know they're on your mind and that you care about them, because otherwise they won't know.

4/ Pebble more

When male penguins want to show affection, they search for the perfect pebble and offer it to their mate. If it's accepted, it becomes the first stone in the nest they'll build together.

I've always loved that image because it shows that even the strongest relationships start with something small. In practice, a pebble can look like:

• You reading an article that reminds you of a conversation you had with someone, so you send it over.

• Hearing a podcast that's relevant to what a friend is working on, so you text it to them.

• Finishing a book and immediately recommending it to someone who needs to read it.

Here's an example of a pebble that I sent to a friend because he had recently moved to San Francisco:

5/ Be the initiator

If you want to learn something, put together a group of people who also want to learn or achieve a similar goal, and then share tactics and be positive-sum.

If you’re not invited to the rooms that you want to be invited in, create your own room. You can just do things :)

For pretty much every single thing that I wanted to get good at, I've created a group:

• When I wanted to learn Twitter, I created a group.

• When I wanted to learn copywriting, I created a group.

• When I wanted to run the marathon, I created a group.

Never underestimate the group chat.

6/ Turn internet friends into IRL friends

The internet allows you to meet anyone in the entire world and build a relationship with them. But there's still something to be said about the texture and depth of an in-person relationship that you just can't replicate over DMs.

When you're traveling and you're in a new city, reach out to your internet friends who live there and meet up. I guarantee you won’t regret it.

Visited SF & went on a hike w friends

I hope this guide has been helpful. Are there more nuances? I'm sure there are. Is there a way to network without being online? I'm sure there is.

Personally, I found creating content and building a personal brand (or whatever you want to call it) to be the most beneficial approach.

I started doing this when I was 15 and in high school, and now that I'm 20, I've had five years of that network compounding. To the point where I genuinely believe that if I went broke and lost everything tomorrow, I could build it back within a week because of the people I know.

If you take anything away from this, let it be this: Networking doesn't have to be this big, scary thing. It can be as simple as texting a friend when you think about them.

And remember, the best time to dig the well is before you're thirsty. Similarly, the best time to build a network is before you need it.

Until next week,

Jay “Networkmaxxing” Yang

Author of You Can Just Do Things

Ps. Don’t let them

You can grab your copy here.

How Jennifer Anniston’s LolaVie brand grew sales 40% with CTV ads

For its first CTV campaign, Jennifer Aniston’s DTC haircare brand LolaVie had a few non-negotiables. The campaign had to be simple. It had to demonstrate measurable impact. And it had to be full-funnel.

LolaVie used Roku Ads Manager to test and optimize creatives — reaching millions of potential customers at all stages of their purchase journeys. Roku Ads Manager helped the brand convey LolaVie’s playful voice while helping drive omnichannel sales across both ecommerce and retail touchpoints.

The campaign included an Action Ad overlay that let viewers shop directly from their TVs by clicking OK on their Roku remote. This guided them to the website to buy LolaVie products.

Discover how Roku Ads Manager helped LolaVie drive big sales and customer growth with self-serve TV ads.

The DTC beauty category is crowded. To break through, Jennifer Anniston’s brand LolaVie, worked with Roku Ads Manager to easily set up, test, and optimize CTV ad creatives. The campaign helped drive a big lift in sales and customer growth, helping LolaVie break through in the crowded beauty category.

Learn more.

Forwarded this email? Sign up here
Follow me on Twitter & LinkedIn
Wear YCJDT merch

A few thoughts from a week in SF

I used to think that taking a break was a sign of laziness. That taking a weekend off was a sign that I wasn't serious. That going and spending time with family and friends meant I had to make up for that time by grinding harder afterwards.

I’ve since had two realizations:

1/ Rest, when taken strategically, can often be more productive than continuing to take mediocre action for the sake of consistency.

2/ It's easy to use productivity as a benchmark to determine whether you're living a good life. But remember, not everything that can be measured matters, and not everything that matters can be measured.

The person obsessed with reaching the summit as fast as possible will climb faster than those around them - but they also tend to miss the view, the wildflowers, the conversations at camp… all the reasons climbing is worth it in the first place.

Just because something is hard doesn't mean it's worth doing.

You can cut your lawn with scissors, but that doesn't mean you are a morally superior person. Laziness, while often ridiculed, is sometimes wisdom about where to direct your energy.

In fact, most of the super successful people that I know are extremely lazy about most things, but passionately obsessed about the few things they care deeply about.

How you do anything is NOT how you do everything.

How are you measuring success?

A ruler can tell you the exact depth of water in a pot on the stove. But it tells you nothing about temperature… the thing that actually matters.

We do this in life all the time. We measure hours worked instead of impact created. Pounds lost instead of how we feel. Followers gained instead of relationships built.

Just because something is easy to measure doesn't mean it's worth measuring.

Austrian novelist and playwright Thomas Bernhard on the power of stillness:

“For the thinking person there is no such thing as idleness... By contrast, one might say that the thinking person is at his most active when he is supposedly doing nothing. This is beyond the comprehension of genuinely idle people”

Psychologist Carl Jung on the unlived life:

"The world is full of people suffering from the effects of their own unlived life. They become bitter, critical, or rigid, not because the world is cruel to them, but because they have betrayed their own inner possibilities.

The artist who never makes art becomes cynical about those who do.

The lover who never risks loving mocks romance.

The thinker who never commits to a philosophy sneers at belief itself.

And yet, all of them suffer, because deep down they know: the life they mock is the life they were meant to live."

This past week I was in San Francisco visiting friends.

I had a lot of time to walk and read and reflect.

Here are a few thoughts:

1/

I went to lunch with someone I met through Twitter. They asked me why I do what I do.

I thought for a moment, then said:

“There’s a lot of different definitions of success. But to me, I believe real success is how many people thank you for theirs.

I’ve been incredibly blessed and fortunate to have solved the majority of my material needs at a pretty young age.

A large part is due to my upbringing and circumstances outside my control.

But I do think I’ve thought deeply and acted on some key ideas that have led to getting me to where I am to today, and I want to share that with others. I don’t pretend to have all the answers. The lens is more like ‘I’m experiencing life, and sharing what I learn as I go.’

And if I can get to the end of my life, and have shared a few useful ideas, inspired a few people, and had a fun time doing it… I’d consider that a success.”

2/

The greatest threat to your potential is the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th most important things you could be working on.

I hung out at my friend’s startup office a lot this past week. They’re building a B2B SaaS tool. One of the engineers said I seemed smart and that I should start a startup.

I thanked him but said I was going to focus on writing my next book.

There’s a famous quote in the business world that goes, "More businesses die from indigestion than starvation". And I think the same applies for our personal lives.

We do TOO MUCH instead of too little. We say “yes” to every shiny opportunity. We chase what’s hot instead of what we know we should work on.

I had a mentor tell me once: “A novice is easily spotted because they do too much. Too many ingredients, too many movements, too much explanation. A master uses the fewest motions required to fulfill their intention.”

3/

I had dinner with another person I met through Twitter (shoutout twitter, the best “networking” platform out there).

We talked about many things, but eventually the conversation drifted to relationships. She had dated many of the well-known creators and founders in the tech scene yet things never really worked out with them. I asked her why.

She said, “What they said they wanted and what their actions showed didn’t match up.”

Many of them said they wanted a wife, kids, a family. But then they would grind harder on their businesses, ignore her, and never take actions to push the relationship forward.

I found that fascinating. For people so intelligent and competent in one domain, why didn’t it translate to the rest of their life?

“They never made it a priority to do the inner work,” she said. “They thought that self introspection and reflection was how you lose your edge.”

For a long time, I’ve thought the same thing. Why analyze my demons if they’re serving me? Why open Pandora’s box when life is so good for me right now?

But the further I’ve gotten in life, the more I’ve realized that the mindset that works for one chapter of your life won’t necessarily get you to the next one. As author Marshall Goldsmith once wrote, “What got you here won’t get you there.”

I’m not here to cast judgment. But I think a question to reflect on is:

What mindset do I have right now, and is it conducive for the goals I have in this season of my life? And more importantly, do I need to do a mental software update?

4/

Most advice is just other people playing different games with different time horizons projecting their fears and regrets onto you.

One of the coolest part about being public online is the people you get to meet. I had the chance to sit down and chat with software engineers and authors, public speakers and app developers, content creators and chief of staffs.

And while most of their advice to me was well intentioned, for the most part, it wasn’t really relevant to my life and goals.

• The software engineers said I should start a SaaS company and raise venture capital.

• The authors said I should ignore social media and write a fiction novel.

• The public speakers said I should go on a speaking tour.

• The app developers said I should co-found an app with them.

• The content creators said I need to go all-in on short form content.

• The chief of staffs said I should apprentice under a $1B CEO.

But at the end of the day, if you listen to everyone’s advice… it all cancels out to zero. You have to decide for yourself what you want.

As the author G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “I've searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees."

At the end of the day, you have to decide what is right FOR YOU.

5/

For the most part, I dislike people. I am introverted. I hate crowds. I am more comfortable being alone.

BUT…

Something I’ve learned about myself this past week…

I really enjoy learning about people. I’ve had so many incredible conversations and I love when I get to exercise my curiosity.

If I find someone boring, it's often a sign that I haven't asked the right questions, not that they’re actually uninteresting.

It reminds me of this quote from Brené Brown:

“People are hard to hate close up.”

By the way, here are my favorite questions of all time.

Until next week,

Jay “SF Maxxing” Yang

Author of You Can Just Do Things

Ps. Happy Sunday

You can grab your copy here.

Forwarded this email? Sign up here
Follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn
Wear YCJDT merch

And then what?

The case for slowing down

The fastest way to guarantee misery is to desire the goal but not be willing to live the lifestyle required to achieve it.

Adding "author" to your LinkedIn and speaking on podcasts and on stages is great.

But you also have to love sitting alone in a room at 5am staring at a blank page, rewriting the same paragraph for the fourth time, and deleting 10,000 words that never make the final cut.

Everyone loves the finish line. But the marathon is won in the middle.

A recipe for happiness and achievement:

Take your work seriously and yourself unseriously.

Growing up, we’re told to want these grandiose things.

The money, the power, the status, the fame.
But what they don’t tell you is the cost and the pain.

Of shedding old layers of who you once were.
Of shedding the friendships you thought were secure.

But the higher you climb, the faster you’ll find…

That success means nothing without those you left behind.

J. Paul Getty was the richest man in the world. This was his main advice to younger entrepreneurs:

“You’re too focused on speculating and trading. The best entrepreneurs don’t want to trade, they want to own. They know all the real money is in the long term. Most people are too impatient and incompetent to understand that. An example he uses in the book: a young man buys an oil lease on Monday for $4,000. He sells it to Getty on Tuesday for $8,000. The young man is bragging about doubling his money in 24 hours. Getty makes $800,000 on that lease over the next decade.”

Source: Founders Podcast

A lesson on staying in the game:

Every week, a father would hold out a dime in one hand and a quarter in the other and tell his youngest son to pick one. Every week, the boy picked the dime.

His older brother pulled him aside one day and said, "You know a quarter is worth more than a dime, right? You're losing money every time."

The younger brother smiled and said, "Yeah, I know. But the moment I choose the quarter is the moment Dad stops playing the game."

And Then What?

I'm in the middle of writing my second book. And I have this urge to just be done with it. To get it out into the world. To hit publish and share it and move on to whatever comes next.

But then I catch myself and ask the question that I think more of us need to ask:

And then what?

Because I know the answer… I'd start working on the next book. And after that, the next one. And somewhere in between I'd find new goals and new milestones and new mountains to climb, and I would climb them, and I would reach the top, and I would look around for about thirty seconds before scanning the horizon for the next peak.

And look, I'm not saying that to complain; I think my ambition has fueled me to achieve a lot of really cool things at an early age. But I think the thing that not enough people talk about is the dark side of ambition, the other side of the coin. How ambition can beget ambition, and it can be hard to find what “enough” looks like for you.

When I was at home, working late into the night, my mom would stop by my room to check on me and say, "Make sure you enjoy what you're doing because you can never get the time back." I used to brush her off and say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." But she's right, and I think I'm only starting to understand how right she is.

One of my favorite quotes is from the comedian Jimmy Carr. He says, "If more money wouldn't change how you spend your time, then you're already rich."

I love it because it exposes one of the bigger fallacies people walk around with, this idea that more money would make them happier.

If I had twenty million dollars in my bank account, the honest answer is that my life wouldn't look that different from what it does right now. Maybe I'd work a little less. Play more pickup basketball. Learn the piano. But the core of my days? I'd still wake up early. I'd still write. I'd still read and work out and walk and eat meals with friends and spend my evenings with family.

So what am I actually chasing?

I think a lot of us are running toward something we already have. We just can't see it because we're moving too fast.

There's a parable I keep coming back to…

An American investment banker is standing at the pier of a small coastal village in Mexico when a fisherman pulls in with a few beautiful yellowfin tuna. The banker compliments him and asks how long it took to catch them.

"Only a little while," the fisherman says.

So the banker asks why he doesn't stay out longer and catch more fish. The fisherman shrugs. He has enough to support his family. He sleeps late, fishes a little, plays with his children, takes naps with his wife, and strolls into the village each evening to sip wine and play guitar with his friends.

The banker, a Harvard MBA, tells him he's thinking too small. Fish more. Buy a bigger boat. Then a fleet. Open a cannery. Move to Mexico City, then LA, then New York. Build an empire. In fifteen to twenty years, you could go public, sell your shares, and make millions.

The fisherman asks, "And then what?"

The banker grins. "Then you'd retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village. Sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take naps with your wife, and sip wine with your friends in the evening."

I think about this parable a lot because I see so much of myself in the banker. I have spent years operating under the assumption that the future version of my life will be better than the current one. That if I just work a little harder, get a little further ahead, stack a few more wins, then I'll arrive at some place where I can finally relax and enjoy things.

But that place doesn't exist. Or rather, it does exist, and I might already be standing in it.

Here's a reflection I had recently…

The source of so much of our misery is this perpetual dissatisfaction with the present. This quiet belief that the future will be better than right now. That we're always one more achievement away from feeling the way we want to feel.

And because the future never actually arrives (it just becomes the present, which we're already dissatisfied with), we end up spending our whole lives in transit. Always on the way somewhere. Never actually there.

We spend our youth, our time, and our energy to make money so that when we're old we can spend our money to buy back our time and youth and energy.

Think about how insane that is.

We trade the thing we want for the thing we think will get us the thing we want.

And then there's nostalgia, which is the same trap pointed in the other direction.

Nostalgia is the misconception that the past was better than it actually was. We gloss over the hard parts. We put on rose-colored glasses and only remember the highlights. We look back at college or high school or some earlier chapter of our lives and think, "Those were the days," forgetting that when we were living those days we were probably wishing we were somewhere else too.

The past wasn't better. The future won't be better. The only thing that's real is right now. The work you're doing today. The people you're sitting with right now. The book you're reading, the walk you're taking, the conversation you're having.

Kurt Vonnegut said it better than I ever could: "I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, if this isn't nice, I don't know what is."

I think true wealth is not the big milestones. It's not the launch days or the viral moments or the fancy vacations. True wealth is what your average Tuesday looks like. It's daily wealth. It's the stuff that doesn't make it onto social media because it's too ordinary to post about.

We rush through the 99% to get to the 1%, not realizing that the 99% IS our life.

Life is just time, and what you do with it.

And if you're truly working on something you believe is your life's work, why would you want to rush through it? Why would you want to fast-forward past the part where you're actually building the thing, just so you can get to the part where it's done? That’s like playing your favorite song on 2x speed.

So I'm trying something new. I'm trying to slow down. Not in a way where I stop being ambitious or stop caring about my work. But in a way where I stop treating every day like a stepping stone to somewhere better.

Because I think I might be living in the good old days right now. And I don't want to realize that only in hindsight.

Until next week,

Jay “And Then What?” Yang

Author of You Can Just Do Things

Ps. Reminder

You can grab your copy here.

Help with homework that doesn't ruin everyone's night

Dinner gets tense. Bedtime gets pushed. Someone cries. Someone snaps.

And tomorrow you'll do it all over again.

Acadia Learning gives families unlimited tutoring for $40/month so homework doesn't have to be the thing that ruins your evenings:

• Real help when your kid needs it

• No more three-hour frustration sessions

• Get your nights back for actually connecting

Already trusted by 10,000+ families.

Book your first session by the end of the month and get 50% off your first month.

Book your first session

Forwarded this email? Sign up here
Follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn
Wear YCJDT merch

How to get ahead at work

Find your “AND”

The most successful people I know don’t “trust life’s timing”.

They don’t accept the standard pace as the pace they have to go at.

They don’t let life happen to them. They happen to life.

They figure out what they want. Then they stop at nothing until they get what they want.

It’s an intense, relentless, all-consuming pursuit until the mission is accomplished. They accept nothing short of complete success.

Because why would they have it any other way?

There are two types of people in the world: those who get what they want and those who settle and change what they want to fit what the world wants them to want.

You don’t need a lot of attention to build a great reputation.

But if you don’t have a great reputation, none of your attention will matter.

“If God actually chooses you he ruins you for normal life, marks you so obviously that other people can smell it on you and they will hate you for it, not consciously but in their bones, because your existence proves that settling was optional and they chose it anyway. The blessed man sleeps alone because everyone around him is engaged in a silent conspiracy to worship their own limitations and he refuses to join, and that refusal is an act of violence against the social contract. They will forgive you for being evil before they forgive you for being called.”

— @lichthauch on Twitter

One of my favorite mental frames when I’m going through something challenging is:

What story do I want to tell at the end of this?

That things were hard and Jay quit?
Or that things were hard, Jay pushed through, and he won because he's a winner.

Here’s an essay I wrote for a friend. Enjoy :)

Find your “AND”

Here’s a career trajectory that should terrify you:

You get a role. You do a good job. You wait for someone to notice. You keep waiting. A year passes. You ask for more responsibility. They say “not yet.” Another year passes. You leave for another company and start the cycle over again.

Most people approach their careers like a vending machine. Put in effort, press a button, wait for a reward to fall out. Do the job well enough, and eventually someone will tap you on the shoulder and say, “Hey, you’re ready for more.”

It almost never works that way.

The people who advance fastest don’t wait for permission. They don’t stay neatly inside the lines of their job description. They don’t assume that excellence in their current role automatically earns them the next one.

They find their AND.

* * *

What Is Your AND?

If you’re only focused on your core job, you’re doing it wrong.

Don’t misread that. You have to deliver in your core role. That’s table stakes. But if you want to advance—genuinely accelerate your trajectory, not just inch forward—you need to think about your AND.

If you’re in a sales role but want to move into marketing: do your sales job AND help the marketing team on the side.

If you’re an intern making copies but want a full-time offer: make the copies AND offer feedback on a current process.

If you’re an individual contributor but want to be a people manager: do your IC work AND start mentoring to build your coaching skills.

The AND is the bridge between where you are and where you want to be. It’s the work you take on before it’s officially yours. And it’s the single most effective way to collapse the timeline between your current role and your next one.

* * *

Why This Works (When Waiting Doesn’t)

Put yourself in the business’s shoes for a moment.

Giving someone a promotion is a risk. It can disrupt workflows. It changes team dynamics. The person might not like the new role. They might not be good at it. Every promotion is a bet—and most organizations are risk-averse with bets they don’t need to make.

So what tips the scales?

Evidence. When you’ve already been doing the work of the next role—when you’ve demonstrated the competence, the initiative, and the track record—the promotion stops being a risk. It becomes a formality. At that point, giving you more responsibility is the better risk-adjusted move. You’re not asking them to gamble on your potential. You’re showing them proof of your capability.

The question shifts from “Can this person handle more?” to “Why haven’t we given this person more already?”

That’s where you want to be.

* * *

How I Found My AND

When I joined the media team at Acquisition.com, my role was focused on content. But I didn’t want to just learn about media. I wanted to understand the business.

If I had waited for that to happen organically, I’d still be waiting.

So instead, I woke up at 3:30am in the morning with a teammate and we studied our business playbooks before the day started (don’t worry, it was only for about a month). When the team held workshops, I volunteered to be the “notetaker.” I sat in on sessions, took detailed notes, and shared them with the team afterwards. People loved them. Suddenly, I was useful in a room I had no business being in.

I started taking work off other people’s plates before anyone asked me to. That earned me a seat in L3 workshops—the highest level we offered, where business owners paid $135,000 to spend a day with Alex Hormozi in the boardroom working on their businesses.

I did the same thing with marketing. I wanted to learn about the paid side, so instead of requesting a transfer or waiting for a rotation, I wrote a batch of ads and sent them to our director of marketing. When I wanted to write for Alex, I wrote a batch of tweets and sent them to him. When I wanted to write the Mozi Minutes newsletter, I wrote ten editions and sent them over.

Every single one of these moves followed the same pattern: I did the job I had AND the job I wanted. I didn’t wait for someone to give me the opportunity. I created proof that I was ready for it.

This isn’t a prescription to live at that intensity forever. But if you commit to a season of it—really commit—you can compress four years of progress into one.

* * *

Two Frameworks to Find Your AND

Framework 1: The No-Brainer Test

Before you take action, ask yourself one question: “How can I make this a no-brainer for them?”

The mistake most people make is asking for opportunity. They walk into their boss’s office and say, “I’d love to take on more responsibility.” But that puts the burden on the other person to evaluate the risk, create the opportunity, and manage the transition.

Instead, remove the risk entirely. Do the work first. Show up with a finished product. Write the ads before you ask to join the marketing team. Build the deck before you pitch the idea.

When you hand someone a solved problem instead of a request, you’ve turned a decision into a no-brainer. They’re no longer weighing whether to take a chance on you. They’re looking at evidence that you’ve already done the thing.

Framework 2: The Reverse Job Description

Here’s the exercise:

Step one: Find the job description of the role you want to hold in the next two to three years. Not a vague aspiration—an actual job listing with specific skills and qualifications.

Step two: List every skill that role requires.

Step three: Circle the ones you don’t have yet.

Step four: Start building those skills now, inside or alongside your current role.

This is how you close the gap before the gap matters. If the role you want requires experience managing people, start mentoring someone today. If it requires data analysis skills, take a course this month. If it requires cross-functional collaboration, volunteer for a project outside your team this week.

Every skill you build now is one less reason for someone to say “not yet” when the opportunity arrives.

“It is too late to prepare for war when the time for peace has passed.” — Theodore Roosevelt

* * *

The Real Secret

The people who get ahead fastest aren’t the ones who do their job perfectly and wait. They’re the ones who do their job AND the next one. They treat their current role as the foundation and their AND as the bridge.

You don’t need permission to start learning. You don’t need a title to start contributing. You don’t need a promotion to start proving you’re ready for one.

Start doing the work of the role you want before you have the role. That way, when they’re looking to promote someone, you’re not a candidate…

You’re the obvious choice.

Until next week,

Jay “Find your AND” Yang

Author of You Can Just Do Things

Ps. Just win

You can grab your copy here.

How 2M+ Professionals Stay Ahead on AI

AI is moving fast and most people are falling behind.

The Rundown AI is a free newsletter that keeps you ahead of the curve.

It's a free AI newsletter that keeps you up-to-date on the latest AI news, and teaches you how to apply it in just 5 minutes a day.

Plus, complete the quiz after signing up and they’ll recommend the best AI tools, guides, and courses — tailored to your needs.

Sign up to start learning.

Forwarded this email? Sign up here
Follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn
Wear YCJDT merch

How to accelerate your career

5 of my fav pieces of advice

Signs you’re on the right track:

• You wake up excited to get to work.

• Hours pass by in a blur when you’re working.

• You get dopamine when working.

• You feel the itch to work when you’re not working.

• You go to bed tired but not exhausted.

• You feel proud of the work you’re doing.

Sometimes doing nothing is the most productive thing you can do.

Your mind is a problem-seeking and solving machine. If it doesn’t have anything to wok on, it tends to invent imaginary problems to solve.

No. Focus.

Don’t ever apologize for doing things that give you peace even if others don’t understand it.

Early bed times. 5am wakeups. Heavy lifts. Organic foods. Ignoring the news. Being outside in nature.

It may sound boring to others. But if it brings you calmness, clarity, and composure... you don’t need to feel bad about it.

Life isn’t a popularity contest.

Prioritize your life, because no one else will do it for you.

“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”

— Antoine de Staint-Exupery

Legendary writers Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller were at a party on Shelter Island hosted by their billionaire neighbor, John Bogle, investor and pioneer of the index fund. At some point, Kurt turns to Heller and tells him that Bogle had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his widely popular novel Catch 22 over its entire history.

“Yes,” Heller responds, “but I have something he will never have… enough.”

I collect career advice like rich people collect watches.

Here are 5 of my favorite pieces:

1/ Start with the big dream

NFL defensive end J.J. Watts was asked what advice he'd give to someone who wanted to play in the NFL. "Start with the big dream," J.J. said. "Let's say my goal was to get in the NFL. Okay, how do I get there? Well, I should probably get drafted - that would be better than not getting drafted. Getting drafted in the first round is the best option. What numbers did the top defensive end get? What was his split time? How big was he? How fast was he? How strong was he?"

J.J. continued, "[Then you think], okay, how do I accomplish those numbers? Well, I need to get in the weight room. Okay, what can I do today to improve my speed, strength, and agility? So you start with the big dream and break it down to its simplest form: what can I do today to make myself better?"

2/ The only thing that changed was that I started getting paid

When Ryan Holiday was 19 years old, he dropped out of college to apprentice under Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power. When asked why he decided to give up the safe path, he replied, "Robert's life resembled the life that I wanted to live."

"When I met Robert and he asked me to become his research assistant, the only thing that changed was that I started getting paid," Ryan later wrote, "I'd already marked and organized hundreds of books with interesting leads and material."

If you're looking to build a meaningful career, first start by asking yourself: what am I already doing for free?

3/ Get in the room

"When you're early in your career," Author Sahil Bloom writes, "Your primary goal should be to get in those rooms - to be around other bright, interesting people."

He continues, "The magic of compounding is even more powerful with your human connections and knowledge than it is with your financial assets. If you're intellectually curious and spend time with great people, you'll always find a way to win."

What rooms do you need to get in?

4/ Stand out 1/8th of an inch

Errol Gerson was a renowned business professor for over half a century. But in 1971, he was just an ordinary kid looking for a job. After getting rejected time and time again, he set out to figure out why.

"I got copies of all the resumes of my fellow MBAs and they all looked exactly the same. All were quite ordinary on paper; all were in Times New Roman font and were unremarkable. They were all 'good' but not 'great'.

Then inspiration struck: If he wanted attention, he had to do something unexpected.

Instead of regular paper, he bought thick high-quality paper. Instead of standard sized sheets, he asked for them to be cut 1/8th of an inch taller. Instead of Times New Roman, he used Helvetica.

Within a few days, Errol got hired. "When the recruiter went to straighten our the piles of resumes, mine stuck out 1/8th of an inch."

5/ Just ask

When Steve Jobs was twelve, he called Bill Hewlett and asked him for an electronics part. Steve was part of something called the Explorers Club, where computer enthusiasts would get together to build computers. He had hit a dead end with one of his projects and needed a specific part that was only supplied by one company - Hewlett-Packard.

So he looked up the CEO, Bill Hewlett on the phone book, and called him at home. He spoke into the receiver and said, "Hi, I'm Steve Jobs," then asked him for the spare part. Hewlett-Packard was one of the world's largest technology companies at the time, and Bill Hewlett was a multi-millionaire with a packed CEO schedule.

Amused by the situation, Bill decided to lend him the spare part. But then Steve did something even more audacious, he said, "I'd also like a summer job." And Bill agreed to that as well.

"I've actually always found something to be very true, which is most people don't get those experiences because they never ask," Jobs recalled decades later in a 1994 interview. "I've never found anybody that didn't want to help me if I asked them for help."

Until next week,

Jay “You can just do things” Yang

Author of You Can Just Do Things

Ps. Peace

“My sister was struggling mentally with what to do in life, so I bought her your book for Christmas.”

You can grab your copy here.

There’s more to AI than ChatGPT.

If you’re only using AI to rewrite emails, you’re doing it wrong.

The AI for Business & Finance Certificate from Columbia Business School Exec Ed breaks down how to use AI to make faster, more strategic decisions at work.

Save $300 with code SAVE300 + $200 with early enrollment by Feb. 17.

Enroll Today

Forwarded this email? Sign up here
Follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn
Wear YCJDT merch

I went through a breakup…

Unhinged Habits

The greatest threat to your potential is the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th most important things you could be working on.

Your inability to focus on your greatest priority will hurt your potential far greater than your lack of intellect.

Tune out the world. Lock in.

You can tell how successful someone will be by the type of questions they ask

Losers "How do I start?" or "How do I stay consistent?"

Winners "Here's what I'm doing, how would you speed this up?"

Losers ask for advice on their ideas. Winners ask for feedback on their attempts.

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

The higher you go, the more options and access you will gain.

Which is why it becomes increasingly paramount to remember what you set out to achieve.

Author Jeanette Winterson on writing as an expression vehicle:

“As soon as you have found the words with which to express something, you are no longer incoherent, you are no longer trapped by your own emotions, by your own experience; you can describe them, you can tell them, you can bring them out of yourself and give them to somebody else. That is an enormously liberating experience.”

Investor Julian Shapiro on writing as crystalization:

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is known for being quite eloquent in interviews. When writer David Perell asked how he’s able to be so articulate on the fly. Neil told him that nearly 100% of the stories and analogies he shares in interviews are first written down. Most people don’t realize this.

In 2023, I went through a bad breakup.

I had to look this girl in the eye and say…

“My priorities have changed”.

She was my ride or die.

We were inseparable since 4th grade. We practically grew up together.

But I had to let her go.

We had so many incredible memories together.

I remember after we first met, I felt so nervous and embarrassed.

So I worked my ass off to never have that feeling again.

She helped me become a better person.

But in 2023, I realized I had outgrown her.

She was holding me back.

And I had to let her go.

This “girl” was basketball.

After I metaphorically pulled the trigger, everything improved.

My online business grew faster.
My grades got better.
My sleep improved.

I had entered a new season of my life. And the only way for me to continue to add things to my plate was to first subtract.

That’s one of the biggest lessons I’ve been reminded of in my friend Jonathan Goodman’s new book Unhinged Habits.

The core idea is simple but uncomfortable:

You cannot maximize money, health, and relationships at the same time. Anyone who pretends otherwise is lying or burning something important in the background.

Instead, Jonathan pushes seasons of intensity. Go all in on one pillar for a defined window. Then maintain it while shifting focus. It feels obvious after reading it. But most of us live in permanent half-effort mode and call it balance.

What I appreciated most is that the book isn’t anti-ambition. It’s anti-accidental ambition. It’s about choosing your hard, instead of waking up in a hard life you didn’t consciously design.

As someone who's early in their career and still figuring out what a "good life" means to me, I really enjoyed this book. Jon is one of the clearest thinkers I know, and a damn great writer.

If you care about building a meaningful career without losing your health or relationships, this is worth reading. It gives you language and structure for tradeoffs most people feel but never articulate.

—

Apologies for the bait and switch on the breakup haha. I thought it was a creative angle to help promote my friend Jon’s book. 😅

On a more serious note: If you've been following my journey for a while, you've probably noticed I'm in a different season now.

I left my job at Acquisition.com (will share more soon). I'm working on my second book (will also share more soon). And now I'm facing questions without obvious right answers.

What does it mean to be rich? How do I actually want to spend my time? What kind of person do I want to show up as?

It's overwhelming in the best way.

I don't have it all figured out yet. But I think that’s the entire point of being in your early 20s. Not to have all the answers, but to enjoy the experience of exploring the questions.

For now, I'm treating it like an experiment. Testing things. Staying curious. Trying not to rush to conclusions just because uncertainty feels uncomfortable.

I'll keep you posted on what I find.

Until next week,

Jay “Subtract to Multiply” Yang

Author of You Can Just Do Things

Ps. Mastery

You can grab your copy here.

Learn Real Estate Investing from Wharton's Best Minds

In just 8 weeks, learn institutional-grade real estate analysis and modeling from Wharton faculty and seasoned investors.

You’ll gain:

• Insider insights on how top firms like Blackstone and KKR evaluate deals

• Exclusive invites to recruiting and networking events

• Direct access to Wharton faculty and a certificate that signals credibility

Join a thriving community of 5,000+ graduates for ongoing career development, networking, and deal flow.

Use code SAVE300 at checkout to save $300 on tuition.

Program starts February 9.

Get the Brochure

Forwarded this email? Sign up here
Follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn
Wear YCJDT merch

How to crush it at your new job

Your first 90 days

A hill I'm willing to die on: STOP networking. Skip the networking events. Skip the coffee chats. Skip the "can we connect?" LinkedIn requests.

Build yourself into the type of person the people you want to network with WANT to hang around. That's the only hack.

You can only watch YouTube videos, listen to podcasts, and take courses for so long.

At some point, you have to step into the arena and get some dirt on yourself.

And once you do, you'll realize how much quicker you learn through action, not theory.

Somewhere along the lines, someone said you have to suffer to become successful and everyone else started to parrot it.

Why do you need to be miserable to get what you want?

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” — Sun Tzu

"Get it through your head. First impressions last. You start behind the eight-ball, you'll never get in front." – Harvey Spector

Your first 90 days at your job set the tone for everything.

Here's how to nail them:

When you're ambitious and eager to prove yourself, it's tempting to want to immediately make your mark.

But offering suggestions before understanding the landscape risks offending people who spent years building what exists today.

You're not seen as ambitious. You're seen as arrogant.

Instead, treat your first 90 days as an intelligence-gathering mission.

This reminds me of Hernan Cortes, the Spanish conquistador:

Before attempting to conquer the Aztec Empire, Cortes spent months learning the political terrain of Mesoamerica.

He discovered that many tribes resented Aztec rule. So he made alliances with local enemies of Montezuma before marching on Tenochtitlan.

These allies showed him the best routes to attack and where the Aztec system was weakest.

Cortes only had 600 men. Against an empire of millions.

Had he charged in blind, he would've been slaughtered. But because he gathered intelligence first, he accomplished what seemed impossible.

Cortes didn't win with force. He won with information.

Your career works the same way.

When you start a new role, you're walking into an existing power structure. Relationships, politics, and history you don't understand yet. People who've invested years into building systems they're proud of.

You need to map the terrain before you make a move.

Here's how:

Schedule 20-minute calls with everyone you can.

Ask three questions:

1. What's the biggest problem at the company or team right now?

2. What advice do you have for me?

3. Who else should I talk to? Can you connect me?

Each conversation ends with an introduction to someone new. Within weeks, you'll have met people most employees don't meet in their first year.

This does two things.

First, you signal humility. People respect someone who asks questions instead of assuming they have all the answers.

Second, you gather intelligence no onboarding document will give you. The real priorities. The hidden landmines. Who actually has influence. What's been tried before and failed.

Three months in, while everyone else is still figuring out the org chart, you'll know exactly who to align with, which battles to pick, and where you can actually make a dent.

Look, I get it.

When you're young and hungry, patience feels like a waste of time. You want to prove you belong.

But trying to impress people before you understand the game is like Cortes charging Tenochtitlan with 600 men and no allies.

It's not ambitious. It's reckless.

Do the interviews. Ask the questions. Map the terrain.

The fastest way to guarantee you don't get what you want is to rush for it.

Until next week,

Jay “Assess The Terrain” Yang

Author of You Can Just Do Things

Ps. Free mini course on how to write viral hooks

You can grab your copy here.

Earn your PE certificate online. Build an MBA-style network.

The Wharton Online + Wall Street Prep Private Equity Certificate Program gives you the knowledge and tools top professionals use to analyze investment opportunities.

• Learn from senior leaders at top firms like Carlyle, Blackstone, and KKR.

• Get direct access to Wharton faculty in live office hours where concepts become clear, practical, and immediately applicable.

• Study on your schedule with a flexible online format

Plus, join an active network of 5,000+ graduates from all over the world.

Enroll today and save $300 with code SAVE300.

Program begins February 9.

Get the Brochure

Forwarded this email? Sign up here
Follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn
Wear YCJDT merch

How to win in your 20s

The better the relationship, the fewer times you need to call, more times you want to call, and easier it is to jump right back in as if no time has passed.

True intelligence isn't just about getting what you want. It's about enjoying the journey toward getting what you want.

If you’re worried about the price of going after what you want, just remember the price of staying exactly where you are.

“Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying ‘Make Me Feel Important.’ Never forget that when working with people.”

— Mary Kay Ash

Nietzsche:

For the past 5 years of my life, I have been obsessed with how to “win” my 20s.

Here’s a non-exhasutive list of advice that has helped me:

1. Move out of your home town. You don’t realize how much your environment affects your ambition. There’s a quote I love: “We only dream to the size of our exposures. Because what we’re exposed to is the only things we think are reachable.” Not saying you have to leave forever, but it’s definitely worth changing your environment.

2. Treat school like a day job. Everyone complains about how school doesn’t teach many “real life skills”, but then they don’t do anything about it. What’s helped me is adopting the belief that school isn’t there to teach me anything and it’s on me to educate myself. So both before and after classes (and technically during class 🤫), I would work on my online projects and ideas. It changed my life. You learn way more from working on a real-life project than sitting in a lecture hall.

3. Write online. You will be told to “network”, but the way they teach you to go about it is all wrong. The best people you want to know are NOT going to networking events and coffee chats. They’re too busy building stuff and working on improving themselves. You should do the same. Level up your skills then share what you’re learning online.

4. Get insanely good at cold outreach. Study some basic copywriting. Search up good cold emails. Then practice by shooting your short. You don’t even have to ask for anything. Start by sending a thank you email to your favorite author or entrepreneur.

5. Build a cash-flowing agency >> VC-backed startup. For some reason, colleges like to make you think that you have to start a venture-backed startup if you want to be an entrepreneur. That is not the case at all. In fact, you will probably learn more (and earn more) by starting an agency and focusing on signing clients than making pitch decks to win a $500 pitch competition.

6. Create a story bank. At the end of each week, reflect on your past week and document any cool things that happened to you. It doesn’t have to be a long journal, it can be a few sentences or bullet points. Trust me, this will come in handy in the future.

7. Adopt a weekly reflection habit. Speaking of weekly reflection, one of the best habits I’ve adopted is reviewing my past week and planning my next week. Why? Because life has a way of steering us off course from our goals. This helps keep you in check.

8. Never sacrifice your reputation for short-term gain. Never ever ever ever do something that you wouldn’t be proud of telling your grandparents or future kids about because someone offered you money. Don’t do it. It’s not worth it. I will not elaborate.

9. Learn to cook a few staple meals. It’s been about 9 months since I started living alone in Las Vegas and I’m soooo glad I learned how to cook a few dishes that I can rotate between. If you have a favorite dish or meal, ask the person who made it how they made it and learn!

10. Work for someone you admire. Not only will you have a high likelihood of learning, but it will also demystify the idea that your idols are superheroes with magical powers. They’re not. They’re human beings who eat, breathe, sleep, and shit just like the rest of us.

11. Do your very best to see what great looks like. I truly believe one of the most valuable things you can do for your career is to see what “great” actually looks like. Because once you’ve seen it, you can never unsee it. It becomes the benchmark you measure against for the rest of your career.

12. Don’t be afraid to quit things. There’s this idea that you have to find your purpose or calling and stick with it for the rest of your life. But I’d argue your 20s are for figuring out what you enjoy and are naturally good at. Don’t chase what’s hot or shiny for the sake of it. Sure you might get ahead in the short-term, but in the long-run you will get lapped by those who have found their superpower.

13. Skip the typical first job and go build stuff on the internet. Your first job is typically to teach you how to show up on time, follow rules, talk to customers, and be reliable. But if you already know how to do those things, skip the job at your local coffee shop and build things online. Start an agency, build an app, design a website.

14. Get AI native. You should be spending at least an hour a day tinkering with and using all the latest AI tools. People can debate it all they want, but it’s no secret AI will continue to improve and become more prevalent.

15. Create a life philosophy. Take a weekend just for yourself. Reflect on what you want and don’t want out of life. Get as specific as possible. Write it down. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Most people don’t spend enough time thinking about the big questions in life.

16. Get in shape. You already know this. You will never have as much free time and energy as you do now. Use it.

17. Don’t stop playing sports. At the very least, sprint or jump once a week. You will be surprised how quickly your body atrophies when you don’t use it.

18. Optimize for serendipity. Work at a coffee shop instead of your room. Live close to the city where things are happening rather than further away to save a couple bucks. Say yes to random meetups if the alternative is rotting away in your room. Luck is probability… and you want it on your side.

19. Be open to learning from everyone you meet. Everyone has something to teach you (even if it’s what NOT to do). You will never reach your full potential if you constantly think you’re smarter than you are. You can’t learn what you think you already know. Empty your cup.

20. You already know what it takes to live a good life. To give more than you take. To love more than you hurt. To do hard things, love your family, and work on meaningful projects. The hard part is not getting distracted with all the chaos going on around you. Be kind, work hard, be patient and you’ll do well.

Until next week,

Jay “In My 20s” Yang

Author of You Can Just Do Things

Ps. My hiring criteria

“Short enough to read in 30 minutes. Impactful enough to change the rest of your life.”

You can grab your copy here.

Introducing the first AI-native CRM

Connect your email, and you’ll instantly get a CRM with enriched customer insights and a platform that grows with your business.

With AI at the core, Attio lets you:

• Prospect and route leads with research agents

• Get real-time insights during customer calls

• Build powerful automations for your complex workflows

Join industry leaders like Granola, Taskrabbit, Flatfile and more.

👉 Try Attio Pro for free

Forwarded this email? Sign up here
Follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn
Wear YCJDT merch