A blank sheet of paper can be surprisingly revealing.
One of the first exercises I do with nearly every coaching client begins the same way. I hand them a blank sheet of paper and ask them to draw a circle in the middle. Inside the circle, they write their own name. Then I ask them to begin adding everyone they know. Current clients. Past clients. Friends. Neighbors. Former colleagues. The accountant they’ve trusted for years. The architect they met at a charity event. The parent they always chat with at soccer practice. Anyone who has crossed their path in a meaningful way.
Most people start confidently. The obvious names come quickly. Then the pace slows. Eventually, they put the pen down, look up at me, and say some version of the same thing.
“I think that’s about it.”
That’s when I ask a second question.
“Who do those people know?”
The pen starts moving again.
A former client serves on the board of a nonprofit. A neighbor’s brother runs a private equity firm. Someone remembers an old college roommate who married into a family they haven’t thought about in years. A trusted accountant introduces developers. An architect knows investors. A past client has a business partner. The circles continue to expand until the page that seemed finished is suddenly alive with possibility.
There’s always a moment when my client stops writing and simply studies the page. Not because anything on it is new. Because they’re seeing it differently.
Nothing on the page changed.
Only what they were able to see.
A few months ago, I did this exercise with a client who told me he wanted to land a multi-million dollar listing. Like so many ambitious people, his instinct was to look outward. The opportunity, he assumed, existed somewhere beyond the people he already knew.
Instead of talking about branding, marketing, or prospecting, we built what I called a billionaire map, tracing everyone he already knew who might know one.
As we followed one relationship after another, something interesting happened. People he’d long ago filed away as ordinary suddenly became meaningful again. A former client led to a developer. The developer led to another introduction. One conversation became three. Three became ten. Doors that had seemed firmly closed began opening one after another.
This fall, he’ll be bringing a $40 million townhouse on the Upper East Side to market.
Not because he built a new network.
Because he finally recognized the value of the one he already had.
I’ve thought about that exercise a lot since then because I don’t think it’s really about networking.
I think it’s about human nature.
We’re constantly scanning the horizon for the next opportunity, the next relationship, the next breakthrough, convinced that whatever we’re looking for exists somewhere just beyond our reach. We assume the answer lives in a new introduction, a new idea, a new chapter.
Rarely do we stop and ask whether we’ve fully explored what already surrounds us.
We’re remarkably good at searching for what’s missing.
We’re much less practiced at recognizing what’s already there.
I don’t think this applies only to our relationships. I think it applies to almost everything. We underestimate our experience because we’ve lived it every day. We underestimate our reputation because we rarely hear what people say after we leave the room. We underestimate our resilience because we’ve forgotten everything we’ve already survived. Familiarity has a way of disguising value.
Maybe that’s why so many breakthroughs don’t begin with finding something new.
Maybe they begin by seeing something familiar with fresh eyes.
Coaching Corner
This week, grab a blank sheet of paper.
Put your name in the center.
Start writing down every meaningful relationship you can think of.
When you think you’re finished, ask yourself one more question.
Who do they know?
Maybe the next breakthrough in your life isn’t waiting for you somewhere else.
Maybe it’s waiting for you to see what you’ve been overlooking all along.
I have created a One of One methodology worksheet to help guide you through this exercise. Download it at the link below.
