I have spent months arguing that your equation is unrepeatable — that nobody else’s formula will ever solve your problem, and that the work of finding your own way is yours and yours alone.
All of that is true. And here is the paradox that completes it: you will never find that way by yourself.
The complexity this book describes — dozens of variables interacting in ways that refuse to be linear — simply exceeds the capacity of any single mind. As I put it in 2+2 Is Never 4: alone, your vantage point reveals only so much, limited by your own knowledge, experiences and biases. The question is not whether you have blind spots. The question is who, in your life, is standing where you cannot see.
That is why the networking chapter carries the subtitle Expanding Your Variable Set. A network is not a list of contacts. It is a source of variables you could never generate alone. And its value depends on its diversity: “Diverse connections act like mirrors and windows simultaneously.” Mirrors, because they show you yourself from angles you avoid. Windows, because they show you worlds your industry trained you not to look at.
Some of my most useful business lessons did not come from business people. In Australia, starting over from zero, I worked alongside hotel housekeeping teams, chefs, joiners and site managers. None of them had read a strategy book. All of them understood operations, pressure and people better than most boardrooms I had sat in. They did not give me answers. They gave me variables I did not know existed.
But a network like that does not assemble itself, and it cannot be built transactionally. Collecting people like tools you might need later produces a drawer full of business cards and very little wisdom. The networks that actually teach you require intentionality, humility and a willingness to give back — honest exchange of perspective, time and support, with no invoice attached. They are slower to build. They compound for decades.
And when a problem is truly hard, use them. Put the challenge on the table in front of people who think differently from you, and let them pull it apart. What comes back is rarely any one person’s idea. It is something none of you could have built alone — which is exactly the point.
Three questions worth asking this week. Who in your circle works in a completely different field? When did you last bring them a real problem, not a pleasantry? And what have you given them lately that they did not ask for?
Your equation is yours. But the variables arrive through other people.
2+2 Is Never 4: There Is Always a Way — live presentation on 28 October. [VENUE · TIME · REGISTRATION LINK]
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