Brad Costanzo argues that access and influence are the two forces that create opportunity. He breaks down what each means, how they compound together, and uses Bill Gates licensing MS-DOS to show how matching a need with a solution creates leverage.
Chapters
So I went for a very long walk on the beach, which I found that there's nothing that can't cure. And I started to think, what are the big principles in my life that have led to my success? Whatever. But just what is it? And it kind of hit me like a bolt of lightning. And then I realized that these are not only the foundational principles for my success, but for everyone's success and the success of civilizations and society. And it comes down to two things, which is access and influence. And when I say access, what's the first thing that pops in your mind when I say access? Okay, anything else. Anything else. A lot of people go back to the relationships. Oh, who you know. But when you really break it down, fundamentally, what is access? If you grow up and you don't have access to. If your family is very impoverished and you're poor and you don't have access to a supporting family and love and nourishment and shelter, I mean, you don't have as many advantages in this life. Right? It's going to be harder if you don't have access to education, if you don't have access to a support network, if you don't have access to the basic things of money. So let's talk about money. Access to money. Well, if you don't have it, you can borrow it, you can raise it. There's a lot of ways to access it if you don't own it. But then access to relationships, access to. I mean, I think you guys kind of get the point here, but I started to really realize that, okay, everything is if you have access or you don't have access, it's very digital. You either have it or you don't. We're also in an access based economy, increasingly. So have you guys heard this? We're in the sharing economy. You don't need a car if you can Uber and you don't need a house if you can Airbnb and you don't need to go to the store. If you can use Amazon Fresh, you can access what other people are willing to put out. Who else has what I need? They have time and ability to deliver me stuff. What do I need? I have money and I have the demand for stuff. And it's increasingly more like that. So when you start to think about what can I access without owning now that's another big question that it's like, whoa, hold on, that's what I did in this case. How can I access this without necessarily owning it? And how can I do it without Taking as much risk as well. So how can I access somebody's customer list? How can I access their capital? How can I access their mindshare? You guys are doing that right now. You joined this group for one big reason, is so you can access everybody else's access and influence. And that kind of brings me to the next side. So influence. There's a couple levels of this, same as access. There's two types of access. There's earned and natural. If you're born with a silver spoon in your mouth and you're the son of Mark Zuckerberg or daughter, whatever he's got, you've got a lot more natural access, but you can also earn that access. But one of the ways you earn that access is through influence. So there's natural influence. Maybe you have authority, who has children in here, you've got natural influence over your children. Maybe if you have employees, you have natural influence over them, but you can also build that influence as well. And there's interpersonal and there's mass influence. I created my podcast for those two reasons. I wanted access to influential people, but I also knew that just like compound interest, the more access I got, the more influence it would give me. And then the more influence I had, the more access I could get, the more influence. And it just kept on stacking. And as I started to think about this, which was, by the way, after I had this realization, is exactly when I started the podcast. Because that's when I was like, this is a no brainer for me now because I can stair step my way up. But it's not only having that access and having that influence, it's giving it away. So how can I, when I give it away, it provides a massive leverage point for me. So influence wielded in many different ways, right? It can be interpersonally. When Nick is talking to a client, a customer, a student, or somebody else, there's ways that you build influence. And part of it is everything else that you've done in your life that has built up to where you are. Part of it is your questions that you ask. Because I've also found that asking good questions creates more credibility than anything else. So access and influence, they're really elementary concepts, but if you're not keeping them forefront of your mind, you're doing yourself a disservice. How can you take inventory of what access you have and then how can you get more? And how can you look at the influence you have right now and how can you get more? And realizing that the two are Kind of like a spiral. I think of them like DNA. They're very connected and they spiral and they just go up and up. That's the visual I have in my head. So I'm always thinking, how can I use these to leapfrog ahead of the pack and how can I do these to get massive amounts of leverage? In fact, this all goes back to this whole deal maker mentality. Not everybody is a deal maker. This is kind of my natural strength. If you're not, you need to align yourself with one. That's my biggest recommendation. So who else has what you need? Maybe you need somebody who's a deal maker. Salespeople are some of the best deal makers in the world, right? But we're all making deals. We're making them with your girlfriends and your wives and your kids. We're all making deals. Asking bigger questions or better questions can lead to much bigger and better deals. However. Now one of my favorite deal making stories. Does anybody know the real basics about how Bill Gates got started with Microsoft? Does anybody think he invented dos? No. He bought it, right? Yeah. So the story goes on. It's like a pretty crazy, awesome story. But Bill Gates made his billions by realizing a need. He had been talking with IBM and they said they need this and he did not have it, but he knew a guy who did. And he went over and he made a deal to buy this software. And I may be screwed up, a handful of micro details, but to buy this software off of him for like $50,000. And then he took it. He had some coders say, okay, IBM, I've got it, what do you need? And then he customized it based on what they needed. And then so he made a deal in the very beginning. Who else has what I need? Who else needs what I have? He made those two connections and then he realized, selling it to IBM, he goes, well, how about if I license it to you? And licensing is simply renting somebody the rights to use it for a very small percentage of everyone it goes into. And he became the richest man in the world from doing a deal. Unlike people like Steve Jobs, who had this vision of creating. Gates was like, no, I'm just going to match these things up, take a bigger step out and solve bigger problems in the world. IBM had a huge problem. This other guy had a huge solution, but they didn't know each other. So I've made a pretty lucrative career doing this exact same thing, problems and solutions.
