3 ways networking creates millionaires
30 Jan 2026 · 24 min
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu breaks down how networking builds wealth for doctors: exponential growth in connections and ideas, plus access to others' hard-won experience. Stop lurking in communities and take action within 30 days.
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If your business isn't working the way you expected, it's not because you're bad at business. It's because no one ever taught you.
How it actually works.
We were trained to master algorithms in medicine, but when it comes to revenue teams and growth, we were never taught anything. We weren't even told to figure it out. We just assumed somehow we'd know. Like it would magically make sense.
But it doesn't.
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Hi, docs. Welcome to the Entre MD Podcast, where it's all about helping amazing physicians just like you. Embrace entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your terms. I'm your host, Dr. Umna.
Well, hello. Hello my friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Entre MD Podcast. Thank you so much for being a listener. Thank you for doing what you do in sharing and reviewing and listening. You're taking us all the way to number one. And I'm so glad I get to do this journey with you. Today we are going to be looking at something that if you're an introvert, you're probably like, oh, my goodness, we're talking about networking. But even if you're an extrovert, right, this is a skill. This needs to be learned, this needs to be leveraged. And so it may not be something that you consider yourself really good at, and that's okay. But we're going to be looking at it. And whether you're introvert or an extrovert, that has nothing to do with whether you can network well or not. Networking is a skill. And like all other skills, you can develop the skill. Okay, so this is going to be a lot of fun. And you know, you would hear this statement that you. Your net work is your net worth. And sometimes it's become almost cliches, like, yeah, it's what people say. It's A cute meme on Facebook. But the truth of the matter is your network is your net worth. And one of the ways you can actively, offensively, almost, if you think like basketball, you're playing offense to create your net worth. One of the things you can do is up level your network. You can do this intentionally. It doesn't have to happen to you, right? And so I want to talk about three ways that, you know, networking creates millionaires and just lean in because this is, this is going to be really good. I am in a. I go for a lot of events, I'm in a lot of masterminds. I'm within the entrepreneur business school. And people are your greatest asset. And when I say this, I don't say it in a manipulative. What we do is to go take and take advantage of people, right? We're talking about a symbiotic relationship where it's a give and take, it's a win win, because you have a lot of value to offer to others. And don't be confused. Even if you are in a room with all billionaires, there is something they need that you have, right? And you need to be very clear about that. And so this is about a win, win situation, right? This is not about taking advantage of people. So don't think that way because then it stops you. Like, I don't want to use people and stuff like that. No, this is a win win situation. This is a give and take. This is you having a meeting with somebody, right? And that person is like, oh, my goodness, this was so good. And you're like, oh, my goodness, this was so good. And in completely different ways because you met a need. They had. They met a need. Had is just beautiful. Okay, so let's talk about it. Now. The first thing that happens when you leverage networking is that it exponentially increases your connections. Okay? I want you to think about it. Let's say that you know 10 entrepreneurs, okay? And you decide to grow your circle of entrepreneurs. And now you know 20 entrepreneurs. You do not just double the number of entrepreneurs or successful entrepreneurs that you have access to. Because guess what? Those 20 entrepreneurs know 2100, 150, 250 entrepreneurs as well. And because you have access to them, you have access to their connections as well, right? This is the way networking works. And so what that means is that you have access to a lot more people than the people you directly have access to. You not have a lot of people who are now only a phone call away. Okay? So I'll give you an example I was having lunch with, with a number of women who are really successful entrepreneurs. And we were just at lunch, okay? And then somebody says, yeah, you should have this person on your podcast. They wrote this book. It's really amazing. And this is somebody who is a global phenomenon. And I was. And she was like, you know, you can just send them an email here, all that stuff. I can put a word in for you, and if for some reason you can't reach them, let me know. I'll text them for you. Wait, what? Right? And so I have a connection to her, and she's a very successful, you know, entrepreneur running a nine figure business. But then I also have, because I have that connection to her, I have this connection to this other person. And if I get them on my podcast, and I want you to imagine how much bigger, right? How much bigger my connections, you know, my, my, my network just got at the same lunch, somebody else was like, you know, I know you guys are doing real estate investing and all of this stuff, but I have this friend who's a hedge fund manager, and this person, you know, is like, is fighting for the quote, unquote, little man, right? And so in places where you have to have at least a million, 10 million to invest with this person, you can invest with 100k, right? And this person is one phone call away from a person that I isn't within my network. Okay, now let's bring it a little closer. In the Entre MD Business School, right, I have access to over 100 physicians, and that's part of my network. And we're talking people who have written New York Times articles. So guess what that means that I have access to the person who opened the door for the person who wrote the article, right? Like, so not only do I know the person who wrote the article, I know the, you know, the resources that the person used that, you know, my connections are bigger, right? I know people who are leading institutions. And so that means for the people in the C suite and all of those, I have access to them because I have access to the person in my community who's leading the institution. That means, you know, I have people who speak on international stages, and so I have access to them, but I also have access to the event planners who put them on the stages. Do you see what I'm saying? Like, it's not just the person you know, it's all the people they know. And so if you get in the habit of leveraging the power of networking, you're not just growing it by the Number of people you have on your Rolodex. We don't do that anymore. But, like, in your phone, Right? But you're also leveraging all the people that they know. And you need to be clear on this when you're doing that. Okay? Okay. So. So that's. That's one way, right? Exponentially increases your connections. And this is the deal. This is something we need to understand. There are doors that will open for you because you know the right person that money will never open. Doesn't matter how much you make, right? There are doors, there are secret deals that they'll say, hey, come on, let's go in here. Like, so your connections matter. That is social wealth, right? The same way someone would deliberately build financial wealth is the same way you should deliberately be building your social wealth. Okay? In fact, I can throw this out here. This year, one of the things, I wanted to understand real estate in a different way, to be able to play on a bigger scale and things like that. And I was like, you know, I really want to build relationships with people who are at that. At that level, right? And that's something I prayed about at the beginning of the year. And I kid you not, I have, like, four, five new contacts of people who are doing over $100 million in revenue in real estate. So crazy, so insane, right? And it just. It gives you. It gives you insight, it gives you connections, it gives you all kinds of things. And so this is something we want to start doing proactively. And that could. It's not just money, but it's also if there are habits you're trying to build, if there are things you don't understand anything about, and all of that. Okay, all right. So that's the first thing. The second thing is it exponentially increases your ideas. Okay? Our world is as small as our thinking. Our world. We don't see the world the way it is. We see the world the way we are. We see the world at our level of thinking. I'll give you an example. A recession. They're like, oh, a recession is coming. A recession is here. And some people are, like, having palpitations. They're terrified about it. They're like, oh, my goodness, this is the end. And that is their reality. But the truth is, that is their perception. That's not really what's going on. On the other hand, there are people who live for recessions. They're like, what? This is amazing. There's going to be so many opportunities. There are going to be so many people who are going to pull back and no longer show up. So it is a time for us to make, like, advances in our businesses. It is a time when people are going to, there's going to be opportunities for real estate and we're going to cash in on that. There's going to be opportunity. Do you see what I'm saying? It's the same. Is the same thing happening? But two people are in two different worlds having completely different experiences. Do you see what I'm saying? And so when you think about this, the ideas you have access to are important, right? Because that's part of what frames your world, right? Like, remember, the world is the way the world is, but the world we live in is the world we create. And the boundaries are our thoughts, like the thoughts that you have access to, right? And so when you network with people, especially when you're intentionally networking with the ultra successful, what you're doing is you're opening yourself up to ideas you did not even think existed. Now, you're not going to necessarily use all those ideas, but there's a, there's a number that you will use and the others are, you're just aware. You're just aware. And so I will use, for instance, let's use revenue, okay? And again, it's not all about revenue, but numbers are easy to measure. So say you're, you know, you're thinking, you know, businesses don't do well. You really memorize, like, you know, 80% of businesses go out of business in the first five years. And you know, like, you, you know, all of that stuff, business is just terribly hard and all of that. What if you were in a room with people who were doing really well in business, like now, these are people that are now in your network, okay? And you're like, this person says, yeah, at this point we're doing, we're doing a million a month. And this other person is saying, you know, this year, while we were finally able to crack eight figures, we did 13 million this year. And I need to just think of you sitting in that kind of room and someone is like, yeah, this is a company. You know, some, somebody tried to buy my company for nine figures. I was like, yeah, I don't think we should do that. Because in the next four or five years, we should, we should be bringing in nine figures a year. And what it does is like, huh? I mean, if they can do that, I guess I could make my first hundred thousand or half a million or a million or whatever, right? It just triggers you to think differently, right? And so the more people you have in your network, the more different kinds of ideas you have access to. One of the things I'm very grateful for is in my network, I have a lot of people who are leaders of movements. And if you know anything about me, you know, I'm all about the movement. I'm all about bringing systemic change to society. I'm all about, you know, disrupting, completely changing the narrative for physicians. And we're talking a million physicians here. And so, you know, I've been like, yeah, if I can touch 100,000, then we'll touch the million. And I am so fortunate to have in my network people who are doing that in different industries, doing that in different spheres, where they're like, I'm taking on this Herculean thing that maybe not a lot of people are, you know, taking on. And I'm. I'm deciding I'm going to do it. It seems crazy, but I'm going to do it. And hearing how they're doing it in their industries gives me a constant stream of ideas. Now, am I going to use all of them? No, but I have a constant stream of ideas of, oh, this is how I could do that. This is how I should approach this. Oh, this is actually more impactful than I thought and all of that. And it is so. It is. It's so beautiful, right? It's almost like I have a buffet. I can. Yeah, yeah. Don't want, I don't want, you know, I don't want the green beans. I'll have a little corn, you know what I mean? Like, I'm just going and picking ideas. So you have access to not just your ideas that you can come up with, but all their ideas and the ideas they pull from their networks and the ideas they pull from their reading and the ideas they pull from their experiments. So you have access to so much, much. This is why you network. The return on investment of networking is so huge. Okay? So first of all, you have exponential increase in your connections. You exponentially increase your ideas. And the third one is you have access to the experiences of others. Now, there is a saying that experience is the best teacher. I agree with that. But I kind of lean towards the experience of others are the best teacher. Like, I'm not going to live forever. I don't have time to make all the mistakes in the book, okay? And so I am a student of the experiences of others. Right. And the more people you have in your network, the more you can learn, not just from the things they say, you know, as Far as you know, I learned this, I know this, blah, blah, blah. But you're also learning from watching their journeys, right? There's so many lessons in there, like, so, for instance, to their successes. Why? When you, when you have, you know, like you have them in your network, you can ask questions, all that you can. I mean, they can post the success on Instagram, but you can see what, what happened there, right? Like what triggered what was responsible for that. You can ask questions, you can dig deeper, right? You can look at their failures. Now failure is something that we need to not run away from. When I say not, I mean, I don't mean plan to fail. What I mean by that is there are conversations to be had around study to be done around that and be willing to do that even with what you consider failures. Not, you know, you're not a failure, but maybe you had a failed project, right? They want to take a look. So what didn't work? Where did I hold back? All of those kind of things. But anyway, the failures of others, you get to go like, huh, so that didn't work. Why? Right? What, what went wrong? What did they not apply? Where did they hold back? Was it a limiting belief? How did that show up? And you do that? That is, that is like, that is a significant education. That's like a master's degree level education. If you can become a student of that and build your network so you can see a wide array, then you start seeing themes, then you start seeing trends, then you say, oh, these seven people did this and it didn't work. I don't need to be the eighth. Like, come on, I can learn, right? Or these, these 10 people did this and it gave them the results that they were looking for, which is a result I want. Like, I don't want. I don'. I think that's hard, I think that's difficult. I think that's nerve wracking. But I mean, maybe that's the thing, okay? And so there's so much learning, so much you can learn from your network. And the thing is this, you can learn from the experiences of others and it will shortcut your journey, okay? It will shortcut your journey. So that's something to really lean into. Now I talked about their successes and why their failures and why. The other one that I really, really, really study is I studied the people who are older. And when I say older, it may be age, but it's not always age. But they're much further along, you know, in their journey as entrepreneurs, whether in impact or in Revenue generated, and they've done it for longer. Okay. And then I find out from them, like, if you're gonna do this over, what would you do again? What would you do differently if you found out that you just woke up from a dream and you're still your 19 year old self? Right. What are the things you start focusing on from the beginning that maybe you didn't focus on till much later? And the reason for that is there is so much wisdom in a prolonged experience. Right. And when there are things that would matter later, that when we're younger, we don't pay any attention to that. So I'll give you a few examples. One of the things that I noticed that the ultra successful entrepreneurs focus on a lot is their health. And I used to get annoyed by it when I was younger as an entrepreneur, because I would be trying to, I'd be asking questions about something I need to do in my business. And then they're talking to me about sleep and they're talking to me about eating right, and they're talking to me about cold water showers and things like that. And they're almost obsessed with it. And I'm like, I don't want to talk about that stuff. Like I have 30 minutes with you, I don't want to talk about that stuff. But what I've realized is a lot of them spend the time to build the business. It had a lot of impact, it created a lot of revenue. And on the other side, they realized that health first, family first, all of those things. Mental health before business, right? And so they start talking to me about building those habits now and investing in your family now and investing in your health now and not waiting. And that when you get on the other side, you find out that relationships matter more and having impact matters more than making money and things like that. And so the thing about talking to those who are older is then you can start acting much wiser. Even though you're younger, you haven't had the benefit of that experience. So again, that is you having access to the experiences of others. Now I want you to think about what we just talked about, right? Think about, I can exponentially, so not one plus one, I can exponentially increase my connections, I can exponentially increase the amount ideas that I have available to me. And I can have access to experiences of others. So I can learn from experience, but not mine. Like you'll still learn from yours, but I don't have to learn everything from my experience, right? I can learn from the experiences of those who have quote Unquote, gone ahead of me. Think about how much richer your experience as an entrepreneur would be if you did this. Think about how more well rounded you would be, right? So you're not just building one version of wealth, which is financial wealth, but you're building your relational wealth. And you know, you're building your physical health and you're building your social, you're building all of those things. Think about how that would look. You can have that. In fact, it can look so different for you in the next 30 days if you start applying these principles. And we've done episodes on how to, you know, network like a champ with link to that in the show notes. And you want to kind of, you know, listen to those episodes, but, you know, for the tactical stuff. But I want you to have an awareness that networking can change your life. Networking can change your life in 30 days. It can absolutely change your life in 30 days. Like, set the ball, the ball running, and you'll set the ball rolling. And you will know, like, hey, something big is about to happen here, right? And so I want you to lean all into that. And one of the things I want you to do is to start from where you are now. Some of you already have access to some communities, but you are what we'll call a lurker. And so you're there, but you're not really connecting. You're not saying anything, you're not asking questions, you're not sharing of yourself. You're not doing any of that. I want to invite you to not do that anymore. I want to invite you to practice the give and take, share what's working with you. Share things that will be helpful to others. Ask questions. Don't be afraid of being vulnerable. Don't be afraid of asking, thinking that you're bothering people. Most really successful people want to help other people just like you. They want to help other people. If you are in a community like for instance, the on trendy Business school, oh my goodness, that is a gold mine. Gold mine of physicians who are becoming entrepreneurs at different stages of business with different kinds of connections. You, if you lean into the community, you are literally a phone call away from a lot of the things that you're thinking you don't have access to right now, right? And so I want you to lean into that. I want you to, when I say leverage the community, I don't want you to think about it as a bad thing because this is a give and take, right? But I want you to take full advantage of what is right in front of you because sometimes, like, oh, so what event do I have to go to to find this thing? No, there's no. No. Start from right where you are and start practicing that and start doing the reps and start building that muscle and start building social capital. And it will change your world in ways that you cannot imagine. You cannot imagine. Okay? So I want you to do this, and in 30 days, I mean, you can send me a DM and say, look, Dr. Una, you know what? I'm going to do this. I'm going to take this challenge. This is a date. In 30 days, I'll be back to let you know what happened. But lean all in. It has changed my world, and it will change your world. One of the most valuable things in my life, quote, unquote things, is the people in my life. Okay? So go for it. I cannot wait to celebrate your success. I cannot wait to watch you increase exponentially because you do this. Don't forget to share this episode with a friend, and I'll see you on the next episode of the ontarim D podcast.
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