The book comes with high praise from Anna Howard from Wild Geese. It opens with a lot of praise, too. And that always makes me skeptical, how pushed this book is. But I already like that one of them used the term ‘relationshipping’ over networking. That is a good sign.
The quote that opens the book: “Here’s to the babies in a brand new world. Here’s to the beauty of the stars. Here’s to the travellers on the open road. Here’s to the dreamers in the bar.” – “Let the Day Begin,” – The Call
Right away, the author’s note is encouraging. Molly Beck uses only digital tools, free ones at that. While I have no intention of touching any of the major social networks, never again, I think there’s a lot here that I can use, especially with email and such.
“It’s simply about how to leverage two tools – time and an internet connection – to expand the number of people you know.”
What I thought social media was for, basically. I’m curious to see where she goes with this. Well, the basic premise, without giving it all away, is that you should reach out every week day to just one person at the edge of your network, email or social media, doesn’t matter. This is actually a really good mindset to have. That means giving yourself five chances a week. What the heck I would say, well, that’s what I hope this book might give me ideas about.
Great Oscar Wilde quote here: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” (From Lady Windermere’s Fan)
Molly Beck has quite the resume. Sounds like an impressive woman. I decided to see if her blog Smart, Pretty, and Awkward still existed. It does, but she hasn’t done anything with it since 2024. Well, turns out the company she started in this book became WorkPerfectly that got acquired in 2025 and now she’s an angel investor. So, yeah, Molly’s doing alright!
The first big lesson of the book is that someone you Reach Out to (she capitalizes those words intentionally, of course) may not end up working out with you. BUT, through meeting that person you could have a chance encounter with someone else, which is what happened in her case, someone that ended up being a very important person in both her life and career. I have thought about that a lot over the years; you meet someone through someone else even if the initial connection breaks down, you wouldn’t have made the other connection without them. That is to say, sometimes the people we meet that leave our lives bring others back in their place.
I think it’s worth copying down this entire paragraph:
“So why do you need to know even more people, some of whom will invariably get on your nerves…?
“Because increasing your network means increasing the chance for new opportunities to come in. If opportunities are islands, people in your network are the bridges that will help you get to the islands faster. Sure, you can try swimming, but wouldn’t you rather take a nice walk over a beautiful bridge than be floundering in the water all alone?”
Well, I’m used to floundering in the water all alone. I’m definitely an island, a very remote one. I wasn’t always like this. But that’s a long story. And part of why I’m reading this book is to build new bridges after I burned all the old ones… to be fair, I wasn’t the one who burned them all. I just finally burned down my half after holding out for too long with the wrong people. But, obviously, I digress. Back to the book.
Now when she talks about automating your Reach Out Strategy Plan, she does NOT mean using AI. This book was written in 2017, after all. I worry that people will use their AnythingLLM agent to do this for them… no, more likely they use one of those overpriced corporate slop-spewing spam APIs instead. Again, I digress.
“… not every Reach Out will be a winner, so the more irons in the fire, the better.”
That was always my issue. Not enough irons in the fire. And some of the ones I did have gave me second-degree burns…
Now I want to pause for a moment and say a little something about personal branding. I don’t do that. I’m just me. I do what I do. I write messy essays and take sprawling notes on everything. I talk too much and sometimes say far less than I intend. I have no interest in a “career” at this point in life, just interesting people to talk to and lend an ear. Mostly the latter. Yes, I actually want to listen to people, believe it or not. This is all a long way of saying, I will likely make some serious critiques of her various strategies, successful as they have been for her, and likely many others. I’m a serious critic of corporate culture, and while there are obviously positive aspects to it, as I will admit, I think it’s possible to become a bit too structured.
A couple admissions she makes here. If you follow the plan she’s about to lay out, you’ll have contacted 260 people in a year, with an estimated response rate of about 40 percent, meaning 104 people who you’ve started a conversation with. That’s encouraging, just by making it a daily habit (well, 5 out of 7 day habit.) The second admission:
“This book is not written by someone at the very pinnacle of where she wants to be… Reach Out is for people who haven’t achieved all their goals at any stage of their career… yet.”
That’s encouraging. Considering where she is now (in 2026), I’d say her strategy works. And honestly, I’d never thought about reaching out like that before. One person a day, and expect 3 out of 5 to not even give you the time of day. I was lucky to reach out to people once a week even when I was trying, unless it was actively looking for SEO clients. I got one out of who knows how many cold emails. And the best connection I ever got was from a Twitter thread I started trying to connect with other writers, which is how I can now spend all my time reading and publishing these notes no one cares about…
I like how she has a TL;DR at the end of the introduction. I checked and she does this for each chapter. Good, she knows her audience. I also saw that she mentions LinkedIn later… I do have one still, but I’m very hesitant to do much at all on that platform. I’ll stick with email, thanks.
…
Chapter one starts with a subheading I really like: “‘Network’ is people you know, not events you hate attending.”
I’ve written before that what most people consider “networking” is more like “work-netting,” making connections that exist purely for the reason that you may need to know them later when you need a job. Funny, I tried that and got nowhere, until some silly person decided to marry this autistic mess…
“‘Network’ is a noun, not a verb.” More people need to understand this. I guess people forgot. Or only read the TL;DR. (They don’t even have that excuse, because she brings it up again. So they had ChatGPT summarize it for them. And even Chat probably told them about protocols, and tapestries, and symphonies, and brushstrokes… OK, I digress once again.)
Here’s some good advice: “Just become Beyonce.” I am serious. She really says this… well, uses Queen Bey as an example, but I WISH!
“The good news is that you are in charge of whom you know.”
That should be an affirmation.
Another good subheading: “Someone Else Holds the Keys to Your Dreams”
This is something I’ve always known. I happened to find such a person, lucky me. But perhaps I can help unlock dreams for other people, too? Question mark?
“To put it bluntly: people and your positive influence over them are what get you what you want.”
Right, but apparently if I don’t have a spiffy Linkedin page and all that jazz… I do have my two websites that aren’t absolutely atrocious to look at, but nothing else. I prefer to be low-key. A lot of people in my position are low-key because, well, people get uncomfortable with a certain level of wealth… yet again I’m digressing all over the place. I’ve been up since 3am, give me some Grace, because I certainly am not giving myself any!
“This is a business book, so we focus mainly on how a larger network will help your career.” I know this, Ms. Molly Beck. It’s why I was hesitant to buy this book now that my career is figuring out what to have for lunch, what I should write today, and how long I should spend screaming into the void. And having a great, supportive wife, et cetera, et cetera.
“Unless your goal is to be a spy, anonymity will not help you achieve your goals.”
Uh, oh, she’s unmasked me here. I admit it, I was hoping to be a spy in my spare time.
I like this idea of weak ties vs strong ties, and how weak ties, those at the edge of your network, is where all the opportunities happen. I’ve always known that. I just knew the wrong people who knew the wrong people…
There’s this from an essay called “Finding the Hidden Value in Your Network” by Adam M. Grant:
“Our closest contacts tend to know the same people and information as we do. Weak ties travel in different circles and learn different things, so they can offer us more efficient access to novel information. Most of us miss out on this novel information, filling our networks with people whose perspectives are too similar to our own.”
Hence, the issue with social media. I give Molly the benefit of the doubt here, not only as a corporate gal who was well on her way to the top, but also as someone who wrote this before AI ruined everyone’s brains. And algorithms weren’t nearly as pervasive and perverted as they are now. It’s all an echo chamber now, and thus, this is refreshing to hear about seven years on.
Another great quote: “You are the one who possesses the keys to your being. You carry the passport to your own happiness.” – Diane Von Furstenberg, The Woman I Wanted to Be
Pretty good book through Chapter One. Satisfying read thus far.
…
More to come.
