This is Help Wanted, the show that tackles all the big work questions you cannot ask anyone else.

I'm Jason Fyfer, editor-in-chief of entrepreneur magazine.

And I'm New York Times best-selling author and money expert, Nicole Lapin.

The helpline is open. All right, here's a question.

What is your most valuable resource?

A lot of people will say it's your network.

It's not money.

It's your network.

Your network is your most valuable resource and I think that's true

But you know that puts a lot of pressure on our networks. You might worry for

example do I know the right people do I know the right people?

Do I have the right mentors?

And how could I meet more of them?

Well, today, I want to offer you a different way

to think about your network.

One that doesn't treat your network like some

asset or a collection on a shelf and that doesn't make you feel like a failure if you

were lacking that perfect collaborator.

For me, this subject began with an email that I got from a newsletter reader of mine named

Caitlin Kondi.

She's writing a book about what she calls Life teams and wanted to know how I built mine.

I asked her what a life team is and she explained it like this. She wrote, quote,

...