# How to get strangers to know your name (Upstreaming)
**作者**: Pascal
**日期**: 2026-07-28T14:04:25.000Z
**来源**: [https://x.com/creatorpascal/status/2082104894140391867](https://x.com/creatorpascal/status/2082104894140391867)
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These days, when I meet strangers on calls or in DM’s, they almost always open with “oh, I heard so much about you!”. And most people wouldn’t believe me if I told them that’s entirely by design.
It keeps happening, everywhere, every time, in group chats, on calls, in random reply sections, and it’s almost always people I’ve never exchanged a word with arriving already warmed up, like it’s our second or third meeting instead of the first.
Which is absolutely strange to me, because apparently my reputation is out there working rooms with me doing none of it. And when I find an odd thing, I can’t seem to let it go until I get to the bottom of it.
So I’ve been digging deep to figure out why and how.
In this essay, I want to share the idea I came across with you, an idea that I believe, if you’re also interested in building out your network, will change the way you do so.
I post daily, sure, and most people would assume the content is what does the magic, but this idea has almost nothing to do with my content. It came from giving my network away.
An idea I call Upstreaming.
Most of the people who succeed in building a network do this very thing.
## It always starts with one
For you to properly digest the idea, I need to share some context first.
A few months back, I’d been working with a client to help him grow his Twitter account. After the first 90 days of working together, I’d taken him from 0 to 10,000 followers. Which to me is a pretty average result, but to him, an astonishing one.
Writing for him (and as him), I got introduced to some of his unique ideas, one of them being to focus on acquiring A-list talent, specifically, finding someone better than you at something you’re not good at yourself, and then leveraging their strengths.
At first, as a person running a solo empire, it bounced right off. But as I sat with the idea, studied his results, way of thinking and operating system, it became apparent to me.
He did this exact thing when he hired me to run his Twitter.
So after having proven to him with the results I did, that I was definitely the Twitter guy he’d been looking for, he did something insane. He invited me to come meet him in person and help turn my knowledge into an AI agent that could help anyone grow on Twitter at a fraction of what it costs to hire a ghostwriter like me.
That ended up being a super successful 10-day sprint out in Portugal where we got 1,000 paid users in 48 hours and even beat OpenAI on Producthunt.
During this time, I helped him with everything I could reach. And when the thing grew past what two people could carry alone, when he needed extra hands, I did the thing every networking guru screams against: I reached down into my own network and handed him my people (audience, connections e.g.)
On paper it looks stupid.
Who you know is supposed to be your moat. You know that. That’s why you’re even reading this article in the first place.
Every course and guide on “strategic relationships” teaches you that you must gatekeep the access, drip out the introductions and stay positioned as the toll booth everyone drives through, so that you reap the benefits.
I can see why that is the common advice being given, because handing over your best people does feel like handing over your only advantage.
But here’s the outcome I experienced doing so.
He started saying my name in rooms I wasn’t in. He pulled me into calls with the biggest writers in my corner of the internet, from the super famous essayist whose long-form work basically taught me (and half of X) how to write to the guy who turned personal storytelling into millions of reads and even that one guy who made solo business writing its own category.
Writers I would study line by line in 2021 before I ever had any kind of success, suddenly sitting on the other side of a video call greeting me.
These people even follow me now. They remember my name. And downstream of those calls, strangers I meet online keep arriving with their own version of “I heard so much about you”, already warmed up by conversations I was never even a part of to begin with.
♡ Quick note: I write 1-2 letters/week in Becoming, my newsletter on building a life and a solo business on your own terms. You can read this article on Substack, or just subscribe right now if you already love it.
## Upstreaming explained
Everyone I’ve ever met who knows the value of network, networks upward.
They send Cold DMs to accounts 10x their size with “would love to pick your brain some day”, or they trade business cards with whoever has the biggest title in the room.
Everyone is always swimming straight at the source of the river, against the current, next to ten thousand people all doing exact same thing.
Upstreaming goes the other way.
You find people below you on whatever ladder you’re both climbing, hand them real opportunity without an invoice attached, and let whatever they build with it flow back on the river of Karma.
Upstreaming is how you build a network if you weren’t bortn with one.
That last part is a bit personal for me as a kid raised by a single mother, because the networking everyone describes, the alumni club, the family friend who “makes a call,” the warm intro waiting at graduation, none of that stuff existed where I grew up.
Even worse, Denmark has this cultural law against putting yourself forward, the Law of Jante, drilled into every kid, teen and adult from the moment they’re born: don’t think you’re special or that you’re more than anyone else.
Good luck with self-promoting your way up in a culture built to punish self-promotion. This is why I left the country as early as I could.
But Jante has a blind spot.
There’s no rule against promoting other people. Lifting someone else is socially bulletproof everywhere on earth, and the elevator you send down tends to come back up with you on it.
One requirement though. It only works if the people you send up deliver, because if I’d handed my co-founder duds, my name would still travel through rooms I’m not in, just in the other direction.
Your whole currency here is the quality of your eye.
## The Eye.
Confession: I suck at hiring.
Maybe it’s the reason I run a solo empire still to this day. I’ve just never been able to do it and do it well. I know because I managed to build a $50k/m agency only for it to come crashing down the same month from my lack of ability to hire and delegate.
This may sound super nihilistic, but…
I just don’t trust people at the level I trust myself.
But… spotting talent in the wild, in a group chat, a reply section, a random call, that comes natural to me, and it turns out I’m embarrassingly good at it.
This, for some weird reason, comes in very handy when building a network.
Part of me wants to say I’m good at it because I’m talented myself, you know “real recognize real” type thing. The more wholesome truth is I have knack for recognizing overlooked people purely because I was one myself, and the radar I built for my own survival turns out to work just as well on others.
The clearest proof is a kid named Nandu.
Back in 2021 my Notion template business was scaling hard, and somewhere along the way I came across this 16-year-old out of India, selling his own templates for a few dollars here and there.
Turned out he was better at graphic design than me, even though I sold way more. My ego sat with that (more than once). A teenager, out-designing ME?!?!?!
His covers looked like a real company made them, mine looked like a guy who watched a few Canva YouTube tutorials made them… because, well… I did.
At first, it was hard for me to admit someone below me was better at something, because it felt like losing. Lucky for me (and for him), I didn’t listen to that feeling.
I messaged him one day and asked him to do my design.
Cheap as I was (and my business wasn’t really that big yet), I offered to pay him $5 per box mockup he created for my templates.
He said yes because no one had ever paid for his expertise, I said yes because… well, $5 is $5. There was no long interview or contract, just a teenager who was visibly good and my $5.
That $5 turned into $30 for full mockup cover slideshows, five pictures each, then eventually $100 for some Instagram posts, and before I knew it, this guy was running my Instagram for me, fully on auto.
To this day, three years later, he’s my most trusted freelancer.
But that’s the small outcome in this story. The bigger one happened on the backend that I only noticed later down the line: he took everything he learned from working with me and scaled that sh*t into a six-figure agency doing Instagram content for other big founders.
Looking back now, I think I always knew he was meant for big things.
Maybe that’s why I paid him, and kept paying. Or maybe I was just selfish and wanted the $5 mockups. I still don’t know, but I do know that the conversations we had over the years, were conversations where I “mentored” him, and I did that without charging him a single dollar.
In fact, I paid HIM.
When you find someone who does great work, that sh*t is worth it.
Today, I send him clients for Instagram and he sends me clients for Twitter, and the $5 kid literally became a node in my network and somewhere along the way I became one in his.
Last year we met in Dubai, in person for the first time and he handed me a handwritten note: “I appreciate you betting on me early”
I keep that note on my desk as motivation now.
Weirdest thing is didn’t MEAN to do any of this, there was no networking strategy, no long game that I was playing and certainly no calculation about future referral networks. I just saw a 16-year-old who was better than me at something and paid him five dollars to do it.
It just… happened.
♡ Quick note: I write 1-2 letters/week in Becoming, my newsletter on building a life and a solo business on your own terms. You can read this article on Substack, or just subscribe right now if you already love it.
## A mentor, a mentee, and equals
Years ago I heard a line somewhere that still lives rent-free somewhere in the back of my mind:
> You can’t be successful in business without a mentor, a mentee, and equals.
I honestly forget who said it. Fitting, maybe, for an essay about names traveling further than the people they belong to.
The thing about this line is that for a long time, I thought it excluded me because I never really had a mentor in the official sense. Nobody took me under their wing.
But the writers, business owners and founders I studied obsessively, whose frameworks I reverse-engineered at 1am, they did mentor me for years without them even knowing I existed, and they certainly never invoiced me for that.
If you admire someone closely enough to absorb how they think, that’s your mentor right there, with the payment and permission entirely optional.
This also means (and if this is you, this should give you hope), that the poor kid with no connections has full access to the same mentors the rest of us do.
Looking back, this would’ve been useful to know at 22, lol.
And now, the strangest full-circle of my online business journey is that those exact unpaid mentors are the writers who now sit across from me on calls, because Upstreaming carried me to them.
The mentee chair is where people get it wrong most often.
They treat it as permanent so that someone stays “the guy I helped” forever, a little satellite orbiting their generosity. Done right, the mentee leaves the chair.
The whole job is handing over enough opportunity that they stop needing you.
My buddy Valdo is the cleanest example of this.
While my template business kicked off initially, he was still stuck in his 9-5, and we were real-life friends, which made his complaining harder to escape, so eventually I suggested he do the same thing I was doing.
He wasn’t really interested, so I had to almost push him into it, and it became an annoying loop that ran for months: the more he complained, the more I said “do something about it.”
Eventually after enough nudging, he took the leap.
A few templates turned into a huge portfolio of ChatGPT and AI prompts that made him over six figures, and today he has 50,000 followers on X. He moved from mentee to equal, fully, and the friendship honestly got better for it, because not only can we work on the same things, talk about the same things and enjoy the fruits of our labor together, but also because there’s a version of helping people that quietly needs them to stay smaller than you, and I wanted no part of that version.
Even to this day, I still mention his name in rooms he’s not in, purely because... well, I don’t actually know why. But I do it. The same way the guy I worked with recently does it for me.
## The “put me on bro” clause
I have to put this here as a disclaimer, or this essay won’t be complete. So just to be abso-f*cking-lutely clear, none of what I just said in the past 2,000 words applies to the “put me on bro” guys, lmao.
You know the people I’m talking about.
Nandu never asked me for anything, except for some advice here and there. Valdo actively resisted my help for months and I had to almost force him.
The people worth sending upstream are always mid-rep when you find them, heads down, building badly but building, too busy to compose the ask. Meanwhile the ask arrives daily from guys whose whole portfolio is the ask itself.
Telling those two apart is the eye from earlier, doing its actual job.
# I can predict the future to prove I’m right
I wanted to put this in here, just to prove that the Upstreaming idea holds true.
I’m going to attempt to predict the future.
The other day, I was scrolling Instagram and I came across a random reel with 20 likes from some Pakistani guy that said “Day 1 of escaping” and it showed him living in a shared bedspace in Dubai, with no income, no salary and no job, just trying to make something work.
Curious about him, I checked out his profile and discovered he’d been posting 250 (?!?!?!) times since the beginning of the year.
And yet, his profile was at 300 followers.
What I saw, right then, right there in that moment, was a guy who had the hustle and drive to keep consistently posting despite the obvious lack of results.
That to me stood out.
I felt he was on the right track, but he needed some guidance maybe. A strategy that could work for him.
Because he had the first thing you need to succeed: hunger.
His consistency of posting proved it.
So, I did what my intuition told me to do.
I DM’ed him with some encouraging words, letting him know that I saw him and that I believed if he kept going, he would make it eventually. And I then took that a step further.
I solidified my bet on him by advising him to come on Twitter to share his content, as I believe he’d do much better there (he’s into tech, AI, dev e.g.). I further backed that up with offering him my $500 Twitter course completely free of charge as a gesture to help him get started there. And I even hopped on a 1-1 call with him and gave him some solid advice, without charging him a single penny.
Stupid of me? Probably yes if you ask someone who’s all about the money.
I just can’t explain what it is, but I see something in this guy.
I’m telling you all this, because I want to prove to you what happens when you lift someone up. Once this guy blows up, I won’t take credit for pushing him in the right direction, but I will have a guy in my network who’s now my equal.
Today is 26th of July 2026.
He’s closing in on 1,000 followers as of writing this (that’s already 3x the amount when I first discovered him a few weeks back, so my thesis is appearing to hold true already).
I predict that this guy will blow up very soon.
Maybe on Instagram (@saifscales) or maybe on Twitter (@saifscales). Not sure yet, but all I know is that eventually, he’ll do it. I recommend you give him a follow as well.
Come back to this post in a year from now and let’s see if I was right.
Disclaimer: I will be, because my intuition doesn’t lie.
## The part I have no answer for
There’s a version of this essay that ends with the bullsh*t LinkedIn cliché type advice: “gIvE WiThOuT ExPeCtInG aNyThInG iN rEtUrN aNd tHe UnIvErsE pRoViDeS,” and honestly, I refuse to write it.
Partly because it reads like a fortune cookie, and partly because it hides the one genuinely uncomfortable question in this whole topic.
Everything I described worked because I meant it.
I paid Nandu five dollars before I knew what it would compound into, I pushed Valdo out of misplaced loyalty and mild irritation, I handed my co-founder my best people because he needed them, full stop.
The karma paid because I was never counting. That’s literally how karma works.
But today, I know it pays.
It’s just a compounding game rather than a game of flash sales.
You know it too, you just read 3k words of receipts on it.
So can either of us still do it purely? Does the current still carry you if you’re checking over your shoulder for it? I’ve been pondering these questions over for months and I still don’t have a clean answer yet.
The closest I’ve got will have to do. And it’s that the “put me on bro” guys give to get, visibly and everyone can smell it. So maybe intent does leak no matter what you do.
What I’m going to do instead of resolving this, is keep going with the reps.
An opportunity lands in my inbox that I can’t take? Forwarded, same day, to the most talented person I know who can, before I have time to compute anything.
Someone impresses me? I say so to a third party rather than to them.
A client needs something outside my lane? The referral goes to one of my people, with a sentence about why they’re good.
Small, boring and repeated actions. And I’ll keep doing them because I understand that the three chairs fill themselves after that:
1. Study someone relentlessly and you’ve got a mentor
2. Lift someone repeatedly and you’ve got a mentee
3. And do it long enough so that those mentees turn into equals
Your future network is sitting below you right now, in your replies, in your group chats, sixteen years old and better than you at something.
Mine handed me a note in Dubai.
See you out there,
Pascal
Thanks for reading.
This is an essay from my Substack newsletter Becoming where I share essays and deep dives on the inner game of building a one-person empire.
Ambition, identity, money & the strange work of becoming someone you don’t want to escape from. I send one to two editions a week, each focusing on actionable implementable steps that you can take + the philosophy behind why I do what I do.
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## 相关链接
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- [the Law of Jante](https://becoming.creatorpascal.com/p/who-do-you-think-you-are)
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- [10:04 PM · Jul 28, 2026](https://x.com/creatorpascal/status/2082104894140391867)
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*导出时间: 2026/7/29 11:54:22*
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## 中文翻译
# 如何让陌生人知道你的名字（向上流动）
**作者**: Pascal
**日期**: 2026-07-28T14:04:25.000Z
**来源**: [https://x.com/creatorpascal/status/2082104894140391867](https://x.com/creatorpascal/status/2082104894140391867)
---
这些天，当我在电话或私信中遇到陌生人时，他们几乎总是以“哦，我久仰大名！”开场。如果我告诉他们这完全是精心设计的结果，大多数人恐怕不会相信。
这种情况一直在发生，无处不在，每次皆是如此。无论是在群聊里、通话中，还是在随意的回复区，几乎总是那些我从未只言片语交流过的人，带着已经热络好的态度出现，就像这是我们第二次或第三次见面，而不是初次相识。
这对我来说绝对很奇怪，因为显然我的名声在外面替我周旋于各个场合，而我本人却什么都没做。而当我发现一件奇怪的事情时，如果不弄个水落石出，我就无法释怀。
所以我一直在深挖，想弄清楚其中的原因和方式。
在这篇文章中，我想与你分享我发现的一个理念，我相信如果你也对建立人脉感兴趣，这个理念将改变你的行事方式。
我确实每天都在发帖，大多数人可能会认为是内容起了神奇的作用，但这个理念几乎与我的内容无关。它来自于“送出”我的人脉。
我称之为“向上流动”（Upstreaming）。
大多数在建立人脉方面取得成功的人都在做这件事。
## 一切都始于一个
为了让你能充分消化这个理念，我需要先分享一些背景故事。
几个月前，我与一位客户合作，帮助他增长他的 Twitter 账号。在合作的前 90 天里，我把他从 0 做到了 10,000 名粉丝。这对我来说是个相当普通的结果，但对他来说，却是个惊人的成就。
在为他写作（并作为他发声）的过程中，我接触到了他一些独特的想法，其中之一是专注于获取 A 级人才，具体来说，就是找到在你不擅长的领域比你强的人，然后利用他们的优势。
起初，作为一个经营个人帝国的人，我对这个想法完全无感。但随着我反复思考这个理念，研究他的成果、思维方式以及操作系统，它对我来说变得清晰起来。
当他雇佣我运营他的 Twitter 时，他正是做了这件事。
所以，在我用成果向他证明了我正是他一直在寻找的 Twitter 专家之后，他做了一件疯狂的事。他邀请我亲自去见他，帮助把我的知识转化成一个 AI 智能体，以便以远低于雇佣像我这样的代笔人的成本，帮助任何人在 Twitter 上成长。
最终我们在葡萄牙进行了一次为期 10 天的超级冲刺，我们在 48 小时内获得了 1,000 名付费用户，甚至在 Producthunt 上击败了 OpenAI。
在这段时间里，我尽我所能帮助他做每一件事。当项目发展到两个人无法独自承担，当他需要额外的人手时，我做了一件每个社交大师都极力反对的事：我深入我自己的人脉网络，把我的人（受众、人脉等）交给了他。
从纸面上看，这很愚蠢。
你认识的人本应该是你的护城河。你知道这一点。这也是你甚至阅读这篇文章的原因。
每一本关于“战略关系”的课程和指南都教导你必须把守好访问权限，吝啬地给出介绍，并让自己定位成所有人都必须经过的收费站，这样你才能从中获益。
我明白为什么会给出这种常见建议，因为交出你最好的人确实感觉像是交出了你唯一的优势。
但这是我这样做后体验到的结果。
他开始在我没在的场合提到我的名字。他把我拉进与我所在网络领域最顶尖的作家的通话中，从那位著名的散文家（他的长篇作品基本上教会了我（以及 X 上的一半人）如何写作），到那个把个人故事讲述变成数百万阅读量的人，甚至是那个把个人商业写作变成一个独立类别的人。
那些我在 2021 年获得任何成功之前都会逐行研究的作家，突然间就坐在视频通话的另一端向我致意。
这些人甚至现在都关注了我。他们记得我的名字。而在那些通话的下游，我在网上遇到的陌生人不断带着他们版本的“我久仰大名”而来，仅凭那些我从未参与过的对话就已经被热络好了。
♡ 简短说明：我在我的Newsletter《Becoming》中每周写 1-2 封信，内容关于按照自己的条件建立生活和一人企业。你可以在 Substack 上阅读这篇文章，或者如果你已经喜欢它，现在就订阅。
## 向上流动解析
我遇到的每一个知道网络价值的人，都在向上社交。
他们会给规模大自己 10 倍的账户发私信，说“希望能有机会请教”，或者他们会和房间里头衔最大的人交换名片。
每个人总是逆流而上，直奔河流源头，旁边还有一万人做着完全相同的事。
向上流动则是反其道而行之。
你在你们共同攀登的梯子上找到在你之下的人，不附带账单地给他们真正的机会，让他们用它所建立的一切顺着业力之河流回来。
如果你不是天生就有现成网络，向上流动就是你建立网络的方法。
最后一部分对我来说有点私人，作为一个由单亲母亲抚养长大的孩子，因为每个人描述的那种社交网络——校友俱乐部、“打个招呼”的家庭朋友、毕业后等着你的热络介绍——在我成长的地方根本不存在。
更糟糕的是，丹麦有一种反对自我推销的文化法则——“詹特法则”（Jante Law），从出生起就灌输给每个孩子、青少年和成年人：不要以为你很特别，不要以为你比别人强。
在一个旨在惩罚自我推销的文化中，祝你自我推销上位好运。这就是我尽早离开这个国家的原因。
但詹特法则有一个盲点。
没有任何规则禁止推广别人。提拔其他人在世界任何地方都是社会无害的，而你送下去的电梯往往会载着你一起上来。
只有一个要求。只有当你送上去的人能交付结果时，这招才管用，因为如果我给我的联合创始人推荐的是草包，我的名字仍然会传到我未在的房间里，只是方向相反了。
你在此处的全部货币就是你眼光的质量。
## 眼光。
坦白：我 Hiring（招聘）很烂。
也许这就是为什么我至今还在经营个人帝国。我只是从来没能做好这件事。我知道这一点，因为我曾设法建立一个月入 5 万美元的代理公司，却因为缺乏招聘和授权的能力，在同一个月内崩溃了。
这听起来可能非常虚无主义，但是……
我就是不信任别人，像信任我自己那样。
但是……在野外发现人才，在群聊里、回复区里、随意的通话中，这对我来说很自然，结果是我在这方面好得令人尴尬。
出于某种奇怪的原因，这在建立人脉时非常有用。
我的一部分想说我很擅长这个是因为我自己有才华，你知道那种“真金识真金”的感觉。更健康的真相是，我有纯粹因为自己曾被忽视而识别被忽视者的诀窍，而我为了自己生存建立起来的雷达，在别人身上也同样有效。
最明显的证据是一个叫 Nandu 的孩子。
早在 2021 年，我的 Notion 模板生意扩张得很厉害，在这个过程中，我偶然发现了一个来自印度的 16 岁孩子，这里那里地卖着他自己的模板，几美元一个。
结果发现他在平面设计方面比我强，即使我卖得比他多得多。我的自尊心纠结于此（不止一次）。一个青少年，设计比我强？！？！
他的封面看起来像正规公司做的，我的看起来像是个看了几个 Canva YouTube 教程的人做的……因为，好吧……确实如此。
起初，很难承认我之下的人在某方面比我强，因为感觉像是在输。幸运的是我（和他），我没有听从那种感觉。
有一天我私信他，请他帮我做设计。
我很抠门（而且我的生意还没那么大），我提出给他每个模板的样机图（box mockup）支付 5 美元。
他同意了，因为从未有人为他的专业付过钱，我同意了是因为……好吧，5 美元就是 5 美元。没有漫长的面试或合同，只有一个明显很有才华的少年和我的 5 美元。
那 5 美元变成了完整的样机封面幻灯片的 30 美元，每张五张图，然后最终是一些 Instagram 帖子的 100 美元，在我意识到之前，这家伙已经在为我全权自动运营 Instagram 了。
三年后的今天，他是我最值得信赖的自由职业者。
但那是这个故事里的小结局。更大的结局发生在后端，我后来才注意到：他把从我这里学到的一切拿来，规模化成了一家六位数的代理公司，为其他大创始人做 Instagram 内容。
回首往事，我想我总是知道他注定要做大事。
也许那就是我付钱给他，并持续付钱的原因。或者也许我只是自私，想要那 5 美元的样机。我仍然不知道，但我确实知道我们多年来进行的对话，都是我“指导”他的对话，而且我没有为此收他一分钱。
事实上，我付给了他钱。
当你找到一个工作出色的人，那绝对是值得的。
今天，我给他介绍 Instagram 的客户，他给我介绍 Twitter 的客户，那个 5 美元的孩子真的成了我网络中的一个节点，而在某个地方我也成了他的一个节点。
去年我们在迪拜见面，第一次线下见面，他递给我一张手写的便条：“谢谢你早期的押注”
我现在把那张便条放在桌子上作为动力。
最奇怪的是我并没有打算做任何这些，没有任何社交策略，没有我在玩的长线游戏，当然也没有对未来推荐网络的算计。我只是看到了一个 16 岁的孩子在某方面比我强，付给他五美元让他做那件事。
它就这样……发生了。
♡ 简短说明：我在我的Newsletter《Becoming》中每周写 1-2 封信，内容关于按照自己的条件建立生活和一人企业。你可以在 Substack 上阅读这篇文章，或者如果你已经喜欢它，现在就订阅。
## 导师、学员和平等者
几年前我在某处听到一句话，至今仍赖在我的脑海深处：
> 没有导师、学员和平等者，你就不可能在商业上取得成功。
老实说我忘了是谁说的。对于一篇关于名字比其主人走得更远的文章来说，这也许是合适的。
这句话的问题是，很长一段时间里，我以为它把我也排除在外了，因为我从未在官方意义上真正拥有过导师。没有人罩着我。
但是，我着迷研究过的作家、企业主和创始人，那些我在凌晨 1 点逆向工程其框架的人，他们确实指导了我多年，甚至不知道我的存在，当然也从未为此给我开账单。
如果你足够密切地欣赏某人以吸收他们的思维方式，那就是你的导师，且付款和许可完全是可选的。
这也意味着（如果这对你适用，这应该给你希望），那个没有人脉的穷孩子完全有权获得和我们其他人一样的导师。
回首往事，在 22 岁时知道这一点本来会很有用，哈哈。
现在，我的在线商业之旅中最奇怪的完整闭环是，正是那些 unpaid mentors（无报酬导师）现在坐在通话对面，因为向上流动将我带到了他们面前。
学员这个位子是人们最容易搞错的地方。
他们把它当作永久性的，让某人永远是“我帮助过的人”，一个围绕着他们慷慨的卫星。做得对的话，学员会离开这个位子。
整个工作就是交出足够的机会，让他们不再需要你。
我的朋友 Valdo 是这方面最干净的例子。
当我的模板生意刚开始起步时，他还困在朝九晚五的工作中，我们是现实生活中的朋友，这让他更难逃避抱怨，所以最终我建议他做我正在做的同样事情。
他并不真的感兴趣，所以我不得不几乎是把他推进去，这成了一个持续了几个月的恼人循环：他抱怨得越多，我就说“对此做点什么”。
最终，在足够的推动下，他迈出了这一步。
几个模板变成了巨大的 ChatGPT 和 AI 提示词组合，让他赚了六位数以上，今天他在 X 上有 50,000 名粉丝。他完全从学员变成了平等者，友谊也确实因此变得更好了，因为我们不仅可以做同样的事情，谈论同样的事情，一起享受我们劳动的果实，而且还有一种帮助人的版本，是悄悄地需要他们比你小，而我一点也不想要那个版本。
即使在今天，我仍然在他没在的房间里提到他的名字，纯粹是因为……好吧，我其实不知道为什么。但我就是这么做的。就像最近和我一起工作的那个人对我做的那样。
## “带带我呗兄弟”条款
我必须把这一条作为免责声明放在这里，否则这篇文章就不完整。所以为了绝对清楚，我在过去 2,000 字里所说的任何内容都不适用于那些“带带我呗兄弟”的人，哈哈。
你知道我在说谁。
Nandu 从未向我要求过任何东西，除了这里或那里的一些建议。Valdo 在几个月里积极抗拒我的帮助，我不得不几乎是强迫他。
值得向上输送的人在你发现他们时总是正处于训练中，埋头苦干，建得很烂但一直在建，太忙了没空提出请求。与此同时，请求每天都会从那些整个作品集就是请求本身的人那里发来。
区分这两者是之前提到的“眼光”在真正起作用。
# 我可以预测未来来证明我是对的
我想把这一条放在这里，只是为了证明向上流动的理念是站得住脚的。
我要尝试预测未来。
前几天，我在刷 Instagram，偶然看到了一个来自巴基斯坦人的只有 20 个赞的随机 Reel，上面写着“逃离第 1 天”，视频展示他住在迪拜的一个共享床位空间里，没有收入，没有薪水，没有工作，只是想试着做成点什么。
出于好奇，我查看了他的资料，发现自今年年初以来他已经发了 250 条（？！？！）帖子。
然而，他的资料只有 300 名粉丝。
那一刻，我看到的，是一个有着拼搏精神和动力，尽管明显缺乏结果却坚持持续发布的人。
这对我来说很突出。
我觉得他走在正确的轨道上，但他可能需要一些指导。一个适合他的策略。
因为他拥有成功所需的第一要素：渴望。
他持续发布的证据证明了这一点。
所以，我做了我的直觉告诉我的事。
我给他发了一条私信，说了一些鼓励的话，让他知道我看到了他，我相信如果他坚持下去，他最终会成功的。然后我更进一步。
我通过建议他来 Twitter 分享内容来巩固我对他的押注，因为我相信他在那里会做得更好（他热衷于科技、AI、开发等）。我进一步支持他，免费送给他我价值 500 美元的 Twitter 课程，作为帮助他在那里开始的表示。我甚至和他进行了一次 1 对 1 的通话，给了他一些可靠的建议，没有收他一分钱。
我很蠢？如果你问一个只在乎钱的人，可能是的。
我无法解释这是什么，但我在这家伙身上看到了一些东西。
我告诉你们这一切，是因为我想向你们证明当你提拔一个人时会发生什么。一旦这家伙爆火，我不会因为将他推向正确的方向而居功，但我会在我的网络里拥有一个现在与我平等的人。
今天是 2026 年 7 月 26 日。
截至撰写本文时，他的粉丝即将接近 1,000 名（这已经是我几周前第一次发现他时的 3 倍了，所以我的论点似乎已经证明是正确的）。
我预测这家伙很快就会爆火。
也许是在 Instagram (@saifscales) 或者是在 Twitter (@saifscales)。还不确定，但我知道的是，他最终会做到的。我建议你也关注他。
一年后再回来看看这篇帖子，让我们看看我是否是对的。
免责声明：我会是对的，因为我的直觉从不说谎。
## 我没有答案的部分
这篇文章有一个版本是以那种废话连篇的 LinkedIn 陈词滥调式的建议结尾的：“给予而不求回报，宇宙就会给予”，老实说，我拒绝写出来。
部分原因是它读起来像签语饼，部分原因是它掩盖了这个话题中唯一真正令人不舒服的问题。
我描述的一切之所以有效，是因为我是真心的。
在 Nandu 的事情能带来复利之前，我就付给了他五美元；我出于错位的忠诚和轻微的恼火把 Valdo 推了出去；我把最好的人交给了我的联合创始人，只是因为他需要他们，就这样。
业力之所以回报，是因为我从未算计过。这字面上就是业力的运作方式。
但今天，我知道它会回报。
这只是个复利游戏，而不是一场闪购游戏。
你也知道，你刚刚读了 3000 字的收据。
那么我们中还有任何一个人能纯粹地做这件事吗？如果你正在回头看它，水流还能承载你吗？我已经思考这些问题好几个月了，但仍然没有一个干净的答案。
我能得到的最近似的答案只能凑合用。那就是“带带我呗兄弟”们是为了得到而给予，显而易见，每个人都能闻到这股味道。所以也许意图确实会泄露，无论你做什么。
与其解决这个问题，我要做的是继续做重复训练。
一个我无法接受的机会落入我的收件箱？转发，当天，转发给我知道的最有才华且能处理的人，在我有时间思考任何事情之前。
有人让我印象深刻？我向第三方提起而不是向他们本人。
客户需要我领域之外的东西？推荐去我的一个人那里，附带一句关于他们为什么好的话。
微小、无聊且重复的行动。我会继续做它们，因为我理解这三把椅子会自动填满：
1. 顽强地研究某人，你就有了导师
2. 反复地提拔某人，你就有了学员
3. 坚持做足够久，那些学员就会变成平等者
你未来的网络此刻就在你之下，在你的回复里，在你的群聊里，16 岁，在某方面比你强。
我的人在迪拜递给我一张便条。
江湖再见，
Pascal
感谢阅读。
这是我的 Substack newsletter《Becoming》上的一篇文章，我在其中分享关于建立一人帝国的内心博弈的文章和深度探讨。
雄心、身份、金钱以及成为你不想逃离的那种人的奇怪工作。我每周发送一到两期，每一期都侧重于你可以采取的可行动、可实施的步骤 + 我做我所做之事背后的哲学。
点击这里订阅以接收新文章并支持我的工作。
> 除此之外我正在做的其他事情，以防其中任何一件让你感兴趣：
1. 如果你想建立一个高利润的一人帝国™，完全就像我建立的超过 100 万美元利润的那个……阅读这篇免费文章。
2. 如果你想在 X 上成长，查看一下 Stanley，我的 AI 内容负责人。
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*导出时间: 2026/7/29 11:54:22*