My Review of "The Wealth of Connection" by Vincent Pugliese

What if the key to success in life is built around your personal relationships with others? And the more meaningful personal relationships you have, the more likely you are to enjoy personal, business, and financial success? 

That's the premise behind the new book, The Wealth of Connection: A New Approach to Making Business Personal Again, by my friend Vincent Pugliese.

This book impacted me to much that I began to highlight everything that spoke to me, and then I stopped because I'd end up highlighting the whole thing. 

Links for Today's Show

• Connect with Vincent Pugliese: https://totallifefreedom.com/
• Join our private Facebook community: https://www.morethanapastor.com/facebook
• Get our Free PDF: How to Know if Starting a Business is Right for You
• Read My Last Post: EntrePastors Recap: Highlights from the Interview with Les Hughes & Jon Sanders
  

I had the privilege of meeting Vincent Pugliese in October of 2021, at an event in Florida called EntrePastors, hosted by our mutual friends Les Hughes and Jon Sanders.

Vincent was one of the featured speakers at the event. And I also got to have dinner with him and several others that evening. I really enjoyed getting to know him, hearing him share some amazing stories from his past, and learn how he's creating total life freedom for himself and others.

Vincent grew up in New York City - actually on Long Island. And he built an amazing career as a sports photographer. But after all the success he enjoyed working in the media, and getting to meet thousands of celebrities over the years, Vincent still felt like he was made for something more.

Eventually he was able to pivot, and create an online business where he helps people at a crossroads in their life and career to pivot and create a life that offers them total freedom - including time and money.

I was really blessed to be able to meet Vincent and hear him share some of these stories. But what impressed me about Vincent was how these stories really illustrated the wealth of connection that he had cultivated.

And you know, sometimes you and I might think that if we want to make a change in our life, or we, we have goals we want to pursue, it's it's all about us. And it's about us taking the initiative and the effort.

And that's true, there is that component to it.

But it's also about who we know, it's also about who can help us to achieve our goals and dreams. And it's also about who we can help. As Zig Ziglar used to say, If we can help enough other people achieve their goals and dreams, then that's going to come back to us and help us achieve ours as well.

In The Wealth of Connection: A New Approach to Making Business Personal Again, Vincent talks about the wealth that you and I, and every person in the world has. We may not have financial wealth, we may not have time wealth, but we do have some level of relational wealth - a wealth of connections, as he calls it - that can be cultivated as we seek to serve and bless others.

But it's about us first coming alongside, to serve, to be a friend and care about people, but it's through the power of those connections, if we do it well, and nurture those connections, well, that we can achieve our goals and our dreams in the life that we maybe have only dreamed of, and have hoped and prayed for.

I had the privilege of receiving an advance copy of the book a few months before it was published. And as I read it for the first time, I was really personally touched by this concept of the wealth of connection. And, to be honest, I was a little bit ashamed too, that I haven't tapped into its power.

I realized that there are many people I've not had substantive contact with for months, or even years, I've made life transitions and and had been a part of organizations and then changed and I really haven't done much in some of those to keep up the relationships just to connect and say hi with people, how are you doing? How can I be praying for you? Or hey, what are you working on these days?

And you know, if I were to do that and take a sincere interest in other people in that way, I think many of them will take an interest in me as well. And if there are things I can do to help others achieve their goals and dreams or what they're working on, why wouldn't that come back to me and bless and benefit me as well?

So that was one thing that really spoke to me in Vincent's book - that I already have access to this wealth of connection! I just need to nurture it!

Because Vincent is modeling a life that I want to have. I want to have total life freedom, I want to enjoy financial freedom, I want to enjoy time, freedom, location, freedom, I want to be freed up to do whatever the passions or interests are, that God places on my heart, that he wants me to do want to be able to do that I want to have the freedom to be able to bless others more financially than we've been able to.

We've already been blessed to support many different missionaries and in organizations, but we want to do more of that. And so the wealth of connection, I think can help to free up our lives in some pretty cool ways to to grow the business, we want to grow to help pastors create streams of income outside the church so they can serve God and provide for their family no matter what. Also to be able to free up more resources that we can give to people in causes we're passionate about, and to free up our time to be able to invest in our family and in our friends, and again in the passions and causes we care about.

So I'm a believer in Vincent Pugliese, and his book The Wealth of Connections. And I was so excited to see that Vincent had sent me a signed copy of the book when it was published! Check out the video above if you want to watch me open the package and show off the book!

Inside the front cover, Vincent wrote:  "Rich. Thank you so much for your helpfulness, your support, and your friendship. Vincent." That's pretty cool. Thank you, Vincent. I appreciate your friendship and your support as well!

Once a month or so, Vincent reaches out to me, asking "How you doing? What are you working on? How can I help?"

It really means a lot.

And again, it illustrates the wealth of connection that Vincent lives into each and every day.

Five Keys to Cultivating the Wealth of Connection

The book is divided into five sections that illustrate the keys to cultivating the wealth of connection.

Section 1 - Character

Value your generous goals more than your selfish goals. So if you've got goals for your life, look at the ones which ones are for you. And then which ones can really benefit others and focus more on those that can benefit others. And he talks about building your character. How do you want to be remembered? How do you want to impact the world? How do you want to make a difference? And so character is is where Vincent starts with the book. And I think it's a really important place to start.

Section 2 - Curiosity

Value questions more than answers. Another cool thing that I found about Vincent is that he's super curious. And I think that's why he's had a 20 some year career as a professional photographer, meeting so many cool sports stars and going to all the huge events and all the great stadiums and, and he's met people beyond the sports world as well like, like one of the Pope's. And so it's pretty cool. The Dalai Lama, I think, as well. He's had personal connection with so what a cool way that that he has been able to live his life. But it really stems from being curious, from asking questions from trying to figure things out from really taking a genuine interest in people. And so he's got an amazing story about how about how the mafia taught him more about curiosity. I personally loved that story, I can just picture in my mind, Vincent living that experience out as a young lad, when he had a connection with the mafia, who got him into a sports stadium for an important game for his beloved New York Mets. And so you're gonna love that story in so many others that he shares. The next chapter is about connection.

Section 3 - Connection

Value people more than ideas. And again, it's about that personal relationship, that personal connection with people taking a genuine interest in people, these are things we probably already know. But sometimes we're not living them out or to the extent that we could, that can make the biggest impact in our lives. And in the lives of others. In there, in that chapter, he talks about that hour of giving, where he takes that one hour, the first hour of each day, to give to invest in the lives of others.

Section 4 - Collaboration

Value growth more than grind. And he talks about building a powerful network. Again, it's not just what we know, it's not just our goals and dreams, but who we know who can help us to achieve them. And so he talks about this, this network that we can develop that can help us to, to move farther, faster, when we do it in community. And again, that's something that's really spoken to me. And something that I want to build into our more than a pastor community is to, again, help people be able to take those steps together in community to not do it alone as a lone ranger, as a solo entrepreneur, but to have a community that can be there to come alongside you, to cheer you on to support and encourage you, as you are taking your steps toward building creative income outside the church.

Section 5 - Creation

Value engaging more than engagement. He talks about, if you build it, will they come? You know, if you have a goal and you want to just build a business, you can go ahead and build the thing you want to build? But what if it's not what people are interested in? What if it's not what people want? So again, he talks about engaging with people, building relationships, connections, getting feedback, testing things, trying to figure out, okay, is this really something that's going to be helpful for people? Will anyone buy this am I on the right track. And so I thought that was a really cool thing.

And then he gives a cool tip here at the very end, the turbo button, the thing that he says can help speed, your achievement of your goals and dreams the fastest. I won't give it away, get the book and you can read it yourself. But I'm a big believer in Vincent Puglisi. A big fan of his book.

Again, this is something I want to read. I want to read it every year. But right now and this year in 2022. I want to read it a couple more times, I guess I should probably do it once a quarter and measure myself How am I doing in these five key areas that he talks about? I've been really blessed by this.

And it's really spoken to me as I'm seeking to build my online business because I'm realizing it is about the connections. It is about the relationships. It is about being there for people being a support and encouragement, and then seeing how we can serve other people and give to others and how that blesses us. It comes back to us we can never out give, we can never be. We can never be too generous in giving and helping. It comes back to us. It's not a zero sum game.

So Vincent, thank you so much for writing this book. And just for how it spoke to me personally, and thanks for sending me a free copy. I really appreciate it.

And I'm actually going to be buying some as well to give out to some friends because I want to share this message and again help more people. I think it's a powerful message for my life and for so many others.

How many people in business are in it for themselves are trying to make the fast buck are trying to do things in the quickest way. Hate to make the most money. But people get hurt in the process.

This book turns that upside down. And it's about how to build authentic relationships, how to grow connections and relationships and engagement with people that will then help you to build your business and grow your life. So you can enjoy total life freedom.

Thanks again, Vincent for the book. And thank you friend for joining in on the video today, I'll provide a link where you can get the the book yourself that total life freedom.com or on Amazon, wherever it is that you buy books. I would encourage you to connect with Vincent, get the book and see how it can impact your life as well.