Follow the Cable
I want to tell you about a concept I learned early in my career at CDW that has quietly shaped almost every meaningful relationship I have built since. It was called follow the cable. On the surface, it was a sales methodology. Underneath it was a philosophy about how to show up in any conversation where you genuinely want to be useful to another person.
What It Actually Means
The idea was simple. When you are talking to a customer and they mention something you could potentially help with, do not stop at the surface. Think about what that thing connects to and ask about it. If you are on the phone discussing network switches, think about the servers those switches connect to, the storage behind them, the data center, the software stack. There are threads running through every conversation and most people never pull on them. The ones who do are the ones who actually understand what the person on the other side of the table needs, not just what they asked about in the moment. And critically, you were not doing this to sell. You were doing this to learn. The goal was to understand their infrastructure, their priorities, and the reasoning behind their decisions. The recommendation, when it came, came later and only when the timing was right. That discipline, the patience to learn before you offer, is what separated the best people I worked with from everyone else.
Building a Network the Same Way
When I started building HUMN, I had no building, no staff, no location, and no investors. What I had was a notebook with an idea and a phone full of names. I went through every single contact and asked one question. Do you know anyone who might be interested in learning more about what I am building? The few yes answers led to new people. Those new people led to more new people. The network grew the same way a cable trace grows, one connection at a time, each one revealing something the previous one could not have shown me on its own.
In June of 2025, someone gave me seven words that I have carried with me every day since. Don't ask for money, ask for advice. That reframe changed everything about how I walk into a conversation. I don’t pitch HUMN to anyone. I share information with people who are interested in getting involved and I give them the space to make their own decision. Involvement means different things to different people. It could be investment, partnership, advisory work, or employment. But you will never find out which one it is if you walk in with a predetermined expectation of what you need from that person. The cable leads where it leads. Your job is to follow it, not to redirect it toward where you want to end up.
Why This Works
There is a reason Apple does not end their commercials with buy now. They tell a story, they show you something beautiful, they make you feel something, and then they trust you to draw your own conclusion. That is not a passive strategy. It is a deeply intentional one built on the belief that the right people will find their way to what resonates with them when you give them the room to do it. I think about that constantly in how I communicate HUMN. My job in any conversation is not to close. It is to share the vision clearly and with conviction and let the other person decide where they fit inside of it.
The relationships that have come out of that approach are different from anything I experienced in traditional sales. They are built on genuine interest and mutual belief rather than a transaction. When someone joins the HUMN team, whether as an investor, an advisor, a fractional executive, or a future employee, they are there because they chose to be. Nobody was pressured into the room. That matters enormously when you are building something that is going to take years to fully realize and requires people who are in it for the right reasons.
