Concentric Circles Access
Do not pitch Elon Musk. Find the richest person you can physically touch and go where the water is shallowest.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 94%
Sanchez's advice for anyone whose plan is 'get close to someone successful' is that the target selection is where everyone fails. People hear the advice and immediately DM billionaires and influencers, which is the most competitive inbox on earth and the one with the least ability to actually place them. Instead she works outward in concentric circles from wherever you already stand: the richest person on your block, in your community, at your school, the parent of the richest kid you know. Someone making a couple of hundred thousand a year is already far beyond what you can imagine and is drowning in nobody's inbox. The structural insight underneath is that fame and wealth are different things, and the guy who runs a sprinkler company making a couple million a year has both money and zero competition for his attention. Then you level up on a clock: give yourself six months or a year at that level, and go find the next person who is 2x richer that you can reach.
Origin
Bartlett pushed back on Sanchez's 'get with the biggest baddest person you can find' advice by pointing out that people will just start peppering Bill Gates and Elon Musk on LinkedIn. Sanchez agreed and reframed the whole approach around proximity, citing the economic-interconnectedness research showing that children in poor neighbourhoods with a few more interactions with rich people end up around 35% richer thirty years later than demographically identical children next door.
Core principles
- 01Start with who you can physically touch and actually engage with — lower stakes, higher hit rate.
- 02Do not confuse fame with wealth; the famous have the most competition and often less money.
- 03Go where the water is the shallowest.
- 04Proximity to wealth is contagious, and the effect compounds over decades.
- 05Set a deadline at each level and then find the person who is 2x.
How to run it
- 1
Map your actual reach, not your aspirational one
Ask who is the richest person on your block, in your community, at your school, whose parent you can get to. Sanchez insists there is always somebody — you are seven degrees of Kevin Bacon from everyone, and it is a numbers game.
Pro tip Someone earning a couple hundred thousand a year is 'way more than you could ever imagine' at the start — that is a valid first target.
Watch out 'There's no one there' is almost never true; it usually means you have only considered famous people.
- 2
Target the unglamorous operator
Sanchez says she would never go to an influencer to play this game. She would go to the person who runs a sprinkler company that nobody is talking to at all but who makes a great deal of money. The asymmetry is that your approach is the only one they have received.
Pro tip 'You did this with sprinklers? How much does your company make? I want to be like you one day — can I apprentice for you?' lands very differently on that person than on a public figure.
Watch out Everybody is already in a well-known person's inbox purely because they have followers.
- 3
Lead with expertise, never with menial labour
Bartlett describes a young man who waited outside his office offering to make tea and clean the floor, and explains why it did not work. Sanchez is blunt: the only thing that spikes a busy successful person is an understanding of the world they do not have that takes them one step further. They do not need another floor cleaner.
Pro tip Her worked example: analyse 542 of their videos, show which thumbnails work and which do not, bring the data, include mockups, and bring three booked guests.
Watch out Offers of unpaid labour can be actively unhelpful — Bartlett notes he legally cannot accept an unpaid worker anyway.
- 4
Put a clock on each level and then double
Give yourself a deadline of six months or a year of learning at that level, then ask who is now the richest person at 2x that you can get to. The ladder is the point; the first rung is not.
Pro tip The first target owning a sprinkler company doing a couple million a year is a feature, not a compromise.
Watch out Staying at one level past the deadline turns a launchpad into a ceiling.
In the wild
Sanchez cites research on two poor neighbourhoods of identical socioeconomic status, where one has a few rich people in it and its residents interact with them slightly more than residents of the other.
→ Thirty years later the children with a few more interactions with rich people are on average around 35% richer than the demographically identical children next door.
A young man waited outside Bartlett's new office with a CV in a binder and said he would come in and just clean the floor. Bartlett explains it cannot work practically and, more importantly, it does not signal value.
→ Sanchez's verdict: the only thing that spikes her or Bartlett is expertise they do not have. Offering to make tea signals the opposite.
Common mistakes
Cold-pitching billionaires and influencers
Sanchez says she would never go to an influencer to play this game. The famous have the most competition for attention and are frequently not the richest people available to you — you are picking the hardest target and the wrong one.
Confusing fame with wealth
Sanchez is explicit that she and Bartlett are not the richest people, they are just the most visible. Visibility is what creates the inbox competition, so it is exactly the wrong selection criterion.
Offering effort instead of insight
Sweat, tea-making and floor-cleaning are abundant. What is scarce and what actually gets a reply is a piece of understanding about their world that moves them one step forward.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone with no network trying to get into proximity of people who operate at a higher level, including students, career-changers and first-time founders.
Not ideal for
People who already have strong access to high-net-worth operators, where the constraint is conversion rather than reach.
From the transcript
“if you want to get in front of a rich powerful person start with concentric circles so start with what's closest to you”
“I would never go to an influencer and try to play this game I would go to the guy who runs a sprinkler company that…”
“go where the water is the shallowest is what I would start with”
“the only thing that spikes is some sort of expertise”
From the episode
Codie Sanchez: They're Lying To You About How To Get Rich! How To Turn $1,000 Into $1M! Hard Work Doesn't Build Wealth!
Codie Sanchez