These 20 questions are designed to spark conversation — not to test rote comprehension of the content in the book. In other words, there are no right answers here – only your answers.
How To Use This Guide
The questions in this guide follow the flow of The Social Billionaire.
You can work through the questions in the 1-20 order, or jump to the section that’s most alive for your group right now.
Some questions will land differently depending on where each person is in her career journey. That’s the point. A conversation centered on each person’s experience is an opportunity for the group to unlock novel insights – and to deepen connections.
If you’re using this guide with a facilitator, the facilitator notes throughout offer prompts to expand the discussion or redirect, if necessary.
Opening: What Brought You Here?
Before diving into the framework, get the room sharing where everyone is starting from.
- When you picked up this book, what were you hoping for or needing from it?
- What’s your gut reaction to the idea that the networking advice women have been given was never really designed for us? What’s been your experience?
“The only right answers are your answers.” — The Social Billionaire
Facilitator note: These two questions are suggested ways to start the conversation and intended (especially If members of the group don’t know each other well) as a quick way to surface who’s in the room and where people are coming from.
The Sh#t List
The book names the systemic garbage women deal with — performance bias, interruptions, the mental load of being the only one in the room and on, and on. But more intentionally it asks: okay, we know there’s sh#t, and now what?
- What’s on your personal sh#t list — the stuff that has cost you time, opportunity, or energy that had nothing to do with your actual performance?
- The book is deliberately focused on what women can do, not what’s being done to us. Does that feel like a relief, a cop-out, or both?
- Have you ever blamed yourself for a career outcome that, looking back, wasn’t really yours to own? What changed (or hasn’t changed) in how you see it now?
Facilitator note: This section can go sideways into pure venting. That’s valid, and be ready to redirect with a “Yes and…” such as ‘So given all of that — what do we actually have agency over?’
Focus: What Are You Seeking?
The book is blunt about this: if you can’t name your goal, your network can’t help you reach it. Focus isn’t a productivity hack — it’s the foundation everything else (desired success, meaning connections, and sustained networking efforts) is built on.
- Are you clear on the outcomes you’re seeking? Not the vague version — the specific one you’d be embarrassed to say out loud because it sounds too big, or too small, or too something.
- The book distinguishes between goals you’ve chosen and goals you’ve inherited from someone else’s definition of success. Can you tell the difference in your own life?
- What are you networking for — right now, this year? If someone in your network asked you that question, could you answer it in two sentences?
“You, and only you, are the expert on what motivates your actions.” — The Social Billionaire
Facilitator note: Encourage specificity. Vague goals are a form of self-protection — they can’t fail if they’re not defined. Ask follow-up: ‘What would achieving that actually look like for you?’
Grit: What’s Your Fuel?
Grit is not about grinding harder — it’s about sustaining the energy to keep going toward something that genuinely matters to you. And that requires fuel. What you eat, how you sleep, who you spend time with, what you do when you’re not working — none of that is separate from your ambitions. It’s the engine.
- Think of a time when you had more stamina than you thought possible. What was different about that period — the goal, the support system, the circumstances?
- What actually replenishes you? Not the answer you’d give at a wellness retreat — the honest one.
- Grit, the book argues, is also fueled by your network. Who in your life makes you feel like your goals are worth fighting for?
Facilitator note: Women are often much better at articulating what depletes them than what restores them. Press for the restorative hacks and solutions.
Networks: Who Revolves Around Your Ambitions?
This is the heart of the book. Not who’s in your contacts — who’s actually in your corner, thinking alongside your goals, and telling you the truth.
- The research is clear: high-achieving women intentionally build their inner circle around other focused, gritty women. How intentional have you been about that?
- Where are you getting your professional information? Are you actually in the conversations that matter to where you want to go — or are you on the outside looking in?
- Think about the women who have helped you most in your career. Did those relationships happen by accident or by design? What does that tell you?
“High-achieving women are not relying on serendipity or pure chance-based encounters to achieve success. They intentionally take control of their networking destiny.”
— The Social Billionaire
Facilitator note: The intention of these questions isn’t to make anyone feel bad about their current network; these question are designed to get them to focus on what’s really needed.
Your Success Is Not Just Yours
- What would it look like to treat your own success as a form of service — not charity, but genuine mutual investment in other women’s advancement?
- The book argues that networking with women isn’t just good strategy — it’s a form of collective power. Does that reframe feel natural to you, or does it feel like a stretch? Why?
- What’s one specific thing you could do, this month, to actively invest in another woman’s goals?
“The networking choices you make don’t just elevate you — they lift other women, too.”
— The Social Billionaire
Before You Leave…
Go around the room. Ask each person to finish one (1) of these three (3) statements:
- The one thing I’m taking away from this conversation is…
- The one thing I’m going to do differently, starting now, is…
- The woman I’m going to reach out to this week is…
Then support and hold each other accountable.
Need help assessing whether your network is delivering what your ambition requires?
🚀 Order The Social Billionaire: A Networking Roadmap for Women Seeking to Flourish and Achieve More on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or Bookshop.org (or place a customized or bulk order on IngramSpark). For ebooks you can also find The Social Billionaire on Smashwords, Apple Books, Thalia, Kobo, Fable, Vivlio, and Hoopla.
🗝️ If you’re planning events designed to boost women’s professional connections, let’s talk, as I’d love insights from The Social Billionaire to be part of your conversation. Let’s Talk.
