Boot camp isn’t for the faint of heart. Every year, tens of thousands of new military recruits enter basic training with little idea of what to expect. And every year, tens of thousands of military recruits leave basic training completely different people. It’s a life-changing experience that prepares soldiers to hold their heads high when faced with dangerous situations.

The point of boot camp, however, isn’t to comprehend and retain every vital survival and combat skill in one fell swoop. That’s why it’s called basic training. The point of boot camp is to create camaraderie and to open relationships of trust with your fellow soldiers. To learn to put your life in the hands of your brothers and sisters. When a unit works together as a team to put into practice all of the skills that they’ve obtained, they become much stronger than any man or woman could alone.

So it is with business and new entrepreneurs. It seems like every week, a new boot camp training seminar rolls into town. Panelists, guest speakers, and industry leaders from all over the world inundate seminars with their wealth of knowledge and hand young businessmen and businesswomen the keys to success.

This year, we watched MWCN Business Boot Camp attendees take feverish notes and ask endless questions in an attempt to learn the tricks of their trade. For eights hours, they stuck it out in the trenches as they were bombarded on all sides by incredible information and advice from seasoned professionals. These young, highly educated professionals are hungry for information and it was a thrill to see them soak it up.

But even more important than the information that was shared by our vast panel of speakers was the camaraderie that was shared among event attendees. Networking may seem a like a fruitless endeavor for some, and those few miss the point of meeting new people and making new contacts. Because you don’t have to go it alone.

How, then, do you make use of all this new information? Connect. Share. Open a discussion. Learn from others’ successes and failures. Don’t be afraid of failure. But learn and grow from it. Then wash, rinse, and repeat. It’s a failsafe formula. Creating a networking of likeminded individuals and drawing on their experiences is tantamount to success. They’re your brothers- and sisters-in-arms.

We invite you to train with us. Keep an eye on the horizon for networking events and use our vast resources to connect. You’re not alone out there.