Your Network Is Everything

hip Gaines loves people who say yes. “People who say yes to life, yes to hard work, and yes to risk, but who aren’t yes-people,” he writes in his new memoir, called But he also knows how to say no, to great effect. He and his wife, Joanna, once ran a sometimes-struggling real estate company in Waco, Texas, and then transformed into the stars of HGTV’s reality show —until they burned out and declined to continue. Instead, they shifted focus onto building their network—in many senses of the word—with the aim of creating jobs and opportunity in Waco. Under the brand name Magnolia, they’ve built a shopping district, a regional real estate company, vacation rentals, product partnerships with Target and others, and debuting later