196. The Power of Networking
You know you should be networking, but it’s hard to get yourself to do it.
It just feels so awkward and forced.
A room full of 50 strangers and you have to talk to them, be charming, and then try to leverage these new connections to move your own career forward?
No thanks. You’d rather stay home in your cozies and watch reruns of Scandal.
When you do manage to drag yourself to one of these supposedly super helpful events? Well, you have a hard time actually making the most of it.
Maybe you find yourself puttering by the food table, trying to gather your courage as you fill a tiny plate with snacks you don’t even want.
Maybe you drink just a little too much of the free Chenin Blanc, and then you’re afraid to talk to people for fear you’ll say something weird like, “wow I hate being here!”
Maybe you cling to the first person you meet, and while that leads to a lovely conversation with Debra from the local bank, you know you’re missing out on using the event to meet a wide array of people and build up your network.
Here’s the good news: networking is not required. There are other ways to build community and craft a deeply satisfying career.
That being said, networking *is* powerful. And you can be good at it, and maybe even come to enjoy it. This week’s podcast episode will teach you how.
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WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
The reason networking feels so bad sometimes.
How to network in a way that feels good instead.
3 key networking mistakes to avoid.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week we’re talking about the power of networking.
The Satisfied AF podcast is the place to learn how to create a life and career that’s wildly delicious. Want a steamier sex life? We’ve got you. Want a more satisfying career? We’ll cover that too. And you can be sure we’ll spend lots of time talking about how to build connected, fun relationships that can handle life’s ups and downs. No matter what goals you’re working on, this show will help you create a one of a kind life that is just right for you. Join me, life and career coach Kori Linn and each week I’ll give you lots of practical tips, tools, and proven strategies to help you create all the satisfaction your heart desires.
Hello, hello, hello. Happy Wednesday. So much has been going on over here. My best friend is visiting before she moves back to China. And that’s so fun. I love getting to have her in my house and in my city and getting to spend time with her. Sometimes we go a really long time without seeing each other because she lives on a different continent a lot of the time, but right now she’s here and I’m so grateful.
And then Alex’s best friend is also staying with us right now with her little dog. So it’s a full house and I’m having so much fun having all these people that we love here and getting to hang out with a super cute dog who is just one of my favorites.
And another friend of mine stayed in one of our Airbnbs recently with her little dog. So even though Alex and I don’t have any pets of our own right now, I’m having a great time with other people’s pets, which is so fun.
And then last night I went to a local networking event that I was invited to by a friend and I was talking to Alex about it. And she suggested I do a podcast episode on networking because it is something that is both widely seen as extremely helpful for building community and moving your career forward. And also something that people struggle with so much when it comes to things like, how to feel comfortable, how to have conversations with people, how to get the most out of the networking. And so I thought it would be a really great topic.
And for the purposes of this podcast, I’m going to talk about professional networking, but I think a lot of this actually applies to other things like things like maybe speed dating events or events where you’re trying to make friends in your local community. I think a lot of the same ideas here will apply.
So first things first, I just want to say networking gets a bad rap and I get it. And I think sometimes it gets a bad rap for a good reason. I do think it can feel very awkward and uncomfortable. I’ve been to tons of networking events myself and sometimes I have a really magical, wonderful time. And sometimes I’ve felt nervous or just uncomfortable, just not sure what to do with myself, not sure how to talk to people or what I should say, even not sure how friendly to be. Figuring out how you want to present yourself in that kind of situation, I think, can feel really tricky.
And they can also be really helpful and be a lot of fun. So I think it’s a great tool to have in your toolkit to have available to you, especially because sometimes the thing that’s between you and what you want, networking can help you bridge that gap, right?
And there’s other tools that can too. Like if networking is not something you want to do, okay, take it off the table for yourself. I think there’s always lots of ways to skin a peach. And just because something is seen as the general way that things are done, doesn’t mean it has to be the way you do it. Sometimes you can be the very first person who does it a different way. Or sometimes you can do a little research and find out that there’s lots of people doing it a different way and you can join their ranks.
But for me personally, I like to find ways to make everything available for myself and find ways to make everything available for you. Figure out like, how could you do it? How could it feel good? And then you can decide if you do or don’t want to do it. Because when we decide something isn’t possible, then we often feel trapped, right?
We’re like, that’s not possible, so then I have to do it this way. So I’m stuck doing it this way. Or like, that’s not possible, so I’ll never be able to get to that achievement or goal because that’s the only way to get there. And I think feeling stuck is deeply unsatisfying, dissatisfying as fuck, if you will.
And so one of the things I like to do here on the podcast is find lots of different ways to help you get unstuck and prevent you from feeling stuck in the future. So that’s part of what we’re doing with today’s episode and with the topic of networking. So let’s get into it.
First things first, why does networking feel so bad? So when it comes to networking, feeling bad, there are things that are in your control and things that are outside of your control. And let’s start by talking about the things that are in your control, since those are the ones you’re going to have an impact on.
And I think when it comes to networking, the number one thing that’s going to make you feel bad that’s inside your control is your thoughts, your perspectives, the ways you think about networking.
For instance, if you’re thinking it’s going to be so awkward, it’s going to be so uncomfortable. I never meet anyone who’s a good connection for me. Everybody’s trying to sell me something. Everybody just wants to get their own thing. Everyone’s already friends. Everyone already has their cliques. People don’t like me. I’m not very charming. I’m not good at big events. I’m not good with new people.
Now, if you’re thinking any of those things about yourself and networking, they may feel very true. I’m not here to gaslight you or invite you to gaslight yourself. But I want you to notice that when you think those thoughts, when you live inside those perspectives or any of those perspectives, it’s probably going to feel bad. It’s probably going to make you want to avoid networking events.
And if you’re at a networking event, thinking any or all of those thoughts, it’s probably going to block you from showing up in the way you would like. So just like with the election stress episode, what I’m going to invite you to do here is to bring in a new perspective alongside the old one, right?
So it could be something like, oh, I always feel so uncomfortable at these and I’m here and that’s really brave of me. So I’m going to celebrate my bravery. I’m going to celebrate my courage. And what’s really courageous is picking one person to go up and talk to. So I’m going to pick one person and go up and talk to them. And then if I want to leave, I can.
So what we’re doing here is figuring out the number one thing that we can have an impact on that makes us feel bad about networking is our own narratives inside our head. And a lot of times it’s our own inner critic that’s actually going to make networking feel so bad.
Even if your inner narrative has criticisms about what everyone else is doing, usually the one that makes us feel the most bad is the one that’s critical of ourselves.
So that is the one that I think is going to be the biggest lever for allowing you to go from networking events are fucking terrible and I hate them and I’m miserable when I’m at them, to networking events are something that I find challenging. And sometimes I choose to rise to that challenge. And when I do, I see how brave and courageous I am to be moving forward towards my goals, including doing these things that feel uncomfortable to me in the moment.
So even that, right, you can see how it’s not toxic positivity. It’s not gaslighting. It’s just switching from the frame of how terrible this is to switching to the frame of if I’m choosing to do something that’s not super comfortable or my favorite, and I’m doing it for a reason that feels good to me, that’s really powerful. That’s a win that’s worth celebrating. That’s exciting. And I can value and appreciate that about myself. So that is, probably for a lot of you, going to be the number one shift.
Now, depending on what your negative thought is about networking, you’re going to need a different positive or neutral or affirming or celebratory thought, right? So if your thought is like networking events are so forced and awkward, maybe it could be something like, even though I find this to be not the most natural way to meet people, I can still have a conversation. And that is something I naturally know how to do. If you can believe that about yourself, that you naturally know how to do that.
If you don’t believe that about yourself, it could be something like networking events are not the most natural way to meet people. And this is uncomfortable for me and I’m going to do it and try anyway. And then the more I do it and try, the more I’ll figure out how to talk to people in this kind of environment.
If your criticism is more about yourself, then you’re just going to find something that is moving away from your current thought pattern and moving towards what you would like to be able to believe about yourself, but something that still feels believable enough. For a lot of us, this is going to be focusing on our courage versus focusing on our fear.
So the interesting thing is that a lot of us think courage looks really cool. The real truth is that on the inside, courage feels like fear plus action, right? So if you’re afraid, if you’re feeling nervous or anxious at a networking event, and then you go and you take action anyways, congratulations. That’s what courage is. That’s what bravery actually feels like on the inside versus what it looks like on the outside.
There’s other kinds of negative thought patterns you might have about networking that are more about like, I won’t meet anyone interesting. There’s no one interesting there. Nothing results from networking. And so with those, you can kind of switch into this, like, maybe it’s possible I’ll meet someone interesting. Maybe it’s possible there will be a good business connection for me there. Maybe it’s possible if I get a few people’s cards, like one of those people I’ll actually go on to have a meaningful relationship with.
And so there we’re switching from the like, it definitely won’t happen to the like, maybe it’s possible that it could happen. Now, with all of this I would also add that like, you can do some data collection, right? So you can go to some networking events, you can try on these new thoughts and perspectives, and you can also see what happens and you can collect and record that data, right?
So that might look like writing down how many networking events you go to, how many people you talk to at each one, and then like what actually comes out of that. And then in this way you can test and learn, which is something we used to talk about in corporate, this idea of test and learn, like try it out, see what happens. In the cultural vernacular of the internet, we would call this like fuck around and find out, but test and learn is just the corporate version of that.
But basically what you can do then is you can test and find out, does networking actually help you if you actually go in earnest and try it? And then you can look at the numbers. Here’s the thing, if you only go to one networking event, you’re not going to get a very large amount of data, right? You’ll be like, I went to one event, I talked to four people, nothing happened.
So I would say that’s not really a big enough sample size. And I know this can be frustrating because I’ve been doing some stuff in my business and I was like, I did all this stuff and I tried so hard and it’s not working. And my coach was like, you’re not going to like what I’m about to tell you, but that’s not a big enough sample size. Like it’s not a big enough sample size to understand if this strategy is working. You need to really do like 10X that amount of data collection and testing to really figure out if it’s working.
And I burst into tears and had to turn my camera off and literally leave the room and go into the hallway outside of my office and have a little cry about it because I had been trying so hard. Like that was my internal experience. But I also really value that my coach said that to me because it helped me understand and put into context the data that I was seeing from the activities that I’d tried.
And I want to share that with you because what I don’t want to have happen is I don’t want you to try for like 30 minutes on one evening and then get a small sample size of data and then decide that the thing isn’t working or can’t ever work, because whether we like it or not and for better or for worse, a lot of times things take a lot of trying and a lot of effort before we begin to see the payoff kind of pan out in the numbers.
And sometimes it’s a long time horizon. Like I went to a networking event right when I started my business, like before the pandemic, maybe 2018, maybe 2019. And I met this woman there who said, “I love what you’re doing. I need to hire you.” And I was like, cool. Like let’s work together.
And then she got on my email list and then I didn’t hear anything from her for like five years. She stayed on my email list and I was like, cool. And then five years later, she was like, “Remember when I said I would hire you? Now it’s time, I’m ready to hire you.” And she bought a coaching package from me and paid several thousand dollars and worked with me for six months. And it was awesome.
And it was so interesting because that’s a result from a networking event, but it took a five year window of review for that data to become available in my business revenue, right? And so I kind of wanted to give you that as an example, when you’re doing something like networking, there might be a payoff right away. You might meet someone who you become connected on LinkedIn and then they introduce you to someone right away and it’s great and things move forward.
But a lot of times when we’re building a business, when we’re building a network, when we’re building a community, when we’re putting something out there, whether the something is ourself or a service or we’re trying to get a new role some kind of new company or industry, a lot of times it’s going to take a lot of that activity before we’re going to see what is paying off.
So when I talk about trying these new thoughts on, hopefully you’re going to have a much improved emotional experience of networking immediately or pretty much right away. But you may not see the fruits of networking for a while because networking, in a lot of ways, is a long game versus a short game. And what I mean by that is the connections you put in place may be in place right away, as in you may have someone join your email newsletter list, like that person did with me or someone who connects with you on LinkedIn. So like now you have someone on LinkedIn who works at the company you want to work at and you have that connection.
But that connection actually bearing fruit, you know, if you run a business, getting a client or a customer, or if you are in a role where you’re looking to maybe switch companies or industries. So getting to the place where you do switch companies or industries, that may take, I mean, honestly, probably months or years. Some things happen in days and weeks, but a lot of things take months and years. So that’s something to keep in mind too with networking, that it’s not a short game, it’s a long game.
So for me personally, networking is not one of my most favorite things, but I have seen the power of it, both anecdotally from other people and also in my own business, like the example of the woman who got on my email list and was on there for five years and then one day was ready to sign up and work with me.
But since it’s not my favorite thing, the way I frame it in my mind, the way I choose to think about it, the perspectives I embrace for it are very similar to other things that aren’t my favorite, but I see that they have payoff. So examples of this for me are things like flossing my teeth, doing my physical therapy activities, going to bed on time.
I’m noticing all of these examples are about physical health, but that’s an area where I have a lot of activities that I do, even though they’re not my favorite. So with coaching, with choosing our thoughts on purpose, you can choose any thoughts you want. So I could choose to think I love flossing, but to me, that would be a big lift, right? It would take a lot of working with myself on that thought pattern to get that to be my new normal.
And I don’t really want to do that labor there. And I don’t really think it’s necessary. So for me, the labor I do is more like I commit to flossing and I love the outcomes of flossing. I love not having cavities. And since I’ve started flossing, my cavities have reduced dramatically. Sadly, not 100%, but I will take what I can get because reduction is good enough data for me to keep up with that habit.
So when it’s time to floss, I’m never like, yay! But I am like, cool. This is what I do. I do flossing and I do it because I like the benefits. I do it as a gift to my future self. I do it for a payoff and I don’t have to love it to do it.
And the same thing with PT. In fact, a lot of times with my PT activities, I’m like, I have like 30 seconds of like, I really do not fucking want to do this. I don’t want to do this right now. I don’t want to do this ever. And then while I’m doing the PT activities, it’s often also the same, you know, it’s like something where there’s like 20 and every single one, I’m like, ugh, 15 more. 14 more.
So I let myself have that. I don’t gaslight myself. I don’t pretend that I love PT. I don’t love PT, but you know what? I’m committed to doing PT. And when I do PT, my body feels better. I feel stronger. My knee has less pain. And so I’m going to fucking do that shit, right? I’m doing it three to five times a week. I’m flossing pretty much seven days a week. We’re doing these things.
And the same with going to bed. Like I have transition resistance like I talked about in a recent episode on how to get started or why you don’t get started. And that happens to me with going to bed. I never want to go to bed. I’m always like, five more minutes. Let me do one more thing. I want to watch one more show. But what I’ve come to realize is there’s never a point at which I’m like, okay, now I’m ready. It’s like resisting, resisting, resisting, then being upset because I’ve stayed up too late and now I’m tired and cranky.
So when it’s time to go to bed, I’m just like, cool, we’re going to go to bed. Even if it’s not our most favorite thing, because I like the outcome. I like the results. And again, long game/short game. The short game is I will feel much better the next day. And the long game is I’m going to have much better health and much better energy. And I’ve seen the data on that and I continue to see the data on it. And conveniently there’s like a lot of existing data from science that backs me up. So I have a good argument to make to myself to keep doing this thing.
And that’s how I treat networking. I’m like, okay, it’s not my favorite. I’m not going to pretend it’s my favorite. I’m not going to be like, this is a super fun time I’m going to go have. Which doesn’t mean I won’t have a super fun time because sometimes at networking, I do end up having a fun time. It just means that’s not how I’m pitching it to myself.
The sales pitch I make to myself about networking is this could be helpful. You can do it. It’s so brave that you’re trying. I love to see you try this thing that sometimes has a big payoff and sometimes doesn’t. Maybe you’ll meet someone really interesting, right?
So I’m selling myself on how brave I am. And I’m selling myself on the possibility that there will be beneficial outcomes to my professional life, to my career, to my professional community. And so that’s what you can do too.
Now, honestly, you can do whatever narrative you want. That’s just the narrative that, for me, I have found to be the most effective because I believe it. I think it’s true that if this thing’s not easy and my favorite and I’m taking time and effort to do it anyways, that that’s courageous. And I’ve seen it to be true that it can be useful for my business. And I’ve read data from other people that it can be useful for business. So that’s the sales pitch I’m making.
So if you want networking to be part of how you go about your career, or if you’re kind of using this as a metaphor for dating or making friends, if you want this kind of like going to live events with other humans and talking to them to try to move forward towards your goal, if you want that to be in the suite of tools you’re using to build your satisfying AF life career, et cetera, then what is the powerful narrative you’re going to tell yourself about what you’re doing there?
Because if you tell yourself it’s sad and pathetic that you’re so scared of networking. First of all, that’s not true. Second of all, it’s going to make you feel like shit. And then even if you do get it together to go to an event, that’s going to be then a symbol of your pain, a symbol of your insecurity, a symbol of your inadequacy, and that’s going to feel yucky and you’re not going to want to do it anymore.
Whereas if it’s uncomfortable for you and you’ve decided it’s aligned and you’re going to do it anyway, that’s fucking powerful. Treat yourself with the dignity and the kindness you deserve to celebrate yourself when you choose to do something that is difficult for you because it aligns with something you want. That’s so powerful. Praise yourself when you do that, first of all, because that’s praiseworthy. But second of all, if you did it and you want to do more of it, praise yourself because you’ll do more of what you praise yourself for.
So praise serves two functions here. Function one is like, let’s celebrate you. You’re being a badass. And function two is you want to get yourself to do that badassery again, incentivize yourself. Celebration is one way to do that.
So that is why networking feels so bad, is usually because we have a bunch of thoughts about it that are terrible, that make us feel terrible. And how to make it feel better is to choose powerful thoughts instead, again, thoughts you believe and thoughts that tie to how courageous it is, how compelling it is, how impressive it is, what a win and power move it is that you’re doing this thing, even if it’s not your favorite, because it’s bringing you closer to what you want.
And again, collect your own data on this. If you put in the reps and you decide this isn’t giving you the outcomes you want, or if you’re just able to get the outcomes you want without doing it and you don’t prefer it, fucking don’t do it. I’m never here to say this is the only way to be successful. I just want to remove obstacles so that all the different paths are available to you.
Okay, now that we’ve talked about that, let’s just also talk about three key mistakes to avoid if you are going to network. So mistake number one is to not talk to anybody, right? And I see this happen sometimes. People will go to a networking event and they’ll go get some food at the food table and then they'll kind of stand in a corner.
And first of all, if you see those people, those are great people to talk to because they’re probably even more uncomfortable than you are. And then you can feel like a courageous badass because you’re like rescuing them from their solitude and their nervousness. So that is a great thing you can do.
But that’s also the mistake, is to get yourself all the way there and then not talk to anybody. I mean, listen, if it’s the first time and you’re just working up to talking to people like, okay, I love that for you. I’m all about too small to fail and I could totally see that as a step on the path. But if that’s what you do every time you’re going to a networking event, that’s not going to give you the payoff of networking. So don’t do that.
And thing two is really similar, which is just to find one person and only talk to them. This actually used to happen to a client of mine. That’s why they hired me, because they would go to these networking events and they would find one person to talk to and they would have really lovely, beautiful conversations with the one person, but that wasn’t building up their network as much as they wanted it to be.
Like if that’s all you can muster, again, and that’s you moving forward towards a more fully expressed networking experience, I totally get that. But at the end of the day, if you’re going to go all the way to a networking event, I think it’s ideal to try to talk to more than zero to one people and to kind of spread your presence out a little bit so you can meet multiple people and have the potential of multiple seeds you’ve planted that can turn into relationships and potentially them becoming a client or them being a connection at a company or industry you’re interested in.
The more people you talk to, it’s not like the more the better, because I do think there’s a limit. Like if you only say one word to a bunch of people, like you’re probably going too far, but you want to be able to have a meaningful connection with I would say at least four people. And follow up with them too, right? If you get like people’s names or contact info, you can follow up and build those relationships because what we want with networking isn’t just to go spend an hour and a half in a room talking to people we never hear from again or we never talk to again. We’re trying to build a community and build actual connections.
So it is for you to decide how much of that you can do at one event. But I think being able to do what you can and then stretch a little and then praise yourself for how brave you’re being to the point where you’re talking to multiple people is going to be really helpful.
Okay, and the third networking mistake to avoid is definitely a mistake that I have personally made. A lot of networking events have alcohol. I am an alcohol drinking person. I love me a glass of wine. But when I was younger, I think I would drink too much at networking events. And the thing about that is, first of all, it can make you feel really uncomfortable. You’re like, oh no, am I going to say something weird? It makes it hard to remember who you connected with later.
I know for me, probably there were times when I met people at networking events and I’d had too many glasses of wine and I probably said stuff that like, it was like the antithesis of a connection, right? It’s like, if you’re doing networking, I think the way we want to be doing it, you’re going, you’re meeting people, you’re having meaningful conversation. And hopefully you’re remembering something about them and they’re remembering something about you in a powerful, positive way that makes you want to connect with each other again.
Whereas I think probably, and this was a long time ago, but a significantly younger Kori, who was having too much alcohol at the networking events, I was probably making a bad impression sometimes. Now, some of those times, maybe I was making a good impression. Also sometimes a bad impression and a good impression is really just like, if you’re being authentic and you’re being genuine to who you want to be in the world, sometimes people won’t like you and that can still be positive.
But I don’t think I was doing a good job showing people my professional self because I was having more wine than was really appropriate for a professional self.
And this isn’t at all a judgment on drinking or how much people are drinking. This is more that like, I’m kind of a lightweight person. And by that, I mean I can’t drink very much alcohol without it having an impact on me. So for me, I learned this a long time ago, but it was top of mind. Like I went to a networking event last night with a friend and I was like, okay, one glass of wine, right? Because sometimes wine is delicious and we want to have a second glass, but I know that that’s not going to help me show up in a way that is kind of my utmost professional self.
So for you, that might be like, I’m actually not going to have any alcohol at a networking event. Or for you, if you have a different alcohol tolerance than me, it could be two or three glasses of wine. I definitely have a friend who can have like two scotches and still be in a perfectly professional capacity. And that’s just not me. I don’t have that.
And I know that alcohol in particular, like if we’re doing something that we feel uncomfortable with a lot of people, if alcohol is there, are going to have that as kind of a way to smooth their emotions over. And I totally understand that. Coaching also is great because it offers a variety of other tools that can help you manage those emotions because using alcohol to manage them, while totally understandable and I have no personal judgment about it. It can kind of get us into problematic patterns that can get us into trouble if we don’t develop other skills that we can use.
I do think that’s sometimes one of the reasons that people wind up with addiction problems is because the substance is the only way that they know how to handle a certain kind of situation or emotional thing. But again, I don’t have any judgment. Like this is morally neutral to me, I just know that that can sometimes wind up leading people to places that they’d rather not be.
But so something for me is like using coaching tools. And like I said, I had a glass of wine last night, so I’m still a drinking person. And I still think that can be a perfectly fine part of attending a professional networking event. And also being able to moderate my own emotions, especially using more powerful thoughts, allows me to balance that out so that I’m not using the drinking to kind of numb my nervousness and then winding up more intoxicated than I’d like to be and then I’m not having meaningful connections with people.
So those are three key networking mistakes to avoid. And if you’ve made any of them, please don’t judge yourself for it. Networking, I think, in a lot of ways is really hard and it’s very uncomfortable. And if you’re doing it at all, I think you deserve a big round of applause from yourself to yourself.
And then hopefully everything we’ve talked about in this podcast can help you move closer and closer to whatever version of networking you’d like to be having, both through choosing more powerful thoughts, through collecting data and using that data to inform your decisions, and through moving away either in a big swoop or inch by inch from those three networking mistakes so you can really get the most out of a networking event and really build your community, meet new people, break into new companies and industries, and really build that satisfying AF career.
All right. That’s what I have for y’all today. I hope you have a wonderful week and I will talk to you next time. Bye.
Thank you for joining me for this week’s episode of Satisfied AF. If you are ready to create a wildly delicious life and have way more fun than you ever thought possible, visit www.korilinn.com to see how I can help. See you next week.
The Satisfied AF podcast is the place to learn how to create a life and career that’s wildly delicious. Want a steamier sex life? We’ve got you. Want a more satisfying career? We’ll cover that too. And you can be sure we’ll spend lots of time talking about how to build connected, fun relationships that can handle life’s ups and downs. No matter what goals you’re working on, this show will help you create a one of a kind life that is just right for you. Join me, life and career coach Kori Linn and each week I’ll give you lots of practical tips, tools, and proven strategies to help you create all the satisfaction your heart desires.
Hello, hello, hello. Happy Wednesday. So much has been going on over here. My best friend is visiting before she moves back to China. And that’s so fun. I love getting to have her in my house and in my city and getting to spend time with her. Sometimes we go a really long time without seeing each other because she lives on a different continent a lot of the time, but right now she’s here and I’m so grateful.
And then Alex’s best friend is also staying with us right now with her little dog. So it’s a full house and I’m having so much fun having all these people that we love here and getting to hang out with a super cute dog who is just one of my favorites.
And another friend of mine stayed in one of our Airbnbs recently with her little dog. So even though Alex and I don’t have any pets of our own right now, I’m having a great time with other people’s pets, which is so fun.
And then last night I went to a local networking event that I was invited to by a friend and I was talking to Alex about it. And she suggested I do a podcast episode on networking because it is something that is both widely seen as extremely helpful for building community and moving your career forward. And also something that people struggle with so much when it comes to things like, how to feel comfortable, how to have conversations with people, how to get the most out of the networking. And so I thought it would be a really great topic.
And for the purposes of this podcast, I’m going to talk about professional networking, but I think a lot of this actually applies to other things like things like maybe speed dating events or events where you’re trying to make friends in your local community. I think a lot of the same ideas here will apply.
So first things first, I just want to say networking gets a bad rap and I get it. And I think sometimes it gets a bad rap for a good reason. I do think it can feel very awkward and uncomfortable. I’ve been to tons of networking events myself and sometimes I have a really magical, wonderful time. And sometimes I’ve felt nervous or just uncomfortable, just not sure what to do with myself, not sure how to talk to people or what I should say, even not sure how friendly to be. Figuring out how you want to present yourself in that kind of situation, I think, can feel really tricky.
And they can also be really helpful and be a lot of fun. So I think it’s a great tool to have in your toolkit to have available to you, especially because sometimes the thing that’s between you and what you want, networking can help you bridge that gap, right?
And there’s other tools that can too. Like if networking is not something you want to do, okay, take it off the table for yourself. I think there’s always lots of ways to skin a peach. And just because something is seen as the general way that things are done, doesn’t mean it has to be the way you do it. Sometimes you can be the very first person who does it a different way. Or sometimes you can do a little research and find out that there’s lots of people doing it a different way and you can join their ranks.
But for me personally, I like to find ways to make everything available for myself and find ways to make everything available for you. Figure out like, how could you do it? How could it feel good? And then you can decide if you do or don’t want to do it. Because when we decide something isn’t possible, then we often feel trapped, right?
We’re like, that’s not possible, so then I have to do it this way. So I’m stuck doing it this way. Or like, that’s not possible, so I’ll never be able to get to that achievement or goal because that’s the only way to get there. And I think feeling stuck is deeply unsatisfying, dissatisfying as fuck, if you will.
And so one of the things I like to do here on the podcast is find lots of different ways to help you get unstuck and prevent you from feeling stuck in the future. So that’s part of what we’re doing with today’s episode and with the topic of networking. So let’s get into it.
First things first, why does networking feel so bad? So when it comes to networking, feeling bad, there are things that are in your control and things that are outside of your control. And let’s start by talking about the things that are in your control, since those are the ones you’re going to have an impact on.
And I think when it comes to networking, the number one thing that’s going to make you feel bad that’s inside your control is your thoughts, your perspectives, the ways you think about networking.
For instance, if you’re thinking it’s going to be so awkward, it’s going to be so uncomfortable. I never meet anyone who’s a good connection for me. Everybody’s trying to sell me something. Everybody just wants to get their own thing. Everyone’s already friends. Everyone already has their cliques. People don’t like me. I’m not very charming. I’m not good at big events. I’m not good with new people.
Now, if you’re thinking any of those things about yourself and networking, they may feel very true. I’m not here to gaslight you or invite you to gaslight yourself. But I want you to notice that when you think those thoughts, when you live inside those perspectives or any of those perspectives, it’s probably going to feel bad. It’s probably going to make you want to avoid networking events.
And if you’re at a networking event, thinking any or all of those thoughts, it’s probably going to block you from showing up in the way you would like. So just like with the election stress episode, what I’m going to invite you to do here is to bring in a new perspective alongside the old one, right?
So it could be something like, oh, I always feel so uncomfortable at these and I’m here and that’s really brave of me. So I’m going to celebrate my bravery. I’m going to celebrate my courage. And what’s really courageous is picking one person to go up and talk to. So I’m going to pick one person and go up and talk to them. And then if I want to leave, I can.
So what we’re doing here is figuring out the number one thing that we can have an impact on that makes us feel bad about networking is our own narratives inside our head. And a lot of times it’s our own inner critic that’s actually going to make networking feel so bad.
Even if your inner narrative has criticisms about what everyone else is doing, usually the one that makes us feel the most bad is the one that’s critical of ourselves.
So that is the one that I think is going to be the biggest lever for allowing you to go from networking events are fucking terrible and I hate them and I’m miserable when I’m at them, to networking events are something that I find challenging. And sometimes I choose to rise to that challenge. And when I do, I see how brave and courageous I am to be moving forward towards my goals, including doing these things that feel uncomfortable to me in the moment.
So even that, right, you can see how it’s not toxic positivity. It’s not gaslighting. It’s just switching from the frame of how terrible this is to switching to the frame of if I’m choosing to do something that’s not super comfortable or my favorite, and I’m doing it for a reason that feels good to me, that’s really powerful. That’s a win that’s worth celebrating. That’s exciting. And I can value and appreciate that about myself. So that is, probably for a lot of you, going to be the number one shift.
Now, depending on what your negative thought is about networking, you’re going to need a different positive or neutral or affirming or celebratory thought, right? So if your thought is like networking events are so forced and awkward, maybe it could be something like, even though I find this to be not the most natural way to meet people, I can still have a conversation. And that is something I naturally know how to do. If you can believe that about yourself, that you naturally know how to do that.
If you don’t believe that about yourself, it could be something like networking events are not the most natural way to meet people. And this is uncomfortable for me and I’m going to do it and try anyway. And then the more I do it and try, the more I’ll figure out how to talk to people in this kind of environment.
If your criticism is more about yourself, then you’re just going to find something that is moving away from your current thought pattern and moving towards what you would like to be able to believe about yourself, but something that still feels believable enough. For a lot of us, this is going to be focusing on our courage versus focusing on our fear.
So the interesting thing is that a lot of us think courage looks really cool. The real truth is that on the inside, courage feels like fear plus action, right? So if you’re afraid, if you’re feeling nervous or anxious at a networking event, and then you go and you take action anyways, congratulations. That’s what courage is. That’s what bravery actually feels like on the inside versus what it looks like on the outside.
There’s other kinds of negative thought patterns you might have about networking that are more about like, I won’t meet anyone interesting. There’s no one interesting there. Nothing results from networking. And so with those, you can kind of switch into this, like, maybe it’s possible I’ll meet someone interesting. Maybe it’s possible there will be a good business connection for me there. Maybe it’s possible if I get a few people’s cards, like one of those people I’ll actually go on to have a meaningful relationship with.
And so there we’re switching from the like, it definitely won’t happen to the like, maybe it’s possible that it could happen. Now, with all of this I would also add that like, you can do some data collection, right? So you can go to some networking events, you can try on these new thoughts and perspectives, and you can also see what happens and you can collect and record that data, right?
So that might look like writing down how many networking events you go to, how many people you talk to at each one, and then like what actually comes out of that. And then in this way you can test and learn, which is something we used to talk about in corporate, this idea of test and learn, like try it out, see what happens. In the cultural vernacular of the internet, we would call this like fuck around and find out, but test and learn is just the corporate version of that.
But basically what you can do then is you can test and find out, does networking actually help you if you actually go in earnest and try it? And then you can look at the numbers. Here’s the thing, if you only go to one networking event, you’re not going to get a very large amount of data, right? You’ll be like, I went to one event, I talked to four people, nothing happened.
So I would say that’s not really a big enough sample size. And I know this can be frustrating because I’ve been doing some stuff in my business and I was like, I did all this stuff and I tried so hard and it’s not working. And my coach was like, you’re not going to like what I’m about to tell you, but that’s not a big enough sample size. Like it’s not a big enough sample size to understand if this strategy is working. You need to really do like 10X that amount of data collection and testing to really figure out if it’s working.
And I burst into tears and had to turn my camera off and literally leave the room and go into the hallway outside of my office and have a little cry about it because I had been trying so hard. Like that was my internal experience. But I also really value that my coach said that to me because it helped me understand and put into context the data that I was seeing from the activities that I’d tried.
And I want to share that with you because what I don’t want to have happen is I don’t want you to try for like 30 minutes on one evening and then get a small sample size of data and then decide that the thing isn’t working or can’t ever work, because whether we like it or not and for better or for worse, a lot of times things take a lot of trying and a lot of effort before we begin to see the payoff kind of pan out in the numbers.
And sometimes it’s a long time horizon. Like I went to a networking event right when I started my business, like before the pandemic, maybe 2018, maybe 2019. And I met this woman there who said, “I love what you’re doing. I need to hire you.” And I was like, cool. Like let’s work together.
And then she got on my email list and then I didn’t hear anything from her for like five years. She stayed on my email list and I was like, cool. And then five years later, she was like, “Remember when I said I would hire you? Now it’s time, I’m ready to hire you.” And she bought a coaching package from me and paid several thousand dollars and worked with me for six months. And it was awesome.
And it was so interesting because that’s a result from a networking event, but it took a five year window of review for that data to become available in my business revenue, right? And so I kind of wanted to give you that as an example, when you’re doing something like networking, there might be a payoff right away. You might meet someone who you become connected on LinkedIn and then they introduce you to someone right away and it’s great and things move forward.
But a lot of times when we’re building a business, when we’re building a network, when we’re building a community, when we’re putting something out there, whether the something is ourself or a service or we’re trying to get a new role some kind of new company or industry, a lot of times it’s going to take a lot of that activity before we’re going to see what is paying off.
So when I talk about trying these new thoughts on, hopefully you’re going to have a much improved emotional experience of networking immediately or pretty much right away. But you may not see the fruits of networking for a while because networking, in a lot of ways, is a long game versus a short game. And what I mean by that is the connections you put in place may be in place right away, as in you may have someone join your email newsletter list, like that person did with me or someone who connects with you on LinkedIn. So like now you have someone on LinkedIn who works at the company you want to work at and you have that connection.
But that connection actually bearing fruit, you know, if you run a business, getting a client or a customer, or if you are in a role where you’re looking to maybe switch companies or industries. So getting to the place where you do switch companies or industries, that may take, I mean, honestly, probably months or years. Some things happen in days and weeks, but a lot of things take months and years. So that’s something to keep in mind too with networking, that it’s not a short game, it’s a long game.
So for me personally, networking is not one of my most favorite things, but I have seen the power of it, both anecdotally from other people and also in my own business, like the example of the woman who got on my email list and was on there for five years and then one day was ready to sign up and work with me.
But since it’s not my favorite thing, the way I frame it in my mind, the way I choose to think about it, the perspectives I embrace for it are very similar to other things that aren’t my favorite, but I see that they have payoff. So examples of this for me are things like flossing my teeth, doing my physical therapy activities, going to bed on time.
I’m noticing all of these examples are about physical health, but that’s an area where I have a lot of activities that I do, even though they’re not my favorite. So with coaching, with choosing our thoughts on purpose, you can choose any thoughts you want. So I could choose to think I love flossing, but to me, that would be a big lift, right? It would take a lot of working with myself on that thought pattern to get that to be my new normal.
And I don’t really want to do that labor there. And I don’t really think it’s necessary. So for me, the labor I do is more like I commit to flossing and I love the outcomes of flossing. I love not having cavities. And since I’ve started flossing, my cavities have reduced dramatically. Sadly, not 100%, but I will take what I can get because reduction is good enough data for me to keep up with that habit.
So when it’s time to floss, I’m never like, yay! But I am like, cool. This is what I do. I do flossing and I do it because I like the benefits. I do it as a gift to my future self. I do it for a payoff and I don’t have to love it to do it.
And the same thing with PT. In fact, a lot of times with my PT activities, I’m like, I have like 30 seconds of like, I really do not fucking want to do this. I don’t want to do this right now. I don’t want to do this ever. And then while I’m doing the PT activities, it’s often also the same, you know, it’s like something where there’s like 20 and every single one, I’m like, ugh, 15 more. 14 more.
So I let myself have that. I don’t gaslight myself. I don’t pretend that I love PT. I don’t love PT, but you know what? I’m committed to doing PT. And when I do PT, my body feels better. I feel stronger. My knee has less pain. And so I’m going to fucking do that shit, right? I’m doing it three to five times a week. I’m flossing pretty much seven days a week. We’re doing these things.
And the same with going to bed. Like I have transition resistance like I talked about in a recent episode on how to get started or why you don’t get started. And that happens to me with going to bed. I never want to go to bed. I’m always like, five more minutes. Let me do one more thing. I want to watch one more show. But what I’ve come to realize is there’s never a point at which I’m like, okay, now I’m ready. It’s like resisting, resisting, resisting, then being upset because I’ve stayed up too late and now I’m tired and cranky.
So when it’s time to go to bed, I’m just like, cool, we’re going to go to bed. Even if it’s not our most favorite thing, because I like the outcome. I like the results. And again, long game/short game. The short game is I will feel much better the next day. And the long game is I’m going to have much better health and much better energy. And I’ve seen the data on that and I continue to see the data on it. And conveniently there’s like a lot of existing data from science that backs me up. So I have a good argument to make to myself to keep doing this thing.
And that’s how I treat networking. I’m like, okay, it’s not my favorite. I’m not going to pretend it’s my favorite. I’m not going to be like, this is a super fun time I’m going to go have. Which doesn’t mean I won’t have a super fun time because sometimes at networking, I do end up having a fun time. It just means that’s not how I’m pitching it to myself.
The sales pitch I make to myself about networking is this could be helpful. You can do it. It’s so brave that you’re trying. I love to see you try this thing that sometimes has a big payoff and sometimes doesn’t. Maybe you’ll meet someone really interesting, right?
So I’m selling myself on how brave I am. And I’m selling myself on the possibility that there will be beneficial outcomes to my professional life, to my career, to my professional community. And so that’s what you can do too.
Now, honestly, you can do whatever narrative you want. That’s just the narrative that, for me, I have found to be the most effective because I believe it. I think it’s true that if this thing’s not easy and my favorite and I’m taking time and effort to do it anyways, that that’s courageous. And I’ve seen it to be true that it can be useful for my business. And I’ve read data from other people that it can be useful for business. So that’s the sales pitch I’m making.
So if you want networking to be part of how you go about your career, or if you’re kind of using this as a metaphor for dating or making friends, if you want this kind of like going to live events with other humans and talking to them to try to move forward towards your goal, if you want that to be in the suite of tools you’re using to build your satisfying AF life career, et cetera, then what is the powerful narrative you’re going to tell yourself about what you’re doing there?
Because if you tell yourself it’s sad and pathetic that you’re so scared of networking. First of all, that’s not true. Second of all, it’s going to make you feel like shit. And then even if you do get it together to go to an event, that’s going to be then a symbol of your pain, a symbol of your insecurity, a symbol of your inadequacy, and that’s going to feel yucky and you’re not going to want to do it anymore.
Whereas if it’s uncomfortable for you and you’ve decided it’s aligned and you’re going to do it anyway, that’s fucking powerful. Treat yourself with the dignity and the kindness you deserve to celebrate yourself when you choose to do something that is difficult for you because it aligns with something you want. That’s so powerful. Praise yourself when you do that, first of all, because that’s praiseworthy. But second of all, if you did it and you want to do more of it, praise yourself because you’ll do more of what you praise yourself for.
So praise serves two functions here. Function one is like, let’s celebrate you. You’re being a badass. And function two is you want to get yourself to do that badassery again, incentivize yourself. Celebration is one way to do that.
So that is why networking feels so bad, is usually because we have a bunch of thoughts about it that are terrible, that make us feel terrible. And how to make it feel better is to choose powerful thoughts instead, again, thoughts you believe and thoughts that tie to how courageous it is, how compelling it is, how impressive it is, what a win and power move it is that you’re doing this thing, even if it’s not your favorite, because it’s bringing you closer to what you want.
And again, collect your own data on this. If you put in the reps and you decide this isn’t giving you the outcomes you want, or if you’re just able to get the outcomes you want without doing it and you don’t prefer it, fucking don’t do it. I’m never here to say this is the only way to be successful. I just want to remove obstacles so that all the different paths are available to you.
Okay, now that we’ve talked about that, let’s just also talk about three key mistakes to avoid if you are going to network. So mistake number one is to not talk to anybody, right? And I see this happen sometimes. People will go to a networking event and they’ll go get some food at the food table and then they'll kind of stand in a corner.
And first of all, if you see those people, those are great people to talk to because they’re probably even more uncomfortable than you are. And then you can feel like a courageous badass because you’re like rescuing them from their solitude and their nervousness. So that is a great thing you can do.
But that’s also the mistake, is to get yourself all the way there and then not talk to anybody. I mean, listen, if it’s the first time and you’re just working up to talking to people like, okay, I love that for you. I’m all about too small to fail and I could totally see that as a step on the path. But if that’s what you do every time you’re going to a networking event, that’s not going to give you the payoff of networking. So don’t do that.
And thing two is really similar, which is just to find one person and only talk to them. This actually used to happen to a client of mine. That’s why they hired me, because they would go to these networking events and they would find one person to talk to and they would have really lovely, beautiful conversations with the one person, but that wasn’t building up their network as much as they wanted it to be.
Like if that’s all you can muster, again, and that’s you moving forward towards a more fully expressed networking experience, I totally get that. But at the end of the day, if you’re going to go all the way to a networking event, I think it’s ideal to try to talk to more than zero to one people and to kind of spread your presence out a little bit so you can meet multiple people and have the potential of multiple seeds you’ve planted that can turn into relationships and potentially them becoming a client or them being a connection at a company or industry you’re interested in.
The more people you talk to, it’s not like the more the better, because I do think there’s a limit. Like if you only say one word to a bunch of people, like you’re probably going too far, but you want to be able to have a meaningful connection with I would say at least four people. And follow up with them too, right? If you get like people’s names or contact info, you can follow up and build those relationships because what we want with networking isn’t just to go spend an hour and a half in a room talking to people we never hear from again or we never talk to again. We’re trying to build a community and build actual connections.
So it is for you to decide how much of that you can do at one event. But I think being able to do what you can and then stretch a little and then praise yourself for how brave you’re being to the point where you’re talking to multiple people is going to be really helpful.
Okay, and the third networking mistake to avoid is definitely a mistake that I have personally made. A lot of networking events have alcohol. I am an alcohol drinking person. I love me a glass of wine. But when I was younger, I think I would drink too much at networking events. And the thing about that is, first of all, it can make you feel really uncomfortable. You’re like, oh no, am I going to say something weird? It makes it hard to remember who you connected with later.
I know for me, probably there were times when I met people at networking events and I’d had too many glasses of wine and I probably said stuff that like, it was like the antithesis of a connection, right? It’s like, if you’re doing networking, I think the way we want to be doing it, you’re going, you’re meeting people, you’re having meaningful conversation. And hopefully you’re remembering something about them and they’re remembering something about you in a powerful, positive way that makes you want to connect with each other again.
Whereas I think probably, and this was a long time ago, but a significantly younger Kori, who was having too much alcohol at the networking events, I was probably making a bad impression sometimes. Now, some of those times, maybe I was making a good impression. Also sometimes a bad impression and a good impression is really just like, if you’re being authentic and you’re being genuine to who you want to be in the world, sometimes people won’t like you and that can still be positive.
But I don’t think I was doing a good job showing people my professional self because I was having more wine than was really appropriate for a professional self.
And this isn’t at all a judgment on drinking or how much people are drinking. This is more that like, I’m kind of a lightweight person. And by that, I mean I can’t drink very much alcohol without it having an impact on me. So for me, I learned this a long time ago, but it was top of mind. Like I went to a networking event last night with a friend and I was like, okay, one glass of wine, right? Because sometimes wine is delicious and we want to have a second glass, but I know that that’s not going to help me show up in a way that is kind of my utmost professional self.
So for you, that might be like, I’m actually not going to have any alcohol at a networking event. Or for you, if you have a different alcohol tolerance than me, it could be two or three glasses of wine. I definitely have a friend who can have like two scotches and still be in a perfectly professional capacity. And that’s just not me. I don’t have that.
And I know that alcohol in particular, like if we’re doing something that we feel uncomfortable with a lot of people, if alcohol is there, are going to have that as kind of a way to smooth their emotions over. And I totally understand that. Coaching also is great because it offers a variety of other tools that can help you manage those emotions because using alcohol to manage them, while totally understandable and I have no personal judgment about it. It can kind of get us into problematic patterns that can get us into trouble if we don’t develop other skills that we can use.
I do think that’s sometimes one of the reasons that people wind up with addiction problems is because the substance is the only way that they know how to handle a certain kind of situation or emotional thing. But again, I don’t have any judgment. Like this is morally neutral to me, I just know that that can sometimes wind up leading people to places that they’d rather not be.
But so something for me is like using coaching tools. And like I said, I had a glass of wine last night, so I’m still a drinking person. And I still think that can be a perfectly fine part of attending a professional networking event. And also being able to moderate my own emotions, especially using more powerful thoughts, allows me to balance that out so that I’m not using the drinking to kind of numb my nervousness and then winding up more intoxicated than I’d like to be and then I’m not having meaningful connections with people.
So those are three key networking mistakes to avoid. And if you’ve made any of them, please don’t judge yourself for it. Networking, I think, in a lot of ways is really hard and it’s very uncomfortable. And if you’re doing it at all, I think you deserve a big round of applause from yourself to yourself.
And then hopefully everything we’ve talked about in this podcast can help you move closer and closer to whatever version of networking you’d like to be having, both through choosing more powerful thoughts, through collecting data and using that data to inform your decisions, and through moving away either in a big swoop or inch by inch from those three networking mistakes so you can really get the most out of a networking event and really build your community, meet new people, break into new companies and industries, and really build that satisfying AF career.
All right. That’s what I have for y’all today. I hope you have a wonderful week and I will talk to you next time. Bye.
Thank you for joining me for this week’s episode of Satisfied AF. If you are ready to create a wildly delicious life and have way more fun than you ever thought possible, visit www.korilinn.com to see how I can help. See you next week.
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