The Best Place to Begin

Last Friday February 23, I attended a networking event for the first time in the last 8 months. The event was Living Room Series, where people shared their stories and what inspired them.

I stopped going out and met new people was because I was tired of confronting a common asked question: “what do you do?” In my mind, what I do is none of others’ business, unless I care to talk about it. Unfortunately, when most people strike up a conversation in a networking setting, that’s what comes to their minds first.

We all know this: practice makes improvement. Vise versa, a perfect way to lose a skill is to stop working on it. That’s how I lost 80% of my networking skills that I painstakingly accumulated for the past 5 years.

I brought a friend with me to the Living Room Series. He practiced networking on the daily basis, so he was very eloquent and confident when talking to people. Meanwhile, I felt awkward from someone’s networking FAQ “What do you do”, and tried to find excuses to get away from the stifle situation. So I sneaked into the bathroom at the corner of the room. I stayed there for 5 minutes.

There got to be more than just that one single FAQ made me awkward. The first reason you’ve known by now, was That question, which never seemed to stop coming at me every time I went to a networking event. Secondly, people love to hear what I have to say about myself, and I’m growing out of any self-talk. I even became somehow sick of it despite I used to enjoy it very much. Lastly, I felt being judged all the time, even though it was just my pure imagination.

Let me summarize the above in a nice and simple sentence: I don’t know where to start anymore in a networking setting.

You can only hind in a washroom for so long, because other people need to use it. So I came out and got back to the awkwardness, and decided to go with the flow. My friend was chatting with two ladies, and I joined them. Unfortunately, I couldn’t hear a thing due to my poor filter for background noise. Regardless, I threw in some random stuff I could think of.

After we were done with that conversation, I said to my friend: “I couldn’t hear a thing they said.” “Welcome to my world.” He said.

Lips and mind reading, that’s it.

I did much better at talking to people during the event break and the mingling afterward.

Still, it …. Somehow felt not comfortable.

After we left the venue, I told my friend the awkwardness I felt during the event. He said: “Silence and awkwardness are common at networking. Feeling uncomfortable is the best place to start.”

Yes. First you feel it, and then you do something to improve upon it.

“Fascinating.” I thought to myself. Usually, it was me telling other people how to network. Now it’s the other way around. So, never lost your skills.

Ok, let’s look at some common reasons that hold people back from a networking event.

1. Being unemployed: It sucks. You lose the “pride” in you, the number one thing that you can blab about to others. But you don’t want to be perceived as ‘uncompetitive’, which you are definitely NOT.

2. Being introverted: Talking to stranger is just not your strength.

3. Having nothing to say in a conversation: lack of knowledge and therefore couldn’t make connections to what others are saying.

4. Don’t know how to ask questions: After blab about their whole life, you forget to put the spotlight onto others.

5. Lack of self-marketing skills: don’t know how to present themselves in a way seen by others in a positive light, or in whichever way they are desired to be perceived.

6. Not in the right state of mind: they are overly invested in their own life problems, which sucked up all their energies from doing anything else.

How many counts do you have from the above? Regardless your reason, the longer you stop networking, the rustier it’s going to become. It’s no different than any muscle in your body, and you just need to work at it.

Why some people do well at networking? They seem to know how to bullshit and get their ways around all the time.

Instead of thinking these people have awesome blabbing or bullshitting skills, they are simply self-marketing or promoting skills. No secrete whatsoever, but practice over and over and over again.

During the sharing with my friend on the networking topic, I’ve learned something, some tricks that can make networking easier and better. Combining advices from my boyfriend, the master of networking. I’ve summarized the learning in the following.

1. Interview other people

See networking as interviewing people you don’t know. Have a list of questions in mind every time when talking to a stranger. You can then find out their priorities, passions, and values. It helps to shift the focus away from you if you don’t want to reveal your own information.

2. Be brief in your response

When it’s your turn to speak, be brief. Watch others’ reactions to what you said. If it strikes up others’ interest in knowing more, then you can go into details. If others’ respond is more along the indifference line (ie: oh ok), then start a new topic.

3. Focus on the positive

You can avoid speak on the negative. When doing it, twist it and make it a more positive-sounding story. Tell them what you learned, and how this experience sculptured you and made you a stronger person.

4. Be relevant

My boyfriend is super relevant to anything in a conversation. He’s barely running out of things to say. His mind is quick to connect to subjects that interest people and are relevant to the conversation. The secret? Yes there actually is one for that: broaden your knowledge. For me, I read as much as possible. Sometimes, I even read sport (I’m not a fan of it).

If you can master the relevancy, you can save yourself from the awkwardness in any networking setting. It also helps you to make more friends.

5. Ask questions

Being curious is the key to make connections, because it shows your interest in others. Of course, the conversation should not be all about yourself. You want to rotate the stage with others too. Asking other people questions can make them feel being important, show that you care to know them more, and also helps you the fill your knowledge gaps. Especially when you run out of things to say, you can always give the microphone to those who know the answers to.

6. Practice

There is no easy way or shortcut to anything in the world. It’s like getting the next bikini body; you just need to go to the gym and workout all the time. Practice is the answer, and the only way to master any skills.

Networking is a fraction of our life problems. There are so many things that we don’t yet know the answer for, or don’t’ know where to start.

For instance, our life purpose, advancement or change in our careers, how to say more for a house, which house to buy, whether or not to get a law degree, whom to marry to have kids, and so on.

The unknown made us feel uncomfortable, which created a perfect place for us to start. If you are good at everything and feel comfortable in each and every situation, life will be too boring.

Sadly, the uncomfortable uncertainty usually hold people back from trying. It’s like the wired silence in the room, no one feels imperative to break the ice. We look around, waiting for someone brave to be the first one.

In real life, that’s not how things work. Uncomfortable uncertainty is exciting because you are going to figure out something you don’t yet know. There is always someone who’s braver than you and is willing to break the silence, but they can’t figure out the uncomfortable unknown for you.

If you feel you are having a tough life, it’s because you are always looking for the easy ways. If you always try the best at everything, your life will turn out much easier. If networking is hard for you, you are wise for taking on the challenge. If you can figure out networking and how to connect with people, you’ve gotten 70% of your life problems solved.

The best place to begin is always an awkward encounter, or an uncomfortable experience. First being uncomfortable, then start from there!