Network Like A Child
By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
People make networking into something much harder than it needs to be. Here, I use the example of being the child as a metaphor that we can all learn from.
I’m Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter. And welcome to another episode of JobSearchTV.com.
I have the idea that networking is 1 of those areas that people struggle at. They think they don’t have a lot of experience with it , but they actually do. You actually do. I would use an illustration from a time earlier in your life where you learn networking skills. That is, being a child and being taken to a park or playground, hanging out after school. What you are doing at times (I use the sandbox as an example), your mom and/or dad, plunked you down in a sandbox with a pail (I’m good to work with the stereotype here) and maybe a shovel and you just start to play.
That another kid would get plunked down into the sandbox and they started to play. Sometimes you through send that one another and were
corrected and then you start to play with one another. Maybe you made friends and maybe you are friends for a day. But you made a friend and you learned to play with one another. Eventually, you got better at it. You progressed to maybe you played sports, maybe you were in school, but you learned to make friends with people.
I think the term networking has overwhelmed the notion of what networking really is. It’s really about developing friendships, developing relationships with people that have meaning to you and to them. I know we tend to let go of some of our old friends. But, use myself as an example, recently, a number of us got together. We hadn’t seen one another in 20 years. We made a trip to visit someone who we had grown up with who is not in great health. It had meaning for us. We got back together and had a great connection. It was really like being back in The Bronx again In spending time with one another and reconnecting.
As adults, we haven’t seen one another long time but we knew what to do. We shared similar stories brought one another up to date. That’s really how you could reconnect with your old.
With meeting new people, you have to put yourself back into the sandbox. By that I mean get yourself away from things and places that you always go and go to someplace new. Try to make connections with people.
I was at an event last night in my town and I caught myself, “hugging the wall.” Me! You imagine me hugging the wall I’m not really out there talking with folks? And then I did. I met someone who I would connect with in the next week or 2 that she seems like a perspective coaching client for me. You can do the same sort of thing.
I will simply say whether she is or isn’t a coaching client, what it did for me was remind me of getting away from the comfort (which is really uncomfortable) and not doing what I was there to do which was make new friends. From there, the idea was to start talking with folks and connecting with folks.
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ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
People hire Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter to provide No BS Career Advice globally because he makes many things in peoples’ career easier. Those things can involve job search, hiring more effectively, managing and leading better, career transition, as well as advice about resolving workplace issues.
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He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with over 2500 episodes.
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