Hey y’all hope you’re doing fabulously well. I apologize that it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything substantive to FourthEye, I’ve been quite busy as of late, and working on another blog. The topic is art and anime (no not my shitty art) which showcases art from a number of great artists, most of which I’m working with directly. For anyone interested, and I would say it’s really coming along, you can find it at “animeexplicated.org“. All of these amazing artists that I’m collabing with and how I got in contact with them fits in quite swell with the topic of today’s piece; networking. As I mentioned a couple articles ago, I believe in my piece on “Smithing Better Writing” I mentioned that lately I’ve been studying a number of skills somewhat unfamiliar to me, including networking. In this article, I decided that I finally want to share some of what I’ve learned and some of the experiments/approaches I’ve been doing to get results.
To start us off here, if you couldn’t tell I’m generally more of an introverted person. I don’t despise being around people for short to medium length bursts, but I really recharge my batteries and find my focus alone. Being a huge fan and student of total-immersion training and the philosophy of effortlessness, which I’m writing about in my next book, being a hermit is something that I’ve intentionally sought out. Suffice it to say, that networking is not something that comes super naturally to me. I’ve spent the past 4-5 years or so recovering from a lifetime of perfectionism and anxiety based decision-making and a combination of shyness and imposter syndrome were a couple of obstacles that I really needed to overcome to make this work. Funnily enough, after reading a number of articles, short e-books and listening to a bunch of podcasts related to getting jobs, negotiating, networking and so on, generally fronted by Ramit Sethi, author of IWillTeachYouToBeRich (ignore the terrible name, it’s worth it trust me) I rapidly started to see results. I started learning networking maybe 3 months ago at this point, and I’ve gone from being terrified to send a twitter message, to emailing top performers, people way above my paygrade and even following up on different platforms if they don’t respond….. and getting responses. The million dollar question is of course, “well great for you Orion, why do I care again?” I normally don’t wax on about myself too much because this site is oriented towards helping others to improve their lives, not to advertise what happens to me. However, the reason I’m going into these details is because I am an example of some of the techniques and frameworks I’d like to share with you actually working.
Before we fully jump into strategies, I wanna set the stage a little bit. The reason I mention escaping ego in the title of this piece, is because I’ve found in my experimentation and my study that we are usually the greatest obstacle in our own success. I don’t mean to our success on things that are traditionally a solo effort either, I’m talking about things that we would normally anticipate fall into the laps of other people. One great example is sending an email. Whether or not an email gets a response, a yes or a no or what have you, is probably 85% sending the right message, with the right structure, to the right person at you guessed it, the right time. Figuring those things out is our job, not the job of the recipient of the email. This doesn’t mean you can guarantee getting a response from someone who wants nothing to do with you of course, that would be silly, but it is good news. We are fundamentally the ones that are in control of how things go. One way that I applied this lesson personally, is the concept of using an email or message framework, another idea that Ramit speaks a lot about. At first it sounds a bit foreign, “like wait I don’t wanna send a robotic message to this person right?” The framework is not a verbatim guide to messaging everyone of course, it’s a way of checking to make sure you are keeping some basic rules in mind. The inclusion of things like first name in the greeting, hoping they are well, communicating you respect their time, telling relevant personal info so they know you are a real person, and showing what you have already done to answer your question before reaching out. Busy people might get 1000 emails a day, and if yours is yet another badly written one, you can be sure they won’t respond or perhaps even see it.
Another really important technique that I also have taken to heart coming from both Ramit and a few others is, “don’t disqualify yourself.” When you see this plainly written it of course seems so incredibly obvious, but let me expand on this a little bit. If some job posting says “bachelor’s degree preferred” and maybe you only have an associates, or no degree, what do you do? What a lot of us do, including myself at times is either ask a dumb question like, “what does a diploma buy me?” or say “oh well they’d never take me.” Instead of propping up my strengths and demonstrating to myself and this company that I can do the job, I’ve decided to not try because something was “preferred.” I’ll let other people go into all the details of that specific scenario, so as not to make this article too long, but the point is that you should try to get things and do things you think you will not get. The reason is multi-fold. Number one, you get experience and learn to overcome the anxiety of putting yourself out there. Two, you can’t get anything if people don’t know you exist and are interested. Three, very often you will hear back if you follow a process and send quality messages, and people will be interested to see what you can do. You can’t get your foot in a door if you never knock because the door looks intimidating.
Now that I’ve expanded on some common scenarios and the mindset stuff, I wanna go over a couple of strategies for you guys that have really helped me level up my networking game.
1.) Just because you can do something alone, doesn’t mean you should
I’ve personally found that my big mental block has been in the assumption that it’s cooler or somehow better to do things alone. The problem with this is even when it feels rewarding to work alone, it’s very slow. It might take you 3 years to do something you could do in 3 months with the right people beside you. Whether those are friends working with you on a hobby, mentors, or maybe coworkers or employees, have a bias towards getting help. Very often you quickly get past obstacles that might have stumped you for months working by yourself.
2.) Ask questions you think you know the answers to
This one is gonna sound fairly weird because it should. “Orion didn’t you just say don’t ask questions you could google?” This is not a contradiction to that at all. Very often I find we have presumptions about what goes into something or how someone thinks that we never really ponder because they seem reasonable. For example maybe we assume a person we’re talking to works 14 hours a day to accomplish all their amazing work, because you imagine they couldn’t do it in 8 or whatever number you make up. By asking these questions you learn things you didn’t know you didn’t know. I’d say be biased towards asking questions and familiarizing yourself with how things really happen. If you have a wrong idea in your head, you’re being taxed by it on a regular basis, so it really pays to get it out of your head and into the trash as quickly as possible.
3.) Keep a basic record of who you talk to and a little about them
I only started having this problem recently but I find, “success is being happy to have the problems you have” kinda describes where I’m at with this. When you get schmovin’ and really developing relationships with lots of people, you’ll remember important stuff sort of automatically “the good shit sticks” as they say, but maybe jot down a few basic things if need be. If I’m talking with 6 people, I might forget what I told one and not another on an off day, so it can be useful to keep note. Don’t do too much, I’d start with less than you think you can handle so as to not overwhelm yourself. Too much tracking equals not enough building, which is where all the stuff happens.
4.) Keep in mind, the more people you help get what they want, the more you’ll get what you want
Think long-term, dig the well before you’re thirsty, and make it habit to show up and talk to people without always asking for stuff. Actually be a person and ask how people are, use their first name when it makes sense and develop an actual relationship with them. Generally this starts with being a good listener or researcher and really contacting people whom you really vibe with. Don’t BS people, because even if they do something you like, it’s not gonna work long-term. This works better if you build a few strong connections than having 500 superficial ones. The people that stick around in the brush are friends and family, not facebook randos we’re following.
5.) Have fun
I know this is the weirdest bullet point of all. “Has he lost his mind?” you ask, somewhat confused. Jokes aside, laugh with the people you talk to and bring them joy and value. Share music, learn about them, figure out what they’re into and try to do special things to show you appreciate them. Small acts of aware kindness can really go a long way in building relationships. Could mean make them something or send them a “swag bomb” or maybe buy and send them something you think they would really enjoy. You gotta be in it to last, and to have a good friend, business partner or confidant you have to be those things first.
As usual I’m sure that I could “wax on, and wax off” for another 45 minutes, but I think I will leave this topic here for now. I hope you can extract some value and useful tips from this and I hope you will be well. Thanks for all the support you guys give me by the way, I really appreciate cha.
Happy networking,
Orion Aeneas Webster,
FourthEye author
FourthEye 
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