FSS Spotlight: Doing What Comes Unnaturally While Networking

By Harvey Mackay

For some people, networking is as natural and instinctive as breathing. We all know people who are self-confident, radiate optimism, make friends easily and seem to glide through life on winged feet. They do this stuff without even having to think about it.

This column is for the rest of us, those not quite so sure of ourselves, perhaps a bit shy, even timid. We're not out there bowling over everyone we meet with our dazzling smiles or brilliant conversation. We're not even out there bowling.

For most people networking is a learned behavior, like learning to swim. It is a gradual – and often painful, even scary – process of trial and error, small incremental steps, and finally a few breakthroughs.

Here are some tried and true techniques for overcoming this fear of trying:

1. Practice "Let's Pretend."
   Aristotle said each thing or idea has a perfect form. While we can never achieve the ideal form, we should try to come as close as we can by observing and emulating the characteristics of the ideal.
   
   Let's segue from the ancient Greeks to the modern angst-ridden networker. There is someone you want to meet. You have done your homework, you are aware of an affinity, or a shared experience, with this person, but you are afraid to make the first move.
   
   Why not play a game with yourself? Ask yourself, “What would the ideal networker do in this situation?” Pretend you are that person. And do it. If you are able to do that, you can reinvent yourself. By pretending you are what you are not, you can actually become what you have pretended to be.
    
2. Adopt A Role Model.
   Attach yourself to a successful networker and be committed to studying their techniques. In the best of all possible worlds, your role model also can become your mentor, helping you, advising you, guiding you, even lending you their network as you build your own.
   
   For the shy or anxious person, this method has two advantages: 1) It takes only one good connection to start you on your way; and 2) Your natural shyness and inexperience can help rather than hinder you. As you gain confidence and skills, your role model will take pride in your progress and be motivated to do even more for you.
    
3. Take Lessons.
   The first real networking school I signed up for after I graduated from college was Toastmasters International, and it proved so valuable to me that 40 years later I'm still using the concepts I learned at these meetings. Toastmasters is not just about making speeches. It's about doing your homework, self-confidence, appearance, and becoming an interesting person and a valuable resource to others.
   
   Toastmasters can help you gain and polish the tools to become a successful networker.
   
   The Dale Carnegie schools are designed to achieve similar goals. I'm a proud graduate, and I can tell you from my own experience that they are masters at instilling personal confidence, polish, poise, communication and networking skills in their students. They've been around a long time -- an excellent indication that they are getting results.
    
4. Keep Taking Lessons.
   Graduation is not the end of your education. You don’t go to school once for a lifetime. You are in school all of your life. It's the foundation, the launching pad, the beginning. Unless you keep your batteries charged, they will run down. For an ongoing source of inspiration and motivation, I recommend subscribing to Norman Vincent Peale's publication Positive Living. A similar publication in more condensed form is Bits & Pieces.
    
5. Join Up.
   Just about any group offers possibilities for making contacts and achieving personal growth. Dancing. Choir. Health club. Coin collecting. Horseback riding. Art appreciation. Theater going. Antique shopping. Politics. Great books. Wine. Food.
    
6. Have A Little Faith.
   In yourself. Dale Carnegie probably summed it up best: "You can make more friends in two months by becoming really interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. Which is just another way of saying that the way to make a friend is to be one."

Mackay’s Moral: Up the proverbial creek? If you’ve got a network, you’ve always got a paddle.