Network to maximize your life
Advice on how to network easily
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“Live a life of regret - don’t network.”
If you do not build a broad set of relationships, you will miss out on many opportunities that a network can place in your lap.
Many people fear networking, but it can be easy!
3 quick examples of the power of networking:
Every job I have gotten, except one, came directly from network contacts. Either people I knew at companies helped me get hired, or people I knew at companies reached out to me and asked me to join them. Only one time did I ever get a job through a posted resume.
Every promotion and job change I made within Amazon was supported and created by my network (the group of people around me who advocated for me).
Outside of work, my LinkedIn network has rescued me from canceled flights, restored my phone service when I was cut off overseas, and cut through red tape to close blocked deals.
The Beautiful Magic of Networking
There is magic within a network, and it works like this:
The things you need that are hard or impossible for you to get are trivial and easy for someone else.
For that person, they can help you out by doing something that has little or no cost to them, which allows them to feel better about themselves.
An example from my life:
I needed seven suitcases of charity donations transported to Ukraine to go to war refugees. A friend of mine was flying to nearby Poland, but checking so many heavy bags would be expensive.
I reached out to my network and asked if anyone knew someone who could help us get the bags checked for free on United Airlines.
A friendly acquaintance happened to know the Chairman of the Board for United!
The Chairman was a much more senior contact than was needed for this task, but he was certainly able to get it done. It cost my friend one email, and he felt good about helping. It took the Chairman only one email as well, and he felt good, too.
What was hard for me to accomplish (get seven heavy bags across the globe) was easy for someone else.
This is the magic of networking.
With a big enough network, you will have a connection with someone who can easily achieve anything you need. Since people like to see themselves as helpful and kind, people will help out in ways that are easy for them.
In turn, some things will be easy for you. When you do these things for people in your network, you both pay forward good Karma and you build your reputation so that others are happy to help you when you need it.
If you’d like to go deeper into developing your networking skills, consider my on-demand course, Leadership Networking, for actionable steps to define your personal brand, what makes leadership networking different, internal company networking, and job networking (how to get the 80% of leadership jobs that are never publicly posted).
Another example from my life (followed by advice on how to network easily):
I have a good friend, Steve Day, who is sharp and hardworking, but he has taken a very non-traditional path in life. He is self-educated, having attended college but not completed a degree. After this, he spent several years as a professional poker player, which doesn’t “look good” on a resume. He was then Director of Marketing for an offshore online poker website, PokerStars, based in the Isle of Mann, which few can locate quickly on a map.
He wanted to transition back to a more traditional job using his product and marketing skills, but no one could get past his unusual background to see the skills he developed leading global marketing efforts for PokerStars.
But I knew he was good and smart.
So, I reached out to a few friends and asked them to just interview him, to learn about him, and to give him feedback if he was not a fit. One of them hired him, and he thrived as a Product Manager for several years before choosing to move on.