Interest In Others, The Keystone of Good Networking

Over and over in this life I've come to the conclusion that the best thing we can do for others if we want to help them and ourselves, is take a real interest in them.

Yesterday I was talking with my photographer friend Rachel.  We have been in touch over the last few months via email which is great, but yesterday she emailed me something that prompted me to call and I'm really glad I did.  I'll explain what I mean a bit more below.

Nothing can take the place of good ole fashioned live communication, let me tell you.  It can be a little awkward feeling at first, especially when there hasn't been much live discussion for months or even years.  When the reconnection occurs, though, I always find it interesting how happy the other person is, generally speaking, to hear from me.  It's heartening really, and I always silently kick myself for letting the "line" between us sag.

Rachel did our wedding pictures and we also worked together at Earthlink back in the day.  So we had some things to catch up on in terms of who is doing what and all that which came easily.  Once that kind of chit-chat is over, though,  I usually find the conversation will come to a pause and at that point  people will often say "well, good talking to you, stay in touch, etc., etc." and end off.

It had been a while, so I wanted to know more about what Rachel had been up to and where she saw herself heading.  As it turned out, she had just been reviewing that question herself. 

She decided she wanted to take a whole new direction in her photography.  She had some some corporate projects recently, developing some high-impact PR pieces for a company to give out to its customers and it was a big success.  She enjoyed the work because it was highly creative and benefited the company at least as much as it proved remunerative for her.  This interested me a great deal and after a while I began to wonder who I knew that might be able to help Rachel in this new direction.

Then it occurred to me that I had a  long-time friend who was regularly working with C-level executives (CIO, CTO, CEO, etc.) from various IT firms in Palo Alto and he would probably love the kinds of things she was doing.  So I made the connection (she actually knew him but had been somewhat out of touch) and now off they go, hopefully to do wonders for the world.

Whether or not something specifically tangible comes out of that moment, I found myself ruminating on the value of taking interest in others.  I often liken it to mining.  If we're really to find the precious metals, we have to be almost intense about our attention on the person in front of us (or on the phone).  To the degree we do this, we learn new things about our contacts and are able to help them and maybe even ourselves make connections that otherwise would not have surfaced.  This leads to a newfound way to HELP that person and, in the end, ourselves.  I mean, who knows: maybe Rachel's new tack in life leads to a massively successful venture that one day my grandkids will benefit from in some way.   I do believe in that kind of interconnectivity and payback for networking this wise, but find it's best done without a specific need for payback--it's just more fun to let all that go and know that helping others get ahead in this world feels like the right thing to do so that's payback enough for now.

When I consider some of the people who have made the greatest impact in my lives, they were, above all other things, interested in me.  It's the one quality they possessed as a common denominator. 

 

Here's a suggestion for a little fun if you're game: take a moment once a day or a few times a week and put your own agenda aside and call someone with whom you've been a little out of touch.  Find out what they are up to and where they see themselves heading over the next 3-5 years.  Put your needs and wants for or from this person completely to the sideline and just listen 100%.  You may be amazed at what you learn.  Use mining "tools" like "tell me more..." or "when you say_____ what do you mean" to get them to really open up.  Then sit back and enjoy the display of precious metals.  It's amazing how freely folks will talk about themselves if they feel that the person listening is doing so out of pure interest and a desire to understand them.

If you think of someone that person should meet, get your friend's permission to connect the two and then set it up.

By creating this kind of selfless, "pay it forward" mentality for yourself, I believe you're laying a foundation for some seriously good kharma and may even find it's a habit worth forming.

If you have fun with it, I'd love to hear back from you.  Just send in comments by clicking same under this post.