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What do you do in networking to stand out from other people? And how do you make stronger connections with others? When I started in business, I experienced being uncomfortable networking. I felt like a fish out of water. I couldn't bring forward all of my previous success, all my previous expertise, or my natural confidence. In traditional networking, you have to show up as your title or show up as what you do or whatever is on your business card.  However, if I just showed up as who I am, then the people I meet get all of me. The same is true for you. If you show up as who you are, there are so many benefits to doing that. However, we typically show up as what we do, not who we are. The trouble with showing up as what we do is that the labels confine us. It puts us in a box. Whatever the other person’s definition of what that title is, that’s what we have to be or that who we are in their eyes. Surface Level Connection When titles or labels are shared, it causes a block in the connection. Imagine trying to connect with people, but it’s only surface level. That inhibits us because networking is about connection. When we network with people and there’s no connection there, we move on. But the truth is, you just looked at surface level connection. (I’ve been guilty of this.) There actually is more, deeper below. When you connect as your title, you miss out on connecting as a person. It's harder to make that deeper connection that would make you friends if you focus just on titles. Again, it's that surface level connection.  But when you show up as who you are, you can't be wrong because you're an expert at who you are. You just need to be you. You're not playing a part. When you ditch your labels and you focus on connecting as who you are, then you're not limited in connecting with someone based on those titles. The Number One Thing that Turns Networking on its Head Drop the titles. Stop showing up as your title. Stop showing up as what you do. Instead, show up as who you are. When you connect as who you are, you can get deeper in a conversation with someone faster. You can then find areas of connection where normally you wouldn't be able to. That helps you to follow up with them, to deepen the relationship and to find the areas of where you will help each other. With titles, you’re limited to what it is. Titles go away. Titles are stripped from us. There are so many times in our lives that we lose our titles, but we don't need to lose ourselves. If you always show up as who you are and connect with others as who they are, you will set yourself apart. You will increase your Know, Like, and Trust factor. You will take the walls down and that connection on a deeper level will mean that the other person you meet networking will want to do life and business with you. When you connect as who you are, rather than what you do, you can be an equal in any situation.  Now what does that mean to do life and business with you? Doing life with you can mean going for a walk. It could mean going to a painting class together. What does it mean to do business together? I think you know all the different ways, but the main way that people are looking for is the sales transaction (which doesn't always happen). But could someone support you in another way? For sure!
There are so many other ways that people can support you in your business and you can support them.
I encourage you to show up as who you are. BUT how can you connect with other people by showing up who you are? I’ll cover that in my next blog. Stay tuned!
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Have you been feeling tired and unmotivated? Like most busy women, I also feel tired some days. Here is a method that you can use to gain back your drive in life: The D.R.I.V.E. Method. D - Do something small. Do something small. Do something really small, just to get yourself going, so it's not something difficult. It's not something that takes a lot of time. What you might need is just a little bit of a boost. A little bit of a push. And a little bit of a win. What's the one small thing that you could do?
 R - Rest On days when you're tired, you might have to take more breaks.
 I - Inquire Inquiring means you are going to sit by yourself and you're going to ask yourself, “What do I need right now?” Here are some common answers:
V - Visioning V is visioning. Go back to your why. Go back to the vision for your business, the vision for your life. You may have a life purpose statement in your life. Go back to that. Look at what you have to accomplish for the day.
Use your visioning ability. It’s your ability to see forward but also your ability to sit in why you do what you do. Do something to fuel your vision. Look at thank you cards from clients, read positive emails, look at some awards you've attained. If you're just physically tired, visioning might light a spark. E - Enjoyable Activity or Exercise E is either an enjoyable activity or exercise. An enjoyable activity is something you want to do. Something that is fun.
Do something you enjoy in your business or in your life. On the flip side, do some exercise. Get out of your desk. Do some jumping jacks or burpees. Go for a walk. Put on some music and dance around. Do something to get the blood flowing. Do an activity that is enjoyable so it feeds your soul or do some exercise so it feeds your body.  Those are my five tips that you can apply in your life whenever you feel tired or unmotivated.
Now, are you ready to D-R-I-V-E your way to a motivated life? Share with me in the comments below which of these tips you will do first! P.S. For those of you who are reading this blog, I have an exclusive gift for you. I can give you annual subscription for this company called readitfor.me if you would like a free one-year membership which gives you access to their write-ups of the book. It’s the number 1 book summary service for entrepreneurs and executives. They can give you the key points of a book in 12 minutes or less! Just comment below that you’d like access! That’s my gift for you for being here. How do you know if you're actually going to get what you want? Clients of mine, women and audiences that I've spoken to, and my friends have said to me, “Diane, how do you achieve so much? How do you achieve so much when you have two young children? How do you achieve so much when you have so much going on? How do you just do it all.”  (The funny thing is I don’t have it all together. Currently, I’m stepping over stuff in my house that’s all over the floor and I have 2 loads of clean laundry to fold.) But I want to give you something really simple to know if you are going to achieve what you want. Number 1: Are your goals alive? We talked about goals. We talked about what you want. However, are your goals alive? That's the key thing. Goals must be alive. Are they living? What you want must be alive in your life. If it's not, if it's not present, if it's not there, you will not achieve it. How can you make your goals alive? Step 1. Make sure that your goals are actually written down. Make sure to write your goals down so that they are active goals. If you haven't written down your goals yet, then they're passive. They're just dreams. They're just wishes. You are not actually going to attain them. Write down what you want.  Step 2: Move your goals into your calendar. The second step is to move them into your calendar. If you want to answer the question “Are my goals alive?” check your calendar. If you have a health goal of losing 20 pounds, is there anything in your calendar that says workout? Is there anything in your calendar that says meal prep? If you want to write a book, is there anything in your calendar that says draft an outline or talk with publishers?  If there's nothing in your calendar or in your schedule that is related to what you want, then you're not going to attain it. You might think, “I delegate a lot.” Well, that’s great. However, is there anything in your calendar to check in on those who are instrumental to the success of you getting what you want? For example, if your goal is writing your own book, do you have meetings with a publisher? Do you have meetings with maybe a ghostwriter or the book layout designer? You need to ask yourself, “Do I have meetings with these people?” If you don't have meetings with them, then you're probably not going to get what you want. (I have weekly meetings with my team.) Now, you might say, “I don't need to have meetings with them.” Well, as long as you're monitoring their progress (I like Trello for this), as long as there's something that's happening, then it's in your calendar. And that goal or what you want is alive. Step 3: Make sure your resources are going to it. If you plan to build your own business, are you spending time learning how to do that? Are you investing time to be able to do that? Are you investing resources in a coach to support you and to provide accountability? If your resources of time, energy, and money are not going to what you want, you won't achieve it. That's like saying, “I'm going to get super fit, so I can run an Iron Man.” But then you're not spending any time doing any exercising and you're not investing in the right coaches to train you, and you're not buying the right equipment that you need to do it.  The number one way to know if you will get what you want is to make your goals alive. Make sure they’re in your calendar. I know that is something that you can do today. Write down your goals. Check your calendar. See if you have time, energy, resources, money going towards what you want.
Today, I hope you'll do something to get closer to what you want. And that the action you take will have you feeling confident that you will actually achieve what you want. Share a goal or two in the comments below. Then you’ll check off already doing the first step, which is to make sure that your goals are written down. Bravo! Now go crush them! Do you need more time? Do you need more space for yourself? Then, you need to be REAL about what you NEED. Your personal and professional lives can get hectic at times. We tend to forget our priorities and feel like we are pushed to the extreme. This doesn’t need to happen.  Here are SIX tips how you can get your time back: 1. Set your priorities. The first thing to do is to set your priorities in ALL areas of your life. Is it spending time with your children? Is it getting a partner, husband, or boyfriend? Is it having a beautiful home? Is it your business? Then put yourself on the top of your priority list! This is very crucial. We’ve all heard that saying that you need to put your own oxygen mask on first. For myself, I have been snippy lately. I wasn't as loving to my family because I haven't been giving MYSELF enough time. I haven't been giving myself enough sleep. I haven’t given myself enough time away from everybody. So I was then trying to support others from an empty cup and doing poorly at it. And so I got back into reading again and walking in the forest before I start my work day. You are a priority, too! 2. Talk about your balancing act. Share with others about how hard it is to balance your life: tell your partner, your friends, and your co-workers. You have to be honest about what you can realistically accomplish. In sharing with someone else, you might start hearing things like, “This isn't the best idea anymore” or “Maybe I can't do all these things.” Also, it can help you decide which has to be done by you and which can be done by others. For instance, in terms of the cleanliness of my home, my standards have come down since having two kids, my own business, and other priorities. It's not a priority anymore. But the priority is I don't step on stuff on my floor! It's a priority that we have groceries in the fridge. It's a priority we have clean dishes and clean clothes. Do the clothes always get folded on time? No, they don't! This leads us to the third tip.  3. Delegate or Hire help. Please delegate or hire help. The benefits of a house cleaner far outweigh the costs. It can reduce fights in the family. It can help lower your stress levels, not just because you don't have to do it, but also because your house is going to be clean, and it's going to be lovely. And that just makes you feel less stressed. I hired someone to do my marketing and social media, which takes the stress and the guilt off of my shoulders in my business. You can hire people for your personal life, and you can hire people for your business. You can even hire camps for the summer. That's delegating childcare to someone else to free up your time. If you feel like, “No, I want to be with my kids all the time.” That’s cool. Then get someone else to fold your laundry, to book things for you, or to run your errands. 4. Let go of Perfectionism. Let it go! Let it go! Give yourself permission to just do stuff without it having to be absolutely perfect. It's okay to have things be less than perfect. Just do everything as well as you can. When my mom was asking about my report card, a project or a sports game I had played, she'd say, “Did you do your best? And if you've done your best, that's all I can ask for.” So if you did your best (this is not perfection best, this is just DO your best), then that's all that you can ask for. You don't also have to be perfect at every single role you take on. Allow imperfections. It’s what makes us unique. Then, make adjustments as your day goes on.  5. Make better choices. Let go of things that cost you too much energy. It’s just not worth it. Sadly, this might include people or tasks. I’m not saying to give up exercising because it takes energy. Maybe you have to adapt to what you do. Can another mom or your partner do the pickup or drop off on certain days? Can someone else go and pick up your dry cleaning? Can you decide on the outlines for your blogs or articles and then have someone else write them? Can you write them but have someone else post them? Could you post them but have someone else do the social media? Make better choices so that you won’t tire yourself out. 6. Take Time for Yourself Schedule in some “Me time,” take up a new hobby, take a class at school, go to the gym, take 15 minutes to meditate - whatever you enjoy, start integrating it into your life so that you have some time to relax and take stock in what's really important to you. It could be getting back to priorities, putting some time in for education, adding in things you love to do - that re-energize you, and having time for the maintenance of your health.  These are six things that I do to just get real with where I'm at. I do these often. I have to go back through and ask myself again, “What I can delegate? Where do I need to make better choices? Where do I need to let go of perfectionism? Where do I need to talk to someone else about the balancing act that I'm in? Where do I need to delegate or hire help?” Key thing though, set your priorities, know exactly what you need to be focusing on and when you need to be focusing on it so that you can get everything fit in.
Which of these things are you doing already? Which will you try to do? Let me know in the comments section! |
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