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Give Give Get

So we're going to dive right in, give, give, get is the name of this section and what I want to really focus on with give, give, get is that the rial secret to network in the real power to networking and unlocking the power of your connections is helping others when you don't expect anything in return. So some examples of this there's both online and offline examples, right? So online, if any of you are engaged in social media now, it looks like all of you are ok. So, you know, you could be at a point where, you know, you start thinking, I'm going to tweet this and they better retweet this, and if I like that, I hope they like that that's, not the way to approach it. What you need to be thinking about is helping others when you don't expect anything in return. That's the same principle to bring to your network s o the old model would have been one where a lot of the books are more about hoarding your contacts, not helping others. My belief is that for building stronger relationships an...

d stronger networks when you help others unconditionally you know, you obviously have to have a limit on it you can't just be focusing one hundred percent on everyone else that wouldn't be efficient, right? But if somebody says, hey, do you know somebody at this company you know, if you have a good relationship and you respect the person that's asking why not make the introduction amazing things can happen when you help others and you're not expecting anything in return so you know, simple examples it's a home pay it forward and there are little mike crowe exchanges, but one thing that I happened to do with my daughter because we love baking it's just the two of us we cannot eat all of the food that we bake, we often will give our neighbors you know, cookies or muffins and I'm sure you know, some of you do the same types of things or other people the neighborhood will give apples from their backyard it's almost like a little fifties neighborhood that I live in and is very close knit like that. But what happened is that when I travel on business my neighbors, I don't know who it is someone is always moving the garbage cans back and forth right on garnish candy and I'll get home, but I think how did that happen? It's just people look out for each other when you have stronger communities and stronger networks things have more a sense of security of safety there's also a lot of research about people actually are happier when they have stronger networks and healthier so there are so many benefits to nurturing these relationships and nurturing these ties even if you've moved into a new neighborhood or in the new state, the payback can be really hard to describe, so I'm going to talk about some examples of do this but I called the phrase give give get and the reason it's give give get it's obviously there's more focus on the giving and then the getting just comes back and return now with some of the career past that you're on, such as coaching or working with teams, you're giving a lot of energy already or helping other people and that could be very, very valuable. Some simple questions said I'd like you just to think about now again keeping your funnel tests in the back of your mind because if you're doing this along with your passions and your purpose it's going again not feel like work it's going to be exciting and you're going to learn from it and you're going to get more than you expect so who can I help in my community? You know who can I help our community today is each other right? So how can we help each other? We know a little bit about each other's networking goals what I love is by this afternoon if each of us has one idea for someone else in the class of maybe a connection or you know an app that you should try or an event to go to one idea to help someone else moved towards their goal same thing in the chat room I know there's a lot of great people chatting one idea of trying to help someone else in the chat room we are a community them or you build your communities easier it's going to be to move forward how can I help in my work space aa lot of times when people are interviewing it's important to just look at an environment think can I add value to this? What can I do so that I can make this a stronger company in a better company? What can I do hd to make a difference now again a very small micro action but when I told you about the tweet that I didn't tweet about the company where it was a negative tweet that's actually making a positive because I wasn't throwing the negative energy so what can you do to make a difference? And it is that simple pay it forward but little things like, you know, moving the cart that's in front of the car at the grocery store that the person doesn't move right? We've all seen that or road rage all of those little those little things add up so how can you keep your side of the street clean how can you live your passions how can you help others already at lunch? I did hear that david there's a facebook page that was people are connected by friends of david facebook page so you're obviously a connector and you've been connecting people all your life lovely created that think great leslie created but what I love is that you are bringing people together in your community and then you've also created an online way to you know humorously but it's very thoughtful and nice to bringing people together so that you can keep those relationships flowing that is a very wonderful gift to give back and leslie and david you know you guys are creating that so what can I do that will support my passions and purpose? I have a cousin in new york new york use the slide metrocards when you're on the subway every once in a while I don't know if you've been in new york recently but you see the person who runs out of money on their card and it's like oh it's because of them you can't get through right she'll just swipe your card for someone a random swipe I love when things like that happen right small actions make a difference one simple phrase to remember four words how can I help how easy is that? How can I help I was at a dinner with an entrepreneurial coach, kalli brown, who I referenced earlier and with sincerity, she basically said to this group of women, we were all even said, well, how can I help you guys? Can I post for you? Can I introduce you to someone? How can I help when you start helping others? What happens when you're at a point where you need to make an ask right it's easier? Because it's like collaboration, you don't feel like you're taking, you've been filling the well. The relationships are strong and solid, mark the example who it was the gentleman who is now helping the homeless, that helping keeps him out of his negative mindset, and he's getting back from his actions. So how can I help? What value my bringing? Can I practice a daily give what actions and my taking, where I'm not expecting anything, return and my mentoring or helping others we did hear about the power of mentoring what's amazing is that you all have incredible skills and gifts that you can give to others from your years of work experience, maybe even helping a family member in need or just being there and, you know, being a listening ear, so thinking about all these things is really important, so sharing a story from the book, because that's what we're doing, sharing a lot of the stories from the book amy rowe is in the book and she has amazing story. She grew up in the midwest, which I relate to being that I'm from minnesota and she had a pretty simple upbringing. Her dad had a shoe store, and she told me that there were many years when the store would barely make over twenty thousand dollars a year and that even when they were having a tough time, she had two sisters I think she still has two sisters, her mom would clip coupons and she'd say, we're going to make it go buy milk at the store it was, you know, but to get one free and she makes all the sisters, you know, buy milk and bring it home, and so I'm interviewing her and she's very successful. Now she's, a ceo just said, do you know that you can freeze milk and thought later on and that's what you do when you're in times of financial strike? And I said, you know, I didn't know that you said you never forget where you come from so her dad taught her when she was young, that even when you were having financial strife to help other people, and so what he used to do was find people in the community that needed shoes and during the holiday period, he measure their feet and he'd always give the gift of shoes to families in need during christmas. So that is how amy lives her life. She learned that behavior from her family from her dad. So I want you guys to think about the people in your lives that you are modeling that you're mentoring. I've heard children mentioned several times how many of you kids for if you have kids on dh, then you probably have peers and friends and associates how you are as a role model and example is going to make a huge difference. So one story I'm going to share with you is one that I think is really powerful, but I did mention that rob minkoff was doing some mentoring at a school. It happens to be this school that's outside of l a and I had met a woman who is a mentor there in did you guys read this story? You know where I'm going with a story so you'll know the punch line so the kids they sent a video to me, they were up for a contest and the contest was tio hopefully when a visit from obama, the school that had the most votes was going to get obama to do their graduation speech and it was based on an environmental challenge, so I got this video and sir richard I know him, but not well it's not like he's on speed dial and if I saw him on the street he would not recognize me you know, I would be like sir richard, but he would be in a fifty thousand employees across the globe. He knows who I am but it's not like we're we're not like this, right? So I watched this video and it was all these, like, smiling amazing faces and the kids that obviously done their homework and it said, sir richard, you know, we're from the environmental charter school will you vote for us? We'd like obama to come to our school and I thought, wow, that's pretty amazing, right? So now what do you think the kids would have said if they had turned to their parents? You know, a lot of them parents have never been to college or maybe not working there in low income neighborhoods. What do you think people would say about them securing a meeting with sir richard maggie? Any chance you know, very little right? Anybody think they would get the meeting? Definitely not. Ok, so what they didn't know is that they were only two degrees away from sir richard because their professor, their mentor knew me and I knew him, right, so I got the video and I sent it to him and I said I know you're really busy but now I have never asked him for a favor and I think I worked for him for three years at this point and this was the time I thought this is going to be in my favor now what I expected was maybe a tweet or maybe an email right like I vote for you kind of thing I send him the video and the next morning so this is less than twenty four hours later my phone rings this is put it sir richard and of course I thought it was a crank call him but this is ridiculous how could this be happening right and he said I'm in l a why don't I just meet with the kids I've got forty five minutes why don't you gather the kids up and have them come over to the sunset marquis so in that forty five minutes he changed the lives of these six kids he gave them eye contact he basically said I value you you're important you know what's stopping you from achieving your dreams and what happened was amazing because these kids not only started you know believing in themselves but the program this mentoring program all the sudden it was like did you hear that sir richard I met with the kids so you know what happened next somebody from google went the ceo of a skin care company went the door started opening so I want you to think like that like, who are the people that you want to meet? Who are the people that you can help and you can give back don't set small step tasks for yourself think big all right? So I love that story another story about it and this is in another book that are recommended you guys might have figured this out by now, but I love reading and there's so many amazing books out there but given take is a new book that's out by adam grant and there's a quote in it by reid hoffman, who was a founder of linked in and he talks about it may seem counterintuitive, but the mohr altruistic you are with your attitude on diffuse set out to help others it's going to expand your universe it's the same mind set that we heard from george john, the ceo of rocket fuel at the beginning of the day. So if you shift and you're thinking about not just the me but the we and bringing that as your mind set in again networking is in a transaction anymore, so it's kind of move past the transaction it's how you are living your life it's, how you are engaged in approaching and being with people so one simple little ackerman is grapes some of you might think about wine when you're thinking about grapes but grapes the g is give give get our is being relationship focused theis being authentic the p is being purpose driven and then what happens from that if you have all those things together the earnings in this success come out of it so again follow your intuition make sure that you're being authentic and you're giving an amazing things can happen so we will talk about some examples but I want to share a couple stories from the book first so diana barnett she's a photographer who lives in new york and diana basically what happened at a certain point she used to be a chef she still does a lot of work in the food space but she also loves being a photographer. So about ten years ago there was an earthquake and diana was watching this on the news and she kept seeing all these faces of children that had been in earthquakes and she decided she was going to go take her camera document the process she called faces of tomorrow so it's all kids that had been in situations where there had been you know, physical occurrences and she gave away all the photography from these shoots and so she went teo I believe the first one was in brazil one of her shoots for the earthquake was and it all kind of came together she said in forty eight hours if I could get someone to you know bring me to the right place and someone to sponsor me you know I'm going to go do this. So what happens when you start doing good things is that you actually I think not to sound too self help you but there's there is an energy there's kind of a perception and there's like like warmth that comes from you in terms of giving back and so ultimately diana kept doing that she realized that she was getting a lot more from the kids than just did in the photography that she was we're learning about herself learning about having gratitude she was flying back from one of her trips and there was a gentleman on the plane who was speaking spanish and she said could you translate something for me? There was an article in the newspaper what happened she ended up meeting this gentleman they spent a week together in new york and now it's twelve years later and they're married so you know you never again you never know what's gonna happen but when you can keep yourself in that positive mindset and I do believe that helping and giving back can put you in a frame of mind where people want to be around you right people think wow there's something exciting happening here there's something good here so I want you to think about that and I'm gonna be asking you all to share with me maybe not to be in a boastful way but you know, giving muffins around the neighborhood that's a little action right? So it could be a small action it could be a big action but I want you to share some of it same thing with social media so online and offline you should be posting and pinning and tweeting about things that you feel give value things that are adding to your community teresa with photography might want to you know, be posting maybe you see something about a new photography app that's amazing or new filter you know, sharing things like that you know, talking about networking events and you're focused mainly on the female community or women's community there's an ongoing group that's men and women but then there's the women's conference so I could both okay, great eso even things like when you see great events that are coming up like curating that's a great way of giving back and adding value because you're saving other people time and you're giving tips it's a great way to start building kind of networks and building things together so think about that another one that I want to just tell you about is the power of mentoring so rob minkoff he did talk about how chuck jones had helped mentor him there's a story in the book about a seventeen year old girl named haley and haley stories is pretty powerful but every single person can have a powerful story. That's what I've learned by talking to people. Her mom was a barista at starbucks, and she went to a class that brett was teaching at her high school. It was a social entrepreneurship class, and she started working with him with brent and brent did the same thing that I talked about with richard branson, where he heard her right, and they saw her. They were doing a invention assignment. And if you had to come up with an invention, what would it be? And she had spent lots of time sitting in starbucks where her mom worked. It was kind of like her baby sitter. She just sit in the corner while her mom was working. And she kept seeing all this trash it with the sugar packets and people just throwing the packets. And so her idea in this high school class was to create a dissolvable sugar packet that would have no waste. She had thought about this. She thought, maybe there's something without rice paper there's, a rice paper candy that has an exterior that dissolves when you put it into, you know, tea or water. And so she started. Building a business plan about this brent instead of saying that's a bad idea because we've heard that before an online someone said to me, you know, the question was what if somebody saying negative things but she had she surrounded herself with people that encouraged her and believed in her ultimately she ended up winning a entrepreneurship contests she went to the white house, she ended up then having conversations with starbucks, she has decided to finish high school, but she has a patent on the idea and this is all because a mentor helped and supported her. So what I want you guys just to think about for a couple minutes before we go into kind of the top tips is to really think about people that have changed your life either through mentoring or who have given you opportunities. I heard at lunch david and leslie you had worked together in a prior situation and david hired you when you didn't have experience in a field, so that probably changed your career path and really helped you so let's talk about this is our exercise tell me about a mentor that has helped her changed you and then also away that you're giving back in your community when I interviewed people about this in the book there's some interesting things to and because we have more females here in the audience of david I don't hope you don't mind but you know, I did find a lot of women who would say that their mentors had been men and they hadn't been mentored as much by other women. So lean in of course is a book by cheryl sandberg there is a a queen bee syndrome that she talks about briefly in there which I've done a lot of reading on it is about that a lot of times we don't help each other as much as we should so I really encourage us says women to start changing that and to help each other. So yes so I have a mentor that a woman so like I said, I've been in a lot of different careers in my life and at one point I decided I wanted to be in politics and I had read in the san francisco chronicle a profile of this woman who was a top political consultant in the bay area her name is mary hughes who had worked on presidential campaigns and congressional campaigns and I thought, wow, that sounds like such a wonderful career and her path was so interesting I wish I could be her and I had no background in politics I've never really I mean, I ran for student by president high schools and I mean, that was like, yeah, but I didn't have a political science degree or or working this professionally and through a series of connections I figured out that I was connected to her through somebody that I went to school with, but I serendipitously while this was going on saw that they had a job opening for an intern at her firm and I had just been laid off from my job and I said, you know what? I have three months of severance I've always wanted to work in politics I'm going to try this and she ended up becoming an amazing mentor as faras teaching me everything that I learned and know to this day about understanding how to target people and the things I've done in marketing a lot of the stuff I do as a product manager with customer research and understanding people's psyche messaging and just she said a very good example a ce faras being somebody who really gives back as faras you know, this is long before lienen, right? But she was she was leaning in, you know, really bringing up other younger women through this very male dominated hard to break into a profession and I think I've just been very lucky but like he said, sometimes as soon as you announce your intention to the university it just reward you but opening up some opportunity yeah, well, let me ask you this have you ever told her how much you appreciate? You know what the skills that she's has helped you learn in a choir I have and, um I recently because we're we're friends on facebook, but I lost touch with her a long time ago, and there was something that came up, I think, an article about her something and I, you know, tagged her in the post and said how much I appreciated all that she had done for me not expecting to hear anything back, but her response was just so touching as faras thank you so much for you know, I'm proud to have, you know, been involved in your career, so oh, yeah, well, that isthe one exercise it's in the book to think about three people that have helped you along the way and actually reach out to them and say thank you, and it could be in the form of a phone call. It could be in the form of a note or a letter, but what is again important? Because in networking again, this isn't about volume. This is about quality relationships that are focused on authentic is those people that are helping you and changing your life? Let them know you appreciate it, and amazing things can happen so often we get so busy that we forget to tell people that we value them or we appreciate them, even, you know that. Of the way we interact with people that we don't know that well when you're on a plane and you know I'll say to a flight attendant I've been in the airline industry and I know how hard do your job is like thank you your people will be coming back to me like do you want a free sandwich like no, no, I just wanted to say thank you, but so giving that back to people is a gift I also just want to talk, you know, I know that meggie you're transitioning in industries theresa, you're opening up your industry and doing new things. David you're thinking about a new job I want to just hear if you have people that are kind of mentoring, you are helping you in the space or if that's something that you need to fill in in your networks I absolutely dio so you have some coaches are definitely have some amazing coaches who have shown up and made it possible to work with me and vice versa if it's I feel so taken care of and supported and how did you allow yourself to have them come into your life? How did you find them or by giving back? You know, I signed up for a lot of assisting, uh, the seti ii and coaching arenas and held classes and for nothing just to help grand I was really well received in that and met some of my greatest mentors there to this day, and I just feel so honored to work with, um, great any other question from online I thought was someone profound one of colombia says I think I've found a lot of potential members mentors in my life but hadn't seen them like that up until now, I think we have a lot of those opportunities that we're not taking advantage of that because we don't think of them in that way, and I think that actually actively looking for mentors and looking for people that we can mentor as well is a huge part of that I agree, I love that and, you know, thinking about it again in terms of the funnel that that everything you have to be has to be around your passions and your purpose, but that just gives you again the road map so it's like, well, I want to know more about, you know, the startup community and technology here's somebody that stand in, you know, the fact that you've started your own business and also exited what valuable advice you could give someone who's coming right out of school, so you know, think about that in terms of top tips are a couple of things that I'd like to talk about mentoring what's great about mentoring is that it can happen in all different forms it could be one on one you can also do mastermind groups I'm part of ah women's mastermind group that has been so powerful for me so I want you guys to think about you know, if you had a mastermind group of five or six people and you met with them once a month, what would that look like? How could that change your life david and leslie I know that you have the facebook group that you've started with the friends of david or I met through david I am part of a facebook group that is an online community of writers and when I was writing the book it was a really valuable resource for me to turn to so these groups these mentoring groups can show up either in a one toe one it could be a group situation you might be mentoring a couple people at once but that is really really important volunteering trees so you just mentioned volunteering it's a very easy way and again you can have it come in all different forms you can do it as an hour a time or it could be an ongoing process. My mom, who is seventy six, moved to california after living in minnesota for seventy four years and how did she get involved in the community? She started volunteering at the school she started volunteering with the park department you meet people with like minded interests and again authentic networking that's what you want to do you want to surround yourself with people that believe in your passions and believe in your ideas you have a great question here from beauty school what if the people that you think of his mentors weren't directly helping you don't even know you like your mentor in the head kind of that you find their story inspiring and drew inspiration or direction from their life do you still think them why not I mean I you know I have been very happy to receive some e mails from people where they're like wow that really helped me think about something in a different way there is nothing there's more no pleasure that is greater than receiving that email of saying that you helped someone because it's like wow my intention was good and look at that I did have one person who wrote me who said he was going into rehab because of the book and I thought ok my work is done right right it's totally done so I think if you can and frankly with technology can reach out to people in a way that is you know, not threatening or stalker like you want to be professional and polite but there's nothing wrong with a nice tweet or email saying great article beautiful photograph you inspired me we all love hearing those types of things so yes, absolutely the other thing about mentoring is that you can find mentors you know their groups online you can take classes there's all different forms that people can I can take in terms of finding mentoring so that we have the volunteering we talked about not hoarding context I want to talk a little bit about context you know with your network is your net worth these are very valuable and so you want to keep track of them when you meet people if appropriate you want to ask them you know can I get your information it's not just about business cards anymore you can quickly put something into your smartphone may be right and note about the person maybe you ask if you can send follow up information but keeping track of your context what's happening now is that in the past we had smaller networks maybe we had ten to fifteen people that we were keeping you know really engaged with but because of social media now we have up to about one hundred fifty people right? I don't know if you guys are like me but in the past I knew all of my close friends phone numbers now who knows a phone number right? You have one hundred fifty people there on your speed dial your just styling their name so keep track so figure out a system keep yourself organized it may be that you're using outlook it may be that you're using card munch and you're taking the business cards and you're putting them right into your linked in with card much but make sure that you have a system to keep your contacts organized practicing small actions that make a big difference I shared the story about diana that's an important one with the subway cards but those little actions make a difference even when you're at a party networking party and you want to start a conversation you know saying hello and you know my name miss porter I'd love to hear more about what you're doing I talk a lot about being open to meeting people in that when I was working at virgin I was all about chatting with people on airplanes and I have been in events of people said well how do you start a conversation when you're on an airplane you want to how you doing? Hi my name is porter that's it that's it that's all you have to get you up to say hello so keeping that open mindset when you're networking I call it traveling with your headphones off being instead of on right and making yourself available for these conversations that is a big part of you know growing your network is being open to it and tree so you're smiling so I think that you're open to all of this right now and that I would guess that your network has been growing in the last year yeah, well, I wanted to share keep mentoring story really quick because I actually ended having both my girls by my mentor, which was I met who I met in college, who literally changed my photography career around so and your life too and my life and gave me two beautiful girls and he's not with us anymore. But I know that he heard that and yeah, I feel so honored. Yeah, yeah, great. Any other mentoring stories we want to share? Got one from online. We have another question. A lot of people are curious about how to find mentors, and maybe they've had some trouble in the past. And sebastian gorski says, it's hard to find a true mentor today, not someone who wants to make some money off of me. But how can you recognize a true mentor who's doing it for the right reasons? Yeah, well, you know, there is a difference there's the mentors that are, you know, helping and supporting and then there's also, you know, paid people that you're paying like a business coach or business. Alice. So those those are different relationships. You know, my advice is tio, look at your existing network first to see if there's anyone that you have relationships with, that you can still learn from and you know, try to have coffees with them and ask you know, could you help me in this area I'd like to learn more I really appreciate that you do this well or you know, I'd like to learn about blogging or whatever the whatever it is taking classes another great way to find them in lean in cheryl sandberg she basically said that she doesn't believe in mentoring that I have a different point of view but she thinks that's just doing the work that you should be just showing up and you should be helping people in doing things I think pro actively looking for people in your life and you will be surprised that I think a lot of people want to give back now the important thing though to remember is that if somebody says no they don't have time for coffee or they don't have time for a meeting don't take it personally it's very hard to make that shift but a lot of people are going to say no and that's not about you that could have everything to do with somebody else maybe they're not in a position where they feel they have enough you know, energy or time so don't let the nose stop you keep going and state focused so I say keep looking for the mentors and also keep mentoring others and kind of along the same lines sh movie interesting movie should be smooth it says, I've heard the how can I help you line so often when networking? How often do people actually take others up on their offer? It seems like a line people say, without beckoning backing it up sometimes seems disingenuous. Sure, I'll give you a very specific example of this one gentleman that I interviewed for the book, matt van horn. He works at a social media site called path. When he was breaking into the the kind of tech business here in san francisco, he wanted to meet keith for rozzi, who is another kind of network person, he wrote, never eat alone, and so matt saw that keith was going to be at a conference instead of just randomly e mailing him. He looked at the list of people attending the conference, and he recognized that he knew for five people that were going and so he wrote, he found case email and again, this is something we can do now with technology, we can usually find a way to get to people. He wrote him an email and said, keith, you don't know me, but I'm going to be at this conference and I have three or four people that I think you would like to meet here are their names can I set up a coffee or a glass of wine for you to meet these people? He's adding value so, you know, also look at what value you could bring to it. I spoke recently at the commonwealth club, and afterwards somebody wrote me and said, I would like to help research some articles and, you know, donate some of my time and beer an assistant to work with you couple hours a week. Would that be a value in him? I will of course it would, right? So that's, one way to approach it is look at what can you, where you're giving to a mentoring relationship and not just taking so try to reframe the conversation a bit. So I think that matt's example, we might not all be going to conferences and, you know, networking in that way, but giving and figuring out the value you can bring to a relationship is great. A lot of people need kind of, you know, work, experience or case studies. Eso really think about what your skill set is and that's why making when we were talking about your list of skills it's important to recognize what experience and skills can I bring to the table? Right? Okay, so I do want to just talk a little bit more about you know, what I want you guys to do is to think about how you're helping and giving, and also do you need to find a mentor? Do you need to find more support in your life based on the passions and the purpose that you have set out for yourselves so kind of let's? See if we're going to just go around and we'll do a quick summary. Maggie, where you with kind of your network? Do you feel like you have the support that you need? I think that I have a lot of really supportive people in my life, but I don't have a consistent men for, um that is measuring my progress or someone that I can turn tio when I am, when I have, like, legitimate questions that would push the ball forward. You know, um, so I think, you know, when I think about when I made the list of mentors, they have been in, like, that other circle of life that I've had, right? So, I mean, yeah, yeah, I could definitely used to invest. All right. So some ideas for you just to think about if you're here in san francisco, right in the bear in the area. There are so many great women's tech groups, and I know that you are looking at kind of the tech and moving into more that he'll start looking for a group or to join it and set a goal for yourself that in the next six months I want to find a group to be part of and, you know, great ways to get involved in groups is to join committees, you know, too help fundraise like ways to actually participate where you're invested in it. I think that you could probably find a lot of people that are really passionate about the space that want to help others, and especially in women, in tech, like there is just a big drive, some of the networking of them set your doing, people really want to help each other, so I'd think about some of the groups and things that you can dio david, how about yourself with your new focus on both fitness and starting a new business or a new career? How do you feel in terms of the support that you have with your network? I feel like I'm very fortunate that do you have a lot of good mentors and friends who aren't really mentally, but we talked a lot each other I don't finds about mentoring, though, because I liked mentoring myself, and my last business started because of was mentoring a friend and he was he actually worked on the team is almost an intern type of person. I just noticed him stick around scar that beat the gym mat, which was his website, I guess. And I just, you know, we met for lunch every month and I asked where that's taker was about and he said, it's, a community has really small one but kind of active and we just kept talking. I helped him build into business. If I got that, why are you joining the business partner way? Did that and both cereal business and create hold it so it's great beat the gene that is it's still it's the it's, the world's biggest portal for active, most active portal for mba applicants people get business school. Wow! Wow! And the portal probably just website just went down because we have tons of going to that site right now. I love that and see again that's being present it's looking for connections, it's common interests but it's also, you were going through kind of self growth and you're like learning and you brought a lot of value to the table, so that's a really great example, I love that, um let me see carrie how are you with mentors and support like is your community where you feel like you've got what you need around you right now with your career you have likely tio career wise I feel very strong and I think for me it's more of just knowing when to ask for help and so I've kind of come into that lately where I'm like you know, I know that you know leslie and tracy like these people that I know that have been my mentors I know that the whole me I just have to ask so I think it's really just kind of coming into my own and knowing I'm not going to be perfect at everything I'm not going to do everything perfectly here's all of these great resource is take advantage of them you know? So I feel mentor wise and you know, a lot of support that way that I'm in the right space great um aaliyah, how about you? You must be very busy with all your events and have a lot of people around you yeah I mean I think somewhere to maggie I have a lot of support supportive people in my life but I haven't really felt like I had official mentors but when I stopped to think about who's been involved in my life or who have been watching, I think back to a lot of great teachers male and female but a lot of great women business owners that I've looked teo on been inspired by and that's actually where my women's conference ended up coming from at the time, I just wanted to create like a one day conference instead of just the normal like six to nine p m kind of networking event, and when I came up with my dream roster of speakers of people, I knew they were all these great women business owners that I knew, and so for the last two years, and going into this year, I've been ableto handpick thes amazing women that I know are giving and generous and want to help other people grow their business isn't so that's actually where the conference came from. So when I sat and thought about it, I'm like, I just know so many amazing, generous people. And was it ever hard to ask when you wanted them to be involved in the conference or some of them, but most I'm like it was no question I knew they'd say yes, as long as they were available, but depending on who the person was or how close we were, it could be hard for you to make the ask, but most people, it was easy toe kind of. Extend that invitation and you have to be part of you you had a focus school you knew you were going for an s o that's great any advice that you would give to people who want to try to reach out and talk to someone like that? Um I think letting someone know that you really value their worker that you've been watching them or on but you appreciate them before making the ask I think is important because even may at the level that that I'm that I get people all the time who just want something just to want something but when someone says I read that really great block post of yours or I've been reading your newsletter for, you know, two years and so on and so forth then you feel like ok, you know they're part of this community and I've helped them in some way how can I help them or and be intentional about that? So I think setting it up with a little background on why they inspire you can help us well, who love that and that's about also doing your homework and being you know, well researched and you're very serious brian who you know you're meeting later on today it all started because of an email saying, hey, I liked your book and so that is very true like really make sure that you understand the person and make authentic connections any other thoughts on giving back and or any kind of magical things that have happened with volunteering? Well, never underestimate the volunteer, the networking, and for those of us who have kids on the playground, you know, drama off. I have literally made so many amazing support of contacts through other moms by just briefly chatting with them, dropping my children off, you know, said so really pay attention to who's around you, and you never know who it is that's, right? And those khun b both personal relationships and turn into a business opportunity in terms of photo shoots or that's job leads you just never know there was an article in forbes just about a week ago. It was non network e ways to network, and one of the tips was having play dates with other parents and so again, looking at all these different ways that you can connect with people where it doesn't feel like schmoozing, then it becomes fun, right? Yeah, and I'll say that the reverse is true, too. I mean, some of the best friends that I have now. When I started my networking group, I didn't know any other business owners and that's part of why I did it, and now some of the best friends I have are people I either met on twitter. Or people who joined my networking group, and then they became really good friends. So I think it works both ways when you're authentically connected with people with similar interests and values. You know, I wantto one thing that you said about that that I just want to talk about is that there is a benefit sometimes moving online relationships to off, and you have to be really careful about that always safety first, you know, I've met a lot of people both friendship wise and work wise on social media and so some tips, you know, obviously do your google search before you meet anyone in person if you want to meet somebody, a great way to do it is to meet at an event I had a woman in new york who had been sending me tweets, and so, you know, I'd really like to meet you next time I went to new york, I invited her to a gathering of women so it's, productive it's, lower risk, but you can figure out, is this a good, you know, relationship to nurture? So think about those relationships that you want to move off line. I do have a funny story of somebody that I was, you know, tweeting with for a while, and I ended up, he was in san diego and I said, well, why don't you go to l a I'm going to be in l a and we can all go to this event I had, like three other girls with me, he didn't know we're going to be, like four girls going to an event, but meeting people where you can move it off line, you can also do a skype call or virtual coffee was someone s o safety first, but no, you can find and meet really interesting people through social media, and you can kind of evolve them and move those relationships offline. Let's lead. Did you have your hand up? Yeah, so that raise a question for me what's the right balance between networking online and electronically versus in person, because I feel like so, like I said before, I have have issues and one is a bit of a fear of people and being in social situations sometimes, so I'm much more comfortable interacting with people online like I will fire a tweet to anyone I will, you know, post and I feel like I have these very rich, engaging relationships with people online, but I really struggle with that in person part of it, and so what? What would you say it's like the right balance to try to strive for well, I don't know if there's like, you know, an hour allotment that I can tell you but what I would say is that when you are going to something that's in person a really manageable way to try to get through that is when you're going to event don't think about meeting one hundred people think about having a conversation with two people just go there saying if I meet two new people and I have two great conversations tonight, then I've done my job, you know, so set small obtainable goals and you're going to be more comfortable, you know, also going to events I don't know if you have a trusted friend that khun b or your wing woman or wing man, but sometimes bringing another person can help your comfort level, so I think that's important another thing that I've done and I write about this in the book is that overlapping personal and professional interest is becoming more common. So if you're interested in art, you know you go to an event that it's at an art gallery if you are passionate about health and fitness, you try to network at the yoga studio in the health club, so look for those places that you're comfortable it is important I do think not toe be one hundred percent online I think that we benefit from human interaction that relationships are much stronger I am lucky I have so many frequent flier miles that I will fly to a meeting over, you know, doing phone calls any day. I just flew to boston for a meeting, you know, and then flew back. People are like, you're crazy, I said. Now this is an important meeting you can accomplish so much more by meeting somebody in person. So look at is this a valuable relationship that you want to change and encourage so soon we're going to be having a call with michael soucie, the director, and I just want to tell you a little bit more about michael, so he is in my network, as most of the people in the book somehow have made it into my network, which I'm very lucky. Michael used to date a very close friend of mine in new york many, many years ago, he had a career change. I think he's had a couple career changes. He might have studied a finance, and then he was in advertising, and then he decided to get into film about probably was ten years ago, he khun. Correct me on the timing, but I was working at the ad agency and I remember getting a phone call from him I was doing some filmmaking on the side and he called me for advice, which is funny, he said, can I talk to you about filmmaking and, you know, have coffee with you? And I said, sure, let's do that so we had lunch and I remember him talking about great gardens said he had seen the documentary and that he had the dream of making it into a feature and that's a big that's a big thing if you haven't done a feature, he had gone to film school down in a l a and so he started to put together his purpose plan on what he needed to do he needed to get the rights to the story. It was about the bouvier sisters he needed the rights to the story he need tio attach talent to it, so there are all these steps that he needed to d'oh. In the meantime, he still needed to make money so I believe he was answering phones and sleeping on a couch and the people with the rights to the story we're in mill valley, california he befriended them, you know, and ultimately came to success so he's going to share that story with us and talking about again being focused how sometimes things you know, the miracle doesn't happen overnight, and we're going to hear a lot about that from michael. So michael obviously did great gardens. And then he went on to direct the vow, which I, I think had about one hundred fifty million at the box office. So he's, no longer couch surfing. And we'll probably call him for advice.