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Networking Redefined: The Power of Genuine Engagement and Active Listening

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Have you ever spent hours at a networking event, only to leave feeling you've accomplished nothing? Are you tired of surface-level interactions that lead nowhere? Well, it's time to transform the way you connect. Tune into our latest episode as we tackle the power of active listening, an essential tool that can help you pave your way to meaningful relationships. We're not just talking about a head nod and a smile, but genuine engagement that can turn quick introductions into long-lasting connections. 

We're switching gears from quantity to quality, and sharing our exclusive tips, like the 80/20 listening rule, which can be a total game-changer in your networking efforts. We're also diving into our personal experiences and the vulnerability that comes with active listening, proving how it can lead to stronger bonds. Throughout the conversation, we'll be sharing practical techniques - from paying undivided attention and using nonverbal cues to asking open-ended questions without rushing to fill the silence. So, join us in this empowering dialogue that can help you build not just a network, but a web of meaningful relationships and a solid reputation.

JP:

You and welcome to a new energy crew podcast. I want to thank you all for tuning in. If you're enjoying this, please make sure you subscribe. Like share, talk about around the water cool. We appreciate it.

JP:

And this again is another one of those short ones that I've had conversations with colleagues, people that I've worked with, people that work around, and again these are subjects that are kind of popping up that I think could kind of help others out there. And this one that we're talking about right now is going to be called the Mastering Quick Connections, the power of active listening in networking. All right, but before we begin, I want to say that this podcast is brought to you by you crew. At you crew, we are focused on the power of you and reducing and reframing yourself, limiting beliefs, either with the I S to I am journey, where we take your imposter syndrome and turn it into a strength, or our elevate coaching, where we help you get unstuck in your current situations by shifting your mindset, focusing on goals and evidence based achievement, reflections that we can elevate your personal and professional circumstances and I just got certified being a coach. I am very excited that we can now start promoting you crew for this podcast and I think it's a. I've really enjoyed kind of this.

JP:

This whole, actually, this kind of Today's subject actually came from a mini pseudo pop up coaching session that I had with a buddy of mine. We were kind of talking, we were, we were, we were talking and this, this whole idea kind of came up. You know he's like he's talking to okay, look what, I'm out there when I'm networking. It is number one is extremely uncomfortable, just walking the room full of strangers and kind of network. But number two, it's extremely hard for me to connect with people. It's hard for me to find people interesting. It's hard for me. And he's like, if I can be candid with you, it's just difficult for me to connect with others at these network and events and I kind of was kind of sitting there kind of send okay, so what is what's the goal at these? And is it kind of getting the most cards? Is a connecting like what is it? And in reality we discussed it was. It wasn't the number of people that were that would that matter to, it was the, it was the quality of connections. And again, I think the quality of connections is something that I stem. You know, several of my businesses based on. It's not the, it's not the number. The joke is not the size, the, the network and event is the quality size does not matter. So again, how do you have quality connections at networking events? And you know, just kind of going over discussing that it's difficult. It's difficult when you enter a room. So we're going to kind of go a couple things here that make networking easier, that make quality connections easier for you out there that may be tuning in right now.

JP:

Alright, so number one, let's acknowledge the fact that walking in a room full of strangers difficult it's. It's weird to kind of go in there. It's weird to kind of put a name tag on that always falls off. It's kind of weird to kind of go up and look at some of the. I shake their hand, I think I got their name, but always glance down. Oh, they see me glance down at the name tag. All this stuff is normal, all that is completely fine and you're not alone experiencing this. So there's me a couple things in here that kind of help you establish quality connections when you are entering a networking situation. Also the power of active listening and how the quality of the value of a quality connection definitely outweighs the value of a thousand shallow connections. So I guess I guess let's get this started.

JP:

I think the first thing I want to kind of talk about is is kind of a little tip that I call the 80 20 rule. When networking, whenever you kind of walk into a room I've always done this, always fine Whenever I'm talking work with someone, the conversation gets so stale, and this kind of was taught I was talking about buddy, about yesterday. The conversation gets so stale, it's so flat. At the end of the day it's like cool. I'm really sick and tired of talking about work. I talk about business, I'm around business all the time, talk about work all the time and if it's, it's kind of like talking about a dream. Unless I'm in it, I don't want to hear about the dream, but don't tell my wife that, but anyway. So so it's the 80 20 rule.

JP:

So whenever I meet someone, for about 20% of the time I do talk about, I do kind of talk about you know what you do, or do you work, you know what do you enjoy about and all that stuff. And then the 80 80 percent of time I talk about the personal side of things. In this way they kind of establishes more of a bond, established more of an opportunity to kind of get them know, to get them know good English. No, it kind of gives me an opportunity To know them on a personal level, to kind of understand, because you can pull out certain things on a conversation about Something, whether it's family, whether it's sports interests, nascar cooking, barbecue and homemade pizza, whatever it is, you can find that common bond pulled out of people from these of these conversations. We do talk about the personal side of things, all right. So so it's Getting into this the whole aspect when you are talking to people, and the whole point of this podcast is Active listening.

JP:

Active listening and again I was trying to kind of get into what active listening is and it really is kind of pretty basic. Active listening is Active listening. It's showing up, listening, paying attention to and responding. I think I tried to find where it is. Yeah, okay, active listening is listening, listening actively. This is the definition. Is listening actively, remembering what someone is saying and being engaging or engaged in the conversation? Okay, so let's talk about that. So I'm sure everyone out there knows what it's like to be in the conversation with someone, where someone isn't fully engaged. I've been guilty of this, and I'm sure you have been too is when you take out your phone and you're holding your phone in your hand or you're checking your phone, or or your phone is somewhere around you or someone else has their phone you. So we can all understand what it's like to not fully be engaged in the conversation or not have someone fully engaged With us in the conversation, how that feels.

JP:

So to start off with, I guess, the benefit I mean I kind of put this down. I want to talk about active listening, the benefits, but I don't know if we need to get in that much. Look, the benefits of active listening. But what does it does? It allows you to better, better understand you, who you're talking to is needs, where they're from, kind of the background a little bit. It gives you a greater chance of finding that common ground, finding that interest.

JP:

I remember it's whether it's a. I remember I was. It was. I was going through a pretty rough patch in my life Several years ago and I was being vulnerable and I think being vulnerable and actually I wasn't even talking to work at all. I was going through a very personal Experience at the time and I was talking about that I was being vulnerable. I wasn't talking about the 20% of work, I was talking to 80% personal side of things and there were so many people that have experienced not only what I went through or knew someone, knew someone that was going through what I was going through. It created so so many wonderful bonds and Relationships from being vulnerable, from having those active listening conversations with people. And again, this also helps again another point here to build your reputation, I guess, for being a good listener, which isn't a bad thing in this day and age. All right, so let's kind of get into active listening techniques and kind of, and honestly, this may help you. And then the whole point of this and honestly, at the end of the conversation with my buddy, we kind of were discussing what his goals were when he was networking, how to stay connected with in the conversation and honestly, just kind of how to be connected with people, and we discovered that the concept of active listening should probably be explored a little bit more. And let's kind of get into kind of the active listening techniques and how to establish that the connection with someone who you may be in a room with. All right, so again, we talked about this Give your full attention.

JP:

Put your phone away. If someone's talking, you dial in on that person, pay it, make it your job to stay focused in that conversation. It's really easy to kind of especially in a room with a lot of different background noise and surrounding noise, to kind of peel up and kind of look around and not be dialed in but give undivided attention. Put your phone away. I put my phone on, do not disturb. Actually my phone stays on. Do not disturb throughout the day. That way I'm not checking it, that way I'm not on my phone or pulling it out as an excuse to kind of be, to pull myself away from the present moment. All right.

JP:

Nonverbal cues using body language, like nodding, saying and not having your arms crossed. I always try to mirror the body language. Actually, I even try to open up the body language when I'm talking to someone. So if I'm engaged in a conversation with someone and I notice that I kind of put my arms across my chest, I notice that they start kind of doing that too and what that does. That kind of closes me off. So whenever I'm in a conversation with someone, my nonverbal cues is always try to open up, put a hand in my pocket, kind of have a hand talking. So my nonverbal cues is very engaged, very I'm into kind of I'm digging what you're saying let's talk about this more Reflective responses, that's, rephrasing or summarizing or kind of repeating the last three words when someone says, to show that you, to prove that you've been listening, yeah, asking again, asking open-ended questions. It's kind of like whenever you want information from your child or whenever you want some information from somebody, asking yes or no questions always stops the conversation. It stops the potential of growth to dive into more of the flavors of the conversation. So, just like when I asked my daughter, how was school good, bad? Did you do this? Yes, no. So asking what, where, how? More open-ended questions so people can kind of divulge and kind of explore a little bit more on kind of what drives them, what motivates them, and that also gives you an opportunity to learn more about someone, which I think learning more about people is a very fascinating subject that we don't do a lot of.

JP:

All right, avoiding interruptions. Now this is something that my wife because that my wife would say that I could probably use a lot of help with this I'm very uncomfortable with, like personal, not personal, with silences and conversations. I don't know why, I don't know if it'll be in a podcast or I don't know what it is, but whenever there's a pause in conversation, I always I was in a interrupt. I always have to feel that space with me talking or with my words or something like that. And a lot of times that's kind of interrupting because people aren't finished what they're processing or what they're thinking about. And I have found that, whether it's one of the crew club events that we have crew club events that we have or whether it's an exec crew, a meetup that we have, is that whenever I refrain from filling that void space in or chime in, we don't have to chime in whenever I refrain from that and allow space to kind of for the conversation to start building up and flowing.

JP:

And I'm not talking. That really is where the magic happens. That's when you start uncovering more about people, learning more about people, what drives people, what kind of brings people together, what makes people tick. So I think it's a very I've learned, I've started practicing keeping my mouth shut, which is not an easy thing for me to do, and it's paid off. So, again, when you're engaged in conversation with someone, don't think about the next thing you're gonna say Just listen, just be engaged at that moment. All right, showing empathy again, I just talked about this in a previous podcast I had when I was discussing kind of business development and getting away from the low cost of sales.

JP:

Empathy is understanding what shoes you're. What am I trying to say? The walk in the shoes, the person you're talking to, understanding where they're coming from. Someone's frustrated with work because of annoying boss. Have you ever had that experience? Or is it anyone frustrated with that? They just feel like there's something more. Have you ever had that experience? So, create these bonds of showing empathy, of walking these people's shoes, all right, so yeah, so that's kind of the process of active listening and all that and, honestly, this can be tied into.

JP:

So when you are at these networking events, when you are in these huge crowded rooms full of people, try these certain things to stay active and, honestly, even if you walk in to it. So what I do when I walk into a room and it's first of all, I'm gonna go over kind of the active listening part, but also kind of the ice breakers that I find that's kind of beneficial to me when I walk in, I don't have a single soul in the room, all right. So usually when I'm in these conversations with someone and it kind of gets, we do the 20% it kind of gets kind of stale and then the conversation kind of starts fading, kind of starts dying off. The quick shift to get to the other 8%. Just think about topics that are kind of going on in the world today. I would stay away from the obviously the touchy subjects. But what news is going on? What I remember when the Johnny Depp Amber Heard divorce was going on, that's the one thing that would bring up and you would know if people were into it or not, because that would change the dynamic of the conversation, that would change the energy and the flow of the conversation. So I always try. I mean, everyone can remember Tiger King, everyone can remember Amber Heard, johnny Depp, anyone can remember anything, whether it's a new TV series that's coming out, a new show, a new grill or whatever it is.

JP:

Find Common Ground to Bond on. Find Common Ground where, even if you don't know anything about your compo asking, I don't know what a trigger is, can you teach me about that? Or if you have a favorite way to cook your steak, find those common and have a couple of ready before you walk in. Have a couple of like hey look, I'm gonna talk about these common, safe subjects where people will input their experience with expertise on it. That's always good.

JP:

And again, tie this up, I think a quick connection strategy that I use a lot is when I do walk into a room and, let's say, there's little circles of people that are kind of like bundled up already, or let's say there's people that are kind of on the side experiencing kind of. What I'm experiencing is like I don't know anyone in this room, I don't know how to walk up and engage and kind of enter into conversation. So, honestly, I will go up and literally just call the spade a spade hey, I don't know anyone here. Or hey, look, I'm kind of waiting for some people to show up. You mind, if we kind of have a conversation until then, or hey, you might have introduced myself and we can talk to each other until we see someone that we both know, come in, bring up the uncomfortableness, bring up the awkwardness of you not knowing anyone, them not knowing anyone, and just kind of start talking and create that bond that way, and I think if you identify the elephant in the room. You identify the awkwardness of these network situations. It allows for both the all to be human. It allows for both the all to kind of have that common bond together. So again, if you are having difficult times being interested or connecting with people at these network events, remember everyone's probably uncomfortable too.

JP:

Try the 2080 rule. All right, 20% work, 80%. Talk about other stuff. Engage in active listening, try to find out more details with the person that you're talking to, who's interested in. And the last thing I do is just kind of call a spade a spade. Bring up the awkwardness of the situation. Talk about how. Hey look, I don't know anyone here. You don't know anyone here. Let's kind of now, we both know someone. So, again, that's all I have right now for Energy Crew. We hope you enjoyed it. If you enjoyed it, please make sure you like, subscribe, share, talk about it, tag and all that fun stuff. I'm enjoying doing these short little clips and if you enjoyed it, check out the previous ones and we'll talk to you soon on Energy Crew. Let's go.