My Favorite Networking Tips

Hey, my friends, it's Brendon Burchard. And welcome to another episode of the Brendon show. We're here today to talk about your network work, your connections of people who you are able to get to know, connect with, serve and draw value from on a consistent basis. I'd love for you just while as we start this right as we're going to jump into some of this, I'd love for you to do yourself a real gift in your journal. Just start writing down the most influential people you know or you know you're like one degree away from. Just start writing down, oh, I know this person in my community. Oh, I know this person in my downline. Oh, I know this person in my industry. Oh, I know. Just start writing down those people. Oh, I know this person from church. Oh, I know this person from that community group. Just start writing it down. The people you already know who have success, influence, achievement, who can open doors, who maybe they don't know you yet. That's okay. But I want you to start compiling this list to give you an idea of how strategic I am about this. In my laptop, I have an Excel spreadsheet where I list out every person of influence I know. I list out how did I meet them or how do I want to meet them. I list out things like what I know about them. I list out things as we'll talk about what I know about, what they want to create, what or build, who they want to connect to. And I look at that on a very consistent basis. I used to look at it every week. Now I have it as a practice on the first of the month. I'm always considering my network. And we're going to talk about how you should have something like that too. Because if you just right now think, gosh, who do I know? And you're really struggling to make this list in your journal. I am here to tell you you are now entering the first few steps of becoming obscenely wealthy and influential again in your life or for the first time you know. Cause when people don't know this, when I ask them who are the most influential people you know or the most successful people you know? And they're like, um, well, I think my cousin knows somebody. I'm like, oh, my God, you haven't even touched the richness of life yet. And this is not about getting to know just like wealthy people to know wealthy people or influential people to know influential people. It's so that you have the influence you need in the world. Because how are you Going to activate your difference in this world? How are you going to activate the difference in this world? Through other humans. With other humans. And when you want to activate your difference in this world and you have access to people who have greater influence, obviously you are able to activate that difference faster. And any dream you have, you want to shoot a documentary one day. Well, guess what? If you already have a network of filmmakers, way easier than going down to Best Buy and asking the guy at the counter about cameras, right? If you want to, like, start a school in a foreign country and make your difference in that way, guess what? That's super hard to do by learning about on the Internet. But if you mind your thing, you go, oh, I met this person from that country at Brendan's seminar, and I have their business card, but I never followed up with them. That's the first person you should call to say, hey, I want to make a difference where you live. Let's have a conversation. I know you get this philosophically, so let's dial in to what prevents people from really mining and exploring their network better. Okay? I'm going to share a couple of ideas with you. The very first one, I think is, frankly, the most important one, is that most people, when they think about a networking event or situation, right? You're at my seminar, you meet some people. You are, you know, at church, after the sermon, after, you're all standing out, you know, at the parking lot, ready to go home. You're in that networking event in your industry at nighttime, and everyone's having those nice little warm, like, weird appetizers that you always eat too many of and you feel sick the next day. You know, you're doing all the networking events. What is your primary aim there? Like, what is the aim that you have socially when you meet new people? What do you want to think about? What is your aim when you meet new people? Now, I'll tell you what most people's aim is. Their dream, their goal, their unconscious pattern of behavior is being stemmed from their desire to be liked. I just. I hope they like me. I hope I fit in. I hope I belong. That human yearning for belonging. We all want to be accepted. We want to be liked. And yet, if you look at your behaviors in networking situations, I bet most of your behavior is actually about you wanting to be liked versus being a linchpin. Let me show you this philosophical difference. Some people want to be liked. Some people want to be the linchpin. Some people want to be liked. Some people want to be the linchpin. If Your aim is to be liked. You kind of hang around and hope people come up to you and talk to you and get to know you. And they like you, they understand you, they validate you, they accept you. When you choose to be the linchpin, you have a completely different aim, a completely different forward lean. You're ready to be complete. Like you work the room in a completely different way. If you're working a room, that's what they call it networking, right? To work the room. And you want to meet people and you just want to be liked. What do you do? Oh, how you doing? And you're all sheepish. If you want to be linchpin now, it's not about you. Once you decide to be the linchpin in your network, everything changes. You get to be more confident because it's not even about you. I really don't care if people like me, what I like. When I walk into a room. When I walk into a room, I don't look at the room and go, oh, my God, I hope I get to meet this guy. I walk in the room, I go, I'm gonna unite these people. They don't even know it yet. I'm gonna be the linchpin in this room. By the end of this night, I will have introduced more people in this room than probably anybody else here. That strength comes from humility. I don't think I have to be there. Do you ever hear that thing? There's a person. There's two kinds of people who enter a room. One person enters the room and goes, here I am, look at me. Everybody come over, talk to me. And the other person enters the room and goes, oh, there you are. How you doing? Two different types of people, two different types of personality, two different types of aims. I don't really care if anyone likes me in the room. I'm not there with my elevator pitch in my pocket, ready to go. I haven't thought about my elevator pitch. I'm almost totally not interested in myself. What I'm interested in when I'm in that situation is, huh? How can I find out who in this room has commonality, needs a connection with each other, are trying to create, build, or serve the same thing. And could I introduce them to each other? Even if I go in the room completely cold, I go, I walk in the room, there's 30 people. I don't know any of the people. Trust me. By the end of the third hour, while everybody else has had their fourth, fifth drink or they've eaten 60 of those things and their stomach is bad, so they spend half the time in the bathroom. I'm the guy. I already ate, I already hydrated, I already worked out. I hit that room, I'm ready, I'm in great mood, I'm in great spirits. If I'm there to work, I'm there to work. And what do I do? Boom. I just walk up the first person and I start talking with that person. And once I learn a little about that person and it's a natural break in the conversation, which we will talk about, I'm on the next person, and then I'm on the next person. And after I've met five people, my rule is after I've met five people, now I circle back and introduce the five people. So the last person I met. So if I meet, you know, person one, two, three, four, and five, when I meet person five, I go, hey, do you know this person? Referring to person one, that person over there. Oh, you know, come over here. Let me introduce you. That's it. Walk person five over to number one. And then when those two people are there, I'm like, hey, do you know that person over there? Person number two. You don't come over here. And I put. Now I put three people together and they're like, man, this guy Brennan's great. He did the networking for me. Oh, snap. Do you know what's scary at networking events? Networking. Do you know what? When you solve the problem for them, who do they love? You're not the problem in the networking event. Unless you want to be liked and. And you're sitting around waiting, you become the hero of the networking event if you do the networking for them. Because think about that. Isn't our aim in life to add value to people? Like. Like if our aim in life is to add value to people, and here we are with 30 new people who all have their insecurities and their self doubts, and they're going, oh, my gosh, I don't know what to do here. And their aim at that thing is to get over themselves and network. And you come in and solve the problem for them. Who's the popular guy there now? Who do they like now? Who solved their problem? Who they're going to look to next time they have another problem? You become the linchpin of the group immediately. And so in my networking practice, I'm always like that. I'm going to go talk with five people and then I'm going to circle them together. Number five. Did you meet number one? Number five and one. Did you meet number two. Number five, one and two. Did you meet number three? Number five, one, two, and three. Have you met number four? And all of a sudden, guess what I did for them? I didn't just connect one to one. See, in networking, what happens is people, they can handle that usually. But what they don't know how to do is how do you get a group of three people vibing and jiving, right? Have you ever been to a party? You ever notice if you're there with one buddy, it's kind of cool, but even though there's two of you there, you can still feel a little bit awkward. You ever notice that at an event, like, even though you got your buddy, you might even have your spouse, and then what happens? Guess what? When a third person is there with you guys, isn't it true you feel a little better? It's almost like in groups of three in a social environment, we feel less awkward if it's just us two weirdos on the side. Feels a little awkward if we can get a third weirdo with us, that's way better, right? So what are you doing? You're uniting the weirdos? No, I'm just teasing. That metaphor went too far. But I think you get the idea. Meet five. Connect five. And that alone will be powerful. If that's all you got from this session, if that is blowing your mind, if you didn't do that at your last five networking events, please don't tell me you don't need coaching. There is another level of life practices. That is what we call the high performance experience. Right? It's like lots of people go to a networking event, but very few experience the high performance experience at that event. You know what I'm saying? A lot of people go there. I met one person. I feel good. But some other people leave knowing five people and having five real relationships. It's a different level of experience they have. That's why you're in coaching. That's why we are here together. This is why we do the work. It's just to get this idea right. I want you to think about this. Go in, be the linchpin. If you're ready to take your life.

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