Business 101 with Michael E. Moore. #Networking

Welcome back everyone. Are you ready for some rainmaking, net weaving, networking? Well, I've got the guest for you. And if you check this out on our YouTube channel or go to sheddingthebitch.com, we are videotaping it as well. So you listening live may not understand this, but our guest Michael E. Moore. He's the resident rainmaker and chief storyteller in Atlanta, but right now he looks like he got beat up by a bunch of his clients, or maybe his wife.

There were these 3 Ninja Turtles coming down. Because no story ever starts with eating a salad, does it?

He's got a big old— for those listening, he's got— he's scraped up. Let's just say that.

Those only I can see.

Big old black eye and a big old cut on the forehead, but actually For those of you who live in Atlanta, he's lived here inside the perimeter of Atlanta for over 40 years and is connected to many different organizations. And trust me, he's all over Atlanta, not just inside the perimeter. Michael is currently involved with several startup companies and has recently joined the board of Fair Tax Georgia after over 5 years of support and interest— wait, I'm sorry, years of support, interest, and supporting. He is a member of the Buckhead 50 Club and has served as president of the Buckhead Business Association. He's also involved with CEO NetWeavers and participates in mentoring, inflection point projects, and coordinates the onboard processing for new members. Michael is an active player in the venture community and helps produce a monthly Shark Attack for sharks and bait at the City Club of Buckhead. And you've heard me talk about that, everybody, as part of Ritz Group. He serves at Club E in College Park as Executive in Residence and Chief Operating Officer for the club. Michael also serves on several nonprofit boards and task forces here in Atlanta. Michael's currently involved with Metro Atlanta Business Association as a founder, and he's also a fellow host radio broadcaster on Pro Business Channel right here in Buckhead, Atlanta. Michael's from Alabama. A graduate of Auburn University. He is a veteran, woohoo, and a lifelong learner and a recovering banker.

That hurts.

Yeah, right. Michael speaks on organization development, leadership, time management, entrepreneurship, and other related topics. And the range of his events also include workshops and seminars, panels, keynote speeches, and coaching. His endeavors are balanced, beautifully balanced, I want to say, with a wife of 44 years, 2 daughters with son-in-laws, and 4 grandbabies under 6. Whoa. Welcome to the program, Michael.

It is a pleasure to be here with you today, and even this hot day in Hotlanta.

Damn, it's hot. It really is. It's nasty.

I was scared when you said mid-100s a minute ago. I thought I was about to get some clothes lost here.

I was scared when I heard it last night. I freaked out about it.

Mid-90s is hot enough, but mid-100s would definitely be unbearable.

I can't even, can't even. Begin to fathom. Anyway, all right, so we're here to talk networking and mindfulness and a number of other things, but what I really want to start off with— okay, sorry, but start somewhere.

Start somewhere.

What I want to start off with is explain Rainmaker and storytelling.

Wow, where did I— you mean, where did I get that name, or did I just make it up?

No, well, hey, I've made up titles myself too.

You know, in reality, I just made that up a little bit because I was reading some work about about the legal and the accounting profession one time, and I said, well, you know, that's really what they call their Chief Development Officer. You know, Chief Development Officer sounds like somebody who puts together tinker toys to me. So when I looked at the term Rainmaker in the legal and the accounting industry before it was popular to go out and advertise because it wasn't legal back in those days, I thought, well, that's kind of cool. Also, it has another bearing for me in that I'm a part Creek Indian, not like everybody claims to be Cherokee, but I'm part Creek from the Muscogee Creeks down in Columbus, Georgia area. And, you know, every medicine man is called upon to make rain every once in a while because the crops need it. Out there in the business world, certainly rainmaking and developing the relationships before you need them, because another one of those tacky sayings in the South is the best time to plant an oak tree was about 40 years ago. The best time to plant a pine tree was about 20 years ago. But the second best time to plant either one of those trees is today. Because if you don't do it today, it won't be here 20 or 40 years from now to help your family or shed your shade your village, or to produce anything good for you. So rainmaking really, to me, does that. The storytelling part, again, comes from the Indian background, and it's gotten so popular. There's books on storytelling now, there's clubs on storytelling, there's movies on storytelling, there's support groups on storytelling. There's all those things that relate to telling stories, because in reality, my mantra is pretty simple. I teach people to learn their whole life story so that they can tell the right small portion of that story. At the right time for the right reason to the right person with the right level of passion. Otherwise, there's another important thing you need to be doing.

And that would be— what a good segue—

keep listening because it's not time to tell your story yet, right? Small part of your story is important, and we're going to talk a little bit about that as we talk about, quote, rainmaking and business development and also relationship development. I did mention to you in the topics I wanted to kind of look at today because it's top of mind for everybody, this term mindfulness. Mindfulness is not understood very well by many people. You know, I could easily confuse it with yoga or meditation or something else, but mindfulness is not that. Mindfulness is going to be like storytelling 5 or 10 years from now. People are— everybody's going to worry about how well they develop their mindfulness traits, characteristics, and skills, because in reality we've got to dive deep. You know, that 1 inch deep and 12 miles wide doesn't work anymore.

Right.

With personal relationships. How many of us influence 100 people? How many of us influence 50 people? How many of us influence 1,000 people? Well, I'm not that good on Twitter yet.

I can't influence 1,000 people.

But some people can. And it's all in what you say and how you say it, when you say it, and who you say it to.

Absolutely. Alright, so I want to kind of break this down. Okay. Alright, so if a business professional is out there listening, even just anybody, is out there listening and they want to really understand why storytelling— because a lot of, I would say a lot of entrepreneurs have been hearing it, but corporate definitely has not. I mean, from all the people and the clients that I have from within the corporate environment, you know, they don't grasp why storytelling is so vital in not only working with their clients but even within their own teams. So help us understand why, how storytelling serves us in business.

That's a good thought. Let me ask you a question. Do you remember any stories your grandmother and grandfather told you about their life or things that happened around the house?

Sure.

Those stories about your mother or father that they secretly shared with you? Nobody else knows these. And then they were told around the Thanksgiving table again and everybody knew about it. Or you told them around the Thanksgiving table and got in lots of trouble. Well, that fact, if not presented as a story about a person who was real in our life, would probably have not meant much, would it?

Yeah, no. It wouldn't have had that emotional attachment.

So we tie stories to individual, mostly pleasurable experiences, but certainly teaching, when you're teaching your children that age-old blessing about, gosh, you really don't want to depend on only putting their hand on the hot stove once. You want to explain to them why that's important. Well, they didn't understand the explaining, and I bet you almost every child has got their own story. About the first time they put their hand on a hot stove. And it now means something to them, and it means something to Grandma, it means something to your husband, your wife, or their little brother who's the one that put their hand on the hot stove.

Right, right, right.

It now has real meaning. So learning those little details, but more importantly, the corporate arena, you know, we have really gotten to, um, I'm gonna call it theatrics. Video has gotten us to the point we can do all sorts of things with our hands, and we can get all kinds of special lighting And in my case, I don't even need makeup to look like I'm in a fight today. But you know, we're gonna enhance the visual. But when you look at the visual, audio and visual, what's the relationship of the learning between an audio story and a visual story? Which one's better?

Which one's better? I believe that it really depends upon if you're a visual learner or a word learner, but I'm visual, so I like to see. See kind of something happening.

Well, here we're on BlogTalkRadio and people are hearing us, but they— and if they're not looking through audio, the video to go along with it, they're anticipating what we look like. They're anticipating what we're doing. But in the world, I think they say the number is something like 93% of communication is nonverbal and 7% is verbal. So I'll leave you the thought with a storyteller, an animated storyteller, and I'll use a magician. A magician is probably the most adequate presentation of a storyteller when you think about it. Because if you just heard what a magician was doing, would it mean much?

Mm, true.

Now, but when they pull the rabbit out of the hat, you get the picture.

Right.

Or when they disappear, you get the picture. Or when they saw their assistant in half, you get the picture. But we try to rely many times on words. And I'm a book guy. I bring around, I carry books with me when I speak all the time because if I've left the bookmark in the right place, I can find the passage. But we all read so much stuff and so many words, but when we deliver effective presentations to not only our customers, to our family and our teaching environment— think about the teacher in high school. If you didn't have a teacher there and only had a blackboard, would any of those stories about math or science mean much to carry on?

No.

No. And you phrased it back with the corporate arena for a moment. And I really— this is one of the reasons I work with entrepreneurs. Henry Ford is not around anymore to tell us the story of how Ford Motor Company was created. But you know, there's all kinds of little special stories in there. And can you imagine Oliver and Wilbur Wright in their little bicycle shop trying to make an airplane? Do you think their neighbors thought they were crazy? And they were talking about how this thing's going to have wings and how we're going to go down to North Carolina and how we're going to do this. Well, somewhere around there they had to get investors for $33.33. To help them get to North Carolina to get that done. But most people never know that. General Electric, even Johnson Wax, which is still a family company. Mr. Johnson is not around anymore to tell the story. Entrepreneurs now that are starting in America have the ability to put culture in their company like no other. I mean, when you think about consulting and leadership training, if you look down and digest, it goes back to starting with the culture of that leader. And hopefully he's going to be there more than 3 years, 5 years, or another stock cycle.

Right, right.

That is a problem. Entrepreneurs can only do one thing, be they male or female, it doesn't matter. They produce children. That company is their child. And if they don't have a child at home, it's even more important to be fully vested, fully engaged, and give that company your profile. But in reality, we get lost many times. People do not view their jobs as a company.

Right, and therefore they don't invest their stories. Into those, into their teams, into their work, into their— I mean, I only have known really one that stands out in my head, that he was able to, in every sales meeting, it could be the most, you know, kind of excited or very serious meeting, and he would infuse a story about his family, about his kids, about another client, that all of a sudden just took everybody to a different place. And people all of a sudden, the room full of white shirts and ties, would all of a sudden start leaning in and listening to him. And he's the only one that really stands out that really provided that type of relationship. And he was extremely successful as a result of it.

Well, you know, a storyteller can be gifted. That's the story we want to have. You can be given the title of being a storyteller. I might put it on a t-shirt one day and give myself that. But I started years ago with that title, back in 1999. I literally made it up as we jokingly say, but a guy named Michael Moore, without the E in the middle, was quite famous in bashing a presidential client, many of you might remember that, and also producing very thought-provoking movies. Some people hated him and some people loved him. I happen to think he was one of our talented people in life that we've encountered because he made people think about things in a different way than they would have ever thought and took some of the pressure out of the process of learning about things you really didn't care about.

Right.

Until he brought them to the top of mind.

Yeah, that's true.

You know, the process of learning I don't want to go back and harp on the teachers too much, but some teachers are good and some bad, and I really want to emphasize what you just said about your sales manager. You know, many people do not realize that leading people or managing people or being the lead salesperson in the company, you are really the face of that company. People are going to do what you ask them to do.

Absolutely.

You know that story about being what gets measured gets improved? Right. It's real personal when you're a sales guy. Absolutely.

Absolutely.

But that sales manager had to think about each week. And when you think about it, and we all know that to properly prepare, I know you're a member of NSA and you're a national speaker as well, and some of us aspire to be that good, but you really have to prepare about 1 hour for every 1 minute you speak.

Mm-hmm.

1 hour for every 1 minute you speak. Now you may have a better appreciation for those good teachers you had in school because that meant they really did prepare. 'Cause even though they taught the same subject every year, you didn't want to hear the story from your big brother.

Absolutely.

You wanted that teacher to deliver it to you. And I'll take that one step further. We don't realize in America today, because most people don't prepare, they wing it. They wing it. I don't, I won't get down—

How many of you are out there winging it?

Wingers, wingers, where are you? As you think about how you manage your success, find your most successful interaction. We're going to put that into perspective in a little bit with networking and net-weaving and just your personal culture, because your culture, your story, if you will, precedes you before you get anywhere. Almost, there's nowhere you can go without somebody already knowing who you are.

Especially nowadays.

Or quickly knowing about you. Right. And I'll, you know, even that TSA agent going through security, as soon as they turn your ID around and look at your name and your birthday, and look at your face, and look at your hair, and look at your demeanor, They begin to make decisions and determinations about how they're going to interact with you.

Right.

We all think it's your job to entertain them, not the story.

They're already making the story.

They're making the story.

They're creating the story.

So the presentation you have, the way you look, the way you hold your shoulders, the way you sit in your chair, all those things are important. And so many people— I have trained way too many salespeople, and I think I've fired a lot of salespeople in my life. People used to harass me, but my technique was always place a good ad, Hire 3 people and guess what? 2 of them aren't going to make it. One of them's not going to like me, number one, and the other one's going to find something they'd rather do with their time, and one's going to be a superstar. And that's really the important thing about how you work with people. Test your stories, try your stories, learn your stories. It really goes back to learning your whole story.

Well, I want to say, because that might be a segue— well, I do want to talk about networking, but at the same time, knowing your story is actually part, for me, is part of that mindfulness too.

It is.

It's really understanding who you are and being almost, using those fluffy words, present and mindful, and then getting to know that, and that turns it, converts into your story. Unless you want your story to be something artificial and not truly who you are, because like you said, someone's going to make a story up about you whether you direct that story or they prejudge it and build one themselves?

Well, I don't know about you, but it's scary when I walk into a networking environment and see those actors out there. The ones you can tell immediately by their demeanor and by their presence in the room.

And the business card in their hand that they're shoving in front of you.

Well, what they're there for. But that is a good, very good point. We do not take the time to be properly prepared. And that example goes on and on. I'm going to a networking event later this afternoon and there'll only be about 20 people there, but those are 20 of the right people that I want to visit with. I'm not going to a room of 200, I'm going to a room of 20, and probably only 2 or 3 of those will have meaningful conversations. So there's a percentage there you might be jotting down now. So 10% of the people in the room are the ones you're really looking for, and if you go away with an hour with one really good interaction, that's good. If you get 2, that's a blessing. If you were to get 3, that's a home run because You really need to not only visit with a person, and we'll talk about this too, but you need to visit with people in the room because you are like the little pollinating bee. You, you can go around the room and because of your story and your presence, you're going to evoke a response from someone who the person who really needs to meet that person may not evoke in that room because they don't have your same positioning. The most valuable thing I do in many rooms, and people say it's hokey someday, I tell people I'm just a connector. I know an awful little about an awful lot of people, but all people always say, "Oh, you know everybody." No, I know their names. That's about all I know about everybody. Not everybody, a lot of people. But I do know a little bit about them. I know things about mayoral candidates I can't tell you on radio, and I know things about other political officials that I learned years ago before they got elected. I'm not going to tell you those things either. But if I go in the room with them, I know something that might help you make a connection with a person you want to make. Hence the Rainmaker, because what was the one, what's his name, Clayton? There was a movie.

Oh, he's going to test my movie knowledge.

No, no, we'll come back to that. The fellow who used to be on one of those cool, oh, Clooney.

George Clooney?

George Clooney was in a movie called something Clayton, and he was the rainmaker of the law firm.

Oh, right.

And it was so interesting because, you know, this guy was not the best lawyer, He was not the best courtroom guy. He was not the best anything else but the best rainmaker because he could walk in and perceive and personify what a rainmaker did. Matter of fact, I need to watch that movie again.

How about you?

We'll get some popcorn and watch that movie.

We should do that. All right, we're going to take a quick break, and when we get back, we are going to talk about networking, like really, because what I want to really help them understand too is they need to have goals when they go out and spend all this time and money. In what they call networking when actually all they're doing is networking.

You mean it's not free?

Yeah.

You got the best time, huh?

We'll be right back with more of Shedding the Bitch Radio and Michael E. Moore. You can find him on LinkedIn. Go to Michael E. Moore and you'll find where it says Rainmaker and Storyteller and a good old something about a good old guy.

I'm a good old guy.

Can-do guy.

I'm a community do-gooder. I was recently given that title.

And he is too. Alright, we'll be right back. Welcome back everyone, I'm speaking to Rainmaker himself, the networking guru, Michael E. Moore, right here in Atlanta. So we are in studio, we are also videotaping this so you can take a look out there probably tomorrow on our Shedding the Bitch YouTube channel.

Having trouble with that name?

Ah, tell you what. And at the same time we'll get it up on our social networks and SheddingtheBitch.com. Alright, so I have a specific question around the metrics, the goals, the approach that people should have, corporate or entrepreneurial, around networking. Prior to going into their networking event, what should they be— have already planned out?

Well, that's a little different question, difficult question, depending on what day of the week it is.

Okay, fair enough, fair enough.

Well, most people don't spend the time, and I love the fact that you said matrix because this is like a spreadsheet per se, but it's really a mind map. And if you don't mind, I'll take that direction for a moment. Everybody needs to have, and depending on which school of thought or which theory you read, you need to have 3 kinds of networking groups that you participate in. One should be a, what I call offensively, the cattle call. This is the one where you have absolutely no control of who shows up in the room. The rainstorm is going to determine who comes in. The traffic is going to determine who comes in. And the price admission is going to determine who comes in.

Yeah, that's true.

But you need to be in a place where you can meet a lot of different people because even in that lot of different people process, there's a jewel. There's a diamond. There's a ruby or an emerald or a sapphire. And you need to to keep your skills up, you need to be able to go into that kind of room and come out with a result which you're very proud of. Which brings me to that part of be very proud of, because we're going to talk about that a little bit further. And then secondly, you need to have some kind of generalized group that you participate in, whether it's monthly or— I'm not going to say quarterly, but probably weekly, monthly, or maybe quarterly. Because I do some quarterly events which I would not give up for the world, but I do them specifically to be with certain people. And again, it determines on price, cost, and availability of your time. But the second group is people who maybe share some similar industry interests. And that, it doesn't have to be same industry like lawyers or accountants or pest control people or whatever, but people who are in that business environment. And then lastly, you need to have what I'm going to call loosely the mastermind group. This needs to be the 6 to 20 people. And the second group, by the way, is probably 20 to 50, and bigger groups 50 or more. Break them down, 50 and more, 20 to 50, and 20 and under. But 6 or 8 people need to get together biweekly or at worst monthly that share common goals and thoughts. These are people that sort of look like you, but they don't necessarily think like you. So in my example, the other Michael Moore would be a great guy to have in my mastermind. If I had that gift, I would bring the other Michael Moore to my mastermind and I'd visit with him once a month or once a week.

So you're looking for diverse mindsets, diverse approaches, diverse personalities that then can kind of mentor and coach and advise and work with you, collaborate with you on getting outside your norm.

In the last segment, we talked a little bit about culture, and I know you and I both feel very strongly about culture, but think of that smaller group as a culture pit. It's where your personality, your character, your abilities, your stories ferment. They get better. I mean, we all want to drink some wine out of this story at the end, right?

Right.

So you want to be with people who are going to be honest with you. And that person takes your business card and smiles as they walk away and drop the card in the other pocket, they're not going to give you any feedback. And that's the big room. The medium-sized room, you're going to have a couple of good relationships. And, you know, I'm not going to talk about strategy today, this is a whole class, but how do you go to a networking event? And what do you do when you come out of that network? Remember we talked about metrics? I use a 3x5 card and I report on every meeting I do.

I love this. I love this.

But I have 3x5 cards in my car, in my pocket, in my briefcase, over my bedside stand, in the bathroom. But I take them on and I write the good stuff on one side and the other stuff on the other side. And I kind of keep those. I put a date on them and I make, wow, I learned something new today. And at the end of the week when I sort those things out, and right now I shared with Bernadette on a call the other day, every 2 years on my odd number birthday, I start with a whole bunch of 3x5 cards. And I go through and write down everything I'm working on. Then I go back and rate it. And then the other side of the card, I go back to what I don't like about it. And I sort those things out. And I make that the plan for my next year because I just had another birthday, one of those odd-numbered birthdays, and I have 53, 54 cards right now that I'm still sorting through because at the end of July, which is my birthday month, I put a deadline on it. What gets tested, what gets measured, gets improved hopefully. I've been doing this for a lot of years. And that's allowed me to meet a lot of people because, you know, Bernadette, you do need to fire some people.

Yes, absolutely. You can't keep everybody in your Rolodex, so to speak, because they're not those valuable, you know, contacts.

Well, they take energy. They're like mosquitoes in some regard.

Absolutely.

They're going to take something away from you and give you absolutely nothing other than maybe a virus.

Well, there's a lot of people that actually go into networking events and they don't have a plan. They don't have a reason why they're there. They just, especially when they're starting out, they just think that they need to be everywhere. So let's kind of move into, because I want to make sure we hit on, what do you mean when you say net weaving?

Whoa, that's a whole other story. Remember, back to movies again, remember a guy named Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt?

Yes.

All right, you know what movie—

Love them both.

You know what movie they made together?

Don't know the name.

All right, I'll help you out there. It's called Pay It Forward. Sure. A young man, 8 years old, named Trevor. Not 8 years old, 8th grader named Trevor, 7th, 8th grade. Anyway, he was challenged to think of an idea that would improve the world and then implement it. And that was the theme of the movie. And the movie's title was called Pay It Forward. It opened up, as you remember, with a guy on a rainy night having a— meeting a young man, and one of them had an umbrella, and you can guess which one had the umbrella, the old man. But the kid had— his car was crashed. And he was out of transportation. The man with the umbrella in the nice Jaguar hands him the keys and says, "Give me your address, I'll send you the title tomorrow." Now, that's paying it forward because you had no idea where this movie was going. But the whole point is we must invest in other people. And networking, quote, by the traditional theory is taking something. Net-weaving, which is a title by a friend of mine, Bob O'Tell, who many of you may know out there in the radio audience, but He coined that phrase back in the late '90s because he was looking for a way to properly introduce people and how to host meetings between people. And again, back to that small group, he was down to 2-people groups. His mission in life is to find one person you know and another person you know that need to meet each other and host a meeting. Nice. Because when you host a meeting and you kind of serve as a little bit of a facilitator, all you have to do is just start the ball downhill. You already know both of these people and know there's a reason they should be together.

Right.

So you weave their lives together. You connect them together. The result of that is all you ask them for is to do the same thing again to some people they need to know.

Paying it forward.

Paying it forward. I host a meeting once a month. Now Trevor, in his model, he had it really going like a multi-level marketing program. He had, you had to do something for 3 people without any need, any desire to get any benefit out of it. And they would do for 3 people. 3 people and they do it to 3 people and you can imagine that would change the world.

Right, right, absolutely.

Think of Mother Teresa, how many people's lives she changed just being one little short lady in India where she never had a desire to be and never thought she would be.

Well, I have to say, on this subject, you and I are both affiliated with CEO Space, have been for a really long time. If you don't know CEO Space, just go and Google Bernie Dorman CEO Space or something, or Michael Lee Moore or Bernadette Boas. And what I loved and I took away from that, because at the time, remember, this was before I was shedding my bitch, so I was extremely selfish. When I went out and networked, it was all about me, and it was about me wanting to take and not give. And through that organization, they taught you, you know, those two questions: what are you working on and what do you need next? And it was all about the other person, and so it changed my whole approach to networking and relationship building and net weaving because it really was genuinely going into one of these events, into an environment with another person, 1 or 50, and saying, what do you need? Truly, what do you need? And what are you working on? And what do you need?

You remember the shoutouts, you know, when you sit there and walk up to someone and say, without the small talk, and this is one of those things that People go, "How much small talk?" You know, rapport. Everybody— I'm reading a book right now on the Rainmakers.

You're going to say—

Oh, well, we've got two coming. This is an old book.

You're not going to be able to see it if you're listening, but for those going to be seeing this on video, The Rainmakers Toolkit by Harry Mills.

Yeah, this is a great book. It's about 15 years old, but it goes through and categorically describes how you need to build your medicine cabinet, your medicine bag, your doctor's bag.

Your doctor's bag.

And the other one's called Rainmaking Conversations. And it is an amazing book also written by two people, Mike Schultz and John Doerr, and they also go in and categorize how you develop that part of taking the conversation through different levels. I want to go back and focus on what we just talked about though. In the CEO space world, we have these 30-second life cycles, you know. Yeah. What do you have? What do you have? And what do you need? In the real estate world, we do that because everybody that comes to a room to network either has a property they want to get rid of wants to get another property they can work on.

Ah, I see.

And so it's called haves and wants. And I'm very blessed to be able to run a lot of networking meetings or facilitate meetings. I like doing that a little bit. I think I could do it from the back of the room as well as the front because I love participating. But when you go, what do you have and what do you need? That's easy. So in our case, I'm working on and I need this to go to the next level. Now that's pretty selfish. I need this and I'm working on this. But if I ask you that question and we do it in a 1-minute or 2-minute time frame, we're equally giving. Right. You can very quickly tell what someone's culture is, what their intent is, what their desire is, because if they don't have a clue what they're working on, right, and they don't have a clue what they need, they don't really deserve your time.

Well, more importantly, more importantly, if they don't turn it to you, right, you know, and all of a sudden they do their little thing and they're slapping their mouth and, you know, gapping their gums, and then all of a sudden they turn around going, "Oh, I have to go and see this other person." They're looking over your shoulder. Yeah, they're looking over your shoulder the minute you want to start talking. Yeah, so there's a lot to learn from networking and net-weaving.

There's the etiquette, but also there's the "what gets measured gets improved." I mean, we've all heard that. You can't, you know, what if we didn't keep score in baseball games? Would there be any need for scoreboards?

Right, right.

Would there be a World Series? Yeah, maybe there won't be a World Series for us this year.

Well, and it's sad because I watch like even, you know, like parents with their young kids nowadays and for probably the last 10 or 12 years, and they all believe that you don't need to be keeping score and everybody is a winner.

No participation here.

And it's like, really? Like, I don't know. I, you know, I thrived on that.

Just tie your shoes up and look at them in the mirror and then sit back down. Don't go in the race.

Right, right, right, right, right. Okay, so I want to hit before we run out of time I want to hit on mindfulness. We kind of talked about it, you know, peppered it in there. It's perfect where we are. Yeah, exactly. You know, I'm good that way.

Yeah, you are good that way. You plan this out.

So mindfulness.

Mindfulness. Well, let's go, let's move back again to what you said. When you go in that room and you talk to people sincerely and you're in the present, you're not thinking about going home to get dinner, you're not thinking about the next drink, you're not thinking about the next person you're going I'm going to talk about. But that requires you to be prepared. You can't go in— because our minds think of roughly 50,000 thoughts a day.

A day or a minute?

Like, I don't know, it's your story.

Yes, my story is it's one every second.

Your mind might be faster than mine, but I purposely have to just turn the volume down.

Right.

As my kids used to say, "Throw a sheet on it, Dad. Cover that thing up. You know, you don't be— let's not be talking about that right now." That was our I have another phrase in my family, it's called move on. And we're not going to talk about this anymore for the next 15, 20 minutes. Move on. Because your subject, your thought will change about it. If you'll just back up and not think about something for a minute, when you come back to it, it's where you're more present. But presence is the key. Mindfulness requires, I hate to use the term meditation, but mindfulness requires focus.

Focus and concentration. Concentration is better than meditation because meditation, I'll be asleep.

It's execution too. It is. And that really goes back to our networking, you know, 100-people group, 50- to 100-person group, 50- to 20-people group, 20-to-less group. If you can get down to 6 or 8 trusted peers, friends, what do you call it, character builders.

Right.

Sometimes you might need somebody, and even in that networking group, to say, hey, it's not a shame to go over and say, hey, I was watching you tonight in a room. Are you okay? Yeah. I mean, that's a blessing to have someone care.

Absolutely.

And that's what mindfulness is, to outwardly you portray focus, sincerity, and I guess I'll use the term results.

And presence.

People know it. Yep.

People know it. And more importantly, I think it's also, for instance, I'm going to use the event that the two of us are going to on Thursday. You're actually leading it up. I don't know anyone there. So there's those situations people say to me, well, Bernadette, I go to these networking events and these social events and I don't know anyone. Quite honestly, you still can prepare. You can prepare around kind of what is it that you want to accomplish during that. Maybe it is just to meet somebody and say hi, or maybe it is to find a particular type of person, maybe a role of a person, maybe it is to find a potential client or potential prospect opportunity, whatever it might be. But even if you don't know people in the room, for instance, Michael turned to me and said, give me an idea of what it would be that you're looking for and what your goal would be for that event and let me, since you don't know anybody in the room, I'll kind of think through, you know, who I might know. So, don't use the excuse or the reason that you might not know what that environment is going to be like or even who's going to be there. That preparation, that mindfulness is going to come into play because you've planned, you have a goal, and you're going to be present throughout that. Throughout that time that you're there because guess what? You're spending your time and your money and your contribution to that event. You want to be there for a purpose.

May I drill down on that just a minute?

Yeah, absolutely.

What you just said, what I offered to you and what I'm going to deliver really is the essence of this group. And for those out there in the radio world, this is called the Metro Atlanta Business Association. And I was graciously invited by some other friends because we all had the same idea over the years to form formed this group just 3 months ago. This is our 3rd meeting. And this is what today would be like a cattle call meeting to some people because we're inviting 100 people to come to lunch in the same place at the same time and most of them will not know each other. Even when I stood up in the room with the first 120 people, I couldn't name more than 30 of them individually and I know a lot of people.

And you, yes he does.

And now we're at the 3rd meeting and we'll have about 100 people at this one and then the next one the next month we'll have 100 people people, but we're actually soliciting deeper relationships. And for Bernadette's benefit, she's going to be at this event on Thursday. There are at least 3 people in the room that I'll make sure she meets. But you've got to have a shepherd. You've got to be able to weave. You've got to be able to connect. And my goal is a year from now that those 100 people that come to lunch out of our 400 or 500 that are part of our group, they won't come every month, but when they come, they'll be prepared. Right. Because when I walk in the room and see people and overhear those introductory conversations, I want it to be 3 people standing together making a connection. I don't want it to be one person walking up with a business card and say, "Here, my name is. I need to find a pest control company. I need to find a doctor. I need to find a business consulting opportunity, or I need to find money." You know the entrepreneurial story. Would you loan money to someone you didn't understand their story? Would you do business with someone you didn't understand their story? Would you want to spend much time with anybody who didn't know their own story?

When they say that you want to do business and go into business with people you know, like, and trust, that know is not over a handshake and you pushing a business card in their hands. It's about you actually getting to know them and them getting to know you. All right, last thoughts? Because I—

wow, we've covered some ground. We've even walked back in some old times. It's the CEO space, the being in Atlanta, the looking at the Buckhead community, doing radio shows together, which are a lot of fun.— the reading books and improving other people's lives as well as our own. I want to give a real shout out to LinkedIn. I just shared with you as we started the show, this morning I dropped out about 78 or 80 invitations to folks that I had not connected with but I tried to connect with before. And by the time about an hour and a half went back, I'd gotten 24, 25 responses back. So, something out there in the world with LinkedIn is working. More people are wanting to reach out during this time of year. We're in the third quarter now already. Right. The other thing, I really, if I were Julius Caesar, Julius Caesar is our seventh month of the year, named after Julius, right? I wish Julius had been named the sixth month of the year because I think we should be preparing before we start the third quarter.

Absolutely. I do my planning the first week of June for actually July. Alright, well fabulous. I want to thank you so much for your time.

It was a pleasure.

And for your contribution. Remember, Michael E. Moore, you can find him on LinkedIn. Please link in with him and let him know that you heard his rainmaking and storytelling on Shedding the Bitch Radio. At the same time, if you are in Atlanta, where could they go and find information regarding Metro Atlanta Business Association?

You can find info on the Metro Atlanta Business Association on the web. Just Google Metro Atlanta Business Association. We've got a website coming up after this meeting. Tomorrow, incidentally, but on the 18th of July we will be meeting at the City Club of Buckhead for lunch. And of course, if you link into me, I will be happy to send you a personal invitation.

Nice.

Because we're limited to the first 100 participants.

Nice, nice. And at the same time, you do host a radio show yourself, Pro Business Radio.

I do host a show for the Buckhead Business Association every week on Thursday mornings. We typically have 3 members as guests. We have little 10-minute segments which are fun. And then I also host the Georgia Business Radio once a— typically once every other week. We feature people from around Atlanta and around the state who are really making a contribution to business improvement.

But at the same time, just because they're out of Atlanta, just like Michael and I have an international audience, listen in because it's the subjects and it's what it is that they want to talk about and what it is that they're educating on as much as what it is that they're doing within their own business. So, I want to thank you very much for being part of the program, and for everyone out there in the Shedding the Bitch community, thank you so much for your ongoing support and involvement and contribution to the community, to our radio show, and I will look forward to having you right back here next Tuesday at noon Eastern time for another episode of Shedding the Bitch Radio. Thanks everybody!