030 Don't Work The Room - Do This Instead

This is Dr. Torrey. Welcome to the Influence Every Day show, where we make every day better, and we influence for good. A colleague came up to me, and he said to me, hey, Ed, I need your help. I want to get better at networking. I've read all the stuff out there about networking, but I've seen you, and you seem to do something very different. I want to know, how do you work a room? I was like, work a room? I don't work a room. He goes, no, no, no, no. I've seen you. I've watched you, in fact, because I was going to ask you this question. I watched you specifically at the last major leadership meeting we had at the reception afterwards, and I saw the same pattern. You were talking to somebody I didn't know. Slowly, two or three or four people would gather around, it would be a lively conversation, and you would leave the conversation and go talk to someone else I didn't know. And then two, three, four people gather around, conversation gets lively, and you step away again, and you go talk to someone else. I don't know. He's like, I noticed that you seem to know everybody in the room, and not only that, you went around the room. It seemed very deliberate. So I want to know, how are you working the room? Don't tell me you're not working it. How are you working the room at a networking event? And, dude, I swear to you, I'm not working the room. He goes, then what are you doing? When Ed Tory walks into a networking event? What is going through his head? I said, okay, that's a fair question. I mean, I guess when I walk in and do what we normally do, our eyes gravitate towards the faces that we. We know, people we recognize. That's normal. I said, but then I look around the room for who's uncomfortable, and then I just go, make them comfortable. That's it. It's really interesting you saw the pattern, because as soon as there's three or four people and it's engaged in full conversation, and I see that they're comfortable, that's when I step away and I find someone else who's uncomfortable, and I make them comfortable. I view it as it's part my job and it's part game to me. I've essentially gamified my practice of serving people. So I don't view it as work at all. I'm not networking. I'm serving. And that's how I view it. And he's like, look, okay, you're saying serving, but how is that any different? Than the usual networking advice in the business world and things like that where they say provide value. And I said the difference is the intent. See, in the business world, when they're talking about networking events, they're almost always talking about trying to network with people who can benefit you. Who can benefit me. Let me go provide something of value. And I'll keep providing value until they recognize me, until they come back and somehow the connection occurs. No, the difference is intent. My intent is to serve. It is not to serve somebody who can benefit me. It's to benefit people. That's it. And I know this to be a law. You put good out in the world and good will come back. It feels good to do it. Now as I reflect on my own journey in learning this sort of net serving, if you will. As I learned it, one of the things that became really clear to me is what I hate or what I don't like. Have you ever been in a conversation in a networking environment where somebody's like constantly looking past your shoulder, looking for other people in the room? You're talking and they're actively looking around at other people or someone else is talking? Like, it really irks me when I see somebody looking for who can benefit them and they're looking around the room while someone else is actively engaging with them. That like, I feel like I need a shower. And also I just, personally, I get like triggered by people who will step on others to get ahead. I just don't. They're not my people, they're not my tribe. That's it. And so because I'm standing in these conversations and I'm seeing people not feel good when somebody's looking over the shoulder, looking for how they can work the room, When I see that I don't want people to feel that way when they're with me. That's it. So I realized if I don't. If I don't like how it feels, I don't want anyone else to feel that way. It's that simple. So I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. And so that's one reason. The other thing is, over time, the more I learned from these different influence domains, I've learned that wherever you are, wherever there's another human, it's an opportunity to practice. It's an opportunity to get better at establishing rapport. It's an opportunity to get better at reframing. It's an opportunity to get better at helping other people get better. I just. So I've gamified it. Whenever I'm in an interaction, I ask myself, how can I make it better? Even mundane situations, you're in line at the grocery store, somebody's ticked off because the line is too long or something's taking too long, or somebody has checks and coupons and all these other things. I use that as an opportunity to try to, like, make that guy's day. Yeah, he's ticked off right now, but maybe I can get him to a slightly better place. And I practice. I try different strategies, I try different things just to make it better. Practice establishing rapport. I do it in line at the grocery store, in line in security, with tsa, at the dinner table, when I'm out with friends, wherever I am, Just try to establish rapport and get better at it. In every single discipline that I've studied from, in the influence world, every single one talks about how to practice in the day to day. If it's part of your day to day and you're practicing, it becomes a habit. And the more it becomes a habit, it becomes part of your character, it becomes part of your being. And I would rather have service as part of my being rather than how can I get something as part of my being? I just. I don't want to be that person. So I've viewed it as, this is an opportunity practice. Now, there's a third thing that I would say that I've learned from the world of conversational hypnotherapy, which to me is ultra game changer. It's like next level influence. It's if there are real world Jedi, it's the conversational hypnotist. There's a concept there called giving hypnotic gifts. Every conversation is an opportunity to. To give a hypnotic gift. It might be a frame, it might be a seed that's planted an idea, a question, but something that is, like, literally transformative. Not in the overused sense of transforming and all this stuff. No, I mean literally transformative. Their relationship can pivot, their life can pivot, their career can pivot. On a simple conversation in a single moment, all of that stuff can pivot. That's called a hypnotic gift. And it's even better if you can give it in such a way that they discover it, that it becomes their idea. And so the idea of giving hypnotic gifts became intoxicating to me. So I view networking events not as working at all, but as an opportunity to give hypnotic gifts, as an opportunity to serve. And by. By doing so, I actually end up eventually knowing everyone in the room, because what Happens if you give someone a gift or if you're somehow you serve them in some way. They talk about it. They'd be like, man, I was so uncomfortable. I was standing on the side holding my, holding the glass with two fists, my white knuckles, just standing on the side contemplating my exit. And this guy came over to me and we started talking and we just hit it off. And while we were talking, I just had this interaction of this epiphany, this idea. And I'm so glad I went to that event, right? What happens is they talk about you now. I'm not doing it so that they talk about me. I'm doing it so that I give them something that is worthy of being talked about. I give them something that is worth sharing. Oh my God. I was going to leave and everything changed. That's what I want to do for people when I so called network. I just don't view it as work, I view it as service. And service is probably like one of my key ideals, one of my key words, my key frames. That's why I've established this podcast. That's why I've established the Influence Playbook, for example, the membership where I go over like key things that occur every single day and how you can level up, how you can Jedi eyes them, right? How you can make it so that it's like next level relationship stuff. And so I just happen to find that intoxicating. That's why I do it. So the next networking event you go to, go in with the mindset of service and you'll have a completely different result, I promise you. So go ahead, ask yourself, who will I serve? I'll see you in the next episode. This is only the end of today's show if you let it be. Who needs to hear what you just heard? Go ahead and share it with them. Right now, the Influence Every Day podcast is free. We don't sell advertising space, so telling others is the best way to pay us back. But more importantly, it's the best way to pay it forward. If you enjoyed today's podcast, take a moment to rate and review the show. Then check out the additional links and materials that go along with it. They offer more ways to take your influence, your impact and your relationships to a whole new level. Now go forth and influence for good every day.