26 Jul Relationships make the world go round

The world can sometimes seem like a daunting place, filled with evil mal-intended people at every turn, who wait like hungry alligators below for you to stumble with mistakes so that they can take advantage. What a pessimistic point of view, eh? Luckily for all of us, there is more goodness in the world to keep the positive balance in force.

Navigating an uncertain world, however can be tricky. Having a network of friends, acquaintances, and bonded connections can be incredibly fulfilling and rewarding as well as a tremendous resource for decision making, partner/team referrals, a support system, and more. Connections made long ago can emerge out of the woodwork when least expected. Serendipitous meet and greets in random circumstances can form the basis of meaningful relationships. All of these intersections come to play to shape our experiences.

BFF ∞ Best friends forever and ever. Friendships run deep for me. I’m not talking about the flighty Facebook friends of this decade (I love them too though). I’m talking about friends who, before the Internet days, would chat on the phone for hundreds of hours talking about life, dreams, troubles, and secrets. We would problem solve, encourage one another, and somehow make life easier and loads more fun for each other. That’s what friends are for! Trust is a given with people I’ve grown up with – we went through awkward times and dramas, and survived.

I’m one of those people who is endlessly curious about what happened to old friends after we had lost touch. Finding ghosts of the past has become infinitely easier with Facebook. I recently re-connected with one of my closest elementary school friends, a BFF from 4^th-5^th grade. Stephanie and I were the newbies in a school in a Colorado suburb. We immediately gravitated toward each other and had sleepovers on a weekly basis, relentlessly playing all kinds of imaginative games and scenarios. We went our separate ways in middle school because she was a year ahead of me, and I eventually moved to California. Before the Internet, I looked her up by calling her dad’s company to find out where he was based. I literally went to the local library to find a telephone book for that metro area (Bay Area) and found their address! Coincidentally, we pledged the same sorority in college. We talked and caught up and then lost touch again amidst our busy careers. When Facebook came around, I got a ping from her. “Hey Tanya, Is this you?” Now, we both live in Southern California and recently met up at her home to discuss Built By She. She gave us amazing advice and necessary validations. The mother of all coincidences is that she too had been recently working for a women’s entrepreneur organization, SmartyWomen, a brand that was one of my favorite models. What are the chances? It’s eerie how life comes full circle sometimes.

Friendship is powerful. The power of networking is equally remarkable. My first job at age 15 at a dentist office was secured via a family friend. The best multi-year internship I had at the City of Del Mar was landed through one of my closest college friends (who I just connected with a week ago after six years). About half of my post college jobs were from referrals. Some of my close friends have been extremely helpful when I have asked for an introduction to X company that could be a partner candidate for our incubee companies, or they have come to guest speak to our agency, or they’ve helped us navigate their organization to explore a potential alliance. Part of the grad school allure was a built in alumni network and trust me, I have leveraged the community on occasion. For example, once I sent requests to my alumni groups asking for referrals to Chinese manufacturing brokers. Within hours my inbox is filled with qualified referrals. Sometimes this all seems like a competitive advantage. The truth is that it certainly is. Getting connected to the right partner, supplier, or team member can be the one thing that makes or breaks your startup. But you will get what you put into your relationships, whether lifelong friendships or a professional organization community.

As Lisa Fetterman, Founder and CEO of Nomiku said in her recent Built By She interview, it’s quality over quantity. The advice is to aim to really get to know a handful of people at these functions so that there is depth, meaning, and more than a superficial connection. I remember working for a technology consulting firm in the late 1990s, and the directive was for us to collect as many business cards as possible between the conference breaks. I would prey on the solo business people, who looked like they would welcome an introduction as they pretended to look busy and non-lonely.  The cards would get funneled into the company database, with the people never to be heard from again. Quality over quantity.

Similarly, I’ve always remembered Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos who talks about this in his book Delivering Happiness:

I personally really dislike “business networking” events. At almost every one of these events, it seems like the goal is to walk around and find people to trade business cards with, with the hope of meeting someone who can help you out in business and in exchange you can help that person out somehow. I generally try to avoid those types of events, and I rarely carry any business cards around with me.

Instead, I really prefer to focus on just building relationships and getting to know people as just people, regardless of their position in the business world or even if they’re not from the business world.

If you are able to figure out how to be truly interested in someone you meet, with the goal of building up a friendship instead of trying to get something out of that person, the funny thing is that almost always, something happens later down the line that ends up benefiting either your business or yourself personally.

The more diverse your set of friendships are, the more likely you’ll derive both personal and business benefits from your friendships later down the road. You won’t know exactly what those benefits will be, but if your friendships are genuine, those benefits will magically appear 2-3 years later down the road.

One example I have of this is my colleague , Jon, from the digital agency from long ago. We became close weathering the post 9-11 environment and traveling to our Nestle client frequently together. During a period in there, he had a scary health issue. I remember feeling so bad for him, so I brought him homemade soup, with fixings and a cooler to take it home. He seemed so surprised and touched. After that point, for some reason, I felt that we were like family. And years later, he would bring me along to this organization where I’ve been thirteen years lucky enough to enjoy a culture of creative entrepreneurship.

Nowadays there are LinkedIn and infinite social networking platforms. Desired connections that you may be desperately trying to meet are merely often a second and third degree of separation. There are ex employees, former and current colleagues, past bosses, the parents of our kids’ friends, airline seatmates, business partners, or random event co-attendees. So many circles of our life encompass relationships, which can make our lives richer. It takes investment of our time and gifts as well as nurturing to maintain these connections. Take time to learn and authentically listen to what others are up to. Share your pain points. Often people are ready and willing to broker valuable connections. Remember reciprocity. Yet give freely, without expecting anything in return, and the power of your relationships is guaranteed to payoff in the long run.