Monday Motivation: Your Network Starts With YOU!

Good morning. Good morning, Cadre. It's Luke here. Happy Monday to you and yours. You guys hear that pentatonix in the background? A story about that. Good morning. Good morning to you and yours. Just gonna share. Oh, yeah, that's laundry that didn't get done over the weekend. It is what it is. Can't do everything. Here's a little display of the Wendland spot here. Hope everybody's having a wonderful weekend and you're starting off to your week. Here we go. It's going to be another good week. I wanted to share a story today about networking that I think you might find a little interesting.

And it started with a question from my wife and it's. I wanted to start with this pentonic song called Hallelujah, Hallelujah. Just because it's an interesting story behind it all. Alexa, stop. So good morning everybody. Happy Monday to you and yours. Hopefully you all had a great weekend. We're back in the saddle. We're live a cast with a group of people. I bring this to you with this mindset of your network. You know, some people say like your network is your net worth and all these other things, but a lot of people don't even know where to start.

So like, how do you even start to build a network? How do you start to, you know, have these conversations? How do you start to expand the people that are in your sphere? So I just wanted to say, right out the gates, I would say like 10 years ago, 10, 15 years ago, I didn't really know how to do this, and I didn't really know how to do this well. But I, I knew what was most important was relationships, long standing relationships like in your life that you can have and you can have people quote unquote, back you, right?

So it's like you wanted to like develop and establish these relationships where people, you know, believed in you, trusted in you, so you could establish some level of credence with them. Then when you had that, then you could do other things down the road. But let's just talk about that first step. So that first step is, you know, working with individuals. So you're, you're here and you're working for somebody else. You're here and you're working for somebody else and you're trying to network and network with them.

So what I would do is I would go above and beyond. I would go to the events, I would ask if I could do anything to help. I would do anything. And I had zero expectation for anything in return. Right. So I Would always put myself out there, ask these questions like, how can I help? What can I do? How can I support? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So like what I found was when I would start in that cycle, I would have many opportunities to get involved or like I said, put myself out there, get to meet other individuals.

Right. And then fast forward, you know, call it 12, 15 years now. Right? So like what's, what's the networking juice that I think is most important today, right. For myself and, or anybody listening today. It is, it is really easy and really difficult to stick out today. Let me say that again. It is really easy and really difficult. So what do I mean? Anybody can contact anybody at any given time through social platforms, through acts, Instagram, Tick tock, you name it, right? So anybody, like there's, you know, there's this information overload where everybody's sending all these things.

So how do you like, truly like separate yourself? So I'll give you an example. One individual that I know, you know, emailed the person that they were trying to network with and said, if you're ever in this area, just let me know and I'll pick you up from the airport so you don't have to worry about a ride or anything. Right, Cool. Checkbox. I've done that as well. Right, Tried that route. Those are some, you know, easy ways you can like yet again separate yourself. Or when you're sending that direct message, when you're sending that private message message, like personalize it.

I, I cannot even begin to tell you how many messages I get on, you know, either LinkedIn, text messaging, whatever. And it's like, oh my gosh, AI generated a bunch of garbage and they're just like asking for things and it's like to the flip side of the coin, like you shouldn't be asking for anything. You should be. The only thing you should be asking for is like, how can I provide? Which don't even ask it, like tell it like say, hey, I just want to let you know, like if I'm a, if I'm an 18, 20 year old kid today and I'm emailing somebody like myself, I would say, hey, I'm looking for an internship this summer.

I would love to be able to learn from the team. I've learned about what the programming side is or I've learned about abcd, you know, I'd like to, you know, reach out to see if I could work with the team. I'd love to work on something from a, a non paid internship to be able to learn Grow and develop and, and, and figure it out from the team. Like, it's just, it's mindboggling to me. Like how when you network, it is literally a turnaround of like a week where individuals like automatically like, where it's like, no, you network and right away it's like, hey, but would you be willing to buy this from me?

It's like, ah, don't know, don't, don't do that. And it's these, these, these things that people do and go forward with that they have the ability to separate themselves. And if, if 1% better doesn't mind, you know, I'm gonna share the story. You know, we've been now with Craig and myself have been involved one way or another over the last probably six months. I would say we got to know each other, you know, what he's doing and, you know, and what he's building and all of it, right? And he just called and asked a few questions and asked for a little bit of help and guidance on a couple things.

And I'm like, I got you and I didn't want anything in return. I didn't want, want anything at all, like, except for I care about him and I care about his business and I want to see him be successful. So, you know, you shared those opportunities, you shared your network, you shared the individuals that you know could make a difference for him. Like, oh, here, reach out to this person, talk to this person. Are you, you know, make sure to do this in the event of doing abcd, right? Like, you try to help those individuals because you care about them.

And then like, the best part in the world is when that person does well, that they like, they, they, they get it off, they get the business off and running, they figure it out. And then all of a sudden, like, there's these moments that they can help other people and help other, you know, see around corners. I mean, like, to me, like, networking is about how much value you can provide somebody else. And I have given away probably hundreds of thousands of dollars in coaching, consulting, whatever you want to say it is.

And it's always come back to me tenfold. Like, it's always come back to me tenfold of like, these are the things that I'm doing to help and support. These are the things I'm doing because I care about them, they care about me. We're going to propel people's brands, businesses, whatever that might be, and we're here to do it for each other. Where I think networking, you lose the, the don'ts like so the don'ts are this. Number one, reaching out to somebody with an expectation. Like number one, bar none, do not reach out to somebody to network with somebody for an expectation.

Number two, like don't reach out to somebody thinking you're the number one priority, right? With your time and you know, fitting around your schedule and all this. Like no, like you have to do whatever you can do possible to fit in their little windows to ensure that it's possible to be able to network with them. It's, it's, it's your ask, not theirs. And then the last but not least is of my don'ts is like don't immediately follow up within minutes to hours in your networking event asking for something.

So, right, so those three things, what are my to do's? Right, here's my to do's in networking. Number one, have zero expectations and provide a ton of value. Zero expectations, a ton of value. How can you help? Okay, number one, Number two, the very first thing you wanted to do is any time that you have the opportunity to network with somebody, learn from somebody, develop from somebody, get anything from anybody, the great separator is write a thank you note, write text, email, anything, write a thank you note to anybody who's given you any time.

Like I always very first thing is handwritten note, email, text correspondence, just saying thank you so much for this time. Thank you for this opportunity. Gratitude is the ultimate game changer. And networking, let me rephrase that. Gratitude is the ultimate game changer. Networking. Last but not least in networking. I cannot even begin to tell you how many networking events I've been to, been a part of whatever you want. And individuals are selling something. So bear with me, this is not what not to do, it's what to do.

So individuals are selling something, like they're trying to sell something to you. And it comes across like pitchy, right? So it comes across pitchy. If you're coming to an event, just be you provide the value and let other people find what it is you're doing, right? Like bring the energy, bring the positivity, bring those things. But don't like, don't sit at a networking event and say, you know, I am this and I am that and, and our cost is this and this is what we can do for you and blah blah, blah, blah blah.

Just say, hi, my name is Luke. I'm so excited to be around here with some amazing people. I can't wait to hear about what you all do. This is really exciting for me. Thank you for being here with me today. Very grateful to share the morning breakfast. Done. That's it, right? Like, I mean, I've been again to networking events where they go around the table and everybody is getting to the point of, like, this infomercial pitch. And it's just. It's. It's. It's tiring, it's tired, it's boring. You go around the room and it's like, oh, my God.

Same thing. I'd rather seen hear somebody say, hey, my name is Luke. I went to a basketball tournament all weekend. My daughter's team got second. It was an awesome event, a good time, met a lot of good family and friends. Cool. Let's go. Right? Like, that would be somebody I would much rather soon listen to and walk over to and say, hey, my daughter plays basketball too. Right? But, like, it's just like, people go in with business, business, business, and then they forget about the human. And the human really is everything.

And you look at, like, the. The network of the individuals that are surrounding me. I would say 90% of the time, we usually don'. Work. 80% of the time, we usually don't talk work. 20, 20% we do. No doubt about it when we move mountains together. But 80%'s life. Like, what do you got going on in life? What do you love to do? Why do you love to do it? What are your kids up to? What's your wife doing? What's your husband doing? What's your partner doing? And just really getting to know those individuals.

And, you know, last but not least, I just want to share this, and it works in networking.