I missed this post so I will call myself out on it. This is something I wrote back in December 2018.

Networking, as I’ve gotten to know, is an extremely exciting thing.

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On numerous occasions, I’ve been told the following - “I am so terrible at networking… like so, so, so, bad at it.”

This blows my mind for two reasons, one, networking seems to be made up of a really, terribly hard combination of skills and talents, when really - its just talking to humans. Two, because you kinda already do it every single day, you just don’t actively think of it that way.

Its a word thats quite thrown around, saying that I’m “networking.” I sometimes wonder what that word would actually have been before the internet was born - I’m assuming that the idea and the word we use to describe staying in touch with people was born out of how the internet allows us to create intricate and complex networks within which we communicate.

Most of the time, I think we’re networking without even knowing, or without even understanding the value in which this person that you’re talking to can bring into your life. This gets a lot easier when you understand that every single person you encounter, and talk to, is actually incredibly unique when you can sort of break down to the granular level, how different their life is compared to yours - where they were born and raised, the things they’ve gotten to see, feel, hear, taste all along the way up until the point in which you two are currently talking face to face, and how different your lives will be immediately after you two walk away from each other.

With that being said, I do understand that it is hard to be social AND business-like at the same time. Its a weird balance to strike most of the time, because you’d like to keep a conversation from sounding TOO business unless its a legitimate business meeting. But I’m starting to find out, while Tolga and I start our company, that a lot of the times its just meeting up with friends and their contacts that you may not have seen in a little minute.

My little advice - if I’m in any position to be able to offer it - is that you should really think of networking as a beautiful garden. Its an infinite garden with beautiful plants from all around the world, and they grow, symbiotically through you. However, it is up to you, as the gardener, to keep these plants and flowers growing the way they should. Otherwise, they will dwindle, and eventually, die. Don’t let that happen if the flower means something to you. Even if it doesn’t mean something significant, its probably good to keep something alive, alive. I think thats sort of a duty as humans in society. No matter how small or large that plant may be, if it needs help, you should help it. Its your job as the gardener.

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