Networking as navigation

There's one thing that exists now that's never existed before when people have gone through a moment of big change at work, and that's LinkedIn and the LinkedIn community. I mean, we're the world's largest professional network ever assembled, and it exists around you. So you should be constantly following new people on LinkedIn, people who have expertise that's specific to your career, your job type, your sector. And Andrew Seaman and Katherine Fisher are two of the best ones. What does networking mean to you? Yeah, so I think, think of networking as your navigation system. It's going to help guide you through your career. And one way that I look at it is really kind of three different buckets. So you have your mentors, sometimes just for a short period of time. And that's really taking someone who has deep expertise in something that you just don't have and can help guide you through really tricky things. You also have your peer set network. So think about these are people you work with. Maybe it's been someone that you worked with a few years ago that can help you kind of in that day-to-day questions that you may have about your job. And then the third one, which is really important, are the sponsors. And those are people within your company who are gonna take outsized interest in you and your career, help open doors, help lead the path for your career. So it is a holistic way of looking at the network, but it's super important. I really like that. And the way I sort of think about it is like a net, high wire act, always a net beneath them. And each of those people are a little knot and that's what creates that net. So you wanna make sure that you have a really good network that will catch you if you need that support. I would build in really quick ways to stay in touch. So whether it's a quick text, say once a month, I'm gonna meet someone for coffee, build that list of people that you feel like, okay, I need to invest a little bit more in these relationships and have just a goal for yourself. You really wanna make sure that when you're receiving all this goodness from someone that you're also giving back, always end the conversation with, is there someone I can introduce you with? Is there a problem that you're trying to solve? How can I help you? That way it's reciprocal. Yeah, and when it comes down to it, I know a lot of people, they think networking is a numbers game. Should people view networking as a numbers game or how should they reframe it in their mind? Yeah, it is not a numbers game because you want to build your network intentionally. And you can follow as many people as you want. You can ask people to follow you, but your connections, those are the people you know and trust. You should always be pruning your network so that also the content that gets shared with you is more intentional as well. If your content resonates with people, they like it, they share it, it'll find other people who will be brought to you, right? Yes, and you should be sharing because it's one way actually to build your network, right? So, and maybe they start to follow you, but they have a conversation with you because they really liked your content. So, biggest thing, start following people you don't know, connect with people you know and trust. You're always worse off alone in moments like this. So if you're just kind of trying to figure this all out on your own, don't, stop. There are people around you, family, friends, peers, folks maybe you haven't been in touch with in a while, but you notice on LinkedIn, and they ended up in a similar career as yours, just reach out to folks and start to lean on each other. Share notes about stuff that you're learning as you use these tools. Go get notes about where jobs are opening up and what do those jobs look like and is there skills transferability from you from this job to that job? Humans have only ever progressed with each other. So we're always gonna do our best work together, but also we're always gonna be able to take that first step into something we're afraid of better together too.