Welcome back friends to the Dave Crenshaw Success Project. This is the show where I have discussions with my children, and to help them be more successful we talk about principles of success. We also explore how to be successful through the life stories of others. But occasionally we do a special episode like this, where I sit down with all my kids and we have a discussion about a
principle of success. So here we are in my office, we have Stratton say hello Stratton, who we have Ella who's 14 Say hello, Ella. Hello, we have Darci, who is 10. Say hello, Darci. Hello. All right. So we were talking about what we might discuss today. And there's a principle that keeps coming up over and over in my discussions with my guests. On top of that, Stratton, and I recently had an opportunity where we were out in California and we got to a little bit put this principle
into practice. So the principle is networking. Networking is a huge part of your success. And when I brought up the word networking, what did you say Ella? Wow. Like, what is that? Right? Yeah, same thing for you Darci. All right. So I'm going to put Stratton on the spot because you kind of know it. In your words. What does networking mean?
Making connections with new people? Yeah, I
would say that that's part of networking, making the connection. It's also maintaining the connection, so that you continue to have contact every once in a while with that person. And it's a genuine relationship, a professional relationship, so that sometime down the road, you might help each other with things. So let's just sort of
discuss a little bit. So the opportunity that we had Stratton with that, can you talk a little bit about that we did hustled 2.0, we went to prison, we had great experience, helping the men at Salinas Valley prison. And then we also had the opportunity to network. So what did that look like? So
the two kinds of networking I noticed there first one was with the prisoners, I think they were practicing that as part of the program. But they'd come up to us and shake our hands and talk to us and show us kind of what they were hoping or planning their trade to be.
Yeah, like the one gentleman who was showing us the amazing ballpoint pen art, right, where he'd spent hundreds of hours making your picture of Kobe Bryant, right. Yeah.
And then the second kind was after wasn't called a networking dinner. Yeah, I think they called it that, where we sat down out at the pier in Monterey, yeah. Where we sat down with all of the other coaches that went to the prison with us. And we just kind of had a dinner and connected and networked.
Yeah, so I'll kind of use that as an example and talk to Ellen Darcy. So networking is something that can happen whenever a group of people gather, for anything could be a party, it could be like, in our case with hustle 2.0, a specific networking dinner, I don't think that's ever going to happen for you until you're maybe late in high school or after high school. But it's any opportunity that you have to connect with other
people. And when you do that, you get to know some really amazing people like one person that I'm going to be interviewing. Not too long from now is Mike Blumenfeld, and you talk to him as we did. 90 years old, brilliant guy, helps people with entrepreneurship. And without having gone to that dinner, I never would have had the opportunity to get to know
Him. There are other people that I've met in, for instance, networking opportunities with LinkedIn learning instructors, and getting together with that. So as I say that, let's talk about what's the point of networking? What's the point of building those relationships? From a friendship standpoint, that's pretty obvious. Right? Darcy? Like, it's good to make friends. Yeah. And it's fun to get to know people and spend time with them. And then you make new friends and you do
things. Right. Have you in the last year or so made a new friend? Yes. Okay. And how did you make that friend? Where did it happen?
This person was in my class. Okay. Yeah.
So you didn't think of it this way. But that's a form of networking, especially when you get older and you get into college, or even in high school. I just interviewed someone named Jason wood, who's a brilliant scientist. He went to Harvard. I met him in high school, and we did some music together in high school. And that connection, came back years later, 30 years later, and resulted in us having a really cool conversation and him being on my show. When I got to know
him in high school. There was no way that I thought this is going to end up being a podcast episode. Right? And you don't want to have that mindset when you meet people like right it somewhere down the road, I'm scratching my chin someday down the road, this is going to turn into something good for me, right? That's not how you want to network, do you want to genuinely make friends. But as our friend Dean Carroll said, You met him in New York and Stratton got to spend some extra
time with him as well. Every connection that you make, every person that you meet is important. And you never want to burn a bridge, you know what that term means? Ela.
Just kind of cutting someone off, purposely neglecting them, like lying, doing something to harm that person, or being harmed yourself.
Right. And sometimes when people have a relationship, professional or otherwise with someone, and someone's feelings get hurt, and something goes bad, they burn it down. Right? So yeah, that happens. Sometimes when people have a relationship professional, otherwise, someone's feelings get hurt, something goes wrong. And then the person just burns it to the ground, they say I you know, I never want to see you again, or they hurt them, or they do something to show them that they
didn't do a good job. And what happens is, it creates a situation where you can never go back to that person or it's really hard, I should say, to go back to that person and apologize. And typically, if you do that to someone, they're not going to want to associate with you in the future. So instead, you always want to build a bridge, and you want to keep that bridge strong. Now it's natural over time to lose contact with people. That's
okay. Again, like in the case of Jason wood, he moved to the other side of the country. And we didn't have any kind of conversation for a long time. And then it just happened again. And I've seen that happen a lot of times where I'll build a relationship with someone, at some point, years go by, and it comes back and someone goes, Hey, Dave, I've got a speaking lead for you. I'm like, Oh, okay. I thank you for that. And because we kept that relationship positive, it still
turned into something good. But when you're in a situation where you're meeting people and getting to know them, what do you think is the best mindset to have? I mentioned, you shouldn't go in thinking, I'm going to get something out of this. Right. So that obviously isn't the way to do it. So what should you do when you're meeting new people?
You should go in looking for ways to help them. God help yourself?
Yeah, I think we've talked about this before about being generous, right? So you have a generous mindset. When you meet people, and you're thinking, What can I do to serve this person? That's always a good thing. Right? Even if nothing comes out of it, which most of the time, let's be honest, nothing is going to, except for the fact that you made that person's day you help them be happy, you help them be more successful. And you feel good, because you did something
good. Can anybody think about a time recently where you met someone knew, and you did something nice for this person that you had just met,
I guess, preseason of our swim team, that was a new girl who came in like middle of preseason. And she just kind of came over. Like our coach just kind of pushed her over. And so I just like, tried to jump in and just start talking to her and start being her friend, so that she wouldn't feel so awkward staring at us while we did all this stuff. That's a
great example. And I think it's also helpful to keep in mind that when you're in a situation where everybody's gathered together, most people I'm not gonna say all but most people feel a little uncomfortable. They feel a little awkward. Most of the time when you go into a networking situation, most of the people not all of them, but they feel uncomfortable and awkward. Right? They feel alone, just like you feel alone when you go into that situation. So if you can focus on how can I help
other people? How can I make them feel comfortable? How can I welcome them in, you're helping people in the way that you would want to be helped. Alright, so now that we've talked a little bit about the concept of networking, and we understand what it is, what questions come to mind about
it? How do we find opportunities to network? Okay, that's
a great question. So part of it depends on where you are. Part of it depends on what your career is. The most basic form of it is, you go where other people like you go. So when there's an event, when there's a gathering, you go to the gathering, even if you don't know anyone you say this is
important for me to go. Here's an example that just happened with that, which is so the place where I got my car wrap done, okay, and they, the founder of it has the events that he puts on for the organization called cars for kids and they Go out and they drive around the country together as a group of people, they also did a trunk or treat, where people brought in their fun cars, and they dressed up. And you all went to that.
Now, part of it, a big part of it was like this will be fun, this will be a fun way to show off the car and to give candy and dress up and have you Darci and Ella, go do Trick or treat,
you're jamming out.
So I was having a good time. But also part of it was I was thinking, I want to meet new people. I want to make more connections. That's a goal that I have right now. And I thought, here's an opportunity. Just Just go meet some people. And that did happen. Like I made some connections, people gave name and email, because they also understand the importance of making those kinds of
connections. So that was a situation where I had to push myself a little bit outside of my comfort zone, have some fun, but get to know people. So back to your question is I think those opportunities are always there. I just don't think that most people think of them as here's an opportunity, right? Most of the time they think, do I want to go to this party? Am I going to have a good time, not realizing that it's really your responsibility to decide whether or not you're going to have a
good time. And if you want to have fun with friends go with a mindset of making friends. Rather than Oh, I like Bob and Bob is going to be there. Right? And because I know Bob, and he's going to be there, then I'm going to go rather than saying I'm going to meet somebody, you get the idea. Yeah,
yeah. Guilty of this today, actually. Yeah. Some of the swim team are going bowling. Today. Apparently, we have a chat without our coaches. They're like, let's all go bowling on Saturday and like,
right, because you're not a fan of bullying, or is it because you just didn't want to be social or I'm
tired a lot. We have like these little polls, because we're using group mean, I'm like, Who's going? Let's see if
that person, right. And I know that feeling. I've done that. And occasionally I still do that. But I think the more and more I've learned about networking, here's what I do. I try to get the list of the people that are going and I look them up, I look him up on LinkedIn. And maybe I connect with him on LinkedIn. And I look at their picture. And I look at their background. And so for me, I go, Oh, okay, look at all these interesting people that I might meet, I won't meet them
all. But by going in and being a little bit prepared. Now, it's an interesting situation, because now it's like, oh, I remember reading that you wrote this book, I remember seeing that you did this, right. And it turns it from making it about me and how I'm going to feel more about who I'm going to meet. Also, though, I think to go back to your question Stratton, where does it happen? I think most of the time, it happens in more informal situations. When you're at work, like you have had a job
for a while in a place. Yeah, before you started that job. You didn't know any of those people that you worked with. But now you have a connection with them. Yeah. And you know them. So I would turn the question back on you, you've built this relationship right now you're moving on something else? In what way? Can you maintain contact with them, even when you're not working with them?
So I think there's two ways that I've at least planned to maintain contact with these people. So first one, and this is the one that I most likely be doing out of the two is when I left, I gave everyone my phone number. So you know, if they want to chat, or if they want to contact me, they can not just through Microsoft Teams that the company had. And I asked if they wanted to be put on an email list, that kind of thing. Second kind of thing we have a chat put
together. And I haven't done this yet, but play video games with some of the coworkers. Yeah, from there. I don't know if that's going to happen. But that would be the second one. Yeah,
that's a great and easy way to do it. And that illustrates to that not everything has to be serious. In fact, I don't think it should be. I think it's good to be like, Hey, what's your gamertag? Right, let's connect. And that is a form of building relationships. And you can maintain that contact with anyone that you've worked with. And that's a great way to do it. I would also add, I just noticed the Stretton that you're not on LinkedIn. And I think that would
be a good thing to get on. And then you can connect with people there and start to build that network there. At the beginning, it's gonna seem like you have hardly any connections. Yeah. But keep in mind that when you are connected with someone who has connections, then all of those people What you're connected with on LinkedIn are now just two degrees away from you. So let me explain this for you. There's a principle. I don't know if you've heard of this way, which is the six
degrees of separation. we've ever heard of that. Yeah, I know what degrees of separation are. But I've never heard of the six degrees of separation. So the idea is that you are connected to any person in the world. Oh, by only six steps. So I know you, you know someone else, that person knows someone else. So each time we skip, that's a degree. It's also been called the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. And we just saw Kevin Bacon because we watch. Yeah, I know. We just watched tremors for the
first time. It was weird. She doesn't know she liked it. The point is, I don't know why they chose Kevin Bacon. But basically, the idea is, everyone in the world is connected to Kevin Bacon within six degrees. So if you look at who is connected to someone to connected to someone, odds are you're there. My guess is I'm probably like three degrees away from Kevin Bacon, probably not
very far. Okay. So going back to what I was saying was you Stratton if you're connected on LinkedIn, and you're connected with me, right? I've got over 100,000 followers right now on LinkedIn. Right. So that means that all of those people are just a second degree connection away from you. That's cool. That's the power of networking, is when you're connected with people who are connected with people, it makes it easier to
get to know them. So you could say, Hey, Dad, I see you're connected to this CEO of this company. I'd like to meet them, could you make an introduction, right. So LinkedIn is a fantastic tool for tracking and formalizing those kinds of connections. So when I meet someone, like recently, I got on a video call with a bunch of people, or if someone hires me to speak at their event, I reach out, I send them a connection request on LinkedIn. And now that makes it easier to stay
connected. And it also so when they post things on LinkedIn, I see it, when I post things they see it, I mean, the same principle applies with any kind of social media, as long as you're making meaningful connections. So that kind of highlights what networking is not. Networking is not filling up your connections with a bunch of people that you don't know. That's social media. And that's has a different purpose, which
is valuable. But when we're talking about networking, we're talking about personal connections that actually matter. And that, you know, so I've got a question for you. We have already talked about the importance of giving to other people and having that mindset of helping them. What is another thing that you want to keep in mind? What do you think is another mindset that will help you build relationships? When you meet people for the first time?
Maybe like, what I can learn about them?
Yes, exactly. I would say having a mindset of curiosity, every person that you meet, has something to teach you. Do you believe that? I believe that? Yeah. So one thing that you can do when you get to know them is they think, what does this person have to teach me? Maybe it's just fun. Like they have a hobby that they're interested in, and you could learn about the hobby. Or it
could be much deeper. Maybe they have expertise in something maybe it turns out, I know, you like being writers, maybe it turns out that they're a writer too. And you can learn what their perspective is. All too often I see people go into networking situations. And they talk about who? themselves. Yeah. And when you talk about yourself, you're doing things wrong. If someone asks you about you, then that's great. And you know, you want to answer that
question. But what you really should be trying to find out is about them. Right? There's a quote by Dale Carnegie, and I'm going to not quote it exactly. But the idea is you can make more friends, by being interested in other people than you can by trying to get other people interested in you. I met a guy a couple years back when we did that trip to New York. And I went out and we were in a market. I'm forgetting the name of the market right now. It was right adjacent to Google
headquarters in New York. And this guy who's probably in his early 20s, he was giving me a shoe shine, I needed a shoe shine. And he took the time to ask me questions about what do you do? Why are you here? What's your expertise? Right? Like, tell me about your job. And I asked him about I was like, Okay, you're one of the few people that I've met who understands the right mindset when you meet new people. What's causing you to be like this, what's causing you to ask these
questions? And he said, Well, my dad taught me that I should always be curious when I meet new people. And because he did that he was starting to with the job that, let's be honest, shining shoes is not a glamorous
job, right. But he was using that right next to Google headquarters, which is also really interesting to build relationships with all the executives, all the people that were coming to him with the shoe shine, I built a connection with him, I gave him my card, we connected on LinkedIn, I even shot a social media video with him, so that he could share that perspective. So I would encourage you, I would want you to take this conversation and take that same lesson to heart
that his dad gave him. Okay, which is Be curious when you meet people. All right. Any last thoughts or questions or things that you want to explore about networking?
Just as positivity? Like, I've met this guy, on the same time, he was really new. And I was like, oh, I should talk to him. And we all start talking to him. And he's like this. So positive, dude. It was like, I don't know where it came from. He's like, the purest guy. And like, afterwards, he's like, it's so nice to meet you. And I'm like, it's so much. You're so positive. And he's so positive. And it was just the most surreal experience. That's amazing. And we all love this
guy. Like, he's like one of the best people on the team. Yes, or like, so nice. Yeah, it
certainly helps to be happy and have a good attitude. I just want to say though, too, there's nothing wrong with being yourself. So sometimes, I think some people will have that and they kind of let it shine. Right? They have that kind of attitude. I think some are a little more chill and low key. I think you can also be successful with that as well. But I do think there's positive, right, there's positive, there's chill, and then there's negative. And I do think that negative should be avoided,
right? Because you don't want to be a person that's known for spreading just bad news, gossip, whatever it is. That's not positive. And consider this. If you do build relationships by spreading negative stuff. What kind of person are you going to be connecting with? Negative people? Exactly. You're going to be connected to people who are gravitating toward negativity. That's not going to go well. Yeah. So at the very least, try to network as someone who is positive in general, and is
yourself. Be yourself. Alright, any last questions? Darcy? Is there anything you wanted to discuss her ask? Can you start networking now?
Yeah.
Yeah. Can you be curious about other people? Yeah. Yeah. Can you look for ways to do nice things for people? Yeah, yeah. So you can still practice this now. And if you understand this principle, at a young age at the age of 10, and you start thinking about it, right, you're not going to put a LinkedIn profile up, you're not going to connect with people
that way. But you can start to develop the habit of being someone who's interested in other people, and who serves other people and tries to remember them past, just having them in front of your face. Right? The more you practice that and think about that, by the time you get older, this is going to be natural for you to be someone who builds positive relationships. Okay. All right. Well, I hope this discussion was helpful for all of you. And I hope it was helpful for everyone
listening. So what do we do at the end of every discussion that we have like this action, we choose an action, we find one thing we're going to do as a result of this? So as the audience is thinking about what they might do for their action, I'll turn it over to each of you. What's one thing you're going to do as a result of what we discussed today about networking?
I've got a meet up for a service opportunity on the 11th. Okay, with a whole bunch of other people. And I think that's probably a good opportunity to make connections with people. So I think, taking what we've talked about here and applying that there,
yeah, fantastic. Great. Love it. All right, who's next?
I guess today I go to that bowling thing and try to talk to some of the people I don't know as well. Yeah. Nice.
Get to know them. Be curious about them. Be positive. Fantastic. Darcy, was something you can do next week. Doesn't have to be big.
I mean, next week for school We're going to be doing a Halloween party and there's still a bit of people in my class, I don't know. So maybe during that I can go talk to those people and try to get to know them. Yeah, wonderful,
I love it. And I'm going to both give an action and also teach a principle that I didn't mention. But it's something I need to work on, which is the power of someone's name. There's a statement that I've heard, which is there's nothing as sweet as the sound of your own name. And so it's really important that when you net work with people, you remember their name, you ask their name, and that's something that I'm really trying to work on. I don't like the excuse that I'm not good with names. You
ever heard that? I'm not good with names? Well, I think most of us aren't good with remembering names. So the trick is to listen, when you ask someone's name, to listen to it, to repeat it, to repeat it again, and probably repeat it again. Like you need to say their name several times when you're talking to them say it several times. Like we were out at the track. This week, I met Rick, Rick was so nice to let me drive his car and ride with him.
And I was trying to make a point of saying, Rick, Rick, Rick, so that it's in my head. So I'm going to try to continue to do a better job of that. And not using I'm not good with names as an excuse for not knowing someone's name. All right. Well, thank you kids for having this discussion. Say goodbye. Goodbye. Bye. And thank you, everyone for listening. Remember, it's not just about the knowledge you received. It's
the action that you take. So please do something positive to improve your networking this week. Thanks for listening.
You've been listening to the Dave Crenshaw Success project hosted by my dad Dave Crenshaw, and produced by invaluable incorporated research and assistant production by Victoria Bidez. Sound Editing by Mark Lamorgese, az voiceover by me Darci Crenshaw, and the music is by Ryan Brady via con five licensing. Please subscribe to the Dave Crenshaw Success Project on Apple podcasts, Spotify, wherever you'd like to
get your podcasts. If you have a suggestion for someone my dad might like to interview, please send it to guests at Dave crenshaw.com. And please don't forget to leave us a five star review. See you next time.