In the last post, I talked about how important a network is for simple viability reasons. But, how do you network successfully? Easy.
Networking 101:
Step 1: Be awesome.
Step 2: Do good things.
Be Awesome
Just be yourself and let the world draw in the people that resonate with you. This makes life way more simple than trying to be the person you think others want you to be. It has the added bonus of finding people you like, too.
Find people you want to be able to help.
Do Good Things
While I’m a huge believer in karma, doing good things for the sake of doing good things just makes you feel… good.
Start there.
Start with yourself.
Be the person you would want to be around.
…and watch the world conspire for you.
Get What You Give
No one is an island. If you think you can build a successful life, a free life, a happy life all by yourself, you’re mistaken.
You’re really, really, mistaken.
And frankly, it’s a whole lot more fun with other people!
You know, every self-help book tells you to practice gratitude. It’s kind of hard to do that if you’re not in situations that make you grateful.
Put yourself out there and be the person others want to help. You do that by being the person that helps. Not for something in return, but just because it’s what you do. Help others first… in practice, not just theory.
Get By With A Little Help…
The thing is… well… I didn’t plan so good for some of the “spaces” in my trip. July was a tough month. With a week long road-trip and another week of conferencing, there wasn’t much time for working. Which means there wasn’t much money coming in.
What?
You didn’t think I was doing this on a trust fund, did you? Money was really tight, but I figured it would all work itself out. And work out, it did. I found a trust fund of a different kind.
There was a four day window post-conference and pre-Jason where I needed to find a place to stay. Then, another seven days post-Jason, pre-leaving Portland that I needed to find a place. One of my friends from last year,Lisa, invited me to come up to Seattle (a short 3hr drive from Portland) “whenever I wanted.” That sounds like a perfect vision quest detour.
Just one small (first-world) problem: there was a post-conference meetup the day I was to leave. One final opportunity to hang out with conference peeps? Dilemma! No way I’m going to have a couple beers, then drive three hours, so to go to the meetup, I needed a place to stay for one extra night in Portland. Enter Steve: “Just stay in my room tonight. We’ll build a bed out of the couch and chair.” This was a huge gesture and frankly am opportunity to play Tetris with furniture should never be given up on.
Me: “I’ll be in Seattle tomorrow for a couple of days. Good to put me up?”
Lisa: “Yes, dear. You’re lucky I put up with you.”
… lucky indeed.
As expected, there we lots of great people, conversations, and laughs. As I told my little vision quest story, to different folks, I wound up meeting a couple with a spare couch in Portland and they very generously offered it to me if it would help.
“Any days during the last week of the month would be really helpful.”
“We’ve got – or we’ll get – you covered!”
I can’t explain how amazing this offer was. Not only did it save me some money renting, save me the hassle of finding a place, but gave me the opportunity to stay in a section of Portland I hadn’t spent too much time in. It may not sound like much, but to me, Melissa and Jake seriously came to my rescue on this one.
But, I didn’t just get a couch. Melissa and Jake turned out to be very similar to me. Melissa and I wound up running together and Jake and I have been swapping Kanteen images through our travels, while I’m sure Melissa cringes at our photography skills. Add that to great conversations and camaraderie for a couple days and I can’t imagine how I haven’t met these two before.
To recap: in less than two hours, I had all eleven nights I needs a place covered. All by great people. All of which I met through the conference. Luck? Uh-uh. Good people gravitate to you when you’re good people.
More Than Help
While, I am clearly grateful for the places to stay, the real gift – the real help – is making this journey full of amazing people.
It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about a vision quest or just day-to-day life. People come into your life based on your actions. Those people create your story.
One thing leads to another. One person leads to another. Keep doing the good things. Keep the good people close.
And Another Thing
In addition to the various places to stay, I had a few offers of places to park my car for extended periods of time. So, if I wanted to go to … say Thailand… I had a place to leave my car in Portland and two in Seattle (thanks also to Tory for that). The pieces of the puzzle are starting to fall into place…