Networking Should Be Your 2020 New Years Resolution

Christmastime brings with it the season of reflection.

This is my 29th season of reflection, though I don’t know how much reflecting I was doing as a baby or toddler. Nevertheless, I’ve spent quite a few Christmases steeped in thought about where I’ve been and where I want to go.

A lot went right this year, which has been a vast improvement over last year.

In 2018, I was wading between unemployment and underemployment. What reserve funds I had quickly dried up. I lived in an apartment with my fiancee that was constantly filled with the harsh smell of cigarette smoke from our unfriendly neighbour upstairs. My inability to find a job that paid a steady income caused tension in my relationship and made me feel completely inadequate as a partner and a man.

It was a rough year. Mostly.

By October of 2018, I had found a good job. A real good job. And my fiancee and I moved into a new apartment filled with geriatrics who are salt of the earth kind of people. Things were looking up.

2019, by contrast, was a wonderful year. I continued working at that real good job, our apartment continued to be a place we loved living, we got married in August, went honeymooning in Ireland shortly after, we are on the hunt for a house we can own and raise children in, and I got a raise and a nice Christmas bonus!

It’s been a great year and my trajectory shows even more improvement in 2020.

I don’t like to leave things to chance — especially when it comes to my successes in life. So I began thinking about what made 2018 so different from 2019. More broadly, I thought about what’s been the recipe for success in my life thus far.

Was where I lived a determinant for my success? No. Sort of, but mostly no.

Was how much I made a determinant for my success? No. I actually left a well-paying sales job I got straight out of college in part because I didn’t enjoy it despite the pay.

Was pulling up my bootstraps and working harder a determinant for my success? Definitely not. I sunk hundreds of hours and many, many early mornings into projects that didn’t net me any success.

Was my success…luck? Thankfully not.

So what was my success determinant on?

I thought about this for some time. Then, one day, while I was on the phone with a local politician — who happens to not only be my mentor but also the man who got me a content marketing gig working on a made-for-Facebook TV show — the answer hit me.

My success has been almost entirely determinant on my network.

What networking has brought to my life

Here’s a brief overview of how networking has changed my life for the better. I wrote down many more examples in my notebook, but in the interest of being succinct, I’ll focus on three examples:

My wife

We were both working at bars in college. She was a bartender at a country bar. I was a bouncer at an Irish pub. Both bars had the same owner and occasionally, I had to run across the street to grab supplies: ice, cutlery, swag, etc.

“I thought you were weird and wished you’d forget about me,” my wife said to me shortly after we started dating.

I never let her forget that I won thanks to my persistence.

But had we not worked for the same company, we’d never had crossed paths and I’d never have the chance to annoy her until she said yes to a date.

Now, we’re married. Fellas, take notes.

My job

I work full-time as a content marketing specialist for a digital marketing company in the city where I live. It’s a great job filled with terrific human beings.

I have my wife’s boss to thank for me having my job.

My wife’s boss happens to use the services of the marketing company I now work for. When I told her I applied for a position there, she made a phone call for me and got me on the phone with the founder of the marketing company.

After that phone call, I didn’t hear back from anyone for six months, but it all paid off when I got a call out of the blue asking me to come in for an info session.

The rest is history.

My freelance gigs

In my spare time, I work for a made-for-Facebook TV show called Royal City Stories. I am in charge of content creation and distribution.

I came about this opportunity thanks to the political mentor I told you about earlier.

Way back in 2014, months after I graduated from college with a BA in Political Science, I ran for mayor of the city I still call home.

I ran for mayor because the thought of spending $50,000 on an education I’d never use for its intended purpose made me sick. So to calm my stomach, I immediately put my degree to work in the most practical way I could imagine: local politics.

I came 4th of 7 candidates but my goal wasn’t to win. My goal was to get on peoples’ radars. That’s exactly what I did.

My mentor took notice of me back then and we stayed in touch, loosely, ever since. Well, five years later, thanks to him following me on Twitter, he knew I was in digital marketing and he liked my viewpoints on certain things. One day, he sent me a DM asking if I’d like to be apart of a project he was putting together.

I said yes and six months later, we were releasing our first episode of this incredibly well-polished show we bootstrapped.

Amazingly, I’ve just entered into a another freelancing opportunity because of a connection I made through the Royal City Stories project.

It never ends.

A New Years Resolution: More networking

It seems obvious now that I’ve written it down, but I have networking to thank for the people I choose to spend time with and the jobs that pay the bills.

Before right now, I never truly set out a goal to network. It’s all been by chance.

But the more successful people I run into, the more I realise they are all networking on purpose.

Here’s one last story I’ll share with you:

I was at a the dentist the other day and I was speaking with the head dentist — the guy who put all his money and sweat equity into creating a reputable dentistry practice.

He was telling me one of his goals with his practice is to help people find one another.

Weird goal for a dentist, right?

His logic was simple and, well, logical.

He sees hundreds of people a week from all walks of life. Maybe, just maybe, the people he sees can help one another.

Maybe my content marketing can help an entrepreneur reach new audiences.

Maybe a butcher can help a new restaurant in town source sustainable meat.

Maybe a florist can help a bride-to-be with her the floral arrangements for her big day.

And maybe, thought the dentist, he could be the one to initiate the connection.

By proxy, his dental office becomes an unofficial chamber of commerce and if relationships are made — business or otherwise — people remember him as being the guy who made it happen.

I am confident his networking will return dividends to him and his business in the long run.

So as we creep towards 2020, here’s a resolution I’m making to myself that I think would benefit you too: Be more intentional with networking.

Join a social group, leverage well-connected people at your church, go for more coffees with community leaders, join a business association, get on the board of a not-for-profit. Get creative and get social.

The bottom line is in 2020, make it the year you foster more real life relationships with people in your community and in a year from now, remember this blog and let me know how much your life has improved.

Seriously. I’d love to know.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

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