Casual Drinks...

In the profession i've chosen and in life, I feel one thing that you can never sacrifice is your social time. Some call it networking; some call it casual drinks; I call it a necessity to ensure absolute sanity. I've been blessed to understand the value of casual drinks and had the luxury of affording to do so. Going out, looking good and feeling good keeps you sharp and what I like to call "in the game".  But it also allows you to be an adult, prove to yourself you can have a casual drink (not loser wasted) and talk with a friend/coworker or even a total stranger.

Someone asked me today "how do you network?" It's a valid question about a topic that scares the beejesus out of people. Including me back in the day. I look at it like going to the high school dance. There's always that one girl you want to talk to, but can never muster up the courage to walk over and ask her to dance. You know she likes you; you know she's there hoping you dance with her, yet, there you stand, talking or standing awkwardly . If we never step outside our comfort zone, how will we grow as people?

My advice to this question was don't wait for someone to come talk to you...go find the one you want to talk with and start a conversation - simple right? How about this...It's like that girl/guy at the dance. Don't wait until KC & Jo-Jo "Crazy" comes on to wrap up the dance. Find that person(s) at the mid-point, just as "God must have spent a little more time on you" by NSYNC comes on. When their interest-level in the event at hand is still high and you have the chance to capture their full attention for the remainder of the night.

Our intuition, although hard to trust, is usually giving us that pit-of-your-stomach feeling for a reason...it's time to go after it. So go for it. Especially with something like networking. Everyone does it at certain points of their professional career (even the programmer's/developers who only can speak in binary code), so stop stressing over it and enjoy the idea of infecting someone with your passion.

What does all this mean? Take a chance on yourself. At the end of the day, you'll be a more confident professional and person. Soon someone will be looking at you as the one to approach and infect with their own story.