Prodigious

Trapped in the Cleveland airport last fall due to a 4-hour flight delay, I found myself with ample time to explore the bookstore.  Perusing the business section, the title “How Remarkable Women Lead” by Joanna Barsh and Susie Cranston caught my eye.  I have to admit that mostly I was drawn to the great use of color, a deep poppy red, cornflower blue, and yellow-green artfully displayed on the spine.  And although I wasn’t feeling particularly remarkable that day, it’s sure what I aspire to be.

At the time I was flying fairly frequently and had my nose in this book for a few hours each week. It’s my favorite format for self-help reading, full of real-life stories from successful leaders.  While many of the pages are dog-eared to mark particularly salient points, my big take-away was the section on networking and how one woman uses this often misunderstood practice to embark on journeys exploring diverse areas of interest.

The idea is that every year you choose five new places you want to go in your life, with the caveat that only one can be related to your current job. Once you’ve decided what these are, you start to think about whom you know with an interest or experience in these particular areas.  You reach out to these contacts to learn more about their involvement; and through the course of conversation are led to others who share this interest and have their own set of connections to meet.  It’s brilliant in its simplicity, really. By using a one-on-one approach and targeting the passion of another, all of the awkwardness of traditional networking disappears.  You’re no longer standing with crowds of industry colleagues in cavernous ballrooms at a loss for the right questions to entice the stranger next to you into a discussion about something more than the weather.  You’re guaranteed to engage in meaningful dialogue, and to walk away with either an action to take or a new connection to make, or both.

The way the book describes a graphic mapping of your destinations sold me on giving this a try.  I am motivated when there is a way to visually track my progress. The idea of literally logging my new connections as I make them, and charting my successes on a giant piece of kraft paper tacked to the wall in my hallway at home appealed to the artist in me. I decided in March that I’d get started.    

To pinpoint my goals, I looked at what I love to do and what I thought was stagnant because I wasn’t making a concerted effort. I wanted to work on publishing a piece of writing, exhibiting some artwork, landing a new position at work, going on a date, and adding distance to my running. I quickly came up with 2-3 connections for each of those five areas and began talking.  Whenever a conversation led me to someone else, I was quick to make a phone call or schedule coffee or lunch.  Every time I followed through with one of these actions, that person’s name made it on my wall.

Nearly every new endeavor I’ve gone after this year has been through my networking. This blog was born from people connections.  I reached out to the mother of one of my son’s friends to quiz her about her blog.  She was more than willing to chat about her experience, coach me through set-up and take a look at my initial design. In talking with her I also discovered she’s published writing.  And, of course, when she asked a few months later if I’d write a recommendation for her on LinkedIn, I was more than happy to oblige.

So here’s the 6-month progress report: 

The blog has over 60 posts now.  I’m not sure how many subscribers; I may need to go back to my friend for a tutorial on how to find that statistic.  While I have yet to be published, I’ve submitted to (and been rejected by) The Sun magazine and The New York Times, and have written a white paper at my office.  My latest idea, thanks to another connection, is to check out the Iowa Writer’s Workshop.

The sketchbook submitted in January to The Brooklyn Art Library is now on exhibit in Atlanta, having been in Chicago, Vancouver, LA, Oakland, Toronto, Philadelphia and both Portlands.  It will finish out the year in Orlando and Austin. Sketching classes at the Art Institute this spring and several pieces for Art House Co-op’s artist swap projects kept me creating new work.  Oh yeah, I started designing a collection of cards, bearing my signature mermaid theme, to market in the future.

The search for a new position at work led to mentoring opportunities with women in a leadership development program, speaking engagements as a panelist for women’s networking groups, and in a completely unexpected move, a seat on the Strategic Advisory Board for a consortium dedicated to promoting integration and work life balance for women professionals. In addition, I recently achieved my original goal by landing a position with a new client.

The dating has not fared as well.  My assumption that some of my male connections who I hold in high esteem could introduce me to potential dates did not reap the benefits I thought it would.  In fact, I think I scared them off. But I continue to expand my network even if I’ve yet to see results.

As for the running, I finished my very first half-marathon this spring.

Not bad, and my year is only half over. What is most astounding to me is how many new people I’ve met in the past 6 months who have interest, expertise and contacts in the areas I am pursuing. My connections have more than tripled since I started tracking them. And I’m happy to say I have several new friends. 

This is truly an amazing feat.  And the really cool thing is that I consider myself pretty much of an introvert who always struggles with meeting new people.  If I can do it, anyone can do it. 

I’m moving in directions I didn’t think were possible, no longer feeling like a one-dimensional human being, focused solely on her career.  While I originally viewed that delay in Cleveland as an annoyance, it seems like serendipity to have found the book. 

Now that’s remarkable.