How to overcome the ick: Nurture your network.
E212: Three strategies to make networking work for you h/t Linart Seprioto, Dan Sleeman and Emily Felt Blunt
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Reach out, develop and then nurture relationships.
Let your “Net” do the work for you.
Be an ambassador. Advocate and create connections for others.
🧭 Theme for Cycle 31: Showcase interesting work
The TL;DR on this collection of resources is Generosity and Nurture.
Many people have the ‘ick’ about networking. But they may have it wrong. When you make a connection, you are planting a seed for a future relationship.
You are also creating a net of connections … a set of warm connections that might be the right opportunity or support for someone else you know.
Nurture your connections
If you balk at the thought of “networking”, you may want to explore “The Why Beneath the Why?” (to borrow from
‘s post).Creating community, making connections, these have been thoughts on my mind as we head into the final weeks of Act Two’s first cohort.
1. Reach out and develop relationships.
In an act of service to others,
shared two resources with tips on how to reach out through email.
Here is another way of thinking about this:
The art of reaching out and planting a seed for a future relationship is part of being human. And a 21st-century skill.
Added on October 23, 2025. For an example of outreach done wrong, look at this screenshot from Amman Ahmed (remember our interview with Grammy-winning Music for Pets Amman here?):
Click here for the link to his full post on LinkedIn.
2. Let your “Net” work for you.
Networking may feel like work if you are doing it to ramp up your subscriber count on Substack, or your connections on LinkedIn, so that you can prove you are worthy of a publisher’s book deal.
Networking can feel ‘ick’ when you are desperately in need of a new job, and you are ‘doing the rounds’.
But if you have been nurturing your community and friend group over time, it becomes a conversation — and the ‘net’ now steps in to do the work for you.
My recent experience at my 35-year work reunion in Manhattan raised questions with friends in Toronto. “Let me get this straight - you guys stayed in touch over so many years?” Yes! Through the modern-day magic of LinkedIn. And the decade-long knack of creating relationships. And nurturing them - little thumbs up and likes on LinkedIn collectively over time. It is about converting a connection into a relationship.
And when “connections’ (aka people you had worked with closely over the years) lost their jobs in the repeated layoffs that are so common in the Finance industry, the net would step up through DMs and see where we could help each other out, turning cold calls into warm interviews.
An added benefit is that these connections evolve into deeper relationships and friendships, as I mentioned in E120 - 10X thinking. 1 Relationships matter for your health and longevity.
3. Be an ambassador. Advocate for others.
And if you hesitate to ask for a connection for yourself, put in easy reps. Start by being an “ambassador”. Ask on behalf of others.
A recent example of this was
, one half of the dynamic duo behind Act Two.
He thought
and I might connect on various levels - and boy, was he right! We quickly ran out of time to cover all our conversations, and have tabled more chat for another day. Emily writes poetry, and in one of her posts she describes how she trades poetry with her son2 who is doing a semester abroad - what an inspirational moment of balancing parenting with adulting with connection.Emily was also trying to figure out how to create a sustainable cadence of writing, among other things, and we brainstormed that problem together.
The next day she took a baby step and posted a message on Substack Notes that could not more appropriately sum up the message of this edition - nurture your network:
relationships are like plants
they need water to grow,
the care, kindness, responsiveness we give, is the water
and we need water every day
I could not have encapsulated the art of networking any better! The synchronicity in the universe sometimes astounds me.
Your turn "}…{`
Do you have a special networking story?
Do you have some other suggestions to ease into networking that we can add to this list?
Is there one person you will reach out to today?
Stay healthy. From there, all else becomes possible.
And I’ll see you next week …
Karena
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Substack articles referenced:
10X Thinking - Playing the long game
Who’d have thunk it? I’ve lasted 10X longer than I ever imagined!
Three stellar connections. Very glad you and Emily found each other through Dan, who's been matchmaking like a pro. It all reminded me of someone he introduced me to as well that I need to book a time with.
Karena, you are the consummate connector. People trust you and want to stay in touch because you are incredibly generous with your time and effort. You are a beautiful example for us all.