It Takes Two: Mutually Strong Relationships

Okay, take a deep breath. Hello, Cadre sphere. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. Come on in. Happy fall day. At least it is here in Minnesota. I was just rubbing my hands together to make them a little bit warm. It's a little chilly here today, although we. We've had wind and the wind has died down, so that's good. Come on in. Say hello. Welcome. I'm excited to have you all here. I'm excited to be here. I. Welcome. Welcome. Rose612. Welcome. Hello. My name, for those of you that haven't been here with me before is Christy Larson.

Hello, junk food junkie. Welcome. Welcome. I am trying to warm up a little bit as I sit here. I'm trying not to go overboard with my heat quite yet because I know here in Minnesota that heat is going to run for many, many, many hours of the day. And so I'm trying to keep my heat to a certain level before turning it up a little bit higher. So I'm trying to keep myself warm. I got my slippers on, rubbing my hands together. Excited to. To see you all. I'm excited to be here. I have my window open and I'm watching the leaves kind of blow around a little bit and it's a little gloomy here, but it's not raining and the fall leaves are still.

Are still the bright colors that they are, so it's fantastic. But I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to see you all. For those of you that haven't been here before, I typically talk about a variety of different things. I have a background in a lot of different spaces, mainly education. And so I come to you with kind of the lens of both early childhood education, elementary education, and adult education. Currently working at a trade association here locally in Minnesota. So excited to see you all.

Mel Myers. Hello. Good afternoon. It is 12:30. Grab your lunch. Visit with me. I love having you. This is a great time for me. Middle of the day. I love connecting with people, especially when I work from home. It's nice to be able to connect and, and hear the chatter within the Cadre sphere. So excited to see you all. I've been thinking about harvest. I've been thinking about relationships. And last week I was invited to speak on a panel at an event. And I was really excited about it because in my previous role, I did a lot of career coaching, career advising, and absolutely loved it.

It was the greatest. And so last week it gave me the opportunity to kind of dive back into that world and support job seekers, career launchers, career transitioners, whatever. That might be depending on where they were in their. Kind of in their, in their spaces. And it felt really, really good to kind of be in that space. I think a lot of it for me is about helping others. And that's a big piece of. Of that. Obviously that role questions were of course, around the normal things, right? How do you tailor your resume?

How do you stand out in a tough market? How do you write a compelling cover? So similar things to that, to those normal job seeking things. For those of you that have been a job seeker or maybe are a job seeker, those are things that you're probably have or are mulling around in your brain. And one thing that kind of stood out to me was when we started talking about networking. And for some people, networking, the word networking can bring some negative connotation, right? We think about it in terms of I have to go to this event because I have to talk to people, especially.

Especially if you are job seeking. A lot of times you will hear networking is the way to landing your opportunities, right? Networking is the way that you're gonna get a job. And so people kind of have this expectation when they go to networking events, right? Whether that's like, I have to go because this is the only way I can put myself out there and get a job, or it feels kind of gross that I'm just here to make small talk and make somebody see my face just in case I need them down the road. And when I was in my previous role, we talked a lot about networking and we talked a lot about relationship building and we talked a lot about building authentic relationships.

And so networking was always the topic of choice, right? Where people were like, oh, I'm really not a social person. I'm very introverted. I don't like to go to events or I don't know how to make small talk, or I don't know who, who to talk to at an event, right? So we talked a lot about networking. And one of the things that I have seen it be called as relationshiping, I like to call it connecting. I like to call it connecting with purpose simply because I feel like that's what you're doing. You're connecting with other humans in a way that you don't get to do if you skip those events or you don't get to do if you are sitting in your comfort zone and not willing to make yourself a little uncomfortable to go out and do those things.

So if we reframe the term networking into connecting and maybe even adding that with purpose at the end it might not be initially with purpose when you're connecting with someone, or it might be on purpose when you're with purpose when you're connecting with someone. I know last week I had talked about pausing with purpose, right. Really thinking about why am I taking a break? Why am I taking a moment to myself and pausing and really thinking about the next steps. Yeah, Junk food junkie. I love that.

I still don't get why people shy away from networking. We've all been doing it since we were little, right? Absolutely. I love that sentiment. Making friends, getting along with classmates. Yes. And some relationships last. Right. Some of those. You might still have friendships or relationships with those people. And sometimes you just. You break apart, you go different ways. Right. Your paths don't. Don't necessarily align as much anymore. But when we brought up networking, right, of course, it was a panel of folks, and everybody said, we got a network, you got a network, you got to get yourself out there, and you got to network.

And while that's very true and networking can really help, I think it's more about the connections that you make when you are networking. And I think about that in terms of when you meet someone that you get along with really well, right. Things click, you're aligned. Might be a story or a connection that you have or a commonality that you have. You are connecting. And if for some reason you want to extend that into another connection, right? So let's say you met someone, you really love them, you're like, let's go out for coffee.

This is great. Then you're connecting with purpose, right? So you're saying you and I have this commonality, we get along, we have this thing that connected us initially, and now we're going to connect again, and this time it's going to be with more purpose because we know we already align. And so when you think about it in terms of I'm going to an event to network, or I'm going to an event to connect with people, Right. Or I am job seeking and I'm telling everyone that it's all who you know, it's all who you network with.

Let's say it's all who you connect with, Right. And when you connect with people at a certain level, you're letting them know that they are heard and that you value what they're telling you, and it's vice versa, Right. If somebody comes to you and says, hey, I know that you've experienced this, and I know it was hard for you to get through, but I know on the other End it came out really well. Can you tell me a little bit more about what you did or how you handled that? So me, now, I'm an expert, right?

And I get to share my experience and I get to share the things that I did. And I feel good about that. I feel good that I'm able to kind of connect and share my experiences with someone else. So when you are going out and you're connecting with people, not only are you allowing others to feel heard and valued, but you yourself can feel heard and valued when you're having those conversations. I encourage people all the time to do the things. If you are connecting or networking, do the things. Go to the places that make you happy.

Maybe you are a reader, you love books, join a book club, connect with people. Maybe you love bowling, go to the bowling alley and join a bowling league. Connect with people. You have a commonality. You have something that you can have a shared space with. Right? And those are the people that you can connect with. You can build those relationships. Do they have to be your best friends? Absolutely not. Could they be? Absolutely, yes. But you're connecting on a level that allows others to feel valued and heard.

And you yourself, in turn, as I've said, feel valued and heard. And I think that that's a really big part of building those relationships, of connecting with other people. Yes. But Bible studies, church, anywhere that there's community, right? Building those. Thank you, junk food junkie. Yes. Anywhere that there's community, you can kind of insert yourself. And you don't necessarily have to be the loudest voice in the room, right? You might just sit back and observe and listen. And then the next time you go, you might want to contribute one sentence, two sentences, you might want to contribute more than that, but it gives you an opportunity to connect with those people.

So it was really amazing at this event when I started talking about that and people thought about it like, oh, I thought I only had to go to tech events because I'm looking for a job in tech. No, you can connect with people anywhere at any level because you never know where that's going to take you. And you might get your best friend out of it, or you might get a job out of it. Right. Or it just might be another connection to put in your connection bucket just in case you see them again. So I, at this event, was blessed enough to be able to connect with colleagues of old.

I made some new connections, which was really, really cool. But it also just gave me an experience to get out there and collaborate and connect with other people. So before I start rambling on this topic I just really encourage you to go out and find the people that matter to you and connect with them and really connect with purpose. Go out and say hey I know that I'm not feeling super comfortable going out but I'm going to go somewhere where I do feel that there are like minded individuals that we can have a conversation about the new scarf that we're knitting or the book that we're reading or the Bible verse that we found and really have those conversations and build those authentic relationships because it is a two way street.

You're gonna get something out of it and you're gonna give them something and they're gonna get something from you too. So take care Cadre Sphere. I love you all. Be well and go out and connect with purpose. Thank you so much for joining me today. I think you all are absolutely amazing. Have a great wonderful Wednesday afternoon.