Foreign welcome to the Luminaries episode.

We're really glad that you've joined us for a deeper conversation about networking and I'm really excited to welcome our guest for this week, Natalia Scherf.

Natalia, welcome.

Tell us a bit about yourself and tell us how networking became to be part of your interests and your career.

Thank you, Ian.

Thank you, Mike.

I'm very glad to be here with you and have a deeper conversation about networking.

I am a leadership coach with almost 20 years of experience in executive career transition that I gained while working in corporate talent management functions as well as in executive search consulting in multiple industries, fmcg, tech, financial services, industrials and big Pharma.

And until a certain point, I have just did my job not focusing on building relationships with people outside of my friends and family scope.

Then some five years ago, I had to leave a job without next one being aligned.

Not a very pleasant situation.

It was my decision I couldn't proceed working there.

And coincidentally I submitted my notice three weeks before the lockdown, which I didn't know of course, as anyone.

So all interviews, all conversations about the next job that I had in pipeline were put on hold and I realized I had to be creative.

So I contacted several people with whom I had previously worked but was not in a direct contact for the last two to three years.

And skipping all the details, one of them introduced me to his boss.

And after doing good, hopefully I suppose in interviews, I got the job.

And also it was the best corporate job I ever had.

So that was the point.

I realized there is so much for people in building strong connections and keeping them warm or networking.

Fantastic.

It must have been a real big change from like it looks like it's all disappeared to oh, actually potentially the best thing ever has suddenly landed in my lap.

You must have felt like you'd won a lottery ticket or something.

Absolutely.

That exactly how that was a life changing point anyway.

And that showed me that hope should never die.

Amen.

Yeah, well, it's also a great example.

I remember kind of trying throughout my career to brush up on networking and periodically diving into a book or something.

And Harvey McKay had written one called Dig youg well before you're Thirsty.

So I think that was the point you realized too.

It's like, oh, I can't start a network now that I'm job hunting.

I really need to have a network in place.

Yeah, that is very good point.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, it's an amazing experience that you just talked to us about, Natalia, all that going through that now your Work as a coach that is focused on helping individuals develop and grow.

How do you see networking fitting into that?

Thank you for this question.

It is very important to me personally because I see career development as a discipline and as a system.

By that I mean not a random job search, but strategic navigation of one professional, one's professional life.

So I, at some point I put together a model we can say that proved to be very useful for many and also for me when I work with people to keep the system running.

So imagine a Venn diagram with four overlapping cycles representing first one, information about yourself.

In terms of market, it would be supply part.

Here we can have all what build us as professionals, our experience, education, interests, values, goal competences.

So it's a big circle circle.

Actually the coach I work the most with people on this one.

The second would be information about the market or demand part.

Who might need all this?

What we just discussed and what I mentioned in the first circle, the key stakeholders, companies, market players and et cetera.

When we know the first and the second, we can intentionally craft our personal brand, creating higher visibility of the first circle, let's say to the second one.

And last but not least, the fourth is networking.

This is how we promote our brand to the right stakeholders and broader public by connecting with them and keeping these connections running.

And then at the center of the diagram, where all these circles kind of overlap, there is a point which is not large, but this is exactly the point where we can influence our career development.

So to put it shortly, networking is one of the four cornerstones of professional development, no matter what you do.

And by the way, consultants are going to love that framework because as you're describing it there, Natalia, it reminds me of something that lots of consultants will know, which is Porter's five forces, you know, about your yourself and supply and demand and substitutes and new entrants.

I thought that's.

Yeah, that's a very nice picture to have in my mind.

And you're talking about networking as kind of the center.

It's not just about cultivating ourselves.

It's also about cultivating the connections that we have to other people.

Right?

Yeah, absolutely.

And actually there is a Japanese model of purpose in life.

I think it's geeky guy.

So this is exactly.

Also this for.

For band.

So this is where I took it.

Took it from.

But I like models just to have in my head to keep the structure because this is like how I operate.

Very good.

And of course it's a great way you've talked about strategic navigation.

I think That's a really good model for the kind of language to use about networking because it's not like rapid transit ticket to a destination.

It's a very long term thing and it has some choices.

So strategic navigation is a good phrase.

To use it because it sounds a little bit.

On the one hand I get an impression of their supply and demand and I'm creating a brand I guess to sort of connect these two and the network is where I go market that.

It's a little bit sounds sort of like an inside out view of this.

But I'm a guy that I kind of.

My whole career has been very different.

But in describing it to people I said, you know, I kind of fell into a subway car and it stopped somewhere and I sort of got bumped out.

And I got bumped out and I turned around and there was another car open and I jumped into that.

And I've done this throughout my career and quite, you know, I think landing much better than I ever would have landed had I tried to imagine something and done that.

And so when you were describing those four circles, I was also thinking it's a really nice outside in model because for networking for me I found out a lot more about myself and the world in terms of career development.

And my whole consulting thing was kind of a random occurrence of having you know, networking into some consultants who were working for my employer.

And I just got sort of designated as a liaison and a whole world opened up that I didn't really know anything about or you know, would never have thought, oh, I want to promote my brand to do this.

Yeah, that is an opportunistic way to build a career which many people do all their life and this is fine.

And all these models, they anyway more needed for people who is searching how to start, how to do, how to find their meaning and if it's not needed because you have anyway a lot of opportunities in network all your life.

So that works for you.

Right.

And you mentioned all of our lives.

Natalia, it might be easy to think that networking and also personal kind of leadership coaching is something for high flyers or only at that mid career stage.

You know, when you're already kind of mature and you've got connections and you're.

I don't know what the right age is, late 30s, 40s.

And how about early career?

How about late career?

Is it still worth us paying attention to this topic at those stages as well?

Well, I would say there are in every part of our life we have advantages and disadvantages.

Right.

So I would say focus on advantages, no matter your age, and build also on your strengths.

So it's the point where, where I come from and in the beginning of your care career, when you might not yet have many unique value propositions, networking might help to stand out of so many other young professionals.

When you are introduced to someone, you automatically don't start from zero.

You are not, I don't know, black box anymore, but someone highly regarded by a person they trust.

So this is clearly an advantage.

So I would really recommend doing this for people around, I don't know, 50 who are, by the way, totally my target audience.

And as I work with senior leaders and being 44 myself, I'd say focus on what you bring together with your age, like a tanner or maybe huge network, which you don't, you're not even aware of.

If you haven't networked but you know many people, maybe it is the time to start leveraging it.

Very good.

Yeah.

What else?

Manage your health, energy, state your mindset.

And then at every age we can reflect and grow by asking ourselves questions like, what happened?

What have I done?

What can I learn from this?

And how can I do better?

It's great, isn't it?

And we've been talking in one of our other episodes about the idea of growth mindset.

We kind of picked up on the book of Carol Dweck and it is really easy, it seems to me, to suppose even quite early in our careers, or as you might say for me and Mike, quite late in our careers, that, you know, I've got what I've got now and it's fixed and I'm going to have to be okay with that.

And everything else is either kind of constrained or limited by what I've currently got.

But to think of ourselves as a work in progress is a really important thing.

And I love the connection that that gives us to networking because there's always going to be something.

There's going to be some new person out there, some new perspective.

What do you think?

Yeah, yeah.

And we know that.

And you also mentioned it is per and your amazing panel and talk that networking is not that much of a skill than it is of the mindset, actually.

Yeah.

And thank you for remembering that because you and I were on the panel together with this mostly early career audience and I think there were lots of people really keen to hear about this, thinking simultaneously, I guess I ought to do this, but also simultaneously, oh, geez, this looks like something that's not going to fit my personality.

Or maybe it's not for right now, but I really like this idea that, you know, we can, we can make some progress right away.

And I think it's interesting listening to the two of you.

I mean, early on people might be saying, gee, what do I have to offer?

And you just started to address that a little bit today.

And in even late on, I mean, I will tell you from personal experience, your network doesn't keep growing on its own because there are branches falling off left, right and center.

As you get to my age, you start dialing into that network and go, oh, she's retired, he's passed away.

Ah, it's like that network is, it's that thing that you grew so much.

But I, I still think, I'm sure that a lot of people at any age, at any point in their career probably understand networking is important and it's valuable, but still they struggle to be motivated to do it.

What do you think holds people back from networking?

Yeah, I think the process of networking, we might understand the payoffs of that, but the process is not straightforward and linear.

We people who have never done it intentionally, they might think it's awkward so they don't do it.

Escaping these unpleasant emotions because it's all about that.

Right.

We don't know, we don't want feel rejected because we will be by some.

We don't want to feel awkward, we don't want to feel somehow strange and so on.

So this is pretty much it.

And I met people who say I don't have time for it, which clearly shows to me that they don't prioritize it and they don't see networking as a part of their job because they say I have job to be done and I don't network, which for me is clearly part of the job because there is also internal networking which you suppose to do just to be.

Even if we don't speak about career progression, not everybody interested in this and this is fine.

But to be well known to do your job well, so you have to network too.

Or there are people who, as what you just said, Mike, and this is absolutely internal feeling, we sometimes think what can we offer?

What can we bring into the conversation?

Why should they be interested in networking with me?

Little old me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And this can happen no matter age or something because it's totally a mindset thing with coming back to it.

And by the way, what you mentioned in the beginning Maid, I love it totally.

I always recommend people starting building connections from a point of abundance and not from the point of need or desperation.

Then if People ignore you and some always will.

As I said, it will most likely not damage your self worth.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So network when you have a job, when your business is thriving.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Fix your roof when the sun is shining if somebody wants.

Yeah, exactly.

Right.

And it is a long term thing.

I've got this picture in my head.

I might find a way to get it out on Instagram if I can find a way to make it work.

You know, you go to kind of fairgrounds and there are those machines full of like little toys.

There's this big crane grabber thing.

I think people think that networking must be like that.

Like, if only I can work the crane in the right way, I can find the perfect job or the perfect client or the perfect opportunity or the right information.

But I think it's much more like, you know, you put a little bit of your pocket change into a piggy bank or a little jar on the windowsill and, you know, who knows what it'll turn into.

I love this metaphor.

It needs us to be patient a little bit.

And I think, again, I think that's a really good reason why reflecting with a coach about our careers is the kind of thing that also gets us thinking about how can we make our network work for us.

Cool.

Well, this whole idea about mindset, about staying curious, I love, Natalia, how you started on that first circle and worked with the folks that you coach to build that up.

Because that I think helps with this whole getting past.

What do I have to offer?

As if this is all reciprocity.

I mean, reciprocity is important, but it's more than just that.

I mean, people love people who are curious about them.

I find generally not everybody, but a lot of people.

Enough people that Carnegie Classics.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Oh, my gosh.

There's a.

There's a great book to tell everybody about.

Oh, my gosh.

Dale Carnegie, how to Win Friends and influence People.

I can't remember the publication date, but it's so far.

Mike.

I think it must now win the record for the oldest book that we've ever talked about on the show.

And we've talked about the books already, and I think maybe 10 or 20 years ago there was a new edition that says updated for the digital age.

And what I love is seeing, you know, a hardback of the library updated for the digital age.

But it's brilliant, though.

So I love the, the idea, though, of working with a coach to help instill all of that.

How do you work around with your coaches to this networking quadrant?

Well, first of all, of course it is important to understand where the person is in terms of networking because some are just okay and they do it and the heavy lifting is always on the coachee themselves.

Yeah, really.

So we work normally around this mindset thing just to understand what stops you from networking, from just going and activating your network.

And then I'm remembering what Ian again said.

This is for a discussion about three phases.

Ian, you might better say about that.

The three levels.

Yeah, it's not what you know.

And then build up to the people that you feel like you really, really want to get hold of.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then coaching is all about small steps.

So you start really with the first level with the most safe space and try to build the new habits and coach might keep you accountable for that.

Yeah.

It's also helpful just asking, like, what are you going to do next week?

And then after some time just asking, what have you done?

Nice, Definitely nice.

And every time I sit with colleagues, sometimes with the aim of talking about exactly this and sometimes just because I'm sitting with the colleagues, my other friends from P31 other places where I've worked, just sitting with some peers talking about how it's going, kind of inspires me to go back and reach back out to my network again.

So Natalia, you and I were working together at a big conference and we were talking about this at the time.

This is like a big social event.

There are 7,000 or 8,000 people in the room and there are networking opportunities right in front of us there.

But of course, not everybody, especially not these days, not everybody goes to big in person networking events.

Not everybody spends all of their life in an office in a hot desking area.

So in the environment that we're working in today, what would be your tips or ideas that you've ever talked about with your coaches for getting networking started and building confidence in the virtual world?

Well, I can say a lot because this is literally me.

Of course I go to networking events, but how many do I have in the year?

My business is 90% online and my last corporate job was also remote.

So I would say LinkedIn is an amazing platform or any other socials if you like better.

I would start reaching out to people whom I know suggesting to prep virtual coffee.

Yeah.

And then why, one by one, build it.

And another good advice here I think is always finish the chat by question.

Whom could I talk to from your network?

Can you maybe introduce us then?

So this is anyway good, but I think especially in the, in the, in the limited Network as limited.

I really like that suggestion of being a connector, you know, using your network to introduce somebody else.

Partly because it's a nice thing.

You can always ask, you know, and nothing bad will happen if they say no.

But also maybe part of the thing that holds some of us back and certainly has held me back in the past, is I'm a bit of an introvert and I kind of feel most comfortable in my own world.

I think making a connection is quite an introvert friendly way of exploiting your network and extending it a bit and saying, oh, I know somebody who knows somebody and I can put you in touch.

That doesn't depend on me to kind of give much more energy into their conversation.

It's just saying I can make the intellectual connection as well as making the direct connection.

Yeah.

By the way, I'm now coming up with another thing I work in coaching very often is this overcoming rejection.

Because this is a super common thing.

When you decide really to proactively build your network, this will happen.

There is no way around it.

You will never know what is happening right now in the life of other person.

So you can be ignored.

You can be mildly or somehow other rejected.

This is, this will happen.

And this resilience towards this process has to also be built.

It's a really good connection to resilience, isn't it?

I think the most common reason that, that I come up in my head to think, well, maybe I won't reach out to that person is I think, oh, it's been more than what, more than three weeks, more than three months, more than three years.

And they're going to be really upset when I contact them because they'll say, where the hell have you been?

But it's never been like that.

I've reached out to people that I haven't spoken to for literally years and they've always been super happy.

And we build this picture in our heads.

Sometimes I think of that, you know, rejection is going to be a terrible thing.

I think it's very wise in your conversations to just challenge that and hold it up to the light a little bit.

And it can be not about you, it can be very likely about other person.

Right?

Yeah.

Their situation and their context, absolutely fantastic.

And it is interesting.

I mean, all of us, I shouldn't say all of us, many of us, I'll speak for me, we do feel rejection.

However, one of the things that's been helpful to me is thinking when I need to reach out to this connection that I haven't reached out to for forever.

And I need it because this in my mind is life and death.

Getting the next job versus this is not life and death.

I'm just reaching out to say hi.

I'm reaching out to check in.

I'm reaching out because, hey, I saw something in the news or I heard something interesting or I saw you posted something.

That kind of rejection, I can handle that.

I can handle that if they don't respond to my message on LinkedIn or something.

So we've got lots of great impetus now to think about reaching out to people that we already know do that level.

One thing.

We've got lots of great reasons to challenge a little bit the conversation that's happening in our heads.

Like I'm going to get rejected or I'm not worth it or it's not my moment and not worth it for my career.

There's lots of reasons why we could take action.

Let's think about taking action towards getting some coaching.

Tell us a bit about your work, Natalia.

How can people get hold of you?

Where are you online?

What's the best way to find out about you?

Okay, thank you.

Well, I'm very active on LinkedIn.

I regularly post about leadership development, career development and self care.

These are three topics which are very close to my heart.

And this is where I read a lot and where I daily work as well.

I have a webpage, it's called cherf.

I know a lot of S and H but you can find everything on LinkedIn.

It's probably easier and we'll put some links in our.

Yeah, and you can also schedule a get to know meeting with me and feel free to reach out and scrap that virtual coffee because I want the talk.

Nice.

Natalia, thanks so much for joining us today on the show.

We've really enjoyed talking about networking.

I really enjoyed as well digging a little bit deeper into some of the mindsets that might be holding us back.

Wishing you lots and lots of success for the end of this year and great success for next year as well.

And be in touch.

I'm sure our paths are going to cross again sometime soon.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And by the way, how we met, it is a very good example of networking.

Right.

We just were coincidentally on the same conference and look we using the opportunities to speak further.

Absolutely.

And it was just this great moment and here we are.

So like you say, it's opportunistic.

Right.

These opportunities are all around us and I'm very glad that we did.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Sa.