A reminder from a 35-year-old: When you're young, don't focus on expanding your network
When Ma Yun was a teenager, he went to the streets to chat up foreigners and made a friend named Ken Morley. Later, this person gave Jack Ma a lot of support during his studies and helped him buy a house when he got married.
In 1985, Jack Ma traveled to Australia with the help of Ken. Jack Ma later recalled: The 29 days in Newcastle were crucial in my life. Without those 29 days, I would never have thought as I do today. When I returned to the mainland, I was a different person entirely.
In other words, it is no exaggeration to say that Ken changed the trajectory of Jack Ma's life.
Now we all understand the importance of networking. A small action by others may change our ten-year development direction, and may even change our life.
But what I want to say is: when you are young and have no capital, don't focus on expanding your network, as the so-called "weak countries have no diplomacy".
A reminder from a 35-year-old: When you're young, don't focus on expanding your network
[1] The essence of human connections is "mutual use"
What is a network? Networking is to let others know who you are, what value you have, and how much you can contribute when working with you. When we are useless and useless to others, we are nothing more than A, B, C, and D, and we don't deserve to have a name in other people's address books. As Yu Minhong, the president of New Oriental, said: Few people can establish real connections with people whose status is too far from their own.
When our knowledge, knowledge, and talents are average, we can only make friends with people with average knowledge, knowledge, and talents. Even if there is a chance to meet with Jack Ma, Ren Zhengfei and others, other than saying "I adore you so much", it seems that I don't know what to talk about.
It is difficult for people at different levels to have in-depth dialogue, let alone use each other and conspire together. What if Liu Adou's father is Liu Bei? What if the first counselor Zhuge Liang was there to assist him, he was nothing but Adou who couldn't help him.
A reminder from a 35-year-old: When you're young, don't focus on expanding your network
[2] Instead of developing contacts, it is better to focus on growth
As the old saying goes, plant a plane tree and attract phoenixes. Instead of begging for the development of human connections, it is better to focus on self-growth and make yourself valuable and usable. But we have to understand that the value here is not only the use value in the workplace, but also the emotional value.
In fact, any characteristic of ourselves can become our value. For example, being funny is also our value. It is very likely that because of this, we meet people we admire and we make a network.
Therefore, we must know how to develop ourselves in all aspects and not be too utilitarian. In the workplace, make efforts in your own profession and industry, and try your best to make yourself an irreplaceable person. At the same time, in life, we must also have our own hobbies and develop our own additional skills. If you like reading, join reading camps and offline reading clubs. Finding like-minded people by developing hobbies is also a kind of growth.
A reminder from a 35-year-old: When you're young, don't focus on expanding your network
【3】Learn to let go and let go of useless social interactions
When we understand the nature of human connections, we must learn to let go and discard some useless social connections. Where the time is spent, the results are there. If you spend time on ineffective social interaction, you can only gain a loss.
What is ineffective socialization? "You are a firewood collector, and he is a cattle herder. You met on the hillside. The two chatted for a long time. His cattle are full. Where is your firewood?" This sentence vividly describes what is invalid social interaction. .
A reminder from a 35-year-old: When you're young, don't focus on expanding your network
In recent years, the concept of "breaking away" has become very popular. Socially, we must also learn to "break away". Networking should be the result of interaction, not a unilateral maintenance. Only if the other party puts us in his network, this is an effective network. Therefore, if the other party just treats us as a number for amusing and laughing, we must resolutely abandon this kind of social interaction. The number of contacts is not high, but the quality is not high, we should spend our time and energy in valuable places.