I have come up with a mantra that I tell myself each morning. It goes like this:
I am here to explore the mystery and wonder of existence.
I do this through connection and conversation.
I do this through consciousness and wellbeing.
I do this through creation, contribution, and curation.
When I was a kid my favourite shape was a circle. There was a TV show called Play School and during one segment they always started by picking one of three windows. If the circle was not chosen, tears on my behalf would ensue.
Back working in the CBD and an office this week, it is apparent that the favourite shape of the workplace are the rectangle and square.
Desks, monitors, meeting rooms, offices, partitions, doors, streets, windows, corridors. So may rectangles and squares, everywhere I move and everywhere I look.
I have not done any research about this, but I reckon the shapes we surround ourself with influence the way we interact and out ability to create. Straight lines are easy to build and put together, but I think they limit our ability to think about the connectedness of things, the blurring together of spaces and ideas.
In our natural habitat there is barely a straight line to be seen, let alone a corner. Coast lines, paths winding through forests, tree limbs, even the outline of our own bodies.
I would like to see different shapes brought into the places we move through and pause in. Shapes inspired by the world around us and what is inspiring for us, rather than efficiencies of building and construction.
A simple way to start is to bring the complex and fluid shapes of plants into our indoor environments.
I am in the middle of watching the third season of House of Cards. One thing that Frank Underwood does so well is turning to his benefit whatever situation he finds himself in. He does not get stuck in the past for more than a moment before coming up with a plan of how this situation can work for him.
One thing that he also does so well is to exploit the vulnerability of others when working out how to make that situation work for him. He has a memory, an instinct, and a well populated file on all those who he could one day use in this way.
And through the show we also get glimpses of the vulnerability of this man who shows so little vulnerability to others.
Vulnerability has been getting a good name lately. It is a way for us to show to others what is really going on, and to enable connection at a deeper level. All of us have this vulnerability. At the very least we have bodies that fail us. And more than that, we have emotions that bubble up all the time, informing us of what a particular situation is creating inside us.
We have a choice when confronted with our own vulnerability, or that of others, to use it as a way to connect, or as a way to distance.
Lately I have been finding 'networking' so easy that all the bad connotations I had associated with this exercise are disappearing.
And what I think about now when I think about networking is nothing like what I used to think about. I actually only consider it networking in retrospect, like, 'Oh yeah, showing up at that event and having awesome conversations with those people, I was like, networking with them'. Ha.
I used to hate networking, and I think this was because of two things. The first was that there was an unwritten purpose to my networking, which was to sell something through conversation. The second was that I actually did not want to talk with the people I was suppose to be networking with. I was not interested in the type of work they did, and I felt like a fraud because I was showing up at events that were not aligned with who I am.
It has taken me about a year, but I have started to tap into events that are full of my kind of people. Reflective, entrepreneurial, trying to create meaningful change through business, trying to get the product/maker fit right before they get the product/market fit right.
I enjoy hanging out with these people so much. I feel supported and accepted, and I am constantly fascinated by the things they are doing. It never crosses my mind to sell something to them. I am there to inspire and be inspired with the hope that we, and those we go on to interact with and influence, will all benefit.
This is the new networking, for me and my tribe at least anyway.
Life in Melbourne as a 30 something entrepreneur who is starting again.