Learn to Love Networking #2 - How to introduce yourself, but let’s forget “Hi, my name is…”

5 things I have done to learn making an introduction.

Surprisingly (or not), I found the most difficult thing to do at a networking event is to strike up a conversation starting with “Hi, my name is…”.

Not that I suddenly forgot the name that stuck with me for the last 25 years. It is just extremely daunting to think of the next 10 questions I will need to ask after knowing the person’s name or else the conversation would end up like this:

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Small talks were the trick.

I know some people will put a mini-bank of small talks in their pocket before for those kinds of events:

• Weather talks. It’s been raining for the last few days, such a shame! How did you get on with your weekend with this weather?

• Weekend talks. The weather was rough, but the sun was out right on time last Sunday for a rugby game my partner was a part of.

• Sports talks. I love rugby. Did you also watch the All Blacks game last week?

• Hometown talks. Yes I did, in-person at the stadium where I’m from, Auckland. Have you ever visit Auckland?

• Travel talks. No, but I’m just back from the 3-week Europe trip which was so cool.

Just to name a few.

And of course, there is nothing wrong with knowing and being all passionate about these topics.

Great networkers know the tricks! I’m just not one of them.

• I have a limited vocabulary about weather - sunny, rainy, hot and cold.

• I literally do the same thing every weekend, nothing excites me to be bragging about.

• I don’t play or watch sport. All Blacks is New Zealand National Rugby team that I only knew about 4 years into the country. And yet, I never watched a game.

• I could talk day and night about Vietnam and the food there, and bore everyone with that.

• I love travelling, but have a budget.

So I guess I should just sit still and say nothing?

I did. Well the 2-year-ago-me did.

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Until I realise I need to learn about myself before learning about others.

At the end of the day, networking is creating meaningful connection with others. Basically, you are learning others as human beings. And you can’t do so (effectively) without knowing who you are. You can’t discover and discuss a common (or even conflicting) interest with others without knowing yours.

People start a conversation with small talks, but connect with each other through deep conversations.

Let’s start with understanding you.

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What could be easier than learning about myself?

Well, nothing and anything.

There are two problems:

1. I know too much about myself and don’t know what to share.

2. I actually don’t understand myself that deep, hence don’t know what I can share.

And there will be people in the middle of this spectrum too.

I came across this question on a TikTok video. In the video, this was said:

Could you imagine yourself, going up to a stranger to introduce yourself? And the thing here is, you could not use your name, your age, your gender, your job title, your location, or your ethnicity.

3 minutes for you to have a think.

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Have you come up with your introduction?

I left the video playing repeatedly for a few times, and could not work out my introduction. It sounded so easy, yet so difficult.

I thought this was a fascinating exercise, so I practiced it a few times. It gave me a chance to reflect on my values, my personal branding, how I have built my identity, what made me excited waking up every day.

What even more fascinating, is that I wish to revisit this exercise whenever I meet a new “audience”.

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There are hundreds of ways to learn about yourself, and I will share what I’ve done.

And just to be clear, it has been a long journey for myself and it will be a life-long journey for all of us. So below are just my stories shared.

You may have heard of personalities test.

There will be a wide range of them out there, from 16 personalities types, to 5 strengths, to 7 love styles.

• 16Personalties

• High5 Test

• Clifton Strengths by Gallup (paid)

• Truity. Including a variety: personalities, emotional intelligence, love styles, career aptitude, and DISC (your work style).

You may (or may not) be a fan of Horoscope.

I was introduced to Horoscope when I was 13 years old. I am a bit of a fan and definitely not an expert.

I don’t believe 100% of the results produced through Horoscope. Gardner (the creator of the Multi-intelligence theory mentioned in my blog Unpopular Opinion #1: Cần cù không bù thông minh) said that even identical twins don’t have identical cognitive profile.

However, I do enjoy reading Horoscope profile and occasionally (even frequently) resonate with some messages.

You can visit Co-Star Astrology and enter your date of birth and time of birth to have a bigger picture of your horoscope profile.

Values Card Deck Exercise

I printed out the Values Card Deck from Tomi Llama to do this exercise. Or you can visit Mind Tools website for a list of values too.

The ideal outcome of this exercise is to generate a list of your top 5 values.

These are the steps that may help you get there:

(information from Tomi Llama, and infographic from a work-in-progress presentation)

I will explain a bit on the last two steps:

Step 4. The values that drive your behaviours really show themselves when you are put in a situation where the values are conflicted or offended. For example, your colleague insists to keep working although they feel sick. If that really annoys you that you could not convince them to go home, your values may be wellbeing or compassion.

Step 5. The value can be a catalyst (driving your behaviours), or an outcome of another value. For example, you may think wealth as one of your values. Then you find out you want to gain wealth through wisdom and hard work. In this case the later two will be your catalyst values.

Try the Introduce Yourself Without exercise above.

Write your introduction without your name, your age, your gender, your job title, your location, or your ethnicity.

Another level is to start imagining different audience, and write different introduction to each audience.

• Someone new in your university class

• Your new colleague

• Your manager

• Someone you met on a bus

Talk to people about what excites you when you have a chance.

Others may be better at spotting your values, your strengths or personal branding.

At this point you may start seeing a loop.

You learn about yourself to learn about others. Connecting with others help you learn about yourself.

I remember hosting an informal canvas painting morning, and I asked all of them to do the Introduce Yourself Without exercise.

• Someone introduced themselves as “a person with mother-quality”, as she likes caring for others. At least one person in the group resonated.

• Someone introduced themselves with “I love green, all-thing-green.”. At least one person in the group had green as their childhood favourite colour.

• Someone said they were a proud Aquarius. Someone in the group shared that star sign. Other people with different star signs joined in the same discussion.

You will find common and even conflicting interests through conversations. Those conversations starts with you understanding yourself.

And from there we connect!

Please note, all types of tests or exercises may not always define the exact human as you are. And over time, these thing could also change as you experience all sorts of things in life.

How would you introduce yourself in one sentence - no name, job title, location, ethnicity mentioned?

#wotn4 #day4

Bài viết thuộc thử thách viết 30 ngày của khóa học Writing On The Net.