Why was I trying to convince them? They already had my CV.
Hello fellow traveller,
I’ve never been much of a networker.
I’d been at Urban Outfitters for seventeen years when I left. I felt relatively institutionalised, and I wasn’t confident I could repeat what I’d done somewhere else.
I’d always assumed the people out networking were the ones looking for their next job. I was more interested in doing a good job and letting the rest follow.
I did network, just never for myself. I’d meet people in Berlin or Copenhagen to understand the communities we were trying to reach, so our concept would resonate and inspire. Executive search firms I mostly ignored. I didn’t even return their calls.
So after eighteen months of gardening leave, when I went back out there, I didn’t have a network. Or much confidence.
Talking through my CV
The meetings I did get, I didn’t enjoy. I’d sit there for half an hour, sometimes an hour, trying to convince them I had the experience. That I was good. In effect, I was talking them through my CV.
It was uncomfortable for me and, I’m sure, just as uncomfortable for them. Relatively pointless and painful.
May you be well
The light bulb came during a loving kindness meditation. Something I’d recently learned in my time off.
You start by wishing yourself well. May I be well, may I be happy, may I be free from harm. Three times. Then you wish the same for someone you love, like one of your children. Then someone familiar whose name you might not know, the postman perhaps. Then someone you’re in conflict with. Then all of them together, then all of humanity, then every living being.
It’s very hard to do it and not feel goodwill towards everyone. In fact, a couple of my wife’s friends told me I’d become a much nicer person since I started meditating. I tried not to be offended. But there was more than a grain of truth in it. If you walk into a room stressed, closed off or looking for an argument, you’ll probably find one. Walk in genuinely wishing people well and the chances of a real connection go up enormously. Even our cats wanted to spend more time with me.
One morning, in the middle of the practice, I thought about those meetings. And it came to me: why am I trying to convince them? They’ve already got my CV.
A smile on their face
So I changed the goal. I let go of selling myself. I just connected on a human level aiming to leave them with a smile on their face. I stopped talking through my CV altogether.
It was a game changer. I started to love those meetings. The more challenging they were, and the less I had in common with the person across the table, the more rewarding it felt to find the human connection.
Within a couple of weeks, I had the Conran Shop interview.
Try this
I see the same pattern in the founders and CEOs I work with. The investor pitch, the board meeting, the big client. We walk in trying to prove ourselves, and the effort fills the room. When you come from a place of enough and genuine empathy rather than need, people are drawn to you. That’s magnetism. Grasping does the opposite.
Most people in that room already know what you’ve done. What they’re really deciding is whether they want to spend time with you.
So before your next important conversation, try two things.
Spend five minutes on the loving kindness practice, and include the person you’re about to meet.
Then set one intention for the meeting: leave them with a smile on their face.
Who are you trying to convince right now, and what might happen if you simply connected?
Best,
Hugh
You’ve lived many versions of yourself in this lifetime. And there are many more still to come.
If you’ve got a big conversation coming up and want to walk in differently, that’s exactly the kind of conversation we’d have together. Let’s talk.
P.S. It turns out a CV is very good at being read. It doesn’t need me to read it out loud.
