- I was reading ‘Creating Happiness’ by Tony Hsieh, in which he mentioned that he formed a tribe that would gather at his loft known as Club Bio.
- However, this did not endure, as aside from the shared meeting location, there was little else in common among the members. Eventually, everyone simply resumed their pursuits, and the tribe largely dispersed.
- I have also realized from my own experiences that networking for its own sake rarely cultivates deeper relationships, whether professional or personal.
- The people with whom I have been able to forge genuine, lasting connections are those with whom I share a common purpose or goal.
- Whether it is my church community, where my brother and I collaborate in serving and discussing weekly service matters, or a circle of friends united by our shared passion for technology and gaming, it is this sense of shared purpose that enables us to move beyond superficial small talk.
- Imagine attending a networking or blind social event – without finding a topic of mutual interest and enthusiasm to explore more deeply, you will inevitably exhaust the limited small talk fodder, and any connections made are unlikely to persist in your long-term memory.
- Conversely, it is only those topics that truly captivate our shared passions that take root in our long-term recollections and hold the potential to bear future fruit.
- Therefore, to achieve meaningful networking, one must seek out and cultivate connections grounded in common interests, whether professional, recreational, or otherwise – connections bound by a unifying purpose.
I co-wrote the above using my brain and also asked the Claude-3-Haiku Large Language Model to polish the text by changing synonyms, adjectives and other minor changes to make my writing more consistent with high-quality literature, without changing the meaning. Finally checked and fixed some mistakes according to Grammarly, achieving a high score of 86. (This paragraph itself received a score of 96!)
Realizing it is a bit bland, I then asked the dude named Claude-3 to do it with a bit more personality and quirkiness, while keeping the content and tone serious. Wanna see what I gotta?
- I was reading this book ‘Creating Happiness’ by Tony Hsieh, and he mentions how he gathered up this little tribe of folks who would just hang out at his loft known as Club Bio, you know?
- But it turns out, aside from the shared hangout spot, these people didn’t have much else in common. Before long, everyone just kinda drifted off to do their own thing, and poof – the tribe dissolved.
- And you know, I’ve noticed the same thing in my own life when it comes to networking. If I’m just networking for the sake of networking, without any real shared interests or purpose, those connections rarely ever amount to anything deeper, whether professionally or personally.
- The people I’ve been able to really click with and build lasting bonds with? Those are the ones where we’ve got some common goal or passion that brings us together.
- Like my church crew – me and my bro are always huddling up to discuss the Sunday service and figure out how we can serve better.
- Or my group of tech-obsessed gaming buddies. We’re connected by that shared enthusiasm.
- But man, think about those generic networking events or blind meetups. If you can’t find at least one topic you’re both genuinely stoked about to really dive into, you’re just gonna be stuck recycling the same old small talk that doesn’t stick in your memory at all.
- Nah, the stuff that really resonates and has legs is the stuff you bond over through a shared purpose. That’s the kind of connection that has real potential to bear fruit down the line.
The above quirky but serious rewrite obtained a Grammarly score of 81 and I refused to listen to Grammarly by not changing “this book” to “the”, and ignoring its prompt that I have too many “really”! Really?
Then I need some blog titles! So ask Claude-3 for advice.
“Give me a few good blog titles for this article, emphasising that we need deeper meaning than just networking for networking’s sake. The titles should all invoke the potential readers’ curiosity. At least one title should be more serious and suitable for publishing on LinkedIn, and at least one title should give a bit more quirkiness and fun, and maybe some suitable for social posts like Facebook.”
And poof, this is what I got!
Serious/LinkedIn-style titles:
“Networking Without Purpose: Why Superficial Connections Fall Flat”
“Beyond Networking: Cultivating Meaningful Relationships Through Shared Passions”
“The Power of Purposeful Connections: Leveraging Mutual Interests for Lasting Impact”
Quirky/social media-style titles:
“Why Your Networking Efforts Are Turning into a Lonely Ghost Town (and How to Fix It)”
“(Option removed due to being a somewhat disrespectful suggestion from the system)”
“Networking Making You Bored to Tears? Here’s How to Actually Make Friends Worth Keeping”
And I, decided to play safe with the title.