NETWORKING
WITH
PARITOSH PATHAK

Episode 2 : The Most Valuable Relationship

Hello my fellow networkers. Welcome to this second episode of Networking with Paritosh. This is going to be super valuable. I really hope it comes out that way. Let's jump into this. It doesn't matter how many people you know which amazing platforms, organizations, associations you're part of what are the top strategies you have in network looking who all is there in your phone book? Until this one thing is in place, we're often spending too much of time, effort on thinking about what are others thinking about us than we are working to manage the perception that people have about us. When those efforts go right, we celebrate. And when they go wrong, we worry. Sometimes we find ourselves to be helpless. What can we even do if somebody's thinking a certain way about us, there's nothing we can do to change. That not true. 

And then sometimes we resort to extreme measures, right? Making huge investments in different aspects. Could be platforms, could be cars, could be associations. We all have good intentions, but often we end up doing it wrong. And today is the session where we decode this. We're going to decode what does it really take to build amazing relationships with amazing people? Okay, cool. Number one, there's one thing I want you to remember from this podcast, and that is this everyone can see everyone's truth. Let's look into this. Does this happen with you? 

That when you're out there, you're networking with people, you're having conversations, you're at vetting functions, et cetera, you are able to tell when somebody is not really being authentic, when somebody's trying to show themselves to be bigger and better than who they really are or when they are showing off, maybe when they're being inauthentic. Are you able to tell? Well, the answer should be yes because yes, you can. Because you do have this ability to identify inconsistencies. When who we are and what we're doing is not aligned, our brain can actually identify that. Now one, I want you to start listening to this inner voice that is telling you about people, whether they're being authentic or not. I want you to feed this, hone it. It's usually right. Usually there are some exceptions as well. 

Now, what's really happening, the science of this is this when I know what I'm doing or saying is not really true, it shifts my behavior. It makes me conscious, it makes me cautious. And that changes my body language. And that brings inconsistency between who I am and what I'm doing. And this inconsistency can be seen by other people. For example, you. You may call it that Paratosh is not comfortable. You may call it that Paratosh is in ego. You may call it whatever. You're going to see me, my behavior from your filters, how your outlook of the world is. But one very interesting thing to note here is that you may end up judging me, but I would be the cause. Yeah, I would be the cause. That inconsistency came from me. 

You looked at it from your filters and then you formed an opinion about me. Far too often we're going around and putting the blame and responsibility on other people and saying, you know what? That person's not good. They do this, they do that. And hardly ever we go inward and say, hey, could it be me? Could it be me who could be causing this behavior? One of the ways you can look at it is just start looking at in terms your life in terms of patterns, what kind of patterns are existing out there so at large, what are the opinion people have about you? People are forming about you, what are people saying about you? Look at repetitive patterns and that'll start to tell you what's there in you. 

If you're open, if you're not coming in ego, if you're willing to learn, you'll start to see it. So coming back to the core idea here, everyone can see everyone's truths and you can see the truth of other people. There's an inner voice telling you and you need to start feeding that inner voice. But this also raises another question. If you can see the truth of other people, can other people see your truth? Think about it. The answer you may not like that is absolutely yes. Even other people can see your truth. When you're not being authentic, when you are showing yourself to be bigger and better, when you're trying to prove a point, when you're trying too hard, when you're not comfortable in your skin, people can tell. 

It doesn't matter right now the way we are conditioned and brought up, no one's going to come to you and say, hey, you know what? I can tell you're not being real. No one's going to say that. No one's looking for a fight, no one's looking to coach you've not paid them. No one's looking to get onto your bad side. They're just going to form an opinion about you. Go talk about you behind your back the way you do that for other people. Yeah, exactly the same way. But at the end of it you are the cause. That's the bad news. And it's also the good news because if you're the cause, you can control it. Now what are we talking about here? What is the point that I'm trying to come to? 

And the point is this that the most valuable aspect of networking when you're out there building relationships with anyone is something called authenticity. Think about it. If other people can anyways see my truth, if they can anyways figure out whether I'm comfortable or not, whether I'm as big as I'm talking about or not, whether I'm really trying to help them or not, whatever I'm trying to do, if other people can tell that, I might as well be authentic. This is one of the most valued aspects of networking. The most loved people, the most loved people by most people are the people who are authentic, who are really true to who they are. Think about it. Humility is our ability to be honest with ourself. When I'm at a stage in life where I may be struggling and I'm honest about that's humility. 

It's humility is not just when I've become big and I'm being help, people say humble. When I'm being kind, courteous, open, receptive. Now, yeah, of course that is humility. But that's not only humility. When I'm going through a rough phase in my life and I'm open to acknowledging that and I'm not trying to hide it. I'm not trying to pretend I'm being humble. I'm being authentic, I'm being real. Most loved people by the most people are the people who are real. So if you truly are looking to build great relationships with great people, this is a catch. Great relationships with great people, authenticity is the key. I personally have been in situations so many times in the early days in my career where I was in front of amazingly successful people, amazing people. And that created such huge pressure on me. 

And I'm like, oh my God, I'm in front of these person. And then I got into proving that hey, I'm doing this right. I'm doing that while I'm doing that while you know what? Now I know they could see me trying too hard. And because I was trying too hard, I couldn't build relationship with them. Their barriers came up, their judgment came up. And if I'm being honest today, I know some really successful people today with whom I probably don't have a great relationship because at one point in time I used to be the pretending kind and they could tell and they didn't respect that, right? And I'm going to have to work really hard to change those perceptions today. I can only do that when I understand that they saw my truth and they might have judged me. 

Yeah, that's on them. But the cause was me. That's number one. Everyone can see everyone's truth. So start being authentic as much as you can. I'm not saying that you change the game and you go absolute, 100% honest. No common sense applies. But start listening to that inner voice. Start realizing how you're feeling. When you start to feel uncomfortable and people are around you know that there is something happening inside that might force you to change your behavior. And that point in time you need to make a choice. Step number two, I want you to be aware that how you feel about yourself matters the most when it comes down to networking with other people, it's not what they feel about you. 

What you feel about them is going to be the cause, as we have just discussed, of what perception they form about you. So being aware of how you're feeling about yourself and being aware of how you want to feel about yourself. Making that choice should be your number one priority. And here is a catch that I want to warn you about. This is not about ego. This is not about you coming into a space where you saying, you know what, this is who I am, this is what I do, and I'm going to be like this, only it doesn't matter. No, that's not ego. If you're out there networking, it's about other people as well. So it can't be just about you. But you do have to choose how do you want to feel about yourself? 

Being okay with who you are and owning it has got to be your number one priority when it comes to building amazing relationships. And these could be relationships within your house, with your family, with your spouse, with your kids, with your siblings, with your friends, with your cousins. It could be with your official network, or it could be with people who are far more successful than you. And to do this, you need to start defining yourself with what you are good at, what are your strengths, and not define yourself with your weaknesses. Too many people out there today are constantly looking at what's wrong in them, what makes them weak, what are they not good at, and they're constantly focusing on that in order to define themselves. And most people don't even know that they're doing this, but that doesn't help. 

This is something that we have to take charge of. Let me be very clear. There's never going to be a time in your life ever that you're not going to have any weakness, that you're not going to have anything that is not okay. There's never going to be that time. But there's always going to be a time in your life, always, where you're always going to have some strengths. Now, let's say you're someone who cannot have great conversations. You are an introvert kind of person. You can't really approach someone and do leave a deep impact on their mind with a particular conversation. That's your weakness. And if you're constantly focusing on that, oh my God, I can't do this, I can't network like that person, I can't do this, I can't do that, then that's going to become stronger. But instead, what's your strength? 

Are you a good friend? Are you someone who is real? Are you someone who is great at what they do, at your business, at your product, at your service, whatever? Is that your strength? Whatever your strength is, build on that. Should you be working on your weaknesses? Yes. But your 70% of your focus should be going on your strengths, leveraging your strengths, building your strengths, whatever you're good at, if you're a great friend, that if you're a genuine person, that if you're truly committed to the commitments that you make, that 70% of your focus should be on your strengths. And your 30% on your weakness. Let me ask you a question. What is the focus that you're giving right now on your strength versus your weakness? Chances are it's the exact opposite, that you're probably giving 30% of your strength. 

Focus on your strengths and 70% of your awareness, your energy, et cetera, is going around thinking about worrying about, what are you not good at? You can't do this, you can't do that. What are the people thinking? You want to go talk to that person, but why would that person talk to you? All of that is perhaps taking a lot of energy. And if that's happening, it's time to change that. Know that you will always be a work in progress. Always. There's never going to be a time that you're not going to be a work in progress. There's no one on the planet who's not a work in progress, no one who doesn't have a weakness. 

But if you're going out there and your weaknesses are playing on your mind that I'm not good at this, I'm not good at that, and you're going out there with that kind of mindset, all your energy is going to go on, that you're going to become stiff. You're not going to approach people. You're not even going to do what you can do. But if you focus on your strength, if you change your mindset and you focus on your strength and you say, okay, you know what? This is what I'm good at, and you start approaching people with that, it changes the game, right? It's okay not to be okay, but it's not okay to go around carrying the pressure of not being okay, because that changes who you really are. 

Number three, understand this that the number one relationship that you really have to build is the one with yourself. People don't respond to what you do. They respond to who you are. So if you are the kind of person who's constantly thinking that you're not good enough, that's what people are responding to. If you think that you are someone of value and people would really love to network with you and care with you, that's what people would respond to. So the number one thing that you have to do is build a great relationship with yourself. And to do that, you have to stop defining yourself with where you are and what you have today. Stop defining yourself with your turnover, with your net worth, with your salary, with the house, with the car, with the looks, with the clothes, with your conversational ability. 

Stop defining yourself with all of that and start defining yourself with your potential, who you have the potential to become. What you have the potential to become is what matters the most, right? It's not about where you are today. No. It's about are you clear about where you're going in life, who you are trying to become. You can choose to have your worth defined by what you have today or what you're trying to build? And when you focus on where you're going, what are you trying to achieve, who you're trying to become? It changes your conversation. It changes your behavior. It changes your body language. It changes your confidence, because then at any given moment, you're not really worried about what's not okay. And you're constantly focused upon what can you bring to the world? What can you make happen? Right? Here's the thing. 

You need to come to a place where when you see yourself in the mirror, you respect yourself. You see someone that you like, that you value, and you look at that person and say, you know what? I like this person, and I want you to try this today. Once you've listened to this podcast, go stand in front of a mirror and really look at yourself. Really do that and become aware of what you're feeling when you're looking at yourself. Are you feeling respect for the person that you see in the mirror? If that oh, man, you are doing so amazing. And if you're struggling to look at yourself, oh, man. You really have to make this a priority. 

Whatever you choose to focus on about yourself, the good, the bad, the ugly, whatever is what the other people will be able to see, because what you focus on will come into your behavior, and what comes into your behavior is what's seen by other people. Okay, so you change this by choosing your strands. Let's do a quick recap. Number one, authenticity is at the core. Everyone can see everyone's tooth. There's no point you even trying to hide it. In fact, the more successful that people become, they really become good at sensing the real value of the person in front of them. They really become good because they've traveled that distance. They've worked with so many people, and they just have a lot of experience in this. Number two, you're never going to be perfect. And that's okay. It's okay not to be okay. 

What's not okay? To be going around worried about? It okay. Cool. And number three, become the kind of person do whatever you have to do, whatever you must do in order to become the kind of person that you respect. And the day that happens, you will see your world changing. All right, cool. So that's another truth bomb dropped on you today in this episode of Networking with Parathosh. If you are enjoying this conversation, do check out W dot networkingsuccess in right. Take care and take some time to build a great relationship with yourself. God bless.