Read

Cold emails are often…well, cold. And receive an equally icy shoulder from their beneficiary. So here’s how to heat up that cold contact and get yourself a warm reply.

Read more

Job rejections can be especially worse when your heart is caught in the fallout — this usually being the case when the knock-down is passion-related or you were convinced a more positive result was “meant to be.”

What you do next can be the difference between repeating the same scenario (over and over again) or heading down a healing path that will lead to success (whatever that looks like for you.) If you’d like to do the latter, lift your head up from that huge pile of work and follow these steps.

Sit with your feelings

That stabbing pain of rejection in your chest? Make friends with it. Invite it over for a cup of tea and sit with it.

“If we don’t sit with the emotion, and we put a mask over it and distract ourselves from what happened, we don’t get the lesson we need to learn. Then we’re stuck in a cycle where we have to really suffer and struggle to create change,” says Vanessa Auditore, director of Headspace at health and wellbeing clinic Pivot. “It doesn’t need to be that way.” Think of it this way: Sitting with your feelings of rejection is short-term present pain for long-term professional gain.

So now that you have a cup of tea ready, how do you get the conversation started? Mary Hoang, principal psychologist at The Indigo Project, says, “Ask yourself: Where do I feel the emotion in my body? How does it feel? Accepting the emotions in the body as they arise instead of pushing them away can take practice, but it allows feelings to pass away naturally.”

As you keep repeating the process, you’ll eventually notice the feelings diminish. It might take minutes; it might take months. The important thing is that you don’t mask your emotions. Mary emphasizes, “Overcoming rejection requires the acknowledgement and honoring of your feelings.”

Separate who you are from what you do

“This is something a lot of entrepreneurs and high achievers will identify with. When it comes to work, they feel like, ‘This is who I am’, rather than ‘This is something I do,’” Vanessa says.

Processing your feelings helps you get out of thinking that it’s you who is the failure. “Instead of spiraling into ‘I’m a failure,’ you get to look at the situation strategically and go, ‘OK, that approach didn’t work,’” she adds. “I think that’s the most powerful takeaway around rejection: It’s not personal. That’s why you need to process your feelings so they don’t take you off track.”

What are the lessons?

“In a situation like this, where you’ve had a massive rejection, do a postmortem at a practical level,” Vanessa suggests. “What did you learn? What do you need to do next time? For example, if you weren’t able to raise money for a startup, maybe you didn’t have the finances right because you didn’t have the right accountant on board. These questions help you to deconstruct the puzzle.”

Mary adds, “Spending time journaling about the situation gives you an opportunity to reappraise your thoughts in regards to the situation. Alternatively, you can find a trusted friend or mentor to chat to—this has the added benefit of helping you to learn about being okay with vulnerability.”

Know what you’ll do differently

It might be that you’ll research a company in greater depth before your next job interview, or it could be that you add a key member to your small biz team to make it more attractive to investors. And when that next opportunity arises, “This preparation helps you know you’ve done everything you can,” Vanessa says.

She adds that when it comes to success and failure, you need to be okay with ‘”what is.” Vanessa explains, “Being okay with ‘what is’ means that we have resilience and we have a sense of self. We know how to shift gears when necessary or change direction without it becoming this massive drama.”

Read more

On the surface, networking is about handing out business cards while getting business-blitzed off boxed wine. But these events are also asking for a particularly subtle type of human sacrifice — interesting conversation.

Often, we go into situations with the best intention of being a sparkling conversationalist. But the unspoken rule of approved topics always seems to be frustratingly narrow: Weather, job titles and (depending on your proximity to the midwest) sports.

That last one was always a stake into the proverbial heart of conversations I would attempt at industry events in Chicago. At the risk of over generalizing, the heartland really loves their sports teams — leaving me stranded with a group of people both bemused by my attempt at competence and saddened that they have to return to the topic of weather patterns.

I often left those events frustrated at all the missed opportunities. Why was something that should be so easy (human conversation) actually pretty hard? Was I in fact, myself, monotonous?

The answer turned out to be yes, of course I am. Most people are. At least in these contexts. But, according to Jordan Hayles, author of forthcoming Your Brand is Boring, we don’t have to be.

A brand strategist and writer, Hayles works with her clients to alleviate many of the same pain points around networking that we all share. The insecurities, confused signals, and ideas around professionalism that lead us to hole up in the safety of a boring conversation.

Boldly proclaiming “small talk as the enemy,” Hayles has developed a way to make networking, dare I say it, fun? Her process: Wrap your messaging in humanity and prepare, prepare, prepare.

Identify the feeling you’re trying to communicate.

Think about how you want to engage with a particular event. Often, we go with a goal that puts one in a used car salesman’s mindset. By making your agenda all about getting an interview or nabbing a few clients, one can often feel like they have to sell themselves hard in order to get what they want.

Which, according to Hayles, is exactly the wrong approach. People don’t like being sold to. Instead, try reframing your agenda from what you can get, to what you can give. Hayles recommends that you make it your intent to be a calming force during the event, make three people laugh, or act as a conduit for others to connect. For example, if your intent is to be helpful, something as simple as offering to help take a group photo can lead to an organic conversation.

Your messaging is experimental.

This is a strategic focus on what your message is at this event. And it will shift depending on the type of event and/or connections you’re trying to make. Hayles posits that for this to work, you need to pay attention to the listeners reaction as you test out what you’ve prepared. Are they interested? Did they ask more questions, or ask for your card? Did they seem preoccupied or try to change the subject?

Because failure is inherent in the experimental process, framing it as such in your own mind will make the inevitable less scary, while also making you an observer. The more data you gather, the better you can tailor your pitch for next time.

Your emotional clarity matters.

You should take the time to check in with yourself. Analyze if you are feeling bad, why, and if there is anything you can do — breathing exercises, napping, changing your outfit — that can put you in a better mindset. Because if you are not feeling good, that will affect your ability to engage in any meaningful way with the people around you.

By wrapping the meat of her purpose at a networking event, in the more human element of emotion, Hayles advice encourages deeper and more engaged connections. Preparation and intentionality do not negate your authenticity in these moments. They offer the opportunity for you to remove the nerves that accompany being ill-prepared, and allow for more boldness and creativity when trying to network.

But what if, despite preparing beforehand, you still struggle to avoid small talk? Hayles final tip: Befriend the space-maker by sharing what you’ve learned at their event. Take the time to write and design an engaging summary of the event and pass it along (for free and with no obligation on their part to publish) to the event coordinator.

Most likely, they will appreciate that you took the time to provide a super helpful piece of collateral for them and either could: Keep you in mind for the next event, or pass your summary (on which you will most definitely include your name and contact information) on to all those that attended. By offering a helping hand, you are giving potentially hundreds of people access to your work and initiative.

Leaving you, business-buzzed and satisfied. And you didn’t even have to talk sport.

Read more

Read more