Despite my love for fostering human connections, I (and probably like most of you), used to associate “networking” with being manipulative, transactional, and downright dirty.
An idea that runs throughout the book is that most of us underestimate our agency over our relationships. As a result, we accept feeling disconnected or we remain in the wrong group. We may explain the situation using our personality traits, saying, “I’m an introvert. I’m just not good at networking.” Or we may appeal to a negative self-assessment, saying, “I have nothing to offer.”
As a result, those of us trying to be authentic, refrain from what we perceive to be fake.
Similarly, we tend to underestimate how common our problems and worries are. Marisa King informs us that our worries about networking, our discomfort with taking up an active role, and our distaste for being seen as instrumentalizing social interactions are universal!
Here are some thoughts on this book:
🕸 We tend to think relationships formed based on a career need, rather than for sincere friendship, trigger our moral disgust. Researchers theorized that this visceral reaction makes us network less frequently, and less effectively.
🕸Finding out that these worries are widely shared could be a first step toward feeling connected. 🥰
🕸This book is strongly grounded in research, it is the insights into personal experiences that make it so valuable for thinking about one’s own social connections.
🕸We are all social beings with our own social networks and exploring the how and why of their creation and role in our lives feels particularly relevant after the challenges of these past years.
🕸After the social disruption we have all experienced, it is valuable to think about how we want to rebuild our social worlds. Extending from family and close friends, through school, workplaces and community networks to the benefits of small acts of civility in our everyday lives, this book presents ways to think intentionally about bringing us back together.
🕸This book is NOT fluff! It is grounded in science and backed up research.
Page Count: 368
Publishing Date: January 4, 2022
