 Almost everyone agrees that having a strong network is critical to being successful, but almost everyone hates networking. Let's see if we can turn that around a little bit. Welcome back and congratulations on taking another step towards becoming one of the great leaders of tomorrow. And if you're one of those people who doesn't like networking all that much, I absolutely understand. But in our professional lives, just as in our personal lives, relationships are everything. And let's be honest, if you're doing everything all by yourself, you're not really leading anyone. And that's why it's important to build a strong network around you to help you get through the challenges that you face every day. The best advice I can give you about networking is don't stress about it. All you're really doing when you're networking is trying to connect with people who share your goals and your interests. And I know a lot of people get worried about the size of their network or if it has the right people in it or not. I don't want you to stress about that either because when you really sit down and look at it, your network is probably more robust and bigger than you think. So today, I'm not going to show you how to go out and do networking. What I'm going to do today is show you a tool that you can use to assess your network called a network map. And I'm going to show you how I use that tool later in the week with the blog post. I'll show you how I built the network map. But for now, I'm just going to show you the ways that I use my network map once it's built. So what you see here is a version of my network map that I simplified a little bit to make it easier for you to see on the screen. And the short version of what's going on here is that I've divided the network map into some areas that reflect the major aspects of my life. And you can see that those are education, personal development, my business, and my family and friends. You also see that the names are color coded and they're color coded based on how I know those people or how I met those people. So for example, you'll see some of the names are blue. Those are people that I met when I was in the Air Force. You also see that I put the word me at the center and that the names are at various distances from the center where I put myself. The closer someone is to me on the network map, that's the closer the relationship that I have with them. Also, I don't include everyone's full information on the network map. I just use it to jog my memory about who's in my network. And then I can go and look up more information about them from my address book or my LinkedIn or other tools later on. Let's say I'm having a problem where I have a question for someone and I'm trying to answer a question. Let's say that question is about the latest theories that are being taught in masters and PhD programs about leadership in the academic world. So what I would do is I'd go and I'd look through my network map to find someone who has expertise in that area. So someone who fits that bill is my friend Dwayne who I met through the Air Force but is working in the academic and the educational world right now. So Dwayne is someone that I could go to to find out the answer to that question. Let's say you need to get connected with someone like a thought leader or an influencer to discuss something going on in your field but you don't have any direct connection to them through your network. What I do is I put them off at a distance in the appropriate section of my network map and then I think about who might be able to connect me. So in this example I have some questions for Stephen about his book but you can see I don't have any direct connections to him through any of my business contacts. However what I do know is that Jordan who is on the personal development side of my network map interviewed Stephen for his podcast a couple of months ago and that I might be able to go to Jordan and ask Jordan if he'd be willing to introduce me to Stephen so I can get my questions answered. My favorite way of using my network map is to connect people up who otherwise might not get a chance to be connected and what I do is I look through my network map and I look for people who have similar goals or interests or might just like to get to know each other and then I find a way to put them together. For example my friend Alex and my friend Justin both love college football so I'm going to invite them both when I host my college game day party in a few weeks. Everyone loves when someone introduces them to other great people and your network map is a great way to become that kind of connector that puts people together. So if all this sounds really simple it is and if you're already doing these things you're on your way to becoming a great networker. If you're new to this the network map is a great tool that you can use to make conscious decisions about building and maintaining the relationships in your life instead of just leaving them to chance. If you've got some clever tips for how you put together your network map post them in the comments we'd love to share them with everyone and if you've got some questions or need some help putting together your network map contact us we'd love to help you out. Later in the week I'm going to put out a blog post that talks about how I put together my network map and the easiest way to get that is click on that globe to the right that says subscribe that'll get you on our email list and that'll put all our content directly into your inbox. Thanks again for watching and remember the future is out there. Lead the way.