What two very different Irish events taught me about networking, belonging and being myself
12 Rooms of a WorkLife Room 2 Finding My People
For a long time, I’ve avoided networking.
I’ve never thought I was particularly good at it.
I don’t always feel like myself in those situations.
I’ve never felt I belonged.
That’s one reason I held back.
I’m Irish. I live in London. You might think I’d have been drawn to the London Irish business community.
But I wasn’t.
I’d questioned whether events for Irish people only might be exclusive, and I’ve always preferred spaces where people from different cultures, ages, experiences and walks of life can come together.
That’s another reason I held back.
Until recently.
I’ve been to two events run by the London Irish Business Society – LIBS – and both made me think differently about what networking can be.
The First Event
The first was Caife le Cairde – coffee with friends.
It was a coffee morning, with croissants, conversations and people coming together.
And the first question I was asked was:
Where are you from?
Not:
What do you do?
Where are you from?
What part of the country are you from?
It sounds like a small thing.
But it changed the conversation.
We did, of course, get on to what people did. That’s part of being at a business event.
But it wasn’t where we started.
We started with where we came from.
And I found that I liked that.
The Second Event
The second event was very different.
Craic, Ceol & Chicken Fillet Rolls was an evening of fun, music, food and a panel discussion with Irish hospitality entrepreneurs building businesses in London.
It was lively.
It was varied.
I found myself looking around the room.
Men and women.
Different ages.
Different experiences.
Different businesses.
Different reasons for being in London.
A mixture of people who happened to share something.
A Shift in My Thinking
Because I had thought these events were for the Irish community, and therefore excluded other communities, I had held back from going.
What I hadn’t thought about was the richness of bringing together the Irish diaspora – different ages, experiences, businesses and walks of life, all sharing something Irish.
What Both Networking Rooms Had In Common
Reflecting on both events, I had a thought:
These are my people.
The diversity of ages, experiences, businesses and walks of life made us all different.
But there was something about the mix that also felt familiar.
We were all sharing something Irish.
We were connecting through our culture.
I realised that perhaps what I’d been looking for wasn’t a way to be better at networking.
It was a room where I could be myself.
Where I felt a deep sense of belonging.
A room where the conversation could begin with something human.
Where are you from?
What brought you here?
What are you interested in?
And then, naturally, what do you do?
I came away from both events thinking differently about networking.
Maybe I’m not bad at it after all.
Maybe I just hadn’t been in the right rooms.
Until now.
Connection and Community
So much of my work is solitary.
Writing, creating, researching, thinking, developing ideas. I spend a lot of time working on my own, and I like that. It’s my happy place.
I enjoy solitude. I actively seek it out, and it’s where much of my best work happens.
But these two events have made me think about the place of connection and community in the WorkLife I want to build.
Maintaining my solitude is important, but so are moments of connection and community.
I want people to talk to, laugh with, exchange ideas, learn from and share things – people from different generations and with different experiences.
Because perhaps the question isn’t just what I want to do.
It’s who I want around me while I’m doing it.
And that’s another part of what I’m exploring as I think about the future of my WorkLife.
Finding the right room matters. And so does finding the people among whom I feel I belong.
Connect and Continue
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