When you connect outside your comfort zone, and the power of words… this episode covers some powerful insights and the amazing things that can happen.
I had to invite Patrick back to share this incredible story from his early days of business.
Find Patrick Here
theconnectorsway.com
Patricks Book
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Kerrie Phipps 0:00
Kerrie Phipps here with Connect with Confidence podcast and I’m so excited to have Patrick Galvin back to share more on The Connectors Way. That’s the title of his book. And it is the way he lives his life and business. Now, Patrick shared with me this amazing edge of the room story that was inspired by the previous episode and there is so much gold in this conversation. I hope you love it. Find Patrick online, follow his work, find his book. Absolutely enjoyed this episode as much as I have enjoyed recording it for you.
Patrick Galvin 0:40
Now, if I had gone and spoken to the people that I was comfortable with, instead of this unknown person who was not happy at the time when I saw him, I don’t know if my company would have ever gotten off the ground.
Kerrie Phipps 0:54
Patrick, thank you so much for coming back for round two. We have so much great content One to have. And we started talking in the last episode about the power of words. You know, you mentioned something earlier in the conversation, and I just really grabbed on to that words are meaningful. They’re powerful, and you use them so naturally and so beautifully. Do you want to just talk us through your thinking behind that?
Patrick Galvin 1:20
Words have power. And sometimes we can be pretty cavalier and just throwing things around and not thinking about how they’re going to impact other people. Unfortunatly I have a great editor in my wife who if I say something that’s out of bounds or insensitive, I get called on it. I think it’s good that we have editor’s, I really try to contextualize what I’m saying with who I’m talking to. And I think it’s really easy to kind of have your pattern and just sort of fall into your stories and patterns and word choices. And some words are not good ones to use with certain types of people. So I really try to put myself in the shoes of the other when I’m speaking, you know, when I speak to my 12 year old daughter, I can’t talk to her like I talk to my wife, it’s not appropriate, it just wouldn’t have meaning to her. So I practice at home and I take it out into the professional world too. And I really try to measure what I’m saying, according to the audience that’s hearing and if that’s an audience of one, or if it’s an audience of people listening, because I’m standing on the stage speaking to him.
Kerrie Phipps 2:17
Yeah, that’s beautiful. You know, as soon as I asked you that question, I thought, Oh, it’s so much more than thinking. But then you did talk about how you think that through. But it’s just being isn’t as being with people. You talked about having an editor which is great, but we don’t have that in the conversations that we have out and about, you know, we have an editor. But it’s not just about thinking is it it’s about who we’re being. Right.
Patrick Galvin 2:41
It’s really taking stock of the other person and walking in their shoes a little bit. I think that if we’re going to be building business relationships or personal relationships, it’s so easy to live in your own head. And once you start doing that, and you’re talking to somebody, you’re not really hearing them, you’re not really following up, you’re not really cognizant of what their needs are. And it’s difficult to build a connection if you’re just saying your words and not listening closely to their words and their needs and how you might help them based on what you’re hearing.
Kerrie Phipps 3:10
Yes, and what we’re seeing, because sometimes we walk into a room and we see people sort of on the outskirts, you know, like, don’t want to be there or don’t feel comfortable. And you know, earlier we’re talking about looking for ways to serve people. And you know, who’s nervous, who could I like, welcome, who could I put at ease? You do this so beautifully to try to share, like, what do you notice when you walk into a networking room?
Patrick Galvin 3:34
I have a great story on that covers this point, so well. So when I started my company, 20 years ago, I joined the Chamber of Commerce, and I served on the board so I walked into a room for a chamber of commerce networking event, I recognized a lot of people in the room, the easy thing to do would have been to go over and talk to one of my friends in the chamber but there was a person standing on the outskirts with his arms folded. He was not happy to be there. I could tell by the expression on his face and I walked up to him and I said, Hey, isn’t this a fun event? And I knew I kind of get a rise out of him. I wanted to see how he dealt with he said I’d rather be anywhere but here. And I said, well, where? And he said at home reading a book and I said, Well, what kind of book would you want to be reading? And he told me that he had graduated recently from college. He had the stack of English literature books that he wanted to get through. And we started talking about English literature. It was a business networking event. And about 15 minutes into the conversation. He started looking really stressed out and he said, Patrick, I gotta run the shrimp are running out and I said, What? And he ran off to the kitchen and grabbed this platter shrimp and ran out to put it on the buffet line. It turned out that he was the banquet manager for this hotel, and he was working the event. He came back on his way to the kitchen to get more food to bring out he said, I never asked what is it that you do professionally. And at the time, I was focused on public relations, and he said, Boy, public relations, our hotel is actually looking for a PR company. Would you mind if I introduced you to the general manager, we didn’t have any clients that we were just starting out. Well, his introduction led to us landing our first major client and that client became a referral source for other major clients. Now, if I had gone and spoken to the people that I was comfortable with, instead of this unknown person who was not happy at the time when I saw him, I don’t know if my company would have ever gotten off the ground, we have these opportunities, and you are the master of this and do talk to strangers. I mean, this is clearly a great example of living that mantra of yours and how it had a significant impact on my business. And it was a fun conversation. I don’t talk English literature very often. So I thoroughly enjoyed the 15 minute conversation. It was on his terms, but it made him feel comfortable with me and led him to think Well, I’d like to, perhaps have this gentleman work with our company, so I might stay connected to him.
Kerrie Phipps 5:45
Patrick, there is so much i love about this story.
Patrick Galvin 5:49
That’s a great story.
Kerrie Phipps 5:50
It is. So I love that. You spent that time talking to him when I don’t know about you, but somebody could have the mental chatter like I To be talking to, you know, people that should be looking for business, but you just went into the conversation, you talked about English literature, you value to the person who is standing in front of you, not for what he could bring you. But just to, you know, I guess you were lifting his mood, you could see he didn’t want to be there, then
Patrick Galvin 6:15
I had zero expectations.
Kerrie Phipps 6:17
I think that’s really powerful. Like, we don’t have zero expectations in the moment or of that person. But we generally have an expectation that things are going to be okay that people are just expecting generally that people are doing the best they can that we’re doing the best we can that we might as well just get on with caring for the other human beings in our space, and letting the business things work themselves out being available to people, but doesn’t get in the way if we have that conversation in our head about how many business cards we should be collecting that night or what we should be doing,
Patrick Galvin 6:50
Collecting or passing out. I think there are a lot of people go to those events as blackjack dealers, you know, they’re dealing cards, like they’re dealing tables in a casino. And the funny thing is you go outside a room like that, where someone who has that mentality has been present look in the wastepaper basket, chances are you’re going to see some of their cards sitting right there. It’s not about collecting cards, it’s about having conversations. And I would prefer to go to an event like that, and have a couple of good conversations than giving my card to 25 people. I know from experience now that my chances of making meaningful connections that are going to be good for my business, aside from being good for my soul, are going to come from fewer numbers, but higher quality. It’s not a numbers game. It’s a quality game.
Kerrie Phipps 7:33
Absolutely. Kingsway. In the world of virtual right now. We’re spending more time in online events of all kinds. We’re on LinkedIn on social media. Have you been doing any networking or business connecting in the online space so that some webinars or meetings conferences have you know, breakout rooms and you do get to have conversations one on one, tell me what that’s been like for you?
Patrick Galvin 7:57
Yeah, so for me, I have been Really leaning into this notion of one on one coffee chats, and I love zoom, I have a virtual coffee shop background that’ll pop up behind me when I invite someone to a virtual coffee shop chat. And I’m reaching out to people who I know they’re connected to me on LinkedIn, they’re first degree connections, but I haven’t spoken to them in a long time. I can go to any person of my couple thousand people. And that’s it. I don’t have 10s of thousands, a couple thousand people and say, Hey, we haven’t chatted a long time. I want to know how you’re doing during this pandemic. Would you have 15 minutes just to connect? And I’ve never had a no because they know me. And it’s a great conversation usually goes longer than 15 minutes. I always put a stop in and saying, hey, it’s 15 minutes I said 15. And usually I go out a little bit more than that. But that has opened up some incredible possibilities professionally and just some fantastic conversations just to hear what people are doing. It’s way better than going to some school reunion where you’re in a room full of people who you vaguely know and you’re bouncing from one inane conversation to Another This is much better than that. And people are so glad to have these conversations right now because they’re sick of hanging out with their families, they want a new face. And it’s just it’s a wonderful opportunity to be building bridges with people that you didn’t move away from them for any bad reasons, just life goes on, they maybe move to a different physical location. But this is a great opportunity to rekindle some fires of relationship.
Kerrie Phipps 9:26
It is, um, well, I’m doing a lot of connecting with, you know, reconnecting like you’ve explained, but also new connections. And I think having in my bio, author of do talk to strangers. Yeah. People often refer to you, and they’ll say, Oh, I thought I could talk to you because you talk to strangers. And I’m like, Yes, welcome. But I’ve also made my calendar system open for people to connect with, you know, by private message. I’m just not putting it out there everywhere. I’d be completely booked solid. But, you know, we’ll have a chat. They might say, you know, I’d love to connect with And I’ll say, Well, you know, if you want to book a time in my calendar that kind of identifies who actually means and who’s just saying, we should connect some time. And I had some powerful conversations with people. And that said, Well, I saw your book title, and I thought I could talk to you. And I am amazed. I’ve connected with some extraordinary people who are doing really amazing work in the world. You just don’t see it necessarily in their LinkedIn profile. Know that introducing you to people, you know, you start swapping ideas on the global goals and all kinds of things. And yeah, it’s been a really beautiful place to connect with. But I think this thinking and being that we bring to a physical networking space, we can take that online.
Unknown Speaker 10:43
Yes. There’s a great book that I just finished reading called Friend of a Friend by a guy named David Berkus, and he talks about the power of not just your immediate circle of influence circle of friends, but reaching a little bit beyond that. So they’re not strangers. These are people who you think highly But there are folks that you haven’t taken the time to connect with. So it’s great to invite people in to connect with you who you don’t know. But I think a real opportunity exists for going out and finding those people who you’ve drifted apart for some reason. And these have some of the most kind of robust possibilities, it’s gonna be a great conversation because you’re catching up. But they have because they have drifted away, they have their own social circles. And lots of studies have been done that this author has actually helped lead that show that the friend of a friend or the more distant first degree connection is actually a super valuable one that most people don’t spend enough time thinking about who those folks are.
Kerrie Phipps 11:40
Absolutely, Patrick, thank you for sharing that. Thank you for who you are, what you bring to the world. I’m so delighted that we connected just a year ago, we’ve had so many rich conversations since then, I want to encourage our listeners to find the connectors away on Amazon. Actually, Patrick, I have to just share that. You can politely blew me away. When you did a video testimonial on Amazon. A. I didn’t know that was a thing. And B. it was just so genuine so heartfelt. And I was just amazed. So thank you for your testimonial on do talk to strangers on Amazon.
Patrick Galvin 12:17
It’s a great book. So it was coming absolutely from the heart. It took me less than five minutes to do because that book had such an impact on me.
Kerrie Phipps 12:24
Yeah, because you knew that you can go and do a video for Amazon. So the connections way is on Amazon and anyway that good books are sold. So connect with Patrick. Patrick, thank you so much for your time.
Patrick Galvin 12:40
Thank you so much. I look forward to connecting with you in the real world when that is safe and possible.
