issue 9

Hola.

Last week I travelled to Nashville for the LDS Business Summit. ??

Caught my American Airlines flight, enjoyed a 60 calorie bag of pretzels with my ginger ale, watched a movie, got a Lyft, enjoyed a tense conversation with the desk manager from Spain at the hotel (let's just say it was hard checking in), and finally made it to my room (the Gaylord Opryland hotel is an absolute labyrinth but does have some very nice water features throughout). Success.

The time was roughly 1 AM. I unpacked my suits and quickly got them into the closet (of course I gave them a few good shakes because that always gets every wrinkle out), checked through all of my things to make sure I was ready to rock n' roll in the morning, and sort of lay there on the bed for a while. I don't (can't) sleep at hotels. I know, weird.

For the last few months, Benesch (a law firm I work with on some marketing strategies) had been planning this summit and the day was nearly upon us. It would be the 3rd year of the event, and we were going to have the biggest turnout yet. The sessions looked jam packed and we had a special musical guest in Daniel Emmet that was (AGT finalist).

Morning came. Light work out. Cracker Barrell breakfast. A little bit of reading. Suit up. Go time. ??

It did not disappoint.

Sessions were led by all sorts of great folks—we had Tom Holmoe from BYU (athletic director), Ty Detmer (Pro QB), Elaine Dalton (Stella Oaks Foundation), Nate Checketts (Rhone), Kevin Jackson (Gridiron Capital), and Amy Anderson (REES Capital). We talked scaling, team building, philanthropy, you name it. Such a cool group of people who shared their knowledge. Lots of notes were taken and inspiration received. ?

Equally as fun were the attendees who came from all over the country, representing a broad variety of professionals and skill sets. One of my favorite parts were the times between sessions (and the meals ?? ) were I could listen to stories and ask questions. That was one of my goals for the summit = listen as much as possible. We have hundreds of years of senior-level experience packed into one place for two days—you better come with ears turned on. ??

Seeing as it was an LDS event, I really enjoyed being able to talk faith, family, and how to find balance. Funny enough, at Utah networking events and other things I never find myself in those types of conversations. It was nice to go deeper and talk about more personal things. It's amazing how connected we all are. I can't tell you how many times I heard people saying things like, "Oh yeah, I know them," or "You were living there in 19XX? We knew the ... family." There was some serious community building going on.

The title of this issue was inspired by a conversation I had which I made a LI post about a few days ago. If you didn't see it, here it is:

I have thought about this nonstop.

I really believe that business, relationships, and general life success could be greatly enhanced if we were able to implement elements of this. Obviously, it would require us to make ourselves more available for more social things, shifting our focus away from the daily grind. It would be extremely difficult for some people to put themselves out there as well as having a mindset change around how people 'level up' their career and opportunities. But I think the results would be relatively predictable (I'm no social scientist or business psychologist—just taking a whack at it):

• They come into your home, meet your kids, eat your cooking = they develop a stronger bond with you / really know what you're all about because they're in your world
• You spend more time (hopefully ?? ) chatting and getting closer together = better than the average work lunch
• By coming in with a specific reason, you have a shared goal together = Instead of one side talking about what they want, and switching, you have potentially 4 people ( w/ SO - I can speak from experience that Julie's reasoning is better than mine) that can tackle a problem together.
• How cool would it be to have some form of entertainment? = nothing on board games, but there's something special about enjoying music together
• This goes from a cold ask to a warm collaboration = there's a tangible magic that comes out of this experience

What do you think? Would you be able to carry out this formula in the area that you work in? It has such broad applications, I'm sure you can think of something.

..

As a closing thought, this summit helped realize that we really are surrounded by giants of industry, spirituality, each presenting their special gift to the world. A few of these giants are vocal, outgoing, and easily spotted. But we also need to find those in hiding behind the trees. We have to bring them out into the open, share what they do, and be unafraid to help them.

If you're reading this, chances are you have the ability to bring joy into someone's life. I'd invite you to come share in the #networkeffectofgoodness post that I made today:

I'm asking everyone to comment about what they do, what they love about their work, and if possible, help. Much like this networking formula, this style of post is tough. Not many people are going to be open / brave enough to say anything about themselves. I would challenge you to be different. Over the next few days, think about a person that could use a little bit of your 'giantness'. Tag / Message that person and bring them into the conversation.

Gracias.