#11 - Networking
Hi Folks,
On the mend and back to my longer form 3 parts that you know.
This weekend attended a kindergarten birthday party that felt more like an obligatory whole class invite. Here’s some afterthoughts from that.
If you prefer less long form, feedback is always welcome.
Networking
On Sunday, we went to this child’s birthday party.
I didn’t know a single person. Didn’t even recognise the birthday boy. (To be honest, I don’t think my son could tell me who it was either)
Welcome to the networking side quest.
It was actually fascinating to see playground instincts re-emerge. Mums talking to mums. Dads talking to dads(although this was kind of by default since I was the only guest dad there).
I had thought - it’d be nice to show the little guy it’s fun to not know people and still connect. Then he disappeared inside a jumping castle.. and then I realised maybe I was really just trying to remind.. me.
The introverted part of me knows that it’s ok to feel uncomfortable, even though it is uncomfortable.
The real side quest though maybe isn’t networking, it's noticing when something is hard, and showing up regardless.
Comfort
On the drive there, my excited 3 year old realised this wasn’t his cousins’s birthday party (they have the same name) - it was in fact a random childcare friend’s.
“Baba, will you drive home when we get there?”
“Baba, will you stay with me?”
“Baba, can you hold my hand at the party?”
Yeah, I get it, little man.
Walking into the big unknown. Adults can feel it too.
My conversations with clients often surface themes of exposure, resilience, tolerance - it’s essentially about feeling safe when there’s uncertainty.
I recall a morning where he was particularly upset about being left in his new kindergarten class. Through his tears he heard the educator offer “Want to play with the special spider man(action figurine)?”
Pause tears.. “yeh” and he disappeared, almost forgetting to say bye.
In coaching, we have a larger toy box of questions. E.g. What do you want instead of fear? What relationship would you like with the uncertainty? What would a sense of direction be like? How do you rediscover that?
Real Talk
The chats with parents soon turned from salutations to.. schools.
I caught a floating thought - if I ask about education prospects, am I going to sound like that guy? The one who steers the conversation to the subtle socio-economic hierarchy of suburbs and schools?
(I caught that one real soon, that’s definitely Mr. Overthinker babbling on over my shoulder.)
Another voice reminded me, hey, I’m just genuinely curious. There’s no scoreboard. No intention to compare status or identities. We’re all here to support our kids in the best way we can. These are not critical benchmarks, they’re points of information.
That one felt much more grounded.
This would be worthy of modelling to my kids. To get sciency, Dr. Andrew Huberman talks about how social comparison and validation seeking behaviours can hijack the dopamine system, leading down that path of 'not enough'. On the other hand though, social connection itself activates dopamine, and by simply connecting from presence and curiosity, the same system rewards us.
A simple perspective shift, from comparison to connection.
Side quests are fun!
Connecting over cake. Bright blue icing on top, mmmm
