First networking event of the year, a perfect person to speak to, and I blew it. Plus, why I’m glad I didn’t finish my to-do list this week.
For the first time this year, I went to a networking event.
Not as a web developer. As an e-commerce analyst. And I wanted to show up that way, present myself that way, have the kinds of conversations that made sense for where I’m trying to go.
What actually happened was something else entirely.
I was a mess.
I couldn’t naturally arrive at conversations that would lead anywhere useful. Couldn’t find the opening. Couldn’t steer things the way I wanted to without it feeling forced. And the most frustrating part, there was one person there who was almost comically perfect to speak to.
A woman who runs a spa. Products are 100% hers, and clients buy them through her Shopify store. That’s it. That’s the exact kind of business I want to work with. And the questions were all there in my head — does she use GA4? How does she track her transactions? Does she rely entirely on the Shopify dashboard, or does she pull data elsewhere? What does she actually know about how her store is performing?
None of it came out.
I ended up diverting the conversation, fumbling around, and eventually drifting away. And I honestly don’t know if I was overthinking it or if she wasn’t interested or if it was something I was doing, I’ve been told I have a low voice, that I mumble, that it makes it hard to follow what I’m saying. A few people have said it’s gotten better. Maybe it has. But in that moment, it didn’t feel like it.
The thing I keep coming back to, though, is that the goal isn’t to walk into a room and immediately sell yourself.
It’s to leave a positive impression. That’s it. Just — be someone worth remembering. Someone worth talking to again. And I don’t think I did that, at least not with the people I wanted to.
But I also know the only way to get comfortable in those situations is to keep putting myself in them. This was the first one. It won’t be the last. And I’ll be better at it than I was this week, even if only slightly.
Separately, frustration has been sitting with me the last few days.
Not the heavy kind. More the kind that comes from knowing you didn’t do something you said you would, and knowing the reason wasn’t time, it was that you didn’t make time. There’s a difference, and I know which one it was.
I’ve been building a habit of cutting out specific time for specific tasks. Trying not to fall into rabbit holes before the work is done. Every Sunday, I map out the week. And this week I didn’t follow through on everything because I got pulled deep into a new platform I’ve been experimenting with, spent way longer on it than I planned, and some things on the list didn’t get done.
Here’s the thing, though, I’m not upset about it.
The rabbit hole had a point. It’s going to be useful. I know that. And the things I didn’t get to this week aren’t gone, they’re just shifted. So as much as the frustration is real, so is the fact that where I ended up wasn’t wasted time. It just wasn’t the time I planned for.
Sometimes the detour is the work.
Until next time — ponder this:
Are you leaving rooms with people thinking about you, or just leaving?