Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections. An Interview with Alfredo Bordowski and Michael A Forman
- mforman521
- Jul 21
- 15 min read
📍 Welcome to Networking Unleashed, building Profitable Connections, the show where we explore how meaningful relationships drive powerful results in business and in life. I'm your host, Michael Foreman, and today we're diving into a conversation that sits at the intersection of uncertainty, innovation and human connection.
My guest is a thought leader in peak performance and adaptability. Someone who knows what it takes to lead, connect, and thrive when the stakes are high and the future is unclear, he is also raising a flag for what many overlook that in an error dominated by AI and automation, our human relationships, not our resumes or technical skills, may be the most valuable asset we have.
We're talking about how to build unshakeable networks in shaky times, how to connect with purpose when everything is changing, how and how to future proof your influence no matter what technology does exist. If you're looking for clarity, courage, and connection in the face of rapid change, this episode is in your playbook.
Alfredo, how did I do? First of all, welcome to the podcast and introduce yourself, my colleague. It's a pleasure to be here. You did great. Okay. Thank you. Better than my real life. The well. I am an executive coach. I have the pleasure of speaking inter internationally. And I talk on peak performance.
Okay. And how people can achieve their dreams and sustain them. And I have a very specific way that I have found to help people achieve peak performance, which I will share with those listening, which I think is a little bit different from people usually call peak performance and. I have evidence from years and years of working with people that this really is effective.
Wonderful. That's wonderful. I can't wait to dive into it. So let's start in the times, in times of extreme uncertainty. What role does human connection play in helping leaders and teams perform at their peak at the end of a crisis? When you ask people to look back and tell you what is the most significant factor that helped them go through the crisis, most people would answer other people, the advice of other people, the people who didn't run away from you when you needed them, your friends, your family, your coworkers.
At the end of life, when we look back. They ask you who influenced you is a mentor. He's a teacher, he's a parent. Okay. We live in a world of things. Some projects and goals and success, but the core of who we are always comes down to the people we relate to that the most profound and significant aspect of who we are.
Absolutely right. When I think back, listen, I've owned businesses before I was in the military. When I think back to the positions that I've held, I don't think about how much money I made or anything else like that. I think about the people that surrounded me and were there during adverse situations.
So it's always the people that I remember and not the job itself. Michael, that on my former life, although once a rabbi, you are always a rabbi. I was a pulpit rabbi, and one of the things I had to do, unfortunately I had to be a funerals and give a eulogy, and always a eulogy came down to relationships and people were always remember by helping people.
By their motivation, by what they build with others, by being a father and mother, a brother, a friend. Okay. Nobody came and gave eulogies about how successful the person was and how many cars and how many homes. Okay? Or how many VA vacations the person, talk. There is a saying, a good name is like oil.
In the Jewish tradition, oil is precious. Is pure, okay. A good name is like oil, and that's what we should aspire to. And that, by the way, is peak performance. Peak performance is when you become, that is so true. The best of who you are. Okay let me just move on. You've worked in high pressure environments.
How do you adapt quickly while still building and maintaining meaningful relationships? Because adaptability, paradoxically is the art of maintaining your core. In the world of I lost you. I lost you. Adapt. Yes. Because this is counterintuitive, Michael. Adaptability is the capacity of maintaining your core through change.
In the, usually people used to talk about change management. Okay. And that was a theory. In consulting, we bring somebody who is an expert on change management as if change can be managed. That's a contradiction. Change cannot be managed. Change is change. Okay. What we can do, and we talk today, is adaptability instead of change.
And the way I see adaptability is that you give the people working with you at your team, at your corporation, at your foundation, you give the gift of who they are at their core. Once they know who they are at the core and you strengthen who they are internally, then they can withstand change and adapt.
It's not, change or adaptability is not the process of making the people around you shape themself according to the changes taking place. Very well said. It's giving them the tools to remain the best they are through the change process. Very good. What's one strategy for networking that becomes more important?
Not less when everything feels uncertain or unstable. Look, I am not a natural networker, okay? I am a guy who likes to advise people. I am a consultant, a speaker. Those are very lonely activities and it's actually a kind of activities that you parachute at the place, do your job and goodbye. Okay? Then I had to train myself to network.
I am also an introverted. At parties, I go to the corner, sit down and with the glass or something, and looking at my watch. Then one thing that I do is each time I come to my office. The first hour and a half I network when I am fresh with all my energy. I begin my, my day net networking.
I'm mostly network and linking. That's my natural environment professional. Okay. I have made so many connections and the key is to be honest. People know today after the second, your first two words. You are trying to have a, an open conversation or you're looking for something. Although we are, look, we are all looking for something and that's basically the implicit thing.
There are ways and ways to look for something. There is way to look for something out of a real connection and because you care about somebody else and you look for advice and give advice, and there are ways in which basically you are a salesperson selling yourself, and that doesn't go far. Being authentic.
Being authentic. Authentic is the first thing. And what I say about networking, as I'm sure you do as well is to network with what's called a servant's heart. It's you're looking to give, not receive. And if you are authentic, you're looking to give and not receive, then you don't come across as salesy or anything else like that.
Then I have a formula for peak performance. I want everybody to listen because this is the formula and a very short formula, and basically I haven't seen it anywhere else. This is I made this I go to this formula after helping a lot of people and reading a lot and testing it There is the way it goes.
Positivity plus purpose equals peak performance. Positivity plus purpose equals peak performance. Now, what is purpose? Okay. The definition of purpose is giving the best of you for the benefit of others that the definition of purpose, usually people confuse purpose with goal. Goal is an extrinsic gain. Is the end of the journey.
Okay. Is extrinsic, okay? Is strategic. Purpose comes before the goal. As we say, purpose first and purpose is the best of what you have for the benefit of others. If you do that, then it comes back to you in what we call fulfillment. And fulfillment comes in different ways. Gratitude, which is when somebody comes to you and say, you did so well for me, that the greatest thing that could happen to you, that somebody else acknowledges you for what you've done for them.
The other one is growth. When the person doesn't come to. Say thank you, but you see them growing like your kids or somebody at your company. Okay. And you see the growth. And the third one is inner growth. Okay? How you grow by helping others, which percentage is inner growth? 10%. Most of our growth of a person, 90% happens in relationship.
10% is the fulfillment, which is internal. But that's a formula, positivity and purpose equals peak performance. And that is, it resonates with me and I, hopefully everybody else, but the relationship factor the giving factor if everybody were to network and be, to get along that way, I think the world would be a much better place.
That's our small corner of the world. Let me just change this conversation to a little ai conversation. What soft skills tied to networking and communication will become critical differentiators in an AI powered workforce? Okay. Look, I'm not sure about soft, you know how to define it, but I tell you what I think is, I think it's happening.
Okay. Okay. I think that. Human connection is going to become a luxury. Okay? Okay. And as it going to become a luxury, it is going to be more wanted, right? And more precious because it's going to be a lack of it. Then technology is going to increase and real human connection is going to decrease, and the companies which are going to succeed in the long term are the companies who are val, are going to value the human connection and those who want to take the shortcut of replacing humanity with technology.
May win in the short term, but they will lose the most important thing, which is the creativity, the empathy, and the motivation that only humans can bring. Then when we talk about human resources, by the way, isn't interesting. Maybe I never liked resources because we are not resources people. Okay. I don't like this term that, you know.
The department that works with people is called human resources, but I like now the word human and I think that the word human for human resources is going to become more and more crucial now and the years to come because the main task of human resources is going to be actually humanity. And within that, what I recommend I work with is with positive psychology.
Which is the tool and the science I use when I work with companies. Positive psychology, which is the science of flourishing and strengths. And I think that, using methodology like positive psychology, we have to strengthen the humanity and court of people as we go into the AI in our revolution.
Okay, so since we're on the subject of, in the future, how can individuals future proof their careers by intentionally building the right kinds of relationships? Now look, relationships are in process, okay. And relationship is about persistence. Okay? I, I on the relationship world, I always talk about you never know.
Okay? True. The best things that happened to me with people were then expected. Ones I didn't know the person that a year later I meet again, I contact again, or they contact me from an occasional conversation I had that y that a year ago. Okay. And That's magical. It is magical.
When, and people tell me, Alfredo, I remember this keynote speech you gave, or this workshop you gave and change actually my view of things when we talk about fulfillment, do you remember fulfillment, which are very good at what you do means you're very good at what you do.
You are not good at what you do. At the end of the day, people make you good at what you do because at the end of the day is about serving others. Okay? Then I am not sure Michael, how good I am at what I do. I do it. I am a professional and I care about what I do, and I try to learn every day.
Okay. How good I am is going to come from the reaction, not the judgment, but the reaction in terms of the impact I have in people because it's not about my ego or although I have a healthy one. It is ultimately about how I serve people. Okay. You can be a consultant and a keynote speaker. If you don't you don't go in on stage or to a corporation with the aspirations the way you lead, you're going to leave behind something that is going to help people achieve what they want.
True. True. Very true. Okay. In times of change, how do high performers stay connected, not just to people, but to purpose and vision? I want to focus for a sec for a second. I spoke about purpose. I want to talk what they mean by positivity, the first part, okay. It is amazing. But research shows that 70% of Americans are blind to their inner strengths.
There is an epidemic of strength blindness. Okay. It's a it's amazing. We know from positive psychology that there are 24 strengths that ADI has. Okay. Those are strengths. 24, which are found across time and geography from the Greeks to the Eskimos. They're 24 because there are a lot of strengths, but these 24 are repeated through humanity, history, and geography, and everybody has them, but people do not know they have them, and they don't know which one they prefer.
Which is worse, then we have this blindness, and if we, you would know your top five of the 24, your top five. We know from research also that your capacity to flourish will be nine times higher and if you apply them. We know from research that your capacity to flourish will be 18 times higher. In other words, 70% of Americans are working, living way below their capacities by ignorance of what they already have, which is.
Shame. It make me so upset because, I go to corporations, I go to teams, and I do the question, tell me what your top strengths are. They, the they don't know. I never thought about it. I don't know. I said, will you call a plumber to your home?
Who doesn't bring a toolkit? You're going through life without your five top strengths toolkit. Then the first thing I do when I work with executives or when I work with corporations or with foundations, the first thing we do is a strength assessment, a positive psychology, strength assessment. Everybody gets the 24 strengths.
In order of hierarchy, we have all of them and we can use all of them, but the type, the top five is where you feel more authentic, energetic, and motivated. And once you know those top five people strive because they go from using them unintentionally to applying them intentionally. And that actually.
As I said before, adaptability is a capacity to maintain your core through change. Okay, so then once you know the core five strengths, you can go through crisis and through change because you can maintain your core. Okay. That kind of brings us to our next question of. What are the key differences between someone who survives uncertainty and someone who thrives from le?
From relationship building standpoint? No. Because surviving means that you focus on the moment you narrow your vision. If a tiger is coming now into this room, all my attention is going to be on the tiger. That will be very helpful either to fight against the tiger if I am unwise or to run away.
Then strategies of survival are good for the moment. Poor for the long run. Strategies of growth
are maybe not so good in the immediate, but build and create for the future. On the long term. Once you know your in your step strength instead of being reactive, you are so solid internally. That is almost like having an armor. Okay? Okay. And you are more immune to the fluctuations that present. And as you are more immune, paradoxically, you are more creative and then you adapt better.
I believe that I truly believe that that's where all of our creativity comes from all different points of our life. But that, that, that is a very important aspect of what you're speaking about. How do you see trust and empathy evolving as currency? In business, especially as technology accelerates everything else can, you can repeat, can you repeat the beginning?
How do you see trust and empathy evolving as currency in business? Especially as technology accelerates everything else? No. Everything is trust and empathy. That's what, look, what is the main people see at AI at this AI revolution and there is fear. That they're going, we are going to lose our jobs, that we are going to be replaced by technology, that we are going to become obsolete.
It is true that part of the solution is to have reassurance from corporations, from the government that we are safe. You are not going to get that, by the way. That's an illusion. Okay. Then what the you, the only thing that is going to carry you through those moments is empathy and trust. They know you.
Empathy and trust and companies. Companies who are going to work on that are going to motivate. We know this. OSI psychology, gratitude, optimism, motivation, complimenting. Your employees are the most important aspects for growth and success. There is one if people who are remember listening, they need to remember.
One thing on a nutshell of what I am talking about, I would say the following, we need to move from the culture of fixing to the culture of nourishing. Okay. We're in a culture where we are trying to fix each other in education. The teachers are looking at what the student doesn't do well. He's not good at math.
We have to solve that, but the kids maybe is great at art and he's going to be an artist. We have to maximize what the person is doing. Great. The five top strength quarterly reviews are corporations. What you are not doing great. We need to fix, it's true. We need to do the basic things right, but the manager's job is actually to elevate what the person is doing.
Great, according to the piece of her strength. We need to move from the culture of fixing to the culture of nourishing, that what policy psychology teaches, we focus on. What it works. We have this obsession, and this comes by the way, from the origins of consulting at Corporations Consulting.
Originally at corporations, some businesses was borrowed from the medical field. Okay? People, some people don't know that organizational consulting and organizational management came borrow. Its its model. From the medical field, and then that's why we use diagnostics and diagnosis. Okay, and reviews and all that language we have to do with sickness.
Then our beginning point is what's wrong? Okay. I never bring me as a consultant. Very few times they bring me as a consultant. Usually when there is a crisis. I love when they bring me as a consultant when things are going well, and now we want to do it. Excellent. Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. Let's bring this podcast full circle, and if someone listening today wants to build a network that sustains them through the next wave of disruption, where should they start?
They need to start with knowing their core strengths. The five top strengths of positive psychology. As I said, 70% of people are blind. Basically, you do not have your top toolkit of what you are capable at your best. Then you cannot function optimally. That blindness is unnecessary and can be dispelled in 20 minutes.
I Alfred Alfredo I'm, I am so glad you came on the podcast today. You are a wonderful guest. I appreciate you giving me a little backstory about your past and I can't imagine I. A better guest to come on to tell how you are going moving forward. So if somebody wants to get hold of you, to be coached, to be trained, anything like that, how would they do I can't leave your audience without telling them how to get the top five strengths, Michael. That would be why? Why yes? Why don't do that? I'm going to make it so easy. You text me the word positive. Just text the word positive to this number three. Three seven. Seven seven. Okay. You just text the word positive to 3 3 7 7 7 and you will get one a two page of how by yourself to get your Of As.
Your life will change. Sounds beautiful. That sounds beautiful, but how can they get hold of you? There do will see are going to be a surprised, okay. No strings attached. Okay. Those who want to go a little bit, deeper into the five strengths, they can set a meeting with no commitment with me.
Just to talk about it. Okay. And my schedule is going to be there. Okay. I like to connect with people. Again, it's about networking. Okay. Okay. Then instead of sending you a connect with Link we can set a more intimate discussion to review your five step strengths and see if we can move somewhere from there.
That's perfect. Alfredo, thank you so much for coming on my podcast and I wish you nothing but the best and hopefully I'll speak to you soon. Thank you, Michael. Thank you everybody. Good.
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Michael is a business networking expert specializing in enhancing professionals' networking and communication skills to drive profitability. As a leading authority in this field, he is highly sought after for his dynamic presentations and workshops. His extensive experience has consistently led to significant improvements in corporate profitability by empowering individuals and organizations to connect more effectively and efficiently.
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