Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections. An Interview with Mike Brcic and Michael A Forman

 Welcome to Networking Unleashed, building Profitable Connections. The show where real relationships create real opportunity. I'm your host, Michael Forman. Let me ask you something. Have you ever been in a room full of people and still felt disconnected? In business, we're constantly meeting others, exchanging information and having conversations, but genuine connection, the kind that builds trust, opens doors and actually means something, is something much harder to find.

My guest today believes that the quality of your relationships is directly tied to how aligned you are with yourself. We're talking about why human connection matters more than ever. How to move beyond surface level conversations and what it's really what it really takes to build relationships that impact both you, both your life and your business.

At the end of the day, the strongest opportunities don't come per, don't come from perfect words. They come from real connection. If you want deeper relationships, stronger trust and connections that truly matter, you're in the right place. So let's get into it. I'd like to welcome to the podcast today, Mike Bo Burik Bik.

I'm close. Burik. Okay. And he is an expert in this field. And Mike, welcome to the podcast. And could you give us like a little cliff notes of how you got where you are today? Yeah. Thanks Michael. First off, I'm thrilled to be here. I'm thrilled to be chatting with you about this topic that I think is near and dear to both our hearts.

I have been, I've been an entrepreneur for 27 years, and I'll give you the. As you say the cliff notes of how I got here today, I've been running my current company Wayfinders for nine years, and really I was born out of my previous business. I was aggressively trying to expand that business all over the world and, bringing on investors and growing the team, expanding all over the world.

And as the business grew, I was encountering more and more problems that I was unfamiliar with, was unqualified, untrained to, to handle. So I started going to different entrepreneur events, joining a couple of communities. And a lot of these events that I went to followed the same format, that there was a speaker on the stage and there was a workshop and then a, breakout and this, and it was really just a lot of information being fire hosed at me.

But what I really wanted was just to connect with other people. And so I. From my previous business we ran high in mountain bike trips all over the world, and so I was deeply embedded in this adventure space. We were taking people outside mountain biking, doing challenging things, and I knew that when you bring a group of people together and you're doing challenging, fun things together, they tend to bond quickly.

So I thought, what, if, what if I took a different spin on the entrepreneur conference and it was more about connection and it was more about. Fun and challenge and things like that together, we could have a little bit of information still. Anyway, so I, I ran a, I ran an event in 2017 in the Canadian Rockies outta this beautiful cat skiing lodge, five days hiking, mountain biking, exploring a little bit of content.

We'd have some panels and stuff like that in the afternoon. People loved it. They asked me to do more, and here I am, nine years later, I sold that previous business. And here I am nine years later, running events, all over the world. Mongolia, Papua, new Guinea, Greenland, you name it. And really feeling blessed to be where I am.

That actually sounds great, and it sounds like you are right. It's right in line. What I talk about, I go across the country and I talk about, it's that. Deep rooted human connection, and you get so much more information than if somebody's spraying a fire hose at you and you're trying to take a drink.

So you're really concentrating on that. But let's delve into the questions you emphasize the importance of human connection. Why do so many professionals struggle to build it even when they're con they're constantly meeting people.

Yeah this has been an ongoing journey of mine as well. 'cause as, as an entrepreneur or a professional, it's really easy to just get, focused on the task at hand. And we get, we get in front of our laptop and we'll spend hours and that feels like we're it feels like we're doing, real productive work that way.

Engaging with people, going for lunches or whatever, it doesn't feel, it feels it, you can't quite measure that in the same way you can measure, a marketing campaign or a Google Ads campaign or whatever. And so it's a little bit harder to quantify and it can feel a little bit like, wasted time.

Oh, that lunch was great, but I really need to get back to, to work. And what I have found particularly for my business, is that relationship building is not only personally nourishing, but it's absolutely the highest ROI activity I can do in my business. And. I try not to approach it from a transactional standpoint where it's just I'm trying to check off the boxes and meet with people, but take a genuine interest in people and genuinely connect with them because it feels good to me.

It feels good to them, and they walk away from that interaction, feeling uplifted, feeling positively impacted. And that of course, those feelings then extend to my brand and they're just a little bit more likely to want to talk about my, wayfinders, my company a little more likely to want to take part in it.

And, I'm always on the lookout for ways that I can provide value to people, even if it's just in the smallest way and sometimes the most value you can, the best way to create easy value for people is just make an introduction or make a connection, and one of the, when I meet with people, you know, two questions I love to ask them are, what are you excited about?

And what are you struggling with, or what's a challenge these days? Both of those give you a window into providing value to somebody. They tell you what they're excited about. It's probably some goal or some dream or something that they're working towards and what they're challenged by.

It's probably something they're a little bit stuck with and they haven't been able to figure it out. They need the right tool, they need the right person, whatever. And I can say, Hey, I know just the, just the person to introduce you that might be able to help with that. And if you can introduce somebody to someone that helps, solve a problem that they've been struggling with boy do they do they think of you positively after that?

Yeah. You hit on so many points that are so on point. I don't have time with this podcast to go over all of it, but I'll tell you, I found that the pandemic was my line in the sand. Before the pandemic, things were really transactional. I have a widget, you have $3.

Okay. We'll exchange it. And I'm fine. But ever since the pandemic, it's become more relational, more relationships. Relationships matter because here we are on Zoom and after the pandemic, that's all things were, but I have to realize that. You are a person behind the camera, and I have to find out a, what makes you tick, but how can I bring value to you without being in the same room as you?

So that's all how it, it goes. And I have much more to say about that, but I'm not gonna go into it. What's the difference between being around people and actually feeling connected to them? Yeah, great question. One, one of my friends an Irish fellow by the name of Philip McKernan. Excellent coach and fellow facilitator.

And we're actually collaborating on an event in Iceland at the end of May, but he has the saying, relationships move at the speed of vulnerability and. If you and I are gonna exist on a level where, we talk about baseball or we talk about the weather, whatever that's really gonna, that's really gonna limit on our connection.

But if I'm willing to open up a little bit and, share, share who I am, share my hopes, my dreams, my struggles, all that kind of stuff probably some of that's gonna really resonate with you. And some of it you might outright connect with because it mirrors your own story. Or you might have empathy for what I'm going through, whatever all of that stuff is adding just adding more fuel to the connection fire so to speak.

Right? And the difference between conne, just networking or surface transactional level and actual genuine connection is each party's willingness to go a little bit deeper. And I have this sort of concept that I work with at my events that I call the vulnerability ladder. And you can't jump a bunch of rungs 'cause you're gonna, you might freak some people out and if it's like you just met and all of a sudden you're talking about.

You're struggling with depression or, whatever people might be, some people might be totally open to that and some people might just withdraw. Hey, like I just met you, I just wanted to talk about baseball. And so look at it, it's like you go up a wrong at a time and, if we connect and we talk about baseball, I might say, Hey, tell and it's clear that you're passionate about baseball.

I'm passionate about baseball, by the way, but yeah. And so I ask you like, Hey, tell me, did you play baseball growing up? Tell me what was that like? And you might share a story about, playing catch with your dad or something like that. And then, oh yeah, I, I used to play catch with my dad all the time.

Boy, oh boy does that, take it up a couple rungs there, instead of just talking about, the Yankees or whatever. But actually our connection to that. And so if we can move, slowly move up the vulnerability ladder, that connection gets deeper and deeper over time. And you just have to, you have to measure that ladder, and just go up a little bit at a time and be willing to, that's the biggest thing. It's true. And I use something called FORM, family, occupation, recreation, and a certain message. Now I always try to get the conversation around to youth sports. I was a baseball coach for 16 years. Amazing. I was an umpire for three years. I know all about baseball and what to say.

I'm also a, I coach. On a junior level children learning how to play baseball. So I'm very passionate about that. But as you said, it's a rung on the ladder. So if you get them talking about that, people love to talk about themselves, right? That's their favorite thing and that's favorite pastime.

But if you can get that, you have to build that level of trust and. As you're speaking, as they are speaking and they're telling you their story, there's a wall between the two of you and that wall is coming down, but that trust factor is going up. And once, once it makes that change, then you're in, then you can start talking about something more, but.

I digress. I'm go, I can go on again for another whole podcast. I just wanna say, as you you're talking about your 16 year history of coaching baseball and umpiring, we just moved a rung up a ladder because, I, I feel more connected to you. I'm curious. I want to talk to you about baseball.

And I used to coach my son's baseball team and I, it instantly feels oh, there's a real connection here. Yeah. And and so it's a simple con. Concept. And my favorite way to move up that ladder is just through stories. Getting curious about, genuinely curious about other people.

Ask them to share some stories. People love telling stories, and then you get a window into their life and that moves you up the ladder. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And just by that, that, that fact of, we're through Zoom right now. We're going through Zoom, but now we've created that vibe. I keep saying I'm referring to that vibe, but we've gotten that much closer to it.

So it, it works. How does a lack of personal alignment show up in the way someone builds relationships? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that question. So a align alignment to me is just this ongoing process of really getting to know myself and understanding who I am. And who I am at my core, because, as human beings growing up, we're subject to all these different influences and all of these different ideas about who we are and who we should be, and how we should be, and what we should be in the world.

And then you get into adulthood and it's very confusing, and who the heck am I? You get into your twenties and thirties and you're starting to ask these questions of who am I? Because you have to, I consider it a bit of a process of archeology, of sifting through all this sediment of what people have told me I should be and what I should be, and who I should be and getting to know the person at the core.

Unless I'm willing to go through that process and really get to know myself and find, deeper alignment and alignment to me just means alignment between who I am at my core and my outer world, my, my work, my relationships, where I live. All this, bringing those two into alignment. So there's more of, connection between those two things.

And so that personal alignment, getting to know myself, then I get to know. Who are the type of people that I really, genuinely wanna spend time with? And who are the people that light me up and energize me, and who are the people that drain me? Because, so sometimes the biggest. Drain.

Psychological drain is when we have to show up in, with another person or a certain environment, and we feel like we have to adopt a persona in that person's presence we have to be somebody we're not. And that's really psychologically draining if you have to keep doing it over and you can't be your true, genuine self.

So that alignment is just, in, in the context of relationships. It's just being in places where I feel like I can just be myself. I don't have to pretend, I don't have to censor myself. I don't, whatever that may be. And if that doesn't jive with the other person, then great. Then, move on find somebody I do align with.

I. Absolutely. I, from a hundred years ago when I first began all of this I went to the school of hard knocks. I learned how to do everything wrong before I did it correctly, and I was always thinking I had to be on, I had to be this version that was always on. When I got home, I was mentally tired.

I can just go to sleep right away, and I realized that I don't have to be somebody else. I have to be myself, be the best version of myself, but I have to be myself. And then it takes all that pressure off, and you can just go through and really enjoy what it is that you do.

Because life is short. Life is short. When someone is truly aligned with who they are. What changes in the way that others experience them in conversations,

People who are really, truly, genuinely aligned and have a very strong sense of who they are in the world. Those people are rare, and when you encounter those people they emit a certain energy and you can feel that energy and. You know when.

When I'm in the presence of people who are just a hundred percent absolute with, with a hundred percent conviction, know who they are and that's how they live in the world. It's it's powerful and it's energizing, and I want to be around more of that. And so the more you step into that, the more of a magnet you are.

And you give other people license to do the same because they, they're like, Hey, what is that person doing? And then you can feel it like, Hey, that person is just that person is just. Being themselves and they don't care, what other people think. And it's, I it's taken it's taken me a long time to get to this point because, where I've I've very strong convictions in who I am.

No, no desire to be anything other than what I am. And I know that when I'm in the presence of others, they feel more relaxed in just being themselves and, and so really that's, that's my goal and how I move through the world. And it requires a great deal of self-awareness and self-consciousness because it's very easy to fall back into that trap.

We adopt, we put on certain masks, we adopt certain personas and and you have to catch yourself. Wait a minute, I'm doing that thing again. I'm, I was the same way. I had to always be on, and for me it was like in my twenties, I was the. Super energetic party animal, always the life of the party.

And that's how I, that's how I got attention. But then as I got older, I realized that was just, it was the way I tried to get validation from the world and the way I tried to get attention and stuff like that. And it. And it was exhausting having to be that person all the time. It's wait a minute, it's okay if I'm just like chill and mellow and or sometimes sad or whatever.

I don't have to be, so you know when you do that, you just give license to other people to just say, Hey, I can be myself as well, and we just need more people to just be themselves. I realized that, and I think age has a lot to do with it. The older you get, the more you realize it. I'm in the twenties, I was in the military.

I was strong. I was had everything going for me. In my thirties, I started my family and the forties, the fifties. I'm in my sixties now, and I am just saying, you know what? I am who I am. If you don't like it, leave. But I am who I am. When I go out to networking events, now, I do networking events probably two or three times a week, and I just go on by on myself.

I just and I have my own networking meeting every week with about 15 or 20 businesses, so I get to do that. Every week and I get to just be myself, but then turn it over and I try to teach everybody else to do that before they get to their sixties. Yeah. Can I just say, you look fantastic for a guy in the sixties.

Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I should show my wife this video. Say, are yeah. Yeah. But she's in her seventies and she looks fantastic. So that's, amazing. I lucked out. I lucked out. Yeah. Okay. Why do surface level interactions feel so common in professional settings and how can someone move beyond them?

I think a lot of that is we are. I think for decades now, there's been this in increasing crisis of isolation and loneliness and COVID of course, just, ratcheted that up a huge knot. And so as humans, we're not, we've become less and less skilled at this art of human connection, genuine, true human connection.

So that's part of it. But also, we've been trained that to act, put on the business mask, put on the professional mask, put on your suit, show up professional in, in these types of environments. And so it feels very awkward to let down your guard and take off your mask and relax and be genuine and, but again the way through that is not that complicated.

It's just. Be curious, be genuinely curious about the other person. Like you said, people like to talk about themselves and they appreciate that. And we've all been in the company of people who just talk endlessly about themselves and we just glaze over and we're like, oh my God, what a jerk.

Or, whatever. But when people are actually, you can feel it. They're genuinely curious about the, about you, it feels really good. It feels really energizing. So if you can bring that energy to a room. And just a few good questions, like I said. What are you excited about? What are you, what you know, what's challenging these days?

Those are two great windows into hearing about another person's experience, and most people will respond well to those. And then, as you start to go through that, you might see some opportunities for picking out some stories. Hey, tell me a story about tell me a story about one of your favorite moments coaching baseball, or your proudest moments coaching baseball in your case.

I'm sure you could go down that rabbit hole pretty deep, and I could go down that rabbit hole pretty deep with you, and we're not talking about business at all or whatever, but at the end of that conversation, I'm probably considerably more likely to wanna do business with you. And you with me, because we wanna do business with people we, we vibe with and people that we think are kind and curious and all that kind of stuff.

So that, that to me is, the, it just feels good. I don't want, I don't want to talk about business when I'm at a business event. I want to talk about human beings and stories, and then we can get to business later on. Whenever I, because I go across the country and I talk about networking business communication and leadership and all that.

I do workshops in, in all these companies. And what I stress is that when you have a one-on-one meeting, the first 10 minutes, don't talk business. Don't talk business. Look around the office. Look around the room. What do you see? Do you see pictures of his family? Do you see pictures of grandchildren? Do you see pictures on the wall of music, of art?

You can pick up on so much you about 30 seconds to pick up on everything and ask about it. Ask those questions, and by asking those questions, you're directing him or her, but you are getting to the form, the family, the, and of course I use a little trick if you see photos on somebody's desk and if they're facing inward towards him, he doesn't wanna talk about his family.

If you see them on the back credenza, they're open where you can see the pictures, then it's, they're open season. Then you can ask about the pictures. So all these little things that you can really pick up, but it's all not asking tho those questions, but not having him talk about business like the first 10 minutes.

But that also depends on where you're, where you are. Because I come from New York, I'm in Georgia now in New York. It's like when he, when I come through the door, you better start doing business because I don't have time for you. I got 10 minutes for you. But in Georgia, the first hour that I was dealing with somebody, I couldn't talk business.

So there's a huge difference. But getting to the same thing. Yeah. What role does vulnerability play in creating genuine gen, genuine connection, especially in a professional environment?

Yeah. We, I mean we touched on this quite a bit already. Vulnerability is the glue of connection, right? Yeah. If. If I'm going into, if I'm approaching a a my connection with another human being and hiding big parts of myself, that's really gonna limit the depth to which we can go.

Whereas if if I'm open to over time, not all at once, but if I'm open over time, opening up more and more parts of myself. To the other person. To the other person, and they're willing to do the same. That's going to really, that's going to re really deepen our connection. And it's tricky in a professional environment 'cause we're really not used to that, that, that kind of thing.

And it also depends on the, the level of your. Desire, right? If you work in an office with 40 other people, you probably don't want, or probably shouldn't be, open and vulnerable with every single person in the office. But, there's tons of studies. Google did this huge I think it was about, took about two to three year.

Year research project called Project Aristotle, and they wanted to dissect what are the biggest factors that lead to team productivity the most per, and of course Google has, thousands of teams. In their company and what they discovered.

At the end of all this, the biggest contributor to employee and team productivity and the teams that worked well together was psychological safety just, and psychological safety is just this idea that I can show up, I can be myself, I can contribute ideas, I can contribute myself, and I won't be, I won't be shamed for it.

I won't be, put down for it. I won't be punished for it or whatever. I can just be safe. Saying and doing who I am. And what makes teams psychologically safe is there's a high degree of connection among them. They see each other as human beings, not just as employees or roles or whatever, right?

And if you're leading a team or you're leading a company. I, and I've done talks on this very topic, the number one thing you can do for your productivity is make make a workplace where fe people feel like they belong. And it doesn't have to be that hard. In my previous company, at our team meetings.

We would spend the first 20 minutes of our weekly standup, just connecting as human beings. And I would usually, seat it with a question or a prompt. And over time we would get to know each other. What, and we would, we would have frequent excursions where we'd just go mountain biking together outside, outside of the office and just have fun together over time.

That made a very cohesive. Team, we felt like a family. And that type of team works way better together. So these, yeah, go ahead. No. You're explaining what the culture of a company is, and the culture works from the top down. It doesn't work if the people on the bottom just, say, okay, we want to be this way, but the C-suite executives, they don't want it.

So you have to get that from the top, from the owner, from the president, the CEO on down. And when I coach the executives, because when I do the workshops and I teach all the workshop the members of the employees. 30, 40, 50 employees from back office to warehouse to whatever. I can change the way that they think, but if I don't change the upper management, then nothing I do is going to work because it comes from the top down.

And what you created was the perfect company for the mindset of the worker because they felt they could just go in and talk to you at any time. So that was the type of culture that you created, which I, which is should be a feather in your cap. Thank you. So you connect personal fulfillment with relationships.

How do strong connections influence both life satisfaction and business success?

I could quote you 10 different studies that point to human connection the value of human connection. But of course I'm not gonna quote them. But I'll quote one of them. There's a woman named Julia Holt Lundstedt, who did a meta study, something like 300,000 people analyzing the.

Factors that contribute to human longevity. What makes people live really long lives and cons, and tied in with longevity is health, of course. And, the usual factors were on there, not smoking, stuff like that. Exercise, whatever the number one and number two.

Contributors to human longevity were both related to connection. So number two was the strength and quality of your intimate connections. Your partner, your kids, your parents, that you know, that kind of thing. But number one was actually surprisingly, is what she called your weak ties. So the neighborhood you live in, the the your friends, the, do you belong to a community group? Do you know, your local butcher? And, all those little micro interactions that you have on a daily basis, they contribute to this sense of wellbeing, which then contributes to better overall health.

It just feels good, right? Chronic loneliness is and the other part of, this world of research into it is that chronic loneliness has been equated with having the same effect as smoking a pack or two of cigarettes every single day. So you would actually and what this one study found is that you would actually, your health outcomes would be better if you had a very rich life.

If you had a life rich with connection and you smoked a pack a day than if you were a lonely non-smoker. And so this is, this is critical to our health, to our, and to our, personal sense of fulfillment, but also on a professional level. We, I already talked about the, just the value of human relationships and how.

And how important that can be. People feel, when people feel good in your presence and they feel connected to you. They wanna do business with you, they want to talk about you to other people. You could certainly run a business where you do nothing but stare at your laptop all day and you don't talk to other people.

And, lots of people do. Ultimately, not a very fulfilling business in my, in, in my eyes. What makes life fulfilling is spending it with other people. I couldn't agree with you more. I, so in my talks I talk about extroverts and introverts, and I always get a thousand questions from the introverts on how do I do this and how do I do that?

And when I go to an event, what do I do? And things like that. And I say, you know what just go. Just go, just be with other people. Humans just naturally want to be with other people. We're not built to be behind a computer, right? So that's the whole, that's the whole thing. What deli habits help someone stay grounded and present so they can connect more deeply with others.

Yeah, for me I have a few daily practices that just really help me connect to myself and stay anchored and grounded. I have a daily breath work practice meditation. Journaling really helps me, and I go in waves with my journaling. I'll have these phases where, journaling two or three pages every day, and then I'll go a month without doing it.

But it's just, it's such a good practice for just getting to know myself better because it's all this stuff that's. Happening, behind the scenes, below the waters, when I start journaling, it comes out onto the page. And sometimes I'm just writing and I surprise myself like, oh, where did that come from?

That's interesting. And it's, I'm having a dialogue with my subconscious, these deeper parts of me that want expression. And the more I get to know myself. The more peaceful I feel, the more grounded I feel, and then I can bring that to my relationships rather than being being totally untethered or anxious or not having, any idea who I am or whatever.

The more clarity and depth and grounding I can bring to myself, the better the quality of my relationships and and that feels good. Good. Good. Okay, so let's bring this podcast full circle. If a listener wants to experience stronger, more genuine connections in the next 90 days, what one internal shift should they make for the biggest difference?

Yeah, it's a good question. I'm. I'm gonna speak from my own personal experience, which is that growing up I felt a really profound sense of alienation and not belonging. And there, there weren't that many places where I felt like I belonged and that, those wounds carried through into adulthood and.

And in, and then it wasn't like I, I didn't have friends or I didn't have other people around me, but I'd never quite felt comfortable or I felt like I belonged. And that really compromised the quality of the relationships I had with other people. And as I've gotten to. Know myself better and as I'm, done more inner work I'm able to work through a lot of those old patterns and old stories because, if I leave those unchecked, there's this kind of operating system operating in the background that says other people are scary or other people are dangerous, or, don't go don't go too deep because you're gonna get hurt, or whatever that story may be.

If I'm not aware of that pattern and making. Different choices, then I can get in, then I can get in this pattern of just retreating and and not engaging, not being willing to go deeper. But the more I'm able to be aware of that and work with it and stay conscious, the more I can say, oh, there. And I can just bring some loving awareness to it and say, oh, there it is again.

There's that old protection system. It's okay, I got this, I can breathe into it and just be like, okay. And then I can, and then I can drop in with somebody else and we can have a wonderful conversation. I can be open, I can be vulnerable without feeling overwhelmed.

So I think, one of the biggest things you can do is just be spend more time getting to know yourself. Do the work, understand we all have these patterns that we've, inherited from childhood. That follow us into adulthood and they compromise our ability, our relationships or our work or whatever.

The more we can do that work, whether it's working with a therapist, whether it's journaling whatever it is, spending time in the wilderness the better the quality of your relationships and the connections you will have in your. Fantastic. Fantastic. It sounds like age had a little bit to do with that.

You got a little smarter as you got older. But that's good. Hopefully. Yeah. Hopefully it'll work out. Yeah. Mike, this was absolutely great. I learned so much. If somebody wanted to get hold of you either to be coached by you, to pick up your services or just to say hello, what's the best way that they can get hold of you?

Yeah, they can go to way finders.com and that's my company, Wayfinders, and we host these incredible journeys around the world where people come together and really connect deeply and explore these wonderful themes while having, while having a ton of fun and exploring some very cool areas.

So you can find me there. That's great. This conversation is a reminder that networking isn't just about expanding your circle, it's about deepening your connections. When you show up, aligned, present, and genuine, people feel it, and those are relationships that lead to trust, collaboration, and real opportunity.

Take one step this week, slow down in your next conversation, listen a little more, ask one more deeper question and be fully present. You may find that one meaningful connection is more valuable than 10 quick ones. If you found value in today's episode, make sure you like, follow and subscribe to Networking Unleashed, building Profitable Connections, so you keep getting the best insights on networking and communication.

And share this episode with someone who's ready to build more meaningful relationships in both life and business, if you'd like. If you'd help strengthen your communication and building communications that truly matter, visit MichaelAForman.com to learn how I work with professionals, teams, and organizations.

So until next time, be present. Be genuine, and build connections that actually means something. Mike, thank you again for coming on the podcast. This was wonderful. Thank you, Michael. It's been a pleasure.

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  A huge thank you to our guests for sharing such incredible insights today, and of course, a big shout out to you, our amazing listeners, for tuning in and spending your time with us. If you're interested in my digital courses being coached or having me come and talk to your company, just go to MichaelAForman.com and fill out the request form.

Remember, networking isn't about being perfect. It's about being present. So take what you've learned today, get out there and make some meaningful connections. If you've enjoyed this episode, please don't forget to subscribe. Leave us a review. Share it with someone who could use a little networking inspiration.

Let's keep the conversation going. You can find me on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or my website michaelaforman.com/podcast.

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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