Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections. An Interview with Shermin Kruse and Michael A Forman
- mforman521
- May 23
- 23 min read
📍 Hello and welcome to Networking Unleashed, Building Profitable Connections. Welcome to the, welcome back to the show, folks. I'm your host, Michael Forman, and you're listening to the podcast where networking is more than just awkward handshakes and bad coffee. It's an art and a talent. But here's the twist.
It's an art and talent you can actually learn. Yes, even if you're the person hiding in the corner at every event pretending to check emails. Networking isn't just a nice skill to have. It's a game changer. And when you get good at it, you'll wonder why you didn't start sooner. More connections. More opportunities, more profits.
It's like unlocking a cheat code for life. So whether you're the life of the party or the just let me stay at home and text type, we've got something for you. So stick around. Let's turn those awkward, small talk moments into big wins. I have a guest today. Her name is Sharmine. Cruz. You crushed it. All right.
And I, she is an award winning idea curator, global change maker, complex system negotiator, international business lawyer, speaker, and storyteller. And I think you tested my verbal skills right then and there. Shermin why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? Hey, listen, I test my verbal skills every time I say the word Volkswagen because in my language, there's no wah sound.
So I just want to say Volkswagen. And it's very difficult to say Volkswagen. So I'm very happy that I put you through the exercise of what I go through on a daily basis. Okay. Okay. All right. My background while I was born in Iran, I lived through the first 10 years or so of post revolutionary Iran during the Iran Iraq war.
And then my family was finally able to immigrate. We were able to immigrate to Canada. And so I attended university there. And it was my introduction to Western democratic thought and what it was like to interact and interface with communities in the West as a woman, especially as a woman of color.
And It was always my dream to be in the corporate world and to be doing the handshaking and the awkward small talk and what I started to learn as I went to law school, I went to law school in Ann Arbor in Michigan, and that was my introduction to the United States, by the way, shortly before 9 11, it was a crazy time for me to be out there networking in law school, trying to find clerkships and then land positions.
By the way, I'm dating myself now. This was almost a quarter of a century ago y'all. So I've been around the block since then quite a bit. And I stepped into this world of boardrooms and what I learned is that the amount of freedom and flexibility and opportunity here is so much improved, infinitely improved.
And I learned from. Iran, where I come from, but, and I also learned that, listen, there's still a hierarchy here, and this is a cutthroat corporate world. And if I really want to make it in this world, I need to build relationships and alliances. And I didn't really come with any Michael. I just, my parents did what they could, and they did a great job providing for us.
We never went hungry, but I didn't come from a world of corporate prestige. I came from a war torn, post revolutionary country, and I desperately wanted to maneuver my way through these rooms. But then I also wanted to do it in a way that was authentic to me, that felt right for me, that settled well. with me.
And that felt more like relationship building than manipulation. And so that was the skill that I began to develop after law school, having honed it to be candid with you in Iran as a child, learning to maneuver my way through the morality police and things like that. And practiced it ever since, right?
And so as I succeeded in the corporate world, I was an international lawyer. So I represented a large of a lot of fortune 500 companies. And I was in courtrooms, I was in boardrooms, I was in negotiation rooms, I was in some. Really unusual places at very unusual times. And it's been an extraordinary ride.
And then about a few years ago, I retired and I decided to teach at all. So now I teach at Northwestern law school. I teach the JD program and the MSL program there. I write books and I speak, and this is the world that I'm in now is. Helping other people form those connections, no matter how skilled or unskilled they might be at it, and no matter how many connections they enter in with, right?
Okay, sure. Now, you mentioned stoicism within the things that you want to talk about. Just very briefly go into that just a little bit. Yeah, so stoicism was essentially something I grew up with right this idea of emotional regulation of stoic regulation of one's emotions. As I grew up, I learned more and more I studied philosophy in university and then I went on to law school and I became very practiced as a litigator and Person existing in the corporate world of being in control of my own feelings and emotions at any given time, while still being empathetic toward the people in the room that is being able to read them and understand them as well as was necessary for that situation and that particular circumstance.
What I learned is that stoicism isn't not feeling things, right? Actually, that is a sort of a psychopathic way of existing. Stoicism is rather existing with the ability to regulate your own emotions, to feel the right things at the right time for the right people in the right way as you determine them to be.
And in my opinion, it's the ultimate form of authenticity. And it's the ultimate form of relationship building. What I found in a networking context is that I could utilize both stoicism and empathy to read the room, respond to the room, but also deal with my own, say, anxiety or frustration or rejection or whatever might've happened in that networking room tonight.
Because not every conversation is an incredible win, as we all know. Some of them leave us feeling. As though we failed that one, or the person we interacted didn't set us up for a good next one, right? And so it's being able to cope with all of that while still having that awareness of the other people in the room.
Networking isn't. A an exact science. You meet somebody who you can build that relationship with, but you also deal with the people that you really can't and you don't dismiss them. You have their contact information, but you're moving on to somebody else that you can build that relationship. And, as well as I do, that relationship building is really the key to networking.
How has combining stoicism and empathy shaped your approach to networking? Really the idea is when you think about empathy and empathic connections, there's actually a range of empathic connection. On the one end of the range is cognitive, which is emotional detachment. I am not walking a mile in your shoes.
I'm just syncing my steps with your steps so that I can smell what you smell and see what and hear what you hear so I can understand you better. And that is the ultimate way for me to be able to relate to you, right? Find common ground with you and build that relationship and even candidly find you interesting.
But on the other end of that spectrum, Michael, is emotional empathy. And that is your pain in my heart. It's the usual definition that we associate with empathy, right? You're watching your favorite TV show, your favorite character gets punched in the face, and you recoil, even though you didn't get hit, right?
And that's a fictional character on a box in front of you. So imagine translating that into real life. So the thing about networking is we have to be really careful and strategic about what type of empathy we want to engage in at any given time. If we're in a cold room full of strangers, we don't want to go in full of emotional empathy.
That's not necessarily something that's going to serve us or the other people in the room. But if by networking, we're really talking about building relationships, longterm relationships, it's not just the initial introduction. It could be 10 years down the road. road, you're developing this relationship with an ongoing client, ongoing customer, partner, vendor, right?
And the amount of emotional connection you want to feel to that person is going to be very different than how you want to approach the cold room. But either way, you want to go into every situation with that understanding and awareness. So that's the empathy part, the stoicism part, that's turning all of that awareness inward.
All of that strategy inward. I also need to be aware of my own feelings, my own thoughts, right? And in control of them and able to dictate them and influence them so that I can maneuver my way through this situation in a way that will serve me. That will serve my profession, my company, my industry, whatever it is, my goals are for that encounter and interaction and do it in a way that's authentic to me.
So I'm not going to go home that night and feel as though I was untrue to myself. it somehow, but rather, hey, I met some really great people and made some really great connections that I can continue to develop as I move forward. So that's what I'd love for you guys to be able to do at the end of the night.
Authenticity is the main part of what you're talking about. And that's the main part of networking, because if you are authentic to yourself, you can be free. And discuss, and you can actually listen to the other people if you're being authentic. If you're not, if you're putting on some sort of a show, how much of a relationship can you actually build?
So it's a very good point. How do you balance strength and compassion when networking in high pressure situations and you being an attorney? I'm sure used to a few high pressure situations. Yes, absolutely. So again, you need to be strategic about the level of compassion that you input. One of the examples I like to give about this, and I know your shows about networking and I'm talking to a corporate community right now, but I want all of you guys for a second to imagine that you're a trauma surgeon in an emergency room and gunshot victim after gunshot victim comes in through the door.
You crying over every single one is not going to help those gunshot victims. But your compassionate ability to understand the pain that they're going through and the situation that they're in is going to be able to serve you and it will prevent you from being traumatized by your experiences so that you can keep doing your job.
So that's how I want you guys to think about compassion and empathy. As you go into different situations, you want to make sure that the level of emotional connection that you're taking with you is something that It's going to be able to serve you in that situation, right? If it's not, try to put it aside.
And one of the things that, CEOs love doing these days, networkers, and the startup founders and all of these folks love doing these days is getting up first thing in the morning, taking an ice bath. And one of the reasons they love those ice baths, there's lots of health benefits to ice baths.
I'm not minimizing the health benefits. But what I'm telling you is. Getting comfortable with discomfort as a general matter is a remarkable stoic tool. It could be through an ice bath, it could be through a steam room, it could be through volunteering at your local homeless shelter and striking up conversations with people you have nothing to gain from, right?
Whatever it is, getting used to that, which makes you uncomfortable so that when you're in that state of discomfort, high pressure situation, maybe even hostile, high pressure situation, right? How do you maintain your calm, maintain your composure, and perhaps most importantly, maintain your awareness of https: otter.
ai And the people around you and that awareness can take again, it can take the form of a full emotional connection to someone you've known for decades, whose child is ill, and you show up to the hospital and hold their hand. Or it can simply take the form of, I am going to distance myself from these feelings at this time, because so that I can serve my partner whose child is sick, so I can take over.
Their duties for them so that they can focus on their family, right? So compassion can take multiple forms. And as long as you strategically take it into your tense situation, you'll be able to adapt it to the situation in a way that's appropriate. Okay. Very good. Very good answer. Thank you for that. Let me give you a.
Kind of working over overcoming challenges. Okay. How can stoic principles help in overcoming networking challenges and rejections? I love that. As I'm sure you can imagine you're in a networking room. Rejection, by the way, comes in all forms. It comes in that very subtle, casual, you make your way towards someone, but they turn around and their back is to you and you suddenly know you're not welcome in that conversation.
It can also take much more extreme forms than that, right? So rejection can also come in the form of outright rejection. And that can be impactful, it can be hurtful. And we've all been in that situation where there's also this nervous awkwardness, right? So I'm so it's not as though you're reduced to tears in the middle of a networking event.
It's more, you feel a little bit let down and you feel this anxious awkwardness and you're not sure now how to maneuver your way through the room. Or if you have somehow embarrassed yourself in front of others, etc. So what you want to do is you want to use those stoic tools. And the one I've already described so far is embracing discomfort, but there's a lot more of them in my book, Stoic Empathy, which is being released April 8th.
Tons of stoic tools to help you cope and maintain emotional regulation at that time, whether it's anger, because somebody said something with which You vehemently disagree, maybe even on a deep moral level, which can happen even at a networking event, right? How do you cope? How do you respond and cope to that person?
And the first step is always pause, right? Maintain control of yourself. And then react and make sure that here's the stimuli. Okay, here's the response. What's in between the stimuli and response. is your willpower. Make sure that you're existing in that space. And then not only are you able to control your reactions in a manner that is appropriate at times where anger, anxiety, fear is being triggered.
But you are also, again, as Michael said earlier, remaining true to your authentic self, because you're able to be your, here's you in the middle. Here's your response, your intentional response, right? And that is the best that you can do in that situation is you don't have a month to think about it. And by the way, don't leave the room overthinking your interactions.
Don't leave the room thinking, Oh, I should have said this, or I should have done that. It's okay to reflect a little bit. On what you could have done differently to further your interactions and create meaningful context and content. You don't want to overthink it. You don't want to go back and beat yourself up because you feel like you didn't collect enough business cards or build enough relationships that night because that's not going to motivate you going into the next one.
It's just not going to be helpful to you. Take what lessons you can get and move on. And I just want to sprinkle in just a little bit to what you had said, your confidence level, okay? Because if you are confident in yourself and what you're doing, that really helps you because you're your authentic self, you're confident, it'll give you the little bit of structure to respond.
That pause that you were saying, that is so important because You have to really take everything in. Think about it now. You really don't have a few seconds, but you have to think about it and respond appropriately so that if you sprinkle that confidence in there, I think that's a perfect answer. 100%. And if I could just dovetail back on that, I know you have other questions, Michael, but one of the things I always I don't know if your audience, if anybody out there is an athlete or if you've ever played sports or if you are a fan of athleticism, but there's this thing that happens in sports where the ball slows down, the game slows down.
There's this kind of cool thing that happens that the pros talk about. Now you got to be a pro. Before it slows down for you, but it literally still is not like your Neil from the matrix and the bullets are whizzing by according to everyone else. But for you, they're going so slowly that you could grab one of them and drop it, right?
That is something I swear to you guys. If you practice this enough, you can accomplish with your networking skills. You can actually slow down that time for yourself so that it might not. Actually be 10 seconds of time, it might just be a beat, but that beat can feel like a lifetime if you are an expert at knowing how to deal with that beat.
So allow yourself to get to the place where you'd let the game slow down for you so that you can see it. in a way that isn't as rushed, that isn't as fast moving. And then you suddenly find that space within yourself to respond and find that confidence. Just to let you know that also both my sons played college baseball.
My daughter in law played college softball. So I'm telling you that they, all three have said that they've found that to happen, that actually slowed down. So it happens on the collegiate level as well. So I know exactly what you're talking about. Definitely. How does empathy contribute to becoming a more effective leader and networker?
Okay, so in terms of leadership, really the way I think about empathy and also empathy's interaction with stoicism. And this is something I write about in the book as well. The book is stoic empathy. If you guys are still listening, April 8th, it's coming out, feel free to get a copy. One of the things that really takes place when you're a leader is you develop this incredible ability to understand your team, this empathic awareness of your team.
Now, I want you to imagine yourself as a leader. Responsible for a team, right? And when you're responsible for a team, you're not just responsible for the day they have, you're responsible for the jobs they keep, right? So and that means the health insurance they have, right? Little Timmy's You know, medicine could be reliant on you.
There's a massive amount at play here and the higher up you are on the leadership spectrum. But even if you are leading a small team, you're responsible for these people. And sometimes you get bad news. Because bumps in the road happen in business, right? It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter how successful you are and doesn't have to be a worldwide global pandemic or anything like that, or total disruption of supply chains.
As a result of that, it could just be you lost a big client that day. And everyday occurrence that might happen. And you have to find a way to manage this loss, this financial loss in a way that preserves and protect, but still motivates your team. You don't necessarily want to lie to them and pretend that you still have the client.
That would be silly. But you also don't want to go to them with shaky hands and say, guys, I don't know what we're going to do. We've lost this client. We have nowhere to go. No, you want to use your awareness of the empathic needs of the people around you to collect and gather yourself and lead them in a manner that is appropriate.
So when we talk about empathy, what we're talking in leadership, what we're talking about is we're talking about that awareness. You care about your team, you care about their jobs, you care about their health care. Yet, you don't need to necessarily express that in a manner that would make them upset, uncomfortable, or in any way, not motivate them to do what you need them to do.
To save their jobs to save the company and to do whatever is needed for the next steps. So and that's very situation dependent. What that might be even your level of vulnerability and what you put yourself out there with that depends on the situation and how stable and secure your team is and how much they can take that day.
So here you are. Aware of your team, aware of their capabilities, aware of their needs, and also aware of their vulnerabilities. And you're using that to help you decide how to lead them better and lead them forward. You're describing. There's a distinct difference between a leader and a boss, okay? A boss just shouts all the messages and I love that.
Okay? But a leader has leaders under him. He's teaching his people to be leaders. And you have to be empathetic. You have to know what they're doing. You have to get in the trenches with them. Tutor them, train them, coach them. And so that's the main difference. So With a leader being empathetic, that is truly a part of being a good leader because there are plenty of leaders out there that are not good.
Yeah, plenty. Yeah. Can you share a specific example where empathy led to a successful negotiation? Yeah, sure. Okay. So this is a good one. You guys are going to like this one. I'm going to try not to give any names, but I was working for a massive fashion company at the time. It was actually the spirits division of a fashion company.
So technically it was a vodka. And we were literally in danger of losing the right to use our brand, our name. And it was a trademark dispute and it was a sort of a crazy situation to be in because it was a very high end luxury brand that we had been using for years, and there was some real danger that we could lose it.
And what where we were, though, is we were in a negotiation room. It was My team, right? The team that represented the other side and the mediator. And in the middle of this negotiation, it was a multi day took these negotiations took days and days in the middle of the negotiation halfway through maybe three or four days in, we learned that the mediator does all sorts of business with the lawyers.
of the opposing side. So the mediator is bias. And this is something that should have been disclosed to us that was not we didn't even know until we saw him talking to someone else halfway through the meetings in the hallways, and Wow. It was our reaction was obviously we were very angry.
We were also very anxious, very nervous. Should our own research have yielded these results? Did we make a mistake in not knowing this? How could we have let this happen? How could he have let this happen? And my partner who was with me at the time became extremely angry and he immediately accused the mediator of being biased and being unethical and of course the mediator Was extremely defensive and very upset at having been accused of being unethical because in his mind, he's create he's created his own walls and he's created his own divisions and this is not anything that he needed to have reported etc.
Nobody thinks they're the bad guy. You know what I mean? And so he's going to walk out and we're going to lose all the progress we've made on this mediation because the mediator is going to walk out. My partner is going to walk out. All these people are going to walk out. And so in that moment when I went up to the mediator and I just, and by the way, I want you guys to please take this advice with a grain of salt because touching people in business interactions can be tricky, but I put my hand on his arm like this and I just said, Why don't you stay a minute?
Let's talk about it, right? I understand that you must be very angry right now. I'm sure you can understand where we're coming from. Why don't you take a minute and let's talk about it. Don't leave. And he turned around and he came back in. He was still huffing and puffing, but he turned around and he came back in.
And my partner had left the room. So I said, give me a minute. And I went out and I convinced my partner to come back in the room. And. After that, this mediator was bending over backwards to prove how unbiased he was towards us. And so I'm telling you that just that moment when I slowed down my speech and gave it a beat of silence.
And that moment of empathy was all he needed to come back and all my partner needed. Both of them are actually well intentioned, great people, great professionals. It just that's how the situation occurred. And, I've made my share of mistakes in negotiations. I've said things I put that I shouldn't have said, I put my foot in my mouth, I have definitely embarrassed myself.
But this, you wanted an example of a win. So I've given you an example of a win, my friend. I don't want, I don't want the audience to think that they're all wins because it's all a process of learning and a process of growing and a process of moving forward. But I did learn from that interaction.
That and since then I've reflected a lot on that touch to like where you touch someone in a professional context really matters because you want to make sure that the touch is something that lowers their defenses and not something that hires their defenses right or wrong. Right or wrong, whether you think they're being over reactionary or not.
The idea is I know me and I know this person and I know the relationship between the two of us and I know what will calm them. And of course I can't say calm down. That's like the worst thing you can ever say to anybody when you want them to calm down. But through that reassurance and that Empathy and that understanding you can, in effect, slow down the action in the amygdala that's going on in the person's brain because they're in fight, flight or freeze mode, right?
And get them to think rationally. If I were to walk out of this negotiation right now, how would it reflect on my career? How would it reflect on my clients? How would it reflect on this case? How would it affect my reputation? If I'm able To sell this negotiation, though, if I can get these two sides to reach an agreement, I'm a rock star and you help and you want you what you want them to do is you want them to engage in that sort of thinking.
And in order to do that, you have to reduce their level of volatility and then start with a series of questions and interactions that lead them to that conclusion. So when we were all back at the table. All I had to say is, how great would it be if we could make this work now? Imagine the success.
And and it just reframed things for everybody else in the room. And in that instance, it worked, we ended up settling and being able to continue to use our brand. And yeah, that's great. You had mentioned you made several mistakes, of course. Give me what are the most common mistakes that people can make when trying to network, and how can they avoid it?
That's very interesting. I would say that really does depend on the person. There are definitely people whose most common mistake is not going deep enough, and people whose most common mistake is going too deep. For instance, because sometimes, listen, I'm just at a networking event. I'm not here to tell you my life story and I don't really want to hear yours.
As opposed to, Hey, how's the weather? And but there's people who never move past it. And it's incredible to me how those two extremes can sometimes be at the same event, but they can. And what I would say is try to examine what's working for you, and what's not working for you. And make small adjustments, right?
Like what Michael said in the beginning, you do still want to be authentic. If you're a person who connects deep, pretending to be shallow isn't going to get you very far. But if you're consistently noticing that you're making people uncomfortable with your questions, or if you're consistently noticing that the conversation is so shallow that the person's eyes keep wandering to, Can I go talk to someone else?
What's happening in that section of the room? Could it possibly be more interesting than this person? And adjust accordingly to that while still being true to yourself. You can. It's, what I've found is ever since the pandemic, people have relied on zoom and cell phones and everything. But the days of building your customer base.
customer base is gone. And the time of building relationships is really around. I used to be in the mortgage business and I used to come home with a shoebox full of business cards. Yeah. Look how great I was. It was horrible. I learned that after a three or four hour networking event, if I come home with 15 or 20 business cards, Because I know I created a relationship with them, then I can move on.
I did very good. I did very well. So it's good. So now last but not least, okay, so you take a breath. Okay. Last but not least, very of you, Michael Foreman. How do you see the fusion of stoicism and empathy, shaping. The future of networking and leadership. What I see it doing is helping people avoid, and it's actually very close to what you just said, it really dovetails on what you just said, helping people avoid the idea that I got to work the room.
Working the room is not the goal. The goal is to build a handful of relationships that are going to propel your business and maybe even your professional life forward, right? You never know, some of these people could, in a few years, play a pivotal role. They could help you get your next job, right? It could be a massive shift.
So you don't want to work the room, you want to know the people in the room. Take a real human interest in who they are, what is it that's interesting about them and what they do. So to the extent you're talking about what someone does for a living, you're doing it so that you can better understand that person, not better understand what it is you can get from them.
And that will naturally help you to get more from one another. It helps to build this symbiotic relationship. And that symbiosis, that self controlled empathic symbiosis, is the best type of leadership out there. And remember that you are still in control of You're part of the conversation. You are in control of yourself.
No matter what they say, you control how you respond. So you can twist and take this conversation to a place that you think is right based on the relationship you want to build. But take that minute. To find that real human interest. I promise you guys, I don't know if Michael mentioned it, but I'm also a TED Talk producer.
It's my sort of part time pro bono community activity. I've produced over 80 TEDx and TED Talks. And what I've learned is that everyone in this world, everyone has an idea that can make things different and better and that is worth sharing. And if I take a beat, and get to know that person. Now, if I'm in a networking context, I want to be careful.
I don't want to spend all my time with one individual because that's not the intention or the purpose of the event. But I want to go in deep enough to figure out their humanness and not just the label on their business card before I move on to the next person. Outstanding. Very good. Cher, I can't begin to tell you how glad I am that you came on this podcast.
I feel that we can talk another two hours if we wanted to. Because you're very easy to talk to and you obviously were very good at what you did because the way that you speak, the way that you negotiate, everything had a very calming effect on me. I don't know about my listeners, but on me. So I think you did very well.
If somebody wanted to get hold of you, how would they do it? I appreciate it. I am now all over the place because of this book. Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. I will warn your audience. I do get a lot of messages and connection requests on LinkedIn. I promise I get to every single one. Just sometimes it takes me a week or two, but if you want to reach out to me on LinkedIn, I'm more than happy to respond to you.
You can also go to.
That is my impossible to say and even more impossible to spell name. And that is the website I chose. So you can also just Google stoic empathy and I will come up. Very good. Sure. I can't begin to tell you how nice this was, how great this was. And I look forward to speaking with you again. Thank you. I do too.
I had a great time. Thanks for having me on.
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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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