New York City Day 33: Networking!

Boy oh boy was today a busy day. This blog is going to be filled with a lot of valuable information so you may want to take out a pen and a notepad.

Me and Rihanna at Essence!

We went to Essence earlier this morning. We got a chance to talk to Charrea Jackson and Ms. Wendy Wilson. I've been meaning to talk to Charrea! She did a piece on casual sex on college campuses and how it's viewed. She interviewed me back when I was a junior...in college, lol. Here's a portion of the article. It was so cool to actually meet her in person and her actually remember me. Small World! I love going to Essence...I could TOTALLY see myself working there! The environment is so welcoming and peaceful and interactive and I love it!

Aside from that, we met up with a man named Val Nicholas. He is...an expert at networking to put it lightly! I needed to hear what he had to say...simple. I've been waiting years to say what he said today and I'm glad I finally heard it! Here's a few exerts of what he said:

•     Don’t wait for people to come to you
•      You go to them
• ·      Don’t wait to be discovered
• ·      WHAT IS IT ABOUT YOU THAT MAKES YOU MEMORABLE???
• ·      If you get invited somewhere, you don’t just sit there and not say anything
• ·      If you get invited somewhere, participate!
• ·      You need to show them you have something to say, offer and give
• ·      Do something for someone else, don’t ask for a hand out, after you help them, they’ll owe you
• ·      Coming in and sitting down and telling me all your dreams will get you no where
• ·      If I’m gonna help you, WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME???? 
• ·      If you want to be on tv, we want to see what you DID on tv
• ·      BETTER TO SHOW THAN TO SAY!
• ·      Don’t go anywhere without a stack of business cards
• ·      If somebody gives you their card, you need to call them or that connection is gone.
• ·      When you reach back, make sure you have something to talk about.  Say “Hey, we met up         here. I heard you have a project you’re working on, I can help out?”
• ·      IT’S EASY TO TAKE ORDERS, HARDER TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY.
• ·      Raise your hand, especially if no one else raises their hand.
• ·      It’s ok to fall down, as long as you learn from it and you let people know that you learned from it.
• ·      YOU HAVE TO JOIN GROUPS!
• ·      IT’S NOT ENOUGH TO JUST SIGN ON; RUN A COMMITTEE, RUN AN EVENT. THAT’S GOING TO GET YOU EXPOSED TO THE PEOPLE WHO NEED TO KNOW WHO YOU ARE.
• ·  You don’t have to wait for thing’s to happen. You can make thing’s happen.

      After that, we met up with some people from Ms. Reid's neck of the woods. We met Amy Rosenblum and Jane Hanson. They are so animated! I love it! Both their careers are too major to put in words, but I'll leave you with one of the biggest thing's that stood out to me. In this business, you have to have curiosity, nerve, passion, discipline and to be well prepared. After that, we did a quick networking event. We had to talk to several different people and we had two minutes to spend with each of those people. It was pretty interesting. It forced you to get to the point and not blabber about nonsense pretty much. So it was a pretty busy and eventful day!