What do you ask?

One thing I’ve considered myself weak at is networking and connecting with other small business owners.

But I think that I’ve based that opinion on things that other people have told me that ultimately resulted in me having lower self-esteem and, thus, fulfilling their prophecy that I wouldn’t be able to network with others.

In 2021, after the EMDR therapy ended, I immediately became more comfortable with a concept my therapist described as “the me that I was supposed to be”. This “me” is the combination of the hurt, lost child stuck back in 1990/91 merged with the “me” who has been living through to 2021. EMDR helped me connect to my past self and truly made my “true self” concrete. Since then, I’ve felt more confident, I’ve scaled back my risk appetite, and I’ve been less afraid.

But it wasn’t until I started fall classes at the University of Florida that I started believing that networking would be possible.

I have a fantastic professor, Jamie Kraft, through the Entrepreneurship class I’m taking who has been inspiring me to try new things and to stop being telling myself that I’m terrible at networking. That person is the past me, the me who wasn’t whole. The me who was listening to the negative things espoused by the people who supposedly loved me.

Things that weren’t true.

So I’ve been eagerly reaching out to other entrepreneurs and the contacts that I’m gaining through my classes at the University of Florida. Although, I’m always terrified to do so. I don’t think the sweaty palms or the butterflies in my stomach will ever go away when I send these emails. And, I have a feeling that I’ll always spend a bit too much time on them as I overthink every word. I’m hoping that will change with experience.

A few weeks ago, I realized I was scared because I had no idea what to ask these people who were willing to take time out of their ridiculously successful and busy lives to provide me mentorship so that I could grow myself and my small business.

As a result, for the past couple of months, I’ve been chasing this notion that there is a “right set of questions” to ask these very kind people and that I just haven’t found them yet.

This is false.

After combing through countless websites, I find many of the suggested questions too vague or too personal. And, as a result, I think I want to just listen to them talk.

I no longer want to ask questions.

And… the weirdest part… I no longer want to talk.

I want to listen.

I only want to share what I’m asked to share. I don’t want to info dump (which I’ve felt like I had to do in the past so that someone could actually understand me).

What I’ve learned through my education and, more specifically, from ENT 3003 (the Introduction to Entrepreneurship class with Professor Jamie Kraft at the University of Florida), is that every entrepreneur is almost exactly like me.

We all start in a similar way, from a similar place/mindset.

We all encounter the same awkwardness and nervousness at various stages.

And most of us tend to do what one guest speaker for the class described as “verbal vomiting” about her business and her passions (this is totally how I get!) because she had no idea where to start.

However, it was through practice and networking that they were able to become the collected and poised people I’ve been seeing today.

Although, I still wonder what good “starting questions” are.

The most tangible thing I’ve learned about this is that I should be asking open ended questions and allowing them to distill information to me at their own pace. The conversation should be focused on them, even though I am the one trying to learn.

It is not my responsibility to come up with questions. And certainly not the perfect questions.

It is my responsibility to listen.

So, as I go into a very important mentorship-like meeting today, I don’t have an agenda of questions. I’m just planning to listen. It’s a little scary to go with so little, but I think this is the right play, especially after my last meeting with a mentor where I did the verbal-vomit and asked closed-ended questions too frequently.

Here’s hoping that today goes differently.

I think it will.