Event Diet

A year ago I attended a dinner awards ceremony for young professionals in civic engagement at the downtown Hilton in Chicago. At this point I was attending 1 to 2 events every night and feeling a bit fatigued from it all. Oftentimes I would show up at a fundraiser or a panel on civic engagement and ending up talking to the people I already knew.

Which was exactly what was happening that night at this leadership dinner. As I scanned the room, many of the faces at the various tables were familiar. Something unbeknownst to me at the onset of my career would be that networking in the civic bubble of Chicago might have its limits. I hadn’t hit that, but I was certainly burning myself out with it.

I will caveat all of this with the privilege I have about being an extroverted type who has switched jobs four times in one city in four adjacent industries. The opportunities to get invited to design, government, advocacy and political events only multiplies each time you make that jump or try out a different fellowship/volunteer activity. This was all a maelstrom of my own making.

I went to get a martini with my boyfriend right afterwards and right then and there in that small Italian bistro, I made a vow. I made a vow for the next year I would go on an event diet.

What did that even mean? I had certainly just made this idea up or at the least committed to this in parallel with others. For my personal goals, I set the following parameters.

1. For every week, only one of my nights could be booked for a networking or meetup type event
2. I would not count my own meetup, City Open Workshop
3. I may cheat a bit with this one, but events during my work day would count as work, but to limit myself to 2–3 in the week
4. Drastically scale back weekend volunteering activities
5. For social events, commit to one plan a night instead of trying to layer them
6. Firm nos and yesses versus the maybe or flaking
7. Only go to events because I wanted to- if I wanted to see the person hosting or attending, I would reach out to them directly

It has been almost a year in this process, and it has definitely been a tough growth process. I ultimately struggled with FOMO, but realized I was indeed seeing people I loved more, was more relaxed, and had time for fitness and relaxation. In a perverse way, I was so intent on giving so much of myself to various causes and being afraid to miss a social circle, I was losing myself. Overall, I would encourage this type of intentional withdrawal or cleanse for a week or a month or a year, just to understand the habits or obligations you might feel in your schedule. Below are some of the most prominent things I learned with my event diet:

It is ok to be scarce- one of the major feelings I had to fight when I started was that fear that starts at the beginning of your career where missing an event or a chance to meet people means you aren’t out there, or you are moving away from success. As I progress into the next stage of my career with the work I have done and the network I acquired, I can afford to not reach out, to not attend, etc. Those in my industries still reach out when we need to engage, and I can as well. I thought my removal from the well-worn trail would be damaging, but it honestly didn’t change much.

These events and groups will repeat themselves- that tasting event at Lagunitas with Rebuilding Exchange? That conversation at Chi Hack Night? Another big moment in my diet was that many of these events repeat weekly or annually. I learned to prioritize and rationalize if I missed one, it would roll up again.

I paid more attention and learned a lot more- Event stacking and event fatigue meant that I would only be half listening and worrying about jumping in an Uber to the next thing. Even if the topics were engaging, it would not dominate my attention. As I became more deliberate with my choices, I would look for events where the content was something I wanted to absorb. I started looking forward to my one event with thought leaders where I would raptly pay attention and really come out with a lot more detail.

It is about ecosysteming not networking- I am planning to write a post on this idea next week but I evolved my personal engagement from the idea of “networking” to “ecosysteming.” During this year, I shifted from constantly working to meet new people to concentrating on the “ecosystem” I have and making sure I am keeping up with and taking care of the people I know. My rationale is that I should not be adding more people to that ecosystem unless I can properly keep in touch with the friends and family I have.

Networking will be there when you need it- Yes, at other points, I will need to start up networking again whether that is for a new job, people I need to connect with for a project, or just to gather information. What’s nice about resuming networking is that you can at any point start all of these events and contacts again once more. However, when I return, I will be more refreshed and far more engaged in saying hello and handing out business cards.