975: Relationships vs CONNECTIONS and ALL the detours of life and business w/ Emily Weiner

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Hey, what is up?

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Welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

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As always, I'm your host, Brian Lofermento, and if you're thinking that I sound like I've got a little bit more energy for today's episode, then it's absolutely true, because today's guest is just an example of how small the world is.

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We were already talking about all the things that we have in common.

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I went to Bentley University.

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She has been an important member of the Babson community for quite some time, which is one of our neighboring schools.

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Some might call it rivalries, but the truth is, both Bentley and Babson have a longstanding history of excellence within the world of business and entrepreneurship, and today's guest not only has worked within the world of academia to further the mission of entrepreneurship and help people in that regard, but she's also a fellow entrepreneur herself.

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So let me tell you all about her.

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Her name is Emily Wiener.

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She's the founder and CEO of the Connectors.

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She's a systems thinking entrepreneur, business advisor and mentor who has spent more than 25 years connecting people and ideas to activate change.

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She models how to bring intentionality to relationships and partnerships, and leaders rely on her ability to connect the dots, especially between people, to help them activate new and expanded opportunities, innovation and impact.

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In addition to her work with established change makers and business professionals, she's helped thousands of young people literally thousands of young people connect to their passions, cultivate new skills and embrace societal problems as entrepreneurial opportunities.

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How great is that terminology for all of us as entrepreneurs?

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She coaches everyone from teenagers to people in their 60s to discover how they can activate change in any organization, any role, any sector and any community.

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So, yes, all of you entrepreneurs out there, you're also going to take away a lot from today's episode.

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Prior to launching the Connectors, Emily was a founding member of the Lewis Institute at Babson College, growing it from an entrepreneurial startup to a multi-million dollar portfolio of businesses focused on social impact across all sectors and issues.

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As an entrepreneur, she started her own businesses and worked for a variety of organizations across sectors, including corporate, nonprofit, academia and politics, though she promises to never return to politics, and I will say that, even in my short interactions with Emily so far, I can tell that this is someone who has genuine enthusiasm and passion for all things entrepreneurship.

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So I'm not going to say anything else.

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Let's dive straight into my interview with Emily Wiener.

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All right, Emily, I'm so excited that you're here with us today.

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First things first, welcome to the show.

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Thank you so much, brian, and hearing you read my intro and my bio, I was like oh wait, that sounds so different.

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Thank you for having me.

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I'm so excited to have a conversation with you today.

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Already, you and I could.

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I know we could talk for hours on end, but we'll keep it tight for today.

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Heck.

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Yes, honestly, that's the hardest part for me, because I'm clearly easily excitable.

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Emily, I already know that you are also easily excitable for all things business.

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So let's start.

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Take us beyond the bio, because I could humble brag about your accomplishments and the great work that you've done for a long time, but I want to hear the backstory into how you started doing all these amazing things.

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Sure.

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So it's interesting because the backstory is really what gets me to where I am right now in terms of launching the connectors, and I sort of say that you know, I launched the Connectors and I just formally launched about not even six months ago, and I launched it because I realized this is the culmination of my life's work and when I think about who I am, there's a fabulous gentleman named Marshall Gantz and he does some great work around the story of self and I highly recommend to anybody out there listening, check it out and think about what your story of self is.

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Too often, when we talk about who we are and we talk about what we do, we talk about all the things we've done.

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We've shown our CV or we've shown our LinkedIn profile to people, but that doesn't tell me who you are.

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So if I think about, well, who am I?

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I'm a person that kind of grew up all over the place.

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I was constantly in motion, I attended six different schools in nine years across three states and as a result of that, what ended up happening for me?

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You can go one of two ways with that, but for me that meant that I had to learn how to forge relationships and build community quickly.

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I had to learn what all the other people around me were doing and integrate in.

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Now, my five or seven or nine-year-old self wouldn't necessarily use that language, of course, but that's exactly what I was doing from a very early beginning age.

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And what I also knew at that very early age was that anytime we ran into challenges, anytime I ran into a situation where I didn't know what to do, well, I knew there had to be a solution to it.

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I remember thinking early on if people created the problem, then people have to be able to solve it too.

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There must be a way to fix it.

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And so from the very beginning stages literally I remember from being, you know, in early elementary school thinking the only way I will navigate this life is if I can learn how to connect and find common ground and develop these relationships with people.

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So I've been doing this from day one.

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And as I've built my corporate career and academic career and other careers over time, you know I've been around the block for a while now.

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It's kind of daunting to me to think that I've been at this for 28 years, but I've been through in those 28 years multiple economic downturns, multiple changes in society.

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You know the world today is increasingly unpredictable and unknowable and in every one of those steps I actually wrote a LinkedIn article about this in a blog post a while ago that I realized, every single one of these twists and turns whether it was of my own volition or of being laid off or whatever was happening in that moment every single one of those taught me something, brought me something, and I actually titled the post take the detour, don't forget to look up.

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So I've been blessed.

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A lot of people would be scared about this, but I say I've been blessed to be able to have so many detours in my life that have brought me vast, expansive networks of people, and it always goes back to people in relationships.

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For me, it always goes back to those connections.

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So I'm really fortunate to have connections literally all over the world, literally at all ages and stages of life, and to be able to be part of their growth and development in whatever tiny way I can is a gift, and I'm lucky that it has brought me to where I am now.

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But I don't want to.

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I can get into specifics of what brought me to Babson.

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You know all of that kind of stuff if that's of interest to you.

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But really it was being opportunistic in a good way that would allow me to take my next step, even if I didn't know what that step was going to bring me.

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Yeah, I love that overview, Emily, and I really appreciate the way that you articulate that, because this is the stuff.

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This is the real stuff that, in terms of entrepreneurship, we all have and I'll call out business schools right now is that when we make our business plans, we think it's going to be that linear path.

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So we're going to talk about detours here today and I'm so glad that you introduced that so early in our conversation.

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But I really want to start with the relationship part of your backstory, because obviously it's at the root of what you do with the connectors.

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I actually want to read this because I love how particular and intentional you are with your language, and so I'm just going to read this for listeners.

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The connectors helps people develop effective strategies for forming relationships, uncovering resources and connecting dots to move ideas forward.

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Emily, I love the way that you articulate this and I'm going to call myself out here.

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Is that in my early 20s, when I was a younger entrepreneur, I remember that people would always introduce me and they were like oh my gosh, especially when I was in the Chamber of Commerce.

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I grew up in the suburbs of Boston and it's a small town and everyone would say you have to meet this person and, emily, I'm an extrovert.

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You can introduce me to anybody and I'll have a great time.

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I didn't know what to do with those connections, and I think that that's one of your superpowers that I think you can share with the entire world is relationships are one thing, knowing someone is one thing, but it's that connecting the dots in reference to those relationships.

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That's where the power happens.

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Talk to us about that.

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Sure, thanks for bringing that up.

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It's a really key distinction and thanks for recognizing that we can forge relationships all day, every day, and we have different types of relationships in this world.

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But actually understanding how to make connections is the real reason I started this.

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So I've noticed, especially coming through COVID I've noticed this before COVID, but especially accelerated during COVID a lot of people thought, oh, I have a million connections, right, I know so many people, or I'm connected to a gazillion people on TikTok or Instagram or wherever else, and I think that's great.

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But if you actually reached out to any of those people or even just tripped over them in the street, would you know them?

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Would you really understand them?

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Would you understand their real motivations?

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So I think we have different layers and levels of relationships that we make with people and I make a key distinction in understanding how I can best help people.

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If you're truly looking to make a connection, not engage in a transaction, then I'm the person for you to help you get there.

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And the distinction I make on that is most people think they're building relationships and connections, but they're actually engaging in transactions.

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They think you know, let's say, you're an entrepreneur and you want to reach out to a VC firm and you're interested in getting them to pay attention to you.

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You go about it sometimes in a very formulaic way.

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I built my pitch deck and you're absolutely right to call out business schools on this.

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This is one of the most important things I worked on with students over the 11 plus years that I was at Babson was to move beyond with.

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There's a stage in their methodology of entrepreneurial thought and action called enrolling others in your vision, and to enroll people in your vision.

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You don't just dump a bunch of information at them and then think, great, I've sold myself, everything looks perfect, I'm buttoned up, everything's good.

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You have to establish that true connection to them.

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You have to get them to if any of you are, simon Sinek, devotees to understand their why, to hit them in their gut, to get people to move beyond the basic mechanics and logic of why I might want to talk to you and to actually want to believe in you.

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One of the entrepreneurs that I've worked with for many, many years.

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He said to me when we were having a conversation recently you know, if you want to get from A to B, you have to get someone to care.

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So if someone cares about you and wants to build something, then you may not know what the connection is right now.

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You may just say, okay, that's a great relationship, just like you said at the Chamber of Commerce.

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You might have built all these relationships and thought, well, I don't know what to do with them, but you hang on to them, right?

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You say, oh, you're just really interesting.

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I don't know, maybe someday we'll figure something out.

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And then the important part of connecting is to then say I'm willing to let this sit in ambiguity.

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I'm willing to not just be formulaic about how I'm going to ask you for something thing.

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I'm willing to hold on to you because, I don't know, you're just neat, I'm neat, we kind of like each other.

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Yeah, I don't know, maybe you know, brian, if you and I hadn't met this morning.

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Or we meet this morning and then we think, gosh, you're really cool, we should do something together one of these days.

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And we may not know for 10, 1215 years before we figure it out.

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But then all of a sudden I'll be like, ah, brian, I want to connect you to this because I think it would be a great opportunity for you.

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When you connect with people rather than just collect people, you actually metabolize who they are, you metabolize what they care about, you think about it.

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You have that ability to say, oh, you know what, this is a great opportunity and you're willing to gift relationships to them on their behalf.

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So you might be in a conversation and say gosh, I'm not the right person for you on this one, but I think my friend Brian might be.

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Let me make an introduction between the two of you, and that only goes to perpetuate the good connection that you two will have.

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That will then further yourself because eventually those will come back to you.

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That was a very long, circuitous way of answering that question.

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No, it's really powerful, emily.

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I'm going to call out even the verbs that you choose when you're talking about gifting relationships to others.

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It's that attitude, really your mindset is on full display in the way that you talk about these things, and I think it's particularly important, I'll say as a podcast host I mean anyone who hosts a podcast.

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We all get at least a few dozen pitches every single day in our email inbox.

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Everybody wants to be on our shows, everybody wants to sell YouTube optimization services to us.

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Everybody wants to pitch everything, and I think it's true for most people, not just podcast hosts.

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And so for me, again coming back to being easily excitable, emily, the few people who take the time to be like hey, congratulations to the Boston Celtics for winning their 18th championship, you've got me Now.

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We have a personal connection and that's so much more powerful to me at least, as someone who's very passionate about the things that I really like in life.

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That's an instant connection If I meet a fellow Albanian.

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For example, last night I went to a Thai restaurant owned by an Albanian guy who would have thought, and he gave me a free dessert, and that's like a genuine connection.

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I'm gonna leave him a review on Google Maps today, and it's just so cool how those connections come about.

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Emily, what are those ways?

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I've just I mean calling two of them out nationality and sports.

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Those are always very easy.

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What are some of those natural connections that we can find in people?

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You and I, for example, hit it off right away with the Babson Bentley connection.

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What can people lean on for these?

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people can lean on.

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Anything for these, you know, a lot of times we think about oh, I must have a checklist of things that I can connect on.

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You'd be amazed how I have connected with complete strangers standing in line at the grocery store or sitting at a bar.

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I am that girl that I sit down at a bar and within 10 minutes I've got the entire life story of the person next to me.

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Part of that is inherent in my nature.

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There is something about me that people feel is approachable and they want to talk to me, and that's great.

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But you can connect on anything.

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You might say, oh, I've just taken this trip to London.

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Or gosh, that's an interesting beer that you're drinking right now.

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What is that?

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And anything can be used to strike up a conversation.

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And then one of the key strategies that I work on with my clients is to say how do you approach the conversation from a place of curiosity, genuine curiosity about the person, and ask questions that are not yes, no, or are not sort of simple, easy questions.

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But if you get at questions like what drives you, or wow, you might ask someone oh, what brought you to Babson?

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Or you might ask someone, wow, how did you decide on the career trajectory that you did?

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Those are two really different questions and so, coming from a point of questioning where you are seeking to understand, not seeking to get answers or seeking to immediately respond, that's such an important part of connecting clarifying questions right.

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Sometimes, if someone says something, you might pick up on a small thing that they say and you'd say, wait, wait, did you just say you're Albanian?

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That's so cool.

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How did that you know?

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How did you end up coming to Boston?

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Or what brought your family here?

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You know there's sort of any open door that can do this.

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It's so funny that you talk about that.

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I have several blogs up on my site and I know not everybody likes to read.

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I'm still old school and I still write blogs the old fashioned way, but I have a couple blogs up on my site that actually touch on, and I use a lot of examples that touch on these points.

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I did a whole blog called why Authenticity is More Important Than Ever, and if you are a real authentic human, you will get further exactly to your point.

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You get tons of spam every day and, fun fact I actually, when I first connected with this podcast, wasn't sure if it was spam or not.

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But then I was delighted to find out it wasn't, but because they're real people behind everything that happened here.

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And so I analyzed a week's worth of the spam messages that I get at the connectors and I sort of teased out the key four main points that came out of it and said how many of these mistakes are you making in your outreach?

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How many of these mistakes are you making in your communication?

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I highly recommend, if any of you are curious about that, go to the connectorsnet, click on our blog session, this section.

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There's a lot of, uh, good content in there and it really walks through, because sometimes we think we're being human and genuine and authentic, but we might be disrespecting someone by starting an email, for example, to someone we don't know with hey for generations.

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That's fine for certain generational integration, but I'm a solid Gen Xer and I can tell you that for most Gen Xers and everybody above us, if I get an email from someone I don't know and it starts with the word hey, I immediately think it's spam.

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And so how are you structuring your language?

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How are you coming across as a curious, real human that wants to connect with someone and wants to learn about them, not just a formulaic okay, maybe if I have the right conversation then I can get the right thing out of this person.

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If you show up wanting to engage in transaction, whether you think you're doing it or not, the other person's going to know.

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Eventually they're going to realize oh hey, I'm being used.

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The example I give all the time is you know, the difference between transactions and relationships is, if I walked up to you on the street, brian, and we were here in boston and I'd never met you before, we'd never come across each other and I said, hey, will you give me five bucks?

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You might tell me to go away and you might not even be that kind, right, but if you and I now we've done this podcast, we get to know each other.

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We say, hey, we have a great conversation for a relationship, and then we move into what I would call a conversation for possibility.

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And then I say, brian, you're really interesting, I'd love to get to know you more.

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Can we go for a cup of coffee sometime?

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And you'd say, yeah, I'd really love that.

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That's great.

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We make an action plan and we go and get the cup of coffee.

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We get there and I go oh my god, brian, I am so embarrassed.

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I left my wallet and phone at home.

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Would you mind getting me this cup of coffee and I promise I will get you back the next time.

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Of course you're going to buy me my cup of coffee, right?

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Because we already have an established connection and a reason for trusting each other.

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It is as simple as that.

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You can bond over anything.

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You can absolutely build community and connection everywhere.

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I have another blog about transactions versus relationships and I use the example of my local mechanic how my local mechanic has turned me into a customer for life and I love them and I will boast and scream from the rooftops about how great they are because they're real humans.

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When I walk in, they talk to me in a language I understand, they respect me, they're very clear about what's necessary and not on my ten-year-old car and you know, even the the gentleman Paul who, who runs the front desk area, always makes you feel good when you walk in there.

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It's just as simple as being polite, kind, genuine, authentic.

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You know we talk about these as aspirational terms.

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It's really easy to be this way Just be yourself, just be a human.

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Yeah, really well said.

00:20:58.256 --> 00:21:09.061
So many important points just in that one answer from you, emily, and I'm going to publicly say, though, you're the first and only guest that I'm going to say no to a coffee with, and I'm going to say cannolis on me.

00:21:09.061 --> 00:21:10.112
Meet me at Mike's.

00:21:10.152 --> 00:21:12.516
That's 100 percent where I want to go.

00:21:12.516 --> 00:21:13.576
Oh, those are fighting words.

00:21:13.576 --> 00:21:15.901
I'm a modern girl, oh, all right.

00:21:16.040 --> 00:21:17.964
This especially shows why we're not getting coffee Now.

00:21:17.964 --> 00:21:20.067
We're going to have to have a cannoli off in the North end.

00:21:20.147 --> 00:21:22.993
We'll have a cannoli up, we'll start at Mike's and then we'll go to modern.

00:21:23.935 --> 00:21:24.518
Exactly.

00:21:24.518 --> 00:21:29.597
But honestly, coming back to it, I think that I love the fact that you use the door analogy.

00:21:29.597 --> 00:21:30.861
You talk about open doors.

00:21:30.861 --> 00:21:54.474
It's something that pops up in a lot of the way that you write, a lot of the way that you're presenting to us here on today's episode, and when we combine that with your analogy of when you go to a bar, you're going to talk to anybody and everybody and get their life story To me it really reminds me of something that I've been told from my mom ever since I was a kid, and this comes down from Albanian culture, where my mom's father, my grandfather, who I never met, but he said to all of his kids when they were growing up.

00:21:54.555 --> 00:22:08.292
He said if you take the smartest man in the world and link him up with the least educated person in the world, the smartest man will walk away having learned something, whereas the least educated will have learned nothing at all.

00:22:08.292 --> 00:22:19.344
And, emily, I think that that speaks so much to your attitude is that you don't believe in there's this hierarchy, and I think a lot of networking events are saying you know, we're for VC-backed ventures that have raised a million dollars.

00:22:19.344 --> 00:22:32.203
They only want to talk to those people, whereas what I'm hearing from you so much today and obviously it's such a founding principle behind the Connectors is that there's value in all of these connections, all of these relationships.

00:22:32.203 --> 00:22:34.535
You see opportunities, emily.

00:22:34.535 --> 00:22:37.843
Whereas some people might say, what am I going to learn from that person?

00:22:37.843 --> 00:22:39.536
Talk to us about that importance.

00:22:39.536 --> 00:22:47.561
I think we, as entrepreneurs, need to embrace this mindset of connecting with and growing with and building with all the people who we come across.

00:22:48.710 --> 00:22:50.733
Absolutely so.

00:22:50.733 --> 00:23:13.659
It's interesting because you teased this out in my intro that I have worked with literally thousands of young people all around the world and I just I've done a program for the last I don't even know, 11 plus years, called Women to Women International, where it brings 15 to 19 year old girls from all over every corner of the world to Boston for a 10 day immersion leadership program.

00:23:13.659 --> 00:23:26.498
I've gone to Belgium with them, I've spent a lot of time, I've done virtual programs for them in India and Pakistan and I have met some of the most extraordinary powerhouse teenage girls.

00:23:26.498 --> 00:23:31.234
Everybody thinks, oh, it's amazing what you've been able to teach them, and it is.

00:23:31.234 --> 00:23:32.137
I won't you know.

00:23:32.137 --> 00:23:37.175
I'm grateful for the opportunity to help influence them and to still get messages from them.

00:23:37.175 --> 00:23:46.917
You know, 10 plus years later, talking about the influence I had and how they've now been able to go out and do things as a result, and or how a piece of advice of mine stuck with them.

00:23:46.917 --> 00:23:54.059
That's wonderful, but what most people don't understand is that work feeds my soul too.

00:23:54.059 --> 00:23:57.909
They teach me as much as I teach them.

00:23:57.909 --> 00:23:59.058
I will never forget.

00:23:59.098 --> 00:24:10.310
In the early days of doing this program, there were a bunch of young girls from Afghanistan and it breaks my heart that we can't have girls from Afghanistan right now because of all of that conflict, and that's a story for another time.

00:24:10.310 --> 00:24:15.577
But these girls came up and said we hope you don't think we're bad.

00:24:15.577 --> 00:24:32.097
And I just thought, wow, what an incredible burden that these young girls have for their history, for their country, that they feel they have to carry this burden on them as a teenage girl.

00:24:32.097 --> 00:24:37.914
And it is amazing to me and it opened my eyes and I said, of course I would never think you're bad, right?

00:24:37.914 --> 00:24:39.979
Why would I think that you're a bad person?

00:24:39.979 --> 00:24:41.582
You're an amazing young woman.

00:24:41.582 --> 00:24:43.352
I'm really, really proud of you.

00:24:43.352 --> 00:24:53.837
Anyway, those women to women, girls who are now women to women, young women some of them are in their late 20s at this point.

00:24:53.837 --> 00:24:57.106
I'm watching them teach me and I did a story there where there's an alum she's here in the Boston area as well who I've remained particularly.

00:24:57.106 --> 00:24:57.386
This point.

00:24:57.386 --> 00:25:03.477
I'm watching them teach me and I did a story there where there's an alum she's here in the Boston area as well who I've remained particularly close with.

00:25:03.477 --> 00:25:05.733
I'm super proud of her, greta.

00:25:05.733 --> 00:25:14.516
She's just graduated from pharmacy school, so she's officially a doctor now, which is beyond cool to me, greta.

00:25:15.618 --> 00:25:17.984
I am literally old enough to be Greta's mother.

00:25:17.984 --> 00:25:20.874
I am a year younger than her mother, right?

00:25:20.874 --> 00:25:34.686
But Greta was the one when I was going for a walk with her down the Charles River recently oh, got a year ago now actually and I said you know, I have this idea for the connectors, but I don't know.

00:25:34.686 --> 00:25:36.473
I was doing something else at the time.

00:25:36.473 --> 00:25:43.521
I had been recruited to help with a nonprofit for a little while and I was helping them and I wasn't sure, do I want to launch it?

00:25:43.521 --> 00:25:47.096
I don't know, would anybody actually want what I have to offer?

00:25:47.096 --> 00:25:58.481
And it was Greta at, you know, all of 25 years old, reminding me Em, that's imposter syndrome kicking in, right.

00:25:58.481 --> 00:26:00.404
She was the one to nudge me.

00:26:00.404 --> 00:26:03.276
She said you have to launch this business, right.

00:26:03.276 --> 00:26:05.721
Just as soon as imposter syndrome kicked in for me.

00:26:05.721 --> 00:26:14.414
She was the one to tell me and a lot of people think that it's a one-way relationship that I mentor Greta and I still do right.

00:26:14.796 --> 00:26:15.738
I absolutely.

00:26:15.738 --> 00:26:21.442
I would walk through fire for her, I would do anything for her and of course I always want to be involved in her life and see her succeed.

00:26:21.442 --> 00:26:26.896
But most people don't realize that she actually mentors me too.

00:26:26.896 --> 00:26:29.040
She brings it back to me as well.

00:26:29.040 --> 00:26:34.798
We so often think of relationships as linear and one way, and that's not the case.

00:26:35.420 --> 00:26:57.252
Relationships when I was at Babson my co-founder actually, we started this when we were still at Boston College, at the Center for Corporate Citizenship, my co-founder Cheryl and I developed a methodology called the uncommon table, and it is informed how I facilitate dialogue for the rest of my life, and the point of an uncommon table is usually in business especially.

00:26:57.252 --> 00:27:02.115
We think we invite the usual suspects to have the usual conversations.

00:27:02.115 --> 00:27:17.046
And it started back in 2009, when some of the biggest companies in this country were giving more money than ever to education and we were having worse outcomes than ever before and students were not even graduating.

00:27:17.046 --> 00:27:26.159
We absolutely were not at the point that we should have been with the billions of dollars of investment that we were getting from all of these companies.

00:27:26.159 --> 00:27:46.364
So we got these companies together and we said here's the deal You're going to have to check your brands at the door and be ready to have a conversation where everyone at the table can contribute their expertise, because every person can have expertise to contribute to a conversation, and that's really different than being an expert.

00:27:46.830 --> 00:27:49.037
There are people who are experts at a lot of things.

00:27:49.037 --> 00:27:57.789
You might say I'm an expert connector, right, and that would be true, but I can learn from so many other people every single day of my life.

00:27:57.789 --> 00:28:03.718
Everybody else has expertise to contribute to a conversation that can help make me better and stronger.

00:28:03.718 --> 00:28:18.813
And so, in that uncommon table scenario we said you know you're big companies and you're only talking with superintendents of school systems challenges that their kids are facing or they're facing.

00:28:18.833 --> 00:28:23.671
Are you talking with the local business owners who are saying, hey, you're not graduating students with the skills I need for the jobs I have.

00:28:23.671 --> 00:28:29.606
Are you talking with infrastructure people and understanding the challenge?

00:28:29.606 --> 00:28:36.472
Maybe students aren't showing up to school because they physically can't get there, because it's entirely unsafe for them to walk to school every day, right?

00:28:36.472 --> 00:28:42.101
You're not looking at that bigger system and you're not talking with students either, right?

00:28:42.101 --> 00:28:46.373
Ask them why things are not working out the way they are.

00:28:46.373 --> 00:29:09.953
And so, when you open up your aperture and when you allow yourself to recognize that every single person in this world has expertise, has a different lived experience and has the ability to teach you something and inform you or shape you in a different way, all of a sudden, especially as an entrepreneur.

00:29:09.953 --> 00:29:12.951
We think, as entrepreneurs, that the world is full of opportunities.

00:29:12.951 --> 00:29:15.778
All of a sudden, the world is full of opportunities.

00:29:15.778 --> 00:29:22.082
The world is abundant, the world is full of resources that have the ability to help you move forward and take your next step.

00:29:23.029 --> 00:29:23.872
Boom, that.

00:29:23.872 --> 00:29:25.776
Right there, emily, you just alluded.

00:29:25.776 --> 00:29:33.791
It's one of truly the most powerful quotes that I've ever heard in my entire life, which is we don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.

00:29:33.791 --> 00:29:50.573
And once again, I want to give you very public kudos and praise here, because I so admire and appreciate the view that you have of the world, because it's showing, emily, and when we talk about you know, when we talk to someone, if we are, if we have transactional aspirations with them, energy is real.

00:29:50.573 --> 00:29:54.122
Whether we think we're showing that or not, it's going to be on full display.

00:29:54.250 --> 00:30:15.340
And, emily, I think that you are such a shining example in the way that you've shown up here in today's conversation, that you do find those opportunities, because you look for those opportunities, which is why I promised a little bit earlier that we're definitely going to talk about detours, and something that I so admire about your own journey is that you've written those, and even the connectors is an example of that, of you saying you know what.

00:30:20.490 --> 00:30:24.710
It's time, it's time for me to take these gifts that I've developed over decades of an incredible professional career, and I want to serve even more people in even more ways.

00:30:24.710 --> 00:30:28.842
I would love to open the door up for you to talk about those detours.

00:30:28.842 --> 00:30:36.859
I love the blog post that you made about looking up as someone who goes on a 10-mile bike ride at least here in Tampa Florida every single day.

00:30:36.859 --> 00:30:39.752
Emily, most of my generation has headphones.

00:30:39.752 --> 00:30:43.067
They're not looking up, their eyes are physically in their phones.

00:30:43.067 --> 00:30:44.771
They're missing those opportunities.

00:30:44.771 --> 00:30:51.153
So, emily, please open our eyes to all the possible detours and things we may find when we've got our heads up in the world.

00:30:51.895 --> 00:30:53.619
Oh gosh, absolutely.

00:30:53.619 --> 00:30:57.631
And yes, look up, it is hard for all of us.

00:30:57.631 --> 00:31:00.973
I get addicted to my phone just as much as anybody else does.

00:31:00.973 --> 00:31:02.095
I'll go out for a walk.

00:31:02.095 --> 00:31:15.084
And I have had to retrain my brain, especially after coming out of a career path where I was working 80 hours a week and constantly online and couldn't go anywhere without my phone, without my phone.

00:31:15.084 --> 00:31:18.987
I have had to learn to retrain my brain to be able to say you know what?

00:31:18.987 --> 00:31:31.502
Stop, go for that walk, get outside, meet people, learn something different today, you know, listen to a meditation maybe okay, but I'm still around and looking up and looking around.

00:31:32.069 --> 00:31:33.752
You know, I got my start.

00:31:33.752 --> 00:31:47.451
I graduated from college many years ago, back in the Stone Ages now, and and I got my start in corporate event production, and the reason for that, you know, people say like, wait a minute.

00:31:47.451 --> 00:32:03.086
And people who knew me from my very early career days, when I said I had gone to Babson and I was, you know, starting a center on social impact and, and, you know, doing an entrepreneurial thing, they were like wait, you're at bapsen, so wait, are you doing events for bapsen?

00:32:03.086 --> 00:32:03.327
Right?

00:32:03.327 --> 00:32:06.877
Like people could only pigeonhole me into that one events world.

00:32:06.877 --> 00:32:18.763
So I started as a corporate event producer because I was a theater geek in in high school and college my um I ended up getting the equivalent of a minor in theater while I was in college.

00:32:18.763 --> 00:32:24.102
My senior thesis was directing a play, but I'm a backstage theater geek.

00:32:24.102 --> 00:32:29.686
I'm a stage manager at heart, right, and a stage manager's brain, if you know anything about what a stage manager does.

00:32:29.686 --> 00:32:31.695
They basically make sure the entire thing runs.

00:32:31.695 --> 00:32:49.920
They take the director's vision, they take other input and they make sure that the entire show, all of the things that are falling apart, all of the chaos that's happening behind the scenes, is not apparent to the audience and, from the audience's perspective, everything has just run perfectly right.

00:32:49.920 --> 00:32:52.317
They make sure the calls get called at the right time.

00:32:52.317 --> 00:32:54.405
They make sure everything is running smoothly.

00:32:54.405 --> 00:32:59.298
The stage manager is the connector of all things.

00:33:00.340 --> 00:33:11.232
I loved it so much and I graduated and I would have loved to have been a stage manager for community theater but I needed to pay rent, so overnight I became a corporate event producer, which is really theater for the corporate world, right.

00:33:11.232 --> 00:33:20.333
I was putting on these giant sales meetings and trade shows and big you know corporate events and customer things and I was doing these monumental things.

00:33:20.333 --> 00:33:22.659
It was an amazing job in my 20s for sure.

00:33:22.659 --> 00:33:26.334
I was traveling the world doing huge programs.

00:33:26.334 --> 00:33:32.134
I did an event at the Louvre in Paris during while France was hosting the World Cup, and it was Bastille Day.

00:33:32.134 --> 00:33:34.180
And you know like I got these experiences.

00:33:34.180 --> 00:33:37.195
That were amazing and everyone's like, oh, you live this incredibly glamorous life.

00:33:37.195 --> 00:33:46.843
I'm like, yeah, and the inside of a hotel ballroom in Paris looks the same as the inside of a hotel ballroom in Indianapolis, right, it's always 70 degrees and fluorescent.

00:33:46.843 --> 00:33:58.012
So so I burned out eventually, but I went through and I had this amazing career in corporate event and media production.

00:33:58.555 --> 00:34:05.115
And then 2001 hit and the dot-com burst and everything else, and it was my first economic downturn.

00:34:05.115 --> 00:34:11.661
At this point I had moved to a company in New Hampshire and I got laid off from that company because the company eventually went bankrupt and went under.

00:34:11.661 --> 00:34:21.920
Because the company eventually went bankrupt and went under and found myself in a really dire economic situation and thought, okay, what skills do I have?

00:34:21.920 --> 00:34:23.501
What can I rely on?

00:34:23.501 --> 00:34:25.490
I'm a really fast typer.

00:34:25.490 --> 00:34:33.255
So, okay, I will just go ahead and sign up with a temp agency, just so I can make some money for now while I figure out what I'm going to do next.

00:34:34.039 --> 00:34:42.240
And it was through that agency that I found myself getting placed with a promotional marketing company, a very small, family owned promotional marketing firm.

00:34:42.240 --> 00:34:47.541
And if you know anything about promotional marketing it's, you know, sampling and guerrilla marketing.

00:34:47.541 --> 00:34:48.871
You know, you've seen these people.

00:34:48.871 --> 00:34:56.501
You walk into the train station, there's people handing out free samples of stuff, and I ended up getting put on a product launch at the time.

00:34:56.501 --> 00:35:13.835
That consumed you know, two full years of my life and I did some other projects for them as well, but it brought me entirely into the foray of promotional marketing, which wasn't that far of a leap from event and and production because I was doing, you know, script writing and supporting people and all that.

00:35:13.835 --> 00:35:16.880
But it really changed and opened up my eyes.

00:35:16.880 --> 00:35:19.364
There's so many different mechanics and logistics.

00:35:19.364 --> 00:35:41.023
We did a product that handed out 13 and a half million samples in 15 months in, you know, all across the world, everything from balloon festivals to food festivals to, you know, race car events and tennis tours, and it was a really interesting and fast education in the ideas of sponsorship and promotional marketing.

00:35:41.786 --> 00:35:45.360
And then that company relocated and I wasn't going to relocate with them.

00:35:45.360 --> 00:35:53.661
So again found myself trying to figure out what I wanted to do next and found myself talking with someone.

00:35:53.661 --> 00:35:57.016
Again, this goes back to people and relationships Always keep your connections.

00:35:57.016 --> 00:36:02.552
I have a longstanding connection with a guy named Rick Rick Brotman, so Rick.

00:36:02.552 --> 00:36:12.760
I first met him when I was working for that company in New Hampshire the events company and I was his client at the time and he had a video and media production company.

00:36:12.760 --> 00:36:17.161
So I was a producer and I would work with him to create videos and media.

00:36:17.972 --> 00:36:20.309
And I found myself trying to figure out what to do next.

00:36:20.309 --> 00:36:22.097
And he said, hey, I've got a couple of projects.

00:36:22.097 --> 00:36:27.902
You know, can I hire you as just a freelancer to come on and help out with a couple of these things?

00:36:27.902 --> 00:36:31.197
And I thought, yeah, sure, well, I ended up freelancing for him.

00:36:31.197 --> 00:36:32.456
So I started as his client.

00:36:32.456 --> 00:36:37.777
Then I go on to freelance for him to help him with a couple of projects.

00:36:37.777 --> 00:36:39.829
And he said you know you're really good with relationships and stuff.

00:36:39.829 --> 00:36:46.096
Would you come on as our director of client services so that you can help us build this business and grow it even further?

00:36:46.096 --> 00:36:51.221
So I did that and then it was time to move on and figure out what to do next.

00:36:51.221 --> 00:37:00.119
And then you know, and it just unfortunately the company was just not of a size that they could support a role like that for very long.

00:37:00.119 --> 00:37:02.193
So I knew it was bounded timeframe.

00:37:02.193 --> 00:37:09.750
So I move on from that and then I proceed to create a division of a company.

00:37:09.750 --> 00:37:16.072
So the company was a PR and media relations firm that started that catered to small to medium sized nonprofits.

00:37:16.494 --> 00:37:20.311
And at this point I've been entirely in the world of corporate and agency work.

00:37:20.311 --> 00:37:27.494
I'd been inside some companies and out and I thought, wow, small to medium nonprofits, that's how I'm going to change the world.

00:37:27.494 --> 00:37:29.481
Right, I was kind of sick of the corporate stuff.

00:37:29.481 --> 00:37:32.576
You have to remember the time as well, the 90ss and early 2000s.

00:37:32.576 --> 00:37:38.608
It was the height of corporate greed and excess and it was just kind of some of it was gross, some of it I really.

00:37:38.608 --> 00:37:43.762
I look back on it and I just sort of want to burn all my clothes because I just felt dirty at the time.

00:37:43.762 --> 00:37:48.157
Um, and so I thought, well, this is how I'll change the world.

00:37:48.157 --> 00:37:52.512
And so I start an event and video division of this pr and media relations firm.

00:37:53.175 --> 00:38:18.855
Founder of the company proceeds to have aspirations politically and so he moves on to run a political campaign and then ultimately a politically motivated nonprofit, a voting rights nonprofit and so I find myself nine months in, having never done PDR or media relations in my life, running and president and CEO of aR and media relations firm, and I just thought I was starting this event and video division.

00:38:18.855 --> 00:38:21.000
And it went well.

00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:24.795
You know, it was my first real entrepreneurial.

00:38:24.795 --> 00:38:40.692
I'd been operating entrepreneurially before, but this was my first entrepreneurial venture in the very traditional sense of the word of starting something, and I was proud of what I did.

00:38:40.692 --> 00:38:41.315
I got the company in the black.

00:38:41.335 --> 00:38:47.614
Things on paper were great, but I was miserable and I had a lot of guilt because I thought everybody's telling me you're living the American dream, you're your own boss.

00:38:47.614 --> 00:38:50.021
Our clients were happier than ever.

00:38:50.021 --> 00:39:05.822
You know, everything on paper was perfect, but I couldn't see a pathway to grow the company so that I could only focus on the parts of the business that I cared about, because I didn't actually care as much about the PR and media relations side.

00:39:05.822 --> 00:39:11.222
It taught me incredibly valuable skills and incredible lessons that I still use.

00:39:11.222 --> 00:39:17.762
I'm actually using that with one of my clients right now because what they actually need is help developing their own PR strategy.

00:39:17.762 --> 00:39:20.737
So I'm kind of weaving that into some of the work I do with them.

00:39:20.737 --> 00:39:37.260
But again, every step of the way I realized I've learned something from every one of these roles, so realizing that this, you know, is an agency and thankfully we were client driven, so we were able to just sort of slowly sunset.

00:39:37.280 --> 00:39:43.077
I went back to the founder, who retained ownership and founder of the company, and said, look, I can't do this anymore.

00:39:43.077 --> 00:39:45.371
I need to step away, I need to find something new.

00:39:45.371 --> 00:39:51.070
And he said, okay, well, you know, I'm, I'm dealing with all these politics things right now.

00:39:51.070 --> 00:39:53.219
So we made the decision to shut down the business.

00:39:53.219 --> 00:39:56.128
We let our clients know that we're not going to leave you in the lurch.

00:39:56.128 --> 00:40:01.601
We're just going to slowly tear down our contracts and we just won't start any new contracts with you.

00:40:01.601 --> 00:40:05.175
We had a team of contractors who worked for us.

00:40:05.175 --> 00:40:08.771
They were thankfully not full-time employees, so that was a lot easier to sort of.

00:40:09.092 --> 00:40:20.199
We had a very long, slow meltdown it's not a meltdown of the company, but a slow closing of the company and then I proceeded to think about okay, now, what do I want to do?

00:40:20.199 --> 00:40:32.157
What do I want to be when I grow up and I thought well, I'm in the Boston area, I know how to do events, there's a million colleges and universities around here, maybe I can just get a job, and this is now 2005.

00:40:32.157 --> 00:40:37.313
So it's still the early days of searching for jobs online.

00:40:37.313 --> 00:40:45.855
You had old school ways of working and old school ways of networking, and I found this online website called higher ed jobscom.

00:40:45.855 --> 00:41:00.782
I remember, and thankfully it gave you every job listing for every college and university, and I saw this job at the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship and I didn't know what corporate citizenship was at the time.

00:41:00.782 --> 00:41:06.594
A lot of people talk about is corporate social responsibility, corporate responsibility, call it whatever you want, but that's essentially corporate citizenship.

00:41:06.934 --> 00:41:14.360
And they needed a producer to produce 75 events a year and I knew how to do that, and a producer learns the content.

00:41:14.360 --> 00:41:36.661
So thankfully, my boss, who I interviewed with she knew exactly who I was the moment I met her and said you are exactly what I need, because a producer will figure it out, but I need someone who wants to be a producer and wants to do this job, not someone who's using this as a stepping stone to get into our research department or education department or somewhere else.

00:41:36.661 --> 00:41:45.494
So I started working for her and that crazy lady was a woman named cheryl kaiser, and cheryl has been one of the most influential people in relationships.

00:41:45.494 --> 00:41:50.751
You know, if I'm an, if I'm a fantastic connector, she's literally off the charts.

00:41:50.751 --> 00:41:55.561
You know, she, if you look at any scale, I've learned so much.

00:41:55.561 --> 00:42:01.141
Even though I've always been good at connecting dots, I've still learned so much from her over the years.

00:42:01.750 --> 00:42:11.079
So five years in, when Cheryl was recruited to start the Lewis Institute at Babson College, she said I can't do this without you and I said okay.

00:42:11.079 --> 00:42:16.916
So she went over and it took us about nine months and we finally figured out the business model of how I could get there.

00:42:16.916 --> 00:42:25.141
And we started with just the two of us sharing one office, trying to figure out what we were going to do and how we were going to engage.

00:42:25.141 --> 00:42:34.134
And it was 11 years of absolute magic and I'm so proud of what we were able to develop and accomplish there.

00:42:34.134 --> 00:42:43.666
So, and then, actually while back while I was at Boston College that guy Rick that I told you about earlier I went back to being his client because I also hired him again.

00:42:43.666 --> 00:42:48.119
So this is again another lesson in if you have a true connection with someone.

00:42:48.119 --> 00:42:51.092
I still have breakfast with Rick at least a few times a year.

00:42:51.092 --> 00:43:03.798
When you have a true connection with someone, it's not bounded or finite or linear and you never know when your client will become your employee and vice versa.

00:43:03.820 --> 00:43:04.762
Yeah, emily, I'll tell you what.

00:43:04.762 --> 00:43:54.853
The older that I get, the more I really appreciate these nonlinear paths, because I remember when I was 19, 20 years old, as a very young entrepreneur, and I would listen to these podcast episodes, it sounded like everything fit perfectly together, and it's because of a very important point that you made in that overview, which is you managed to weave those things into what you're doing still to this day, and that's why I've long you know, I'm in my mid 30s now and I've long been obsessed with the fact that we're all being uniquely prepared for things that we can't even envision right now, and I think that when we look backwards, you can make sense of it for us in your own journey, but for those of us who are in the midst of our current journeys, we can't see that future, we don't have the benefit of hindsight, and I think it's a really powerful example of how your career has woven together to set you up for success in all the things that you do with the Connectors.

00:43:54.853 --> 00:44:00.318
So, emily, I will say I feel like you and I both knew before we hit record here today that we would definitely be short on time.

00:44:00.318 --> 00:44:18.001
I think you and I could probably do a multi-day long episode, but I want to call out for listeners that one of the reasons that we initially reached out to Emily is because not only is her business amazing with the Connectors, the work that she's doing is incredibly important and it pertains to every single one of us as entrepreneurs.

00:44:18.001 --> 00:44:25.659
But what really stands out, emily, about the work that you do is you're always giving value to people, from your blog to the way that you show up on LinkedIn.

00:44:25.659 --> 00:44:28.456
There's just so much goodness that you're putting into the world.

00:44:28.590 --> 00:44:37.402
So, listeners, spoiler alert for all of you whether Emily realizes what this is or not, we will be inviting her back for an Action Saturday episode.

00:44:37.402 --> 00:44:47.250
But, emily, with all of that said, I'd love for you to drop those links on us For listeners who want to go deeper into all the amazing things that you're doing with the Connectors, as well as deeper into all the topics we talked about today.

00:44:47.250 --> 00:44:49.898
You've got great blog posts and writings on all of those.

00:44:49.898 --> 00:44:52.076
Drop those links on us.

00:44:52.076 --> 00:44:53.657
Where should listeners go from here?

00:44:54.550 --> 00:44:56.076
I will Thank you for that.

00:44:56.076 --> 00:44:58.684
So the very first thing is go to my website.

00:44:58.684 --> 00:45:00.710
I try to put content up there.

00:45:00.710 --> 00:45:15.215
I just posted a new blog last night on what to do when a connection falls flat, because sometimes connections do fall flat, and that is wwwtheconnectorsnet and people always go oh wait, net.

00:45:15.255 --> 00:45:18.018
Well, the easiest way to think about it is our full legal name.

00:45:18.018 --> 00:45:21.813
We're doing business as the connectors, but our full legal name is the connectors network.

00:45:21.813 --> 00:45:26.021
So if you think about it, the connectorsnet really easy.

00:45:26.021 --> 00:45:28.193
You can also find us on LinkedIn.

00:45:28.193 --> 00:45:29.456
I want to say we're just.

00:45:29.456 --> 00:45:33.007
You know, if you look for companies, just search for the connectors.

00:45:33.007 --> 00:45:39.842
You'll see a really bright TC green and blue logo in there.

00:45:39.842 --> 00:45:45.434
And because there's a couple of connectors on LinkedIn, those are the two major places to find me.

00:45:45.434 --> 00:45:51.056
And a last warning for you Please feel free to find me and search for me on LinkedIn.

00:45:51.056 --> 00:45:52.384
I'd be delighted to connect with you.

00:45:52.384 --> 00:45:53.188
I'll warn you right now.

00:45:53.188 --> 00:45:54.293
Free to find me and search for me on LinkedIn.

00:45:54.293 --> 00:45:55.036
I'd be delighted to connect with you.

00:45:55.036 --> 00:45:55.516
I'll warn you right now.

00:45:55.536 --> 00:45:56.762
I don't accept requests to connect from people.

00:45:56.762 --> 00:46:03.766
I don't know If you, if I, just get a blind LinkedIn request and there's no, you know, commonalities or whatever.

00:46:03.766 --> 00:46:07.304
Even sometimes, if there is a commonality, if it's really clear I don't know this person.

00:46:07.304 --> 00:46:09.050
I won't just blindly accept.

00:46:09.490 --> 00:46:23.976
Because I take LinkedIn seriously and I want to make sure I've at least had a conversation with people before I accept, and so the best ones that have worked out are people that include a short note and say hey, I heard you on this.

00:46:23.976 --> 00:46:26.722
I'll drop a lot of value for you all right now.

00:46:26.722 --> 00:46:28.914
Establish a relationship for me.

00:46:28.914 --> 00:46:35.541
Give me some context as to why we should connect, and then I'm going to tell you my response will probably be that's great.

00:46:35.541 --> 00:46:49.458
Let's set up a quick Zoom meeting so we can get to know each other before I accept your request, because I really want to make sure that I accept people into my LinkedIn who want to connect, not just collect.

00:46:49.458 --> 00:46:56.559
A lot of times people just want to collect a number of people and say look at all these people I have on LinkedIn, but you don't actually know any of those people.

00:46:56.559 --> 00:47:01.956
So feel free to find me on linkedin for sure, emily wiener, w-e-i-n-e-r.

00:47:03.079 --> 00:47:19.009
But make sure you include some kind of note if you would like to connect, and I would be delighted to set up a 30-minute zoom meeting with you yes, and to add on to that, listeners, you know that we're making it as easy as possible for you to connect with the connectors, emily's business as well as herself personally.

00:47:19.009 --> 00:47:23.590
We'll be dropping those links down below in the show notes, no matter where it is that you're tuning into.

00:47:23.590 --> 00:47:35.940
Today's episode and I'm also going to interject here is that if you want to add some context so Emily knows where you came across her in this amazing conversation, be sure to remind her that Mike's Pastry has the best cannolis in all of Boston.

00:47:35.940 --> 00:47:39.286
She will remember exactly where that reference is coming from.

00:47:39.286 --> 00:47:45.371
But, emily, honestly, on behalf of myself and all the listeners worldwide, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

00:47:46.253 --> 00:47:50.431
Oh my gosh, Brian, thank you so much for having me and I really could talk to you all day.

00:47:50.431 --> 00:47:56.289
And thank you listeners for hopefully this was valuable and insightful for you.

00:47:57.914 --> 00:48:03.492
Hey, it's Brian here, and thanks for tuning in to yet another episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

00:48:03.492 --> 00:48:07.463
If you haven't checked us out online, there's so much good stuff there.

00:48:07.463 --> 00:48:16.695
Check out the show's website and all the show notes that we talked about in today's episode at thewantrepreneurshowcom, and I just want to give a shout out to our amazing guests.

00:48:16.695 --> 00:48:25.492
There's a reason why we are ad free and have produced so many incredible episodes five days a week for you, and it's because our guests step up to the plate.

00:48:25.532 --> 00:48:27.536
These are not sponsored episodes.

00:48:27.536 --> 00:48:29.141
These are not infomercials.

00:48:29.141 --> 00:48:32.614
Our guests help us cover the costs of our productions.

00:48:32.614 --> 00:48:43.563
They so deeply believe in the power of getting their message out in front of you, awesome entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, that they contribute to help us make these productions possible.

00:48:43.563 --> 00:48:52.061
So thank you to not only today's guests, but all of our guests in general, and I just want to invite you check out our website because you can send us a voicemail there.

00:48:52.061 --> 00:48:53.391
We also have live chat.

00:48:53.391 --> 00:48:55.215
Check out our website because you can send us a voicemail there.

00:48:55.215 --> 00:48:56.077
We also have live chat.

00:48:56.077 --> 00:48:58.041
If you want to interact directly with me, go to thewantrepreneurshowcom.

00:48:58.041 --> 00:48:59.423
Initiate a live chat.

00:48:59.423 --> 00:49:08.869
It's for real me, and I'm excited because I'll see you as always every Monday, wednesday, friday, saturday and Sunday here on the wantrepreneur to entrepreneur podcast.