I had always been under the impression that more was always better. So when I qualified as a Chartered Accountant (Indian equivalent of CPA), I thought I had a whole army of people who could help me out. More than half of my friends and family were esteemed CAs in almost every industry. I thought I was in a very advantageous position because the more people I knew, the greater my chances of being exposed to opportunities that may lead to professional advancement, potential mentors, material success, and so on. And yes, I was yet to receive a rude awakening.
The more people I interacted with, the more confused I got. Each had smthng different to add from their own experiences. It was difficult for me to fathom that there could be so many perspectives to the same profiles and companies. Apart from the information overload, there was anchoring bias and regret aversion bias which was yet to be accounted for by me.
In other words, I felt like everyone was just part of the poem I was taught as a child- the 7 blind men and the elephant. Each one I had an opportunity to interact with had expertise in a different profile in a different company, having started out their careers in different points of time and with their own sets of beliefs and biases.
This is not to undermine anyone or any particular perspective. Infact, I was fortunate enough to get sound advise from most of them. However, this is to document one of life lessons nobody of us have been taught very explicitly.
We all do have a very limited time at hand. Above that, networking is difficult, per se. Distribution of our time amongst more people does diffuse the impact, besides being a drain of our energies as well.
Therefore, the key learning is to be ruthlessly selective in selecting out inner circle.
That doesn’t imply in any manner that we should try to populate your inner circle with high-profile contacts whose shine would rub off; it means seeking out, and nurturing relationships with good, smart people who, “can help you to be a bigger and better version of yourself.” People whom we can trust and have unfiltered conversations. People who actually would give a damn about us and stand by our ranks. Further because each of them too would have their own circle of influence and so on.
This, in turn would help us in building a better foundation the corporate hierarchy besides tending to our self-actualization needs as well.
