Why I Hate Networking (and maybe you do too)
Why performative networking is failing and how to reclaim real connection in the age of AI
If you’ve ever stood in a room of 50 people, clutching a coffee cup and waiting for a 29-second countdown to pitch your business to a room of people who aren’t actually listening, you’ve felt the "Chamber of Commerce" exhaustion. We have replaced real relationship-building with "Identity Flashcards"—a phenomenon I call Brand Warmth Simulation. In this episode, we dissect why this extractive style of networking is hollowing out our professional lives, the heavy cognitive cost of "performative vulnerability," and why the rise of AI is about to make these polished, hollow scripts even more obvious—and more avoidable.
Transcript
Have you ever come home from a networking meeting and felt
Speaker:absolutely disgusted and exhausted?
Speaker:Maybe you hate networking as much as I do.
Speaker:Hey, Wong here, and welcome to the podcast around how to create a life and livelihood
Speaker:that really works amidst massive change.
Speaker:I used to go to these local Chamber of Commerce mixers because I felt like I was
Speaker:supposed to, and I absolutely hated it.
Speaker:And I couldn't quite figure out why I hated it so much.
Speaker:And I had a feeling that just about everyone there in the room hated it as
Speaker:well, but they kind of tolerated it.
Speaker:They put up with it, and I think I made myself go a whopping three or four times
Speaker:before I said, this just is not working.
Speaker:Not only was it the wrong crowd for me, but I couldn't stand the experience.
Speaker:And I've taken some time to think about why I find these events so gross and
Speaker:how AI is making them even grosser.
Speaker:If you run a business, you've probably been told how important it is to network.
Speaker:Here's the thing, there's different kinds of networking events, and in this
Speaker:clip, I'm just talking about the local Chamber of Commerce type of networking.
Speaker:Networking happens a million different ways, and I'll have other
Speaker:clips on that, but this one, I just wanna talk about this phenomena
Speaker:that happens at your local chamber.
Speaker:If you're like me, you show up and there's a big room of maybe 50 people crammed in
Speaker:there, and one by one, you go around the room and everyone stands up one at a time
Speaker:and tells everybody their name, what they do, a little bit about their business.
Speaker:There's usually a timekeeper there that's counting down literally the
Speaker:seconds that each person is allowed to speak and a timer goes off, and
Speaker:that person is expected to finish up and move on to the next person.
Speaker:I'm here to tell you, it is tedious, boring, and for me completely
Speaker:unproductive, and I've noticed that in some of these events,
Speaker:the same people go every week.
Speaker:And I took a look at their businesses, and this is no shade
Speaker:on these kinds of businesses.
Speaker:There are businesses that depend a lot on what I call a certain, how do I say,
Speaker:making friends so that people know and and then maybe they'll trust and buy from you.
Speaker:So in some of these groups, people develop friendships and they
Speaker:actually buy from each other.
Speaker:Whether that's local realtor or yoga teacher, or there are a number of
Speaker:businesses that depend on this ecosystem of people getting to know and like,
Speaker:and trust you personally because you are what is called a personal brand.
Speaker:Maybe you're an investment advisor, maybe you're a roofer, maybe you are even
Speaker:a business coach or a therapist, but.
Speaker:Your business becomes about you and your personal brand.
Speaker:And personal brand means people have to get to know you and
Speaker:for people to get to know you.
Speaker:It means going out and meeting people, direct contact in networking events,
Speaker:especially if your audience are other people kind of like you, who are also
Speaker:solopreneurs or small business owners.
Speaker:And I think that's fine.
Speaker:The problem is, what I've noticed is number one, no one's really
Speaker:listening at these events.
Speaker:People are politely sitting there waiting for their turn.
Speaker:One by one people aren't really listening, or maybe a few people are, but most people
Speaker:are waiting for their 29 seconds to stand up in front of 50 some people and tell
Speaker:the world what they do, and it becomes
Speaker:a spewing of information towards the audience.
Speaker:Let me tell you everything a little bit about me and hope that
Speaker:you might find me worthy of a conversation, and sometimes that works.
Speaker:But you'll notice that the energy is not really one of a conversation.
Speaker:It's really what feels to me like a compressed identity marketing arena.
Speaker:Meaning everyone is kind of performing.
Speaker:It's a trained performance protocol, and we all understand
Speaker:it has a time and a place for it.
Speaker:And in fact, a lot of people have rehearsed their blurb beautifully.
Speaker:It just flows outta their mouth.
Speaker:And sometimes people even have what I call like a cute tagline.
Speaker:Hi, my name is so and so, and I'm your blah, blah, blah for the blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:Something like that.
Speaker:And it's very, it's very cute, is the best way I can describe it.
Speaker:And it used to, I used to wonder, well, do I have to do that too?
Speaker:I don't have anything like that, but I just noticed that
Speaker:I did not enjoy these events.
Speaker:And I thought there was something wrong with me.
Speaker:Oh my gosh, Adele, you're not networking correctly.
Speaker:First of all, it took a while for me to realize that these are not really
Speaker:my audience of leaders that I'm trying to reach, and it's a great place
Speaker:for other kinds of business leaders, but even if you are in this group,
Speaker:you'll more, if you're sensitive like me, you probably don't enjoy it.
Speaker:It might be a necessary evil.
Speaker:You make yourself go every Tuesday at 7 45 in the morning for donuts or whatever,
Speaker:and maybe you go home exhausted, or maybe you have one or two leads and
Speaker:oh my gosh, you just can't stand it.
Speaker:Or maybe you've come to enjoy it because you've developed friendships
Speaker:there, and that's fine too.
Speaker:And you're hearing the same blurbs every week where people stand up and
Speaker:introduce themselves and what they do.
Speaker:But.
Speaker:It's unmistakable to me that it is still a performance protocol.
Speaker:What I mean by that is Chamber of Commerce mixers and these types of networking
Speaker:events, they're not really designed for Discovery Mutual, conversation
Speaker:or curiosity, collaboration, although that's what we would all hope for, right?
Speaker:They are designed for a rapid categorization offer compression,
Speaker:memory hook optimization.
Speaker:That's the cute title, and it becomes an exercise in your self-branding rehearsal.
Speaker:You may be even scanning the room for pipeline.
Speaker:Of who might be a lead.
Speaker:Everybody's looking for leads, and again, this is no disrespect to these
Speaker:events, but what I'm describing is an energetic dance of what's happening in
Speaker:the room so that when you go to these events, you know the name of the game
Speaker:and you can use it to your advantage.
Speaker:But these types of events to me are like human pitch decks.
Speaker:Walking around, everyone gets 29 seconds to get up and have all eyes on
Speaker:them and tell everybody what they do.
Speaker:And if someone has a tagline, you know, I'm your blah, blah, blah person for the
Speaker:blah, blah, blah, that is a type of what's called a cognitive compression device.
Speaker:It's designed to make you legible in five seconds.
Speaker:Maybe get you sort of mentally sorted into a category or trigger
Speaker:a pattern recognition, and it will subconsciously answer the question,
Speaker:what kind of business object are you?
Speaker:But it doesn't really address who are you.
Speaker:Now, this is not a flaw, this is the actual purpose of these
Speaker:rooms, but what I'm getting to is.
Speaker:That might be fine.
Speaker:And many people going to these events end up feeling absolutely
Speaker:nothing because these blurbs people are performing and repeating.
Speaker:They may sound great, people may even smile, but my nervous system is tuned
Speaker:into things like relational presence, texture, meaning the truth of things.
Speaker:And taglines to me don't really have a texture.
Speaker:I'm your blah, blah for the blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:Call me when you have, do, do, do.
Speaker:It's great.
Speaker:But there's no real relational stake.
Speaker:There's no risk, there's no listening, because it's a performance.
Speaker:One person speaks and everyone listens, and people are being
Speaker:talked at more than talked with.
Speaker:Yeah, because that's the way it goes.
Speaker:It's not mutuality.
Speaker:These boards become kind of like an identity flashcard.
Speaker:So my body would go to these things and I couldn't feel a connection.
Speaker:I could feel a classification, oh, you're a realtor, you sell
Speaker:cosmetics, you're whatever.
Speaker:But for me.
Speaker:Since I'm so wired for these other things, energetically relational, I would go
Speaker:home feeling irritated, fatigued, bored, almost a sense of violation to myself.
Speaker:Like, why did I make myself do this?
Speaker:Can you relate?
Speaker:If you're a sensitive relationship, deep thinker, you probably
Speaker:have had this experience.
Speaker:If you've gone and developed friendships, they're great.
Speaker:But I'm just articulating why so many people find these events just intolerable,
Speaker:even when someone gets up and talks about the importance of being authentic.
Speaker:You've heard me speak before that anyone who has to talk about how authentic
Speaker:they're being or the importance of being authentic or authenticity,
Speaker:by definition, you're not, right?
Speaker:If you have to tell everyone you're being authentic, that's
Speaker:kind of still performing.
Speaker:It is a type of what I call a brand warmth simulation.
Speaker:By this I mean that people are trained at these events to say things like, I love
Speaker:helping people about blah, blah, blah, or I'm passionate about blah, blah, blah, and
Speaker:or, I really care about blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:But what I noticed in my body is that nothing was actually
Speaker:happening relationally.
Speaker:Like I would nod and my body would hear safe vulnerability language with
Speaker:zero relationship consequence, and that feels fake even when it's sincere.
Speaker:So I think this style of networking is going to collapse and it's actually
Speaker:going to feel worse now because of Why?
Speaker:Yeah, because AI is gonna make everyone's taglines easier and snappier.
Speaker:AI is gonna polish everyone's blurb.
Speaker:It's cheaper.
Speaker:You can generate a script faster.
Speaker:You can create authentic language at scale.
Speaker:So what happens when an entire room does this?
Speaker:It's as if the entire room inflates.
Speaker:It's a, in a way, it's a top of like a, a social inflation.
Speaker:The compression gets tighter, the performance gets louder.
Speaker:The texture of what I'm listening to in the moment, it just disappears.
Speaker:It all sounds great, and the reason why me and many other
Speaker:people go home and just exhausted is because there's nothing there.
Speaker:Even though everyone was really nice.
Speaker:So I wanna just address the whole tagline thing.
Speaker:'cause this was something I researched.
Speaker:Am I supposed to have a tagline?
Speaker:Well, yes.
Speaker:On LinkedIn I do, but I don't go around telling everybody, spewing my tagline.
Speaker:But if you go to these events, if your main goal is some sort of lead
Speaker:capture, like if you're fishing for leads, does a cute tagline work?
Speaker:Well?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It.
Speaker:It's a memory hook, it's a funnel entry, but does it form trust?
Speaker:And the answer is a clear no.
Speaker:Does it help create real relationship?
Speaker:No long-term depth, no meaningful collaborations, absolutely no, it's
Speaker:not wrong, it's just not human scale.
Speaker:I hope you can feel into what I'm trying to articulate, that these events become
Speaker:kind of like an extraction market, not a relationship field of a true conversation.
Speaker:You're being broadcast 50 messages and you have your moment of 29 seconds, so it's
Speaker:cognitively expensive 'cause you're paying attention, but it's emotionally dry.
Speaker:And this is causing people to sort of reject this type of social protocol.
Speaker:And I'm gonna give you a secret here in case no one's ever told you.
Speaker:Most people in these rooms feel what you feel too.
Speaker:They just override it and keep performing because they feel like they have to.
Speaker:It's kind of like, this is what you need to do to run a business, which is why they
Speaker:get tired, cynical, and quietly burnt out.
Speaker:Because they, they think there's no other way.
Speaker:But there is another way, and here's the thing.
Speaker:As AI takes more center stage, trust levels of going to these
Speaker:events are gonna go down.
Speaker:I'm already noticing this.
Speaker:It's been documented.
Speaker:You go to an event, you give someone your business card, and you're immediately
Speaker:just sucked into someone's funnel.
Speaker:That generates a whole bunch of sequenced campaign nurture sequence.
Speaker:All AI generated, all done in half a second, and you're even less likely
Speaker:to wanna really meet up with somebody.
Speaker:Some of follow ups, people get ghosted.
Speaker:Why?
Speaker:Because the AI is generating all these meeting requests.
Speaker:Hey, let's follow up.
Speaker:Hey, let's have a conversation.
Speaker:And you on the receiving end kind of know that.
Speaker:So you get ghost people, ghost each other, and that is driving
Speaker:down the receptiveness, the trust from these networking events.
Speaker:Now the personal aspect is still going to be perhaps more trustworthy than any
Speaker:email follow up, but I think you can see the inflation that's starting to happen.
Speaker:I call it the social networking inflation.
Speaker:You gotta do a lot more because of this at least in this model.
Speaker:With the Chamber of Commerce, knowing that you're sucked into someone's
Speaker:funnel and poof, before you get home, you got a bunch of follow-up
Speaker:emails for a phone call or whatnot.
Speaker:So that is what I call kind of a, extractive room.
Speaker:People go there to fish and get something because you'll notice when you're
Speaker:talking are they really listening.
Speaker:Or are they just waiting for their turn to speak?
Speaker:I think there are better ways for, especially if you're a sensitive,
Speaker:introverted person, maybe it's fine to go to some of these events once in a while.
Speaker:I could not stand to do it every week, but some people do, but you don't have to.
Speaker:And there are other ways that connection can be built besides subjecting
Speaker:yourself to this week in and week out.
Speaker:So that you can design your version of a human skill introduction that
Speaker:actually works, that feels good to you.
Speaker:The Chamber of Commerce way is just one way, and sometimes, if the stars
Speaker:are aligned and someone is in the room, that's exactly who you wanna meet.
Speaker:That's wonderful.
Speaker:But I would consider whether the squeeze is, whether the
Speaker:juice is worth the squeeze.
Speaker:Like my chiropractor mentioned one time, and you can do a cost benefit analysis
Speaker:on your own energy and time knowing that there are other ways to connect to
Speaker:real humans that can feel good to you.
Speaker:What do you think this topic, I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker:Do you like these kinds of networking events?
Speaker:Have you found a way that works?
Speaker:I know some people are very intentional going to these.
Speaker:They don't get drained.
Speaker:They know exactly what they're trying to accomplish.
Speaker:They're in and out of there, and they know who they wanna reach, and that is great
Speaker:if your kind of person is in the room.
Speaker:I tend to work with mid-level managers and leaders.
Speaker:They're not going to the local chamber.
Speaker:I go to the local Chamber of commerce for other reasons in developing
Speaker:connections with people, which is still valid, but my gosh, I can't
Speaker:do it more than once in a blue moon.
Speaker:I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker:Thanks.
