How To INSTANTLY Kill it at Networking, Dress For Success, & Utilize Apps for High Performance

We wanted to jump into and give you some feedback on everything from how to manage different friendships within the office, all the way down to what apps I find most beneficial on a daily basis from day to day. So just wanted to jump into these, get you guys some cool answers, and then we’re gonna hit you with the webinar links on our socials and our YouTube coming soon. 

The first question is, How do you deal with the dual relationship with your coworkers as the boss?

I’m assuming this means like friendships and platonic relationships in the office, as far as dating goes, just don’t do it just don’t date in the office. Just say no. 

As far as the dual relationship with coworkers on a friendship basis. So we talked about this a little bit before and I thought it was really interesting because I immediately just sat in my shoes on it and just said how as a boss or as someone who has authority typically over other people on the staff, how do I manage having close relationships? I mean our whole team is extremely close. There are family members, there are people that are like family members, and we are extremely close and vested in each other. So while, having great, amazing lives and care about the well-being of other people. So that’s the benefit of that, right?

But the downside is something that’s less talked about. It’s things like the family business dynamics that many people will go through in different things or close friendships and this was brought up to me by someone else on our team where maybe there are two people that are competing for the same role and they’re close friends, right? They’re in the same department, they’re neck and neck as far as a like parallel for authority and they’re going for the same position. So I think that’s really interesting. I don’t have a good enough answer there to share with you on that specifically, but what I will tell you more from like a leadership to an employee role or things like that is the number one thing is just clearly defining expectations. 

That’s the number one thing because if expectations are very clear, we use a program specifically to track all tasking that people do. So there’s no nebulous ambiguous tasking that goes on day to day for staff members. We are very clear about what is due from each person and that way it’s just like, did they get it done or did they not? Right? And then you, if you’re in the leadership role of that relationship, it’s did you fulfill your side of things or not? Right? And that sometimes can be more of like, an inward journey where you have to look in the mirror and say like, am I delivering for my team? Am I giving clear direction and clear feedback and giving them the tools to succeed? 

Sometimes that’s a no and you need to improve on a leadership position sometimes on the employee’s side, maybe they’re dropping the ball. So if that’s the case and one side’s dropping the ball, then it’s more of identifying why the ball’s being dropped. Then it is about like the friendship’s over and everybody’s mad, et cetera, So I do think it’s possible to manage relationships and friendships in the office, but I think it needs to be very clear that the expectations and that the roles come first and that the relationship comes second in the office, right? If you’re out to drinks or happy hour or doing some adventure outside the office and you can kind of do more of like the relationship and bonding side, but as far as in the office, it needs to be work first and responsibility first with the understanding and with the empathy of that person’s situation. But everyone has to deliver on both sides, the employee and the leadership role both need to deliver for each other and you can really make a lot of amazing things happen with that dynamic.

The next one, I like a lot, because it’s not talked about that much. It does depend slightly on different circumstances, but what is your go-to dress code for networking?

For networking, there are a few different types of events that I typically go to in my kind of like networking circuit. If you want to think about that, there are some political that I go to and that’s almost exclusively going to be a very lightweight blue suit with a white shirt with no tie. I just don’t like ties. There’s no specific reason.

So that’s kind of my go-to for more of the political side, it’s kind of like being respectful of the event that you’re at and making sure that you’re dressing accordingly, as far as the spectrum of suits goes, and it’s probably a more casual suit as far as the spectrum of shirts goes. 

My white shirt is probably in the middle of the formality spectrum, but, I’m definitely dressing up a little bit more for the political side to make sure I’m being respectful. While you’re on the younger side of the crowd. Just be careful, make sure that you’re overdressing and not being kind of the young, crazy person in the room, right? As far as different events, I’m in a lot of entrepreneurship groups and I’m on in a lot of like business networking groups, that a lot of, the fund managers and a lot of guys like that. That’s where you can get a little more fun and that’s kind of like a time where I’ll dress a little bit louder and always have one piece of something. 

That’s interesting. Even if I’m wearing jeans like nice jeans, I’m typically gonna wear some degree of sports coat with that again, to be respectful to other people in the group and showing that you are professional and you take the group of professionals.

Seriously, maybe like a louder color shirt underneath, right? But like a secondary item, I’m gonna wear something crazy. In most of my videos, I’m wearing are cool shirt. I like kind of cool shirts. So that’s kind of something that I like to keep one item loud. So the third example is gonna be something more of like a one-on-one scenario with someone where maybe you’re going to dinner with them. And there’s some degree of peer or even something ex-extreme as like a mentor-mentee type vibe where you’re more in a mentee role, that’s something I’ve been in very commonly. 

I love those kinds of dynamics and being able to add value to each other through that dynamic. So in those dynamics, that’s one that’s gonna vary pretty widely. So anytime there’s a huge gap in value like they’re a mentor and you’re like the mentee you need to overdress as the mentee, you need to be extremely respectful of that dynamic and absolutely show that you understand that they are serious and you want to take them seriously. 

Even if you wanna be fun and jovial and positive at the moment, dress yourself up. Now, if it’s somebody that’s more of, like, a peer and somebody that’s more like on the same level, then you kind of have to judge their style a little bit. But typically in my experience, were on the west coast so styles are gonna vary nationwide. Typically it’s more casual in my experience locally in our markets. So, like as far as like dressing up, it’s gonna be like just nice jeans, decently, nice shoes, maybe even a nice t-shirt and a blazer over it. Like kind of like a business casual, the cool vibe is pretty common for those types of situations. And you can kind of dress up from there, but you should have a nice casual blazer that you can throw on to dress up and professionalize a relatively casual outfit specifically for times like that. 

Jumping on the next one, I think we don’t talk about this enough. I think people can focus on like the hustle, hustle, culture type thing. So just kind of as a final note to the whole networking and dress code and the number one thing that is the underlying theme of all of those answers is to be put together.

So oftentimes it’s the details that make a lot of the biggest difference. So if you’re a male and you grow a beard, trim your beard and have it cleaned up, have the basic details covered, and think through the basics as you should always have clean shoes. The things you’re wearing should be clean and nice and neat, with no stains, or wrinkles. The details need to be on point. So mind the details for sure, and if not spend some time on Google Googling specifically what the details are in different types of dress codes and just know them inside and out. 

The next one is, I think underappreciated and kind of like the hustle culture era, but the question is when do you rest? 

And I think that answer’s different for everybody. Like if you have kids or if you have a certain type of schedule, or if you’re traveling a lot for work, these are gonna be different for everybody. 

For me personally, my schedule is relatively systematized for the week. I know each day, what kind of vibe is that day gonna be on a weekly basis my Thursdays are very specific scheduling for each week. My Mondays are a different schedule. My Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays typically have the same things included in those. So my weeks are planned out, and I know ahead of time, which goals I’m attacking each day and what content I’m producing on the weekends because that’s when I like to produce and then I have a full day off for me. 

It’s a full day off every week where I’m essentially the phones in the drawer. I’m not thinking about work. It’s just me and my kids or my friends, my family, or whatever that looks like a full day off. Also, the other thing that helps me to get my rest in, is cause I’m always trying to jam pack my day full of as much as possible going to bed at the same time, but also planning out my wind-down period each day. So for me, I go to bed pretty early, but I also wake up early. So I’m trying to have 30 to 60 minutes before where all I’m doing is kind of going through like a wind-down period and maybe reading or maybe listening to some philosophy or just something where I’m just filling my mind with the best possible things I can think of right before bed so that that’s, what’s soaking into my brain and to me that makes my sleep much better and much deeper and much more intense so that I wake up with a better mindset so that my rest that I do get is actually more beneficial in that period of time also. 

Then on my days off, when I have that whole day off to myself to enjoy some rest time, usually it’s the pretty lounge. Oftentimes I will hit the gym in the morning, but after that, it’s pretty much the rest of the day is like laying around in PJs, trying and ordering delivery foods that I don’t have to sit in there and make anything or nobody’s making a whole lot of food or cleaning up and playing with my kids, trying to sneak a nap, maybe two naps in certain days, right? So it’s a day dedicated to like recharge the batteries aggressively with that as the focus and pretty much not really focused on a whole lot and just letting my mind be mush and chill and relaxing and only engaging with like close, close people those days. 

The next one is, where is a place you go to besides the office to focus? 

So, the honest to God truth at this phase of my life, again, I have children, a partner, and we have a lot of people in the same house, so it’s very difficult to tell a three-year-old, “Hey, daddy needs to work right now in the middle of a day” when they’re just like, “no it’s Sun, the sun’s out. I wanna play with my dad.” I want to have a good time personally. I don’t find a lot of focused time at home. So I am plugging in and getting my most productive hours in at the office. Now that might not be for everybody. We are in an era of shifting to more of a work-from-home dynamic and I think there are many people that can manage this effectively, but I think that fewer people can manage it effectively than they’re willing to admit. I will definitely, think that you need that time where you’re completely closed off and a door is closed and you have that space to yourself. 

So what I do when I am at home is I do have an office and I do block that off and I do 100% protect that area so that I’m focused. So I’m plugged into some deep work, which is also an amazing book with a really good concept, but I’m plugged into that deep work, that deep focus work, where I’m getting really big conceptual things done and planning and big tasking done. That’s my goal. 

When I’m focusing and trying to get work done in the era of pre-home office, when I didn’t have that, it was much more difficult. It was usually like the coffee shop shuffle, right? You’re just trying to find a space. But what I’m finding is better in situations like where I’m traveling or where I need some space to be able to work on the fly on the road. There are so many good co-working stations that are like $2 an hour that you can go plug into. No one’s bugging you go sit at a table and face the freaking wall, put your AirPods in and just completely click in and there are great options for that, where everyone’s on the same frequency and everyone’s on the same focus level where you can get a ton done. 

As a matter of fact, in the work-from-home era, I think those co-working spots are going to be a huge part of the future and that you’re gonna see that be an integral part of people working from home and, needing huge chunks of their day to get things done should be utilizing those for sure. 

Especially if you have kids in the house that you love to death, but you need to get productive work, done, check out those coworking spaces for sure.

So, here’s a cool question that I thought was really interesting. What apps do you use daily? 

I think if people understood how each other uses their phones really effectively, we can kind of compare notes and improve that usage together. So here are some of the top apps that I use most regularly. First, off it’s the Google suite of apps bar none, the most important effective apps on my phone. We use all of it pretty much. We use Google Drive, Gmail, Google docs, Google sheets, ads, analytics, et cetera. We pretty much use the whole Google suite. And I can’t say enough good things about it. It’s been extremely effective for us and I love the software. 

Next is gonna be more like the business side, the task tracking, the team management. That’s basically going to be Asana as the task tracking for the whole team and it’s going to be slack for all communications in the office because there are so many good ways to organize both of those, to manage different bulk of tasking for different people, different timeframes, goals and then slack just has so much organization ability between different chats and different platforms and mentions and callbacks where you can pull up different things from the past, very, effective apps. I love them for business.

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