14. Wendy's Musings

Welcome to Episode 14 of The Imperfect Podcast.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Well, hello there and welcome to another episode of the Imperfect Podcast. I'm Wendy Lloyd Curly, your host, and I was reading a blog the other day by another podcaster, and they said that the majority of podcasts never get to 20 episodes. And I thought to myself, oh my goodness, I haven't done an episode in months and months and months, definitely not this year. And I looked it up and I thought, definitely I'm going to be one of the ones who's imperfect, as promised in the title, but consistent, consistently imperfect. I really want to use this vehicle to share my thinkings about strategic networking, about BI, about life in general. And so I thought I'd share something with you guys this week. It's uh March 20th today, 2026, and I returned home from a visit to Cannes where I just spent the last four days with 400 professional speakers of varying degrees of success. Some are emerging, some are masters at their craft. And as a participant in this Global Speaker Summit, I was honored to accept a certificate that made me officially a certified speaking professional. When you see my name, you will probably see it on LinkedIn and you'll see the initials CSP after. And that designates that I'm now a certified speaking professional. And I'm really excited about it because this is my plan. My plan is to continue to run my BI business here in Sydney. So for those of you who only know me as a speaker, I actually do own the BI franchise in Sydney's Northeast. And strategic networking was really born as a company and as a philosophy, and then later as a book, and then masterclasses, and finally keynotes. It was born from my BI experience as a member. I spent 10 years as a member in BI Sydney Central and became a really big fan of the education that BI provides to people. And when I decided that I would change careers in mid-2020, it was my experience in BI that made me think, wait a minute, you know what? There's a lot of people out there in the world that don't have what BI members have. B and I members have access to lifelong learning and they learn how to create deep relationships with their fellow members in order to, with deep trust, provide referrals to each other. It is not a flippant, oh, they're in my chapter, so I'm going to refer them. It should never be that. And if it is, that's a mistake. BI members should only give referrals to people who they trust to deliver the services. And at the at the outset, they need to make sure that when they give a referral to someone else, that that person is going to make them look good. That's the only job that they have in BI. And so BI members do learn how to give referrals, they learn how to ask for the right referrals, they learn how to create an ecosystem where the right people are in the room at the right time. And that is fantastic for a BI member, but there are only 350,000 BI members in the world. There are a lot of business owners who don't have access to that sort of a system. And those people do networking. So networking is different than having a network. Networking is what you do in order to grow your network. It's meeting new people. It is going to chamber meetings, it is going to awards events, it is going to the soccer field to watch your kids play soccer. It is going to a Toastmasters group in order to learn a craft of speaking. It is going to the pub and meeting up with some people who you don't know very well. And if you learn how to do networking in a strategic way, you actually will start to grow your network. Some people aren't going to do that, but they still need to be strategic in their networking. And so I'm sharing this with you because my keynote presentation, which is called Rock and Roll and Networking, takes three pages, three pages out of my book. In fact, I I'm flabbergasted by this. I really thought that it was more of the content of my book than just these three pages. But these three pages are critically important to the system of the strategic networking framework that I created in my book. And uh yeah, I summarized it in three pages. Anyway, uh, what I want you to know is this. I want you to know that uh networking is something that all business owners and business development people need to know how to do. And that's why I created strategic networking master classes. That is why I created the um the training that I do in workshops for people. That is why I deliver my keynotes. I deliver my keynotes to inspire people to be more strategic in their networking and to get out there and do it. And that it is very different than selling. It is about making connections. And those connections should lead to business growth if you do it right. So that's that's why I do that. Now, BI is just another fantastic side hustle for me in a way. They're both side hustles because they they do reinforce each other. Some of my strategic networking students will eventually say, where should I network? Where should I grow my network? Where should I strengthen it? And I will give them many options, including BI, if their business and their commitment levels are congruent with the needs and the expectations that a BI system needs. It needs really committed people and people who want to grow their businesses and are willing to invest the time and the effort to learn the system and to live by the philosophy of givers gain. So not all of my strategic networking clients become BI clients. And certainly my BI franchise is very small in the world sense. It's quite big in the Sydney sense, but in the world, it's just a small part of BI. I have 300 members, they have 300,000. So we we definitely a small little little part of that. But I do love to help my fellow franchise owners grow their businesses too. And uh yeah, so anyway, I'm waxing lyrical for you right now because I received that certified speaking professional document last week. I was able to give a 60-second acceptance speech, and I I crafted that the night before. I'd been thinking about it for a few weeks, but I crafted it the night before, and and I thought I'd share it with you. I thought I'd share it with you. So here it is. Um, and I probably go a little longer than 60 seconds, but I I want to share with you how I said thank you. And I started with the end in mind, and I always believe that you should think about this. Turn your presentations upside down and start with your last slide. So if I was using slides, my last slide would have been who I was thanking for helping me achieve the certificate. But I started with that. So here's what I said. I'd like to thank Therese Tarlington for introducing me to the PSA, which is the Professional Speakers Australia Group, and for giving me a home among peers that will help me to grow and develop my speaking profession. I also want to thank my husband, Alan Curley, who is my rock and always by my side. When I moved to Australia in 1988, I, like many of you perhaps, looked at the dot paintings by the indigenous people and thought to myself, I could do that. And I think a lot of us do look at those pictures and think it's just a cluster of dots. All of us could do that. But we couldn't. And we don't, because it takes a meditative state as well as talent that begins when we're very young in order to learn how to put those stories together. Because those dot paintings are more than dots on a canvas, they are indeed stories, and that's what the indigenous culture brings to their artwork. I was really inspired by some of the indigenous dancers that were on the stage yesterday while we were at the summit. It was yesterday, and I saw five dancers, but two of them were probably five years old or younger, and they were beginning the practice, the cultural embeddedness of that dance, and they were beginning what some would call the 10,000 hours of work that need to be put into life in order to master a skill. Malcolm Gladwell wrote in Outliers that 10,000 hours was what it would take. And I'm very proud to be part of this organization, and I think that we should invite people into this organization so that we can share our 10,000 hours with them and they can develop their skills in storytelling, in speaking, and in inspiring others. So that's what I said when I accepted my award. I thought I'd share that with you. If you're still listening to this, thank you. I was inspired by Ivan Meisner to start this podcast because he was the founder of BI, and I really feel through his podcast like I know him. And I hope that by listening to this podcast, you feel like you know me. That's all for today. Have a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful day. Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth. Let's get out there and connect the dots. See you soon. Bye.