57 | This Shit Works: Why Networking Feels Icky and How to Fix It (with Julie Brown)

Have you ever wondered why networking feels so… icky and yet so necessary?

In this episode of The Art of Badassery podcast, host Jenn Cassetta sits down with keynote speaker, networking renegade, and author of This Sh!t Works, Julie Brown, to blow up everything you think you know about networking.

Together, they dive into why traditional networking makes people cringe, how human-centric connection actually creates real opportunities, and why being unapologetically yourself is the ultimate career advantage. Julie shares her unexpected path from the construction industry to becoming a sought-after speaker, along with how a challenging childhood shaped her grit, resilience, and no-BS approach to success.

Expect laughs, real talk, and plenty of mic-drop moments, plus practical advice you can actually use. If you’re ready to ditch the awkward small talk and build relationships that actually move the needle, this episode proves one thing: authentic connection isn’t just powerful… it works. 

Connect with Julie Brown

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliebrownspeaks/
• Website - https://juliebrownbd.com/speaking/
• Book - This Sh!t Works - https://juliebrownbd.com/book/

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

You get to a certain point, especially if you're love 90s hip hop, you're at a certain age where you're like, I don't want to work with anybody I don't enjoy working with. And so getting to know people as humans, understanding what we have in common, or maybe we don't have anything in common and we can learn from each other before we get into business. I always say that Americans specifically, Americans, we define ourselves by what we do for a living, and we completely ignore our humanity, and we completely ignored all the possible ways we had to connect with people because we're so focused on defining ourselves by what we do.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Hi there, I'm Jen Cassetta, your chief badass three officer. If you're feeling drained, hesitant, stuck in self-doubt, or you just have a case of the vlogs, the Art of Badass 3 podcast is here to help you unleash your mojo once and for all. We'll provide you with tips, techniques, and real-life examples of how you can kick heads in all areas of your life. You'll learn how to flex your mental muscles, rise above fears, and turn setbacks into superpowers. So let's enter the dojo and let's get to work. Welcome to the Art of Badassery podcast. I'm Jen Cassetta, your chief badassery officer, and today I have a very badass guest for you. And all I want to do is call her downtown Julie Brown because her name is Julie Brown. But she's not the MTV VJ that we all Gen Xers grew up with. She's even more badass than that. Julie Brown rewires how people think about networking. She's a keynote speaker, and I'm talking like out there doing it. I look up to her, I bow down to Julie Brown. That's how successful she's become in keynote speaking over the last few years. She's the author of a book called This Shit Work. I can't wait to hear about it. She's a dog mom. I'm a cat mom. Okay. And this is what we do have in common a 90s hip-hop fan forever.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 2:10

90s hip-hop is the best decade of hip-hop. And anybody's listening listening who was also Yes, 90s hip-hop is the best hip-hop.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Please schedule your colonoscopies because we are that age. Okay. Little PSA for you.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Julie, I'm about to do that. It's literally on my to-do list. I've been putting it off for months. Yeah. Just make me do it when you hold me accountable. Everybody who grew up on 90s hip hop, get those colonoscopy scheduled. Okay. I promise that the time this podcast airs live, I will have my colonoscopy scheduled. I promise. Welcome to the show, Julie. Thank you for having me. You're so fun. Okay. So I met Julie because she really walks the talk and she is an excellent networker. She reached out to me on LinkedIn. I was like, wow, look at this woman. She's super cool. Of course, I think of downtown Julie Brown, but also reading her LinkedIn profile, the way she wrote it, was exactly how I just introduced her. So there's already things that I'm going like, oh, I have that in common. I'm looking for those similarities. And I think that's the basis of your work. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 3:13

Right? Yeah. So my basis of my work, yes, obviously networking expert. And I'm always going to talk about the power of networking as a career-building tool, but I do it from a very human-centric place, in the sense that I think maybe your people who listen to this podcast probably will understand this. I don't care what you do if I don't like you. And so what I want to do is I want to have human-centric conversations. I want to increase the surface area with which I can connect with people. I want to find commonalities. And then I want to do business with the people I like, not the other way around. Like I, you get to a certain point, especially if you're love 90s hip-hop, you're at a certain age where you're like, I don't want to work with anybody I don't enjoy working with. And so getting to know people as humans, understanding what we have in common, or maybe we don't have anything in common and we can learn from each other before we get into business. I always say that Americans specifically, Americans, we define ourselves by what we do for a living, and we completely ignore our humanity, and we completely ignored all the possible ways we had to connect with people because we're so focused on defining ourselves by what we do. Listen, I love what I do, but I don't want to define myself as it.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

If you're not a person, I don't gotta talk to a Redmat.

SPEAKER_03 5:04

I'm sorry. I gotta tell you, I saw somebody post on LinkedIn the other day. I was reading a comment on a post, and they clearly just copied it from ChatGPT because at the end it said, Would you like me to alter this for like it was the instruction, like the question that Chat GPT gives you afterwards? I was like, I saw something similar to that as well.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

So with a trained eye, yeah, with a trained eye, you can now tell these long dashes. There's a lot of things that the M dash is a clear sign that ChatGPT wrote it for you. And look, I am not, I totally use it. I think it's great, but if it's the sole way, if you're not putting your personality into it, if you're not using it in a human-centered way, like you're saying, I think it's gonna get lost in the shuttle. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

So Julie, I shared with you, this is actually really funny. So we had a call leading up to this live or this podcast at and I was like, Julie, the art about Assyri isn't just about teaching your skills, which is really great, but also I want to know what drives people. I want to know like the struggles you've been through, who you've gotten through them, etc. And at first she was just yeah, nothing, big deal. And then she just laid this thing on me or fast, like story that I'm gonna say, my chip hit my desk. Are you kidding me? And like, please bring us back. Because again, because what people see on the outside is super successful, amazing career, not in just speaking, but you the whole career that you had leading up. Yeah. And yet there's gotta be something that drove you. What what was the driving force?

SPEAKER_03 6:49

Yeah, it was funny when you asked, Oh, so how why were you a badass? And I was like, I'm not. Like, I didn't climb Mount Everest with one leg, and I didn't run a marathon blind, and I'm not the first female fighter pilot to like land a like a plane on a ship, or like I don't get up in cold plunge and then meditate and journal and then drink celery juice. I was like, Yeah, nobody grows up thinking they had a traumatic childhood. Well, I don't think my childhood was great. And then I said to you, I was like, Yeah. So I was like abandoned by my father when I was a day old, which left my mom a single mom of two children. And my mom, she did the best she could, but she wasn't equipped to do that. It was a 70, she had two kids and was divorced by the time she was 24, which meant that her mother, my nana, had to raise us. Now, let me just tell you, my nana, whose name was Myrtle, my Nana Myrtle, she grew up in the depression, like with polio. And so, like, she grew up in the she beat the depression, she beat polio. Like, your life was never going to be as hard as hers. So, for me, the mantle of heart, like what it took to have a hard life was like unattainable. Like, I was never gonna beat polio, I was never gonna grow up like in the Great Depression. And so I didn't I never thought my whole life was like, you don't know how good you have it until you realize when you're older, no, that was a shitty childhood. My nana, like she couldn't believe how good we had it, and she made sure it was hard. And so I think sometimes being a badass is like one, breaking cycles of abuse. Yeah, 100%. Oh my god. And you don't even know you're breaking them until you break them. I had once had this is a craziest thing. I once went to a psychic who was like, You have broken the cycle of abuse in your family. And I was like, What? I have. And then I thought about it and I was like, oh my god, I have. I was the only one in the family who was like, no, this shit does not happen. Like, we put a stop to it, whatever. Stops with me. And I just said that. Yeah. And and I have a younger sister. So I have an older sister and I have a younger sister. And I remember saying, This shit stops with me. And she exemplified it too, because she has three kids. I didn't have children. I didn't have them because I didn't want them. And it's not a sad story, and it's not because my dad was a heroin addict and my mom was abusive, and I grew up in the depression with polio. That's not why I didn't have kids. I just didn't want them. So I didn't have them. And that's another thing that's completely fucking badass is if you don't want kids, don't do what society tells you to do. Like, you don't have to. I married the love of my life. I married my soulmate. I never want to spend my life with anybody else, but I didn't want to have his kids, so I didn't have them, which is badass. Okay. That is badass to have your Italian mother-in-law when you're you married an only child every day ask you when you're gonna have kids, and you're like, it ain't happening.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

She did. Okay, that's I mean, because a lot of child-free folks that I speak to, including my always have this thing of like, all these people are asking me when I'm gonna have kids.

SPEAKER_03 9:58

Oh yeah. I mean, my I think my family was like, She is never having kids, like she's but his mom, like his mom wasn't privy to my my growing up and the things I went through. And then we've been married for 21 years, and I j like I'm in perimenopause now. So it's now I feel like she's finally caught on when you turn 50.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

She's gonna be like, uh, I guess I can stop. So growing up as you did, what we talked about behind the scenes was like, how does that drive you in your career? Because tell everyone what you did for a living before.

SPEAKER_03 10:29

Yeah, so I worked in construction for 17 years and not like on job sites. Like I worked in corporate doing business development, lead generation, client retention, pipeline management for some of the largest architecture and construction firms here in Boston, where I live, which, as you can imagine, construction is an extremely male-dominated industry. Only 10.6% of employees in construction are female. And I was one of the highest paid and highest producing business developers in the city. And let me just tell you, I knew jack shit about construction. Like I don't know how to build a building or dig a foundation or put up a slurry wall or anything. Like, I don't know how to do any of that. What I knew was how to build relationships. And I think I was so good at building relationships because genuine, heartfelt relationships that made you feel good were non-existent in my life. And I craved them. And now as an adult, I believe so much in the family you choose and who you surround yourself with. You get to be the architect of that network of those people that you surround yourself with.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

So true. Okay, so you had a successful career in construction. And you get into you're like, okay, I'm honing in on networking because it's that important. Tell me more about that trust.

SPEAKER_03 11:50

And so after 17 years in construction, I wanted to start my own company. And my company is 10 years old this week, as we're recording this week. And what I did was I was so well known as like an like the person who could bring in business to any company. Every company I went to, I was like the rainmaker. So what I did was I started a consultancy. I went out as a fractional business developer, a fractional strategist for firms that didn't have full-time BD people. So when I started my company, I went to the market and I said, I'm thinking about doing this, I'm thinking about going out on my own. And everybody I went to said, Don't talk to anybody else. We want to hire you. So I had five non-competing clients when I first went out on my own, which was great because it was like, talk about being able to quit your job and start a business and not skipping a B. This is another thing about networking. Like I was able to quit my high-powered job, start a company, and pay myself the exact salary. Wow. Week one. Week one. That's incredible. Yeah. Cause I had all these clients who signed yearly contracts with me. So I had years of of recurring revenue, months of recurring revenue set out for months for years. But six months, this is the crazy part. Six months, I didn't even realize what I was doing. Yes, I knew I was networking, but I didn't realize like the power of being able to teach it. I just knew it was working for me. Six months after I started the company, a woman I used to work with in an architecture firm was running events for the Boston Design Center. And she said, Would you come into the design center and give a keynote on networking? The craziest part about this story is I said no. I said, I was like, Mary, I don't know. Like, I'm really busy and I'm not sure I need I'm not sure I could teach. And I was of the thing, like, oh, those who can't do teach. So I wasn't gonna start teaching. Like, I'm gonna do her. And then she called me back and she was, and this is what she said to me that changed my mind. She said, You're the best networker I've ever met in my life. And I would love it if you could teach other people how to do what you do. And that was the spark. That was the spark. So I wrote that I'd cobbled together a keynote on networking, what I knew about networking at the time. I know so much more now because I do my own studies and my own research and stuff. But that keynote that I gave literally launched my speaking career. And within a few years, I had dissolved the consultancy and I was speaking full-time. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Knowing so many people that reach out to me that want to be speakers and want to speak, and yeah, your story is so amazing. And it's not the norm that rarely happens. So I just like like I said in the beginning, in awe of how you've made it work. But this is the power of networking. Yes. Yeah. Tell us if people aren't networking, what are we missing out on? And why is it so important for everyone?

SPEAKER_03 14:40

Honestly, you'll never understand what you're missing out. Like that, we could fill books with what you're missing out on. But let me let's break it down into a couple of things. Okay, so networking, especially for women, it creates competitive advantages. And that's like full stop, that's fact, not opinion. When we look, there's been studies at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business by Dr. Ron Burt, who is a genius. But he did this study on relative performance. Now, relative performance, he breaks it down into three three main categories. One is compensation. So that's how much we get paid, which is very important. Two is our level of industry recognition, how well known we are for our expertise. And then the third is promotion over the course of our career. Can we continue to grow in our career? So he looked at relative performance. And then he looked at people where if they had like a small network, like industry-specific network, didn't really network too much, like a small group, versus a wide open, what he called clustered network, meaning every part of your life is something that you can draw inspiration and problem solving from. And the rate of relevant performance would skyrocketed the more open and clustered your network was. So that's a study that came out recently. Another study that actually just came out of Germany last year looked at it looked at pretty much just salary and career success related career success. Yeah. And it showed that network people who network make more money. And they make more money even when it's when we equal out for age, race, level of education. If we eat if we zero all of that into every group, the people who network in every group will make more money and be more successful. And this is another thing that's crazy. This study dialed in on the power of internal networking. So if you become a relationship builder in the companies that you work at, it showed the people who were the most successful built relationships within their companies. They got the most promotions, they got put on better jobs, they got more money, they like their entire lives were impacted by whether or not they could just network inside the companies that they worked at.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

And for everyone listening, whether you're employed by a company or an entrepreneur, right, equally is important because I know in my life. This week, in fact, I just was like, I'm gonna make little appointments all week. Just talk to folks. Yeah. And even an old client of mine who saw me speak and we became friends, she came to my retreat. She just reached out this morning on text that she's flying into LA. I was like, let's get a coffee when you get off the plane. Yeah. I love networking. And I because I love people and I love making friends. Why do some people have the icks like when it comes to networking?

SPEAKER_03 17:31

You gotta think about it. Like, I think networking gets a bad rap. And no, no, you know what? I think networking gets the rap it should get when it's done the way that people think it should be done, in the sense of you go to a networking event, you shove your business card into somebody's hand, you talk about how great you are, and they you hope they use your services. Like, that is disgusting. I'm disgusted.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Can I say something that's like my biggest ick is exactly what you just said. Yeah. And I really got clear to it when I was speaking at all these like women's council of like realtors or women in commercial real estate, and there'd always be like a handful. I'm talking like two to three men in the room that had a business adjacent to that, who literally would just be there to sell their business. And it was so obvious. They literally did that, stick their business card in my hand, and I'm like, speaker. I'm not even who you need.

SPEAKER_03 18:28

Yeah. Oh, I when people do that to me, I'm like, oh, that's so great. I needed someplace to put my gum. Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

But then, and I'm just gonna say they're usually older men, yeah, and then they just like black babies black about themselves, and and I'm like, Did I ask you?

SPEAKER_03 18:48

No, I didn't ask for your TED talk. But so I started in the art in the industry, like networking in 1999, when I started actually 98 when I graduated college, but 99 when I got into the industry. And that's what it was. Like it was all dudes in a room talking about how great they were, and oh, we gotta do this, we gotta work together and all that stuff. And I was like, I don't like this. I had the best time when I would just connect with people who were my age. I was so young in the industry, like with my eight, how can we help each other? What are you learning? Like setting, not even trying to like change leads or anything like that, but just like really being a commiserating partner and helping each other out and sharing information. I think a lot of people are given the directive by their managers or the owner of the company that they work at, that if you go to an event, you're supposed to get something or bring something back. And that's why people go into networking events with this very, you know, what's in it for me attitude, because that's how they've been taught that the only way going to an event and spending your time and money, the company's money, is if you get something, right? Instead of saying, maybe I'm building a foundation here, like maybe I'm going to build it slowly. And then that I always say when it comes to networking, the long way is the shortcut. Say more about that. Because people, again, people think you're gonna be able to go to a conference or go to a networking event or go to your chamber event and be able to meet somebody who is immediately gonna want to use your services. It's not the way it works. Only one, only one percent of the people you meet will determine the first time they meet you whether they would use your service or buy your product or not. Only one percent. There's studies behind this. It's like one percent know the very first time, we'll make that decision the first time. It's two percent three, no, sorry, it's one percent the first time, three percent the second time, four percent the third time, ten percent the fourth time. So ten percent the fourth time, and eighty-two percent, they need five interactions with you to determine whether they know you enough, like you enough, trust you enough to consider using your product or buying your services. Wow, and we're not talking just cold emails, we're talking stations or interactions.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 21:26

So I think the reason why we get the ick is because we've been pushed into these situations thinking like we need there's a hard sell here. We need to make them love us from the moment love me and my product and how I talk about it. And that's why I never teach people how to do elevator pitches. I think elevator pitches will kill you. Well, no, and not that you shouldn't be able to succinctly describe the problems that you solve and how you solve them differently for your clients. But again, nobody gives a shit what you do if they don't like you.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

So that's so interesting. I'll try to make this quick. But when I was in Saudi Arabia, I did do I Prepped an elevator pitch just in case, like not in case, like I needed to explain what I do, but in a short way, because it has been really hard for me to explain what I do to people because I do a lot of different things. So finally I came up with a little tagline, if someone asks, which if they were like, Oh, what are you here for? I'm here to speak on day three, and what are you speaking on? Something like that. Say, if Mel Robbins and Bruce Lee had a baby, and that baby did a keynote, or that baby coached people, or that baby, yeah, that's me. And I would and I could then I would read their reaction and I'm making I'm locking, yeah, locking in. And a lot of people, if they looked up, then I knew that they would be thinking about it.

SPEAKER_04 22:44

What does that mean?

SPEAKER_01 22:45

And then they would ask another question. Then I could go in a little deeper.

SPEAKER_03 22:49

But I think that's the perfect way because you know what that does, that kicks in their like curiosity factor. And what you're not doing is overloading with them for the information they didn't ask for or don't care about. What you've done is peaked this curiosity factor in them. And when people are curious about you, that's when they really lean in and are like, oh, tell me more about that.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

I'm telling you, it worked like a charm, except for one guy who looked at me like I had 10 heads. And I was like, he's not he's not my guy. Yeah. Totally fine. And and in other conversations, it wound up going into like really deep connections. I'd probably that huge speaking game from this other connection. It was like, it really worked. So anyone out there, that's my little tip. I know I'm not the expert here, but my tip is like something fun. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 23:37

You also just said the most badass thing you could say was when you said he's not my guy. It takes so much strength and believing in yourself and in your message and how you deliver messages and how you work to understand that not everybody's gonna like you, not everybody's gonna get you, and not everybody's gonna hire you. And that is a okay. I have people say to me all the time, it's quite obvious that I swear. And I will swear on stage, I spent 17 years in construction for crying out loud. Okay. And I don't swear for a fact. I swear because I spent 17 years in construction and I'm Irish Catholic from Boston. Okay. I came out swearing. One fuck, yeah. Literally came out swearing. And so I've had people who have pushed back on that and said, Oh, do you think you lose jobs because you swear? And I go, they're not mine. Those aren't my clients. What I gotta tell you, I gotta tell you, my clients send me cards. I keep this card on my desk because I just love it so much. It was from a client after I did one of their major keynotes. She sent me this.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

And I'm like, if you're just listening, it says fuck yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:46

It says fuck yeah, on it. And inside was her telling me the effect I had on her team. And that those are my people, but it took me a long time to be okay with people not liking me. The pushback on the whole family didn't like me.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

Obviously, you'd think I'd be used to it. The pushback I had on the Art of Mad Ass Street was the same. Back and fully back and forth. And finally, I said, stake in the ground, like this is it. Yes, this is what I feel. It feels aligned with me and my message right now. It might not be that way forever.

SPEAKER_03 25:21

But for now it is. Okay, funny. When I titled my book, This Shit Works, and I announced it on LinkedIn. There was a person in my network, a gentleman in my network, who put a comment under my book and said, I don't know why you have to swear. Why can't you just say my way works? And my response was, When you write a book, you can title it whatever you want. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

I had a woman email me about the name and how it was offensive to her. And if it's offensive to her, then she's sure that it's offensive to other people, not your people. And I was just like, thanks for the feedback. So tell us now, okay. So now I know it's important. People out there, we know networking is important and we want to do better. So give us, talk about your five best tools.

SPEAKER_03 26:09

Yeah. Okay, so rapid fire. So my five best tools, guess what? The first one is not a big shocker. You are your best networking tell tool, your best networking tool, business development tool, career advancement tool, people do business with and refer business to people they know and trust. The more people who know and trust you, the more successful you will be. Another fact, not opinion. Um yeah. And so I made this thing. Well, I did I designed this thing for my first book. And I say first book like I had a second, but I only for first. It's in the future. So I made this thing called the list yourself approach, which is exactly what it sounds like. You make a list of all of the things that make you, but you're not allowed to put on that list what you do for a living. Because I want you to increase the surface area with you which you can connect with people. And if you only talk about work, that surface area is too small. So things like would be on my list. You're the same as me. I'm I don't know if you're married. I'm married, so I'm a dink. So I'm a dual income no kids. I am a dink, yeah. Yeah, so I'm a dink. So you're you're a dink wax, so you're a dink dual income no kids with a cat. I'm a dinkwad, I'm a dual income no kids with a dog. As you can see, people on the thing, I have two dogs slumbering right there on the largest dog bed you've ever seen in your life. Like, I'm doing I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Can we just give a pause to dinkwad? Dinkwad? I've never heard it like that, and I'm so happy. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 27:23

Yeah. I so I live in Boston, like just outside of Boston. Boston's a big running community. I'm I'm a marathon runner. I run the Boston Marathon three times. Like, I am a world traveler, easier when you don't have kids. I'm what day is that? I'm 14 days away from going to St. Lucia. I just went to Portugal in September. Again, easier when you don't have any kids. I just like everybody else during COVID. I started a sourdough starter, but guess what? She's still alive. Her name is Lucy. She's she's over what is she now? Six years old? Like, she's amazing. She's like a stinky little roommate. I love true crime podcasts. Me and all my girlies listen to true crime podcasts together, and then we're a part of the law nerds too, and we're always texting back and forth about whatever is happening in law that day. You'd think I did did something in law, but like I oh, I ski every weekend, I mountain bike, like all of these things. I love bourbon. I absolutely love bourbon. I know you're staying away from the brown stuff, but I also love tequila, so we could do that maybe. Like all of these things I can connect with people. Like, I can talk about hobbies. I can talk about what I'm binging on Netflix or HBO or Hulu or whatever. As we record this podcast, everybody's listening, everybody is watching heated rivalry. So you could talk about that. Like I can talk about running, I can talk about the dogs, I can talk about rescuing dogs, I can talk about my sourdough starter, like I can talk about my garden, my dahlias, like all that, all of these things that humanize me where I'm not just trying to sell services to somebody. I'm really trying to connect to somebody. So one, you, best tool. Two, your existing network, okay? Everybody has an existing network. It's probably bigger and more robust than they give it credit for, and I can guarantee they're not using it as strategically as they could. So, what can you do with the relationships you've already built? What can you do with the people who already know you, like you, and trust you? What you do is you tap into them and you say, hey, can you introduce me to somebody you know can trust? Can you help me build my network? Can you make a strategic introduction for me? Can you make a referral for me? Tap into the relationships you've already built. The third one would be organizations. Like what organizations are available to you? As professional speakers, I'm part of the National Speakers Association. I'm part of the national and part of and I'm part of the local chapter. But I also get involved in the New York City chapter and other chapters because I want a peer group. It's really important whatever you do for a living, whether you're a lawyer or an architect or a realtor or an IT professional or a speaker, that you have relationships with people who do exactly the same job as you. Because you need them, you need them to understand what is happening in the market, how they're being affected by things, how they overcame things, like how they would problem solve. Like it is very important to have a peer network. So organizations would be like your peer network or maybe your alumni network, but also where could you find clients? So having spent so many years in architecture, engineering, construction, commercial real estate, and development, I'm still part of all of those organizations. Because guess what? They hire Kiospeakers every year, and I they know that I know what I'm talking about in those industries. And so, like organizations that are available to you, and I would be remiss for people who work in large companies that I didn't put the company you work in as an organization because we've just talked about how important internal networking is, right? Making sure you're networking inside your organization. So the fourth one would be events. And mostly people think of when they think of networking, they think of events. It's only one of my tools. It's only one of my tools. The most important thing you can do, I think, is tap into the network that you already have, use the power of the network that you already have. But events, I listen, I like me an open bar, so I love going to events, but like events are just one tool. But there, there's where you can meet multiple people. You can have multiple different conversations. Usually there's a speaker or something, and you're learning something, and you can talk about whatever events, conferences. I was, I used to love going to them because I would always find people that were really pivotal in my success by continuing to go to events that organizations offer me. So organizations and events are like twofold. Yeah. And the fifth one would be I would say LinkedIn, but LinkedIn where you are an active participant, where you are using it to create a personal brand, where you are using it to say, these are the problems that I solve, but this is how I solve them differently than everybody else. And creating usable content. So I don't like content for content's sake. I think everybody, there's things that happen in your office, in your life, every day, that if you took a moment to say there is a lesson here, how do I teach this lesson in a funny way that people will want to learn it? You could teach a lesson every single day. And you would see people coming to you to figure out how to solve the problems that you solve. Wow. And so I think LinkedIn is a powerful tool for disseminating how you are not just a human. Like I'm very human on the platform, but me, as me, with all the things that make me, this is how I solve problems. This is how this is why I'm an expert. And I get a lot of work from LinkedIn. People out like a lot as speakers, we get stage side leads. So people see me speak and be like, oh my God, can you come to my company? But if it doesn't happen like that, it normally happens from my content. Yeah. And that's another thing that's badass. Allow yourself to disseminate content the way you want to disseminate it, not the way you think is palatable or corporate or digestible for people. Go on to LinkedIn, Julie Brown speaks, and see how I disseminate networking tactics. Like it's fun to watch. Like, I'm like, I'm self-deprecating, but I also like, and I swear, and like whatever. So that's all on LinkedIn. That's all on this corporate platform. I could never create the amount of content I create if I wasn't doing it in a way that felt ultimately myself. But it takes a lot of badassery to say, you know what? This is how I want to disseminate this information. And if people don't like it, those aren't my people.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

Oh. That to me feels of a like way to come full circle. I struggled for a while in this because I never had a corporate job. I don't have those corporate relationships. I didn't have a corporate speak, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I finally was like, and like I'm I can't go back 20 years and create a different career for myself. Yeah. But there are people that want to hear authentic voices. They want to know, they want to know beyond the surface level steps. That's just my reminder to everyone, to myself, but to everyone out there. Yeah. Just show up as yourself. Show up human.

SPEAKER_03 34:22

In a world of AI. In a world of AI, showing up human is the biggest flex you can do.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

Yeah, and I think it's going to be more and more important. I keep seeing posts and newsletters about that as well. This year, send the handwritten card. Make pick up the phone and call someone. Do the in-person events more than ever. Yeah. Poof. Okay. I just have to say this before we wrap up. Yesterday I was with a dear friend and I love her so much. And she's teaching folks how to use AI in all these different exciting ways. Great for marketing, great for all these things. But she was showing these pictures that she was making of herself that AI made of her. And I'm like, well, why would you use them? You're gorgeous. She's a gorgeous woman. Like we love the like seeing her in photos and all of that. And I'm like, like, why would we start using fake photos of ourselves in our marketing? And then what? The person that you're marketing to meets you in person and they're like, that's not you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:27

To me, we're like off-putting when you meet somebody who you've looked at their headshot and then you meet them in person and you're like, I'm sorry, this does not compute.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

Why like why are we going in that direction? I don't know. I don't have an answer to that yet. But for now, I want to thank you, downtown Julie Brown, for being on this podcast. I'm excited. I'm excited to get out there and go meet my old client down the street for a coffee.

SPEAKER_03 35:51

Listen, you will never regret networking. It will never not help you.

SPEAKER_01 35:55

And this morning, so right before the holidays, longer story than it needs to be. Right before the holidays, I just me and my husband decided to host a little holiday party for our neighbors in this complex that we moved into. That we've been like so sad that we had to move here, blah, blah, blah. All this sap sob story that has a backstory. But we were like, let's lean in because there's really cool and really nice here. And we invited all these people into our living room and had drinks and snacks. And we had such a great time. And this morning, the guy up that lives literally upstairs, like shares my feeling with owns this like financial firm, and he's at all these financial conferences, and he sent my speaker reel and website to all these event planners in Vegas this weekend. And I was like, oh my see, like I wasn't planning on that. I didn't ask for that. It just happened so naturally for giving of your time and of your energy and of your space. And that's one last thing I want to say before what you said in the beginning, like the old way we were taught of networking versus this would be a radical idea to try on. Not what can I get, but what can I give? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:10

I always say, yes, networking will change your life. It will make you more successful. You will make more money. You will have more friends. You will have more adventures. But I think the best thing about networking is it's not just about what you can gain, it's about what you can give. Done.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

Yeah. Done. Okay, four rapid fire questions for you. Easy peasy. Ready? Okay. One, what was your favorite food when you were a kid?

SPEAKER_03 37:36

Oh. Probably mac and cheese, like craft mac and cheese, though.

SPEAKER_01 37:41

Yeah. Two, if you could have a drink with anyone, alive or dead, who would it be in what's in your cup? First thing that comes to your mind.

SPEAKER_03 37:50

I don't know who I honestly don't know who it would be. Pick someone. You know what? I'm gonna say. Wow, I couldn't. I honestly couldn't make let me talk about what's in my cup first. Okay, so in my cup is probably Manhattan. God, I love a Manhattan. Man, I love a Manhattan, but who would I just don't know. I feel like I'm enamored with so many different people. But it might be Jackie Kennedy. Very cool. She's such a style icon. She how did you go through what you went through? Like, I just think that is probably a pretty interesting conversation to have, just from a oh, just an icon.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

I love it. I love it. I love these answers the most. Third, what is your favorite self-help or personal development book?

SPEAKER_03 38:43

Besides the art of badassery. And this shit works. I gotta be honest, I don't read a lot of self-help books. I, when it comes to needing to read, I read crime books. So it probably would be a book about not how to not get murdered.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

And last but not least, what's your favorite hype song of them all? Oh, it's Raise Your Glass by Pink. Perfect ending. Tell everyone where they can find and connect with you, Julie.

SPEAKER_03 39:12

Oh, okay. So my website is Julie Brown Speaks. I do not know when this episode is going live, but uh as of June, I will have a brand new Julie Brown Speaks. It's in the works right now, and it's going to be amazing. But honestly, where I am the most active is LinkedIn. And I'm Julie Brown Speaks on LinkedIn as well. So hit me up there. I post there four days a week. And I have so much fun on that platform.

SPEAKER_01 39:35

Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you, Julie. Thank you so much, everyone, for tuning in. And I hope you walked away with some laugh. I hope you walk away with some tips on how to connect better, but also just motivation to get out there and do it. Just do it. Send the card, host the cocktail party, whatever you want to do, go out there and do it. People need people, especially right now. Yes. Especially right now. And that's all I'm gonna say. I love you all, and I'll see you next time on the Art of Badass Re podcast.