Summary on Schmoozing to Success

It is said that one is defined by his top five friends. :) Or like my friend, Christian, mentioned, a person who hangs out with musicians won't necessarily be a good musician himself, but he will develop a similar intuition or taste to those of his friends'.

Moreover, I made this post in spirit of my friend Aditya Renaldi's advice: If you are studying in the States, you must partake in things that you can't do in Indonesia, or learn about those things and bring it back to your country!

Now, what is schmoozing, exactly? To be honest, I only heard of schmoozing when I came to the United States. I think that it is an American thing, although there are actions analogical to schmoozing in cultures from all over the world. Essentially, schmoozing is the American small-talk thingy, where you 'socialize' and try to get to know people better, diversifying your connections. A common misconception about schmoozing is that schmoozing = networking. This is not true, in fact, the golden rule of schmoozing is schmoozing is about the other person, not about you. Therefore, you think in terms of the others' interests first, and what you can do for other people, not the other way around.

I am fortunate enough to attend one of the events by my career center which led to me downloading a PDF of this book about schmoozing. If any of you are interested, feel free to e-mail me, and I will be more than happy to email you a copy of the book! Anyway, these are the things that I learned or I find most important from reading about the book:

Schmoozing begins with the mind. Again with the touch of Buddhism influence, thinking about schmoozing is actually harder than schmoozing itself. Sometimes we need to force myself to reach out to people, and it gets easier as we get into the habit. It is also about our mindset, a good schmoozer sees a potential friend instead of a stranger. However, it is also about intuition and instinct: Feel free to choose who you schmooze up with, and never force yourself to continue schmoozing with someone if you feel uncomfortable about it. It has to flow naturally.

What the book reminded me was the fact that I am more often than not a bad listener. Although outwardly I often appear to be attentively listening, most probably my mind is drifting somewhere inside. After reading this book, I tried to fix that and wholeheartedly listen to other people when they speak. And voila, it became really easy to ask follow up questions! I chose to start small too, practicing my schmoozing skills with my closest friends before actually approaching random strangers. Most importantly, I think in terms of win-win, and always try to do people a favor without expecting anything back, starting from something as small as inviting someone for dinner or trying to include someone in a conversation.

Finally, I have also learned how to drop compliments and to indirectly compliment other people (hint: asking for advice or small favors give subtle hints that you trust the person's capability or authority) and also the importance of closure and following up. One of the mistakes I made when I socialize is the fact that after a good conversation, I just let the person become another face in the crowd, without closing it with something like: "I had a good time catching up with you, let's grab coffee sometime?" and actually arranging a coffee/a follow-up meeting. Of course, you don't need to do it to everyone, but make sure to do it to those who genuinely interest you.

Truly Indonesia's Finest,