There’s a particular kind of guilt that creeps in when you open your LinkedIn and realize you don’t recognize half the faces staring back from the feed.

You see old coworkers, could-be-clients, and a few strangers you must’ve met at some virtual summit in 2020. The more you see, the more your network starts to feel less like a web of potential and more like a digital junk drawer. You scroll, you sigh, and you silently decide to deal with it “later.”

I used to do that, too. But I’ve been trying something different this year. Each week, I block out time to connect. Not with anyone, just people who seem aligned. Women in my state. Women who might be building what I’m building. Women I’d want to sit next to at a local coffee shop, laptops open, solving life and business over lattes.

That’s how I met “Lisa.”

I had no idea who she was when I sent the connection request. Her profile was polished, professional, but unassuming. There were no bold claims or flashy metrics, just a short, thoughtful headline and a soft smile in her photo.

After she accepted, I sent my usual thank you. Not the copy-paste kind, but the kind that says, “I see you. I’m curious. I’m not in a rush.”

When she replied, something in the conversation clicked. There was a warmth, an ease, like we were old colleagues catching up instead of strangers swapping intros. She told me she almost didn’t accept my request. Said she’d been thinking about shutting down DMs entirely because she was tired of being treated like a transaction. She didn’t want to be pitched. She didn’t want to be sold to.

But this felt different, she said. Refreshing. So, after a bit of back and forth between summer lulls, she invited me to a coffee chat.

We ended up talking for nearly an hour. About motherhood. About ambition. About what it means to build without burning out. Somewhere between sharing stories and swapping wisdom, I realized just how much this woman had done. She’d exited multiple startups, built a global consulting business, and advised founders I’d only ever read about.

And here she was. Open. Generous. Neighborly, like we were sharing a glass bottle of wine on my lanai.

Before we said goodbye, she offered to connect me with my city’s business development office. Said more founders needed to hear about relationship-first marketing. Said I should be speaking in rooms like that. She said yes, when I wasn’t even asking.

All of that because of one personalized connection request. One moment of curiosity. One human-to-human conversation.

We spend so much time worrying about the state of our network, whether it’s outdated, disorganized, or just uninspired. But you don’t have to burn it all down or start over. And you definitely don’t have to wait until everything is perfectly segmented in your CRM.

You can start today by sending a few thoughtful requests.

Because sometimes the business you want requires a network you haven’t built yet.

Your current network may have gotten you here. But your next season might ask for different conversations, different energy, and different people around your digital table. And that doesn’t make your old connections irrelevant, either. It just means you’re evolving, and your network can evolve with you.

So if you’ve been opening LinkedIn, wondering what to do next…try expanding, not because you’re desperate, but because you’re ready. You’re ready to meet the people who’ll challenge you, refer you, cheer you on, and open doors you didn’t even know existed. Your next best connection might not be in your network yet.
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But she could be by next week.

P.S. Want to see the exact message flow I use to spark these kinds of conversations, without feeling pushy or salesy? Just hit reply and I’ll send it your way.

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The Latest

A business friend of mine from across the pond posted something this week that low-key triggered me. She included a picture of her feet.

Totally innocent. Totally unrelated to me. But it stirred up an old memory I hadn’t thought about in a while.

In my past career, I did a lot of what’s called “parts modeling,” hands, feet, lips, eyes. You name it. I was in national ad campaigns for brands like Campbell’s, without my face ever appearing, just my hands cradling a steaming bowl of soup, or my foot, arch-perfect, in a strappy heel.

But here’s the part that got dicey.

For years, if you Googled me, you’d stumble across photos, and even videos, of my feet on very questionable websites. The kind that immediately make you want to throw your laptop out the window. Not only were they unsafe, they were unauthorized. And to be honest, I couldn’t decide what made me angrier: the fact that I was being exploited, or the fact that if someone was making money off my feet, it definitely wasn’t me.

That chapter feels far away now. Mostly funny. Mostly harmless. But it reminded me of something I hadn’t thought about in a while:

Have you Googled yourself lately?

It might surprise you. It might delight you. It might horrify you just enough to finally update your LinkedIn headline.

(no photo included this week, obvs)

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