Adam Grant has a superb essay in the New York Times this weekend titled Networking is Overrated . I enjoy Adam’s writing immensely (his book Give and Take is a huge inspiration for my upcoming book #GiveFirst). Early in the essay, he has a strong lead in. “It’s true that networking can help you accomplish great things. But this obscures the opposite truth: Accomplishing great things helps you develop a network.” ...
A few years ago, I realized that I had run out of namespace in my brain and the only way I could learn a new name was to forget one that I already knew. This notion annoyed me for a little while, then amused me, and then became my reality. I’ve always been bad at names + faces, but I have a savant like ability to remember stuff that I’ve read, especially numbers. I’m a visual learner, not an auditory learner. Not only can I read much faster, I retain so much more. So it’s not that surprising to me that when someone comes up to me it’s hard for me to associate their name with a face. ...