Energy Audit
Pitch? Please!
The newsletter for people who are done networking the hard way
Issue 06 · Energy Audit · Week 6 of 52
A NOTE FROM ME
Not all connections are created equal.
As a self proclaimed extrovert who THRIVES on being with people, making community and creating connections with others: I can attest this to be true.
Some people you can spend hours with and feel more energized than when you started.
Others leave you needing a long walk and a very large cup of tea (or in my case a gin and tonic with two very large lime wedges) to recover from.
Neither reaction says anything about your character or theirs — but paying attention to that difference might be one of the most useful things you do for your network this year.
Sincerely and with Gratitude,
Jenny
THIS WEEK'S TOPIC
Energy audit — who fills you up vs. drains you?
We spend a lot of time in the networking world talking about who we know.
Almost no time talking about how we feel around the people we know.
Yet that feeling — that energetic quality of a relationship — is one of the most reliable signals we have about whether a connection is actually serving us.
HeartMath research on what they call "emotional contagion" confirms what most of us already sense intuitively: other people's emotional states are literally contagious.
When we're around someone in a regulated, coherent state, our own nervous system tends to calm.
When we're around someone chronically dysregulated, anxious, or negative, our system picks that up too — often before our conscious mind catches on.
You can literally feel it when you walk into a room before you have spoken to a single person.
Your body knows before your brain does. Pay attention to how you feel in your chest and gut around the people in your professional world. That's information.
This doesn't mean you cut off everyone who's going through a hard time — connection is reciprocal, and sometimes you're the one who needs support. But it does mean being honest about which relationships are chronically one-directional, chronically heavy, or chronically leaving you emptier than when you started.
It also means noticing who energizes you — and asking yourself whether you're investing enough time and attention in those relationships. We have a funny tendency to take the good ones for granted while spending enormous energy trying to make the draining ones work.
Your network is a living ecosystem. It needs tending. And tending starts with knowing what's growing well and what's quietly pulling resources from everything else.
THIS WEEK'S PRACTICE
Your relationship energy inventory
Yep- you know it: It’s Break Out Your Journal Time!
Think of 8–10 people you interact with regularly in your professional world. For each one, honestly answer:
• How do I typically feel after time with this person — energized, neutral, or depleted?
• Is this relationship reciprocal, or does one of us consistently give more?
• Does this person celebrate my wins, or do I edit myself around them?
Once you have the lay of the land, ask yourself:
Where am I over-investing?
Where am I under-investing?
What one small shift could I make this week?
This isn't about judging your connections — it's about being honest with yourself about where your relational energy is actually going.
GUEST SPOTLIGHT
Meet Jennifer Booth, owner of the Collab Booth and is a proposal extraordinaire. Not to mention someone who when she walked in the room was such a delightful lift to the atmosphere and someone I connected with right away!
Meet Jennifer Booth
Hi! I’m Jennifer Booth, and I am a freelance writer, editor, and proposal strategist in Nottingham. My company is named The Collab Booth. I have done a lot of things in my career, but most of it has been spent writing proposals for engineering firms - in particular, geotechnical engineering firms. I specialize in writing for the architecture, engineering, and construction industry - the AEC industry - but I can write for any industry. I learned about Pitch? Please! when I was searching for networking events to attend to meet people and promote my business.
As for what lights me up – there are so many things. I am a creative person and I love to do artsy things. I love to sing, and I do that whenever I can, at home, in the car, in the shower, at karaoke, wherever. It’s not even something I think about. It’s just part of me. Beyond that, I love to see live music, I love making art. I’m taking a class on Photoshop now. I like to read and also listen to books. I love watching videos of dogs and highland cows. And I really like helping people and the feeling of joy I get from doing it.
How have you learned to protect your energy in your professional relationships?
I stay away from negative people in all areas of my life. It’s hard sometimes to not commiserate with coworkers when they are complaining, but I have learned that you are a combination of the people you spend most of your time with, and I know I need to surround myself with positive, optimistic people if I am going to be positive and optimistic myself.
What do you wish more people knew about what you do?
I like to tell stories. I like to find ways to explain complicated processes or situations in simpler ways so that the average person can understand what is going on. People I interview for writing projects sometimes don’t give me all the information they have because they assume certain things are not important. But I don’t always know what is going to be important until I start going through all of the pieces I’ve collected. It’s always better to give me more information than less..
How can people in the group connect with or support you?
My website is not quite live yet, but people can search for The Collab Booth on LinkedIn or email me at creativecollabbooth@gmail.com.
Would you like to be next week’s feature?
BEFORE YOU GO
Learning to read your own energy and the effect that it has on a room is a skill — and it's one of the most foundational things we work on in my Building Your Personal Resilience program called Choose Your Mood. . Your body is giving you real-time data. Learning to trust it changes everything.
Chat with me over on VOXER or reply to this email and tell me what’s landing with you.
See you next week. Take good care of yourself in every room you walk into.
— Jenny
