Why most networking feels awful (and what that's really telling you)
Pitch? Please!
The newsletter for people who are done networking the hard way
Issue 01 · Foundations · Week 1 of 52
A NOTE FROM ME
Hey, I'm so glad you're here and have accepted this offering of a newsletter.
For those that know me well- it’s a big deal to commit to invading your inbox on a regular basis. My hope is for this to be an interactive experience for all of us. A small designated notebook and your favorite pen might make this email series more memorable if you like the journaling prompts in each issue.
So let’s get started before I lose my nerve!
(And remember- you can comment to this blog! So feel free to connect with me on the other end!)
Here we go:
If you've ever walked into a networking event, scanned the room, felt your stomach drop, and immediately made a beeline for the bar — same. That quiet panic, the rehearsed answer to "so what do you do?", the business cards you hand out and then wonder if anyone will ever actually call — I know that feeling intimately.
That's part of why I started Pitch? Please! And it's exactly why I'm writing this newsletter.
Over the next year, I hope to build something together — not just a stronger network that is meaningful, but a genuinely different relationship with what networking even means. We're starting at the beginning, which means before we talk strategy or tactics, we're going to talk about you. Your patterns, your nervous system, your history with connection. Because in my experiece facilitating meetings, I've seen again and again that the way we network is rarely about networking at all. It's about how safe we feel being seen.
I don’t know about you- but I still find myself wanting to hide, deflect, and redirect attention away from myself and the work that I do ( which is AWESOME! So why don’t I want anyone to see it?!)
So let's start there.
Sincerely and with Gratitude
Jenny
THIS WEEK'S TOPIC
Why most networking feels awful (and what that's really telling you)
For many of us, "networking" has become a word that carries weight. It conjures images of forced smiles, rehearsed pitches, and that particular exhaustion that comes from performing a version of yourself you don't quite recognize.
What I've come to understand, both in my own life and in working with clients: when networking feels awful, it's not because you're bad at it. It's because something in your nervous system is trying to protect you.
Your discomfort is data. It's worth paying attention to. It means that a neuropathway in your brain has developed around the message that “this is uncomfortable or unsafe” so your brain is trying very hard to show you every reason why that message is true and to redirect you elsewhere.
Think back to a networking experience that left you feeling depleted, embarrassed, or just... flat.
What was actually happening for you in those moments?
Were you worried about being judged?
Did you feel pressure to be impressive?
Were you in a room where you didn't feel like you belonged?
These aren't personal failures. They're signals from your nervous system — your body's way of saying "this doesn't feel safe." And when we don't feel safe, we either shut down or we perform. Neither of those states is where genuine connection lives.
Research shows us that when we're in a state of stress or threat — even social threat — our heart rhythm becomes erratic, our thinking narrows, and we lose access to the parts of ourselves that are most naturally magnetic: our creativity, our warmth, our intuition. In other words, stress makes us worse at the very thing we're trying to do.
The good news? That state is changeable. And that's what this year is about.
THIS WEEK'S PRACTICE
Your networking origin story
Before you try to network differently, it helps to understand your relationship with connection. Take 10 quiet minutes this week — with a journal or just your thoughts — and sit with these questions:
1. What is my earliest memory of feeling like I did or didn't belong in a group?
2. When I think about "networking," what's the first feeling that comes up — and where do I feel it in my body?
3. What would it feel like to walk into a room and already feel like I’m enough?
Notice what comes up. There's nothing to fix yet — just observe. That awareness is the beginning of everything.
Pitch? Please! SPOTLIGHT
Meet ME! your Hostess with the Mostess, I am a bodywork practitioner, and a life coach that specializes in stress management and emotional regulation
So I am someone that LOVES people. Service is my love language. I love the work I do with Bowenwork Therapy, and it through the years of bodywork I realized that the Body Keeps the Score is not just a book. It is truth. When we can manage our stress and the emotional drains we experience from it, we can truly begin to not only enjoy our lives but thrive in them with meaningful relationships with others.
What almost kept you from showing up to your first networking event?
What kept me from showing up in the beginning was: bodyworkers don’t network. Networking is for bankers and mortgage brokers. People with “real” jobs. Being a life coach- there are SO many life coaches out there and most of them from “real jobs” with “real degrees”. It was a whole lot of imposter syndrome that was dictating my worth and my potential value and contribution to the room.
What does meaningful connection look like for you in your business?
This is a tough answer- each client is so different. A connection is meaningful with both of us are open to possibility. And for me on my end- being trusted and respected as a professional practitioner is important too. Nothing gets a client out of my books faster than not taking the work we do seriously.
What do you wish more people knew about what you do?
I wish more people were open to the conversation that there is so much more to bodywork than just massage. That to ease your body and mind out of tension, there are gentle and effective modalities like Bowenwork that peel layers away to make the removal potentially less traumatic than whatever got you to my table to begin with. Bowen is a wonderfully effective starting point that targets muscle tension AND nervous system regulation at the same time making massage even more effective.
AND that a lot of your physical strain is 100% tied to your emotional wellbeing and how you manage stress. If those two things aren’t managed, the pain just keeps coming back because you aren’t acknowledging what needs changing in your life- you are putting the responsibility on me to “fix you” and that’s just not how healing works.
Email is great, hello@jennyodell.me or connecting with me on FB @jennyodellembodimentandbowen
Would you like to be a future feature?
BEFORE YOU GO
If anything in this week's newsletter stirred something for you — a recognition, a question, a quiet "oh, that's me" — that's worth noticing.
Much of the work I do with clients- whether they are coming in for bodywork or coaching, our sessions start exactly here: with that moment of noticing. Training our minds to be aware of what’s stirring in the back ground.
See you next week. In the meantime, be good to yourself in every room you walk into.
— Jenny
